Heads You Lose by Christianna Brand Read Free Book Online

putting two and two together, and arriving at somewhat similar conclusions. The meal was punctuated by the sound of noisy feet and the loud cries of Cockie’s henchmen, who had taken possession of the house and were subjecting it to a very severe scrutiny. The hall was closed to the family, and they had been obliged to make a series of detours to reach the dining-room. By this route also came a young lady who was introduced, disapprovingly, by Bunsen as: “Miss le May, with Inspector Cockrill’s permission, sir.”
    Miss Pippi le May stood regarding them with inquisitive grey-green eyes. She was a tiny creature with a stringy little body and small, expressive brown hands. Her hair, which Nature had made red and Art had assisted into a handsome auburn, was so thick and close-cut that it made a sort of woolly cap about her head; she had wound a bright scarf around it and joined the ends gaily with a couple of gigantic gold hair-pins; there was an air of chic about her, but all the washing in the world could not make her look quite clean. She was a not unsuccessful character actress making her determined way upon the West End stage. And she was Grace Morland’s cousin.
    Pendock rose to meet her. “Miss le May! I’d no idea you were down. Or have you just arrived?”
    “I arrived last night,” said Pippi briefly. She tipped her hand to her head in a casual salute. “Morning, Lady Hart. Hallo, Venetia. Hallo, Fran. Oh, hallo, James.”
    “Hallo, Pippi,” they said, staring at her.
    Pendock pulled up a chair to the table. “Thank you,” she said, accepting it calmly. “Can I have some coffee? What a mess this is about poor old Grace, isn’t it?”
    “It’s the most ghastly affair,” said Pendock, looking at her with troubled eyes.
    “She seemed a bit agitato when I got here last night. I thought it was because I’d just turned up, and you know what an old fuss-pot she was, she liked about six weeks’ notice; but I’d only decided yesterday, myself, and I was darned if I was going to bust ninepence on a telegram or whatever it is with these ghastly war-time prices.”
    “You could have ’phoned here; we’d very gladly have taken her a message,” and Pen, for Pigeonsford Cottage did not rise to a telephone.
    “Oh, a trunk call would have been just as much; and as a matter of fact I never thought about it at all.”
    “You say she seemed agitated and upset?”
    “Well, she looked as if she’d been howling and her nerves were all on edge; this was at about eight o’clock.”
    “What time did you last see her?” said several voices at once.
    “Good heavens, you’re as bad as old Cockrill; he arrived at some unearthly hour this morning and hoicked us out of bed and started asking us the most peculiar questions. We finally worked it out that we last saw her just after eleven o’clock, when we went to bed. Trotty gave me some Horlicks and stuff, and went off to give Grace hers. She came back and said that Grace was in a great state of excitement and quite different from what she had been earlier in the evening; she said she was running round and round the room like a chicken with its head cut off… Oh dear,” said Pippi, clapping her hand to her mouth and regarding them over it with humorously horrified eyes: “What a very unfortunate metaphor!”
    “I should just go on with what you were saying, my dear,” said Lady Hart, though she did not regard Pippi as her dear, at all.
    “Well, anyway, she was flapping round, saying that now she had somebody in the hollow of her hand, or some such expression.”
    “Who on earth could she have meant?” said Fran, quite thrilled.
    “Goodness knows. Actually her expression was ‘a certain person’—a bit vague, and, as reported by Trotty, vaguer still. What’s all this about a hat?” asked Pippi abruptly.
    They had not mentioned the hat that morning. There had been a sort of reticence about it, as though its significance were too deep, and possibly too