Death in a White Tie by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online Page B

encouraged Davidson to launch out on his favourite subject, The Arts, with rather emphatic capitals. He had capped Davidson’s Latin tags, quoted Congreve against him, and listened with amusement to a preposterous parallel drawn between Rubens and Dürer. “The extrovert and the introvert of Art,” Davidson had cried, waving his beautiful hands, and Lord Robert had twinkled and said: “You are talking above my head.”
    “I’m talking nonsense,” Davidson had replied abruptly, “and you know it.” But in a minute or two he had been off again as flamboyantly as ever and had left at one o’clock in the morning, very pleased with himself and overflowing with phrases.
    “Ah!” he said now as he shook hands. “I might have guessed I should find you here. Doing the fashionable thing for the unfashionable reason. Music! My God!”
    “What’s wrong?* asked Lord Robert.
    “My dear Lord Robert, how many of these people will know what they are listening to, or even listen? Not one in fifty.”
    “Oh, come now!”
    “Not one in fifty! There goes that fellow Withers whose aesthetic appreciation is less than that of a monkey on a barrel-organ. What’s he here for? I repeat, not one in fifty of these humbugs knows what he’s listening to. And how many of the forty-nine have the courage to confess themselves honest philistines?”
    “Quite a number, I should have thought,” said Lord Robert cheerfully. “Myself for one. I’m inclined to go to sleep.”
    “Now, why say that? You know perfectly well — What’s the matter?”
    “Sorry. I was looking at Evelyn Carrados. She looks damn seedy,” said Lord Robert. Davidson followed his glance to where Lady Carrados sat beside Lady Alleyn. Davidson watched her for a moment and then said quietly:
    “Yes. She’s overdoing it. I shall have to scold her. My seat is somewhere over there, I believe.” He made an impatient gesture. “They all overdo it, these mothers, and the girls overdo it, and the husbands get rattled and the young men neglect their work and then there are half a dozen smart weddings, as many nervous breakdowns and there’s your London season.”
    “Lor!” said Lord Robert mildly.
    “It’s the truth. In my job one sees it over and over again. Yes, yes, yes, I know! I am a smart West End doctor and I encourage all these women to fancy themselves ill. That’s what you may very well think, but I assure you, my dear Lord Robert, that one sees cases of nervous exhaustion that are enough to make a cynic of the youngest ingénue. And they are so charming, these mamas. I mean really charming. Women like Lady Carrados. They help each other so much. It is not all a cutlet for a cutlet. But” — he spread out his hands — “what is it for? What is it all about? The same people meeting each other over and over again at great expense to the accompaniment of loud negroid noises of jazz bands. For what?”
    “Damned if I know,” said Lord Robert cheerfully. “Who’s that feller who came in behind Withers? Tall, dark feller with the extraordinary hands. I seem to know him.”
    “Where? Ah.” Davidson picked up his glasses which he wore on a wide black ribbon. “Who is it, now! I’ll tell you who it is. It’s the catering fellow, Dimitri. He’s having his three guineas’ worth of Bach with the
haute monde
and, by God, I’ll wager you anything you like that he’s got more appreciation in his extraordinary little finger — you are very observant, it
is
an odd hand — than most of them have in the whole of their pampered carcasses. How do you do, Mrs Halcut-Hackett?”
    She had come up so quietly that Lord Robert had actually missed her. She looked magnificent. Davidson, to Lord Robert’s amusement, kissed her hand.
    “Have you come to worship?” he asked.
    “Why, certainly,” she said and turned to Lord Robert. “I see you have not forgotten.”
    “How could I?”
    “Now isn’t that nice?” asked Mrs Halcut-Hackett, looking slantways at