The Fashion In Shrouds by Margery Allingham Read Free Book Online Page A

the staff whispered and preened itself.
    Campion and Alan Dell looked at the gown again, each trying to discover why it should be so particularly pleasing, and were both on the verge of making the same thundering mistake by deciding that its charm lay in its simplicity when Georgia dropped the bomb.
    â€˜Val, my angel,’ she said, her lovely husky voice sounding clearly through the room, ‘it’s breath-taking! It’s
you.
It’s
me
. But my pet, it’s not
new.
I saw it last night at the Dudley Club.’
    There was a moment of scandalized silence. The Greek chorus in the corner gaped and Rex’s nervous giggle echoed inopportunely from the background. The formal conversation piece had turned into a Gluyas Williams picture.
    Lady Papendeik rose.
    â€˜My dear,’ she said, ‘my dear.’ Her voice was not very loud or even particularly severe, but instantly all the humour went out of the situation and Georgia was on the defensive.
    â€˜Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry.’ She turned to Val impulsively and the most ungenerous amongst them could not have doubted her honesty. ‘There’s been some hideous mistake, of course. This whole day is like a nightmare. I did see it. I saw it last night and it fascinated me. I can even prove it, unfortunately. There’s a photograph of the Blaxill woman wearing it in one of the morning papers . . . the
Range Finder,
I think . . . on the back page. She’s dancing with a Cabinet Minister. I noticed it, naturally. It wiped the floor with everything else.’
    Val said nothing. Her face was quite expressionless as she nodded to the horrified group at the other end of the room. There was a discreet scurrying towards the door and a rustle of chatter as they reached the hall. Georgia stood up. Her tall, graceful body towered over Val, making the other girl look as if she belonged to some smaller and neater world.
    â€˜Of course it hadn’t your cut,’ she said earnestly, ‘and I don’t think it was in that material, but it was white.’
    Lady Papendeik shrugged her shoulders.
    â€˜That is Bouileau’s
Caresse
,’ she said, ‘woven to our design.’
    Georgia looked like helpless apology personified.
    â€˜I had to tell you,’ she said.
    â€˜Of course you did, my dear,’ murmured Lady Papendeik without thawing. ‘Of course.’
    There was no doubt that the incident was a major catastrophe. Everybody began to talk and Paul crossed the room to Val’s side, with Ramillies, casual and unaccountable, at his heels.
    Mr Campion was puzzled. In his experience the duplication of a design, although the most dispiriting of all disasters to the artist concerned, is seldom taken seriously by anyone else, unless hard money has already been involved, and he began to wonder if this explosion was not in the nature of a safety-valve, seized upon gratefully because it was a legitimate excuse for excitement actually engendered by something less politic to talk about.
    The other person who might possibly have shared Mr Campion’s own Alice in Wonderland view of the situation was the small boy. He sat staring into the inside of his Haverleigh cap, his forehead wrinkled, and was apparently unaware of any crisis.
    The return of Rex was dramatic. He came hurrying in with a perfectly white face, a newspaper in his outstretched hand. Lady Papendeik stood looking at the photograph for some moments and when she spoke her comment was typical.
    â€˜Only a thief would permit a woman with a stomach to commit such sacrilege. Who dresses her?’
    The others crowded round and Dell turned to Campion again.
    â€˜It’s a leakage,’ he murmured. ‘You can’t stop it in any show where designs are secret. It’s an infuriating thing.’
    â€˜It’s a miracle the photograph is so clear,’ said Georgia forlornly. ‘They’re usually so vague. But you can’t miss that, can you?