The Unfinished Clue
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Authors: Georgette Heyer
The Unfinished Clue
By
Georgette Heyer
Contents
Eleven people wished him dead, but which one did Billington-Smith encounter on that fateful morning stroll?
Chapter One
It was apparent to Miss Fawcett within one minute of her arrival at the Grange that her host was not in the best of tempers. He met her in the hall, not, she believed, of design, and favoured her with a nod. "It's you, is it?" he said ungraciously. "Somewhat unexpected, this visit, I must say. Hope you had a good journey."
Miss Fawcett was a young lady not easily discouraged.
Moreover, she had been General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith's sister-in-law for five years, and cherished no illusions about him. She shook him briskly by the hand, and replied with perfect equanimity: "You know quite well it's impossible to have a good journey on this rotten line, Arthur. And how you can say I'm unexpected when I sent an expensive telegram to prepare you both for the joy in store for you -"
The General's scowl deepened. "Short notice, you'll admit!" he said. "I suppose you've brought a ridiculous quantity of baggage?"
"Something tells me," remarked Miss Fawcett intelligently, "that I'm not really welcome."
"Oh, I've no doubt Fay's delighted!" replied the general, with a short laugh. "Though where she is I don't know. She packs the house with visitors, but can't trouble herself to be here when they arrive."
At this moment his erring wife came down the stairs. "Oh, darling!" she said in a voice that held a plaintive note. "How lovely to see you! How are you?"
Miss Fawcett embraced her warmly. "Hullo, Fay! Why didn't you send a wire to put me off? Arthur's all upset about it."
The large, rather strained blue eyes flew apprehensively to the General's face. "Oh, no!" Fay said. "Arthur doesn't mind having you, Dinah. Do you, Arthur dear?"
"Oh, not at all!" said the General. "You'd better take her up to her room instead of keeping her standing about in the hall."
"Yes, of course," Fay said. "You'd like to come up, wouldn't you, Dinah?"
This was said a trifle beseechingly, and Miss Fawcett, who wore all the signs of one about to do battle, relaxed, and agreed that she would like to go up to her room.
"I've had to put you in the little west room," Fay told her. "I knew you wouldn't mind. We're - we're rather full up."
"Yes, so I gathered," said Dinah, rounding the bend of the staircase. "It seems to be worrying little Arthur."
She had a clear, carrying voice. Fay glanced quickly down the stairs. "Dinah, please!" she begged.
Dinah threw her a glance of slightly scornful affection, and replied incorrigibly: "All right, but it's putting an awful strain on me."
They ascended the remaining stairs in silence, but as soon as the door of the west room was securely shut on them Dinah demanded to know what was the matter with Arthur.
Lady Billington- Smith sank down on to a chair, and put up one of her thin hands to her head, pushing the pale gold hair off her brow in a nervous gesture peculiar to her. "Something dreadful has happened," she answered. "It has upset Arthur terribly."
"Ha!" said Dinah, casting her hat on to the bed. "The cook burned his Sacred Porridge, I suppose."
A slight smile flickered across her sister's face. "Oh, don't be an ass, Dinah, for heaven's sake!"
"Well, that was it the last time I came," said Dinah, hunting in her dressing-case for a comb.
"This is much worse. It's Geoffrey."
"Dipped again?" inquired Miss Fawcett sympathetically.
"Worse than that, even. He's engaged to be married. At least, he says he is."
Miss Fawcett combed out her short brown locks, and began to powder her nose. "Barmaid, or tobacconist's assistant?" she asked, as one versed in the follies of young men.
"Neither. She's a cabaret dancer."
Miss Fawcett gave a crow of laughter. "Oh, no! No cabaret dancer would fall for Geoffrey."
"Well, this one has. And it isn't even as though she's English. She's a Mexican." Lady Billington-Smith allowed this piece of information to sink in, and followed it up by a final announcement. "And he's bringing her here to spend the week-end."
"But how rich! how luscious!" exclaimed Dinah. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Has Geoffrey gone mad, do you suppose? Who is the girl?"
"Her name," replied Fay, "is Lola de Silva. It sounds awfully improbable, doesn't it? It - it put Arthur off right away. I've had rather a dreadful time with him, because Geoffrey wrote to me, not to his father, and - and asked me to break the news. I'm afraid Geoffrey's quite infatuated. He seems to think Arthur has only to see this Lola person and he'll fall for her."
"The joys of being a stepmother," commented Dinah. "Is that what Arthur meant when he said that you'd packed the house full of people?"
"Partly, I expect. But he's blaming me for having the Hallidays now, just because he'd rather they weren't here when Geoffrey comes."
"And who," asked Dinah, "are the Hallidays? Kindly enumerate."
"People we met in the south of France," replied Fay, a little guardedly. "He was knocked up in the War, and she's - she's rather pretty, and smart." She raised her eyes to her sister's face and coloured faintly. "Well, you're bound to see it. Arthur flirts with her. That's why they're here."
"More fool you to invite them," said Dinah sternly. "You don't understand. Arthur made me." Dinah snorted.
"It's no good, Dinah. You're the fighting sort, and I'm not. Anyway, it doesn't matter. He doesn't mean anything serious, and if it keeps him in a good temper I don't mind."
"Anyone else here?" asked Dinah, abandoning a hopeless topic.
"Yes, Francis. He arrived in time for lunch."
Dinah grimaced. "If I'd known he was going to be here, I wouldn't have come. What's he turned up for? To touch dear Uncle Arthur? That'll make it a very merry party. Anyone else?"
Fay got up, apparently to rearrange the flowers that stood in a vase on the dressing-table. "Only Stephen Guest," she replied. "He said he'd be here in time for tea."
"Oh!" said Dinah.
