The Studio Crime (33 page)

“Did you remember to put in the banana you dropped and ran over this morning?”

The others laughed, but Lion answered with dignity:“This is a small-scale map. There isn't room in it for unimportant matters like bananas.”

“Hard luck on the banana,” commented Isabel, “to be snubbed like that after being squashed as flat as a pancake.”

“It didn't suffer,” said Lion gently, removing his map from the table as the waitress came in with the tea. “It was a painless, instantaneous death.”

With some ceremony the waitress placed an enormous cosy of Berlin woolwork over the teapot and withdrew. Nora, who was the kind of girl upon whom such duties naturally devolved, began to pour out the tea. The others drew up their chairs. Sir Charles hastened to seize Isabel's chair out of her hand and placed it at the table with a flourish, seating himself next to her rather hastily, as if he feared that Felix would forestall him. Idiot! thought Nora irritably, watching from under her eyelashes. She liked Charles less every time she looked at him. His elaborately gallant manner to herself and Isabel, the open court he paid to her pretty friend, offended Nora's fastidious taste. She did not consider such displays appropriate to the occasion of a country holiday, and missed the atmosphere of casual and kindly good-fellowship which had been suddenly dissipated at Worcester. Charles's good-fellowship was something to make one put cotton-wool in one's ears, so extremely noticeable it was.

“Old man,” he was saying now to his cousin, “we must arrange plenty of bicycling expeditions before you go back to town. How long are you going to be with us?”

“Only a fortnight,” said Felix regretfully.

“A fortnight!” echoed Charles. “I was hoping you were going to stay a month at least, and show me all the ins and outs of being an English squire.”

“Wish I could,” returned Felix amiably, opening his egg and looking with mild surprise at its firm and solid contents. “But I can't leave the studio so long. All the elite of London are waiting in a queue to be photographed. My dad'll show you all the ins and outs, he's used to them. And Blodwen'll back you up much better than I should.”

Nora, still studying the bold, handsome, rather large-scale features of the new squire, thought she saw a slight, almost imperceptible change of expression on them as Felix mentioned his father; so slight a change and so swiftly over that it was impossible to guess what emotion had produced it, impossible to put a name to the change itself. One could not call it a sneer, but it approached a sneer.

“I'm looking forward no end to seeing Blodwen,” he replied. “I haven't seen my sister for fifteen years. We were great pals as kids. I wonder what I'll think of her?”

“It would be more becoming,” remarked Lion, carefully and hopefully chipping at his egg, “to wonder what she'll think of you.”

“Lion,” said Nora reprovingly, “don't be cheeky.” But privately she agreed with him.

“Well, you'll soon see,” said Felix. “She came back from France yesterday, I believe. She'll be waiting for your inspection when we get to Rhyllan, and will present you to her miscellaneous pack of hounds.”

“I've seen some of them already,” said Charles with his loud laugh. “In fact, the other day I shot one of them.”

“Oh,” said Felix, and did not seem to find this news amusing. He added rather distantly:“How was that?”

“Out in the corn-fields shooting rabbits. Little beggar went off its head with excitement and got between my gun and the rabbit.” Charles glanced round the table, and perceiving a certain lack of sympathy in his audience, subdued his voice and manner. “Pure accident. Might have happened to anybody.”

He looked at Isabel. She was looking meditatively at her plate.

“I tell you, old chap,” he added feelingly, “I was terribly cut up about it. Afraid Blodwen'll never forgive me.”

“It is certainly,” said Dr. Browning mildly, “a rather unfortunate way of re-introducing yourself to your sister. Miss Price is devoted to her animals. But she'll certainly forgive you for an accident. She is a very reasonable girl.”

“Hope you're right,” said Charles genially. “But I don't know. Old maids are always perfectly cracked about their pets.”

Felix winced, and Dr. Browning regarded Charles thoughtfully, as if he were an interesting specimen of a new genius of fern. There was a momentary, rather uncomfortable silence. It was broken by Lion. He put down his spoon and regarded his egg with an unfavourable eye.

“Nora,” he remarked stoically, “ring for a hammer and chisel.”

