Death in Zanzibar (21 page)

Tyson bellowed with sudden laughter. ‘That's what I like about you, Elf. No deception, is there?'

‘
Masses,
darling. You've no idea how much! But not in that way. After all, money
is
rather madly important. Don't you agree?'

‘I work for mine,' said Tyson dryly.

‘Oh, but so do I. One has to sing for one's supper, you know; and I sing — charmingly!'

‘I'll grant you that,' said Tyson with a grin. ‘But hasn't it been a bit trying at times? Johnnie Leigh, for instance.'

Amalfi's mermaid eyes clouded. ‘Oh but darling — I never can think of money when I marry them. It's always
love.
And it's only later that one
____
Oh … wakes up to reality.'

‘And in the wrong bedroom, with a private inquiry agent hired by your husband taking notes through the transom,' said Tyson cynically. ‘Still, you've been lucky in one way. The co-respondent was always noticeably solvent and well able — and more than willing! — to keep you in the mink.'

‘Darling!' said Amalfi reproachfully. ‘You make it sound as though I were a gold-digger. But I'm not. I'd have married Johnnie even if he hadn't a
sou!
'

‘And Robin Gratton? And Chubby?'

‘But of
course!
I'm like that. I suddenly feel I
must
have something — that it's the only thing in the world worth having and that once I've got it I shall be happy ever after. And then I'm not. But I adored Chubby. My heart broke when he was killed. It did, really Tyson!'

‘Nonsense! You were hardly on speaking terms that last year. And you haven't got a heart, darling. Only a soft mass of emotions. Though I'm not so sure about your head!'

‘I'm afraid that's just as soft,' sighed Amalfi regretfully.

‘I wonder? Still, you seem to have had your fair share of romance during the last year or two, despite that alleged broken heart. Why don't you bite on the bullet and marry one of them?'

Amalfi laughed. ‘What, again? It doesn't seem to take with me, does it?'

‘It will one day.'

‘Like it has for Lorrie? Perhaps. But how is one to know? I always think I know; and then I find I don't.'

‘Try marrying a poor one for a change. You ought to be able to afford it.'

‘I don't think I could. One can never really have enough money, can one? All the really heavenly things cost so much. Diamonds and Dior models and holidays in Bermuda.'

‘But Chubby must have left you a packet.'

‘Not a packet, darling. Unfortunately there turned out to be platoons of dreary aunts and other dim relations that I had never even
heard
of, and it seemed that Chubby was depressingly Clan-minded — worse luck. And then the death duties were
iniquitous.
And anyway, I'm hopeless over money. I always have been. It seems to melt!'

‘I'm not surprised; what with diamonds and Dior models and holidays in Bermuda!'

‘Yes,' said Amalfi, and sighed deeply. ‘That's why it's simpler to fall in love with someone rich. But then I like them to be handsome and charming too, and there's no getting away from it, that kind are limited in number and dreadfully spoilt. They know that they aren't a drug on the market, and they can be difficult.'

‘What you mean is that they bite back and won't let themselves be trampled on by any woman for long. And more power to 'em. You know, Elf, I propose to give you some sage advice. You won't be able to go on looking like a luscious slice of peach for ever, and it's time you settled down with a different type. The kind that'll let you play your favourite game of eating your cake and having it.'

‘I don't think I know what you mean, darling.'

‘Cut out these playboys with plenty of cash, like young Lash or that slick-smoothie, Eddie. They may be fun, but they'd be hell as husbands for a woman like you. They aren't good at turning the other cheek — or a blind eye! You ought to have learnt that at least by this time. What you need now is a nice kind sugar-daddy of the adoring door-mat type, who will let you get away with murder.'

Amalfi shivered suddenly. ‘
Ugh!
Darling! What a simile to choose after all that gruesome chatter at dinner!'

‘Well, “Make a monkey out of him with impunity”, if you like it put that way.'

‘Is that what Lorraine did? I wouldn't have said that you were exactly a door-mat type. Or a sugar-daddy!'

