Blindfold by Patricia Wentworth Page B

marvellous sleuth? Pearls are the hardest things to trace of all. Do you know how many there are?”
    As it happened Miles did know. Both Marion Macintyre’s women friends had been able to tell him the number of pearls in that envied rope. He ignored the other questions and said,
    â€œThree hundred.”
    Lila drew an ecstatic breath.
    â€œCasilda only has two hundred in hers! Three hundred would go at least twice round and hang right down! Wouldn’t I look marvellous in them? Darling Miles, if I were to be frightfully nice to you, would you give them to me?”
    â€œI haven’t found them yet,” said Miles. “And as they were stolen twenty years ago, I don’t suppose I ever shall—and if I do, they won’t be mine.”
    Lila sighed.
    â€œAnd most likely some frightful old hag with a yellow neck is wearing them, and looking too foul for words.” She took another little puff at her cigarette and some more ash fell.
    Freddy burst out laughing.
    â€œDid you ever see anyone smoke like Lila?” he said. “You know, darling, I don’t know why you do it. You hate the taste, you make silly little puffs, and you cover everything with ash.”
    Lila nodded mournfully.
    â€œBut Fitz gave me such a pet of a holder for Christmas—I’ve just got to use it, my sweet. Fitz would be most awfully hurt if I didn’t.”
    They played bridge after dinner. Flossie Palmer, looking across at Miles as she helped the parlour-maid to set out drinks, thought him “ever so nice.” She was now quite certain that he was the Mr Miles whom she had snuggled up to in the fog on the Embankment. It gave her a most romantic secret thrill to think she had leaned her head upon his shoulder. She’d pinched his arm too, good and hard. A shiver went over her. She let two glasses touch one another with a sharp ringing sound. The parlour-maid nudged her, and her colour rose.
    Miles, suddenly aware of her gaze, thought what a pretty girl she was. She looked quickly away, her heart thumping. He was the only person in the whole world who knew just what had happened to her at No. 16 Varley Street. He was the only person she could talk to about it. And she must talk to him—oh, she must . Ever since she had heard about Ivy she had had the most awful sick feeling of fear. She didn’t believe that Billy had pushed Ivy into the river, and she didn’t believe that Ivy had thrown herself in. Ivy wasn’t the sort of girl to throw herself into a river, not if it was ever so. And she’d no reason neither, because she and Billy had made it up, and the day fixed and all. No, Ivy had been pushed. And Billy couldn’t have pushed her, because he was over with his brother in Bermondsey, and lucky for him there were plenty to swear to it.
    She shivered again. If she could talk to Mr Miles, she might get it out of her head that Ivy had been pushed because she, Flossie, had gone to 16 Varley Street as Ivy Hodge and seen what she hadn’t been meant to see. Another glass clinked. She was glad to get out of the room.
    â€œMy! You were clumsy with those glasses!” said the parlour-maid. “What are you shivering for? Hot as hot, I call it. I don’t know how she stands it. But there—she doesn’t wear anything under those evening dresses of hers—not a stitch of any sort or kind, if you’ll believe me. It’s not what I call nice, myself.”
    The bridge was rather inconsequent, because Lila talked all the time. She had an artless way of looking over Freddy’s hand and commenting on what she saw there, and she was also very generous in imparting information about her own.
    â€œOh, my poor sweet—what a perfectly foul hand! Only two court cards! I do wish I could give you some of mine—I’m simply stiff with them! Now, if you had my ace and king of hearts—Ian darling , talking of hearts, have you heard the latest about Posh