The Wellington Bureau: A Quartermain Mystery

by Daphne Coleridge

should try that! We weren’t really arguing. It’s just that he is always telling me to do sensible things which I don’t want to do.”

  “Ah! A surrogate daughter. Remember, he had no children of his own.”

  “You may well be right. Perhaps I’ll try to be kinder to him.”

  The young Adonis called Percy greeted Toby with the raise of one eyebrow. “I am a philosopher! In this world but not of it. It is vastly entertaining to watch how others behave at a party and, more particularly, on the dance floor. Ah...” He seemed to observe that Anna had been brought forward for an introduction. He took her hand and kissed it, looking boldly into her eyes as he did so. Anna thought him a poseur, but forgave him instantly as he carried off his pose so very well. “I’m honoured,” he murmured.

  “This is my stepmother, Lady Quartermain. Anna, this is my ass of a friend, Percy. Do not give credence to a word that he says.”

  “Hallo Percy,” said Anna, marvelling at the handsome features, his mop of artistically dishevelled hair, and the cool blue eyes which observed her so acutely for a few moments.

  “Disgusting display of wealth is it not?” he encompassed the inhabitants of the room with a gesture of his elegant long-fingered hand. Anna could not think he was making a serious statement. He appeared to be so arrogantly aristocratic himself that he could hardly be permitted to make such a comment unchallenged.

  “It is at least a tasteful display of wealth,” she said. “And they do us the kindness of feeding us – they will feed, us, Toby?”

  “Some sort of buffet, I expect.”

  “Will you refuse to eat, on principle?” Anna asked Percy.

  “Alas, no. I am in need of charity.”

  “Where did Julia and Caroline disappear to?” asked Toby.

  “Goodness knows.”

  “Are they the two who run the interior decorators which has been so frequently recommended to me?”

  “Recommended by members of their doting families, no doubt. It is what is known as a family business – bought by the father for the daughter.”

  “Caroline’s father provided financial backing,” explained Toby. "Hallo! I’ve just spotted Warren and Philip. You met them years ago, Anna, but I don’t expect you’ll remember them. One minute and I’ll drag them over!” He disappeared in the direction of the dance floor.

  “Are you not the lady who has set up an investigation agency? I recall Toby mentioning something of the sort.”

  “Oh, it’s all a bit of a joke really,” said Anna, not wishing to embark on the subject in view of her present enterprise. At the same time, she glanced over to where Harris appeared to be deep in conversation with Lady Parry. She hoped that no mention of her first case was being made by the lady. Surely she would be more tactful and cautious? In fact, it appeared to be less of a conversation and more of a monologue on the part of Amanda Parry.

  “But you were involved in a bank robbery?” Percy was saying.

  “You make it sound as if I was the perpetrator of the crime!” Anna said, turning her attention back to the young man.

  “I would have had nothing but admiration for you if you had been. Unless, of course, you made as much of a blunder of it as the real criminals did.”

  “Did you read about it in the papers?”

  “I did. And I have one of your cards that Toby gave me. I was an admirer of yours even before I saw you,” he said.

  “I’m flattered,” Anna replied. There was a flirtatiousness in his manner, but she did not resent it. In fact, after she had drunk enough Champagne to make her feel frivolous, she might even enjoy it. But before she succumbed to such distractions, she wished to meet her quarry. Toby was making his way back to her with two immaculately dressed young men in tow. The shorter of the two was a colourless man with mousey hair, pale eyelashes, and doleful brown eyes. The other was taller and darker with an altogether sharper look about him.

  “This is the Honourable Warren Parry,” Toby introduced the pale man. “And this his not dishonourable cousin, Philip.”

  After five minutes Anna decided that it was as well that she had an ulterior motive for being interested in Warren Parry. He was a quiet young man who hardly managed to contribute two words to the witty banter kept up by his more confident cousin, the flamboyant Percy, and the boisterously good-humoured Toby. Anna felt rather sorry for him. After all, he had a nice face.

  All the time Anna was talking to Toby’s friends she had been aware of the fact that Harris Butterworth was speaking with Amanda Parry, and she couldn’t help wondering what formed the subject of their discussion. When she got a chance, she excused herself and went and joined them saying,

  “I hope I’m not interrupting you?”

