Duplicate Death Read online

  Sir Roderick, and that fashionable consultant, Dr Theodore Westruther, had consented to be the scorers and general managers of the party, dual roles which bade fair to reduce both gentlemen to a state of nervous prostration. The difficulties attendant upon persuading a chattering crowd of guests to postpone the exchange of confidences, and to take their places at the various tables were enormous; and when twelve persons had at last been singled out from the crowd and driven downstairs to the library, and those who were to remain in the drawing-room shepherded to their tables, it was still some time before play could begin. Earnest players, itching to inspect the hands stuck into the slots of the duplicate-boards, in vain suggested that Bridge and not conversation was the order of the evening. A babel of voices made play impossible, for besides the inveterate recounters of anecdotes, there was a strong faction of persons bent on making known the systems which governed their play; a still stronger one of those who were willing to play any convention, but who required to be reminded of the rules governing all but their particular choice; several nervous people who had never played duplicate Bridge before and had to have the procedure explained to them; one or two ladies of terrifying aspect, who warned their partners in menacing accents that they expected to be taken out of a No Trump call; and a small clique of fanatics who filled in the time before play started by describing in a very boring way the interesting hands they had held recently, and the skill with which they had made their contracts.

  However, the united and patient efforts of the two scorers, Mrs Haddington and Miss Birtley, at last prevailed, and a sudden silence fell.

  Timothy, who had been paired with Cynthia, resigned himself to an unsuccessful evening, for a very few minutes sufficed to convince him that her Bridge was of a dashing variety that took little account of part scores. She had a certain aptitude for the game, and since her social education had included a course of lessons from an expert, she was familiar with most of the conventions. But the gambling instinct was alarmingly strong in her; and an inability to concentrate her mind for any sustained period led her largely to ignore her partner’s discards, and frequently to forget that an important card still lurked in one of her opponents’ hands.

  Timothy, who was dummy during the first hand, had leisure, while Cynthia struggled to make her contract, to look round the room, and study the assembled company. For the most part, his fellow-guests seemed to be an innocuous set of persons, hovering on the fringes of Society; but there were one or two people, like Lady Nest Poulton and Sir Roderick Vickerstown, and the Kenelm Guisboroughs, who had been born into a world the rest aspired to adorn. There were also some unplaceable specimens, such as Seaton-Carew, who fell into no easily definable class.

  The Kenelm Guisboroughs were seated at the next table to Timothy’s, playing, in this first hand, against Lord Guisborough, and Mrs Criddon, a stout matron wearing a profusion of diamonds and an air of stern concentration. Possibly Mrs Haddington had felt that the sooner the cousins met, and were parted, the better it would be: certainly an atmosphere of dangerous restraint hung over their table. No greater contrast could have been imagined than that which existed between the cousins. Lord Guisborough, wearing a soft shirt, a tie askew, and with a lock of unruly hair drooping over one eyebrow, slouched in his chair, and, having told his partner she could play any convention she liked, declared on some undisclosed system of his own, and played his cards with a careless acumen and an air of boredom which made nearly every man in the room wish to kick him. Kenelm, on the other hand, who, in spite of springing from a younger branch of the family, was some years his cousin’s senior, looked like a Guardsman, which he was not, and might have served as a model of good, if rather pompous, form. He had a round and florid face, with a tooth-brush moustache, and slightly protuberant eyes, and whenever his noble relative succeeded in enraging him, which was often, his colour rose, his moustache bristled, and he looked very much as though he would burst. His wife, Irene, was a bloodless blonde, who habitually spoke in a complaining voice, and maintained a running fire of criticism of her husband’s bidding and subsequent play. Lord Guisborough she largely ignored.

  Beulah was not in the drawing-room during the first hand, but she came in as the cards were being restored to the boards, and the various couples changed their tables, and began mechanically to empty ashtrays, and remove glasses. Supper would presently be served in the dining-room, but Mrs Haddington was well aware of the beneficial results of keeping her guests supplied with stimulating liquid refreshment, and had instructed Beulah to lose no time in asking if she might not get some harassed player a drink. This was, in fact, no more than a daughter of the house might have been expected to do, but nevertheless it annoyed Timothy to watch his beloved waiting on everyone, and looking more and more weary as the evening progressed. He tried several times to catch her eye, but she refused to look at him; once he saw Seaton-Carew address some remark to her which brought a flash into her eyes, and caused her to move away from that table at once; and although this was better than seeing her submit to that dashing gentleman’s familiarities, it did nothing to add to Timothy’s enjoyment of the party. He began to think rather badly of a state of civilisation that made it impossible for him to pick a quarrel with Seaton-Carew upon frivolous grounds, and then inform him that his friends would wait upon him in the morning; and to derive what satisfaction he could from the realisation that no more inimical partner could have been selected for Mr Seaton-Carew than Miss Beatrice Guisborough, who visibly despised him, and audibly condemned his card-play. The knowledge that Seaton-Carew would have liked to have had Cynthia for his partner, and was extremely bored, was poor comfort, however: Mr Harte was glad to see him and Miss Guisborough vanish from the room, and sorry to be obliged, a quarter of an hour later, to follow them to one of the tables set out in the library.

  Beulah was well aware that Mr Harte had tried to catch her eye, and equally well aware that he had observed her brief encounter with Seaton-Carew. She hoped that he would make no attempt to single her out during the supper-interval, and made up her mind to keep as much out of his way as was possible. She was conscious of being kept under observation by Mrs Haddington, whose double-edged remark earlier in the evening had not been lost on her.

  She was on her way upstairs, bearing a whisky-and-soda for Colonel Cartmel, when the intermittent ringing of the telephone-bell informed her that Mr Seaton-Carew’s call had at last come through. In expectation of it, she had informed him that it would be best for him to take it in Mrs Haddington’s sitting-room, and she now set down the little silver tray she carried, and went into this apartment. She emerged a moment later to see her employer upon the landing outside the drawing-room.

  ‘If that is for me, I hope you told whoever it is that I can’t possibly come to the telephone now!’ said Mrs Haddington.

  ‘It isn’t. It’s a long-distance call for Mr Seaton-Carew,’ replied Beulah.

  Mrs Haddington uttered an impatient exclamation. ‘I’d forgotten. Really, I do think – Well, it can’t be helped! He’s in the library: you’d better go down and tell him at once. He can take it in my boudoir.’

  ‘I’ve already told him so,’ said Beulah, departing on her errand.

  ‘And just keep your eye on things for a minute or two!’ added Mrs Haddington, carefully gathering up her long skirt, preparatory to ascending the flight that led to her bedroom. ‘I’m going to powder my face.’ She became aware of Sydney Butterwick at her elbow, and stared at him. ‘Dear me! Is anything wrong, Mr Butterwick?’

  ‘No – oh, no!’ he said, stammering a little. ‘I just thought I’d get myself a drink – we’ve finished at our table!’

  ‘Of course!’ she said, with a graciousness he found even more quelling than her asperity. ‘You know your way to the dining-room, don’t you?’

  At the table he had deserted, in the front drawing-room, Lady Nest sighed: ‘I can’t imagine what induces him even to try to play Bridge. Darling Jennifer, too cruel to have saddled