I have already mentioned the fact that nice English girls do not run around loose in the men’s colleges at Cambridge. This applies most especially to the women students at Girton and Newnham. Meters of red tape must be unraveled before they can accept an innocent invitation to tea. If they come uninvited, they are flying in the face of all the standard conventions and acting as hussies. The statement is unqualified—and yet, here it was, time for tea or cocktails, and the Profile was in my room, uninvited!
“Hullo,” she said calmly, as I entered. And indeed, she did look rather a hussy in that flaming red hat and the stunning white dress. But an exquisite and perfectly adorable hussy at that. Whatever poise or good breeding I have acquired at the two Cambridges completely deserted me as I took in the miracle of this sudden re-appearance.
“Where in the name of all that’s wonderful do you come from?” I asked fatuously.
“Fenners. The M. C. C. is all out at last for three hundred and eighty-six. I’m afraid the Varsity hasn’t a chance. Cricket, by the way, is almost my only vice—if you exclude an occasional cigarette.”
I passed her my case in a dazed manner.
“Thanks. I do hope you don’t think this is cheek of me, but I wanted to see you. I feel I owe you an apology, Hilary Fention.”
“Several, Miss Lathrop.” The memory of that lunch at the “Whim” still rankled.
“Come, it’s not so bad as all that,” she smiled. “But:, I am glad you’ve got my name right at last. I only heard today about your tête-à-tête with Dorothy Dupuis. She told me all the ‘circs’ during the match this afternoon. I’ve been laughing ever since.”
“It’s almost as funny,” I said sulkily, “as when an old lady slips on a piece of orange peel in the street and breaks her leg.”
Her face grew serious for a moment. “Please don’t be cross,” she said. “You can’t blame me for not being the person you thought I was. You got the girl you invited and she’s really a very good sort, if a trifle earnest. There’s nothing wrong with her except that theological fiasco. I thought, in common charity, it would be amusing for her to have a change from him. You must admit I’d have been a cat—and a rather conceited one—if I’d taken it all to myself and done her out of what you call a ‘date’ for lunch.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll forgive you if you’ll stay and have tea with me now. I have three rather stale cakes, a box of chocolate biscuits and some Graham crackers. We can make toast.”
“I’d love to. I’m dying for tea after all that cricket. And you are going to let me help, aren’t you?”
She removed the red hat and started to busy herself with the loaf of bread and the teapot. The late afternoon was growing a trifle chilly, so I put a match to the fire. We chatted gaily and inconsequentially as we prepared our informal meal. It was all very pleasant and cozy but, somehow or other, each of us seemed to know that the other was acting a part—that we were both marking time before a stampede of inevitable questions and answers.
It was not till after she had poured out my third cup of tea and urged me to take the pink marzipan cake before it went completely bad, that she broached the subject which was uppermost in both our minds.
“Hilary Fention,” she said suddenly, “have you forgotten that you saw me on this staircase last Monday morning?”
“You know perfectly well I haven’t forgotten. How could I?” I moved out of my chair and sat beside her on the couch.
“I hoped you had,” she said softly.
“Oh, I see what you mean. Well, as far as that goes, I haven’t told anyone about it—nor about that other time. But naturally I am curious.”
She looked at me for a moment as though she were trying to make up her mind about something. Then she said with a lift of one eyebrow:
“And what are you curious about, Hilary Fenton?”
I drew a deep breath. Now or never, I thought, and both feet are better than one.
“Well, it all boils down to this, Camilla. I should like to know whether or not it was you who murdered Baumann.”
“Murdered—” She sprang from her seat and stared at me with wild and startled eyes. For one second she stood there speechless and then, gradually, every trace of colour disappeared from her face. Her knees seemed to sag beneath her and, almost before I had had time to realize what was happening, she had fallen back on to the sofa in a lifeless little heap.
And as I saw her lying there, looking so small and defenseless on my enormous, overstuffed Chesterfield, I suddenly lost all control of myself.
“Camilla, Camilla darling,” I burbled, as I chafed her cold hands between my own, “don’t take it to heart, dear. What does it matter even if you did do it? I don’t care. No one need ever know. Just open your eyes and tell me that you forgive me.”
Then, I am ashamed to say, at a moment when reason dictated that I should have emptied the contents of the water bottle on her, I started to kiss her eyes, her hair, her forehead. And I probably said more foolish things in those few seconds than in the twenty-four years of my life which preceded them. Her very frailty seemed to enhance her loveliness. It was a moment of delirium.
But, like all the great moments of my life, it was destined to be cut short. The next thing I knew the little hand, which I had lately held so tenderly, was landing a stinging smack on my face.
