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Norman didn’t look hopeful. “I don’t think you can come up with enough context for this, Mr. Pembroke.”

Chapter Forty

Social Leopard

As Belinda toured Inspector Grindal around the house, the rest of them could hear bits and pieces of her cheerful commentary. There was nothing for them to do but wait and listen.

From the lower ground floor:

“. . . so I says to Norman, ‘It ain’t rat poison if it makes bubbles when I rub it with me rag,’ but he still wouldn’t let me use it, and then Tuppence says ‘Belinda, why ain’t the floor clean yet?’ and I say, ‘ ’Cause I ain’t got four fuckin’ hands, and no soap neither’ . . .”

From the servants’ stairs:

“. . . making a new kind o’ glove with bristles stitched on the fingers. Scrub-a-Mitts, I call ’em. Oh, I got lots o’ idears. Miss Martin says if I want to be an inventualist, she’ll help me . . .”

John listened with his head lowered. “It will be over soon,” he said to Norman and Enid.

“That’s what the surgeon said before he took a chisel to my hip,” Enid replied. “When someone says ‘it’ll be over soon,’ it’s never soon enough.”

Belinda’s voice now came from the upper floor:

“. . . I invented it to keep away the mashers. The Pocket Impaler, I call it. I thunk of it after Mr. Pembroke told me to jab a hatpin in a bloke’s chest. No, not a real bloke, a pretend-bloke . . .”

Enid set her jaw resolutely. “Mr. Pembroke, will you help me go upstairs?”

“Yes,” John said warily, “but why?”

“I’m going to push the inspector out a window.”

Before John could reply, Norman said in exasperation, “Enid, you can’t knacker him without mentioning it to Belinda first. She seems to like him. We have to consider her feelings.”

“The inspector may have some feelings about it too,” John said acidly.

Someone pounded at the front door. Alan raced to the entrance hall and began barking madly.

As John heard the muffled sound of Benjamin squalling, he reached the door in three strides and wrenched it open.

“John—” Reina crossed the threshold, almost stumbling in her haste.

John caught her securely against him, looking over her and the wailing baby. “Cariad—what happened—are either of you hurt? Or Ivonne—”

“No—”

It was impossible to talk with Benjamin howling and Alan barking.

Ivonne rushed into the house, clutching the blue umbrella from the perambulator. Speaking too fast for John to grasp a single word, she pointed repeatedly at the open doorway, where a pair of strangers approached.

Carefully John guided both Reina and Ivonne farther inside. He turned to face the men, sizing them up in a lethal glance. Morning coats, gold Albert watch chains and cravat pins, pin-striped trousers. The older one in a silk top hat, the younger in a beaver felt bowler.

A pair of prosperous, self-important prigs.

Behind them, a carriage was drawn up by the curb. It was a fine vehicle with a family coat of arms painted on a door panel, a matched team, and a liveried coachman.

“Good morning,” the one in the top hat began, “I’m—”

“Come in,” John said curtly, opening the door wider.

The man looked perplexed. “I haven’t yet—”