“Are they, by God?” The voice of Superintendent Charles Luke spoke out of the blackness of a buttressed corner and his top-heavy form, kite shaped and powerful, went crashing into the shed.
Chapter 14
HIDE MY EYES
“I LIKE THIS cinema.” Annabelle surveyed the dark red and gilt oppressiveness of the Como with frank satisfaction as she waited for the lights to fade for the big picture. “It’s like settling down to dream in a great State bed. Flicks are rather like dreams, aren’t they?”
Polly did not answer at once. She was getting herself thoroughly comfortable in the seat she liked best, with the plush-covered ledge for her bag and nothing save a misty expanse of air between her and the giant shadows. She was hatless because it was evening and had achieved a considerable presence without looking particularly smart. Her clothes were of good material, very plainly made, and her kindly face wore the solemn preoccupation of a child’s.
“Dreams,” she echoed suddenly. “I suppose they are. That’s why I like them best without colour. Now listen, my dear, you say you really have heard of that man Mr. Campion before, and that the tale about him is that he is not just a silly ass?” She made no pause between the two subjects and Annabelle was amused.
“That is what they say. Do you know how many times you’ve asked me that since I first told you—before we started out? Four.”
“No. Have I?” Polly dropped her carefully gloved hand over the younger one. “How dreadful! I’m sorry. He worried me, poor chap. He seemed so very unsure of himself.”
Annabelle turned to her accusingly. “Darling, you’re not as silly as that. You’re pretending. You knew that was his act. It’s an affectation of his time. Young men invented it in the ’twenties. But obviously he went out of his way to say all that stuff when he was leaving.”
Polly’s frown deepened. “What did he mean? Do you know?”
“No, I don’t. I’ve been wondering.” Annabelle had the grace to colour. “It wasn’t directed at me, quite, was it? It was about a sale of gloves at a man’s shop called Cuppage’s, and had you bought a pair for anybody as a present? Had you?”
The old woman stiffened. Her nose lengthened and her eyes were frosty.
“I may have done,” she said coldly. “I’m often in and out of Cuppage’s and I enjoy sales. But I don’t see what that has to do with anybody else. That’s my business, surely.”
She was rather alarming in this mood. It was the abrupt cessation of the goodwill flowing boundlessly from her rather than any manifestation of anger, Annabelle decided.
“He thought you’d say that,” she explained defensively. “That was why he wrapped it up like that. I thought he was trying to tell you something without committing himself.”
Polly did not speak. Her mouth formed words but she rejected them and the last glimpse the girl had as the lights of the theatre went down was of her strong calm face grown introspective and her blue eyes wide and dark.
Annabelle lost herself in the film. It was a frolic of the new romantic school about unsuspected passion and was delightfully decorated with fancy-dress and smooth acting. It held her complete attention and she was several worlds away by the time she returned to the silent figure by her side and saw to her astonishment that Polly’s expression had hardly changed. She was still staring straight at the screen as if she was looking through it and her face seemed to have grown older.
The lights distracted her at last and she turned with a start and smiled.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, I did. It was so pretty, wasn’t it? Awfully silly, though. I mean, fancy not facing it.”
“Facing it?” The woman seemed appalled. “What made you say that?”
“Because it was all about it.” Annabelle began to laugh. “You wicked old thing, you’ve been to sleep.”
“Not really. I was thinking.” Polly picked up her bag briskly. “But I think we’d better go now, if you don’t mind. We’ll go along and see Mrs. Dominique for dinner. While I’m there I want to make a telephone call. You’re not tired yet, are you?”
“Gosh no. This is terrific fun, Aunt Polly. You don’t know how I love it. I’ve never done much of it, you see. Who is Mrs. Dominique?”
“Sybylle? Oh, a very old friend of mine. I knew her when we were girls.” Polly’s voice had warmed again. “She and her husband started this restaurant of theirs, The Grotto, in Adelaide Street, just after the first world war. It’s been one of the very best of the Soho places ever since. Freddy and I always went in when we came to London, and long ago she used to come up north and stay with me and bring the children. You’ll like her. She’s hard because she’s had to be, but she’s a very clever woman.”
