Free The Case Of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth Page B

marries, her husband will want to know what has happened to her trust funds, and you won’t be able to satisfy him. I haven’t said all this to Mr. Eversley because there isn’t anything he can do about it and it’s no good frightening him. But I’m saying it to you, and you’d better get busy. That’s all, Brett.’
    Chapter Nine
    The lunch went off well. In his relief at having come more than creditably through a much dreaded interview, Cyril Eversley relaxed to play the courteous, gentle-mannered host. In doing so he was not so much playing a part as throwing one off. It was the role of man of business which he found perennially jading and ungrateful. As the scholarly dilettante he was at his ease. Admiral Holden, who had never thought much of him, was surprised to find him such an agreeable host.
    The Admiral was feeling pleased with himself — pleased to be up and about again; pleased to be asserting himself with the Eversleys who had certainly considered him as good as dead and buried (he’d show them!); pleased to be visiting his old haunts and saying what a damned filthy place London was, and very much pleased to see Katharine. When she came into the hall of the club in her blue dress and fur coat, and put her hands in his and kissed him, his weatherbeaten face turned quite scarlet with pleasure and he thought to himself, ‘She’s a lovely woman — and be damned to all the rest of them — they can’t hold a candle to her.’ He squeezed her hands very tight, and she said,
    ‘Darling Bunny, you look as if you’d just come back from a voyage round the world.’
    ‘Bed on the verandah,’ he said gruffly — ‘fair or foul — wet, wind, or snow — or I shouldn’t be here today.’
    After that everything went with a bang. She had called him Bunny ever since she was three years old. It gave him extraordinary pleasure. She had a loving heart, God bless her, and she looked young and happy, and he had gone into her affairs for her. If he had come out of his verandah bed in the nick of time to dance at her wedding, nobody would be better pleased than he. Only he wasn’t sure that he would have chosen that fellow Brett — no, he wasn’t sure about that. Cyril Eversley seemed to think they had made it up between them, or that they were going to, but that it was all very hush-hush at the moment. He couldn’t see why it should be. He thought he would have a word or two with Katharine and find out. Hang it all, she liked the fellow, or she didn’t like him. She was old enough to know her own mind. He could find out tactfully. He hoped he could be tactful when he chose. Thoughts like these came and went as he partook vigorously of lobster and partridge and finished up with a couple of ices and some Stilton cheese.
    Brett Eversley, making himself charming to Katharine, was aware of scrutiny. Admiral Holden’s small bright blue eyes appeared to be sizing him up. He laid himself out to entertain, and succeeded. But when Katharine rose to go the Admiral rose too.
    ‘We’ll have a taxi, my dear,’ he said easily. ‘I’m going your way.’
    ‘Darling Bunny, how do you know which way I’m going?’
    ‘Well, which way are you going?’
    ‘Back to my job.’
    Brett laughed and said, ‘He crashes in where we’ve been afraid to tread! Go on, sir — ask her what she’s doing, and where she’s been hiding herself away!’
    Katharine was smiling.
    ‘Oh, I’m not telling anyone. It’s fun for me, because I can keep you all guessing — and it’s even more fun for you, because you can invent all sorts of scandalous explanations. They won’t any of them be true, but that only makes them more intriguing.’
    Brett took her hand and held it just a little longer than he need have done.
    ‘You won’t tell me where you’re living?’
    ‘It would spoil the stories. It’s all too, too respectable.’
    Cyril said, ‘Have you really got a job? There surely isn’t any need?’
    She laughed.
    ‘I have an