Copyright

Harper an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000

Black Coffee™ is a trade mark of Agatha Christie Limited and Agatha Christie® and the Agatha Christie Signature are registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere. Copyright © 2000 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.

www.agathachristie.com

Cover by crushed.co.uk © HarperCollins/Agatha Christie Ltd 2017

Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008196653

Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780007423064

Version: 2017-03-30

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Also by Agatha Christie

About the Publisher

FOREWORD

It was almost certainly because of her dissatisfaction with Alibi, someone else’s stage adaption in 1928 of her novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, that my grandmother Agatha Christie decided to write a play of her own, which is something she had not previously attempted. Black Coffee, featuring her favourite detective, Hercule Poirot, was finished by the summer of 1929. But when Agatha showed it to her agent, he advised her not to bother submitting it to any theatre as, in his opinion, it was not good enough to be staged. Fortunately, a friend who was connected with theatrical management persuaded her to ignore such a negative advice, and the play was accepted for production in 1930 at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage, London.

Black Coffee was favourably received, and in April of the following year transferred to the West End, where it had a successful run of several months at the St Martin’s Theatre (where a later Christie play, The Mousetrap, began a much longer run in 1952). In 1930, Poirot had been played by a popular actor of the time, Francis L. Sullivan, with John Boxer as his associate Captain Hastings; Joyce Bland played Lucia Amory, and Shakespearian actor Donald Wolfit was Dr Carelli. In the West End production, Francis L. Sullivan was still Poirot, but Hastings was now played by Roland Culver, and Dr Carelli by Dino Galvani.

Some months later, Black Coffee was filmed in England at the Twickenham Studios, directed by Leslie Hiscott and starring Austin Trevor, who had already played Poirot in the film version of Alibi. The play remained a favourite with repertory companies for some years, and in 1956 Charles Osborne, then earning his living as a young actor, found himself playing Dr Carelli in Black Coffee in a summer season at Tunbridge Wells.

Nearly forty years later, after he had in the intervening years not only become a world authority on opera but had also written a splendid book entitled The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, Osborne remembered the play. He suggested to Agatha Christie Limited (who control the copyright of her works) that, twenty years after the author’s death, it would be marvellous to give the world a new Agatha Christie crime novel. We agreed enthusiastically, and the result is this Hercule Poirot murder mystery, which to me reads like authentic, vintage Christie. I feel sure Agatha would be proud to have written it.

Mathew Prichard

CHAPTER 1

Hercule Poirot sat at breakfast in his small but agreeably cosy flat in Whitehall Mansions. He had enjoyed his brioche and his cup of hot chocolate. Unusually, for he was a creature of habit and rarely varied his breakfast routine, he had asked his valet, George, to make him a second cup of chocolate. While he was awaiting it, he glanced again at the morning’s post which lay on his breakfast table.

Meticulously tidy as always, he had placed the discarded envelopes in one neat pile. They had been opened very carefully, with the paper-knife in the form of a miniature sword which his old friend Hastings had given him for a birthday many years ago. A second pile contained those communications he found of no interest—circulars, mostly—which in a moment he would ask George to dispose of. The third pile consisted of those letters which would require an answer of some kind, or at least an acknowledgement. These would be dealt with after breakfast, and in any case not before ten o’clock. Poirot thought it not quite professional to begin a routine working day before ten. When he was on a case—ah, well, of course that was different. He remembered that once he and Hastings had set out well before dawn in order to—

But, no, Poirot did not want his thoughts to dwell on the past. The happy past. Their last case, involving an international crime organization known as ‘The Big Four’, had been brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and Hastings had returned to the Argentine, his wife and his ranch. Though his old friend was temporarily back in London on business connected with the ranch, it was highly unlikely that Poirot and he would find themselves working together again to solve a crime. Was that why Hercule Poirot was feeling restless on this fine spring morning in May 1934? Ostensibly retired, he had been lured out of that retirement more than once when an especially interesting problem had been presented to him. He had enjoyed being on the scent again, with Hastings by his side to act as a kind of sounding board for his ideas and theories. But nothing of professional interest had presented itself to Poirot for several months. Were there no imaginative crimes and criminals any more? Was it all violence and brutality, the kind of sordid murder or robbery which it was beneath his, Poirot’s, dignity to investigate?

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival, silently at his elbow, of George with that second and welcome cup of chocolate. Welcome not only because Poirot would enjoy the rich, sweet taste, but also because it would enable him to postpone, for a few more minutes, the realization that the day, a fine sunny morning, stretched before him with nothing more exciting in prospect than a constitutional in the park and a walk through Mayfair to his favourite restaurant in Soho where he would lunch alone on—what, now?—perhaps a little pâté to begin, and then the sole bonne femme, followed by—

He became aware that George, having placed the chocolate on the table, was addressing him. The impeccable and imperturbable George, an intensely English, rather wooden-faced individual, had been with Poirot for some time now, and was all that he wished in the way of a valet. Completely incurious, and extraordinarily reluctant to express a personal opinion on any subject, George was a mine of information about the English aristocracy, and as fanatically neat as the great detective himself. Poirot had more than once said to him, ‘You press admirably the trousers, George, but the imagination, you possess it not.’ Imagination, however, Hercule Poirot possessed in abundance. The ability to press a pair of trousers properly was, in his opinion, a rare accomplishment. Yes, he was indeed fortunate in having George to look after him.

‘—and so I took the liberty, sir, of promising that you would return the call this morning,’ George was saying.

‘I do beg your pardon, my dear George,’ replied Poirot. ‘My attention was wandering. Someone has telephoned, you say?’

‘Yes, sir. It was last night, sir, while you were out at the theatre with Mrs Oliver. I had retired to bed before you arrived home, and thought it unnecessary to leave a message for you at that late hour.’

‘Who was it who called?’

‘The gentleman said he was Sir Claud Amory, sir. He left his telephone number, which would appear to be somewhere in Surrey. The matter, he said, was a somewhat delicate one, and when you rang you were not to give your name to anyone else, but were to insist on speaking to Sir Claud himself.’

‘Thank you, George. Leave the telephone number on my desk,’ said Poirot. ‘I shall ring Sir Claud after I have perused this morning’s Times. It is still a trifle early in the morning for telephoning, even on somewhat delicate matters.’

George bowed and departed, while Poirot slowly finished his cup of chocolate and then repaired to the balcony with that morning’s newspaper.

