Read Online Will O’ the Wisp by Patricia Wentworth - Free Book Online Page B

of the things which was making David monosyllabic. He positively grabbed at Tommy Wingate. But Tommy shook his head.
    â€œTo-morrow I lunch with an aunt and take three flapper cousins to the Zoo, or a cinema, or some other low haunt. And when that’s over I dine with a great-uncle who has the worst cook in London. He lives on nuts—give you my word he does—weighs ’em out on a little thingummy-jig that sits on the table in front of him. Last time I went there he ate half a walnut too much and was dreadfully fussed. It’ll be a roaring sort of evening, my lad, and no mistake. I’ll totter down to you next day—what? Hullo, there’s Devlin!”
    Tommy precipitated himself into a crowd which had just stopped dancing and was now moving in every direction at once. David saw him accost a tall, thin red-haired man and a party which included no less than three extremely personable young things, with one of whom Tommy presently took the floor.
    David cast his eyes about the room in search of Folly March. The place was crowded with an odd medley of people—young men and old in dinner jackets and long coats; girls in hats, and girls in evening frocks; women with the minimum of clothing and the maximum number of pearls that it is possible to crowd upon the human frame. At the table on his right there sat a woman huddled in cloth of gold to the ears. She had a dead face and pale, square-cut hair as lank as tow. She held a cigarette in a very long amber holder, but never put it to her mouth, and during all the time that David was in the room she neither moved nor spoke to her companion. Just opposite, by a table near the door, a very tall woman was talking to half a dozen men at once. She wore a little black cap that hid her hair, and long emerald earrings that fell below her shoulder; her dress was a glittering black sheath that ended above the knee. She might have been Pierrot from the zeal with which she had whitened her face. The magenta lips appeared to emit a steady flow of bad language.
    David glanced at his wrist-watch. All the theatres must be out by now. If Folly did not turn up in five minutes, he would just have to go to the flat and wait for her there.
    As he looked up again he saw her coming into the room with St. Inigo. She was looking all round her like a pleased child, and she wore the new little black curls tied on with a pale blue ribbon which ended in an artless bow over one ear. Her frock might very properly have appeared at a breaking-up party of the most decorous of schools—little white frills and a pale blue girdle. She wore a coral necklace—not coral beads, but a necklace of the real old-fashioned spiky red coral which all little girls possess and break.
    Something pricked David sharply at the sight of the coral necklace. He was being got at. And knowing that he was being got at, he said to himself, “Little devil!” and then was pulled up sharply by the very patent fact that St. Inigo was drunk.
    Folly slipped her hand into St. Inigo’s arm and they made a half circuit of the room. They came to a standstill a yard or two from David.
    Without any plan he got up and walked over to them. St. Inigo was certainly drunk—steady enough on his feet and steady enough with his tongue, but drunk for all that, his very handsome features pale and expressionless, his light eyes fixed and glittering.
    David said, “Hullo, Folly!” and just for an instant the little devil in its schoolgirl dress made a movement towards him. It was so slight a movement, and so quickly checked, that he wondered why he had imagined that Folly was glad to see him. She stood there looking down and tapping with her foot. A complete absence of make-up allowed him to see that her colour had risen. St. Inigo stared.
    David’s temper began to rise.
    â€œCan you spare me a moment? I’ve got a message for you—from Eleanor.”
    Folly shot him a glance, but he made