Free Into the Valley of Death by Evelyn Hervey Page B

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    But a man’s life was at stake, and she did not regret having put her question.
    The answer she got showed her quickly enough that her fears had been groundless.
    “Fast? You should see him with that beastly Mrs. De Lyall.”
    “Mrs. De Lyall? I don’t think I’ve heard of her. Is she at the ball tonight?”
    “Ain’t she just. You couldn’t keep her away. Not that poor Grandpapa much wants to, if you ask me.”
    Miss Unwin decided to pass over this too intimate detail of family life.
    “Describe Mrs. De Lyall to me then,” she said.
    “Oh, you can’t have missed her. They say she’s half Spanish, and no one seems to know whether there’s a Mr. De Lyall or not. He don’t come down to Oxfordshire, that’s for sure.”
    “Yes, but what does Mrs. De Lyall look like? What sort of a dress is she wearing?”
    “The red-and-black, of course. The one that makes her look like a Spanish dancer. Why, I bet she does her
cachucha
dance before the night’s out. She always will, if she’s let. Sheknows it draws the gentlemen’s eyes, and all’s fish that comes to that one’s net.”
    Again Miss Unwin, the governess, wanted to issue a rebuke. But again Miss Unwin, the female detective, kept her thoughts to herself.
    “I know that lady now,” she said. “I remarked on that dress when she left her cloak. She has those very dark ringlets, has she not? And a high complexion?”
    “And a high reputation,” Phemy chimed in. “Why, she does things and says things that no other lady in the county would dare.”
    “Come, how do you know that?”
    “Oh, I’ve heard Grandpapa say it many a time. And his great friend and rival, General Bickerstaffe, too. It’s about as much of a case of smite with him, if you ask me.”
    “But you say that no other lady in the county behaves like Mrs. De Lyall?” Miss Unwin asked eagerly, an idea blossoming in her head.
    “No, not a whit.”
    “Then you have already been more than a little helpful to me,” she said to Phemy.
    It was true, she thought. If it so happened that there was only one lady in the whole neighbourhood who was such a cause of scandal, then it was likely, surely, that her own task had been immensely lessened. If Alfie Goode had been killed because he was extorting money from somebody, was it not more than likely that that somebody was a lover of Mrs. De Lyall’s?
    No doubt, of lovers or would-be lovers she would have a fair number, but at least the circle of possibilities seemed to have been made sharply smaller.
    Only, how was Jack Steadman involved? What could he know, and not know that he knew, which had made it imperative for Alfie Goode’s killer to get rid of him, too, by the slow process of the law?
    However, that was something she would have to thinkabout when she had time. At present she had more urgent matters in front of her.
    “How can I get to see Mrs. De Lyall?” she asked rapidly. “To watch her and the men who speak to her and flirt with her?”
    But before her young helper could answer, from just outside there came the sound of hasty steps.

8
    The door of the morning-room was tentatively rattled.
    “Quick,” Miss Unwin whispered to Phemy, “back behind the curtains.”
    Hardly had Phemy whisked the curtains across her hiding place than the door was opened and a lady of a certain age wearing a gown in apple-green brocade came in.
    “Oh, I have got the headache so badly,” she said. “Can you find me a composing draught, my girl?”
    “Yes, madam,” Miss Unwin answered at once, every bit the well-trained servant. “It won’t take me a minute. Will you lie on the sofa here? And I have some eau-de-Cologne just by me.
    She handed the lady a handkerchief soaked in the eau-de-Cologne and hurried away.
    She was not quite happy to do so. What if Phemy sneezed again? But there was nothing else to be done, and she suspected now that the first sneeze Phemy had let out had in any case been designed to draw