Hole and Corner by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online

success.
    â€œThe people at the next table will think you’re mad,” she said in rather a shaky voice.
    â€œNot mad—only afflicted,” said Anthony, still without consonants. Then, returning to ordinary speech, “That’s what you might have done to me. I hope remorse is gnawing at your vitals.”
    Shirley shook her head. Then the corners of her mouth gave way.
    â€œAnthony, you’re a devil , and some day you’ll get paid out. Mrs Huddleston will look round and see you, or you’ll slip up and call her the Blessed Damozel to her face, and then you’ll be in the soup.”
    Anthony looked up with a gleam in his eye.
    â€œWhat’ll you bet I don’t call her the Blessed Damozel and get away with it?”
    Shirley met the gleam with a very dancing one of her own.
    â€œYou wouldn’t dare.”
    â€œBet on it?”
    â€œYou wouldn’t dare.”
    â€œWhat’ll you bet?”
    â€œTuppence,” said Shirley.
    â€œMy good girl, I don’t take my life in my hand for tuppence!” He leaned across the table, gazed at her tenderly, and said in his softest voice, “Resign from the A.K.A. and make it a kiss.”
    To her intense annoyance Shirley blushed. She felt the colour run hot and quick to the very roots of her hair. She felt it at her temples, and even round at the back of her neck. She could have stamped with rage, and the angrier she felt, the more she blushed.
    Anthony leaned back in his chair and surveyed her with pleasure. It amused him very much to make her angry, and to see how easily she blushed. Under the amusement there was something else.
    â€œWell?” he said. “What about it? Is it a bet?”
    â€œNo, it isn’t.”
    â€œWell, I won’t do it for tuppence. Have you ever been in for a blushing prize? I should think you would win hands down. But of course there wouldn’t be many entries. It’s almost a lost art—girls don’t do it now.”
    â€œVillage maidens do. I was brought up in a village, so I blush frightfully easily, and it’s absolutely pig-mean of you to make me do it in front of hundreds of people.”
    â€œI shouldn’t worry—you looked very nice.”
    â€œI couldn’t have! It’s all very well to get pink in the right place, but it’s frightful to turn puce all over.”
    â€œI shouldn’t have called it exactly puce,” said Anthony kindly.
    The couple at the next table had observed Shirley’s change of colour with interest. They did not stare, but anyone watching them might have thought them a little too consciously discreet. The man wore his evening clothes rather as if he did not wear them very often. He might have been an old thirty-five or a young forty. He had a long pale nose in a long pale face. The nose was sharp at the tip, and the face was sharp at the chin. The eyes were sharp all over. They never rested long on anyone. When they had looked they looked away again. There was too much pomade on the rather sparse reddish hair. The woman was younger, taller, plumper. She filled a shiny red sequined dress. She had more bust than is the fashion. She had a trick of wriggling her shoulders and using her hands that was not quite English. She had fine dark eyes and fine dark hair, a sallow skin, and a very good conceit of herself. She used scarlet lipstick. Her name was Ettie Miller. She was a typist in a private inquiry agency, and she was dining, not by any means for the first time, with Alfred Phillips, clerk in the firm of Schuyler and Van Leiten of New York. English by birth, American by choice, he was at present in London on his firm’s business, and Miss Ettie Miller was part of that business. Shirley Dale was part of it too, but neither she nor Anthony Leigh were to know that. They went on talking nonsense in a cheerful, light-hearted manner.
    Alfred Phillips and Ettie Miller did not talk nonsense. They leaned to