False Scent by Ngaio Marsh Page A

after us both for years, as you know. He thinks she’s been a bit nervy for some time, I gather, like many women of her — well, of her age. He thinks the high-pressure atmosphere of the theatre may have increased the tension. I got the impression he was understating his case. I don’t mind telling you,” Charles added unhappily, “it’s been worrying me for some time. These — these ugly scenes.”
    Warrender muttered, “Vindictive,” and looked as if he regretted it.
    Richard cried out, “Her kindness! I’ve always thought she had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen in a woman.”
    Warrender, who seemed this morning to be bent on speaking out of character, did so now. “People,” he said, “talk about eyes and mouths as if they had something to do with the way other people think and behave. Only bits of the body, aren’t they? Like navels and knees and toenails. Arrangements.”
    Charles glanced at him with amusement. “My dear Maurice, you terrify me. So you discount our old friends the generous mouth, the frank glance, the open forehead. I wonder if you’re right.”
    “Right or wrong,” Richard burst out, “it doesn’t get me any nearer a decision.”
    Charles put down his sherry and put up his eyeglass. “If I were you, Dicky,” he said, “I should go ahead.”
    “Hear, hear!”
    “Thank you, Maurice. Yes. I should go ahead. Offer your play in what you believe to be the best market. If Mary’s upset it won’t be for long, you know. You must keep a sense of perspective, my dear boy.”
    Colonel Warrender listened to this with his mouth slightly open and a glaze over his eyes. When Charles had finished Warrender looked at his watch, rose and said he had a telephone call to make before luncheon. “I’ll do it from the drawing-room if I may,” he said. He glared at Richard. “Stick to your guns, isn’t it?” he said. “Best policy.” And went out.
    Richard said, “I’ve always wondered: just how simple
is
Maurice?”
    “It would be the greatest mistake,” Charles said, “to underrate him.”
    In their houses and flats, all within a ten-mile radius of Pardoner’s Place, the guests for Mary Bellamy’s birthday party made ready to present themselves. Timon (Timmy) Gantry, the famous director, made few preparations for such festivities. He stooped from his inordinate height to the cracked glass on his bathroom wall in order to brush his hair, which he kept so short that the gesture was redundant. He had changed into a suit which he was in the habit of calling his “decent blue,” and as a concession to Miss Bellamy, wore a waistcoat instead of a plum-coloured pullover. He looked rather like a retired policeman whose enthusiasm had never dwindled. He sang a snatch from
Rigoletto
, an opera he had recently directed, and remembered how much he disliked cocktail parties.
    “Bell-a-
me
-a, you’re a hell of a bore,” he sang, improvising to the tune of “Bella Figlia.” And it was true, he reflected. Mary was becoming more and more of a tiresome girl. It would probably be necessary to quarrel with her before her new play went on. She was beginning to jib at the physical demands made upon her by his production methods. He liked to keep his cast moving rather briskly through complicated, almost fugal, patterns and Mary was not as sound in the wind as she used to be. Nor in the temper, he reflected. He rather thought that this play would be his last production for her.
    “For she’s not my, not my cuppa tea at all,” he sang.
    This led him to think of her influence on other people, particularly on Richard Dakers. “She’s a succuba,” he chanted. “She’s an o — ogress. She devours young men alive. Nasty Mary!” He was delighted that Richard showed signs of breaking loose with his venture into serious dramatic writing. He had read
Husbandry in Heaven
to Gantry while it was still in manuscript. Gantry always made up his mind at once about a play and he did so about this