Fran stood considering her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Her dress, loaned by Henrietta, was a pink silk number, the colour of old-fashioned roses, made up in a loose-fitting, drop-waisted style, and it therefore worked perfectly, falling just a little lower down her calves than it would have done on its owner. Luckily she had brought a string of pearls, and with her hair brushed and her lipstick applied she decided that she looked ‘not half bad’, as Mo would have said.
The plain gold band on her wedding finger caught her eye. If everything went through smoothly, she would soon be granted her decree nisi, with the decree absolute following before the year was out. She would still call herself Mrs Black, she supposed, but she would not be married. It already felt vaguely wrong to be wearing Michael’s ring. With her right finger and thumb, she eased it up as far as her nail, but the finger looked oddly naked without it, so she slid it back into position for the time being. Anyway, it might jinx things if she jumped the gun.
She had spent a good deal of the afternoon quizzing the Edgertons’ various household servants and was rather afraid that she in turn would be quizzed over dinner about what she had found out (which was very little), so she was very relieved when she joined her hosts for cocktails, to find the talk was mostly of plays and musical entertainments, and the unlikely suggestion reported in the newspaper that there might soon be a tunnel linking England to France. Dinner passed off in the same easy manner and when they eventually withdrew into the drawing room, Lady Louisa was persuaded to play for them, which she did with considerable skill, offering them some Chopin, Bach and then the lovely Salut D’Amor.
‘And now,’ Lady Louisa said, when they had applauded her final effort, ‘I am leaving you young people to your own devices. Come along, Eddie, it’s your turn now.’
‘Mother can’t bear jazz,’ Eddie confided to Fran as he took his mother’s place on the piano stool.
‘Since there are four of us,’ said Mellie, ‘why don’t we roll back the rug and dance? You do like to dance, don’t you, Fran?’
Fran confirmed that she did and noted, from the alacrity with which Roly and Hen exposed the parquet floor, that this must be a regular pastime at Sunnyside House. Like his mother, Eddie proved to be a talented pianist, belting out a series of jolly ragtime numbers, while his brother took turns to partner his wife, sister and their guest, while the two spare women danced together. Sometimes Eddie sang along, sounding, Fran thought, surprisingly professional and when the dancers ran out of energy, he continued to entertain them for some time, working through a wide repertoire of popular music, as well as some less well-known jazz and blues numbers, all played flawlessly by ear.
Only as they were on the point of parting for bed did anyone mention the purpose behind Fran’s visit, when Mellie said, ‘Eddie says we are not to bother you, and to let you get on with the investigation in your own way, but I just wanted to let you know that if I am needed for – well – questioning, I suppose, it would be much better if we could get it done in the morning as I have an appointment with my hairdresser tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Thank you for letting me know,’ Fran said. ‘I will need to speak to everyone, of course. Perhaps if we were to meet in the library, immediately after breakfast?’
‘Splendid,’ said Mellie. ‘That’s settled then. Do sleep well, won’t you. People mostly do here. It’s a lovely peaceful house at night.’
Up in her bedroom Fran found that, just as had happened the night before, someone had been in to turn down the bed and lay out her nightgown. The modern electric bulbs in the bedside lights were shrouded by cream shades that wreathed everything in a warm, steady light, quite different to the spooky undulating shadows made by the candles one found in many homes. Mellie was right, Fran thought. The earlier, slightly frenetic energy of the drawing room had been overtaken by a sense of tranquillity and peace. It was rather hard to believe that something as nasty as the murder of an elderly man, confined to a wheelchair, might have intruded into this place.
She removed the borrowed dress and hung it in the wardrobe, among half a dozen other gowns, which Henrietta had generously provided from her own bulging closets. Some people would have made one feel like a poor relation, Fran thought, but Henrietta had affected to believe that Fran had simply travelled light, rather than that she was not the sort of woman who possessed a different evening frock for every day of the week. Tomorrow night she might wear the dark green velvet … or perhaps the black taffeta …
She pulled herself together firmly. She really must not forget the real reason she was here. Who had taken that diamond? How had Frederick Edgerton ended up dead at the bottom of the cliffs? Were the Edgertons really as nice as they seemed? Then again, why would they have invited her at all if one of their number was guilty? Perhaps she needed to look beyond the immediate family for her suspects? In the past, she had always had Tom or Mo, and often both of them, available to chew things over and discuss possible clues, but Mo was in Malaya and Tom was just as far out of bounds in a way. She realized that she had been having such fun she had hardly thought about either of them all evening. Perhaps Tom had been right to insist that she come down here after all.