He closed his eyes politely as her swift cool fingers worked on his face, gritting his teeth against the stabs of pain from the probings and the antiseptic, and opened them again when a new dressing was in place.
“You can always tell the crocodiles you got that in a duel. Left cheek scars are all the go in Prussia, they tell me. You can say you’ve just been initiated into Herr Hitler’s élite bodyguard of strutting thugs. They might just believe it. Some of the guests might even approve,” she added darkly. “There’s some speculation as to where exactly Truelove’s sympathies lie. His brother-in-law, married to the older of his two sisters, if I’ve got that right, is a psychologist, a eugenicist or something of that nature, and he’s recently defected to Germany to ply his disgusting trade, did you know?”
Joe grinned. “I’m delighted to say it was my boot up his rear that decided him to leave England in a hurry. I’m collecting enemies in high places, I’m afraid.”
“Well, watch your step up there in that company then. I’m good at grazes and bruises but I have no experience with bullet wounds. Though Pa might be able to help. He served in the war and found he had to extend his skills to human patients as well as equine.”
She snapped her bag closed and was clearly about to send him on his way when he began to blurt. Blurting was the only word for the reckless effusion of nonsense that seemed to be coming from his lips. “Do come, Adelaide! For me, not them! I can’t tell you what a difference it would make. To see a friendly face across the table, to hear a voice that doesn’t crack the glassware. To have someone whose eye I can catch in understanding. Will you change your mind?”
The urgency of his appeal silenced and concerned her. Quick and decisive as he was beginning to judge her, she said, after a questioning stare, “I’m not inviting you up to my room. The contents of it will have to come down to you. Wait a minute.”
After five minutes of rummaging overhead, she clumped back downstairs and dumped the contents of her wardrobe at his feet.
“Three flowery cotton washing frocks,” she announced. “No use at all.” These were thrown aside to form the base of the rejected pile. A cream linen day dress followed. “Women’s Institute Committee meeting … Now this one—long, black, formal. Bias cut. Silk. I wore this for a degree-giving dinner six years ago.”
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Joe said. “Something at the neck, perhaps?… A rose from the garden tucked into a splendid bosom is always a winner.”
“How lucky I am that splendid bosoms are back in fashion again,” she commented drily.
Embarrassed, he struggled to excuse himself. “I couldn’t help noticing the fine choice of roses in your beds when I had them in close-up.” And, helpfully: “I’d suggest white rather than red. The Flamenco style wouldn’t suit you.”
At last she seemed caught by the idea. “I see what you mean. There’s a Snow Queen. Pure white but it’s a bit floppy and yellow in the middle and drops pollen. I’d have half the table sneezing into its raspberry sorbet. Ah! Got it! There’s Swan Lake. Cream, cup-shaped, with the faintest flush of pink in the central bud.” She demonstrated with one hand curving at her neckline.
Joe’s jaw sagged and he swallowed the words he’d been about to release.
They stared at each other for a moment, and then, in a voice tight with restrained humour, she answered his thought. “No, I expect you’re right. One can have too splendid a bosom. We shouldn’t forget the advanced age and state of decrepitude of the guests. The sight of three nipples in a row might just bring on palpitations and I never take my stethoscope out to dinner.”
“It’ll have to be granny’s pearls then,” Joe croaked. “What a pity.”
“It will do but it’s a bit dull and it looks dated. Like its owner,” she said, throwing down the black dinner dress. “The rest are trousers. This here’s a silk lounging outfit I wore on holiday in Cannes last year.” She held up a pair of flared red and purple trousers.
“Sorry, no. I’m sure they turned all heads on the Croisette but they should never have been allowed out of France without a license.”
“Last item, the most expensive thing I own—and the least suitable—a pair of evening trousers. They’re not by Chanel but they are the next best thing. Paul Vercors of Paris. Look—high-waisted, wide cut. If I stand with my legs together it just looks like a skirt. The drama comes when I start walking. Scandalous really. I’ve never dared wear them. Never had occasion to. I just longed to have them.”
Joe had a sudden vision of Adelaide Hartest’s slim hips and long legs stalking through the Trueloves’ elegant rooms and sighed. “I like it but—what would you do about the top half?”
“My thoughts never got that far. White blouse of some sort? No. I agree, it looks like being the boring graduation black. So, that’s the pumpkin and the ball gown settled,” she said, “Anything else my fairy god father can help with? I think you’ve cast yourself in the wrong pantomime, mister. I see you as a beast of uncertain temper, lurking amongst the potted palms.”
“Uncertain temper? Never. Why do you say that?”
She came to settle next to him on the sofa and for a moment he thought she might take his hand to check his pulse. Instead, she stared into his eyes, checking for whatever it was doctors looked for in eyes. Dilated pupils? Grit? He blinked nervously. “Joe, there’s something troubling you, isn’t there? I mean apart from murder, attacks by green shirts and threats from brown shirts. Something more important than that. Why are you really here? You could have sent an inspector from the Met. A man of your rank doesn’t involve himself with country farces like this, all name-calling, tantrums and whackings with a pig’s bladder, unless he has a very strong personal reason for doing so.”
“Don’t dismiss murder so lightly, Adelaide. But you’re right. I do have a personal interest in this … not farce but drama—which could all too easily turn into melodrama. A girl I’m fond of … the girl I love,” he corrected, deciding he could confide, “is tangled up with James Truelove. Hunnyton, bless the man—for I’d probably not have leapt into action without his encouragement—lured me over here to get to the bottom of it.”
“Tangled with a Truelove? How uncomfortable! Will you tell me how she comes to be in such a spot?”
Adelaide was a receptive listener and the whole story poured from Joe under her gentle questioning. He told how he’d met Dorcas when she was just a young thing, how their strange relationship had developed and how suddenly after a seven years’ absence she’d flown back into his life, a beautiful young woman, a stranger yet not quite a stranger, and claimed the love he had always had for her. “Hunnyton says I ought to treat her as though I’d only just met her and discount the past,” he finished, dragging the superintendent into the conversation once more.
“Sound advice,” she said with an enthusiastic nod. “You could do worse than to listen to Adam Hunnybun. He has a fund of common sense and a good heart. And he likes you.”
Joe was not very certain about any of those assertions and kept silent. He was wondering with suspicion how she had come to develop such a warm opinion of the man on such a short acquaintance and decided that Hunnyton must have doubled back for a further consultation with Dr. Hartest after he’d dropped Joe off into the clutches of the Wild Man of the Woods.
“Can I tell you something? Something of a professional nature?” Adelaide was saying hesitantly. “I studied psychology as an element of my training and found it utterly fascinating. Mens sana in corpore sano is something all doctors should have written on their surgery walls. Broken limbs and infections are straightforward stuff but the tricky—and the repeated—illnesses are not so easy to diagnose and cure. I don’t believe one-half of everything Freud has to say, but there is much work being done—and has been done—in laboratories which can enlighten us. Listen, Joe. It may be nonsense or it may be of help … Imprinting. That may be the key. Have you heard of imprinting?”