Free A Night of Errors by Michael Innes

seemed to have enough on hand.’
    ‘I see.’ Lucy too appeared now to be listening. ‘And did you tell–’ She hesitated.
    ‘Mary? No, I did not.’
    ‘Well, where’s the woman got to?’ And Sebastian peered round the drawing-room much as if Mrs Gollifer might be crouching behind a sofa.
    ‘She left nearly three-quarters of an hour ago.’ Lucy was gathering her cards together and putting them away in their box. ‘It was when mama was in the garden, so she went without saying goodbye.’
    ‘Three-quarters of an hour ago? Sebastian snorted nervously. ‘Lucy, you must be dreaming. I saw the woman within the last ten minutes.’
    Lucy’s eyes rounded. ‘But I heard her car!’
    ‘Well, she was down in the garden. I couldn’t think what I had stumbled on. Some blubbering old hag.’
    ‘How dare you!’ And Lucy turned upon her uncle, inexplicably flushed and quivering. ‘Mrs Gollifer is mama’s friend. Only a horrible old Edwardian bounder would speak of her in that pot-house way. And that’s what you are.’
    ‘Lucy dear!’ Lady Dromio was very pale. ‘Perhaps Mary was taken ill and came back. And then perhaps she was – was reluctant to return to the house.’
    ‘She looked ill enough.’ Sebastian, who had unexpectedly winced beneath Lucy’s reproaches, now nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. ‘But that’s not all. I met Swindle some time back and he looked ill too. He looked like something out of a coffin. And when he saw me he bolted. Did you ever see Swindle bolt? It’s out of nature.’
    Lady Dromio opened the window. ‘I shall go and look for Mary, though I hardly believe that what you say can be true. And I advise both of you to go to bed, and to practise more moderate language in the morning.’ And Lady Dromio lifted her chin and glanced from one to the other. The woman thus momentarily revealed had not entirely the appearance of one made to live a fantasy life in dream-hotels. ‘Good night.’
    But Sebastian had stepped to the window too. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘for heaven’s sake let’s keep civil tongues. And I’m coming with you. There’s something queer outside this house as well as in. Not long before I saw Mrs Gollifer I saw–’ He hesitated and glanced swiftly at Lucy. ‘I saw a fellow skulking in the laurels. And he appeared to me to be carrying something damned like a bludgeon.’
    Lucy too was at the window. ‘Is that why you went and got a revolver?’
    ‘What the devil do you mean?’
    ‘I can see the shape of it in the pocket of your dinner-jacket.’
    ‘Well, yes it is.’ Somewhat shamefacedly, Sebastian produced the weapon. ‘Didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, you know.’
    Lady Dromio was on the terrace. ‘If Mary is being dogged by a man with a bludgeon,’ she said, ‘there is some cause to be alarmed. Sebastian, you may come with me. But put that thing back in your pocket.’
    Sebastian did as he was bid. ‘Look here, Kate, you two had better stay behind. It’s not chilly, but there’s no sense–’
    Lady Dromio, however, had gone. They followed her. The air was stifling and still; frogs could be heard croaking very far away; and from farther yet, with an effect of inconceivable distance, a train whistled in the night. To the west heavy clouds were banked, but overhead the stars were clear. They moved down into the garden and behind them the house stood silhouetted in moonlight. The lawn where Lady Dromio had entertained Mr Greengrave that afternoon gleamed like a pale velvet; across it sprawled the distorted shadows of two stone hippogriffs pedestalled high in air – a pomp with which some long-dead Dromio had thought to embellish a large formal garden which had never been brought to completion. The creatures stood with wings outspread and a raised and threatening paw; the shadows seemed crouched and waiting to strike a premeditated blow.
    ‘It was here I saw her.’ Sebastian Dromio, peering apprehensively about him, tapped a stone seat