‘Lorrie,' said Tyson, ‘isn't in the least your type. Or only superficially. She's merely incurably romantic. That's her trouble. She'd be perfectly happy married to someone who could offer her a semi-detached and a “daily” — as long as she loved him. You wouldn't be. Now, would you?'

Amalfi gave him a narrowed, slanting look under her long lashes, and there was, all at once, a trace of scorn in her lovely face and a shade of contempt in her voice. ‘Darling Tyson. You read us all like a book! So clever.'

‘Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Elf. Am I to take it that you are going to take a brief whirl at being a Marchesa? If so, I ought to warn you that Eddie is even more susceptible than you are, and the only reason that he has not totted up a long list of ex-wives, all drawing heavy alimony, is because his grandmother holds the purse strings, and can not only cut off supplies when she chooses, but frequently does. It's a great trial to him; though it doesn't seem to have persuaded him to try work yet. He
____
What's the matter? Surely you knew that?'

‘No,' said Amalfi shortly. ‘I thought
____
' she stopped and bit her lip, and Tyson laughed.

‘Well, don't say later that no one ever warned you! If you've really reached the fatal stage of marrying them younger than yourself, you'd better take Lash Holden. American men put up with a lot more rough stuff from their wives than less idealistic races, and when it comes to the parting of the ways they'll break out into a rash of Old World chivalry and allow themselves to be sued as the erring partner, and milked like goats for iniquitous alimony with never a bleat. But with Eduardo you'd be the one who'd do the paying, if anyone did. His family might have accepted Chubby's widow — though considering the circumstances, I doubt it — but they're likely to kick like cows at those two divorces. And as for that unfortunate business of Douglas
____
Well if you'll take my advice, Elf, you'll scrub Eddie and settle for young Lash. That is, if it's not too late.'

Amalfi drew back and regarded him with sudden hostility. ‘I don't think,' she said slowly, ‘that I am amused any longer. In fact I'm quite sure that I'm not.'

‘Because I've told you the truth about yourself and a couple of gilded playboys?'

‘No. Because you begin to bore me, darling. And I cannot endure being bored.'

She smiled sweetly at him, her eyes cold, and turned and walked back across the terrace to join the others. And presently Nigel had gone in to switch on the radio-gramophone and turn back the carpet of the drawing-room, and they had all danced: with the exception of Tyson, who could not be bothered, and Millicent Bates, who could not.

Tyson and Millicent had sat side by side on the stone balustrade of the terrace, watching the dancers through the open doors, and Millicent had said moodily: ‘I wish you would tell me where you got that secretary of yours, and why. I don't know how a man of your type can stand all that affectation and giggling.'

‘He's good at his job,' said Tyson lazily, ‘and don't let that affectation fool you. It's fooled a lot of hard-headed businessmen in the publishing line and film racket into thinking that they can pull a fast one, and they've all wound up with headaches, having paid over far more than their original top figure. He deals with all my contracts, and behind that tittering facade he's as cunning and inquisitive as a barrelful of monkeys, and as shrewd as a weasel.'

‘I don't doubt it,' said Millicent grimly. ‘A nasty type. We had an assistant cashier like that in Market-Lydon. An absolute rotter. I always said that there'd be an ugly scandal one day, and of course there was. You can't trust 'em a yard!'

Tyson chose to be amused, and letting out a roar of laughter he clapped Millicent on the back with a large and hairy hand.

‘Bates, you're perfect! You're a collector's piece. But so is Nigel; and I like collector's pieces. From all pale, pink-blooded, pure-souled people, Good Lord, deliver me!'

‘That's
your
pose!' snapped Millicent Bates.

‘Maybe,' said Tyson, unruffled. ‘We all have one. Smoke screens to fool people with. Gussie's is good-nature.'

Millicent stiffened indignantly: ‘Pose my foot! Gussie's the kindest creature alive!'

Tyson laughed again, and drained his glass. ‘Bates, my Bonnie Brown Owl, I applaud your loyalty while deploring your dishonesty. You cannot have lived with Gussie all these years without knowing that there is nothing she enjoys more than planting a feline barb where she hopes it will hurt most, and then, covered with pretty confusion, pretending that it was just an unfortunate slip of the tongue. It's her favourite parlour sport. You must have found out long ago that Gussie only loves herself. And to forestall you saying “So do you!” I will hasten to say it myself — “And so do I.” That may be selfish, but by golly it's sense! Let's face it, Bates, we're not a really pleasant lot, we Frosts. The only one of us who doesn't appear to have had any vices was old Uncle Barclay, and he was a crank! Let's drink confusion to his ghost.'

