Death with Blue Ribbon by Leo Bruce

otherwise they’ll think I don’t do my work in the morning.’
    She nodded unsmilingly and left Carolus to reconsider her information.
    So Imogen was making the most of it. Carolus could imagine her having death-bed scenes and wondered if they would be televised.
    He dressed and went downstairs and found Rolland.
    â€˜You ought to be pleased,’ he said.
    â€˜Why?’ asked Rolland.
    â€˜The press haven’t mentioned the name of your restaurant.’
    â€˜What good will that do? She’s going to sue me.’
    â€˜Don’t be too sure. It must depend on the medical evidence.’
    â€˜Dr Jyves our local man couldn’t find anything wrong with her. She raged like a lunatic, called him incompetent and ordered him out of the room. Now she has sent for a specialist.’
    â€˜All the same, the first attack was half a failure.’
    â€˜They’ll soon do something else. Worse probably. I think I shall pay. It’s scandalous but you don’t seem able to do anything about it. I can’t go on like this.’
    â€˜I shouldn’t do that,’ said Carolus. He foresaw an end to the visits of Rivers and the rest and the collapse of his own efforts.
    â€˜Why not? Yesterday you wouldn’t advise me one way or the other. What makes you tell me not to pay it now?’
    He was insistent, looking desperately for some hope.
    â€˜I shouldn’t. That’s all. I can’t say much but I have made a start. Hold out as long as you can.’
    Rolland was not a fool. Sly, selfish, mean, but quite intelligent.
    â€˜Play it off the cuff,’ Carolus advised him. ‘With any luck they’ll give you some breathing space. As for Imogen Marvell, whatever she ate…’
    â€˜That’s just it. She must have been given something. Who do you suppose…’
    â€˜Whatever she ate she probably brought up when she vomited. The carpet was cleaned at once of course?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Then I doubt if she can prove it was anything she had here.’
    â€˜It must have been.’
    â€˜Why? But I should take those
scampi
off the menu if I were you.’
    â€˜I have,’ said Rolland, tragically.

Six
    It was clear that Imogen Marvell intended to make her presence felt positively and at every moment of the day. Though reported by Miss Trudge to be remaining in bed ‘seriously ill’ she succeeded in disturbing the routine of the Fleur-de-Lys and no one, from Antoine to Gloria Gee, was allowed to forget that there was a Very Important Invalid in number four.
    Miss Trudge was everywhere. Because it disturbed Imogen to have the telephone in her room used, she hurried about looking distraught and carrying out Imogen’s orders.
    At ten o’clock arrived the first of those summoned from London to Imogen’s bedside. This was her sister Grace Marvell. After a brief interview with the suffering woman, during which she was called elegantly ‘a clumsy cow’, she was dismissed and came down to the bar for a reviver. Carolus fell into conversation with her.
    She was a dumpy, jolly little woman who seemed quite unperturbed by her sister’s bad temper and illness.
    â€˜Nothing wrong with her,’ she confided to Carolus. ‘Just tantrums that’s all. But that silly old Trudge plays up to her.’
    â€˜Miss Trudge is devoted to your sister?’
    â€˜A dog-like devotion. Or bitch-like. I can’t bear her. Flyingabout as though she was on fire. Imogen attracts that type, I suppose.’
    â€˜Do you share your sister’s gastronomic interests, Miss Marvell?’
    â€˜I taught her all she knows—which isn’t much. It never struck me as important. I knew how to cook but so do millions of women. It took Imogen to turn the knowledge to money.’
    â€˜I read a newspaper article of hers in which she spoke of your grandmother, the
Baronne,
from whom she learned the secrets, she said, of