Free The Best of British Crime omnibus by Andrew Garve, David Williams, Francis Durbridge Page A

evening at the ballet. The women, as usual, were sitting together and Mrs Clarke – who had put on a staggering violet frock for the occasion – was in one of her most voluble moods. In the second entr’acte she started to tell Perdita about her daughter Ruby who had won a prize for jiving at some South London palais and had always thought it would be nice to be a ballet dancer, until Perdita suddenly cried, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ and stalked out of the theatre.
    This open rapture had repercussions the next day. Still out of temper, Perdita vented her annoyance on Islwyn, who became sulky. She didn’t make things any better by ostentatiously switching her attentions to Bolting. By this time she was barely on speaking terms with Mullett, and Mrs Clarke had become very cantankerous, so one way and another there was quite an atmosphere. Also, Cressey was being difficult. After lunch at a Children’s Home on the Thursday, Mullett began talking about how successful the ‘peace’ rally had been and what a fine report of the Russian spirit they’d be able to give when they got home. Cressey, when pressed to agree, said that of course the spirit had been fine, but there was something he couldn’t quite understand. Mullett, eager as ever to help him over any little difficulty, probed deeper, and Cressey said rather diffidently that he’d happened to hear a broadcast by Mr Attlee just before leaving England and what he couldn’t understand was how the western countries could be warmongers when they practically hadn’t got anything to fight with and the Russians could be peace-loving when they’d got 170 divisions and about 25,000 tanks. He raised the matter in such a modest way, as though he realised it was only his own stupidity at fault, that everyone tried hard to be patient with him, but he certainly cast an ideological cloud over the latter part of that luncheon. Perdita, who had formerly referred to Cressey in her patronising way as ‘that sweet little man,’ now looked at him as though he were a viper in the delegation bosom.
    The high spot of the week was the reception given by VOKS in honour of Perdita. It was on the Saturday, and the press attended in full strength, for the buffet meals provided by VOKS were famous. It was held in a fine old house with high carved ceilings and Empire columns, and there were probably a couple of hundred people there, comprising the artistic and intellectual elite of Moscow. Perdita, despite her accumulating resentments, was in her most regal mood and looked terrific in midnight-blue velvet, cut with devastating slinkiness. The photographs which she had brought with her to Russia had been carefully framed and hung on the walls, and for the first half-hour we all strolled round and made the admiring noises which are expected on such occasions. There were Several Russian sculptors present, and the air became thick with technicalities.
    When everyone had said everything that could possibly be said about the somewhat exiguous collection, we all moved to another room where chairs had been set out in rows as for a meeting. The president of VOKS, a man called Vassiliev, opened the proceedings with a brief but fulsome eulogy of Perdita and then she was called upon to give a talk about ‘her art,’ which Mirnova translated with great virtuosity paragraph by paragraph. It all sounded most erudite. I caught phrases like ‘the rhetorical magnificence of the Baroque, “the ardent yet naïve simplicity of archaic art,’ and ‘the pursuit of realistic verisimilitude.’ Perdita was very cool and sure of herself, and she was obviously revelling in the limelight. She must have managed to avoid all the ideological pitfalls, for the lecture was received with prolonged and enthusiastic applause and she sat down with a flush of pleasure. She was followed by a tedious old man named Rabinovitch, introduced as one