Nora laughed.

“I've just rung for some hot water. You can give your order to the waitress when she comes.”

Charles, with an anxious sidelong glance at Isabel's pretty profile coldly averted from him, addressed her feelingly, trying to make up the ground which, as he was vaguely aware, his last remarks had lost him.

“I can't tell you how keen I am to see Blodwen again, and talk over old times when we were kids. I've got an old photo of her here I've been carrying about with me half over the world.” He felt in his pockets and produced a little brown photograph for Isabel's inspection. “I want you to meet her, too. How long are you staying in Penlow?”

Isabel glanced with a smile at Nora, who replied for her:

“You're staying with us till we go back to London, of course, Isabel. Isn't she, Father?”

“I hope so,” said Dr. Browning heartily. “You certainly can't do justice to our beautiful county in less than a month, Isabel.”

“I wish I could stay till school opens,” returned Isabel sweetly. “But I'm afraid I'll have to go after ten days. I promised my aunt to spend part of the holiday with her. You see, I'm all the family she's got, and she gets bored when I'm away.”

“In that case,” said Dr. Browning, looking approvingly at this exemplary niece, “we mustn't press you, I suppose, though we're sorry for our own sakes that your aunt has such a thoughtful niece.”

Beaming approval at Isabel and pleasure in his own verbal felicity, he retired once more behind the “Flora of South Wales” propped against the sugar basin.

“Is your aunt staying in London?” asked Nora.

“Yes,” replied Isabel. “She's enjoying the wild mountain scenery of our native Notting Hill. When I go back we shall probably go away together somewhere for a week. But don't let's talk about going back, yet. I've only just begun to realize what you give up, Nora, in the pursuit of Art with a capital A. If I had the choice between Radnorshire and the R.C.A. I should say give me Radnorshire.”

“No, you wouldn't, my dear. Not if you wanted to earn your living decorating the hoardings,” replied Nora, and privately wondered how long Isabel would really be able to endure the monotony of life in a small country town. Isabel's transparent little insincerities amused Nora, and were hardly even intended to deceive. They were a habit, like smoking or biting the nails.

Felix shot at Isabel a look of tender approval; he deeply loved his county, although his business kept him away from it for forty-eight weeks in the year. Glancing from his cousin Charles to the window, where the great hills stood far and golden on the horizon, he wondered what difference his cousin's advent would make to life at Rhyllan Hall, which had been so idyllic. Changes were inevitable, for the new baronet bore little resemblance to his late father, and a respect for tradition did not appear to be one of his outstanding qualities. A gentle, learned old man Sir Evan had been, a permanent invalid, and well content to leave the management of his estate in the capable hands of his brother Morris, Felix's father. Felix had received a letter from his father a few days before he started from London, a melancholy letter hinting at drastic changes.

“If poor Evan could have seen what fifteen years in Canada have made of his son, I don't think, he would have been so anxious to trace him before he died. I can only be thankful that the poor old chap was spared a sight of his heir. He was a bit of a young waster before he emigrated, as of course you know, but we all hoped that the colonial life would have made a man of him. So it has, I suppose many people would think. My dear Felix, your cousin is a coarse, ill-humoured lout, and fond as l am of Rhyllan, I don't intend to endure his company very much longer. This state of affairs cannot go on. In the six weeks since he came here he has already shot his sister's favourite dog, turned the head of one of the housemaids, and sacked old Letbe on the most puerile excuse. He has also gone to the trouble of being exceedingly rude to poor old Clino, practically telling him that the sooner he takes himself off from Rhyllan the better. Poor Clino! I don't know what he will do. He is too old to hope to get fresh employment. I won't trust myself to write any more. You will see for yourself. I understand that you have invited him to join you and the Brownings at Worcester, when you cycle up for the holidays. I shall be glad of a few days to myself in which to think over the future, but I am afraid you will regret your invitation.”

