Free Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh Page A

saw him order himself a second double brandy.
    “I suppose,” Alleyn remarked generally, “everybody has a favourite flower.”
    Mrs. Dillington-Blick moved into a position from which she could see him. “Hullo, you!” she exclaimed jollily. “But of course they have. Mine’s magnolias.”
    “What are yours?” Tim Makepiece asked Brigid.
    “Distressingly obvious — roses.”
    “Lilies,” Father Jourdain smiled, “which may also be obvious.”
    “Easter?” Miss Abbott barked.
    “Exactly.”
    “What about you?” Alleyn asked Tim.
    “The hop,” he said cheerfully.
    Alleyn grinned. “There you are. It’s all a matter of association. Mine’s lilac and throws back to a pleasant childhood memory. But if beer happened to make you sick or my nanny, whom I detested, had worn lilac in her nankeen bosom or Father Jourdain associated lilies with death, we’d have all hated the sight and smell of these respective flowers.”
    Mr. Merryman looked with pity at him. “Not,” he said, “a remarkably felicitous exposition of a somewhat elementary proposition, but, as far as it goes, unexceptionable.”
    Alleyn bowed. “Have you, sir,” he asked, “a preference?”
    “None, none. The topic, I confess, does not excite me.”
    “I think it’s a
heavenly
topic,” Mrs. Dillington-Blick cried. “But then I adore finding out about People and their preferences.” She turned to Dale and at once his smile reprinted itself. “Tell me your taste in flowers,” she said, “and I’ll tell you your type in ladies. Come clean, now. Your favorite flower? Or shall I guess?”
    “Agapanthas?” Mr. Merryman loudly suggested. Dale clapped his glass down on the bar and walked out of the room.
    “Now,
look
here, Mr. Merryman!” Father Jourdain said and rose to his feet.
    Mr. Merryman opened his eyes very wide and pursed his lips. “What’s up?” he asked.
    “You know perfectly well what’s up. You’re an extremely naughty little man and although it’s none of my business I think fit to tell you so.”
    Far from disconcerting Mr. Merryman, this more or less public rebuke appeared to afford him enjoyment. He clapped his hands lightly, slapped them on his knees and broke into elfish laughter.
    “If you’ll take my advice,” Father Jourdain continued, “you will apologize to Mr. Dale.”
    Mr. Merryman rose, bowed, and observed in an extremely highfalutin manner, “
Consilia firmiora sunt de divinis locis
.”
    The priest turned red.
    Alleyn, who didn’t see why Mr. Merryman should be allowed to make a corner in pedantry, racked his own brains for a suitable tag. “
Consilium inveniunt multi sed docti explicant,
however,” he said.
    “Dear me!” Mr. Merryman observed. “How often one has cause to remark that a platitude sounds none the better for being uttered in an antique tongue. I shall now address myself to my postprandial nap.”
    He trotted towards the door, paused for a moment to stare at Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s pearls, and then went out.
    “For pity’s sake!” she ejaculated. “What is all this! What’s happening? What’s the matter with Aubyn Dale? Why agapanthas?”
    “Can it be possible,” Tim Makepiece said, “that you don’t know about Lady Agatha’s umbilicus globular and the hyacinths on the turdy stable?” and he retold the story of Aubyn Dale’s misfortunes.
    “How frightful!” Mrs. Dillington-Blick exclaimed, laughing until she cried. “How too tragically frightful! And how
naughty
of Mr. Merryman.”
    Tim Makepiece said, “We don’t ’alf look like being a happy family. What will Mr. Chip’s form be, one asks oneself, when he enters the Torrid Zone?”
    “He may look like Mr. Chips,” Alleyn remarked. “He behaves like Thersites.”
    Brigid said, “I call it the rock bottom of him. You could see Aubyn Dale minded most dreadfully. He went as white as his teeth. What could have possessed Mr. Chips?”
    “Schoolmaster,” Miss Abbott said, scarcely glancing up from her