Tragedy at Beechcroft (Musaicum Murder Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ want, after Saturday, that I can promise you."

      Somehow it did not sound alluring, Santley thought. But Flavelle only smiled, and said, in her voice that used to be so low and soft and was now so firm and decisive, that she was used to discomfort, that she would gladly come down for a week-end, and with that, and some more light chatter, Mrs. Phillimore and she passed on to their friends.

      They left a sudden silence behind them. Santley used it to say good-bye, and went on to a place where some very good ballet dances were being given. He enjoyed the show, the strange rhythmic poses, the gorgeous garments. Rising to leave, he almost collided with Flavelle Bruton in the doorway. She was with a tall young man who instantly arrested Santley's attention. He was good-looking in what is called in books an aristocratic fashion, which has nothing to do with birth and yet has a definite meaning. His eyes met Santley's and the artist felt the power in them—power of personality, of will, of many other things. Then Flavelle turned and said a few words in Spanish to him. The man bowed, and went back into the room.

      Santley apologised for having almost stepped on her.

      She was quite friendly. And quite chilly. Then she glanced towards the young man who had come in with her.

      "That's Don Plutarco. The name means nothing to you, of course," she said lightly. "He's the idol of Spain at the moment. A bull fighter born in Heaven, they say. At any rate, he's the leading espada. He wants to stay on and see more of this dancing. I'm tired. I'm off to bed."

      "May I take you home? And if so, where?" he asked.

      "I'm going back to my old studio," she said unexpectedly. "I've a fancy to sleep there to-night. Off King's Road, you know. The smelly end."

      "Do you still keep it on?" he asked, as she gave more precise directions to a taxi which he called.

      "I had it on a seven years' lease...I sub-let it. Make quite threepence a month profit on it!" she said lightly, but she leaned her little head back with a weary gesture. "You know those old legends about a monk caught up into Heaven for what he thought was a moment, but on his return finds was years and years, and that meanwhile an angel has taken his place on earth?" she said suddenly.

      Santley said he had read many versions of it. "Why?"

      "I was wondering whether the angel, when he got back to Heaven, found that he ought to've stayed on earth," Flavelle said. "It seems such a mistake—coming back to anything."

      "What about your studio?" he asked, making as though to stop the driver.

      She only gave a little empty laugh and told him to let the man carry on. They were at the studio almost immediately. She had the key in an envelope, or rather the two keys, and a moment later Santley stepped into a room which made him take an involuntary step backwards. He had seen it before, but not like this. It had then been painted a thick, dead white, with black squares in the ceiling inside which were lightly coloured flower motifs. The whole had had a Tudor effect. But now! Each wall was painted a different colour, and each colour was sharp and vivid. A green wall, a geranium red wall, a buttercup yellow wall, and a deep purple wall. The floor was painted black. The ceiling a vivid cornflower blue, as were the few hangings. The chairs were painted the same rich hue. At the height of a dado, an enormous dragon in gold ran around the four walls, his tail meeting his huge mouth. The studio was large and the effect overpowering.

      "My God!" murmured Santley under his breath. He supposed that this was the effort of the latest tenant.

      Flavelle laughed, a snap of a laugh. "Does rather hit you below the belt, doesn't it, but I enjoyed doing it before I let it. And the man who had the studio until last month rather liked it. He's going to keep it on—says it helps to drown the street noises."

      Santley was surprised. The new Flavelle was quite capable of painting this room, but the old Flavelle? The meek little grey mouse?

      There was another room opening out of this which the late occupier had kept as it was—whitewashed. It held a small firing oven, for pottery had been Flavelle's chief work before she left England and took to mosaics in earnest.

      "My modelling tools," she laid a hand on a handsome old carved box of Arabian work on the table. Idly Santley fingered the contents while she moved about. Santley saw in a moment that the box had a secret bottom. He was fond of old furniture, and there is not an old box worthy the name which has not some hiding-place. It amused him to find this one. Perhaps Flavelle knew nothing of it. It was a simple matter of lifting up two compartment divisions and out popped a drawer below which was not visible to the eye in the network of carvings.

      Flavelle had drifted into the bedroom. He expected to find the space empty, but a dusty little modelled figure in clay lay inside it. He picked it up. His mouth, which he had opened to call to her, shut with just such a snap as the drawer had given when it jumped out in answer to his tug. The figure was a tiny model of Moncrieff, and it was stuck through and through with a pin driven in where the heart would be and coming out in the back. Santley stared hard, then he dropped it hurriedly back and shut in the drawer. He strolled out into the studio and met the violence of the colours, the fierce eyes of the gold dragon again.

      Flavelle was standing by the cornflower blue table with its glossy black top, rattling her scarlet painted nails on it in a tattoo. Santley used to like the girl. He was not at all sure that he would like this woman. Yet he had to acknowledge, as he said good-bye to her, that if the years had taken much away—and they had, he thought—they had also given with a free hand. He felt in her, what he had felt so oddly when his eyes met those of the Spaniard at the ballet dances—a sense of power, of poise, of character.

      Driving back to his own rooms, he found, however, that it was not Flavelle Bruton who held his thoughts, but Moncrieff, the subject of his next canvas.

      The telephone rang as he closed his own front door behind him. "Yes. Santley speaking," he said into it.

      "At last!" came in Goodenough's voice. "I've been trying every half-hour to ring you up. Look here, can I drop in for a word with you? You're off to-morrow morning, aren't you?"

      "Yes. Come round by all means."

      Santley took but little sleep as a rule. But Goodenough did not stop long. He looked very disturbed as he came in.

      "I had a talk with Mrs. Phillimore this afternoon," he began. "She said that she had spoken to you. She wants me to get Ann away from Beechcroft. Wouldn't give any reason, any reason which was a reason...Then about half an hour ago she rang up and said she could now tell me what was wrong at Beechcroft, it was the drains! Now what do you suppose she meant by that? All she said this afternoon was that she thought Ann should not stay down there. I tried to get Ann on the 'phone, of course, but couldn't. She had taken the children for a picnic. What's it all about?"

      "The drains, I was told," Santley said firmly, and to that he stuck.

      He had no intention of spreading tales about the young couple. As for Mrs. Phillimore's real fear, it was far too ghastly to speak of without some personal experience to back it up. But if she were right and the Major really was not always in his right mind, then it stood to reason that Ann Bladeshaw and the children too, ought not to be down there.

      "I should get her away, I think," he said now. "Drains are dangerous things to be wrong in an old house. Did Mrs. Phillimore say anything about the twins?"

      "Not a word. It's all extraordinary. So sudden! So vague! Precious disturbing!" and Goodenough looked genuinely disturbed. "I had an idea, when she spoke to me, that she was hinting at trouble between Lavinia СКАЧАТЬ