Read Online Into the Valley of Death by Evelyn Hervey - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Evelyn Hervey
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“there has not been one single person invited tonight who has not appeared. I say no more. You will understand.”
“Yes,” Miss Unwin murmured back with gratitude. “I do indeed understand, madam. But—but I am somewhat hampered by not knowing the names of so many of the guests.”
“I had thought of that,” Mrs. Perker whispered. “Take this.”
And from the bosom of her dress, embellished for the evening with a brooch of garnets, she took a long sheet of paper,thrust it into Miss Unwin’s hand, and at once glided away in a swish of black satin.
Miss Unwin looked at the sheet. It was the housekeeper’s own carefully written-out list of all the guests, their names and styles. If the man she had to find was in truth a member of county society, then his name was surely here and he himself was dancing to the
rum-tum-tum
beat of the music in the ballroom or sitting somewhere in conversation.
But, dancing in cotillion or quadrille or tucked away in talk as he might be, how could she get so much as a look at him? Let alone catch him, whoever he was, by some lucky chance appearing more preoccupied than a reveller should be? Or— and this was perhaps a little more likely, she thought—making discreet advances to a lady not his wife?
She decided that she had to risk deserting her post for a little and go quietly here and there about the house as if busy on some errand. Perhaps she would catch a glimpse of someone behaving in the way she had described to Vilkins. A gentleman in the library, where the butler presided over a table set with silver pails of champagne on ice, drinking to excess? She might be lucky.
But, glance this way and that as she would, she saw nothing in any way out of the ordinary, and the minutes went ticking and ticking by.
A feeling of depression began to cling round her like a heavy mist. All that she had gone through to get herself here at this heaven-sent time, and was she going to have nothing to show for it?
Then, having stayed away from her post a good deal longer than was wise, as she made her way back she did have a single stroke of luck. It was not a matter of seeing a dancer looking as if he would rather be anywhere than in the whirl of a lively galop. Nor was it the sight of some secret toper. Nor of a yet more secret lover amid the banks of ferns and hothouse plants in the conservatory.
It was simply overhearing one man talking with another asshe hurried past the open doorway of the small room on the outside of the house specially fitted up for gentlemen to smoke in.
“Yes,” she just caught the words, “a damned female detective. I had it from Miss Troughton, who heard it from one of the maids.”
She came to a halt, looked left and right to see if she was observed, and, finding the coast clear, sidled nearer the open door.
“Some nonsensical idea of General Pastell’s,” she heard the voice resume. “Something to do with this fellow they’re hanging.”
“Oh, yes, I know. Old soldier.”
“I dare say. But to have a spy in the house, and a female one, too. It’s not what I call decent.”
“I suppose not.”
“No, by God, it ain’t. I tell you, if I knew which the wench was, I’d take a whip to her.”
Miss Unwin, half hidden behind a bust of the Duke of Wellington standing on a sturdy pedestal of purple porphyry, began furiously to wonder.
Was this savage response to her presence that piece of out-of-place behaviour she was looking for? It was not absolutely certain. But she must get a look at someone who was so much put out by the thought of a female detective watching him.
Cautiously, she put her head round the stern bust of the victor of Waterloo. The two talkers had their backs to the door, sitting side by side on a cushioned bench flanked by two stuffed foxhounds. Cigar smoke was wreathing up from between them.
“Yes, by God, a whip.”
The man who uttered the threat was an officer in uniform. Miss Unwin even recognised the regiment. It was a
“Yes,” Miss Unwin murmured back with gratitude. “I do indeed understand, madam. But—but I am somewhat hampered by not knowing the names of so many of the guests.”
“I had thought of that,” Mrs. Perker whispered. “Take this.”
And from the bosom of her dress, embellished for the evening with a brooch of garnets, she took a long sheet of paper,thrust it into Miss Unwin’s hand, and at once glided away in a swish of black satin.
Miss Unwin looked at the sheet. It was the housekeeper’s own carefully written-out list of all the guests, their names and styles. If the man she had to find was in truth a member of county society, then his name was surely here and he himself was dancing to the
rum-tum-tum
beat of the music in the ballroom or sitting somewhere in conversation.
But, dancing in cotillion or quadrille or tucked away in talk as he might be, how could she get so much as a look at him? Let alone catch him, whoever he was, by some lucky chance appearing more preoccupied than a reveller should be? Or— and this was perhaps a little more likely, she thought—making discreet advances to a lady not his wife?
She decided that she had to risk deserting her post for a little and go quietly here and there about the house as if busy on some errand. Perhaps she would catch a glimpse of someone behaving in the way she had described to Vilkins. A gentleman in the library, where the butler presided over a table set with silver pails of champagne on ice, drinking to excess? She might be lucky.
But, glance this way and that as she would, she saw nothing in any way out of the ordinary, and the minutes went ticking and ticking by.
A feeling of depression began to cling round her like a heavy mist. All that she had gone through to get herself here at this heaven-sent time, and was she going to have nothing to show for it?
Then, having stayed away from her post a good deal longer than was wise, as she made her way back she did have a single stroke of luck. It was not a matter of seeing a dancer looking as if he would rather be anywhere than in the whirl of a lively galop. Nor was it the sight of some secret toper. Nor of a yet more secret lover amid the banks of ferns and hothouse plants in the conservatory.
It was simply overhearing one man talking with another asshe hurried past the open doorway of the small room on the outside of the house specially fitted up for gentlemen to smoke in.
“Yes,” she just caught the words, “a damned female detective. I had it from Miss Troughton, who heard it from one of the maids.”
She came to a halt, looked left and right to see if she was observed, and, finding the coast clear, sidled nearer the open door.
“Some nonsensical idea of General Pastell’s,” she heard the voice resume. “Something to do with this fellow they’re hanging.”
“Oh, yes, I know. Old soldier.”
“I dare say. But to have a spy in the house, and a female one, too. It’s not what I call decent.”
“I suppose not.”
“No, by God, it ain’t. I tell you, if I knew which the wench was, I’d take a whip to her.”
Miss Unwin, half hidden behind a bust of the Duke of Wellington standing on a sturdy pedestal of purple porphyry, began furiously to wonder.
Was this savage response to her presence that piece of out-of-place behaviour she was looking for? It was not absolutely certain. But she must get a look at someone who was so much put out by the thought of a female detective watching him.
Cautiously, she put her head round the stern bust of the victor of Waterloo. The two talkers had their backs to the door, sitting side by side on a cushioned bench flanked by two stuffed foxhounds. Cigar smoke was wreathing up from between them.
“Yes, by God, a whip.”
The man who uttered the threat was an officer in uniform. Miss Unwin even recognised the regiment. It was a
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