A few minutes later, The Times had been laid aside. The international news was, as usual, depressing. That terrible Hitler had turned the German courts into branches of the Nazi party, the Fascists had seized power in Bulgaria and, worst of all, in Poirot’s own country, Belgium, forty-two miners were feared dead after an explosion at a mine near Mons. The home news was little better. Despite the misgivings of officials, women competitors at Wimbledon were to be allowed to wear shorts this summer. Nor was there much comfort in the obituaries, for people Poirot’s age and younger seemed intent on dying.

His newspaper abandoned, Poirot lay back in his comfortable wicker chair, his feet on a small stool. Sir Claud Amory, he thought to himself. The name struck a chord, surely? He had heard it somewhere. Yes, this Sir Claud was well-known in some sphere or other. But what was it? Was he a politician? A barrister? A retired civil servant? Sir Claud Amory. Amory.

The balcony faced the morning sun, and Poirot found it warm enough to bask in for a moment or two. Soon it would become too warm for him, for he was no sun-worshipper. ‘When the sun drives me inside,’ he mused, ‘then I will exert myself and consult the Who’s Who. If this Sir Claud is a person of some distinction, he will surely be included in that so admirable volume. If he is not—?’ The little detective gave an expressive shrug of his shoulders. An inveterate snob, he was already predisposed in Sir Claud’s favour by virtue of his title. If he were to be found in Who’s Who, a volume in which the details of Poirot’s own career could also be discovered, then perhaps this Sir Claud was someone with a valid claim on his, Hercule Poirot’s, time and attention.

A quickening of curiosity and a sudden cool breeze combined to send Poirot indoors. Entering his library, he went to a shelf of reference books and took down the thick red volume whose title, Who’s Who, was embossed in gold on its spine. Turning the pages, he came to the entry he sought, and read aloud.

AMORY, Sir Claud (Herbert); Kt. 1927; b. 24 Nov. 1878. m. 1907, Helen Graham (d. 1929); one s. Educ: Weymouth Gram. Sch.; King’s Coll., London. Research Physicist GEC Laboratories, 1905; RAE Farnborough (Radio Dept.), 1916; Air Min. Research Establishment, Swanage, 1921; demonstrated a new Principle for accelerating particles: the travelling wave linear accelerator, 1924. Awarded Monroe Medal of Physical Soc. Publications: papers in learned journals. Address: Abbot’s Cleve, nr. Market Cleve, Surrey. T: Market Cleve 314. Club: Athenaeum.

‘Ah, yes,’ Poirot mused. ‘The famous scientist.’ He remembered a conversation he had had some months previously with a member of His Majesty’s government, after Poirot had retrieved some missing documents whose contents could have proved embarrassing to the government. They had talked of security, and the politician had admitted that security measures in general were not sufficiently stringent. ‘For instance,’ he had said, ‘what Sir Claud Amory is working on now is of such fantastic importance in any future war—but he refuses to work under laboratory conditions where he and his invention can be properly guarded. Insists on working alone at his house in the country. No security at all. Frightening.’

‘I wonder,’ Poirot thought to himself as he replaced Who’s Who on the bookshelf, ‘I wonder—can Sir Claud want to engage Hercule Poirot to be a tired old watchdog? The inventions of war, the secret weapons, they are not for me. If Sir Claud—’

The telephone in the next room rang, and Poirot could hear George answering it. A moment later, the valet appeared. ‘It’s Sir Claud Amory again, sir,’ he said.

Poirot went to the phone. ‘’Allo. It is Hercule Poirot who speaks,’ he announced into the mouthpiece.

‘Poirot? We’ve not met, though we have acquaintances in common. My name is Amory, Claud Amory—’

‘I have heard of you, of course, Sir Claud,’ Poirot responded.

‘Look here, Poirot. I’ve got a devilishly tricky problem on my hands. Or rather, I might have. I can’t be certain. I’ve been working on a formula to bombard the atom—I won’t go into details, but the Ministry of Defence regards it as of the utmost importance. My work is now complete, and I’ve produced a formula from which a new and deadly explosive can be made. I have reason to suspect that a member of my household is attempting to steal the formula. I can’t say any more now, but I should be greatly obliged if you would come down to Abbot’s Cleve for the weekend, as my house-guest. I want you to take the formula back with you to London, and hand it over to a certain person at the Ministry. There are good reasons why a Ministry courier can’t do the job. I need someone who is ostensibly an unobtrusive, unscientific member of the public but who is also astute enough—’

Sir Claud talked on. Hercule Poirot, glancing across at the reflection in the mirror of his bald, egg-shaped head and his elaborately waxed moustache, told himself that he had never before, in a long career, been considered unobtrusive, nor did he so consider himself. But a weekend in the country and a chance to meet the distinguished scientist could be agreeable, as, no doubt, could the suitably expressed thanks of a grateful government—and merely for carrying in his pocket from Surrey to Whitehall an obscure, if deadly, scientific formula.

‘I shall be delighted to oblige you, my dear Sir Claud,’ he interrupted. ‘I shall arrange to arrive on Saturday afternoon, if that is convenient to you, and return to London with whatever you wish me to take with me, on Monday morning. I look forward greatly to making your acquaintance.’

Curious, he thought, as he replaced the receiver. Foreign agents might well be interested in Sir Claud’s formula, but could it really be the case that someone in the scientist’s own household—? Ah well, doubtless more would be revealed during the course of the weekend.

‘George,’ he called, ‘please take my heavy tweed suit and my dinner jacket and trousers to the cleaners. I must have them back by Friday, as I am going to the Country for the Weekend.’ He made it sound like the Steppes of Central Asia and for a lifetime.

Then, turning to the phone, he dialled a number and waited for a few moments before speaking. ‘My dear Hastings,’ he began, ‘would you not like to have a few days away from your business concerns in London? Surrey is very pleasant at this time of the year …’

CHAPTER 2

Sir Claud Amory’s house, Abbot’s Cleve, stood just on the outskirts of the small town—or rather overgrown village—of Market Cleve, about twenty-five miles south-east of London. The house itself, a large but architecturally nondescript Victorian mansion, was set amid an attractive few acres of gently undulating countryside, here and there heavily wooded. The gravel drive, from the gatehouse up to the front door of Abbot’s Cleve, twisted its way through trees and dense shrubbery. A terrace ran along the back of the house, with a lawn sloping down to a somewhat neglected formal garden.