He got up and walked over to the table with the drinks, and Millicent Bates, following him, put down her empty glass and shook her head. ‘No thanks. No more for me. I think I shall go to bed.'

She turned to stare once more at the dancers revolving in the lighted drawing-room: Gussie and Nigel, Dany and Larry Dowling, Amalfi and Lash Holden, Eduardo and Lorraine …

She stood there for perhaps five minutes, watching them with a curious intentness.

‘It's very odd,' mused Millicent Bates.

‘What is?' inquired Tyson.

‘Everything!' said Millicent, and left him.

13

Dany leant wearily against the window-sill of her bedroom and looked out across the treetops to the silver stretch of the sea.

She had come up to her room over an hour ago, intending to go to bed. But once there she found that she was not sleepy. Merely too tired to go to the trouble of undressing, and too dispirited to take any pleasure in the beauty of the night. For it had been neither a pleasant nor a peaceful evening.

Tyson and Millicent Bates had both vanished shortly after ten, and Gussie had quarrelled with Nigel, who had withdrawn in a huff, leaving Dany to deal with the radiogram. Gussie had flounced off in search of her brother, presumably to complain, and Lash, having danced a particularly soulful waltz with Amalfi, had taken her down into the garden — ostensibly to look at the nocturnal flowering Lady-of-the-Night which grew in profusion in a bed some distance from the house.

They had stayed away for so long that Eduardo's southern blood had obviously begun to rise dangerously, and although they had returned separately it was perhaps unfortunate that Lash had been the first to reappear. For there was, unmistakably, a distinct trace of lipstick on his chin.

The Marchese's jealous gaze had not missed it, and his eyes had flashed in a manner that would undoubtedly have brought the house down in the days of the late Rudolph Valentino — a gentleman whom he much resembled. He had spoken a short, hissing phrase in Italian, to which Lash had replied with an even shorter one of strictly Anglo-Saxon origin, and only the agitated intervention of Lorraine had prevented a stirring scene.

Amalfi had not reappeared for some time — part of which, at least, she must have devoted to repairing her make-up. She had pointedly ignored Lash and devoted her attention to soothing Eduardo's lacerated feelings, but she did not appear to be in a good temper.

The only person present who had shown no sign of nerves or temperament was Larry Dowling, and Dany, whose own nerves were uncomfortably taut, was not only duly grateful for it, but despite the fact that there was something about Larry's lazily observant gaze that suggested very little escaped him, even more grateful for the impulse that had made her step-father add him to the house-party. She tried to remind herself that as a journalist — feature writer or no — news was his business, and that the present complicated situation would make entertaining reading for a sensation-hungry public. But it did not seem to weigh against the undoubted fact that she felt safer when Larry was in the room, and more insecure whenever he left it.

She wished that she could bring herself to take the sensible course of retiring to bed, but a raw recollection of the terror of the previous night had made her disinclined for sleep or solitude, and the lights and music, and Larry's strangely reassuring presence, at least provided an illusion of safety. But the long hours spent in an aeroplane had begun to tell on all of them, and by eleven o'clock lethargy had descended on the dancers, and with it a spirit of tolerance.

Nigel came out of his huff and apologized to Gussie, who yawned and informed him that of course she wasn't annoyed with him. She was never annoyed with anyone: even with people who pretended to a knowledge of subjects with which they had only the most superficial acquaintance, and — Oh, dear! but of course she hadn't meant
Nigel
 …

Amalfi had shed her hauteur and awarded Lash a forgiving smile, Eduardo had ceased to simmer, and Lorraine had stopped looking vague and distrait and had begun to sparkle and laugh, and dispense her own particular and potent brand of charm to such good effect that her guests, with the exception of her daughter, had finally departed to bed in the best of tempers.