Dance to Your Daddy

'You'd better put her wise,' said Laura. 'So far, as you say, she hasn't a clue that de Maas isn't Romilly.'

'I'll be the one to let her know, ma'am,' said Kirkby. 'In view of what Dame Beatrice has told me, I have some awkward questions to put to that young lady.'

At this moment the telephone rang. Laura answered it, and came back almost at once.

'She's hopped it,' she said. 'That call was from Binnie. She wanted to say a lot more, but I cut her off. Dora's bed hadn't been slept in last night, and there's no sign of her or any message left. Binnie is naturally somewhat agitated.'

'I'll get along there at once, if you'll give me the address, ma'am,' said Kirkby. 'I don't want her to slip through my fingers, although I'm bound to say that the evidence I've got against her so far isn't going to get her convicted of murder.'

'There's blood on that coat,' said Laura.

'Meanwhile, I shall get on the track of the missing heiress,' said Dame Beatrice. 'She probably does not realise her good fortune. But first for Mr Hubert.'

(2)

The Riviera town just inside the Italian border was sheltered on the north by hills and even at the end of March was pleasantly warm. There was no difficulty in finding the English church, and the near-by vicarage proved to be a small, white villa set in a garden which overlooked the sea.

The door was opened by a smiling Italian maid to whom Dame Beatrice presented her card. They were invited to wait while the girl conveyed the card to her mistress. They were not kept more than a couple of minutes before the maid reappeared and ushered Dame Beatrice and Laura into a spacious room which seemed to combine the properties of drawing-room and study, for, in addition to deep armchairs, ornaments and vases of spring flowers, there was a roll-top desk in the window and shelves of books against the wall.

A tall, dark-haired girl almost ran to meet them, holding out both hands.

'Hubert got your letter,' she said. 'He's told me all about you. I am so glad to see you. Have you anywhere to stay? If not, I can find you beds.'

Thank you, but we are off again almost at once, my dear Rosamund,' said Dame Beatrice. 'We are putting up at the Splendide for a day or two, but my work does not permit me to make a longer stay.'

'Well, do sit down, and I'll get Lucia to bring us some tea. We keep English customs here. I'll go and wake Hubert. I make him take a siesta. He works very hard, and needs the rest. I won't wake the baby, but after tea I'll take you up to have a peep at him. I'm going to have another one in October-Hubert's baby this time.'

(3)

'So you guessed all the time that Hubert had married Rosamund,' said Laura, as they made their way back to their hotel. 'He didn't tell you so, when he came over to England, did he?'

'No, he did not. I think he believes in doing good by stealth, and probably would be among the first to blush when he found it fame. Having learned of his brother's importunity and Rosamund's plight, he felt he must come to her rescue.'

'And Rosamund, armed with her birth certificate and other proofs of identity is coming back with us to England to see the lawyers and claim her rights.'

'Together with Hubert and the baby, yes. She will want to have him with her, and, of course, he may be needed as a witness.'

'But if he married Rosamund after Felix Napoleon turned her out, why didn't you get him to denounce Dora? She was in as much danger from him as from Willoughby, wasn't she? After all, who would know better than Hubert that she was an impostor?'

'Yes, but I was not sure of that at the time. Besides, I should have been unwilling to expose him to danger, and Dora is an extremely dangerous person.'

'Wonder where she is? Did you expect her to leave Humphrey's house?'

'Well, certainly not quite so soon. Romilly must have got in touch with her and told her that I had unmasked him, so that she had no need to fear him any longer. I wonder where she has gone?'

'Oh, Kirkby will find her and charge her, I suppose.'

'With the murder of Willoughby, you mean?'

'Well, I know he needs more evidence than he has at present, but it can only be a question of time before he collects it. There are the bloodstains, and now we know she had proper clothes to wear, she could have slipped out of the house at any time.'

'I am not at all sanguine as to the outcome of his enquiries. As you know, proof of motive is not nearly as important in a criminal court as proof of means and opportunity.'

'Well, as I say, those won't be difficult to establish, surely? To go on to another point, why was Willoughby against marrying Rosamund himself? Why leave his brother to hold the baby? After all, it was his child. He wrote to Hubert to confess that he was the father. That's what estranged the two brothers.'

'I should not be at all surprised to find that Willoughby was already secretly married.'

'To Dora?'

'Yes. It would explain, better than anything else I can think of, why he was willing to meet her at such an out-of-the-way spot as Dancing Ledge.'

'I don't suppose we can ever prove that they were married, though. He could have used a false name.'

'I see no need to prove it. I am concerned only to see that Rosamund gets her rights. I confess, though, that I should like to know where Dora is.'

'Do you want her to get a life-sentence, then? Personally, I should think that a rotter like Willoughby, married to one girl and getting another one into trouble, is better out of the way.'

'The law would hardly agree with you.'

'Willoughby seems to have been his great-uncle all over again. How much of a villain was old Felix Napoleon, do you suppose?'

'We have only my sister-in-law's word for it that he was a villain at all.'

'I think it was terrible to turn Rosamund away at a time when she needed all the help she could get. Apart from that, though, didn't you tell me that he was lucky to escape a charge of fraudulent conversion or something?'

'Ah, yes, of course. And Ferdinand connived at this piece of immorality by showing him a loophole in the law.'

'You said just now that you hadn't expected Dora to run away from Humphrey and Binnie quite so soon. You did expect she would leave them, then?'

'Oh, yes, I knew she would, once she had received my letter.'

'What letter?'

'I wrote to her just before we left England to inform her that on the day she received my letter we should be on the boat-train for the Continent to pay a visit to Hubert and his wife.'

'You think she knew that Hubert had married Rosamund? I thought you said...'

'Oh, my letter to Dora was a shot in the dark-or, let us say, in the half-light-but there does not seem any doubt that it found its mark.'

(4)

The last word, in a sense, was with de Maas. Some months later Hamish was at home for the school summer holiday. Kirkby had not found Dora, neither had he uncovered any real evidence against her except bloodstains whose origin he could not check. When the post came one morning, Hamish, accompanied by his Irish wolfhound and his Yorkshire terrier, picked up his baby sister and went dashing out of the room to collect the letters from Celestine. He came bounding into the breakfast room, the baby gurgling, the terrier barking, the dignified wolfhound at his heels, put down his sister, took the letters from between his teeth and handed them over to Laura, whose job it was to sort them.

'Hullo,' she said, 'there's one from the Argentine.'

'Yes, for Mrs Dame. I saw there was. Please may I have the stamp?' asked Hamish. The letter was from the erstwhile Romilly. It read: If you can't murder 'em, marry 'em. Love from Groot and Dora de Maas, Judith and Luke.

'Well!' said Laura. 'Back to Square One with a vengeance! How on earth did he get her to marry him? She was always scared stiff of him, I thought.'