Free The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell

that.”
    Selena, having concluded her dealings with her sole meunière, accepted the invitation to resume the narrative.
    “The party had increased in informality, with the encouragement, I suppose, of the fudge, not to speak of various other substances being smoked or sniffed by our fellow guests. Scenes similar to that noticed by Julia in the bathroom were now occurring in various parts of the drawing-room, and Rupert had begun leaping about with a flashlight camera taking photographs of everyone. He frequently interrupted his artistic activities, however, to urge me to take my clothes off and enjoy myself—this made it very difficult for me to concentrate on Pride and Prejudice. Isn’t it curious how intolerant some people are of other people’s pleasures? Was I pestering Rupert to put his clothes on and read Jane Austen? No, I wasn’t. Was he prepared to show me a corresponding indulgence? Not a bit of it. On the contrary, he became quite peevish and aggrieved—‘If you and your girlfriend,’ he said ‘are just going to sit there and not do anything, I think it’s a pretty poor show.’”
    “He was evidently under some misapprehension,” I remarked, “as to the nature of your friendship.”
    “Evidently—as I say, he’s a rather unsophisticated sort of person. But even if we had been on such terms as he supposed, it would still have been frightful cheek to expect us to make a public demonstration of it. I began to feel, in spite of the champagne, that it was time we were leaving. I was still waiting, however, for Julia to return from the bathroom, when, as she says, there was a disturbance—people banging loudly on the front door and shouting for admittance. Their precise words being ‘Open up there, this is the police.’” Selena paused, and thoughtfully sipped her Frascati.

CHAPTER 5
    The words “Open up there, this is the police” tend to have a dampening effect on almost any social gathering. The initial response to them of Rupert’s guests had been a panic-stricken immobility, which held them frozen for several seconds in the attitudes in which the moment found them; then, disengaging with amazing rapidity from their various mutual entwinements, they had scrambled headlong for the doorway giving access to the roof, leaving their host to deal as he thought best with the unwelcome intrusion.
    “Rupert,” said Selena, “failed notably to behave like a respectable householder whose home is his castle and who does not suppose himself to be living in a police state. The proper course of action for such a person, when the police demand entry, is to ask politely by what authority they do so and to take steps, before opening the door, to verify their answer. This sensible precaution has the further advantage of enabling the householder, should he happen to be dressed only in a pair of black leather bathing trunks, to change into some more orthodox costume before confronting the forces of law and order. Rupert, however, did not seem to think of this—the last of his guests had hardly disappeared from the drawing-room before he was opening his front door, with apologies for the delay, to admit his more recent visitors: two heavily bearded but quite personable young men, one tall, the other taller, wearing the distinctive uniform of the Metropolitan Police.”
    Making vague reference to “information received,” they had proceeded to search the drawing-room. Rupert, green-gilled and glassy-eyed with apprehension, had offered no protest; Selena, not being present in a professional capacity, felt that it would be officious to volunteer any on his behalf. She ventured to suggest, when they took possession of the flashlight camera, that they would wish to give Rupert a receipt for it, and something was rather grudgingly scribbled on a page of one of their notebooks; otherwise her role was that of disinterested spectator. It was not until they gave signs of proposing to search the other rooms in the