Suspicious Circumstances by Patrick Quentin Read Free Book Online

then.
    ‘Norma,’ he said. ‘I told you to go to bed.’
    ‘Bed!’ said Norma. ‘Off hand, I’d have thought that was about the last place in the world you’d want to find me. Beds are for the Who-Is-Sylvia-What-Is-She’s of this world and for the Little Anny Roodys.’
    And then she fell flat on her face and passed out.
    Ronnie and Gino carried her upstairs and laid her out on a bed. Then they all, including the cheese, went down to the pool house because Mother preferred the chafing dish down there. The atmosphere, apparently, was highly charged to say the least of it, Uncle Hans and Gino and Pam being hangdog, Ronnie rather high himself and in a tizzy, torn between hopeless passion for Mother and rage with Norma, while Mother, in an apron with Scotties all over it, bustled in and out of the kitchen, chattering, being gay, enlisting aid, making charm and saying, ‘Dearest Norma, she’ll be all right again the moment she gets some food inside her.’
    Pam said she found herself thinking of Norma’s stomach with all the gin and the melted cheese writhing together inside and it gave her the screaming mimis.
    After about an hour of it, Ronnie could stand it no longer. ‘Anny,’ he said, ‘listen to me. You’ve got to let me get rid of her. She can’t play Ninon de Lenclos. Ninon de Lenclos is a historical monument in France. If Norma plays Ninon de Lenclos, the French will declare war on us five minutes after the premiere. Anny, please, please, Anny, you play it. I’ll pay you anything. The biggest salary you’ve ever got, plus a percentage. Anny…’
    But Mother just bustled and did fatal things with her eyelashes, raising and lowering them like Venetian blinds, and patted his shoulder.
    ‘No, Ronnie darling, poor Norma is your wife and my friend. We must help her. She’s unhappy, insecure. It’s up to us,’ etcetera.
    And Ronnie groaned and obviously he could hardly bear it because the eyelashes were doing such things to him and he wished he was dead.
    It was about eight-thirty when finally Mother came out of the kitchen again and said, ‘Pam darling, it’s all ready. Run up to the house and get Norma. She’s had her little nap by now.’
    Pam was, of course, terrified at the prospect of getting Norma and, as it happened, she didn’t have to because she showed up then. She was still weaving, apparently, but she was a little more with it. She made it past the edge of the pool and peered at them all under hooded, hoot-owl lids. Then she gave a terrible melodramatic sniff and clutched her hand against her sweater.
    ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘what is this divinely familiar fragrance? Can it be that the Legend is delighting us with yet another of the inimitable brews from her old Swiss cauldron? A tangy, zestful, cheesy tit-bit guaranteed to corrode the intestines of even a William Tell? Why don’t you yodel, darling, too, and garland your hair with sprays of edelweiss?’
    Norma’s flow of invective was really her strongest point and only Mother could have gone on from there. But she did, of course, and they all got dainty striped napkins and salads and relishes and hot bread. Then she brought out the fondue in the huge steaming copper chafing dish and personally scooped out the first portion and carried it over to Norma.
    ‘Here, Norma dear, you must keep up your strength. You’ve got your career to consider now.’
    And Norma looked at the plate of fondue and then looked at Mother. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she said, ‘but if I want to drop dead, I’ll do it my own way. Being a cooking fatality doesn’t appeal to me.’
    And then, with an awful lurch, she got out of the Finnish chair she’d slumped into, swung at the plate of fondue with her hand and sent it splashing all over the blue and white Puebla tiles where Tray, who apparently had been surprisingly good up till then and should have known better, started lapping it up. By then, Pam said, she wasn’t a hoot-owl any more, she was one of