Wigs on the Green Read Online Free PDF Page B

believed in having a good time, sat smoking cigarettes and reading the morning papers, which, it seemed, could be expected to arrive in that remote village, together with the one post, at any hour between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
    ‘Another body has been found in another trunk and two fearfully pretty Janes turned up here late last night. It appears that they intend to stay several days – just what we needed.’
    ‘I don’t see why,’ said Noel petulantly. ‘We’ve got Eugenia.’
    ‘Don’t you just? Well it’s like this old boy, the more the merrier. You can’t have enough of a good thing. Many hands make light work. And so on. Rather nice about the body too, the one in the trunk I mean. In fact I’m very suited by this place altogether.’
    ‘Are you?’
    ‘I am. I also had three minutes’ conversation with Eugenia before Nanny got at us. Enchanting girl, I quite expect I shall marry her.’
    ‘Jasper, old boy, there’s something I must say to you. It’s not very easy for me, but I’ve known you long enough, I hope, to be able to speak my mind to you.’
    ‘That’s quite all right, old boy, don’t you worry. I’ve got some money coming in any day now – I shan’t be touching you for another penny I promise you.’
    Noel sighed deeply. He might have foreseen that this old-man-of-the-sea would be hard to shake off.
    ‘So what had Eugenia to say for herself?’ he asked with some irritation.
    ‘A lot more about how we are governed by octogenarian statesmen’s mistresses. I’m bound to say it’s a shaking thought, isn’t it?’
    ‘Which are octogenarians, the statesmen or their mistresses?’
    ‘Oh, I see. I must remember to ask her that some time. Whichever it is they must certainly be got rid of. Ignominy or a Roman death for them. Good – here’s the beer at last – some for you, old boy? Two more beers please miss, and put all that down to room 6, will you?’
    ‘Room 8,’ said Noel. His room was 6.
    ‘Oh, dear, now you’re going to be mean,’ said Jasper. ‘Put two down to room 6 and one down to room 8, and put the newspapers down to room 6 – no good old boy, you’ll have to read about the trunk sooner or later you know. I must say I hate all this cheese-paring.’
    ‘So do I,’ said Noel eagerly. ‘Tell you what, Jasper, I’ll give you this for your fare back to London and pay your bill here when you’ve gone. How’s that?’
    ‘Exceedingly generous of you,’ said Jasper, tucking thirty shillings into his note-case and settling down to more grisly details of the trunk murders.
    Later that day he remarked to Noel; ‘I say, there’s something very queer indeed about those new Janes. First of all they’ve signed the book here as Miss Smith and Miss Jones, both of Rickmansworth. Likely tale. Then they’ve taken a private sitting-room, which strikes me as odd. But the oddest thing of all is that the Miss Jones one spent her whole afternoon in the orchard picking ducal coronets out of her drawers and nightdresses. Bit fishy, the whole business I’m thinking.’
    ‘How d’you know they were ducal coronets?’
    ‘My dear old boy, I know a ducal coronet when I see it. You forget that my grandfather is a duke.’
    ‘Not a proper one.’
    ‘I imagine that proper is just what he isn’t anything else but. Not much chance for impropriety when one has been binned-up for thirty-five years, eh?’
    ‘That’s just it. I don’t count dukes that are binned-up same way I don’t count bankrupt dukes.’
    ‘Well, I mean, count him or not as you like. I’m sure he doesn’t mind.’
    ‘Go on telling me about Miss Jones’s drawers, won’t you?’
    ‘As soon as I made quite sure she was picking some kind of monogram out of them (I couldn’t see as well as I should have liked, through the hedge) I legged it upstairs to her bedroom, number 4, opposite the bath, and it’s full of ducal coronets wherever you look. On the brushes and combs even, the whole place is a regular riot of