“What about Mr. Dominique?” enquired Annabelle, who was taken by the name.
“Adrian? He died, poor fellow, the same year as Freddy. Now she runs the place with her son and his wife, and their son is coming along. They still have most of the old staff which is amazing, and the cooking is wonderful. You’ll like it.”
“It sounds terrific.” They were in a taxi now and Annabelle’s murmur contained a vein of timidity. “Aunt Polly, I don’t want to be a beastly expense.”
“Well, you’re not, girl.” Polly was rough in her attempt at reassurance. “I want to see Sybylle. I should have come alone if you hadn’t been with me. I often do on a Thursday.”
“I wasn’t thinking of the restaurant. I meant the taxi.” Annabelle was hot faced in the darkness. “You see, I happen to know you usually take a ’bus because you mentioned it only this afternoon.”
“ I did?”
“Yes. You told your solicitor you were waiting for a ’bus in the rain while murders were going on all round you.”
“Not murders, dear. Don’t say such things.”
“But you said it. Your Mr. Phillipson got frightfully prim and said he never read about crime, which was a bit much I thought, coming from a lawyer. It was silly of him anyhow, because he’d deprived himself of the super-mystery of the two old people who were seen asleep in the ’bus which must have taken the body away. I wonder what happened in that case,” she added brightly. “We ought to have asked Superintendent Luke while we had him in the house. He’s on the murder squad.”
There was dead silence in the cab.
“How do you know?” The question came huskily at last and Polly coughed to explain it. “He didn’t tell me anything like that.”
“He wouldn’t.” Annabelle was blithely confident. “The police never do tell one anything. Even our old bobby at home pretends to be as close as a rock. I happen to know because Jenny knows the man’s mother-in-law, and she told her that Prue had married someone big on the murder squad. It’s one of those exciting things one does remember.”
She paused as the full implication of her revelation sank in.
“I shouldn’t worry about him coming to see you, though,” she added awkwardly. “He may have got moved or anything.”
“Oh, good heavens, I’m not worrying.” Polly spoke too heartily to deceive anybody. “Here we are. It’s just round this corner. I liked the Superintendent, I thought him a very nice man…. Don’t go talking about him in front of Mrs. Dominique.”
The Grotto, which had been a favourite restaurant of two generations of discriminating London eaters, was not very large and not, to look at any rate, particularly elegant. It possessed that mellow, slightly worn appearance which has nothing to do with shabbiness, and its atmosphere was as warm and private as the dining room in an old-fashioned family house.
Its one long narrow room was dim save for the table lamps and had a very low ceiling and a thickly carpeted floor. The diners sat on upholstered benches arranged round the walls. The narrow tables were shrouded with quantities of coarse white linen, and the service quarters were all at the very far end of the apartment.
In the midst of this further wall there was an open office doorway and before it, high and grilled, stood a little cash desk where
Sybylle Dominique sat as she always had sat, keeping an eye on everything, keeping order, and above all keeping her professional status as a shopkeeper plain to everybody.
She was a very small woman, slight and dark skinned, with a faint moustache, intelligent eyes and unnaturally black hair cut close to her head and worn with a fringe. There were several good diamonds on the small hands, which betrayed her age as somewhere nearing seventy, but her black dress was as severe and matronly as Polly’s own.
She looked up as they appeared and bowed as formally as if Mrs. Tassie was a recent acquaintance, and went back to her books as the maître scurried forward to greet the newcomers.
It was a much colder welcome than Annabelle had expected, but gradually, as she began to recognise the formality for what it was, the ensuing performance fascinated her and she saw that just as one could take one’s hair to a master hairdresser, so presumably did one take one’s stomach to a master chef. There was the same earnest solemnity about the preliminary consultation, the same suggestion of ritual and obedience to iron convention.
The fact that everybody concerned knew each other remarkably well made no difference at all. The meal, which was not elaborate, was ordered as though it was a trousseau at least, and it was only after the aperitifs had been served that Polly paused to introduce her niece to the tall sad-eyed maître who turned out to be Peter Dominique, the son of the owner, who had visited Polly when a little boy.