On the Friday evening two days after his telephone conversation with Hercule Poirot, Sir Claud sat in his study, a small but comfortably furnished room on the ground floor of the house, on the east side. Outside, the light was beginning to fade. Sir Claud’s butler, Tredwell, a tall, lugubrious-looking individual with an impeccably correct manner, had sounded the gong for dinner two or three minutes earlier, and no doubt the family was now assembling in the dining-room on the other side of the hall.

Sir Claud drummed on the desk with his fingers, his habit when forcing himself to a quick decision. A man in his fifties, of medium height and build, with greying hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, and eyes of a piercingly cold blue, he now wore an expression in which anxiety was mixed with puzzlement.

There was a discreet knock on the study door, and Tredwell appeared in the doorway. ‘Excuse me, Sir Claud. I wondered if perhaps you had not heard the gong—’

‘Yes, yes, Tredwell, that’s all right. Would you tell them I shall be in very shortly? Say I’m caught on the phone. In fact, I am about to make a quick phone call. You may as well begin serving.’

Tredwell withdrew silently, and Sir Claud, taking a deep breath, pulled the telephone towards himself. Extracting a small address-book from a drawer of his desk, he consulted it briefly and then picked up the receiver. He listened for a moment and then spoke.

‘This is Market Cleve three-one-four. I want you to get me a London number.’ He gave the number, then sat back, waiting. The fingers of his right hand began to drum nervously on the desk.

Several minutes later, Sir Claud Amory joined the dinner-party, taking his place at the head of the table around which the six others were already seated. On Sir Claud’s right sat his niece, Barbara Amory, with Richard, her cousin and the only son of Sir Claud, next to her. On Richard Amory’s right was a house-guest, Dr Carelli, an Italian. Continuing round, at the opposite end of the table to Sir Claud, sat Caroline Amory, his sister. A middle-aged spinster, she had run Sir Claud’s house for him ever since his wife died some years earlier. Edward Raynor, Sir Claud’s secretary, sat on Miss Amory’s right, with Lucia, Richard Amory’s wife, between him and the head of the household.

Dinner, on this occasion, was not at all festive. Caroline Amory made several attempts at small-talk with Dr Carelli, who answered her politely enough without offering much in the way of conversation himself. When she turned to address a remark to Edward Raynor, that normally polite and socially suave young man gave a nervous start, mumbled an apology and looked embarrassed. Sir Claud was as taciturn as he normally was at meal-times, or perhaps even more so. Richard Amory cast an occasional anxious glance across the table at his wife, Lucia. Barbara Amory alone seemed in good spirits, and made spasmodic light conversation with her Aunt Caroline.

It was while Tredwell was serving the dessert course that Sir Claud suddenly addressed the butler, speaking loudly enough for all at the dinner-table to hear his words.

‘Tredwell,’ he said, ‘would you ring Jackson’s garage in Market Cleve, and ask them to send a car and driver to the station to meet the eight-fifty from London? A gentleman who is visiting us after dinner will be coming by that train.’

‘Very well, Sir Claud,’ replied Tredwell as he left. He was barely out of the room when Lucia, with a murmured apology, got up abruptly from the table and hurried out, almost colliding with the butler as he was about to close the door behind him.

Crossing the hall, she hurried along the corridor and proceeded to the large room at the back of the house. The library—as it was generally called—served normally as a drawing-room as well. It was a comfortable room rather than an elegant one. French windows opened from it on to the terrace, and another door led to Sir Claud’s study. On the mantelpiece, above a large open fireplace, stood an old-fashioned clock and some ornaments, as well as a vase of spills for use in lighting the fire.

The library furniture consisted of a tall bookcase with a tin box on the top of it, a desk with a telephone on it, a stool, a small table with a gramophone and records, a settee, a coffee table, an occasional table with book-ends and books on it, two upright chairs, an arm-chair, and another table on which stood a plant in a brass pot. The furniture in general was old-fashioned, but not sufficiently old or distinguished to be admired as antique.

Lucia, a beautiful young woman of twenty-five, had luxuriant dark hair which flowed to her shoulders, and brown eyes which could flash excitingly but were now smouldering with a suppressed emotion not easy to define. She hesitated in the middle of the room, then crossed to the French windows and, parting the curtains slightly, looked out at the night. Uttering a barely audible sigh, she pressed her brow to the cool glass of the window, and stood lost in thought.

Miss Amory’s voice could be heard outside in the hall, calling, ‘Lucia—Lucia—where are you?’ A moment later, Miss Amory, a somewhat fussy elderly lady a few years older than her brother, entered the room. Going across to Lucia, she took the younger woman by the arm and propelled her towards the settee.

‘There, my dear. You sit down here,’ she said, pointing to a corner of the settee. ‘You’ll be all right in a minute or two.’

As she sat, Lucia gave a wan smile of gratitude to Caroline Amory. ‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed. ‘It’s passing already, in fact.’ Though she spoke English impeccably, perhaps too impeccably, an occasional inflection betrayed that English was not her native tongue.

‘I just came over all faint, that’s all,’ she continued. ‘How ridiculous of me. I’ve never done such a thing before. I can’t imagine why it should have happened. Please go back, Aunt Caroline. I shall be quite all right here.’ She took a handkerchief from her handbag, as Caroline Amory looked on solicitously. Dabbing at her eyes with it, she then returned the handkerchief to her bag, and smiled again. ‘I shall be quite all right,’ she repeated. ‘Really, I shall.’

Miss Amory looked unconvinced. ‘You’ve really not looked well, dear, all the evening, you know,’ she remarked, anxiously studying Lucia.

‘Haven’t I?’

‘No, indeed,’ replied Miss Amory. She sat on the settee, close to Lucia. ‘Perhaps you’ve caught a little chill, dear,’ she twittered anxiously. ‘Our English summers can be rather treacherous, you know. Not at all like the hot sun in Italy, which is what you’re more used to. So delightful, Italy, I always think.’

‘Italy,’ murmured Lucia with a faraway look in her eyes, as she placed her handbag beside her on the settee. ‘Italy—’

‘I know, my child. You must miss your own country badly. It must seem such a dreadful contrast—the weather for one thing, and the different customs. And we must seem such a cold lot. Now, Italians—’

‘No, never. I never miss Italy,’ cried Lucia, with a vehemence that surprised Miss Amory. ‘Never.’

