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.
âVal, my angel,â she said, her lovely husky voice sounding clearly through the room, âitâs breath-taking! Itâs
you.
Itâs
me
. But my pet, itâs not
new.
I saw it last night at the Dudley Club.â
There was a moment of scandalized silence. The Greek chorus in the corner gaped and Rexâs nervous giggle echoed inopportunely from the background. The formal conversation piece had turned into a Gluyas Williams picture.
Lady Papendeik rose.
âMy dear,â she said, âmy dear.â 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.
âOh, my dear, Iâm so sorry.â She turned to Val impulsively and the most ungenerous amongst them could not have doubted her honesty. âThereâs 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. Thereâs a photograph of the Blaxill woman wearing it in one of the morning papers . . . the
Range Finder,
I think . . . on the back page. Sheâs dancing with a Cabinet Minister. I noticed it, naturally. It wiped the floor with everything else.â
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.
âOf course it hadnât your cut,â she said earnestly, âand I donât think it was in that material, but it was white.â
Lady Papendeik shrugged her shoulders.
âThat is Bouileauâs
Caresse
,â she said, âwoven to our design.â
Georgia looked like helpless apology personified.
âI had to tell you,â she said.
âOf course you did, my dear,â murmured Lady Papendeik without thawing. âOf course.â
There was no doubt that the incident was a major catastrophe. Everybody began to talk and Paul crossed the room to Valâs 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 Campionâs 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.
âOnly a thief would permit a woman with a stomach to commit such sacrilege. Who dresses her?â
The others crowded round and Dell turned to Campion again.
âItâs a leakage,â he murmured. âYou canât stop it in any show where designs are secret. Itâs an infuriating thing.â
âItâs a miracle the photograph is so clear,â said Georgia forlornly. âTheyâre usually so vague. But you canât miss that, can you?
Carol Durand, Summer Prescott