Basil Halliday occasionally begged her irritably for God's sake to be quiet, but he seemed to have not the smallest influence over her. He himself asserted that he thought it clearly a case for Scotland Yard. It was absurd to make a fuss about it. Why should one mind having to answer a few questions? Yet Dinah felt, watching his twitching brows, that he did mind, perhaps more than his wife.
There was no saying what Stephen Guest thought about it. No hint of emotion disturbed the inscrutability of his countenance when he heard of the Chief Constable's decision. He folded the evening paper open at the middle page with his capable, deliberate fingers, and said: "I thought they'd call in the Yard." That was the only comment he made; he did not seem to be much interested.
I.ola was also uninterested. She said that policemen did not matter to her, and it was incredible that only a reporter on the local paper had as yet called at the house seeking a story. With him she would have nothing to do; it would perhaps be better if nothing was told to the newspapers until she had seen her press agent. "For it occurs to me," she said seriously, "that it may not be a good thing to put this in the papers. In France it would he a success of the most enormous, but England I do not know so well, and one must ask oneself whether it will make good publicity for me, or, on the contrary, not good at all, but very bad."
Lola, unlike Camilla, evinced not the slightest desire to leave the Grange. She even forbore to complain any more of the matutinal habits of cocks, though she did once announce that when she was married to Geoffrey the matter would have to be arranged.
The murder of her host was from her point of view a good thing. Geoffrey would have a great deal of money, which would enable him to marry her, and there need no longer be an inexplicable dearth of absinthe in the house. These conclusions she expressed freely, for, as she very sensibly pointed out, it was good for every one to look on the bright side.
The absinthe was procured for her by Finch, who informed Dinah apologetically that he had taken it upon himself to ring up the wine-merchant. "For, if I may say so, miss, it will be one worry the less," he said.
The other matter could not be so easily settled. Geoffrey, Lola discovered, was behaving quite absurdly, and instead of adoring her openly, showed a marked disinclination to be anywhere near her. If she caught his eye he would hurriedly avert his own glance; if she addressed him he answered her in a constrained way. and would immediately begin to talk to someone else. Even the seduction of her beauty failed to rekindle his passion, and when she tried the effect of stealing her arm, about his neck at the foot of the staircase on Mondat night, and whispering: "Kiss me. But kiss me, my Geoffrey!" the result had been anything but happy. He had almost violently disengaged himself, saying: "Don't! Can't you leave me alone? I don't want to touch you! And then, when she had opened her eyes at such odd behaviour, he had said, in a high-pitched, excited voice: "Don't keep on talking about marriage! We're not going to be married. You threw me over when you thought. I hadn't any money, and I saw what a fool I'd been about you. And it absolutely killed my love for you!"
This was very shocking, quite rude of Geoffrey, and extremely annoying besides, since he spoke in such a loud voice that every one must have been able to hear him. For a moment Lola wavered on the brink of a truly magnificent scene. It would be a splendid end to the day, and she would enjoy a quarrel where one screamed abuse, and hurled vases to the ground. But Geoffrey though excitable, was, after all, English, and probably he would not enter into the spirit of the thing, but instead of shouting too would just walk away, quite disgusted. She curbed herself therefore, and said reproachfully: "But I find you entirely cruel, my dear Geoffrey. You hurt me very much, I assure you,, ut I forgive you, because it is seen that you are not at all yourself."
After that she had gone upstairs to bed and, meeting Dinah on the landing, had asked her when it would be made known how much money Geoffrey would have.
Dinah was unable to enlighten her. Geoffrey had rung up the offices of Tremlowe, Tremlowe, Hanson and Tremlowe as soon as the Chief Constable had departed but Mr Horace Tremlowe had not returned from a long week-end, and Mr Gerald Tremlowe hardly expected to see him before eleven o'clock on Tuesday. Geoffrey had sonnewhat incoherently explained his need of Mr Horace Tremlowe, and Mr Gerald, very much shocked, had said "Tut-tut-tut", in a perturbed voice, and promised that Mr Horace Tremlowe, who was both the General's solicitor and executor, would come down to the Grange by the first available train on Wednesday.