Here Comes a Chopper by Gladys Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

request, ‘that you’ve all had to sit and sit because nobody had the sense to get up and break the spell?’
    ‘Lady Catherine was so much distressed at the idea that somebody should bring death upon himself within the year by rising first from the board, that we felt we had to give in,’ Mrs Bradley responded. ‘And, further, dear child, in ten minutes more we are promised a violin solo to reward us for our exemplary behaviour. Won’t you stay and listen? It is so very late for you now, that another half hour won’t signify anything particular, and, after that, I myself will drive you home.’
    ‘I certainly should like to hear Mrs Denbies play,’ said Dorothy, over Roger’s shoulder. ‘Go on, silly! Sit down,’ she added into her fuming protector’s left ear.
    So they seated themselves, and, at a motion of Lady Catherine’s hand, the whole company rose. George, who had fallen asleep, was lifted up by Bugle and carried away, and the others went into a large chamber on the ground floor in which there was a grand piano on a low platform.
    Claudia Denbies tuned her violin, played Bach’s
Partita in E Minor
on it, and then, on the ’cello, Andrea Caporale’s
Sonata in D Minor
and Fauré’s
Elégie
.
    ‘I’ve strained my back, I think,’ she said, in response to a demand from Captain Ranmore for another piece on the violin, ‘and find the ’cello a bit easier to manage tonight because I can sit down to it. I hate sitting to play the fiddle.’
    ‘I knew you shouldn’t have gone out riding this afternoon,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘I said at the time it was ridiculous.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think I did it out riding,’ replied Claudia Denbies, ‘But I must get it right before my London recital. Besides, I’ve promised Captain Ranmore to shoot at the butts with him tomorrow.’
    ‘And now,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘these children must go, Lady Catherine, or they’ll get no sleep tonight.’
    ‘Sim is quite ready,’ said Lady Catherine, graciously. ‘Will you see to them, Eunice?’
    ‘Of course,’ said Eunice Pigdon. She took them out to the car which was at the front door. ‘I do hope you weren’t annoyed at being asked to come back,’ she added, as the three of them walked on to the gravel. ‘Lady Catherine is very peculiar over the number thirteen.’
    ‘But, surely,’ said Roger, voicing the thought which had been in his mind for the last hour, ‘it wouldn’t have mattered who got up first after we left, as we hadn’t sat down thirteen? Besides, we didn’t leave thirteen at table. I don’t see any sense in it. The first one of the house-party who got up after we left would have been the third of fourteen people, not the first of thirteen. Where’sLady Catherine’s logic? You would have been thirteen
with
Mr Lingfield, not without him. The whole business makes no sense.’
    ‘I know,’ Eunice Pigdon agreed. ‘Oh, well, it’s a good thing you were kind enough to come back, or I’m sure we’d have been sitting there still. Lady Catherine is never gainsaid. It doesn’t do. Poor Mary Leith and I have trouble enough as it is. Oh, you won’t want this car. Sim, take it back.’
    ‘You could all have got up together,’ suggested Dorothy. Eunice Pigdon agreed, but with more politeness than heartiness. She made way for Mrs Bradley and walked slowly back into the house. The chauffeur brought Mrs Bradley’s car.
    The journey by car seemed short. Nevertheless, it was well after midnight before they drew up at the gates of Dorothy’s home. Mrs Bradley would not come in, and favoured them with a leer as she said good night. She drove away immediately, and Roger, taking the key from Dorothy as soon as they reached the front door, opened up for her and was invited in.
    It was the first time he had ever seen Bob’s home. It seemed spacious after his lodgings. Dorothy took him into the dining-room.
    ‘Thank goodness it’s fairly warm in here,’ she said. The drive had proved cold, and