‘Oh, come now, child, there’s no disgrace in feeling a little homesick for—’

‘Never!’ Lucia repeated. ‘I hate Italy. I always hated it. It is like heaven for me to be here in England with all you kind people. Absolute heaven!’

‘It’s really very sweet of you to say that, my dear,’ said Caroline Amory, ‘though I’m sure you’re only being polite. It’s true we’ve all tried to make you feel happy and at home here, but it would be only natural for you to yearn for Italy sometimes. And then, not having any mother—’

‘Please—please—’, Lucia interrupted her, ‘do not speak of my mother.’

‘No, of course not, dear, if you’d rather I didn’t. I didn’t mean to upset you. Shall I get you some smelling-salts? I’ve got some in my room.’

‘No, thank you,’ Lucia replied. ‘Really, I’m perfectly all right now.’

‘It’s no trouble at all, you know,’ Caroline Amory persisted. ‘I’ve got some very nice smelling-salts, a lovely pink colour, and in the most charming little bottle. And very pungent. Sal ammoniac, you know. Or is it spirits of salts? I can never remember. But anyway it’s not the one you clean the bath with.’

Lucia smiled gently, but made no reply. Miss Amory had risen, and apparently could not decide whether to go in search of smelling-salts or not. She moved indecisively to the back of the settee, and rearranged the cushions. ‘Yes, I think it must be a sudden chill,’ she continued. ‘You were looking the absolute picture of health this morning. Perhaps it was the excitement of seeing this Italian friend of yours, Dr Carelli? He turned up so suddenly and unexpectedly, didn’t he? It must have given you quite a shock.’

Lucia’s husband, Richard, had entered the library while Caroline Amory was speaking. Evidently Miss Amory did not notice him, for she could not understand why her words appeared to have upset Lucia, who leaned back, closed her eyes and shivered. ‘Oh, my dear, what is it?’ asked Miss Amory. ‘Are you coming over faint again?’

Richard Amory closed the door and approached the two women. A conventionally handsome young Englishman of about thirty, with sandy hair, he was of medium height, with a somewhat thick-set, muscular figure. ‘Do go and finish your dinner, Aunt Caroline,’ he said to Miss Amory. ‘Lucia will be all right with me. I’ll look after her.’

Miss Amory still appeared irresolute. ‘Oh, it’s you, Richard. Well, perhaps I’d better go back,’ she said, taking a reluctant step or two in the direction of the door leading to the hall. ‘You know how your father does hate a disturbance of any kind. And particularly with a guest here. It’s not as though it was someone who was a close friend of the family.’

She turned back to Lucia. ‘I was just saying, dear, wasn’t I, what a very strange thing it was that Dr Carelli should turn up in the way he did, with no idea that you were living in this part of the world. You simply ran into him in the village, and invited him here. It must have been a great surprise for you, my dear, mustn’t it?’

‘It was,’ replied Lucia.

‘The world really is such a very small place, I’ve always said so,’ Miss Amory continued. ‘Your friend is a very good-looking man, Lucia.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Foreign-looking, of course,’ Miss Amory conceded, ‘but distinctly handsome. And he speaks English very well.’

‘Yes, I suppose he does.’

Miss Amory seemed disinclined to let the topic go. ‘Did you really have no idea,’ she asked, ‘that he was in this part of the world?’

‘None whatsoever,’ replied Lucia emphatically.

Richard Amory had been watching his wife intently. Now he spoke again. ‘What a delightful surprise it must have been for you, Lucia,’ he said.

His wife looked up at him quickly, but made no reply. Miss Amory beamed. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she continued. ‘Did you know him well in Italy, my dear? Was he a great friend of yours? I suppose he must have been.’

There was a sudden bitterness in Lucia’s voice. ‘He was never a friend,’ she said.

‘Oh, I see. Merely an acquaintance. But he accepted your generous invitation to stay. I often think foreigners are inclined to be a little pushy. Oh, I don’t mean you, of course, dear—’ Miss Amory had the grace to pause and blush. ‘I mean, well, you’re half English in any case.’ She looked archly at her nephew, and continued, ‘In fact, she’s quite English now, isn’t she, Richard?’

Richard Amory did not respond to his aunt’s archness, but moved towards the door and opened it, as though in invitation to Miss Amory to return to the others.

‘Well,’ said that lady as she moved reluctantly to the door, ‘if you’re sure I can’t do anything more—’

‘No, no.’ Richard’s tone was as abrupt as his words, as he held the door open for her. With an uncertain gesture, and a last nervous smile at Lucia, Miss Amory left.

Emitting a sigh of relief, Richard shut the door after her, and came back to his wife. ‘Natter, natter, natter,’ he complained. ‘I thought she’d never go.’

‘She was only trying to be kind, Richard.’

‘Oh, I dare say she was. But she tries a damn sight too hard.’

‘I think she’s fond of me,’ murmured Lucia.

‘What? Oh, of course.’ Richard Amory’s tone was abstracted. He stood, observing his wife closely. For a few moments there was a constrained silence. Then, moving nearer to her, Richard looked down at Lucia. ‘You’re sure there’s nothing I can get you?’

Lucia looked up at him, forcing a smile. ‘Nothing, really, thank you, Richard. Do go back to the dining-room. I really am perfectly all right now.’

‘No,’ replied her husband. ‘I’ll stay with you.’

‘But I’d rather be alone.’

There was a pause. Then Richard spoke again, as he moved behind the settee. ‘Cushions all right? Would you like another one under your head?’

‘I am quite comfortable as I am,’ Lucia protested. ‘It would be nice to have some air, though. Could you open the window?’

Richard moved to the French windows and fumbled with the catch. ‘Damn!’ he exclaimed. ‘The old boy’s locked it with one of those patent catches of his. You can’t open it without the key.’

Lucia shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, well,’ she murmured, ‘it really doesn’t matter.’

Richard came back from the French windows, and sat in one of the chairs by the table. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. ‘Wonderful fellow, the old man. Always inventing something or other.’

‘Yes,’ replied Lucia. ‘He must have made a lot of money out of his inventions.’

‘Pots of it,’ said Richard, gloomily. ‘But it isn’t the money that appeals to him. They’re all the same, these scientists. Always on the track of something utterly impracticable that can be of no earthly interest to anyone other than themselves. Bombarding the atom, for heaven’s sake!’

‘But all the same, he is a great man, your father.’

‘I suppose he’s one of the leading scientists of the day,’ said Richard grudgingly. ‘But he can’t see any point of view except his own.’ He spoke with increasing irritation. ‘He’s treated me damned badly.’