  Amanda Parry turned pink and looked rather flustered by her appearance, although whether this was because she had been speaking about her or because she had to pretend that she had never met her, Anna could not at first tell. The Brigadier at least looked pleased, if not relieved, to see her.

  “Ah, Lady Quartermain! Allow me to introduce you to Lady Parry.”

  “Er...so lovely to meet you!” fluttered the lady.

  Anna was reassured that nothing about their previous meeting had been said. The Brigadier would never have pretended to think that an introduction was required had he known. She only hoped that he would not wonder at the flutter of nerves that her appearance had induced in Lady Parry.

  “I would... um...introduce you to my husband...” she was saying, but the moustached man she glanced towards as she spoke was deeply embroiled in a debate with a thin, wizened man whom Anna judged to be at least in his eighties.

  Later in the evening there was some more sedate dancing than that which Percy Blyth had observed with so sardonic an eye. Anna danced several times with Percy, feeling rather mean, as a pallid-looking girl with some beautiful flowers in her hair and large forget-me-not blue eyes had turned up and proved to be Lady Caroline Farrer. She watched them dolefully until asked to dance by Warren. Proof, Anna thought, of what a nice young man he was. Percy, however, for all his airs and arrogance was marvellous company, although Anna guessed that it might be unwise to take him too seriously. During one dance she observed that his eyes, which were so disconcertingly penetrating, had lowered their gaze from her face. She wondered whether it was her cleavage or her necklace which was the object of his admiration. She asked him.

  Percy laughed, and said, “A virtuous woman is priced far above rubies!”

  Anna smiled. “Very nicely said. But you have no guarantee of my virtue.”

  A little later Percy danced with the slighted Caroline whilst Anna took to the floor with her stepson.

  “I like Julia and Warren. Not that they are very alike. Julia is so full of life and Warren has a mournful look about him.” She felt that she had made no progress on her case that evening and was fishing for information.

  “That’s just Warren for you. But he’s a good chap. Anyway, I thought that you only had eyes for Percy!”

  “That’s nonsense. Although he is rather dashing. But I'm not remotely interested, so you can take that look off your face. Anyway, I was interested in Julia because she’s your girlfriend. Isn’t she?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? You must know her pretty well by now. I thought you knew the whole family.”

  “Mother and Amanda Parry were at school together. They’ve always been good friends along with Philip’s mother, Elizabeth. Warren and Philip were the nearest thing I had to brothers. There’s Timothy, of course, but he’s so much younger.” Anna had seen young Timothy Furnival and his sister, Arabella, earlier in the evening. They were Susan Furnival’s children from her second marriage.

  “What is Amanda Parry like?” Anna could see no reason not to ask a direct question. Toby was unlikely to guess why she was interested.

  “Nice enough. A bit neurotic.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “She tried to do herself in once.
About four years back. It gave Warren a hell of a shock. And the rest of the family, of course. But Warren always idolized his mother. I was still at Cambridge then. Warren came down to stay with Philip shortly after it had happened and he was in a terrible state. He was just coming up to his A levels and everyone thought he would plough them, but he did jolly well in the end.”

  Anna was quite taken aback. “What on earth made her do something like that?”

  “She discovered her husband in bed with his secretary.”

  “Is that a reason to think that she is a neurotic sort of person in general? It sounds to me like she had good reason to be upset.”

  “Maybe. But she is always fidgeting about something or another, always worrying about nothing.”

  Anna was left wondering if her client was merely imagining the fact that there was something amiss with her son. They returned to the little group of Toby’s friends, and Percy was just in the process of asking Anna for another dance, much to the chagrin of Lady Caroline, when the Brigadier intervened.

  “A dance, my dear?” he asked, taking her firmly by the elbow and leading her to the dance floor.

  "Perhaps later?" she said over her shoulder to Percy. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Lady Caroline.

  “Poor Percy,” said Anna.

  “Nonsense; he has monopolized you all evening. I just require one dance before I go.” Anna was surprised to find that the Brigadier danced with as much grace as Percy had done.

  “I wouldn’t have thought you were a dancer,”