Hand in Glove Read Online Free PDF Page A

library.
    “Hullo,” he said. “I’m to bid you to drinks. I don’t mind telling you it’s a bum party. My bloody-minded stepfather, to whom I’m not speaking, his bully of a sister, her ghastly adopted what-not, and an unspeakable chum. Come on.”
    “Do you think I might be excused and just creep in to lunch?”
    “Not a hope. P.P. would be as cross as two sticks. He’s telling them all about you and how lucky he is to have you.”
    “I don’t want a drink. I’ve been built up with sherry.”
    “There’s tomato juice. Do come. You’d better.”
    “In that case…” Nicola said, and put the cover on her typewriter.
    “That’s right,” he said, and took her arm. “I’ve had such a stinker of a morning — you can’t think. How have you got on?”
    “I hope, all right.”
    “Is he writing a book?”
    “I’m a confidential typist.”
    “My face can’t get any redder than it’s been already,” Andrew said and ushered her into the hall. “Are you at all interested in painting?”
    “Yes. You paint, don’t you?”
    “How the hell did you know?”
    “Your first fingernail. And anyway Mr. Period told me.”
    “Talk, talk, talk!” Andrew said, but he smiled at her. “And what a sharp girl you are, to be sure. Oh, calamity, look who’s here!”
    Alfred was at the front door, showing in a startling lady with tangerine hair, enormous eyes, pale orange lips and a general air of good-humoured raffishness. She was followed by an unremarkable, cagey-looking man, very much her junior.
    “Hullo, Mum!” Andrew said. “Hullo, Bimbo.”
    “Darling!” said Désirée Dodds or Lady Bantling. “How lovely!”
    “Hi,” said her husband, Bimbo.
    Nicola was introduced and they all went into the drawing-room.
    Here Nicola encountered the group of persons with whom, on one hand disastrously and on the other to her greatest joy, she was about to become inextricably involved.

CHAPTER TWO
Luncheon
    Mr. Pyke Period made much of Nicola. He took her round, introducing her to Mr. Cartell and all over again to “Lady Bantling” and Mr. Dodds; to Miss Connie Cartell; and, with a certain lack of enthusiasm, to the adopted niece, Mary or Moppett, and her friend, Mr. Leonard Leiss.
    Miss Cartell shouted: “Been hearing all about you, ha, ha!”
    Mr. Cartell said: “Afraid I disturbed you just now. Looking for P.P. So sorry.”
    Moppett said: “Hullo. I suppose you do shorthand? I tried but my squiggles looked like rude drawings. So I gave up.” Young Mr. Leiss stared damply at Nicola and then shook hands — also damply. He was pallid and had large eyes, a full mouth and small chin. The sleeves of his violently checked jacket displayed an exotic amount of shirt-cuff and link. He smelt very strongly of hair oil. Apart from these features it would have been hard to say why he seemed untrustworthy.
    Mr. Cartell was probably by nature a dry and pedantic man. At the moment he was evidently much put out. Not surprising, Nicola thought, when one looked at the company: his stepson with whom, presumably, he had just had a flaring row; his divorced wife and her husband; his noisy sister; her “niece,” whom he obviously disliked; and Mr. Leiss. He dodged about, fussily attending to drinks.
    “May Leonard fix mine, Uncle Hal?” Moppett asked. “He knows my kind of wallop.”
    Mr. Period, overhearing her, momentarily closed his eyes, and Mr. Cartell saw him do it.
    Miss Cartell shouted uneasily: “The things these girls say, nowadays! Honestly!” and burst into her braying laugh. Nicola could see that she adored Moppett.
    Leonard adroitly mixed two treble martinis.
    Andrew had brought Nicola her tomato juice. He stayed beside her. They didn’t say very much but she found herself glad of his company.
    Meanwhile, Mr. Period, who, it appeared, had recently had a birthday, was given a present by Lady Bantling. It was a large brass paperweight in the form of a fish rampant. He seemed to Nicola to be disproportionately