Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online Page A

exasperation.
    A figure passed the window and stood in the doorway. It was Miss Claire. Dikon, whose job obliged him to observe such things, noticed that her cotton dress had been most misguidedly garnished with a neck bow of shiny ribbon, that her hair was precisely the wrong length, and that she used no make-up.
    “Mr. Bell,” said Barbara, “we were wondering if you’d advise us about Mr. Gaunt’s
rooms
. Where to
put
things. I’m afraid you’ll find us very
primitive
. She laid tremendous stress on odd syllables and words, and as she did so turned up her eyes in a deprecating manner and pulled down the corners of her mouth like a lugubrious clown.
    “Comedy stuff,” thought Dikon. “Alas, alas, she means to be funny.” He said that he would be delighted to see the rooms, and, nervously fingering his tie, followed her along the verandah.
    The wing at the east end of the house, corresponding with the Claires’ private rooms at the west end, had been turned into a sort of flat for Gaunt, Dikon and Colly. It consisted of four rooms: two small bedrooms, one tiny bedroom, and a slightly larger bedroom which had been converted into Mr. Questing’s idea of a celebrity’s study. In this apartment were assembled two chromium-steel chairs, one large armchair, and a streamlined desk, all of rather bad design, and with the dealer’s tabs still attached to them. The floor was newly carpeted, and the windows in process of being freshly curtained by Mrs. Claire. Mr. Questing, wearing a cigar as if it were a sort of badge of office, lolled carelessly in the armchair. On Dikon’s entrance he sprang to his feet.
    “Well, well, well,” cried Mr. Questing gaily, “how’s the young gentleman?”
    “Quite well, thank you,” said Dikon, who had spent the greater part of the day motoring with Mr. Questing, and had become reconciled to these constant inquiries.
    “Is this service,” Mr. Questing went on, waving his cigar at the room, “or is it? Forty-eight hours ago I hadn’t the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. Bell. After our little chat yesterday, I felt so optimistic I just had to get out and get going. I went to the finest furnishing firm in Auckland, and I told the manager, I told him: ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘you’ve got the right stuff! It’s modern and it’s quality. Listen!’ I told him. ‘I’ll take this stuff, if you can get it to Wai-ata-tapu, Harpoon, by to-morrow afternoon. And if not, not.’ That’s the way I like to do things, Mr. Bell.”
    “I hope you have explained that even now Gaunt may not decide to come,” said Dikon. “You have all taken a great deal of trouble, Mrs. Claire.”
    Mrs. Claire looked doubtfully from Questing to Dikon. “I’m afraid,” she said plaintively, “that I don’t really quite appreciate very up-to-date furniture. I always think a homelike atmosphere, no matter how shabby… However.”
    Questing cut in, and Dikon only half-listened to another dissertation on the necessity of moving with the times. He was jerked into full awareness when Questing, with an air of familiarity, addressed himself to Barbara. “And what’s Babs got to say about it?” he asked, lowering his voice to a rich and offensive purr. Dikon saw her step backwards. It was an instinctive movement, he thought, uncontrollable as a reflex jerk, but less ungainly than her usual habit. Its effect on Dikon was as simple and as automatic as itself; he felt a stab of sympathy and a protective impulse. She was no longer regrettable; she was, for a moment, rather touching. Surprised, and a little disturbed, he looked away from Barbara to Mrs. Claire, and saw that her plump hands were clenched among sharp folds of the shining chintz. He felt that a little scene of climax had been enacted. It was disturbed by the appearance of another figure. Limping steps sounded on the verandah, and the doorway was darkened. A stocky man, elderly but still red-headed and extremely handsome in an angry sort of way,