Blindfold (16 page)

“Lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.”

CHAPTER XXII

Miles lunched with the Gilmores next day. He really thought he had better tell Freddy about Flossie Palmer being mixed up in the Macintyre case. The present situation was an uncomfortable one, and he thought he had better put it straight with Freddy.

Flossie didn't appear at lunch, which was rather a relief. The other girl, Gladys, waited on them. Lila treated him as if he were the friend of a lifetime. She wore a very simple, very expensive garment of honey-coloured wool which buttoned all the way down the front with the largest buttons Miles had even seen in his life. She had a new shade of lipstick, and was worried because her nail-polish did not match it exactly.

“And that devil of a girl at Roselle's told me it would! Isn't it too devastating? And Freddy's no help at all! Miles darling, what
am
I to do?”

“Wash one of them off,” said Freddy.

“Freddy!
How too utterly vandal! Do you know how long my nails take to do?”

“I ought to. Why not give the lipstick a miss?”

“Darling, how can I? I should feel too
utterly
nude! Besides—Miles, do you know, I've got the most enthralling scheme—at least it isn't mine really, but I'm in it, only Freddy is being too
recalcitrant
. Fitz wants me to go into a dress business with him. Really
the
most wonderful plan! There will be just a plate-glass window, and a heavy gold curtain, and a really comfy chair. I've told him I simply won't play at all unless the chair is
really
comfy. I
mean
, Miles darling, I've got to sit in it all day—haven't I?”

“Have you?” said Miles.

“But, darling, of course—in the dresses that Fitz is going to design for me—a morning one in the morning, and so on. And sometimes I'll just walk across the floor and turn round. Fitz says I shall draw crowds. And he's designed the most
marvellous
bathing-dress for me to show, only Freddy says I'm not to.”

Freddy smiled his agreeable smile.

“I should hate you to catch cold, darling.”

“But Fitz says it would be
the
most marvellous draw.”

“Lila,” said Freddy gravely, “are you fond of Fitz?”

Lila's eyebrows rose.

“Darling, I
adore
him. You know I do.”

“Then I suppose you don't want him to have a black eye?”

“Freddy!”

“Or a thick ear?”

“Darling!”

“Or a split lip?”

“My
sweet!”

“Well, personally, I think they'd improve his appearance quite a lot. And what's more, he'll get them if he doesn't look out, and then, darling, I shall be had up for assault, and all the evening papers will have headlines like
‘Husband's Vengeance. Society Beauty in the Box,'
and all that sort of thing.”

“How
marvellous!”
She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin upon her hands. The lipstick certainly did not match the finger-nails. Freddy told her so.

“My sweet, I
know
—too
devastating!
I shall have to do my face again—it doesn't take quite as long as my hands. Besides, I really
do
think this nail stuff is rather alluring, and it's such a perfectly
foul
day, I must have
something
to cheer me up. Freddy, I think we must have the rest of the lights on. It's getting darker every minute.”

Gladys was out of the room. Freddy got up and turned on the light in the four cut crystal globes which studded the black ceiling.

“Of course, if you
will
have a black room—”

“But, my sweet, it's so becoming.”

“To you and Miles perhaps—but what about me? Hallo, who's been shedding beads?” He stooped and picked up a small object which the sudden illumination had discovered. It lay against the wall under the glass slab which did duty for a serving-table, and which, he always declared, reminded him of a block of ice from the fishmonger's. He did not really consider that a black room furnished with blocks of ice was a comfortable place in which to eat your meals.

He laid what he had found upon the table in front of Lila. It was a bead of about the size of a large pea, of a dark grey colour with an iridescent bloom upon it. Against the semi-transparency of the glass it looked black.

He said, “Yours?” and went back to his place.

Lila picked up the bead.

“Oh
no
, I—Freddy, where did this come from?”

“I picked it up off the floor over there.”

“But darling, how extraordinary!” She turned it between finger and thumb, feeling it, looking at it. “Freddy, where could it have come from?”

