“They're working like a pack of bloodhounds on our trails,” said Kenneth, leaning over the back of Antonia's chair to look at Baedeker. “And talking of bloodhounds, why's all my bedroom furniture in the hall?”
“Murgatroyd. She says she's going to turn the whole flat out.”
“What, not this room too?” cried Kenneth, in such tones of dismay as not the gloomiest of Rudolph's forebodings could wring from him.
“Yes, but not till tomorrow. Leslie said she'd come and help, so I daresay she'll take care of your pictures,” said his sister, omitting, however, to add the information that Murgatroyd's bitterly expressed object was to keep the place free from that Violet Williams for one day, even though she had to make the studio floor wringing wet to do it.
It was as well for Murgatroyd's temper that this was not really her main object, for when Violet walked into the flat after luncheon on the following day (a habit which she had lately acquired) and found the studio in a state of glorious disorder, with one dishevelled damsel polishing the handles of a bow-fronted chest, the other turning out the contents of an over-loaded bureau, and Kenneth, sitting on the window seat, reading aloud to them snatches from the Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse, she displayed an unexpectedly domesticated trait to her character, demanded an overall from Murgatroyd, and within ten minutes of entering the studio had taken complete charge of the operations. By the time she had shown Leslie a better way to polish brass, convinced Antonia that what she wanted was a large box to put all the waste paper in, and rehung all the pictures which had been taken down to be washed, one only of the original four in the studio remained unruffled. This was, of course, Kenneth, who paid not the least attention either to requests that he should move, or that he should shut up for a moment, but continued to delve into the pages of the Oxford Book, emerging always with a fresh extract which he read aloud, heedless of the fact that no one was listening to him. The only time he vouchsafed any answer to the various things that were said to him was when Violet in the voice of one at the limit of her patience, said: “Will you stop reading Milton aloud?” To this he replied: “No,” in a perfectly calm way, as soon as he got to the end of a line.
Any failure on Kenneth's part to treat her with that adoring respect which she demanded from him always impaired the smoothness of Violet's temper, so neither Antonia nor Leslie was surprised when she seized on the opportunity afforded by the discovery of an automatic pistol in the bureau to say with a sting behind her sweetness: “Yours, Tony, dear? Perhaps it's as well the police know nothing about that.”
“I don't know why,” replied Antonia. “It's fully loaded, and hasn't been fired for months.”
“Why so touchy, darling?” said Violet, raising her delicate brow. “Of course, now I daren't ask why you keep such a very odd weapon.”
“That's a good thing,” said Antonia.
Conversation waned after that, but Violet's capable assistance so soon reduced the studio to order that Antonia repented of her momentary ill-temper, took the Oxford Book away from Kenneth, and told Murgatroyd to go and make tea.