Puzzle of the Silver Persian Read Online Free PDF Page B

she saw the slim figure of a girl approaching and forgot Tobermory completely.
    Rosemary Fraser, in shimmering white silk, came like a wraith to join them. She smiled in answer to the doctor’s greeting, and then stared at Candida, her eyes wide and hunted, as if to say, “You told me to!”
    There was a long pause, punctuated by the sharp collapse of a balloon which Leslie Reverson had blown too full.
    “Well!” said Andy Todd uncertainly. He drained his wine and coughed. There was the soft splashing of soup, and then Rosemary Fraser followed his example and downed her glass. She did not cough. A table steward filled it again, and again she drained it.
    Rosemary, avoiding her soup, stared at the package in front of her. “Favors,” sang out Candida cheerily. “Open it, Rosemary!”
    Rosemary fumbled with the string, and Andy Todd leaned to offer his pocket knife. But she did not accept the offer. She untied the strings—more strings and knots than any other package had—and came at last to the round powder box.
    She smiled, vaguely, and lifted the lid. Inside was a further package, and everyone leaned forward to see.
    Rosemary, all unknowing, opened this—and found a single Yale key. Attached to the key was a card… Rosemary was dizzy from the wine, dizzy and afraid.
    She picked up the card and read it aloud, though she did not know that her lips moved. “Use this and save repair bills,” she recited. “With our compliments the key to—to the blanket locker—”
    They were all watching her. Eyes, pairs upon pairs of eyes, were watching Rosemary. She knew that she must say something, anything, so that the eyes would turn away, so that she could faint without being noticed.
    She spoke, and her words were stark, horrible—“How—how convenient!” said Rosemary Fraser. She had meant it to be flippant, casual. And yet…
    Andy Todd laughed first, his tenor guffaws ringing through the room. Dr. Waite was next, a shrill cackle. And then, from sheer nervousness, the table roared.
    Leslie Reverson actually neighed into his napkin, coughing and gasping until his aunt, herself convulsed with paroxysms of hysterical laughter, had to thump on his narrow shoulders. Tom Hammond snorted, and then shook silently, Loulu Hammond told herself that she must not, would not, laugh, and heard her own clear soprano ringing out above the laughter of the others.
    Only two at the doctor’s table did not laugh—for Rosemary Fraser herself was laughing. There was madness in her laughter, but no one sensed that. Candida Noring bit her lips until the blood ran salty under her tongue. Miss Hildegarde Withers, who was perhaps the one adult on board who did not know of the ship’s pet scandal, merely looked puzzled. But there was enough laughter without Miss Withers’ and Candida’s.
    Loulu Hammond, who had been seething with repressed emotions for five days, fairly shrieked now. All the time her mind was saying, “I shall not laugh. I shall not!” Her long finger nails cut into her palms…
    Captain Everett stopped talking about his duck farm and smiled toward the further table. “The young people certainly do have high times together,” he observed paternally. “That’s the best thing about traveling on a small boat, the passengers get to know each other so well…”
    He stopped short as a young woman brushed past his wide shoulders again, clutching in her hand a cheap japanned powder box and a key.
    “These young folks!” he smiled. “They have all the fun!”
    Through the open portholes of the American Diplomat came a yowling cacophony which rose shudderingly in a horrible crescendo and then died away. “The tomcat must be having trouble with his robin,” observed Captain Everett genially.
    Somehow, the laughter cut itself short. Leslie Reverson sent vari-colored balloons flying in every direction, and Tom Hammond began to talk very loudly about the collapse of the American dollar in the foreign exchange, about London