Free False Scent by Ngaio Marsh Page A

afterwards that he realized his first reaction had been one of simple gratitude to Anelida for being, in addition to everything else, so very beautiful.
    He heard Timon Gantry say, “Monty, look.” Montague Marchant had come up to them.
    “I am looking,” he said. “Hard.”
    And indeed they all three looked so hard at Anelida that none of them saw the smile dry out on Mary Bellamy’s face and then reappear as if it had been forcibly stamped there.
    Anelida shook hands with her hostess, expected, perhaps, some brief return of the morning’s excessive cordiality, heard a voice say, “So kind of you to come,” and witnessed the phenomenon of the triangular smile. Followed by Octavius, she moved on to Charles. And then she was face to face with Richard, who, as quickly as he could, had made his way down the room to meet them.
    “Well?” Timon Gantry said.
    “Well,” Marchant repeated. “What is it?”
    “It’s an actress.”
    “Any good?”
    “I’ll answer that one,” Gantry said, “a little later.”
    “Are you up to something?”
    “Yes.”
    “What, for God’s sake?”
    “Patience, patience.”
    “I sometimes wonder, Timmy, why we put up with you.”
    “You needn’t. You put up with me, dear boy, because I give the Management its particular brand of prestige.”
    “So you say.”
    “True?”
    “I won’t afford you the ignoble satisfaction of saying so.”
    “All the same, to oblige me, stay where you are.”
    He moved towards the group of three that was slowly making its way down the drawing-room.
    Marchant continued to look at Anelida.
    When Richard met Anelida and took her hand he found, to his astonishment, he was unable to say to her any of the things that for the last ten years he had so readily said to lovely ladies at parties. The usual procedure would have been to kiss her neatly on the cheek, tell her she looked marvellous and then pilot her by the elbow about the room. If she was his lady of the moment, he would contrive to spend a good deal of time in her company and they would probably dine somewhere after the party. How the evening then proceeded would depend upon a number of circumstances, none of which seemed to be entirely appropriate to Anelida. Richard felt, unexpectedly, that his nine years seniority were more like nineteen.
    Octavius had found a friend. This was Miss Bellamy’s physician, Dr. Harkness, a contemporary of Octavius’s Oxford days and up at the House with him. They could be left together, happily reminiscent, and Anelida could be given her dry Martini and introduced to Pinky and Bertie, who were tending to hunt together through the party.
    Bertie said rapidly, “I
do
congratulate you.
Do
swear to me on your
sacred
word of honour,
never
to wear anything but white and always, but
always
with your clever hat.
Ever
!”
    “You mustn’t take against Bertie,” Pinky said kindly. “It’s really a smashing compliment, coming from him.”
    “I’ll bear it in mind,” Anelida said. It struck her that they were both behaving rather oddly. They kept looking over her shoulder as if somebody or something behind her exerted a strange attraction over them. They did this so often that she felt impelled to follow their gaze and did so. It was Mary Bellamy at whom they had been darting their glances. She had moved further into the room and stood quite close, surrounded by a noisy group of friends. She herself was talking. But to Anelida’s embarrassment she found Miss Bellamy’s eyes looked straight into her own, coldly and searchingly. It was not, she was sure, a casual or accidental affair. Miss Bellamy had been watching her and the effect was disconcerting. Anelida turned away only to meet another pair of eyes, Timon Gantry’s. And beside him yet another pair, Montague Marchant’s, speculative, observant. It was like an inversion of her ridiculous daydream and she found it disturbing. “The cynosure of all eyes indeed! With a difference,” thought Anelida.
    But