Read Online False Scent by Ngaio Marsh - Free Book Online

clanking.”
    “I hate being at enmity, Bertie. What a beastly profession ours is. In some ways.”
    “It’s a jungle, darling. Face it — it’s a jungle.”
    “You,” Pinky said rather enviously, “don’t seem to be unduly perturbed, I must say.”
    “My poorest girl, little do you know. I’m quaking.”
    “Really? But could she actually do you any damage?”
    “Can the boa constrictor,” Bertie said, “consume the rabbit?”
    Pinky had thought it better not to press this matter any further. They had separated and gone to their several flats, where in due course they made ready for the party.
    Anelida and Octavius also made ready. Octavius, having settled for a black coat, striped trousers and the complementary details that he considered appropriate to these garments, had taken up a good deal of his niece’s attention. She had managed to have a bath and was about to dress when, for the fourth time, he tapped at her door and presented himself before her, looking anxious and unnaturally tidy. “My hair,” he said. “Having no unguent, I used a little olive oil. Do I smell like a salad?”
    She reassured him, gave his coat a brush and begged him to wait for her in the shop. He had old-fashioned ideas about punctuality and had begun to fret. “It’s five-and-twenty minutes to seven. We were asked for half-past six, Nelly.”
    “That means seven at the earliest, darling. Just take a furtive leer through the window and you’ll see when people begin to come. And please, Unk, we can’t go while I’m still in my dressing-gown, can we, now?”
    “No, no, of course not. Half-past six
for
a quarter-to-seven? Or seven? I see. I see. In that case…”
    He pottered downstairs.
    Anelida thought, “It’s a good thing I’ve had some practice in quick changes.” She did her face and hair, and she put on a white dress that had been her one extravagance of the year, a large white hat with a black velvet crown, and new gloves. She looked in the glass, forcing herself to adopt the examining attitude she used in the theatre. “And it might as well be a first night,” she thought, “the way I’m feeling.” Did Richard like white? she wondered.
    Heartened by the certainty of her dress being satisfactory and her hat becoming, Anelida began to daydream along time-honoured lines: She and Octavius arrived at the party. There was a sudden hush. Monty Marchant, the Management in person, would ejaculate to Timon Gantry, the great producer, “Who are they?” and Timon Gantry, with the abrupt gasp which all actors, whether they had heard it or not, liked to imitate, would reply, “I don’t know but by God, I’m going to find out.” The ranks would part as she and Octavius, escorted by Miss Bellamy, moved down the room to the accompaniment of a discreet murmur. They would be the cynosure of all eyes. What was a cynosure and why was it never mentioned except in reference to eyes? All eyes on Anelida Lee. And there, wrapt in admiration, would be Richard…
    At this point Anelida stopped short, was stricken with shame, had a good laugh at herself and became the prey of her own nerves.
    She went to her window and looked down into Pardoner’s Place. Cars were now beginning to draw up at Miss Bellamy’s house. Here came a large black one with a very smart chauffeur. Two men got out. Anelida’s inside somersaulted. The one with the gardenia
was
Monty Marchant and that incredibly tall, that unmistakably shabby figure
was
the greatest of all directors, Timon Gantry.
    “Whoops!” Anelida said. “None of your nonsense, Cinderella.” She counted sixty and then went downstairs.
    Octavius was seated at his desk, reading, and Hodge was on his knee. They both looked extraordinarily smug.
    “Have you come over calm?” Anelida asked.
    “What? Calm? Yes,” Octavius said. “Perfectly, thank you. I have been reading
The Gull’s Hornbook
.”
    “Have you been up to something, Unk?”
    He rolled his eyes round at her. “Up to