win a lady’s heart by saying: “Dear lady, you are so sweet.” You say, as brutally as possible: “Holy God in heaven, woman, you stink like a dead pig — for Jesus Christ’s sake wash yourself.” You say: “Look at yourself! You are as shaggy as an ungroomed horse, you untidy bitch — do something about it, or you will never get married.” Now I, Miss Thundersley, have evolved a deodorant. Because I know you, and trust you, and like you, I will give you the formula. It is as follows:
Asta Thundersley managed, by some unprecedented effort of will, to hold back an avalanche of icy, crushing words. It occurred to her that this learned man Schiff might be of service to her. She said: ‘I never looked at these things that way before. I should be very glad indeed to help — I mean to say that I have been wondering for a long time what to do with a few hundred pounds that I have lying loose. But before I can really give my mind to these things — before I can rest content — I must see that the man who killed Sonia Sabbatani goes where he belongs. I wonder if you can help me?’
Schiff’s round face became alternately red and white with hope and fear while she was speaking. He thought deeply, biting his nails, and at last said: ‘Do you suspect anybody?’
‘I suspect everybody.’
‘If I were you, Miss Thundersley, do you know what I’d do? I’d have a party. Invite everybody, everyone you know. Let everyone come who might possibly have anything to do with this affair. Let one or two of your most trusted friends listen. I’m a psychologist. I’ll help to guide the conversation into certain channels. I tell you that one must wash and dredge the conversation of one’s friends as one of these prospectors for gold dredges the mud of a dirty, shallow river. Through listening to my friends, I have found out many interesting things about them. And sometimes I’ve been of service to many friends by listening to what their friends said. The thing to do is-to get them, dear lady, to relax. At a social gathering there is nothing like alcohol to make people relax, reveal themselves, as it might be described, a catalyst — which hastens the human-chemical reaction. I have a recipe for a drink which I believe I am not far wrong in describing as, psychologically speaking, a catalyst. I evolved it myself. It comes out of much trial and error, dear lady. It does not taste strong, and yet it is strong. In point of fact, the power of this drink lies in the fact that the most potent combination of ingredients are made to seem innocuous. As a matter of fact, I had half hoped to put it on the market. I couldn’t think of a good name for it. You will see for yourself. Besides, it might be a little difficult to market this product on account of the high cost of essential ingredients. For you, I will write down the recipe. The point is this. Ladies and gentlemen, who like to drink, have a tendency after a glass or two, to talk. Then something starts. People reveal themselves. Give a party, dear lady, give a party to all whom you suspect — keep your eyes open and your ears open, and let me keep my ears and eyes also open for you, eh?’
Asta scratched her head, and said: ‘Schiff, I haven’t got any faith at all in your psychological revelations. But I begin to feel that a little party would do me no harm at all.’
‘And you will invite everybody?’
‘Look here, I must go home now and make a list. So give me a ring to-morrow.’
‘One little thing. My formula, the one for the fruit cup, as it is so called, was the result of research. Of this I want to make you a present. But a certain something I was expecting has not arrived. Will you lend me fifteen pounds?’
‘I can let you have ten.’
The psychological Schiff was right again. If he had asked for twenty pounds, Asta would have said that this was out of the question: if he had asked for ten pounds, he might have got five. But asking for fifteen pounds, he got ten. He went his way north-westwards and she went hers, to the mellow and elegant little red-brick house in Frame Place, by the river.
21
On her threshold Asta was shocked at the sight of a heap of massive leather luggage, stamped with the initials T.O.T. There were portmanteaux, hat-boxes in which one might have grown rhododendron bushes, dressing-cases, portable writing-desks, shoe cases, cabin trunks, and old-fashioned tropical zinc-lined trunks — all made of massive cow-hide and constructed to last for a hundred years. This luggage, and the initials, belonged to her elder sister, Thea Olivia Thundersley, another old maid, who had spent the past thirty years of her life wandering over the face of the earth, visiting members of her family. She had devoted the last half-century to the manufacture of a patchwork quilt. Thea Olivia’s ambition was to herring-bone-stitch into this quilt a little bit of everything. It already contained relics of precious old brocade, tapestry, and paduasoy of forgotten pattern and texture; a fragment of an engineer’s dungarees; a portion of a silk shirt; clippings of rich cravats and neck-ties; a corner of one of old Sir Hanover Thundersley’s fancy waistcoats; polygons of magnificent satin, snippets of ribbon, pieces of the robes of mandarins looted at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, triangles hacked out of gorgeous Paisley shawls, and oddments of rare cashmere. She carried her Work, as she called it, in a receptacle like a dispatch case made of real leather and stamped with initials in gold. This contained as much of the quilt as she had finished. In another article of luggage — this was not unlike an octagonal hat-box, but at the pressure of four little springs, it shot out four legs to stand on so that it became a sewing basket — she kept, in their proper compartments, goldeyed needles, multi- coloured silks, scissors, piercers, and other pearl-handled tools, all highly polished. Most of the space inside this extraordinary receptacle was filled with countless bits of material which she had accumulated for her patchwork. When she was tired of sewing, she sorted, categorized, and made little bundles of duplicate patterns in the manner of a stamp collector.
In a separate silk compartment she kept snipped-off geometrical clippings of soldiers’ uniforms; a neat oblong of scarlet from the tunic of one of her uncles who had been in the Guards; a segment of green khaki from the breeches of her brother who had gone down in South Africa; and half a trouser-leg of dark blue from the mess uniform of a cousin who, Asta suspected, had been her sweetheart.
Asta’s first recollection of Thea Olivia was of a downwardlooking, soft-spoken girl of twelve — drooping, almost voiceless, sweet-natured, dreamy-eyed — and damnably obstinate.
