He came up holding out both hands and she gave him hers. Thus grappled, they stood looking at each other.
“Well,” said Dinny, at last, “tell your tale. You’ve been frightening us out of our wits, young man.”
“Let’s go and sit down up there, Dinny.”
“Very well. Mind Scaramouch, he’s under your foot, and the foot large.”
“Not so very. Dinny, you look—”
“No,” said Dinny; “rather worn than otherwise. I know all about the Professor and the special case for his Bolivian bones, and the projected substitution of Hubert on the ship.”
“What!”
“We’re not half-wits, Alan. What was YOUR special lay, beard and all? We can’t sit on this seat without something between us and the stone.”
“I couldn’t be the something?”
“Certainly not. Put your overall there. Now!”
“Well,” he said, looking with disfavour at his boot, “if you really want to know. There’s nothing certain, of course, because it all depended on the way they were going to export Hubert. We had to have alternatives. If there was a port of call, Spanish or Portuguese, we WERE going to use the box trick. Hallorsen was to be on the ship, and Jean and I at the port with a machine and the real bones. Jean was to be the pilot when we got him—she’s a natural flier; and they were to make for Turkey.”
“Yes,” said Dinny; “we guessed all that.”
“How?”
“Never mind. What about the alternative?”
“If there was no port of call it wasn’t going to be easy; we’d thought of a faked telegram to the chaps in charge of Hubert when the train arrived at Southampton or whatever the port was, telling them to take him to the Police Station and await further instructions. On the way there Hallorsen on a cycle would have bumped into the taxi on one side, and I should have bumped in on the other; and Hubert was to slip out into my car and be nipped off to where the machine was ready.”
“Mm!” said Dinny. “Very nice on the screen; but are they so confiding in real life?”
“Well, we really hadn’t got that worked out. We were betting on the other.”
“Has all that money gone?”
“No; only about two hundred, and we can re-sell the machine.” Dinny heaved a long sigh, and her eyes rested on him.
“Well,” she said, “if you ask me, you’re jolly well out of it.”
He grinned. “I suppose so; especially as if it had come off I couldn’t very well have bothered you. Dinny, I’ve got to rejoin today. Won’t you—?”
Dinny said softly: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Alan. When you come back next time, I really will see.”
“May I have one kiss?”
“Yes.” She tilted her cheek towards him.
‘Now,’ she thought, ‘is when they kiss you masterfully full on the lips. He hasn’t! He must almost respect me!’ And she got up.
“Come along, dear boy; and thank you ever so for all you luckily didn’t have to do. I really will try and become less virginal.”
He looked at her ruefully, as though repenting of his self-control, then smiled at her smile. And soon the splutter of his motor-cycle faded into the faintly sighing silence of the day.
Still with the smile on her lips Dinny went back to the house. He was a dear! But really one must have time! Such a lot of repenting at leisure could be done even in these days!
After their slight and early lunch Lady Cherrell departed in the Ford driven by the groom in search of the fatted calf. Dinny was preparing to hunt the garden for whatever flowers November might yield when a card was brought to her:
“Mr. Neil Wintney,
Ferdinand Studios,
Orchard Street,
Chelsea.”
‘Help!’ she thought; ‘Uncle Lawrence’s young man!’ “Where is he, Amy?”
“In the hall, Miss.”
“Ask him into the drawing-room; I’ll be there in a minute.”
Divested of her gardening gloves and basket, she looked at her nose in her little powdery mirror; then, entering the drawing-room through the French window, saw with surprise the ‘young man’ sitting up good in a chair with some apparatus by his side. He had thick white hair, and an eyeglass on a black ribbon; and when he stood she realised that he must be at least sixty. He said:
“Miss Cherrell? Your Uncle, Sir Lawrence Mont, has commissioned me to do a miniature of you.”
“I know,” said Dinny; “only I thought—” She did not finish. After all, Uncle Lawrence liked his little joke, or possibly this was his idea of youth.
The ‘young man’ had screwed his monocle into a comely red cheek, and through it a full blue eye scrutinized her eagerly. He put his head on one side and said: “If we can get the outline, and you have some photographs, I shan’t give you much trouble. What you have on—that flax-blue—is admirable for colour; background of sky—through that window—yes, not too blue—an English white in it. While the light’s good, can we—?” And, talking all the time, he proceeded to make his preparations.
“Sir Lawrence’s idea,” he said, “is the English lady; culture deep but not apparent. Turn a little sideways. Thank you—the nose—”
“Yes,” said Dinny; “hopeless.”
“Oh! no, no! Charming. Sir Lawrence, I understand, wants you for his collection of types. I’ve done two for him. Would you look down? No! Now full at me! Ah! The teeth—admirable!”
“All mine, so far.”
“That smile is just right, Miss Cherrelclass="underline" it gives us the sense of spoof we want; not too much spoof, but just spoof enough.”
“You don’t want me to hold a smile with exactly three ounces of spoof in it?”
“No, no, my dear young lady; we shall chance on it. Now suppose you turn three-quarters. Ah! Now I get the line of the hair; the colour of it admirable.”
“Not too much ginger, but just ginger enough?”
The ‘young man’ was silent. He had begun with singular concentration to draw and to write little notes on the margin of the paper.
Dinny, with crinkled eyebrows, did not like to move. He paused and smiled at her with a sort of winey sweetness.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he said. “I see, I see.”
What did he see? The nervousness of the victim seized her suddenly, and she pressed her open hands together.
“Raise the hands, Miss Cherrell. No! Too Madonnaish. We must think of the devil in the hair. The eyes to me, full.”
“Glad?” asked Dinny.
“Not too glad; just—Yes, an English eye; candid but reserved. Now the turn of the neck. Ah! A leetle tilt. Ye—es. Almost stag-like; almost—a touch of the—not startled—no, of the aloof.”
He again began to draw and write with a sort of remoteness, as if he were a long way off.
And Dinny thought: ‘If Uncle Lawrence wants self-consciousness he’ll get it all right.’
The ‘young man’ stopped and stood back, his head very much on one side, so that all his attention seemed to come out of his eyeglass.
“The expression,” he muttered.
“I expect,” said Dinny, “you want an unemployed look.”
“Naughty!” said the ‘young man’: “Deeper. Could I play that piano for a minute?”
“Of course. But I’m afraid it’s not been played on lately.”
“It will serve.” He sat down, opened the piano, blew on the keys, and began playing. He played strongly, softly, well. Dinny stood in the curve of the piano, listening, and speedily entranced. It was obviously Bach, but she did not know what. An endearing, cool, and lovely tune, coming over and over and over, monotonous, yet moving as only Bach could be.
“What is it?”
“A Chorale of Bach, set by a pianist.” And the ‘young man’ nodded his eyeglass towards the keys.
“Glorious! Your ears on heaven and your feet in flowery fields,” murmured Dinny.
The ‘young man’ closed the piano and stood up.
“That’s what I want, that’s what I want, young lady!”
“Oh!” said Dinny. “Is that all?”