“Ouch!” I cried, stepping quickly away from the prematurely recovered Camilla, who was now sitting up and glaring at me ferociously.
“I’m ashamed of you, Hilary Fenton,” she said, half laughing, half crying. “First of all you call me a murderess and then you start to maul me like a.—like a tiger. And my hair’s a mess and I haven’t a comb, and—and, oh Lord—where is your chivalry and your mirror?”
I rubbed my stinging cheek. “Chivalry, my dear Camilla, is a mere bluff invented by men to hide the shallowness of women. You’ll find a mirror and a comb in my bedroom there.”
But she did not move. Instead she pulled out her pocket handkerchief and started to cry. She didn’t do it as well as the girls in the movies but it was quite a creditable effort. Neither her eyes nor her nose became unduly red or shiny. Perhaps she sniffed a bit too much, but that was doubtless due to the sincerity of her feelings.
“Oh, what a nasty great hoyden I am!” she gasped. “To come into a young man’s rooms uninvited and then smack his face. I’ll never forgive myself—never—and, oh, Hilary Fenton, there’s a purple patch on your cheek.”
“Purple patch!” I replied with some heat. “The whole darned thing is like a purple patch in some penny novelette. It’s all too utterly—too incredibly fantastic!”
“Well, it’s no good my trying to be dramatic about anything when I look as though I’d just been pulled backwards through a haystack in the floods. Wait a minute.”
She jumped up from the couch and disappeared into my bedroom. When she returned, the ravages of the last few minutes had been repaired and an April smile played about her lips. But there was still tragedy in her eyes.
“Now, I feel better,” she cried, “and if you’ll give me a cigarette, I’ll sit still as a mouse whilst you tell me why you accuse me of all the seven deadly sins and breaking all the commandments.” Here her voice grew more serious. “Incidentally, I am particularly interested in the sixth. Whom am I supposed to have murdered?” “Camilla,” I said gravely, “do let us be frank with each other. This is no time for fooling, pleasant though our dalliance be.” My hand again sought my burning cheek. “You came here today either because you wanted to tell me something important or because you wanted me to tell you something. You’ve made it very obvious that you didn’t come for the sake of my beaux yeux.”
“But they are rather beaux,” she murmured. Bless her!
“Now listen.” Then I launched forth into the whole story, beginning at the moment when I found Baumann in my room on Monday morning and ending with her unexpected presence that afternoon. I omitted nothing—not even the part about Baumann’s letter.
It was only when I described my seeing her silhouette on the stairs that a puzzled frown passed over her forehead. For the rest of the time her face was emotionless as one of the Elgin marbles.
Even after I had finished she continued to look straight in front of her. When she did turn towards me, her eyes were shining and her voice was very low. “And you did all this for me, Hilary Fenton, without even knowing who I was.
“It’s the most wonderful—well, I can’t use long words—but to think that I dared to talk to you about chivalry and then—slap your face!” Here she looked at me with a strange, enigmatic smile. “But much as I appreciate all you’ve done, I must tell you quite frankly that I was nowhere near your college on Monday night. I was at a horrible debate in Sidney.”
“But, Camilla, it must have been you. I know your profile better than I know my own mother’s. And then, that perfume. I’m frightfully sensitive to perfumes—I’d know that one anywhere and, God knows, I hate it now.”
“Listen,” she said slowly. “I can explain everything. At least, I believe I can. Even the vision on the stairs. You saw me at the lecture. For some reason or other my face struck you as funny—or something. No—don’t interrupt. You met me and, being keen on nice smells, you naturally noticed that perfectly lovely Flowers of the Veld which I’ve used for some time now. (Ask any of my friends in Newmham. They are all crazy to know its name and where I get it.) Well, to resume. My image was on your mind. You’d been telling ghost stories. The lights had gone out suddenly. You had, I’m afraid, been drinking too much whisky. At any rate you were all strung up and someone passed you on the stairs. Probably it was just another undergraduate but you imagined it was me. It’s quite obvious what happened, and I think I understand the rest, too.”
“Well, that’s more than I do. I’ll admit, if you like, that the chances are against it’s being a woman that I saw Monday night. If it was, she either disappeared into thin air or slid down a drain pipe. Maybe my imagination was overheated with regard to the face, but the perfume was real. That I’ll swear to.”
“I don’t think so—at least, unless the person you saw had taken it from Baumann’s room. Now, I’m going to tell you something in exchange for your frankness. Something I never meant to tell anyone. I did know Julius Baumann slightly. No, there was absolutely nothing between us. I didn’t even like him much.
