He was playing with more assurance and sensitivity now than he had alone. For once, the boy was enjoying himself.

After about half an hour Roma drifted away from the piano and walked over to look at two oils by Frith, crowded anecdotal canvases showing rail-travellers going to the Derby by first class and third class. Roma walked from one to the other studying them intently as if to check that no detail of social or sartorial contrast had been neglected by the artist. Then Clarissa suddenly dropped her hand from Simon's shoulder, swept past Ivo, her chiffon floating against his knee, and went out on the terrace alone. Cordelia and Ambrose were left singing together. The three of them at the piano were linked by their enjoyment, seemingly unaware of their audience, transposing and consulting, choosing and comparing and collapsing into laughter when a piece proved beyond their range or competence. Ivo recognized only a few of the songs; Peter Warlock's Elizabethan pastiches, Vaughan Williams's 'Bright is the Ring of Words'. He was listening now with the nearest he had come to happiness since his illness had been diagnosed. Nietzsche was wrong; it wasn't action but pleasure which bound one to existence. And he had become afraid of pleasure; to admit even the possibility of joy to his shrivelled senses was to open the mind to anguish and regret. But now, listening to that sweet voice blending with Ambrose's baritone and floating past him out and over the sea, he lay back, weightless, in a dreamy contentment which was without bitterness and without pain. And gradually his senses began to tingle into life. He was aware of the cool stream of air from the window on his face, nothing as inconvenient as a draught, but a barely perceptible sensation like a stroking finger; of the sharp red of the wine glowing in the decanter and its softness against his tongue; of the smell of the wood fire, evocative of lost boyhood autumns.

And then his mood was broken. Clarissa stormed into the room from the terrace. Simon heard her and stopped playing in mid-bar. The two voices sang on for a few notes then broke off. Clarissa said:

'I'll have enough of amateurs before the weekend's finished without you three adding to the boredom. I'm going to bed. Simon, it's time you called it a day. We'll go together; I want to see to your room. Cordelia, ring for Tolly will you and tell her

I'm ready for her, then come up in fifteen minutes, I want to discuss arrangements for tomorrow. Ivo, you're drunk.'

She waited with a shiver of impatience until Ambrose had opened the door for her, then swept out, merely pausing briefly to offer him her cheek to kiss. He bent forward but was too late and his pursed lips pecked ludicrously at the air. Simon bundled up his music with shaking hands, looked round as if for help, and ran after her. Cordelia went across to where the embroidered rope hung by the side of the fireplace. Roma said:

'Black marks all round. We should have realized that we're here to applaud Clarissa's talent not to demonstrate our own. If you plan to make a career as secretary-companion, Cordelia, you'll have to learn more tact.'

Ivo was aware of Ambrose bending over him, of his flushed face and the black eyes bright and malicious under the strong half circles.

'Are you drunk, Ivo? You're remarkably quiet.'

*I thought I was, but I seem not to be. Sobriety has overtaken me. But if you would open another bottle I could begin the agreeable process again. Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.'

'But shouldn't you keep your mind clear for the task of tomorrow?'

Ivo held out the empty decanter. He was surprised to see that his hand was perfectly steady. He said:

'Don't worry. I shall be sober enough for what I have to do tomorrow.'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cordelia waited exactly fifteen minutes, refused Ambrose's offer of a nightcap, then made her way upstairs. The communicating door between her room and Clarissa's was ajar and she went through without knocking. Clarissa, in her cream satin dressing-gown, was sitting at the dressing-table. Her hair was tugged back from her face and tied with a ribbon at the nape of the neck; her hairline was bound with a crêpe band. She was scrutinizing her face in the glass and didn't look round.

The room was lit only by one bright light on the dressing-table and the softer glow of the bedside lamp. A thin wood fire crackled in the grate and threw leaping shadows over the richness of damask and mahogany. The air smelt of woodsmoke and perfume and the room, dim and mysterious, struck Cordelia as smaller and more luxurious than in its daytime brightness. But the bed was more than ever dominant, glowing under its scarlet canopy, sinister and portentous as a catafalque. Cordelia was certain that Tolly must have been there hefore her. The sheets were turned back and Clarissa's nightdress had been laid out, its waist pinched. It looked like a shroud. In the shadowed half-light it was easy to imagine that she stood in the doorway of a bedroom in Amalfi with Webster's doomed duchess bright-haired at her toilet, while horror and corruption stalked in the shadows and beyond the half-open window a tideless Mediterranean lay open to the moon.

Clarissa's voice broke into her mood. 'Oh, here you are. I've sent Tolly away so that we can talk. Don't just stand there. Find yourself a chair.' On each side of the fireplace was a low, spoon-backed chair with carved arms and feet. Cordelia slid one forward on its casters and seated herself to the left of the dressing-table. Clarissa peered at herself in the glass then unscrewed a jar of cleansing pads and began wiping off her eye-shadow and mascara. Thin black-stained scraps of tissue crept over the polished mahogany. The left eye, wiped clean of make-up, looked diminished, almost lifeless, giving her suddenly the mask of a lopsided clown. She peered at the denuded lid, frowned, then said:

'You seem to have enjoyed yourself this evening. Perhaps I should remind you that you were hired as a detective not an after-dinner entertainer.'

It had been a long day and Cordelia couldn't summon the energy for anger.

'Perhaps if you were honest with them and told them why I'm here they'd be less likely to treat me as a fellow guest. Private detectives aren't expected to sing, at least I wouldn't think so. They probably wouldn't even want to eat with me. A private eye is hardly a comfortable dining companion.'

'What good would that do? If you don't mix with them, how can you watch them? Besides, the men like you. I've seen Ivo and Simon looking at you. Don't pretend that you don't know it. I hate that kind of sexual coyness.' 'I wasn't going to pretend anything.'

Clarissa was busy now with an immense jar of cleansing cream, smearing dollops of the cream over face and neck and wiping it off with strong upward sweeps of cotton wool. The discarded greasy balls were added to the mess on the dressing-table. Cordelia found herself studying Clarissa's face with as much intensity as did its owner. The eyes were a little too far apart, the skin was thick, unluminous, but almost without lines; the cheeks were flat and wide; the mouth with its pouting lower lip too small for beauty. But it was a face that could take on loveliness at Clarissa's will and even now, bandaged, unenhanced and sunk in repose, it held the assurance of its latent, eccentric beauty.

Suddenly, she asked:

'What do you think of Simon's playing?'

'I'm not really qualified to judge. Obviously, he has talent.'

She was about to add that he might make a more successful accompanist than solo performer, then thought better of it. It was perfectly true: she wasn't competent to judge. And she had the feeling that ignorant though she was, some kind of decision might depend on her answer.