Death of a Peer by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online Page A

which has thrown us all into rather a fever.”
    “Do you think it’ll be all right?” asked Roberta.
    “Well, it’s simply
so
crucial that we’re not thinking at all. Never jump your fences till you meet them. But I’m terribly anxious that we should take the right
line
with Gabriel. It’s a bore that Charlie loathes him so wholeheartedly.”
    “I don’t think he ever loathed anybody,” said Roberta.
    “Well, as far as he can, he hates Gabriel. Gabriel has always been rather beastly to him and thinks he’s extravagant. Gabriel himself is a miser.”
    “Oh dear!”
    “I know. Still he’s also a snob and I really don’t believe he’ll allow his brother to go bankrupt. He’d
crawl
with horror at the publicity. What we’ve got to do is decide on the line to take with Gabriel when he gets here. I thought the first thing was to consider his comfort. He likes a special kind of sherry, almost unprocurable, I understand, but Baskett is going to hunt for it. And he likes early Chinese pottery. Deepacres is full of leering goddesses and dragons. Well, by a great stroke of luck, one of the things poor Charlie bought with an eye to business is a small blue pot which was most frightfully expensive and which, in a mad moment, he paid for. I had the really brilliant idea of letting Mike give it to Gabriel. Mike has quite charming manners when he tries.”
    “But, Charlot, if this pot is so valuable, couldn’t you sell it?”
    “I suppose we could, but how? And anyway my cunning tells me that it’s much better to invest it as a sweetner for Gabriel. We’ve got to be diplomatic. Suppose the pot is worth a hundred pounds? My dear, we want two thousand. Why not use the pot as a sprat to catch a mackerel?”
    “Yes,” said Roberta dubiously, “but may he not think it looks a bit lavish to be giving away valuable pots?”
    “Oh, no,” said Lady Charles with an air of dismissal, “he’ll be delighted. And anyway if he flings it back in poor little Mike’s face, we’ve still
got
the pot.”
    “True,” said Roberta, but she felt that there was a flaw somewhere in Lady Charles’s logic.
    “We’ll all be in the drawing-room when he comes,” continued Lady Charles, “and I thought perhaps we might have some charades.”
    “What!”
    “I know it sounds mad, Robin, but you see he
knows
we’re rather mad and it’s no good pretending we’re not. And we’re all good at charades, you can’t deny it.”
    Roberta remembered the charades in New Zealand, particularly one that presented the Garden of Eden. Lord Charles, with his glass in his eye, and an umbrella over his head to suggest the heat of the day, had enacted Adam. Henry was the serpent and the twins angels. Frid had entered into the spirit of the part of Eve and had worn almost nothing but a brassiere and a brown-paper fig-leaf. Lady Charles had found one of the false beards that the Lampreys could always be depended upon to produce and had made a particularly irritable deity. Patch had been the apple tree.
    “Does he like charades?” asked Roberta.
    “I don’t suppose he ever sees any, which is all to the good. We’ll make him feel gay. That’s poor old Gabriel’s trouble. He’s never gay enough.”
    There was a tap at the door and Henry looked in.
    “I thought you might like a good laugh,” said Henry. “The bum has come up the back stairs and caught poor old Daddy. He’s sitting in the kitchen with Baskett and the maids.”
    “Oh
no
!” said his mother.
    “His name is Mr. Gremball,” said Henry. iii
    During lunch Lady Charles developed her theory of the way in which Lord Wutherwood — and Rune — was to be received and entertained. The family, with the exception of Henry, entered warmly into the discussion. Henry seemed to be more than usually vague and rather dispirited. Roberta, to her discomfiture, repeatedly caught his eye. Henry stared at her with an expression which she was unable to interpret until it occurred to her that he