‘I know,’ Lucia agreed. ‘He keeps you here, chained to this house, almost as though you were a prisoner. Why did he make you give up the army and come to live here?’

‘I suppose,’ said Richard, ‘that he thought I could help him in his work. But he ought to have known that I should be of no earthly use to him in that way. I simply haven’t got the brains for it.’ He moved his chair a little closer to Lucia, and leaned forward again. ‘My God, Lucia, it makes me feel pretty desperate, sometimes. There he is, rolling in money, and he spends every penny on those damned experiments of his. You’d think he’d let me have something of what will be mine some day, in any case, and allow me to get free of this place.’

Lucia sat upright. ‘Money!’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘Everything comes round to that. Money!’

‘I’m like a fly caught in a spider’s web,’ Richard continued. ‘Helpless. Absolutely helpless.’

Lucia looked at him with an imploring eagerness. ‘Oh, Richard,’ she exclaimed. ‘So am I.’

Her husband looked at her with alarm. He was about to speak when Lucia continued, ‘So am I. Helpless. And I want to get out.’ She rose suddenly, and moved towards him, speaking excitedly. ‘Richard, for God’s sake, before it’s too late, take me away!’

‘Away?’ Richard’s voice was empty and despairing. ‘Away where?’

‘Anywhere,’ replied Lucia, with growing excitement. ‘Anywhere in the world! But away from this house. That’s the important thing, away from this house! I am afraid, Richard, I tell you I’m afraid. There are shadows—’ she looked over her shoulder as though she could see them, ‘shadows everywhere.’

Richard remained seated. ‘How can we go away without money?’ he asked. He looked up at Lucia, and continued, bitterly, ‘A man’s not much good to a woman without money, is he, Lucia? Is he?’

She backed away from him. ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean?’

Richard continued to look at her in silence, his face tense yet curiously expressionless.

‘What’s the matter with you tonight, Richard?’ Lucia asked him. ‘You’re different, somehow—’

Richard rose from his chair. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes—what is it?’

‘Well—’ Richard began, and then stopped. ‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’

He started to turn away from her, but Lucia pulled him back and placed her hands on his shoulders. ‘Richard, my dear—’ she began. He took her hands from his shoulders. ‘Richard,’ she said again.

Putting his hands behind his back, Richard looked down at her. ‘Do you think I’m a complete fool?’ he asked. ‘Do you think I didn’t see this old friend of yours slip a note into your hand tonight?’

‘Do you mean you thought that—’

He interrupted her fiercely. ‘Why did you come out from dinner? You weren’t feeling faint. That was all a pretence. You wanted to be alone to read your precious note. You couldn’t wait. You were nearly mad with impatience because you couldn’t get rid of us. First Aunt Caroline, then me.’ His eyes were cold with hurt and anger as he looked at her.

‘Richard,’ said Lucia, ‘you’re mad. Oh, it’s absurd. You can’t think I care for Carelli! Can you? Can you, really? My dear, Richard, my dear—it’s you. It’s nobody but you. You must know that.’

Richard kept his eyes fixed on her. ‘What is in that note?’ he asked quietly.

‘Nothing—nothing at all.’

‘Then show it to me.’

‘I—I can’t,’ said Lucia. ‘I’ve destroyed it.’

A frigid smile appeared and disappeared on Richard’s face. ‘No, you haven’t,’ he said. ‘Show it to me.’

Lucia was silent for a moment. She looked at him imploringly. Then, ‘Richard,’ she asked, ‘can’t you trust me?’

‘I could take it from you by force,’ he muttered through clenched teeth, as he advanced a step towards her. ‘I’ve half a mind—’

Lucia backed away with a faint cry, her eyes still on Richard’s face as though willing him to believe her. Suddenly he turned away. ‘No,’ he said, as though to himself. ‘I suppose there are some things one can’t do.’ He turned back to face his wife. ‘But, by God, I’ll have it out with Carelli.’

Lucia caught his arm, with a cry of alarm. ‘No, Richard, you mustn’t. You mustn’t. Don’t do that, I beg you. Don’t do that.’

‘You’re afraid for your lover, are you?’ sneered Richard.

‘He’s not my lover,’ Lucia retorted, fiercely.

Richard took her by the shoulders. ‘Perhaps he isn’t—yet,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he—’

Hearing voices outside in the hall, he stopped speaking. Making an effort to control himself, he moved to the fireplace, took out a cigarette-case and lighter, and lit a cigarette. As the door from the hall opened, and the voices grew louder, Lucia moved to the chair Richard had recently vacated, and sat. Her face was white, her hands clasped together in tension.

Miss Amory entered, accompanied by her niece Barbara, an extremely modern young woman of twenty-one. Swinging her handbag, Barbara crossed the room towards her. ‘Hello, Lucia, are you all right now?’ she asked.

CHAPTER 3

Lucia forced a smile as Barbara Amory approached her. ‘Yes, thank you, darling,’ she replied. ‘I’m perfectly all right. Really.’

Barbara looked down at her cousin’s beautiful, black-haired wife. ‘Not broken any glad tidings to Richard, have you?’ she asked. ‘Is that what it’s all about?’

‘Glad tidings? What glad tidings? I don’t know what you mean,’ protested Lucia.

Barbara clasped her arms together, and made a rocking motion as though cradling a baby. Lucia’s reaction to this pantomime was a sad smile and a shake of the head. Miss Amory, however, collapsed in horror onto a chair. ‘Really, Barbara!’ she admonished.

‘Well,’ said Barbara, ‘accidents will happen, you know.’

Her aunt shook her head vigorously. ‘I cannot think what young girls are coming to, nowadays,’ she announced to no one in particular. ‘In my young days we did not speak flippantly of motherhood, and I would never have allowed—’ She broke off at the sound of the door opening, and looked around in time to see Richard leave the room. ‘You’ve embarrassed Richard,’ she continued, addressing Barbara, ‘and I can’t say I’m at all surprised.’

‘Well, Aunt Caroline,’ Barbara replied, ‘you are a Victorian, you know, born when the old Queen still had a good twenty years of life ahead of her. You’re thoroughly representative of your generation, and I dare say I am of mine.’

‘I’m in no doubt as to which I prefer—’, her aunt began, only to be interrupted by Barbara, who chuckled and said, ‘I think the Victorians were too marvellous. Fancy telling children that babies were found under gooseberry bushes! I think it’s sweet.’

