Death in High Heels Read Free Page B

it?”
    “We—I bought it at the chemist’s, Mr. Bevan.”
    “Rachel and I did,” amended Victoria.
    “But, my dear Mrs. Gay, this is most terribly dangerous stuff,” said Bevan, ignoring Victoria and addressing himself to Rachel. “Half of what you’ve got there would kill a man. Surely you can’t just buy it at a chemist’s?”
    “Yes, you can, Mr. Bevan. He has to know who you are, but you don’t have to sign for it or anything.”
    “Nonsense, they have no business to sell you such stuff. Which chemist gave it to you?”
    “It was Mr. Mitchell, across the road, Mr. Bevan. But honestly, I’m sure it’s quite all right for him to let us have it; he doesn’t know our names, I suppose, but he knows us very well: we’re always going in there for soap and things—” Rachel cast a glance at Gregory, who stood behind Bevan, just outside the doorway.
    Bevan stooped and picked up a few grains of the powder in the palm of his hand. Gregory, looking over his shoulder, said, with a virtuous sniff: “I’ll clear it all up for you, Mr. Bevan.”
    “No, no, don’t touch it. Mr. Cecil—Mr. Cecil, come here, please. Did you know the girls had this dangerous stuff in the showroom?”
    Cecil came bounding across the room. “No, I didn’t, Mr. Bevan. I don’t know anything at all about it; I’ve been with a client all the morning, and really, Mr. Bevan, it does take all one’s mind creating for a customer, especially when one doesn’t feel well, and I don’t feel at all well this morning; I can’t be looking after the girls and contacting the customers, Mr. Bevan, really—”
    “Well, see to it that this stuff is cleared up and destroyed—destroyed, please.”
    “You don’t expect me to brush it up my self , I suppose, Mr. Bevan?” cried Cecil, on a rising note. The tears came into his eyes and he wrung his hands hysterically.
    Bevan turned away impatiently and marched downstairs. Gregory took Cecil by the arm. “There, Mr. Cecil,” she said, fixing him with her unsmiling grey eyes, “don’t bother about it any more. I’ll send Mrs. Harris to sweep it all up and then she can hand it over to you and you can get rid of it. I really do think, Rachel, that you might be a little less childish, when Mr. Bevan has so much to think about just now, what with the new branch and so on; this isn’t a nursery, dear, is it? You should try not to be so irresponsible….” She hurried downstairs in deep disgust to give orders to the charwoman. Victoria muttered rudely; Irene, from her corner, stared angrily after the retreating form; Rachel made a vulgar grimace; the two mannequins appeared from their room and said that, honestly, Gregory was a perfect bitch; even Cecil, who owed her nothing but gratitude over the whole affair, looked after her with indignant, querulous dislike, and Mrs. ’Arris, labouring up the stairs with her dustpan and broom, announced that there was two ways of asking a body to do anything, a pleasant way and an unpleasant way, and that that Miss Gregory fairly made her boil.
    But it was Doon who died.
    4
    Victoria and Rachel sat in a clean, impersonal little room in the great hospital, and waited for Doon to die. “It’s strange to think what a lot of emotions must have gone on in this room,” Victoria said, gazing round at the blank green walls and rows of stiff-backed chairs. “It looks as if nobody but us had ever even been into it; but I suppose as much agony has gone on in here, agony in people’s minds, I mean, as in any other place in London. It always seems to me as if all the thoughts must be tangled up just under the ceiling in a place like this, not able to get out. Have you ever felt like that?”
    “Don’t be whimsical, my pet; and you look awful, you’ve got an absolute moustache of dirt!”
    “It’s because I will keep on rubbing my nose on the back of my hand,” said Victoria, ruefully. “I’ve always got a filthy face at the end of the day. What time is