Gladys had come into the room and was handing the sweet. She said in a low voice,

“Oh, madam, it's Flossie's.”

Lila looked at her, the bead in her hand. Her eyes were wide. She looked like a startled child.

“This isn't Flossie's.”

“Yes, madam. She broke her beads coming in last night. She told me she hadn't been able to find them all.”

Lila had turned quite pale. She looked past the dish which Gladys was holding and said,

“It can't be Flossie's! What nonsense! It's a pearl.”

Gladys went on holding the dish.

“It's a pearl bead, madam. Flossie broke the string last night coming in.”

“Lila,” said Freddy—“suppose you help yourself. I don't see why Miles and I should have cold pancakes.”

Lila waved the pancakes away. She stared at the bead. Once she looked up as if she were going to speak, met Freddy's eyes, and stopped. When Gladys had left the room, she burst out.

“Freddy, it's a black pearl!”

Freddy was squeezing lemon over the quarter of an inch of sugar with which he had encrusted his pancake.

“Darling, you've got pearls on the brain. If you're not careful you'll be thinking you're an oyster, and then where shall we be?”

“But, Freddy, it
is
a pearl! It is
really!
It can't be Flossie's—it simply
can't!”
She put it to her lips and touched it with her tongue. “I knew directly I saw it. But that's the proof—it's rough. Pearl beads are smooth, but real pearls are rough if you try them with your tongue. It's a black pearl. How
can
Flossie have a string of black pearls?”

Miles had been thinking so hard that it had not occurred to him to speak, but he spoke now. He said,

“If she's Miss Macintyre, she might have her mother's pearls.”

“What?”
said Freddy Gilmore.

Lila's blue eyes rolled helplessly.

Miles beamed upon them both.

“Well, it's this way. Flossie is the adopted child of a woman called Flo Palmer in whose sister's house the Macintyre baby was born. I'd met Flossie before she came here. I was going to tell you all about it after lunch.”

“You're not pulling our legs?”

“No, I'm not. It's a fact. But that's as far as I've got. I don't know that Flo Palmer adopted the Macintyre baby. In fact there's every reason to suppose that she didn't—or, let us say, there's no reason to suppose that she did. I hadn't got farther than a suspicion, but if Flossie has got a string of black pearls, it's going to have a very stimulating effect on that suspicion.”

Freddy finished his pancake.

“It can't be a pearl,” he said. “It's sheer blithering nonsense. Let's go upstairs and interview Flossie, who will, (a), tell us she got the beads at Woolworth's; (b), burst into tears; (c), give notice; and (d), bring an action for defamation of character. But it's all right as long as you're happy, darling. Come along!”

Flossie, who had not changed, was entrancingly pretty in a blue print dress, a white apron, and a little white cap. When Miles showed her the bead and asked her if it was hers, she looked first pleased and then puzzled, because what were they all looking at her like that for, and why didn't Mr Miles give her the bead and have done with it? If it had been anyone but Mr Miles, she'd have been uncomfortable the way he looked at her—sort of excited-like and eager, and perhaps just as well Ernie wasn't there to see him. Mr and Mrs Gilmore too—what did they want to look at her like that for? She hadn't done anything.

“Flossie,” said Miles, “I wonder if you'd mind telling us where you got those beads of yours?”

She didn't mind telling anyone. She hadn't got anything to hide, thank goodness. She said,

“I didn't get them anywhere, Mr Miles. I've had them always. They were my mother's.”

“Do you remember your mother?”

“Not to say remember. Look here, Mr Miles, what's all this? They're nothing but a lot of old beads, aren't they?”

“I don't know,” said Miles. “There's nothing for you to worry about, Flossie, but I wonder whether you'd mind letting us see the rest of the string?”

Flossie turned to the door—and turned back again. She looked from Miles to Lila, and from Lila to Freddy. Mrs Gilmore was all worked up. Mr Gilmore looked at her straight and gave a little nod. He said the same as Mr Miles had said.

