Thinking of her, Asta never failed to remember a curious exhibition she had seen in a booth when she was a girl. A tinyboned Japanese ju-jitsu man, with a fixed sweet smile on his face, was demonstrating his skill against all corners. An enormous oafish navvy, with muscles as hard and fists as terrible as the sledge-hammer he was accustomed to wield, came forward and got hold of him in what seemed an unbreakable grip. Still sweetly smiling, the Japanese submitted. With a scornful laugh the labourer threw his arms about him and dashed him to the ground; and then was lying on his stomach five yards away, yelping with pain while the little smiling Japanese was kneeling upon him in a business-like way with one hand in the small of his immense back and the other clamped about the toe of the big-booted right foot. Thea Olivia reminded her sister of that little Japanese wrestler.
Asta gave all the orders and did most of the talking; and was feared in the family. The Thundersleys protested, argued, slammed doors, recriminated; but obeyed her. Thea Olivia never argued with her, never protested, never recriminated, never could stand the sound of slamming doors, yet never in any circumstances obeyed anyone, unless obedience exactly suited her convenience. Asta, therefore, felt her heart sink as she looked upon the half-ton of cow-hide luggage which The Tiger Fitzpatrick was dragging, hundredweight by hundredweight, into the house.
‘Why, Tot!’ she cried, with uneasy heartiness.
‘Asta!’
The sisters embraced.
22
‘You might have let me know you were coming, Tot.’
‘Oh, but I did, Asta dear.’
‘I don’t remember getting a letter or a telegram, Tot darling.’
‘But, Asta dear, I said in July that I’d come and see you in the winter.’
‘Oh well, oh well, you’re welcome, you’re welcome. How’s the quilt going?’ asked Asta with a snorting laugh.
‘Coming along very nicely, Asta dear, thank you. How is the Cruelty to Animals?’
Asta detected an undertone of mockery in her sister’s voice and said shortly: ‘It still goes on.’
‘I told you it would,’ said Thea Olivia, with her shy, pale smile. ‘Oh dear, look at you, Asta! How in the name of goodness did you manage to get yourself so dirty? What on earth is that on your shoes? Soot?’
‘Coal dust,’ said Asta, and told her sister how she had got it.
Drinking tea and smiling, Thea Olivia said: ‘Dear Asta — dear, darling Asta!’
‘What the devil’s the matter with you?’
‘We do, all of us, love you so very much — you are so kind. Dear Asta.’
‘What are you driving at now? Spit it out, woman, and don’t beat about the bush.’
‘I met Cousin Shepperton at Lausanne.’
‘What is there particularly funny about that, Tot darling?’
‘Don’t lose your temper or I shan’t tell you, Asta dear. Sheppy said: “If I remember rightly, Asta has been putting the world right for the past twenty years, and it’s a hundred times worse than it ever was.”’
‘Shepperton is a blithering dolt and you, Tot, are a nitwit.’
‘Oh, I know I’m silly, Asta my love, but do tell me. I’m only asking to be informed. What are you going to do that Scotland Yard can’t do?’
This question threw Asta into a state of blind exasperation, because she had not the faintest idea what she could do. She would have overwhelmed anyone else with frantic abuse. But she always felt the need to explain herself to Thea Olivia, who reminded her of their father — a quiet, prying, gentle, perfumed, poisonous little old man. ‘Someone I know did it,’ she said.
‘No, really?’ asked Thea Olivia, putting down her cup and sitting upright. ‘Do I know him? But how do you know, Asta dear? Do be careful, won’t you? Remember what an awful silly you made of yourself when you accused that poor lady of giving her baby gin out a bottle, and it turned out to be pure milk in a green gin bottle? Don’t be too impulsive. How do you know? Who is he? Do tell me.’
‘That’s exactly what I am going to find out.’
‘Dear, good, kind Asta! Kind, sweet Asta! You always were the same. Wild, impulsive, angry for everyone else but yourself.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Tot, go and patch your quilt.’
‘Of course I will, if you want me to, Asta dear.’
Asta crossed the room in two great strides, embraced Thea Olivia, and said: ‘No, no. Please don’t. You mustn’t. You know me. I’m an absolute beast. I’m sorry I’m so bad-tempered. But all this has got on my nerves. Imagine how I feel. That poor child! And nothing done. Something the detective-inspector — a nice man, if I was a man I’d like to be a detective — something he said gave me a kind of crazy idea that someone around here killed that poor little girl. I haven’t got any evidence, but it rang, so to speak, a bell in my mind. Have some more tea. Eat a bun. Have some brandy. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings: I’m all wound up, and don’t know what I’m saying.’
‘Something about bells ringing in your head?’
‘Somehow I’m sure in my mind that somebody around here did it. And I know everybody, and they all know me. It’s the sort of murder that one of those plausible, educated types of man goes in for. Don’t start laughing at me, Tot, because I’m not happy about this, not a bit happy, Tot. You mustn’t laugh if I tell you that what I’m going to do is invite pretty nearly everyone I know to the house to a party and somehow try to get…’
As she paused, angry with herself at her own embarrassment, Thea Olivia suggested: ‘Clues?’
