Free Hand in Glove by Ngaio Marsh Page A

cagey in their manner.”
    The kitchen door was ajar and Mr. Cartell’s voice sounded clearly from the hall.
    “Very well,” he was saying. “If that should prove to be the case I shall know how to act and I can assure you, P.P., that I shall act with the utmost rigour. I trust that you are satisfied.”
    The front door slammed.
    “Mercy on us!” Mrs. Mitchell apostrophized. “Now what?” And added precipitately: “My bedroom window!”
    She bolted from the kitchen and Alfred heard her thundering up the back stairs.
    Presently she returned, flushed and fully informed.
    “Across the Green,” she reported, “to Miss Cartell’s.”
    “And you may depend upon it, Mrs. M.,” Alfred said, “that the objective is Miss Moppett.”
    Moppett had changed into the evening dress she kept in her bedroom at Miss Cartell’s house. It was geranium red, very décolleté and flagrantly becoming to her. She lay back in her chair, admiring her arms and glancing up from under her eyebrows at Mr. Cartell.
    “Auntie Con’s at a Hunt Club committee do of sorts,” she said. “She’ll be in presently. Leonard’s collecting his dinner jacket off the bus.”
    “I am glad,” Mr. Cartell said, giving her one look and thereafter keeping his gaze on his own folded hands, “of the opportunity to speak to you in. private. I will be obliged if, as far as my sister is concerned, you treat our conversation as confidential. There is no need, at this juncture, to cause her unnecessary distress.”
    “Dear me,” she murmured, “you terrify me, Uncle Hal.”
    “I will also be obliged if the assumption of a relationship which does not exist is discontinued.”
    “Anything you say,” she agreed after a pause, “Mr. Cartell.”
    “I have two matters to put before you. The first is this. The young man, Leonard Leiss, with whom you appear to have formed a close friendship, is known to the police. If he persists in his present habits it will only be a matter of time before he is in serious trouble, and, if you continue in your association with him, you will undoubtedly become involved. To a criminal extent. I would prefer, naturally, to think you were unaware of his proclivities, but I must say that I am unable to do so.”
    “I certainly am unaware of anything of the sort and I don’t believe a word of it.”
    “That,” Mr. Cartell said, “is nonsense.”
    “I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid it’s you that’s talking nonsense. All this to-do because poor Leonard wants to buy a car and I simply mention to Copper that Auntie Con — I hope you don’t mind if I go on calling her that — knows him and that you and P.P. might give him the O.K. It was only a matter of form, anyway. Of course, if we’d thought you wouldn’t like it we wouldn’t have dreamt of doing it. I’m jolly sorry we did, and Leonard is, too.”
    Mr. Cartell raised his eyes and looked at her. For a moment she boggled, but only for a moment. “And I must say,” she said boldly, “we both take a pretty poor view of your coming to Baynesholme and creating a scene. Not that it made any difference with Lady Bantling. She’s asked us both for tonight in spite of whatever nonsense she may have been told about us,” Moppett announced and laughed rather shrilly.
    He waited for a moment and then said: “It would be idle to discuss this matter any further. I shall turn to my second point and put it very bluntly. What did you do with Mr. Period’s cigarette case?”
    Moppett recrossed her legs and waited much too long before she said: “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Precisely what I have said. You and Leiss examined it after luncheon. What did you do with it?”
    “How dare you—” Moppett began. “How
dare
you—” and Leonard came Into the room.
    When he saw Mr. Cartell he fetched up short. “Pardon me,” he said elegantly. “Am I interrupting something?”
    Moppett extended her arm towards him. “Darling,” she said. “I’m being badgered.