Free Die Laughing by Carola Dunn Page A

woman with whose rotting teeth he was intimately acquainted.”

7
    T he telephone bell rang in the front hall. Daisy heard Belinda go to answer it, and a moment later her stepdaughter appeared in the doorway.
    â€œIt’s for you, Mummy. Mrs. Grantchester. I told her you are entertaining guests.” Belinda pronounced this newly acquired phrase with pride. “She said it’s urgent.”
    â€œThank you, darling. What on earth can she want? I hardly know her. Excuse me a minute,” Daisy said to Mel and Sakari. She went out to the hall. “Hello, this is Daisy Fletcher.”
    â€œ Oh , Mrs. Fletcher, I do hope you’ll excuse the short notice. I was wondering whether you could possibly come to luncheon tomorrow, quite informal, just a few local ladies, I’m sure you know most of them.”
    Daisy’s immediate impulse was to hunt for an excuse. She didn’t particularly like Mrs. Grantchester, a large, gushing woman, and she suspected her company was wanted mostly for what she could tell of Talmadge’s death. On the other
hand, she might pick up useful gossip about the Talmadges for Alec, though middle-class matrons didn’t gossip half as much as she had expected before becoming one of them. Also her usual excuse was invalid: she had just finished an article and her next was not due for a fortnight.
    Her pause for thought had lasted long enough to be noticed.
    â€œOh, please say you’ll come,” Mrs. Grantchester begged. “I know you write—so adventurous of you—I always read your articles—but we won’t keep you long , just an hour or so. All work and no play … you know what they say.”
    Definitely Daisy didn’t like Mrs. Grantchester. She started to beg off: “It’s very kind of you, but—”
    â€œ Splendid! ” the beastly woman overrode her. “We’ll see you at one o’clock. Oh, and I nearly forgot, of course your dear mama-in-law is invited too.” She rang off before Daisy could protest.
    Her mama-in-law’s inclusion in no way reconciled her to the luncheon, but now that her acceptance was assumed, it was impossible to back out without giving offence. Sighing, she jiggled the hook on the telephone apparatus to call the operator. She must let Alec know that Talmadge’s mistress, if any, was probably not a patient.
    â€œHello, caller, you have an incoming call. Do you want to take it or make your own call?”
    â€œI’ll take it,” said Daisy. “Hello? St. John’s Wood 2351.”
    â€œHello, Mrs. Fletcher? This is Marianne Randall. I do hope this isn’t a bad time to ring?”
    Mrs. Randall, with apologies for the short notice, wanted Daisy and Alec to come to dinner tomorrow. Alec might
well have to work late? Never mind, her brother could always be called in at the last minute to make up the numbers if necessary. Daisy simply must come anyway.
    On the spur of the moment, Daisy failed to think up a better excuse.
    Marianne Randall hung up at last and Daisy phoned Alec. He groaned when he heard that Talmadge’s lover probably was not a patient.
    â€œThe prospect of digging through his files was bad enough. We’ll still have to do that, but if your friends are right, the field is wide open. We’ll just have to hope someone will report having seen him with a lady-friend.”
    â€œDon’t despair, darling. I’ll see what I can find out.”
    â€œDaisy, don’t—”
    â€œI must run. They’re waiting. Bye-bye, darling.” Prohibition averted, Daisy returned to the sitting room.
    In the next hour, she received another five invitations for the next two days. She manage to decline three, only because they arrived in the form of servant-borne notes, not telephone calls.
    â€œGosh! I’ve never been so popular in my life,” she said as she penned an answer to the latest note. “I thought the ladies of St.