LITMIR.BIZ

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looked at the audience now, pluming himself on the imagination that had got him where he was; the imagination that Grant, poor dear idiot, could never aspire to. He wished he had brought Bartholomew along. Bart was much better informed where the society racket was concerned than he was. It was Bart’s business to be descriptive: and at whatever was “descriptive”—weddings, motor racing, launches, or what not—the same faces from the racket turned up. Bart would have been useful.

      But Jammy knew enough of those faces to keep him interested.

      “On the other hand,” said Lydia, “Capricorn people are often melancholic, doubtful of themselves, and perverse. On a lower plane still, they are gloomy, miserly and deceptive.” But Jammy was not listening. In any case he did not know which of the signs had had the honour of assisting at his birth, and did not care. Lydia had several times told him that he was “typically, oh, but typically, Aries” but he never remembered. All hooey.

      There was the Duchess of Trent in the third row. She, poor, silly, unhappy wretch, had the perfect alibi. She had been going to have a luncheon for Christine: a luncheon that would make her the most envied hostess in London instead of a rather tiresome back-number; and Christine had gone and died on her.

      Jammy’s eye wandered, and paused at a good-looking dark face in the fourth row. Very familiar that face; as familiar as the head on a coin. Why? He didn’t know the man; would swear he had never seen him in the flesh.

      And then it came to him. It was Gene Lejeune; the actor who had been engaged to play opposite Clay in her third and last picture in England: the picture she had never made. It was rumoured that Lejeune was glad that he would never have to make that picture; Clay’s brilliance habitually made her men look like penny candles; but that was hardly a good reason for getting up at dawn to hold her head under water until she died. Jammy wasn’t greatly interested in Lejeune. Next him was a fashion plate in black and white. Marta Hallard. Of course. Marta had been given the part that Clay had been scheduled to play. Marta was not in the Clay class, but holding up production was likely to prove expensive, and Marta had poise, sophistication, sufficient acting ability, sufficient personality, and what Coyne called “class.” She was now Lejeune’s leading woman. Or was he her leading man? It would be difficult to say which of these two was the “supporting” one. Neither of them was in the first flight. Considered simply as a partnership, it was likely to prove much more successful than the Clay-Lejeune one would have been. A step up—a big step up for Marta—and more chance to shine for Lejeune. Yes, Christine’s death had been a lucky break for both of them.

      He heard in his mind a girl’s voice saying, “You, of course, murdered her yourself.” Who had said that? Yes, that Judy girl who played dumb blondes. And she had said it about Marta. That Saturday night when he and Grant had met on the doorstep of Marta’s flat and had been entertained by her. The Judy person had said it with that sulky air of defiance that she used to life’s most trivial activities. And they had taken it as a joke. Someone else had laughed and agreed, supplying the motive: “Of course! You wanted that part for yourself!” And the conversation had flowed on in unbroken superficiality.

      Well, ambition was one of the better known incentives to murder. It came, well up the list, just below passion and greed. But Marta Hallard was Marta Hallard. Murder and that brittle, insincere sophisticate were poles apart. She didn’t even play murder well on the stage, now he came to think of it. She had always the air of saying at the back of her mind, “Too tiresome, all this earnestness.” If she didn’t find murder humourless, she would undoubtedly find it plebian. No, he could imagine Marta being a murderee, but not a murderer.

      He became aware that Marta was paying no attention whatever to Lydia. All her interest—and it was a fixed and whole-hearted interest—was centered on someone to her right in the row in front. Jammy’s eyes followed the imaginary dotted line of her glance and came to rest, a little surprised, on a nondescript little man. Incredulous, he travelled the dotted line again. But the answer was still the small round-faced man with the sleepy expression. Now what could interest Marta Hallard in that very commercial exterior and that far from exciting—

      And then Jammy remembered who that little man was. He was Jason Harmer, the song writer. One of Christine’s best friends. Marta’s “merry kettle.” And, if women’s judgment was to be accepted, anything but unexciting. In fact, that was the chap who was popularly supposed to have been Christine Clay’s lover. Jammy’s mind did the equivalent of a long, low whistle. Well, well, so that was Jay Harmer. He had never seen him off a song-cover until now. Queer taste women had, and no mistake.

      Harmer was listening to Lydia with a rapt and childlike interest. Jammy wondered how anyone could remain unaware of so concentrated a battery of attention as Marta Hallard was directing on him. There he sat, short-necked and placid, while Marta’s brilliant eyes bored into the side of his head. A lot of hooey, that about making people turn by just looking at them. And what, in any case, was the reason for Marta’s secret interest? For secret it was. The brim of her hat hid her eyes from her escort, and she had taken it for granted that the eyes of everyone else were on the lecturer. Unconscious of being watched, she was letting her eyes have their fill of Harmer. Why?

      Was it a “heart” interest—and if so, just how much of a heart interest? Or was it that, in spite of her companionship of him that night at her flat, she was seeing Jason Harmer as a possible murderer?

      For nearly fifteen minutes Jammy watched them both, his mind full of speculation. Again and again his glance went over the crowded little hall and came back to them. Interest there was in plenty elsewhere, but not interest like this.

      He remembered Marta’s instant refutal of the suggestion that there was more than friendship between Harmer and Christine Clay. What did that mean? Was she interested in him herself? And how much? How much would Marta Hallard be interested? Enough to get rid of a rival?

      He found himself wondering if Marta was a good swimmer, and pulled himself up. Fifteen minutes ago he had laughed at the very thought of Marta as a person passionate to the point of murder. The very idea had been ludicrous.

      But that was before he had observed her interest—her strange consuming interest—in Jason. Supposing—just supposing; to pass the time while that woman made her boring way through the planets and back again—that Marta was in love with this Harmer fellow. That made Christine a double rival of hers, didn’t it? Christine had been where Marta, for all her fashionable crust of superficiality and indifference, would have given her right hand to be: at the top of her professional tree. So often Marta had been within sight of that top, only to have the branch she relied on break and let her down. Certainly, and beyond any doubt, Marta wanted professional success. And certainly, for all her fair words, she had bitterly grudged the little factory hand from the Midlands her staggering, and as it seemed too easy, achievement. Five years ago Marta had been very nearly where she was now: famous, successful, financially sound, and with the top of the tree—that elusive, giddy top—somewhere in sight. It had been somewhere in sight for five years. And meanwhile an unknown dancer from a Broadway musical had sung, danced, and acted her way to canonisation.

      It was no wonder if Marta’s fair words where Christine was concerned were the merest lip-service. And supposing that Christine had not only the position she had thirsted after, but the man she desired? What then? Was that enough to make Marta Hallard hate to the point of murder?

      Where was Marta when Christine was drowned? In Grosvenor Square, presumably. After all, she was playing in that thing at the St. James’s. No, wait! At that Saturday night party something was said about her being away? What was it? What was it? She had said something about hard-working actresses, and Clement Clements had mocked, saying: “Hard-working, forsooth. And you’ve just had a week off to go dashing round the Continent!” She had said: “Not a week, Clement! Only four days. And an actress can presumably play with a broken spine but never with a gumboil.”

      Clement had said that the gumboil didn’t prevent her having a grand time at Deauville. And she had said: “Not Deauville. Le Touquet.”

      Le Touquet. That was where she had been. And she had come back in time for the Saturday matinée. They had talked about the

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