She fumbled in her handbag, found a cigarette and a lighter, and lit the cigarette. She was about to begin speaking again when Miss Amory silenced her with a gesture. ‘Oh, do stop being silly, Barbara. I’m really very worried about this poor child here, and I wish you wouldn’t make fun of me.’

Lucia suddenly broke down and began to weep. Trying to wipe the tears from her eyes, she said between sobs, ‘You are all so good to me. No one was ever kind to me until I came here, until I married Richard. It’s been wonderful to be here with you. I can’t help it, I—’

‘There, there,’ murmured Miss Amory, rising and going to Lucia. She patted her on the shoulder. ‘There, there, my dear. I know what you mean—living abroad all your life—most unsuitable for a young girl. Not a proper kind of upbringing at all, and of course the continentals have some very peculiar ideas about education. There, there.’

Lucia stood up, and looked about her, uncertainly. She allowed Miss Amory to lead her to the settee, and sat at one end while Miss Amory patted cushions around her and then sat next to her. ‘Of course you’re upset, my dear. But you must try to forget about Italy. Although, of course, the dear Italian lakes are quite delightful in the spring, I always think. Very suitable for holidays, but one wouldn’t want to live there, naturally. Now, now, don’t cry, my dear.’

‘I think she needs a good stiff drink,’ suggested Barbara, sitting on the coffee table and peering critically but not unsympathetically into Lucia’s face. ‘This is an awful house, Aunt Caroline. It’s years behind the times. You never see the ghost of a cocktail in it. Nothing but sherry or whisky before dinner, and brandy afterwards. Richard can’t make a decent Manhattan, and just try asking Edward Raynor for a Whisky Sour. Now what would really pull Lucia around in no time would be a Satan’s Whisker.’

Miss Amory turned a shocked countenance upon her niece. ‘What,’ she enquired in horrified tones, ‘might a Satan’s Whisker be?’

‘It’s quite simple to make, if you have the ingredients,’ replied Barbara. ‘It’s merely equal parts of brandy and crème de menthe, but you mustn’t forget a shake of red pepper. That’s most important. It’s absolutely super, and guaranteed to put some pep into you.’

‘Barbara, you know I disapprove of these alcoholic stimulants,’ Miss Amory exclaimed with a shudder. ‘My dear father always said—’

‘I don’t know what he said,’ replied Barbara, ‘but absolutely everyone in the family knows that dear old Great-Uncle Algernon had the reputation of being a three-bottle man.’

At first, Miss Amory looked as if she might explode, but then the slight twitch of a smile appeared on her lips, and all she said was, ‘Gentlemen are different.’

Barbara was having none of this. ‘They’re not in the least different,’ she said. ‘Or at any rate I can’t imagine why they should be allowed to be different. They simply got away with it in those days.’ She produced from her handbag a small mirror, a powder-puff and lipstick. ‘Well, how do we look?’ she asked herself. ‘Oh, my God!’ And she began vigorously to apply lipstick.

‘Really, Barbara,’ said her aunt, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t put quite so much of that red stuff on your lips. It’s such a very bright colour.’

‘I hope so,’ replied Barbara, still completing her make-up. ‘After all, it cost seven and sixpence.’

‘Seven shillings and sixpence! What a disgraceful waste of money, just for—for—’

‘For “Kissproof”, Aunt Caroline.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The lipstick. It’s called “Kissproof”.’

Her aunt sniffed disapprovingly. ‘I know, of course,’ she said, ‘that one’s lips are inclined to chap if one has been out in a high wind, and that a little grease is advisable. Lanoline, for instance. I always use—’

Barbara interrupted her. ‘My dear Aunt Caroline, take it from me, a girl simply can’t have too much lipstick on. After all, she never knows how much of it she’s going to lose in the taxi coming home.’ As she spoke, she replaced the mirror, powder-puff and lipstick in her handbag.

Miss Amory looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean, “in the taxi coming home”?’ she asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

Barbara rose and, moving behind the settee, leaned over to Lucia. ‘Never mind. Lucia understands, don’t you, my love?’ she asked, giving Lucia’s chin a little tickle.

Lucia Amory looked around, blankly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said to Barbara, ‘I haven’t been listening. What did you say?’

Focusing her attention on Lucia again, Caroline Amory returned to the subject of that young lady’s health. ‘You know, my dear,’ she said, ‘I really am worried about you.’ She looked from Lucia to Barbara. ‘She ought to have something, Barbara. What have we got now? Sal volatile, of course, that would be the very thing. Unfortunately, that careless Ellen broke my bottle this morning when she was dusting in my room.’

Pursing her lips, Barbara considered for a moment. ‘I know,’ she exclaimed. ‘The hospital stores!’

‘Hospital stores? What do you mean? What hospital stores?’ Miss Amory asked.

Barbara came and sat in a chair close to her aunt. ‘You remember,’ she reminded her. ‘All of Edna’s things.’

Miss Amory’s face brightened. ‘Ah, yes, of course!’ Turning to Lucia, she said, ‘I wish you had met Edna, my elder niece, Barbara’s sister. She went to India with her husband—oh, it must have been about three months before you came here with Richard. Such a capable girl, Edna was.’

‘Most capable,’ Barbara confirmed. ‘She’s just had twins. As there are no gooseberry bushes in India, I think she must have found them under a double mango tree.’

Miss Amory allowed herself a smile. ‘Hush, Barbara,’ she said. Then, turning back to Lucia, she continued, ‘As I was saying, dear, Edna trained as a dispenser during the war. She worked at our hospital here. We turned the Town Hall into a hospital, you know, during the war. And then for some years after the war, until she was married, Edna continued to work in the dispensary at the County Hospital. She was very knowledgable about drugs and pills and that sort of thing. I dare say she still is. That knowledge must be invaluable to her in India. But what was I saying? Oh, yes—when she left. Now what did we do with all those bottles of hers?’

‘I remember perfectly well,’ said Barbara. ‘A lot of old things of Edna’s from the dispensary were bundled into a box. They were supposed to be sorted out and sent to hospitals, but everyone forgot, or at least no one did anything about it. They were put away in the attic, and they only came to light again when Edna was packing to go to India. They’re up there—’ she gestured towards the bookcase—‘and they still haven’t been looked through and sorted out.’

She rose and, taking her chair across to the bookcase, stood on it and, reaching up, lifted the black tin box down from the top.

