“And the crow makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.”
“You would,” said Colin bitterly.
Roberta turned over the pages of the Tatler, unsolaced by studio portraits of ladies looking faintly nauseated and by snapshots of the same or closely similar ladies, looking either partially concussed or madly hilarious. She would have liked to put down the Tatler but was prevented from doing so by the circumstance of finding, whenever she looked up, that Henry’s eye was upon her. Strange thoughts visited Roberta. She supposed that many of the ladies in the Tatler were personally known to Henry. Perhaps the mysterious Mary was one of them. Perhaps she was long-limbed, with that smooth, expensive look so far beyond the reach of a small, whey-faced colonial. So why, thought Roberta, with murder in the house and nobody being anything but vaguely kind, and with smooth ladies everywhere for Henry, should she be feeling happy? And before she could stop herself she had pictured the smooth ladies gliding away from Henry because he was mixed up in murder while she, Roberta Grey, dawned upon him in her full worth. With these and similar fancies her mind was so busily occupied that she did not notice the passing of the minutes, and when Lord Charles and Nigel Bathgate returned she thought that Alleyn must have kept them a very short time in the dining-room. She roused herself to notice that Lord Charles looked remarkably blank and Mr. Bathgate remarkably uneasy.
“Immy, darling,” said Lord Charles, “why haven’t you gone to bed?”
“If any one else tells me to go to bed,” said Charlot, “knowing full well that my bed is occupied by a mad woman, I shall instantly ask Mr. Martin to arrest them.”
“Well, it won’t be occupied much longer. Alleyn says she may go home and that Robin and Nanny may go with her. He’s sending a policeman too, so you’ll be quite safe, Robin, my dear. The rest of us are—” Lord Charles fumbled for his glass — “are free to go to bed.”
“Except me,” said Frid. “Mr. Alleyn will want to see me. He’s evidently saved me for the last.”
“He didn’t say anything about you.”