Free The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth

be like when he wasn’t being a butler. She had no idea why this thought should have come to her. He was a very good butler. Everything in the house went as smoothly as clockwork. But underneath, when he wasn’t making up the fire, waiting at table, drawing the curtains, and putting the cushions straight, what would he be like then?
    It was only just lately that Lila had begun to have thoughts like this. They came to her sometimes when she looked in the glass and saw herself in one of her new frocks. No one who looked at her as she was looking at herself would know how she was feeling deep down underneath. So every now and then when she looked at somebody else—at Miss Whitaker, at Eric Haile, at Sybil Dryden, and, just now, at Marsham, she had a queer frightened feeling that perhaps they were really quite different underneath. Just as she herself was different and they didn’t know it.
    Marsham came over to the fire, trimming it, pulling the logs together. He looked exactly as he always did.
    And then Herbert Whitall came in, and she forgot everything else. Lady Dryden moved to meet him.
    ‘We were just waiting to say good-night. I’m taking Lila off to bed. Your country air makes us all sleepy.’
    He smiled.
    ‘You mean my country air—or my country guests?’
    ‘My dear Herbert! The Professor is anything but soporific. Do you really enjoy quarrelling with him?’
    ‘Oh, immensely. You see, I have a number of things which he would give his eyes to get, so he crabs them. If he could persuade me that they were fakes, I should get rid of them, and then even if he didn’t manage to get them himself he wouldn’t be aggravated by seeing them in my possession. Even if he can’t persuade me, he can perhaps plant a thorn here and there, or at the very least he can blow off steam.’
    She looked at him curiously.
    ‘And what do you get out of it?’
    He laughed.
    ‘My dear Sybil—can you ask? What used you to get out of it when you came into a room and knew that none of the other women could touch you? Wasn’t it meat and drink to you to be envied and—hated?’
    Under the impact of the past tense her features had sharpened. He smiled.
    ‘Pleasant—wasn’t it? Well, that’s what I feel like when I see Richardson, Mangay, and the others full of envy, hatred, and malice over my ivories. Petty of course, but that’s how we are. Any toy is good enough to fight over. And a thing that isn’t worth fighting for isn’t worth having.’
    He looked past her at Lila. It was a long look without passion in it—the look of the connoisseur in the auction room, cold, appraising. As he came towards her, she felt sick and shaken. Now he was going to touch her, kiss her. She couldn’t scream or run away. If she did—would Aunt Sybil still make her marry him?’
    His hand fell upon her shoulder. He bent and kissed her cheek.
    ‘Good-night, my lovely Lila. Sleep well and dream of me.’
    It was over. Her heart always seemed to stop for the moment of the kiss. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe—everything in her was tight and cold. But now it was over.
    She went upstairs with Sybil Dryden and said good-night. When five minutes had gone by it would be safe to lock the door. Aunt Sybil wouldn’t come back.
    When the key had turned she took a long breath, tipped hot water into the basin, and washed away Herbert Whitall’s kiss.
    CHAPTER XIII
    For a time all the normal sounds of an occupied house went on—water running; a door opening and closing again; footsteps on the stair, on landing and passage; the sound of voices muted to the edge of what could just be heard; small hushed movements in this or that of the bedrooms; the shutting of a drawer; the click of an electric light switch. And then, with a gradual fading out of all these things, that curious transition state during which the silence of a house which is still awake passes imperceptibly into the silence of a house which is very deeply asleep.
    It was just before