Ignoring Lucia’s murmured ‘Please don’t bother, darling, I really don’t need anything’, Barbara carried the box over to the table and put it down.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least we might as well have a look at the things now that I’ve got them down.’ She opened the box. ‘Oh dear, it’s a motley collection,’ she said, taking out various bottles as she spoke. ‘Iodine, Friar’s balsam, something called “Tinct.Card.Co”, castor oil.’ She grimaced. ‘Ah, now we’re coming to the hot stuff,’ she exclaimed, as she took out of the box some small brown glass tubes. ‘Atropine, morphine, strychnine,’ she read from the labels. ‘Be careful, Aunt Caroline. If you arouse my furious temper, I’ll poison your coffee with strychnine, and you’ll die in the most awful agony.’ Barbara made a mock-menacing gesture at her aunt, who waved her away with a snort.

‘Well, there’s nothing here we could possibly try out on Lucia as a tonic, that’s for certain,’ she laughed, as she began to pack the bottles and phials back into the tin box. She was holding a tube of morphine aloft in her right hand as the door to the hall opened, and Tredwell ushered in Edward Raynor, Dr Carelli, and Sir Claud Amory. Sir Claud’s secretary, Edward Raynor, entered first, an unremarkable-looking young man in his late twenties. He moved across to Barbara, and stood looking at the box. ‘Hello, Mr Raynor. Interested in poisons?’ she asked him as she continued to pack up the bottles.

Dr Carelli, too, approached the table. A very dark, swarthy individual of about forty, Carelli wore perfectly fitting evening clothes. His manner was suave, and when he spoke it was with the slightest Italian accent. ‘What have we here, my dear Miss Amory?’ he queried.

Sir Claud paused at the door to speak to Tredwell. ‘You understand my instructions?’ he asked, and was satisfied by the reply, ‘Perfectly, Sir Claud.’ Tredwell left the room, and Sir Claud moved across to his guest.

‘I hope you will excuse me, Dr Carelli,’ he said, ‘if I go straight to my study? I have several important letters which must go off tonight. Raynor, will you come with me?’ The secretary joined his employer, and they went into Sir Claud’s study by the connecting door. As the door closed behind them, Barbara suddenly dropped the tube she had been holding.

CHAPTER 4

Dr Carelli stepped forward quickly, and picked up the tube Barbara had dropped. Glancing at it before handing it back to her with a polite bow, he exclaimed, ‘Hello, what’s this? Morphine!’ He picked up another one from the table. ‘And strychnine! May I ask, my dear young lady, where you got hold of these lethal little tubes?’ He began to examine the contents of the tin box.

Barbara looked at the suave Italian with distaste. ‘The spoils of war,’ she replied shortly, with a tight little smile.

Rising anxiously, Caroline Amory approached Dr Carelli. ‘They’re not really poison, are they, doctor? I mean, they couldn’t harm anyone, could they?’ she asked. ‘That box has been in the house for years. Surely it’s harmless, isn’t it?’

‘I should say,’ replied Carelli dryly, ‘that, with the little lot you have here, you could kill, roughly, twelve strong men. I don’t know what you regard as harmful.’

‘Oh, good gracious,’ Miss Amory gasped with horror as she moved back to her chair, and sat heavily.

‘Here, for instance,’ continued Carelli, addressing the assembled company. He picked up a tube and read slowly from the label. ‘“Strychnine hydrochloride; one sixteenth of a grain.” Seven or eight of these little tablets, and you would die a very unpleasant death indeed. An extremely painful way out of the world.’ He picked up another tube. ‘“Atropine sulphate.” Now, atropine poisoning is sometimes very hard to tell from ptomaine poisoning. It is also a very painful death.’

Replacing the two tubes he had handled, he picked up another. ‘Now here—’ he continued, now speaking very slowly and deliberately, ‘here we have hyoscine hydrobromide, one hundredth of a grain. That doesn’t sound very potent, does it? Yet I assure you, you would only have to swallow half of the little white tablets in this tube, and—’ he made a graphic gesture. ‘There would be no pain—no pain at all. Just a swift and completely dreamless sleep, but a sleep from which there would be no awakening.’ He moved towards Lucia, and held out the tube to her, as though inviting her to examine it. There was a smile on his face, but not in his eyes.

Lucia stared at the tube as though she were fascinated by it. Stretching out a hand, she spoke in a voice that sounded almost as though it were hypnotized. ‘A swift and completely dreamless sleep—’ she murmured, reaching for the tube.

Instead of giving it to her, Dr Carelli glanced at Caroline Amory with an almost questioning look. That lady shuddered and looked distressed, but said nothing. With a shrug of the shoulders, Carelli turned away from Lucia, still holding the tube of hyoscine hydrobromide.

The door to the hallway opened, and Richard Amory entered. Without speaking, he strolled across to the stool by the desk, and sat down. He was followed into the room by Tredwell, who carried a tray containing a jug of coffee with cups and saucers. Placing the tray on the coffee table, Tredwell left the room as Lucia moved to pour out the coffee.

Barbara went across to Lucia, took two cups of coffee from the tray, and then moved over to Richard to give him one of them, keeping the other for herself. Dr Carelli, meanwhile, was busy replacing the tubes in the tin box on the centre table.

‘You know,’ said Miss Amory to Carelli, ‘you make my flesh creep, doctor, with your talk of swift, dreamless sleep and unpleasant deaths. I suppose that, being Italian as you are, you know a lot about poisons?’

‘My dear lady,’ laughed Carelli, ‘is that not an extremely unjust—what do you say—non sequitur? Why should an Italian know any more about poisons than an Englishman? I have heard it said,’ he continued playfully, ‘that poison is a woman’s weapon, rather than a man’s. Perhaps I should ask you—? Ah, but perhaps, dear lady, it is an Italian woman you were thinking of? Perhaps you were about to mention a certain Borgia. Is that it, eh?’ He took a cup of coffee from Lucia at the coffee table, and handed it to Miss Amory, returning to take another cup for himself.

‘Lucrezia Borgia—that dreadful creature! Yes, I suppose that’s what I was thinking of,’ admitted Miss Amory. ‘I used to have nightmares about her when I was a child, you know. I imagined her as very pale, but tall, and with jet-black hair just like our own dear Lucia.’

