The Seven Dials Mystery Read Free

wondered why she agreed so fervently.
    MacDonald looked at her very hard.
    â€œOf course,” he said, “if it’s your orders, m’lady—”
    He left it like that. But his menacing tone was too much for Lady Coote. She capitulated at once.
    â€œOh, no,” she said. “I see what you mean, MacDonald. N—no—William had better get on with the lower border.”
    â€œThat’s what I thocht meself, m’lady.”
    â€œYes,” said Lady Coote. “Yes, certainly.”
    â€œI thocht you’d agree, m’lady,” said MacDonald.
    â€œOh, certainly,” said Lady Coote again.
    MacDonald touched his hat and moved away.
    Lady Coote sighed unhappily and looked after him. Jimmy Thesiger, replete with kidneys and bacon, stepped out on to the terrace beside her, and sighed in quite a different manner.
    â€œTopping morning, eh?” he remarked.
    â€œIs it?” said Lady Coote absently. “Oh, yes, I suppose it is. I hadn’t noticed.”
    â€œWhere are the others? Punting on the lake?”
    â€œI expect so. I mean, I shouldn’t wonder if they were.”
    Lady Coote turned and plunged abruptly into the house again. Tredwell was just examining the coffee pot.
    â€œOh, dear,” said Lady Coote. “Isn’t Mr.—Mr.—”
    â€œWade, m’lady?”
    â€œYes, Mr. Wade. Isn’t he down yet? ”
    â€œNo, m’lady.”
    â€œIt’s very late.”
    â€œYes, m’lady.”
    â€œOh, dear. I suppose he will come down sometime, Tredwell?”
    â€œOh, undoubtedly, m’lady. It was eleven thirty yesterday morning when Mr. Wade came down, m’lady.”
    Lady Coote glanced at the clock. It was now twenty minutes to twelve. A wave of human sympathy rushed over her.
    â€œIt’s very hard luck on you, Tredwell. Having to clear and then get lunch on the table by one o’clock.”
    â€œI am accustomed to the ways of young gentlemen, m’lady.”
    The reproof was dignified, but unmistakable. So might a prince of the Church reprove a Turk or an infidel who had unwittingly committed a solecism in all good faith.
    Lady Coote blushed for the second time that morning. But a welcome interruption occurred. The door opened and a serious, spectacled young man put his head in.
    â€œOh, there you are, Lady Coote. Sir Oswald was asking for you.”
    â€œOh, I’ll go to him at once, Mr. Bateman.”
    Lady Coote hurried out.
    Rupert Bateman, who was Sir Oswald’s private secretary, went out the other way, through the window where Jimmy Thesiger was still lounging amiably.
    â€œ ’Morning, Pongo,” said Jimmy. “I suppose I shall have to go and make myself agreeable to those blasted girls. You coming?”
    Bateman shook his head and hurried along the terrace and in at the library window. Jimmy grinned pleasantly at his retreating back. He and Bateman had been at school together, when Bateman had been a serious, spectacled boy, and had been nicknamed Pongo for no earthly reason whatever.
    Pongo, Jimmy reflected, was very much the same sort of ass now that he had been then. The words “Life is real, life is earnest” might have been written specially for him.
    Jimmy yawned and strolled slowly down to the lake. The girls were there, three of them—just the usual sort of girls, two with dark, shingled heads and one with a fair, shingled head. The one that giggled most was (he thought) called Helen—and there was another called Nancy—and the third one was, for some reason, addressed as Socks. With them were his two friends, Bill Eversleigh and Ronny Devereux, who were employed in a purely ornamental capacity at the Foreign Office.
    â€œHallo,” said Nancy (or possibly Helen). “It’s Jimmy. Where’s what’s his name?”
    â€œYou don’t mean to say,” said Bill Eversleigh, “that Gerry Wade’s not up yet?