Late, Late in the Evening

ward of court and rob me, no doubt, of access to her, unless I fancy a spell in chokey which, quite frankly, dear godfather, I most emphatically do not.

Well, to our muttons. As you know, I returned from Paris to take up a post as assistant and general dogsbody to old Doctor Faustus (I call him that, because you never saw anything like his dispensary except in bad dreams) but, naturally, I kept in touch with Amabel and she with me. I knew, therefore, the date of her return to England and that she proposed to make a lengthy stay at Hill House, so, to disclose a truth which you will not need to be told, I only took the Faustus job to be near her in the village where her ancestral hall dominates the hilltop.

We managed to meet two or three times in London after she first got back, and then I received an invitation to the birthday party. It was from old Mrs Kempson herself, and I don't know how Amabel wangled it. However, I put on a clean shirt and showed up.

On the morning of the party there was a charity rag led by some of the University Medical School fellows. Apparently they called at the Big House and then nothing would satisfy Amabel but to borrow or buy the prehistoric-animal costumes in which they appeared. She got a message to me at the surgery by way of one of her grandmother's servants, so as soon as I was free I engaged the lads on the blower and arranged for a wagonette of obsolete vintage to deliver the costumes to the manor. From what I heard later, young Lionel, Amabel's kid brother, watched the costumes being unloaded and immediately claimed one for himself. More about that later.

Meanwhile, I suppose you wouldn't care to come along and hear me give my evidence, such as it is, to the coroner? I feel I shall do you credit in the witness box, although the thunder, I suspect, will be stolen by the police doctor, who will be in the enviable position of one to whom the city mortuary is his washpot, not to mention that over the police-station hath he cast out his shoe.

Incidentally, although she's probably too stiff-necked to say so, I believe Mrs Kempson could do with a bit of support from you. She isn't very young and the knowledge that a guest at her party has been slugged and killed in the immediate neighbourhood of her ancestral home has given her more than somewhat of a jolt. Apart from that, your presence (especially if you would be willing to drop a word in my favour) would give me enormous pleasure.

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Amabel Kempson-Conyers' Letter

Oh, Maisy, how I wish it had never occurred to me to buy those wretched lizard-costume things from the boys at the medical school! And how lucky you are that Anthony insisted on taking you home so early. I suppose you went to his flat in his car and whooped it up a bit. Not that I'm jealous, darling. Your Amabel has her own bit of cake stashed away and is perfectly content with it.

Still, never mind that. No doubt our troubles will be a nine days' wonder in the papers, but I'd like to give you my version because, maybe, to write it down will clear my head in case I'm called upon to give evidence at the inquest, as I think I'm bound to be. I'm sure the whole thing is connected with those prehistoric things. Do you think there's a curse on them or something?

Anyway, this is what has happened. You remember how we shared out the costumes, I expect? They- that's to say, the rag students-were limited in their ideas because each of them had to have an outfit which only involved two legs, unless anybody was willing either to have a partner, like a pantomime horse, or else go about on all fours which, for dashing about the town and village collecting for charity, simply was not feasible.

So, as I say, the restrictions. Not everybody got a costume, because the students could only supply fourteen costumes altogether. Each one was labelled as to what it was supposed to be. Well, owing to the limitations of only needing the two-legged types of pre-historic monsters, each costume was duplicated and there were only the fourteen altogether, of which my wretched little brother Lionel bagged one as soon as they were unpacked and refused to give it back. He bore it off, cavorted about in it until, mercifully, he was sent to bed, and we did not see it downstairs again until after two o'clock in the morning, after you and Anthony had sneaked off without saying goodbye.

My first idea had been to pair off people as male and female of the same species, but when I looked at the costumes I saw that this was impossible because some of the things were too heavy and too bulky for us poor females to manage, so, in the event, as you may or may not recollect, we had two men as Tyrannosaurus, two, rather similar, as Tarbosaurus and two as Corythosaurus, a terribly silly-looking creature with a huge duckbill and a sort of helmet on its head. We gave those to Chris and Billy, if you remember, so that they could clown a bit, which I knew they would do, anyway. It makes them a bit tiresome at times, but, being so beetle-brained, I suppose they have to give some scope to their ego, although they can be fatiguing. I specially think so after my rather sophisticated year in Paris, meeting French boys, who are ardent without being silly and have beautiful manners so long as you don't give them too much encouragement, but, on the whole, I would rather trust Chris and Billy, in spite of their lunatic antics. Of course we didn't get much chance of encouraging the French boys, as we were very well chaperoned-talk about Spanish duennas!-but there's always a way.

Oh, well, that's not what I'm writing about. First of all I offered Merle (the gate-crasher!) a prehistoric bird-thing called Dimorphodon-did I tell you I only know the names because they were on the costumes? It's a pterosaur. One thing this business has done is improve my education, but that's the best anyone can say about it, as you'll know when you read the papers.

Anyway, Dimorphodon has great, leather-looking wings and Merle said the costume would make her look like a bat out of hell, for it has the most repulsive head half as long as its body and hideous, overlapping teeth. She made such a fuss that I gave it-the two of them, rather-to Pippa and Jennifer, who were quite pleased, actually. It was like Merle's cheek to beef about what she was offered, anyway.

You and I had Saltoposuchas, which I thought, with all that iridescent blue and green colouring and the splashes of red-brown, was quite the prettiest costume of the lot, and Polly and Sophie had Diatryma, which reminded me of the sort of ostrich you could only see in a nightmare. Polly said it was indecent because they had to straddle their legs so much that they were reduced (I must admit) to a rather obscene waddling when they had to move about.

Anyway, as my little brother had seized one of the two iguanodon costumes, I thought Merle could have the other. She wasn't very gracious about that, either, and did not join in the charades. It seemed she had a chip on her shoulder all evening, I thought, knowing that it was her brother I'd invited, but the wretch sent her instead. I'd have had the charades before the dancing, so that people could take the costumes off and have a long, cool drink (I didn't think much of my grandmother's claret-cup, did you?) before beginning the dancing, but there was a reason for the reversal. The consequence was that when people had danced and then were told to dress up, I don't think the majority were any too keen. The costumes were hot and some of them were heavy and the charades we could do in them were so very limited that I think we were all glad when both sides had done one little sketch and we could all opt out of doing another.