Four Strange Women by E.R. Punshon Read Free Book Online Page B

perfectly manicured hands as she spoke, and Bobby was a little startled to see how there shone and glittered on the middle finger of her right hand a diamond that seemed almost as big as a pea, and that gave out a peculiar soft bluish brilliance. It reminded Bobby of what he had heard of the famous Blue John stone, recently withdrawn from public auction as the reserve price of £3,000 had not been reached.
    An angry, impatient voice shouted from a distance:— “Hi, May, is that you? I’m over here.”
    â€œThat’s Len,” Lady May said, and with another mechanically dazzling smile mechanically designed to complete Bobby’s capture, Lady May hurried away.
    Bobby, watching her go, found himself remembering that story Lady May had so hotly denied of Andy White’s present to her of an extremely valuable diamond necklace. But at any rate Andy White could not have given her the famous Blue John diamond, since the auction sale had been subsequent to his still unexplained death.
    â€œMost likely it wasn’t the Blue John at all,” he told himself, “though it looked pretty valuable,” and he remembered, too, that Lady May was generally supposed to have so little money—her father, the Earl of Merefield, being one of the fraternity of the hard up peers—that she could only afford to go about as she did because she got her frocks free on condition of telling all her friends who dressed her; her gloves and stockings free because she allowed it to be known what brands she wore; her dinners free on condition of allowing paragraphs to appear saying what restaurant she patronized; her car as a reward for being photographed by its side. As for cigarettes, she not only got them free but as much as many a man earned in a year besides for simply allowing it to be known that if she did offer you a cigarette in the unlikely event of your meeting her, then it would be one of such and such a make.
    Great are the uses of advertisement, Bobby reflected, and found himself oddly worried by the thought of that softly-shining diamond on her lifted hand.

CHAPTER IV
CONSULTATION
    Colonel Glynne came back into the room. Accompanying him was a tall, grey-haired man, with a thin, intellectual face; a shy, retiring manner; mild, blinking blue eyes. One could have taken him for an Oxford professor who had never known a danger more deadly than that of making some slip in a learned article and so exposing himself to equally learned criticism. In fact he was, as Bobby learned to his surprise, General Sir Harold Hannay, with the right to tag most of the alphabet to his name. He had the reputation of being the cleverest man in the army—it was said he read Professor Whitehead for recreation and had discussed on equal terms mathematical problems with the gentleman who does not wish to be known as Lord Russell. He had, too, to his credit a series of reckless exploits in the last war, on the North-West frontier, in various other quarters of the globe, and yet in independent command he had not always been a success. Apparently he lacked that fierce, untiring energy of will great commanders need, and he was also always more willing to risk his own life than the lives of others. Bobby regarded him with a good deal of awe, and was reduced to speechless embarrassment when he found the general appearing to regard it as a high privilege to meet a young man of such promise and achievement as he knew Bobby to be.
    With him was his daughter, Hazel Hannay, in many ways an odd contrast to her father. Where he was fair, tall, and lean, she was tall, dark, bigly made, with dead black hair, and, beneath heavy, strongly marked brows, dark, passionate eyes whose glance seemed to engulf and absorb all it rested on. Nor was there much that was shy or retiring in her manner, or in the heavy, questioning, somewhat haughty gaze she directed full upon Bobby. In her dress she seemed more inclined to bright and contrasting colours