CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Element of Youth

ALLEYN SAW Bridget in her old nursery which had been converted into a very human sitting-room. She made him take a large armchair and jiggled a box of cigarettes under his nose.

‘It’s no good being official and pretending you don’t. I can see you do.’

‘Really!’ exclaimed Alleyn with a look at his fingers which were not stained with nicotine. ‘How?’

‘The outline of your case shows through your coat. You should take up detection, Mr Alleyn, it’s too interesting.’

Alleyn took a cigarette.

‘Got me there,’ he said. ‘Have you yourself any ideas about being a policewoman?’ He fingered the outline that showed through his breast-pocket.

‘I suppose one has to begin at the bottom,’ said Bridget. ‘What’s the first duty of a policewoman?’

‘I don’t know. We are not allowed to hang around the girls in the force.’

‘What a shame!’ said Bridget. ‘I won’t join. I should like you to hang round me, Mr Alleyn.’

Alleyn thought: ‘She’s being just a bit too deliberately the audacious young charmer. What’s up with her? Young Donald, damn his eyes!’

He said: ‘Well, so I must for the moment. I want to talk to you about last night, if I may.’

‘I’m afraid I won’t be much good,’ said Bridget. ‘I hope you find whoever it was. It’s worrying Donna to death, and Bart’s being absolutely lethal over it. Bart’s my stepfather. You’ve met him, haven’t you? All pukka sahib and horsewhips. Is a horsewhip any worse than an ordinary one, do you know?’

‘You knew Lord Robert pretty well, didn’t you?’ asked Alleyn.

‘Yes. He was a great friend of Donna’s. I suppose you think I’m being hard and modern about him. I’d have been sorrier if it had happened longer ago.’

‘That’s rather cryptic,’ said Alleyn. ‘What does it mean?’

‘It doesn’t mean I’m not sorry now. I am. We all loved him and I mind most dreadfully. But I found out I didn’t really know him well. He was harder than you’d ever believe. In a way that makes it worse; having been out of friends with him. I feel I’d give anything to be able to tell him I—I—I—I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry for what?’

‘For not being nice to him last night. I snubbed him.’

‘Why did you snub poor Bunchy?’

‘Because he was beastly to his nephew who happens to be rather a particular friend of mine.’

‘Donald Potter? Yes, I know about that. Don’t you think it’s possible that Donald was rather hard on his uncle?’

‘No, I don’t. Donald’s a man now. He’s got to stand on his own feet and decide things for himself. Bunchy simply wouldn’t understand that. He wanted to choose Donald’s friends, settle his career, and treat him exactly as if he was a schoolboy. Bunchy was just hopelessly Victorian and conventional.’

‘Do you like Captain Withers?’ asked Alleyn suddenly.