are talking above my head.’ ‘I’m talking nonsense,’ Davidson had replied abruptly, ‘and you know it.’ But in a minute or two he had been off again as flamboyantly as ever and had left at one o’clock in the morning, very pleased with himself and overflowing with phrases.
‘Ah!’ he said now as he shook hands. ‘I might have guessed I should find you here. Doing the fashionable thing for the unfashionable reason. Music! My God!’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Lord Robert.
‘My dear Lord Robert, how many of these people will know what they are listening to, or even listen? Not one in fifty.’
‘Oh, come now!’
‘Not one in fifty! There goes that fellow Withers whose aesthetic appreciation is less than that of a monkey on a barrel-organ. What’s he here for? I repeat, not one in fifty of these humbugs knows what he’s listening to. And how many of the forty-nine have the courage to confess themselves honest philistines?’
‘Quite a number, I should have thought,’ said Lord Robert cheerfully. ‘Myself for one. I’m inclined to go to sleep.’
‘Now, why say that? You know perfectly well—What’s the matter?’
‘Sorry. I was looking at Evelyn Carrados. She looks damn seedy,’ said Lord Robert. Davidson followed his glance to where Lady Carrados sat beside Lady Alleyn. Davidson watched her for a moment and then said quietly:
‘Yes. She’s overdoing it. I shall have to scold her. My seat is somewhere over there, I believe.’ He made an impatient gesture. ‘They all overdo it, these mothers, and the girls overdo it, and the husbands get rattled and the young men neglect their work and then there are half a dozen smart weddings, as many nervous breakdowns and there’s your London season.’
‘Lor’!’ said Lord Robert mildly.
‘It’s the truth. In my job one sees it over and over again. Yes, yes, yes, I know! I am a smart West End doctor and I encourage all these women to fancy themselves ill. That’s what you may very well think, but I assure you, my dear Lord Robert, that one sees cases of nervous exhaustion that are enough to make a cynic of the youngest ingénue. And they are so charming, these mamas. I mean really charming. Women like Lady Carrados. They help each other so much. It is not all a cutlet for a cutlet. But’—he spread out his hands—‘what is it for? What is it all about? The same people meeting eachother over and over again at great expense to the accompaniment of loud negroid noises of jazz bands. For what?’
‘Damned if I know,’ said Lord Robert cheerfully. ‘Who’s that feller who came in behind Withers? Tall, dark feller with the extraordinary hands. I seem to know him.’
‘Where? Ah.’ Davidson picked up his glasses which he wore on a wide black ribbon. ‘Who is it, now! I’ll tell you who it is. It’s the catering fellow, Dimitri. He’s having his three guineas’ worth of Bach with the haute monde and, by God, I’ll wager you anything you like that he’s got more appreciation in his extraordinary little finger—you are very observant, it is an odd hand—than most of them have in the whole of their pampered carcasses. How do you do, Mrs Halcut-Hackett?’
She had come up so quietly that Lord Robert had actually missed her. She looked magnificent. Davidson, to Lord Robert’s amusement, kissed her hand.
‘Have you come to worship?’ he asked.
‘Why, certainly,’ she said and turned to Lord Robert. ‘I see you have not forgotten.’
‘How could I?’
‘Now isn’t that nice?’ asked Mrs Halcut-Hackett, looking slantways at the blue sofa. Lord Robert moved aside and she at once sat down, spreading her furs.
‘I must find my seat,’ said Davidson. ‘They are going to begin.’
He went to a chair beside Lady Carrados on the far side of the room. Mrs Halcut-Hackett asked Lord Robert if he did not think Sir Daniel a delightful personality. He noticed that her American accent was not quite so strictly repressed as usual and that her hands moved restlessly. She motioned him to sit on her right.
‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’ll stick to my chair. I like straight backs.’
He saw her glance nervously at his chair which was a little behind the left arm of the sofa. Her bag was on her lap. It was a large bag and looked well filled. She settled her furs again so that they fell across it. Lord Robert perched on his hideously uncomfortable chair. He noticed that Dimitri had sat down at the end of a row of seats close by. He found himself idly watching Dimitri. ‘Wonder what he thinks of us. Always arranging food for our parties and he could buy most of us up and not notice it, I shouldn’t mind betting. They are rum hands and no mistake. The little finger’s the same length as the third.’
A flutter of polite clapping broke out and the Sirmione String Quartette walked on to the dais. The concealed lights of the concert chamber were dimmed into darkness, leaving the performers brilliantly lit. Lord Robert experienced that familiar thrill that follows the glorious scrape of tuning strings. But he told himself he had not come to listen to music and he was careful not to look towards the dais lest his eyes should be blinded by the light. Instead he looked towards the left-hand arm of the blue sofa. The darkness gradually thinned and presently he could make out the dim sheen of brocade and the thick depth of blackness that was Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s furs. The shape of this blackness shifted. Something glinted. He bent forward. Closer than the exquisite pattern of the music he caught the sound made by one fabric rubbed against another, a sliding rustle. The outline of the mass that was Mrs Halcut-Hackett went tense and then relaxed. ‘She’s stowed it away,’ thought Lord Robert.
Nobody came near them until the lights went up for the interval and then Lord Robert realized how very well the blackmailer had chosen when he lit upon the blue sofa as a post-box, for the side door beyond it was thrown open during the interval and instead of going out into the lounge by the main entrance many people passed behind the blue sofa and out by this side door. And as the interval drew to a close people came in and stood behind the sofa gossiping. Lord Robert felt sure that his man had gone into the lounge. He would wait until the lights were lowered and come in with the rest of the stragglers, pass behind the sofa and slip his hand over the arm. Most of the men and many of the women had gone out to smoke, but Lord Robert remained uncomfortably wedded to his chair. He knew very well that Mrs Halcut-Hackett writhed under the pressure of conflicting desires. She wished to be alone when the bag was taken and she dearly loved a title. She was to have the title. Suddenly she murmured something about powdering her nose. She got up and left by the side door.
Lord Robert rested his head on his hand and devoted the last few minutes of the interval to a neat imitation of an elderly gentleman dropping off to sleep. The lights were lowered again. The stragglers, with mumbled apologies, came back. There was a little group of people still standing in the darkness behind the sofa. The performers returned to the dais.
Someone had advanced from behind Lord Robert and stood beside the sofa.
Lord Robert felt his heart jump. He had placed his chair carefully, leaving a space between himself and the left-hand arm of the sofa. Into this space the shadowy figure now moved. It was a man. He stood with his back to the lighted dais and he seemed to lean forward a little as though he searched the darkness for something. Lord Robert also leant forward. He emitted the most delicate hint of a snore. His right hand propped his head. Through the cracks of his fat fingers he watched the left arm of the sofa. Into this small realm of twilight came the shape of a
