It was the Assistant Commissioner at the Yard. Troy listened to him with a hammer knocking at her throat. He thought, he said with arch obscurity, that she might enjoy a run up to London on Monday. If she stayed the night, the Yard might have something of interest to show her on Tuesday morning. A police car would be coming in by way of Ancreton Halt early on Monday and would be delighted to give her a lift. “Thank you,” said Troy in an unrecognisable voice. “Yes, I see. Yes, of course. Yes, very exciting. Thank you.”

She fled to her room, realising as she sat breathless on her bed that she had run like a madwoman up three flights of stairs. “It’s as well,” she thought, “that the portrait’s finished. In this frame of mind I’d be lucky if I reached Panty’s form.”

She began distractedly to imagine their meeting. “But I can’t see his face,” she thought in a panic. “I can’t remember his voice. I’ve forgotten my husband.”

She felt by turns an unreasonable urge for activity and a sense of helpless inertia. Ridiculous incidents from the Ancred repertoire flashed up in her mind. “I must remember to tell him that,” she would think, and then wonder if, after all, the Ancreds in retrospect would sound funny. She remembered with a jolt that she must let Katti Bostock know about Tuesday. They had arranged for Alleyn’s old servant to go to London and open the flat.

“I should have done it at once,” she cried, and returned downstairs. While she waited, fuming, in a little telephone-room near the front doors, for her call to go through, she heard wheels on the drive, the sound of voices, and finally the unmistakable rumpus of arrival in the hall. A charming voice called gaily: “Milly, where are you? Come down. It’s Dessy and Thomas and me. Dessy found a Colonel, and the Colonel had a car, and we’ve all arrived together.”

“Jenetta!” Millamant’s disembodied voice floated down from the gallery. Still more distantly Pauline’s echoed her: “Jenetta!”

Was there an overtone of disapproval, not quite of dismay, in this greeting, Troy wondered, as she quietly shut the door?

ii

Jenetta, the Hon. Mrs. Claude Ancred, unlike Millamant, had caught none of the overtones of her relations-in-law. She was a nice-looking woman, with a gay voice, good clothes, an intelligent face, and an air of quietly enjoying herself. Her conversation was unstressed and crisp. If she sensed internecine warfare she gave no hint of doing so, and seemed to be equally pleased with, and equally remote from, each member of that unlikely clan.

Desdemona, on the other hand, was, of all the Ancreds after Sir Henry, most obviously of the theatre. She was startlingly good-looking, of voluptuous build, and had a warm ringing voice that seemed to be perpetually uttering important lines of climax from a West-End success. She ought really, Troy thought, to be surrounded by attendant figures: a secretary, an author, an agent, perhaps a doting producer. She had an aura of richness and warmth, and a knack of causing everybody else to subscribe to the larger-than-life atmosphere in which she herself moved so easily. Her Colonel, after a drink, drove away to his lawful destination, with Dessy’s magnificent thanks no doubt ringing in his ears. Troy, emerging from the telephone-room, found herself confronted by the new arrivals. She was glad to see Thomas: already she thought of him as “old Thomas”, with his crest of faded hair and his bland smile. “Oh, hallo,” he said, blinking at her, “so here you are! I hope your carbuncle is better.”

“It’s gone,” said Troy.

“We’re all talking about Papa’s engagement,” said Thomas. “This is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Claude Ancred, and this is my sister, Desdemona. Milly and Pauline are seeing about rooms. Have you painted a nice picture?”

“Not bad. Are you producing a nice play?”

“It’s quite good, thank you,” said Thomas primly. “Darling Tommy,” said Desdemona, “how can it be quite good with that woman? What were you thinking about when you cast it?”

“Well, Dessy, I told the management you wanted the part.”

“I didn’t want it. I could play it, but I didn’t want it, thank you.”

“Then everybody ought to be pleased,” said Thomas mildly. “I suppose, Jenetta,” he continued, “you are anxious to see Fenella and Paul. Papa’s engagement has rather swamped theirs, you may feel. Are you as angry as he is about them?”

“I’m not a bit angry,” she said, catching Troy’s eye and smiling at her. “I’m fond of Paul and want to talk to him.”

“That’s all very nice,” said Dessy restlessly, “but Milly says it was Paul and Fenella who exploded the bomb.”

“Oh, well,” said Thomas comfortably, “I expect it would have gone off anyway. Did you know Mr. Rattisbon has been sent for to make a new Will? I suppose Papa’ll tell us all about it at the Birthday Dinner to-morrow. Do you expect to be cut out this time, Dessy?”

“My dear,” cried his sister, sinking magnificently into the sofa and laying her arms along the back of it, “I’ve said so often exactly what I think of the Orrincourt that he can’t possibly do anything else. I don’t give a damn, Tommy. If Papa expects me to purr round congratulating them, he’s never been more mistaken. I can’t do it. It’s been a hideous shock to me. It hurts me, here” she added, beating a white fist on her striking bosom. “All my respect, my love, my ideal—shattered.” She flashed her eyes at her sister-in-law. “You think I exaggerate, Jen. You’re lucky. You’re not easily upset.”

“Well,” said Jenetta lightly, “I’ve yet to meet Miss Orrincourt.”

“He’s not your father,” Dessy pointed out with emotion.

“No more he is,” she agreed.

“T’uh!” said Dessy bitterly.

This conversation was interrupted by Fenella, who ran downstairs, flew across the hall, and, with an inarticulate cry, flung herself into her mother’s arms.

“Now, then,” said Jenetta softly, holding her daughter for a moment, “no high strikes.”

“Mummy, you’re not furious! Say you’re not furious?”

“Do I look furious, you goat? Where’s Paul?”

“In the library. Will you come? Mummy, you’re Heaven. You’re an angel.”

“Do pipe down, darling. And what about Aunt Dessy and Uncle Thomas?”

Fenella turned to greet them. Thomas kissed her carefully. “I hope you’ll be happy,” he said. “It ought to be all right, really. I looked up genetics in a medical encyclopedia after I read the announcement. The chap said the issue of first cousins was generally quite normal, unless there was any marked insanity in the family which was common to both.”

“Tommy!” said his sister. “Honestly, you are!”

“Well,” said Jenetta Ancred, “with that assurance to fortify us, Fen, suppose you take me to see Paul.”

They went off together. Millamant and Pauline came downstairs. “Such a nuisance,” Millamant was saying, “I really don’t quite know how to arrange it.”

“If you’re talking about rooms, Milly,” said Desdemona, “I tell you flatly that unless something has been done about the rats I won’t go into Bracegirdle.”

“Well, but Dessy—” Pauline began.

“Has something been done about the rats?”

“Barker,” said Millamant unhappily, “has lost the arsenic. I think he did Miss Orrincourt’s rooms some time ago, and after that the tin disappeared.”

“Good God!” said Thomas quietly.

“Pity he didn’t put some in her tooth-glass,” said Desdemona vindictively.

“What about Ellen Terry?”

“I was putting Jenetta into Terry.”

“Come into Bernhardt with me, Dess,” Pauline suggested richly. “I’d love to have you. We can talk. Let’s.”

“The only thing against that,” said Millamant, knitting her brows, “is that since Papa had all those large Jacobean pieces put in Bernhardt, there really isn’t anywhere for a second bed. I can put one in my room, Desdemona. I wondered if you’d mind… Lady Bancroft, you know. Quite spacious and plenty of hanging room.”