Free Rehearsals for Murder by Elizabeth Ferrars Page B

there was someone missing.”
    â€œYour chubby little friend,” she said, “he’s missing too.”
    â€œHe’s often missing,” said Toby. “It never matters.”
    Vanner came in. He was irritated and more strident than usual. “I said that no one was to leave just yet,” he said.
    â€œWell, there’s no need to lecture us about it,” said Lisbeth. “We’re the ones who haven’t left.”
    â€œWhere’s Mr Gillett?”
    â€œNot concealed in here.”
    â€œWhen did you last see him?”
    Charlie replied: “In the hall, while that child was giving that—exhibition. I was standing next to him. But I thought he’d come in here. He’s such a silent chap except—when he isn’t—you know what I mean?”
    â€œI don’t,” said Vanner.
    â€œHe means,” said Lisbeth, “that except when Mr Gillett reads wicked, lying articles in the newspapers, particularly if they’re about science, of course—he’s very sensitive about what journalists do with science, and music’s another of the things that excite him, and foreign policy, and so on—well, except when that happens he just sits and thinks his own thoughts, and no one notices, naturally, whether he’s there or not.”
    â€œPerhaps,” said Adolphus Fry, “he’s gone home.”
    â€œI gave orders——”
    But Mr Fry, with a rather roguish smirk, said: “Oh, Inspector, orders to a young man like Colin Gillett! He would take it as positive provocation.”
    â€œWhere’s he live?” asked Vanner. “That cottage in Green Lane, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt’s not five minutes’ walk if you go through the wood,” said Mr Fry.
    Vanner ordered a constable off to search for Colin Gillett in his cottage. Toby, watching the constable set off across the lawn towards the line of trees beyond it, saw the burly figure merge with the trees and the twilight and disappear. He heard Vanner demanding the presence of Mr Fry in the other room. Toby, too, stepped out into the garden. Between his feet and the stones of the terrace crunched fragments of the glass Eve had hurled down there. He strolled out onto the lawn. It was a tennis lawn, carefully kept, with markings that still showed sharp and white through the evening shadows. Turning, he took a long look at the house. A pleasant old house in a garden fragrant and quiet.
    Toby stuck a cigarette in his mouth. His match spurted in the dusk. He could see through the lighted square of the doorway Druna Merton perching herself on the arm of Charlie Widdison’s chair; he could see Lisbeth Gask going on with her knitting and Mr Fry coming in, sitting down beside Eve, who had flung herself full length on a settee, and talking earnestly. Another lighted window told Toby where he had sat with Vanner.
    Toby dropped the match on the grass and unthinkingly ground it into the smooth turf. A bat swung past his face, in the distance a dog barked. Milky-white clumps of tree lupines, over to the right, sent their heavy, sweet perfume towards him. There was lavender, too, somewhere.
    Toby looked towards the lighted square of window, and his lips moved in inaudible curses. Then something touched his arm, and he started violently.
    â€œOh,” he said, as he saw the short, plump figure beside him, “hullo, George, where ’ve you been?”
    â€œWhat was that you was just sayin’?” George asked him.
    â€œI didn’t say anything,” Toby replied.
    â€œYes, you did. You were talkin’ to yourself.”
    â€œWas I? In that case it was probably ‘fifteen pounds in notes and a cheque for fifteen pounds.’ That’s what I was thinking about.”
    He strolled on a few steps. George kept at his side. Toby told him of his talk with Vanner and all that had followed. At the end he repeated: “And where’ve you