It was a disinterested monosyllable, but it did not seem to satisfy Fay. She looked up into the mirror, and met her sister's frank gaze. "There's no reason why he shouldn't come here," she said. "After all, he's a connection of Arthur's, isn't he?"
Dinah dug her hands into the pockets of her severely tailored coat. "Who said he shouldn't come?"
"I know what you think."
"I think you're a blighted ass. Always did."
Fay tried to remember that she was five years older than Dinah, and failed rather miserably. Her lip trembled; she sank back into the chair. "It's no use, Dinah. You don't know what it's like, being married to Arthur. You don't know what it is to care for anyone, and never to see them. It isn't as though Stephen and I as though we… I mean, I wouldn't, and — and of course he wouldn't, but we can at least see each other sometimes."
"Is Arthur being noisome?" inquired Dinah, not much moved by this incoherent speech.
"I suppose he's no worse than usual," Fay replied listlessly. "It's me. My nerves are all to pieces. Probably there are some women who wouldn't mind his temper and the way he blusters and the things he says. You wouldn't. You'd shout back."
"No. Delicately nurtured female. Wouldn't have married him," said Dinah decidedly.
"I was a fool. Only I thought he was different."
"Personally, I didn't. We knew his first wife walked out on him, and she must have had some reason."
"Oh, she ran off with another man. It wasn't anything to do with Arthur's temper; or, anyway, if it was, I couldn't have guessed that. Only I was too young. I ought never to have been allowed to marry him. If mother had had any sense by the way, where is mother? I haven't heard from her for ages."
Dinah selected a cigarette from her case and lit it. "At home, trying a new treatment."
"Oh, lord!" sighed Fay, momentarily diverted. "I thought she'd taken up Christian Science?"
"It didn't last. She read a bit in some evening paper about proper dieting, and she's gone all lettucey. Nuts, too. That's why I'm here. There's a filthy beverage yob drink for breakfast instead of coffee. I thought not, so I cleared out."
"Well, I do hope she won't make herself ill," said Fay.
"Not she. By the time I get back she'll have got religion, or something, and we shall have grace before meals, but not before lettuces, so to speak. As for her having sense enough to stop you marrying Arthur - well, pull yourself together, Fay!"
Fay smiled rather wanly. "I know. Now, say I made my bed and must lie on it."
"I shouldn't think anyone could possibly lie on any bed you ever made, ducky. Cut loose." "Cut loose?"
Dinah blew smoke rings, one through the other. "Isn't Barkis willing? I thought he was frightfully willing."
Fay coloured. "Yes, but I couldn't. You don't know what you're talking about. I'd sooner die than face the scandal, and the Divorce Court, and all that hatefulness."
"All right," said Dinah equably. "Have it your own way. Do we have tea in this well-run establishment, or are you slimming?"
Fay cast a startled glance at the clock, and sprang up. "Heaven's, it's past four! I must fly or Arthur will have a fit. He can't bear unpunctuality. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," said Dinah, "but I shall dawdle for ten minutes for the good of Arthur's soul."
She began in a leisurely way, as soon as her sister had left the room, to unpack her dressing-case, and it was quite a quarter of an hour later when she at last prepared to join the tea-party on the terrace. A slight frown puckered her brow. It did not seem to her that the weekend promised well. Obviously Fay was overwrought and in no condition to manage an ill-assorted gathering; while Arthur, who belonged to that class of soldier who believes that much is accomplished by rudeness, was already in a thunderous mood.
Miss Fawcett had never, even at the impressionable age oftwenty, succumbed to the General's personality. He was a well-preserved man, with handsome features and hair only slightly grizzled above the temples. He was large, rich, and masterful, and when he chose, he could make himself extremely pleasant. He was convinced of the inferiority of the female, and his way of laughing indulgrently at the foibles of the fair sex induced Fay to imagine that in him she had found the wise, omnipotent hero usually to be discovered only in the pages of romance.
Fay was helpless and malleable, as pretty as a picture drawn in soft pastels, and the General asked her to marry him. He had retired from the army; he wanted to settle down in England. A wife was clearly necessary. Discrepancy of age did not weigh with him: he liked women to be young and pretty and inexperienced.
Nor did it weigh with Mrs. Fawcett. She said that the General was such a distinguished man, and she was quite sure he would be the ideal husband for her little Fay. And since Fay was also sure of it, and neither she nor her mother was likely to pay any heed to the indignant protests of twenty-year-old Dinah, the marriage took place with a good deal of pomp and ceremony, and Fay departed with her Arthur for a honeymoon on the Italian Riviera. She was to discover during the years that followed that a man who had bullied one woman into deserting him and ridden rough-shod over all his inferiors for quite twenty years, was not likely to change his ways thus late in life.
Between him and his sister-in-law there raged a guerrilla warfare which both enjoyed. They disliked one another with equal cordiality. The General said that Dinah was an impudent hussy. Whereas Dinah drove him to the verge of an apoplexy by remarking with an air of naive wonder: "What odd expressions people of your generation do use! I remember my grandfather…'
The explosion which had cut short this reminiscence had made Fay wince and shrink into herself; it produced in Dinah nothing but a kind of bright-eyed interest.
She was quite ready to spar with the General, if he felt like that, which apparently he did, but it sounded, from what Fay had told her, that there would be trouble enough during the week-end already. She strolled downstairs to tea, whistling softly to herself, still dressed in the severely tailored grey flannel coat and skirt which so admirably became her.
The terrace was at the back of the house, facing south, find was reached either by way of the drawing-room or the billiard-room, both of which apartments had several long windows opening on to it. Fay was seated behind a table which seemed almost too frail to support its expensive and ponderous load of silver ware. An enormous silver tray quite covered it, and the embossed teapot, which Fay had picked up, shook in her weak bold.