“I met him first two terms ago. We had friends in common. It was then that he gave me some of his wonderful South African scent. I liked it so much that I ordered a bottle from the Parfumerie Française in Rose Crescent. They said they never sold it and would have to get it all the way from South Africa. Finally I got it and it cost a small fortune but it was worth, it.
“I never saw Julius Baumann again, until last Monday morning. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not tell you exactly why I went to his rooms, but one of his friends was in trouble. He was the only person who could help. That’s why I am so thankful—yes, and so grateful—to know that you posted his letter and that you never told. I really came here this afternoon because I thought you might be a friend of Baumann’s and that you would know something—”
“But, Camilla,” I interrupted, “Inspector Horrocks knows that Baumann was murdered. He is investigating the case and he seems like a jolly good detective. It may be dangerous for you to keep things to yourself.”
“If I thought for one single minute that any knowledge I have would help find out who killed him, I would gladly and willingly tell,” she said simply. “As it is, it would do more harm than good and make me and several other perfectly innocent people very unhappy. You must continue to take me on trust—up to a certain point.
“But one thing is definite. I did not kill Baumann. I was nowhere near his room that night. I hadn’t the remotest idea that it was anything but an unfortunate accident. The word murder was an awful shock. That’s why I made such an ass of myself by fainting or whatever it was I did.
“But if ever I do learn anything that might be useful, I will tell you immediately. The only suggestion I have at present is that you ask at the perfume shop whether anyone else has bought Veldbloemen. That might be a help. In the meantime could you go on forgetting that you ever saw me on the staircase at all?
“And could you forget that vision—which you saw later on in the evening? Could you do that for me, Hilary?”
She was now putting on her red hat and making ready to go. I could see that she was deeply moved by all that I had told her and evidently could not trust herself to talk much more.
“I’d forget anything in the world for you, Camilla,” I replied quietly, “everything except the fact that I love you.”
She took a step towards me and looked at me so long and searchingly that my head began to swim.
“You are a dear,” she whispered at length, “a perfect dear, and I wish I loved you, too. But girls don’t go quite as fast as all that, I’m afraid. However—” Here she bent suddenly forward and her lips brushed the place on my cheek where her hand had slapped me—’’Now we are quits, aren’t we? And—friends?”
I smiled. “Okay, pal. But don’t be a sister to me. I’ve got three already. And when do I see you again?”
“Well, you know I never can resist cricket. I’ll be watching the Varsity match tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh, Lord,” I groaned, “we certainly are friends if I have to endure the horrid mysteries of cricket for you!”
She laughed happily. “I wish you knew how sweet you look, Hilary Fenton, when you are sulky and disgruntled that way. And I wish you knew how lovely it is for me when you stop treating me like a woman of mystery or a kind of poisonous lotus. And you’ll go on that way, won’t you, please? You’ll treat me just as though I was another man or, at the worst, a simple, uncomplicated English girl who works eight hours a day and minds her own business?”
She had now reached the doorway.
“That’ll be all right by me, buddy,” I called after her retreating figure. “But if you wear that damned mackintosh tomorrow, I’ll—” But she never heard the completion of the threat, for, with a swift valedictory smile, she had disappeared down the staircase. I looked at my watch. It was five minutes to six o’clock, which left me no time to dwell on my emotions if I wanted to get round to the Parfumerie Française before they closed. I dashed towards Rose Crescent. There I found that the misty blonde who presided was just about to call it a day.
“Good evening” I said politely. “Do you happen to have some perfume called Veldbloemen? It’s South African, I believe.” I wrote the name down for her on a slip of paper.
“Oh, yes. Flowers of the Veld, as it’s called. I haven’t any in stock but I can get some for you,” she said. “Our London dealer can obtain it. Of course we don’t get many calls for it and it’s rather dear.”
“Some people buy it though, surely?” I said naively.
“Why, yes, occasionally. I remember that a young lady bought some here last October. A nice-looking young lady—a most refined face. And then, this term it was, a young man ordered some most particular and then made quite a fuss about the price when he got it. I explained to him that with the duty—”
“Was he an undergraduate?” I asked.
The woman looked doubtful for a moment. “I don’t hardly know, sir. He was older than the usual run of undergraduates, and his voice was a bit funny.”
“No one else?”
“No, sir, that was all. Can I order some for you, sir?”
“What’s that? Oh, no. I think I’ll take something simple, uncomplicated and English. How about a shilling bottle of Yardley’s lavender?”
As she wrapped it up for me, I reflected that Camilla’s suggestion had not got me much further. The two people who had bought Flowers of the Veld were just the two that one would have expected—Camilla Lathrop herself and Julius Baumann.
There seemed to be no possible doubt as to that.