Dr Carelli approached Miss Amory with the sugar bowl. She shook her head in refusal, and he took the bowl back to the coffee tray. Richard Amory put his coffee down, took a magazine from the desk and began to browse through it, as his aunt developed her Borgia theme. ‘Yes, dreadful nightmares I used to have,’ Miss Amory was saying. ‘I would be the only child in a room full of adults, all of them drinking out of very elaborate goblets. Then this glamorous woman—now I come to think of it, she did look remarkably like you, Lucia dear—would approach me and force a goblet upon me. I could tell by the way she smiled, somehow, that I ought not to drink, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to refuse. Somehow, she hypnotized me into drinking, and then I would begin to feel a dreadful burning sensation in my throat, and I would find myself fighting for breath. And then, of course, I woke up.’

Dr Carelli had moved close to Lucia. Standing in front of her, he gave an ironic bow. ‘My dear Lucrezia Borgia,’ he implored, ‘have mercy on us all.’

Lucia did not react to Carelli’s joke. She appeared not to have heard him. There was a pause. Smiling to himself, Dr Carelli turned away from Lucia, drank his coffee, and placed his cup on the centre table. Finishing her coffee rapidly, Barbara seemed to realize that a change of mood was called for. ‘What about a little tune?’ she suggested, moving across to the gramophone. ‘Now, what shall we have? There’s a marvellous record here that I bought up in town the other day.’ She began to sing, accompanying her words with a jazzy little dance. ‘“Ikey—oh, crikey—what have you got on?” Or what else is there?’

‘Oh, Barbara dear, not that vulgar song,’ implored Miss Amory, moving across to her, and helping to look through the gramophone records. ‘There are some much nicer records here. If we must have popular music, there are some lovely songs by John McCormack here, somewhere. Or what about “The Holy City”?—I can’t remember the soprano’s name. Or why not that nice Melba record? Oh—ah, yes—here’s Handel’s Largo.’

‘Oh, come on, Aunt Caroline. We’re not likely to be cheered up by Handel’s Largo,’ Barbara protested. ‘There’s some Italian opera here, if we must have classical music. Come on, Dr Carelli, this ought to be your province. Come and help us choose.’

Carelli joined Barbara and Miss Amory around the gramophone, and all three of them began to sort through the pile of records. Richard now seemed engrossed in his magazine.

Lucia rose, moved slowly and apparently aimlessly across to the centre table, and glanced at the tin box. Then, taking care to establish that the others were not observing her, she took a tube from the box and read the label. ‘Hyoscine hydrobromide.’ Opening the tube, Lucia poured nearly all of the tablets into the palm of her hand. As she did so, the door to Sir Claud’s study opened, and Sir Claud’s secretary, Edward Raynor, appeared in the doorway. Unknown to Lucia, Raynor watched her as she put the tube back into the tin box before moving over to the coffee table.

At that moment, Sir Claud’s voice was heard to call from the study. His words were indistinct, but Raynor, turning to answer him, said, ‘Yes, of course, Sir Claud. I’ll bring you your coffee now.’

The secretary was about to enter the library when Sir Claud’s voice arrested him. ‘And what about that letter to Marshall’s?’

‘It went off by the afternoon post, Sir Claud,’ replied the secretary.

‘But Raynor, I told you—oh, come back here, man,’ Sir Claud boomed from his study.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Raynor was heard to say as he retreated from the doorway to rejoin Sir Claud Amory in his study. Lucia, who had turned to watch the secretary at the sound of his voice, seemed not to realize that he had been observing her movements. Turning, so that her back was to Richard, she dropped the tablets she had been holding into one of the coffee cups on the coffee table, and moved to the front of the settee.

The gramophone suddenly burst into life with a quick foxtrot. Richard Amory put down the magazine he had been reading, finished his coffee quickly, placed the cup on the centre table, and moved across to his wife. ‘I’ll take you at your word. I’ve decided. We’ll go away together.’

Lucia looked up at him in surprise. ‘Richard,’ she said faintly, ‘do you really mean it? We can get away from here? But I thought you said—what about?—where will the money come from?’

‘There are always ways of acquiring money,’ said Richard, grimly.

There was alarm in Lucia’s voice as she asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ said her husband, ‘that when a man cares about a woman as much as I care about you, he’ll do anything. Anything!’

‘It does not flatter me to hear you say that,’ Lucia responded. ‘It only tells me that you still do not trust me—that you think you must buy my love with—’

She broke off, and looked around as the door to the study opened and Edward Raynor returned. Raynor walked over to the coffee table and picked up a cup of coffee, as Lucia changed her position on the settee, moving down to one end of it. Richard had wandered moodily across to the fireplace, and was staring into the unlit fire.

Barbara, beginning a tentative foxtrot alone, looked at her cousin Richard as though considering whether to invite him to dance. But, apparently put off by his stony countenance, she turned to Raynor. ‘Care to dance, Mr Raynor?’ she asked.

‘I’d love to, Miss Amory,’ the secretary replied. ‘Just a moment, while I take Sir Claud his coffee.’

Lucia suddenly rose from the settee. ‘Mr Raynor,’ she said hurriedly, ‘that isn’t Sir Claud’s coffee. You’ve taken the wrong cup.’

‘Have I?’ said Raynor. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Lucia picked up another cup from the coffee table, and held it out to Raynor. They exchanged cups. ‘That,’ said Lucia, as she handed her cup to Raynor, ‘is Sir Claud’s coffee.’ She smiled enigmatically to herself, placed the cup Raynor had given her on the coffee table, and returned to the settee.

Turning his back to Lucia, the secretary took some tablets from his pocket and dropped them into the cup he was holding. As he was walking with it towards the study door, Barbara intercepted him. ‘Do come and dance with me, Mr Raynor,’ she pleaded, with one of her most engaging smiles. ‘I’d force Dr Carelli to, except that I can tell he’s simply dying to dance with Lucia.’

As Raynor hovered indecisively, Richard Amory approached. ‘You may as well give in to her, Raynor,’ he advised. ‘Everyone does, eventually. Here, give the coffee to me. I’ll take it to my father.’

Reluctantly, Raynor allowed the coffee cup to be taken from him. Turning away, Richard paused momentarily and then went through into Sir Claud’s study. Barbara and Edward Raynor, having first turned over the gramophone record on the machine, were now slowly waltzing in each other’s arms. Dr Carelli watched them for a moment or two with an indulgent smile, before approaching Lucia who, wearing a look of utter dejection, was still seated on the settee.

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