Recalling the phrases of this letter, which now lay in his pocket-book, Felix smiled to himself, half ruefully, half with amusement. His father had evidently written in a white heat of anger, and was probably by now regretting his strong language. A man of wrath, his father, but too impulsive and generous to make a good hater. Felix, who had been observing his new cousin closely for three days, could not see cause for quite such a bitter jeremiad. Charles was not the traditional young English squire, but one could scarcely expect a Colonial to take up such a position gracefully. He would learn in time what he could and could not do in his new state of life; probably his baronetcy had gone temporarily to his head. Certainly he seemed a friendly, an almost embarrassingly friendly, soul.

Thus Felix Price, trying conscientiously to be just to the cousin he instinctively disliked; wincing at the close proximity of that cousin's close-cropped head to Isabel's silky red-gold hair.

“Could we have some more hot water, please?”

The pale, colourless girl took the jug from the tray and asked anxiously:

“Was the eggs boiled all right?”

“Oh, yes, quite,” said Nora with amiable mendacity. Meeting her brother's astounded and reproachful eye, she added sweetly:“A tiny bit hard, perhaps. But it didn't matter.”

The girl looked relieved.

“I was so afraid they'd be hard as rocks, and after you asking for them soft-boiled, I didn't hardly like to bring them in. I'd just put them on to boil and taken a look at the clock, when I saw a man in the yard, going towards the orchard.” She paused, caressing the warm jug and looking at Nora with large, worried eyes. “He had a look as if he didn't ought to be there. And we gets so many apples stolen, the orchard being a bit out of the way from the house, I thought I'd just run out and see as he was up to no harm. I couldn't see him in the yard, and when I went to the orchard gate and looked over, he weren't there, so I had just a look round, forgetting about the eggs, and then I thought: He'll have gone round the house to the front, I expect. So I goes round the house, but I couldn't see him nowhere, and then I remembers the eggs and runs in. And when I looks at the clock and sees the eggs've bin on nine minutes, I thinks: They'll be hard-boiled, I expect.”

“You were right,” said Lion solemnly. “An egg should be boiled three and a quarter minutes. But never mind. We'll say no more about it.”

“Thank you, sir,” murmured the girl, looking apprehensively at what she afterwards described to her father as “the most old-fashionedest young boy ever I saw.” She was about to depart when Lion added:

“Could you tell me something? I do so want to know why this place is called the Tram Inn. Is Tram a Welsh word or something?”

“Welsh?” repeated the girl, staring at him. “Not as I know, sir. I expect it's called the Tram because it used to be called the Crown a long while ago, only the licence was took away, but that was long afore we come here. And then when old Mr. Lloyd, that was here before us and died in the place, took out a licence again, I expect it was called the Tram owing to there being a Crown at Rodland, a mile away on the main road.”

“I see,” said Lion, adopting the kind, brisk manner of an examiner with a well-meaning but rather backward pupil. “That's why it isn't called the Crown. Now could you tell me why it is called the Tram, instead of the Pig and Whistle, or the Fox and Geese, or the Rumtifoo Arms?”

“I never heard of an inn with a name like that last, sir,” murmured the girl with a puzzled air. She added pensively: “I expect it's called the Tram because of the quarry.”

There was a dazed pause.

“I see,” said Lion after a moment, his face clearing. “There's a tramway somewhere about to fetch the slate from the quarry. Oh, yes! I see, thank you very much. I was thinking of those large, top-heavy things that go shrieking about the towns. Is the quarry near here?”

“Just across those fields,” said the girl, pointing through the front window. “But it isn't used now, nor hasn't been since I dunno when. Some of the lines from the quarry to where the slate-house used to be is still there. . .”

“How near is this quarry? I think I'll stroll over and have a look at it after tea. Then I can put it on my map to explain the inn.”

“Not more than seven minutes' walk, sir. Just across the field over the road and a bit of common ground. You can see the fence around the top as soon's you get into the field. They're talking of putting up a new one, for, a great piece of the old was blown down in the storms last spring, and it isn't really safe, with children about on the common. But you'll be wanting your hot water, miss.”

She vanished, and Lion rose from the table and strapped his pedometer on to his ankle.

“I think I'll just go across to the quarry while you people finish drinking and smoking,” announced this enthusiast. “Anybody coming with me?”