He shook hands, dropping his high priest’s or professional manner, and emerged as a charming if slightly browbeaten person who was very anxious to speak of ‘Uncle Freddy’, of whom he had clearly the kindest of memories.
“You will go and talk to Mamma, won’t you, Polly?” He said earnestly. “She is a little lonely, you know. She sees everyone and no one. It is a very dull life for her now. All the customers appear to her as children eating. The parents with whom she was of an age and who were flesh and blood to her cannot come any more. Will you have your coffee in the office with her, perhaps?”
“Yes I will, Peter, please. I’d like that. But first I must make a telephone call.”
“Not before the meal?” He was hurt and shocked and Annabelle understood that since he was a friend it mattered. “See, the soup is here. You can telephone from the office when you join Mamma.”
Polly glanced at the small enamel pocket watch in her bag.
“It’s old Matt. I mustn’t ring too late or he’ll be in bed. What about the child? Can I leave her here?”
“Why not?” Mr. Dominique smiled with his sad eyes. “You feel she may be shy? Shall I find Florian? Would she care to see him?”
“Oh, is he at home?” Polly’s natural enthusiasm escaped her before she remembered how worried she was. “I thought you were starting him in the kitchens at Aix.”
“In a few weeks. At the moment he is downstairs very unhappy. I should like you to see him.”
“I should love it,” she assured him and nodded and smiled as he drifted away to allow her to enjoy her consommé.
She drank it as quickly as its heat would permit and obviously did not taste it at all.
“You won’t mind staying here, will you?” she said to Annabelle, her eyes very blue and anxious as she peered into the young face. “I want to talk to Sybylle. She’s my oldest woman friend and she’s got a very good head. There’s nothing like business to clear the mind. If you live alone as I do you can start imagining all sorts of silly rubbish until you’re terrified of your own shadow.”
Annabelle’s eyes widened appreciatively. “I know you can. It’s always happening in the country. People have great quarrels and make it up again, all without seeing or communicating with each other in any way, but I shouldn’t think you had to bother about that, Aunt Polly. You’re not frightened of much, are you?”
Polly shivered. “You be quiet, and eat your scampi. Now that I’m sitting here in this dear old room I do wonder what I’m fidgeting about. Your Uncle and I always had this table and they try to give it to me still whenever I come in. They’re a very good family, the Dominiques.”
“Is Florian the grandson?”
“Yes. Be nice to him. They’re very proud of him. He’s just left Chichester, where he did very well.”
“The school?”
“Of course. He may be a little grand. They’re tremendously wealthy. It spoils a child sometimes.”
“What for? The kitchens at Aix?”
“Oh no. He expects that. It’s a tradition. Anyhow, don’t worry. Just be yourself and you’ll be all right.”
Annabelle was silent. Since seeing the film she had felt a little like a puppy which after being a considerable success had suddenly ceased to amuse. Polly was thinking about her no longer. Meanwhile the food was extraordinarily good and the service an art, under Mr. Dominique’s personal supervision. The whole thing was a revelation to the girl, a glimpse into a mystique.
Polly decided against a sweet for herself and when Annabelle’s ice arrived she rose to her feet.
“I think I’ll run along now,” she said. “I’ve caught her eye. I’ll send for you before we go. Sybylle is certain to want to meet you. She was very fond of Freddy.”
She went quickly down the room towards the desk and Annabelle, a trifle forlorn, sat looking after her. She had just time to see Mrs. Dominique climbing carefully down from her perch when a discreet cough at her elbow brought her round to find herself looking up at one of the most typical senior prefects of a British public school that she had ever set eyes on.
Annabelle had some experience and her eyes took in the large solemn youngster and noted his superb self-possession and slightly anxious enquiry about herself with complete understanding. The two regarded each other blankly for a minute as if they had met on a desert island, and then shook hands with open relief.
“You’re the niece.”
“You’re the grandson.”
“Oh well then,” he smiled at her, the sun coming out on his face as he passed her with honours, “I mean to say, that’s all right, isn’t it? Do you mind if I sit down?”
