"Well!" gasped Camilla, quite diverted by this skillful red herring. "What a thing to say! Funny, when Sir Arthur's been murdered, and one of us is the person who did it!"
Halliday got up, rasping his chair across the paved floor of the terrace. "For God's sake shut up!" he said roughly. "Do you think we want that thrown at us? Aren't things bad enough as it is? Oh, lord, can't we do something instead of sitting about and looking at each other?"
"That's just it," said Geoffrey gloomily. "What can we do? Personally, I'm ready to do what anyone wants but we can't play tennis, which is the obvious thing least, Fay thinks it would look rather bad, and I suppose she's right, really. I don't know about billiards: it's rather different — I mean, it's a quiet game, and indoors. I don't think we ought to play snooker, but a hundred up billiards surely can't offend anybody."
"Thanks very much," said Camilla. "And I suppose I can mark for you? That will be nice!"
"Why don't you play Bridge?" suggested Dinah. "You can play on the terrace, and Stephen can make a fourth."
"Oh, do you think we ought?" said Camilla. "Would'nt it be rather heartless? I'd give anything for something to do, but I couldn't bear to show disrespect to poor Sir Arthur's memory."
"Well, I don't know about cards," said Geoffrey doubtfully. "Of course, we wouldn't play for money , at any rate, only for something very small. What do you think, Halliday?"
"I don't see why we shouldn't. It's not as though we were proposing to play poker. Lady Billington-Smith, have you any objection to us having a rubber of Bridge"
"Bridge?" said Fay vaguely. "Do you think you ought to? It isn't that I mind, only Geoffrey, what do you feel about it?"
"Well, I can't see why we shouldn't, if we only play for three pence a hundred," declared Geoffrey. "Stephen will you come and make a fourth?"