Dance to Your Daddy

'And, of course, she also drowned the baby doll. That was the latest of all. I thought the baby doll was highly significant. It proved to me that, not only did she not want her baby, but that she might have murdered it if it had lived.'

Dame Beatrice offered no comment on this opinion. She said, 'And that was when you decided to consult me.'

'Just so. I thought things had gone far enough.'

'I shall be interested to hear her own explanation of these actions.'

'I doubt whether she will remember anything at all about them. Besides, do you think that total recall is necessarily a good thing?'

'All things are relative, of course. Is it possible for you to set aside a room in the house solely for my use as a consulting-room?'

'That presents a slight difficulty. I have to find sleeping accommodation for eight extra people, as I think Judith told you, and as only two of them can be asked to share, space is at a premium. I wonder whether you could use your own room? It is spacious, and I can supply you with a table on which to write your notes, and a couch on which Trilby could lie. I thought that, if you had your sessions with Trilby between tea and dinner, you could still take your afternoon walk, or your nap, or anything else you choose to do, between lunch and tea, and so have that time and your mornings and evenings to yourself or with us.'

'That would appear reasonable. Very well. I will see her at a quarter to six.'

'Excellent. Then we will dine at eight, if that will suit you. I don't know how long you will spend with her each day?'

'Not more than an hour, and it may be a good deal less.'

'I suppose you use the 'stream of consciousness' method.'

Dame Beatrice did not reply to this. She said, as though she had not heard him, 'Or we could use Rosamund's own sanctum, I suppose. She might be more at ease there than in my bedroom.'

Romilly laughed.

'She might, but I do not think you would,' he said. 'She is the most untidy young creature in the world. The servants try to maintain some kind of law and order among her things, but I'm afraid it's a thankless task. However, they are quite devoted to her in their bucolic, country-bumpkin way. Not over-blessed with intelligence, I'm afraid, but there seems to be so much inbreeding in small villages that it is scarcely surprising to find the indigenous people not much better than morons.'

Dame Beatrice thought of the willing, kindly Amabel, who 'loiked poertry' and who, with her sister, had given George some information which he, a notably intelligent man, had certainly accepted at its face value, and she found herself by no means in agreement with Romilly's summing-up of his servants' mentality. However, she did not contradict him. She was interested to hear that she was expected to turn her bedroom into a consulting- room. She had not been shown the whole house, but it was a three-storey building and, even allowing for the long gallery which went from the front to the back of the house on the first floor, and the loss of the floor or floors over the great hall which had been demolished to leave the three-sided inside balcony from which her own and other rooms opened, Galliard Hall must contain at least twenty bedrooms, apart from those occupied by the servants.

The only conclusion she could come to was that possibly all the rooms on the second floor, except the servants' quarters, were unfurnished and out of use. With only two maids, a manservant, a cook (whom Dame Beatrice had not seen) and a housekeeper, it was probable that not nearly all the rooms in the mansion received attention.

She went up to her room when the trip to Swanage was over, taking with her the newspaper which Romilly had bought for her. It was almost time for lunch, so she tidied herself and listened for the sound of the gong. While she waited she walked over to the picture of the two young men and studied it afresh. For some reason, her thoughts turned to her secretary Laura, who displayed at times a vivid imagination and a sense of the dramatic. Laura she thought, having been apprised of the fact that the household was, in some respects, a strange one, and having encountered Rosamund, with her complaints, fears and suspicions, would have regarded the picture with a prejudiced and jaundiced eye. On impulse, she reached up and took it down. Behind it there was a neat, foot-square hole in the party wall, and the picture, which was on thin canvas with no protecting glass, had been put up to conceal this.

It was clear, she thought, why her own room had been chosen for her treatment of Rosamund Lestrange. Somebody-most likely the master of the house-must be determined to overhear all that passed between Dame Beatrice and her patient. She realised now why Rosamund had sought her out while Romilly was downstairs. Rosamund must also know that there was an opening in the wall behind the picture.

She was far too old and experienced to be surprised by the lengths to which human curiosity can go, but, in view of the facts in this particular case, so far as she knew them, the large, neat hole seemed to indicate something a little more reprehensible than mere curiosity. She replaced the picture and, hearing the gong sound for lunch, went thoughtfully down the stairs. Once again there were only the three of them at table.

'Well,' said Judith brightly, 'how did you think Swanage was looking?'

'I saw little of it,' Dame Beatrice replied. 'It is a pleasant town, and I am thinking of taking my patient to visit it this afternoon. It will help with the beginning of her treatment.'

'Oh, but, my dear Beatrice,' said Romilly, in the utmost dismay, 'surely that would be most unwise! The very thing we have to watch most carefully is that she does not go near the sea!'

'That may be your opinion, but it is not mine, and, as I am in charge of the case, I must be permitted to conduct it in my own way. My theory is that we should give your wife every opportunity to drown anything she pleases. It is the best way to cure her of her obsession. I have decided to follow the principle laid down by makers of cream cakes and sweetmeats, that of allowing their workpeople to eat as much as they wish of the product they are making. The novelty wears off and the appetite is very soon satiated. In my opinion, the frustration which your wife must feel in not being allowed to follow a course of conduct which satisfies her-'

'But there is the risk that Trilby may drown, not merely trivial objects and small mammals, but herself!' exclaimed Romilly.

'That risk, in any case, will be considerably less from a bathing-beach, where I shall be in charge of her,