“All right, Flossie—nothing to bother about. But if you'd—”

Well, she hadn't anything to hide. She ran out of the room and came back with the beads still knotted up in her handkerchief—and thank goodness it was a clean one straight from the wash.

They were in the drawing-room. Flossie laid the handkerchief down on a small gold table and untied it. The loose beads and the knotted string shimmered under the light with that iridescent bloom. They weren't everyone's fancy perhaps, but there was something about them. She'd have been sorry if they'd broken in the street.

Lila was hanging on Freddy's arm and staring with all her eyes.

“Oh, my
sweet!”
she breathed. “Oh, Freddy—aren't they
too
marvellous?”

Flossie felt herself beginning to get angry. Her colour deepened. She said with some heat,

“They're my beads! They belonged to my mother! Aunt always says they did! And if there's anything wrong, I ought to be told what it is—I didn't ought to be kept in the dark!”

“We're going to tell you everything we know ourselves,” said Miles. “Will you tell me just one thing more? Will you tell me how many beads there are in your string—or if you don't know, will you let me count them?”

“Course I know!” said Flossie. “There's three hundred. Leastways there did ought to be three hundred, but there was one I couldn't find when the string broke, and that's it what you've got in your hand.”

There were three hundred pearls in Mrs Macintyre's string. Three hundred black pearls, perfectly matched. And Flossie Palmer had been wearing them—not thinking very much of them—leaving them lying about.…

Miles pulled himself up with a jerk, because Flossie's eyes were fixed on him in a firm, determined look. Freddy had been quite wrong about her bursting into tears. If there was going to be any nonsense about her character, she would fight. And Ernie would back her up; she made no doubt about that. She stuck her chin in the air and said,

“What's it all about? That's what I want to know.”

“Well,” said Miles, “Mrs Gilmore—”

Flossie shifted a defiant blue gaze to Lila, and Lila said,

“Oh, Flossie—they're pearls—they really are.”

Miles caught Freddy's eye. If Lila was wrong, what fools they were all going to look.

Flossie did not actually say “Coo!” but her lips formed the shape of that expressive word. Then she took a quick half breath and said,

“Pearls?”
And then, “Not much! They're my mother's old beads!”

“They're pearls,” said Lila—“they're black pearls. They're
too
marvellous!”

“How do you know?” said Flossie bluntly.

Freddy Gilmore came forward and put a hand on Lila's shoulder.

“Well, there it is, Flossie,” he said—“we don't know. Mrs Gilmore thinks they're pearls, but she's not an expert. It seems to me that we ought to have an expert's opinion. If you've really got a string of black pearls, it's very valuable.”

Flossie's colour faded. She went up to Miles and took hold of his arm with both hands.

“Do you think they're pearls, Mr Miles?”

“I don't know, Flossie.”

“You were looking for a string of black pearls—you talked about it at dinner. You said there was three hundred pearls in the string, and I took and counted my beads to see how long that would be, and there was three hundred of mine.”

He patted her shoulder.

“It's all right, Flossie—don't worry.”

Her hands tightened on his arm.

“Mr Miles—do you think my beads are what you was looking for? Is that what you think?” She released him suddenly and backed away. “Ooh, it's not true! My mother
never!”

CHAPTER XXIII

It was Lila who produced Mr Montague. She summoned him imperiously on the telephone, and he came. Ordinarily of course Mr Montague, who is the senior partner, is only to be seen in that inner sanctum of his Bond Street shop to which Royalties, millionaires, and customers of more than ten years' standing are admitted. You do not send for Mr Montague unless you are a crowned head—or Lila Gilmore. Lila was quite aware that he was her slave, and treated him accordingly. He had known her since she was ten years old and considered her the most beautiful woman in the world.

He came into her gold drawing-room—a thin, ugly man with Jewish features and a pleasant cultured manner. Lila poured out her story.

“And they don't think I know. But, darling Mr Montague, I tried the bead with my tongue like you told me, and it was
rough
, so I
must
be right, and you
will
tell them so at once—
won't
you?”