Tour de Force by Christianna Brand Page B

could not rid himself of an impression that she looked rather white and strained and, as Cecil rushed up and poured out his confidences into her ear, he saw her jaw drop, her eyes grew wide and startled, she began to gabble in reply, returning confidence for confidence, looking back over her shoulder to the top of the rock; looking at the rest of the party, now swimming or floundering in the sea as their custom was – at Helen and Leo (she shook her head vigorously) – at Fernando, at Miss Trapp.… At Cockie himself. After a moment they came to some agreement about Cockie; and so parted and fell to an exhibition of bobbing and screaming whose forced gaiety quite outdid the bobbing and screaming of the earlier bathe at Rapallo. So, thought Cockie, they’re going to confide in me that Miss Lane is trying to blackmail them; and I shall reply that she is merely taking a malicious pleasure in frightening them and that they are silly to go and give away, by their very response, that they each have something to be blackmailed about. And then they will decide that I am only a stupid old codger, and leave me to read in peace.
    And sure enough, as soon as the bathe was over, Louvaine appeared, sauntering up the shallow steps to the lower terrace where he had established himself in his deck-chair. ‘Oh, hallo, Inspector. I didn’t know you were here.’
    â€˜Didn’t you?’ said Cockrill, sardonically.
    â€˜Goodness, you are cosy! I shall come and join you.’ She sat down on the pebble-patterned terrace at his feet, shaking out her mop of red hair. He observed with amusement that with all the bobbing, not one drop of water had been permitted to endanger the wisdom of a dozen magazine articles on How to Keep Lovely in the Summer, accumulated on her charming face. To make quite sure, she dived into the recesses of the scarlet beach bag and, producing an outsize flapjack, peered intently into the looking-glass, added yet another layer of sun-tan powder, attended to the left set of eyelashes which had become seriously unsettled by her earlier wink at Miss Trapp, and removed excess grains of powder from both with a licked fourth finger. ‘That is a disgusting habit,’ said Inspector Cockrill severely.
    â€˜Well, some people actually put them on with spit. I do use my white of egg.’ She added some quite unnecessary lipstick and fished in the bag again. ‘Do you mind if I do my nails?’
    â€˜If it involves the smell of pear drops, I mind very much,’ said Cockie.
    â€˜No, that’s taking off. I’m putting on.’ Unvarnished, the inch-long nails looked like an extension of her fingers, they made the whole hand seem very narrow and inordinately long. ‘Repellent, aren’t they? Like poor, dead hens’ hands, I always think, hanging up in poulterers’ shops.’ She produced a bottle of violently bright varnish and a little brush. ‘I say, Inspector – do you think Miss Lane’s a blackmailer?’
    â€˜Is that what you came up here to ask me?’ said Cockie.
    â€˜Yes,’ she said frankly. ‘Cecil and I agreed …’
    â€˜I know you did. Well, the answer is – no. Not for money.’
    She looked up at him sharply, one hand half-painted, held with fingers apart to keep from smudging contacts. ‘Goodness, Inspector – what a clever person you are!’
    â€˜I think what she does, she does for the kick she gets out of it. It gives her a sense of power. Herself, she’s unsocial and ungregarious, she’s an introvert: she doesn’t like to see other people free and easy and happy, and so she tries to spoil things for them, that’s all. She’s clever at putting two and two together, she finds out things or she just guesses and if the guess doesn’t come off, there’s no harm done. But it often does: most of us have a bone or two at least, in the skeleton-cupboard.’
    â€˜You