Meanwhile, in the tiny green-walled office behind the cash-desk, amid a lifetime’s collection of trophies, photographs and caricatures, Sybylle Dominique stretched up like a kitten on her toes to take her old friend’s face between her hands.
“Ah, my Polly, how are you my pet? How good it is to see you. You look like hell, dearest, complete hell. What is the matter, eh? What is it? Come and sit down and tell me all about it.”
She had one of those voices which, after tinkling in youth, are apt to crackle in age, but the graces and little affectations of her heyday still hung about her by no means unpleasantly. She had always been a genuine person and her intelligence had survived.
The two elderly women in their good black clothes sat down together on the small settee which fitted neatly into the wall behind the door, and there was a pause while a waiter brought them coffee and little glasses.
“I’ve been watching you,” Mrs. Dominique said. “The girl is quite remarkably beautiful, but are you sure she’s twenty-four?”
“Eighteen. It’s the sister.”
“Oh, but that is no good at all. Polly, what are you thinking of? Eighteen? The child’s a liability. They haven’t met, I hope?”
“Hardly. She’s very sweet, Sybylle, very sensible.”
“But much too young.” Mrs. Dominique spoke flatly and dismissed the subject. “Have you seen Gerry?”
“Only for a minute or two this morning. He was on his way through London.”
“And was he all right?”
“I thought so, dear. How do you mean?”
Mrs. Dominique poured the black coffee into the half-cups and dropped a hand on her old friend’s knee.
“Why do you want him to marry?” she demanded. “I don’t believe in interfering. I thought it over after what you said last time. You like him, Freddy liked him, he’s charming and fond of you both in a nice way. You don’t know these girls of t
he brother’s family. I should make my will in favour of the person I liked best and forget it. That’s my advice.”
“Yes.” Polly was not listening. She drank her coffee very quickly and put down the cup with a rattle.
The other woman eyed her inquisitively. “You haven’t any reason? There isn’t anything you haven’t told me?”
“No.” The lie was suddenly quite apparent and Mrs. Dominique settled back and folded her hands.
“Ah well,” she said, “who can judge, eh? Who can advise? Never mind. Now, who have I seen? Practically no one. Old Matt Phillipson came in the other day with a client.”
“Yes.” Polly interrupted her. “I must telephone him. I want to get hold of him before he goes to bed.”
“Plenty of time. He stays at his club until half past eleven these days. He can’t sleep like the rest of us. I trust him though, don’t you? One of the best. We’ve both got a lot to be grateful to Matt for. He’s looked after us for a few years, my goodness. Kind, too, and always discreet. If you want something awkward done, shout for Matt.”
“Sybylle.” Polly turned towards her. “Sybylle, do you remember—quite a long time ago—Gerry and me and some gloves?”
Mrs. Dominique sat looking at her, her dark eyes very bright and knowing and her lips smiling.
“Ah,” she said, “so that’s it, my Polly. He’s flown in a temper again, has he? They do, of course. You were lucky in Freddy, dearest. He was a sweet-tempered man, and you had no sons, so you don’t know. Most of them aren’t like that.”
“That’s right.” Polly sounded relieved. Her calm face, which could still look beautiful on occasion, had cleared. “That’s right. Gerry was only angry, wasn’t he? He’d lost the gloves I’d given him and he was irritated by it. That was all, wasn’t it? That really was all?”
Sybylle Dominique allowed a little, grunting, old woman’s laugh to escape her.
“Whatever the cause it was quite a performance,” she said. “It nearly put me off the boy for good. Temper! He teetered like a monkey and all about nothing. We were only teasing him, weren’t we? Both of us, at the table just outside here, very late. He’d taken you to a show and you had the last two covers to be served. I had mine with you.” She broke off, her eyes widening. “It must be years ago. I know he sent me some flowers the next day with a little note and I decided I’d have to forgive him. It shook me, though, because it was so unexpected. He’s always been so charming. It was your clipping out of the News of the World which upset him.”
Hide My Eyes Page 14