Mrs. Aceworthy, Arthur Rubrick’s elderly cousin who had come to Mount Moon on the death of his wife, was a large sandy woman with an air of uncertain authority and a tendency to bridle. Her manner towards Alleyn was cautious. He thought that she disapproved of his visit and he wondered how much Fabian Losse had told her. She spoke playfully and in quotation marks of “my family” and seemed to show a preference for the two New Zealanders, Douglas Grace and Ursula Harme.

The vast landscape outside darkened and the candles on the dining-room table showed ghostly in the uncurtained window-panes. When dinner was over they all moved into a comfortable, conglomerate sort of room hung with faded photographs of past cadets and lit cosily by a kerosene lamp. Mrs. Aceworthy, with a vague murmur about “having to see to things,” left them with their coffee.

Above the fire-place hung the full-dress portrait of a woman.

It was a formal painting. The bare arms, executed with machine-like precision, flowed wirily from shoulders to clasped hands. The dress was of mustard-coloured satin, very décolleté, and this line was repeated in the brassy high lights of Mrs. Rubrick’s incredibly golden coiffure. The painter had dealt remorselessly with a formidable display of jewelry. It was an Academy portrait by an experienced painter, but his habit of flattery had met its Waterloo in Florence Rubrick’s face. No trick of understatement could soften that large mouth, closed with difficulty over protuberant teeth, or modify the acquisitive glare of the pale goiterous eyes which evidently had been fixed on the artist’s and therefore appeared, as laymen will say, to “follow one about the room.” Upon each of the five persons seated in Arthur Rubrick’s study did his wife Florence seem to fix her arrogant and merciless stare.

There was no other picture in the room. Alleyn looked round for a photograph of Arthur Rubrick but could find none that seemed likely.

The flow of talk, which had run continuously if not quite easily throughout dinner, was now checked. The pauses grew longer and their interruptions more forced. Fabian Losse began to stare expectantly at Alleyn. Douglas Grace sang discordantly under his breath. The two girls fidgeted, caught each other’s eyes and looked away again.

Alleyn, sitting in shadow a little removed from the fireside group, said: “That’s a portrait of Mrs. Rubrick, isn’t it?”

It was as if he had gathered up the reins of a team of nervously expectant horses. He saw by their startled glances at the portrait that custom had made it invisible to them, a mere piece of furniture of which, for all its ghastly associations, they were normally unaware. They stared at it now rather stupidly, gaping a little.

Fabian said: “Yes. It was painted ten years ago. I don’t need to tell you it’s by a determined Academician. Rather a pity, really. John would have made something terrific out of Flossie. Or, better still, Agatha Troy.”

Alleyn, who was married to Agatha Troy, said: “I only saw Mrs. Rubrick for a few minutes. Is it a good likeness?”

Fabian and Ursula Harme said: “No.” Douglas Grace and Terence Lynne said: “Yes.”

“Hullo!” said Alleyn. “A divergence of opinion?”

“It doesn’t give you any idea of how tiny she was,” said Douglas Grace, “but I’d call it a speaking likeness.”

“Oh, it’s a conscientious map of her face,” said Fabian.

“It’s a caricature,” cried Ursula Harme. Her eyes were fixed indignantly on the portrait.

“I should have called it an unblushing understatement,” said Fabian. He was standing before the fire, his hands on the mantelpiece. Ursula Harme turned to look at him, knitting her brows. Alleyn heard her sigh as if Fabian had wakened some old controversy between them.

“And there’s no vitality in it, Fabian,” she said anxiously. “You must admit that. I mean she was a much more splendid person than that. So marvellously alive.” She caught her breath at the unhappy phrase. “She made you feel like that about her,” she added. “The portrait gives you nothing of it.”

“I don’t pretend to know anything about painting,” said Douglas Grace, “but I do know what I like.”

“Would you believe it?” Fabian murmured under his breath. He said aloud: “Is it so great a merit, Ursy, to be marvellously alive? I find unbounded vitality very unnerving.”

“Not if it’s directed into suitable channels,” pronounced Grace.

“But hers was. Look what she did!” said Ursula.

“She was extraordinarily public-spirited, you know,” Grace agreed. “I must say I took my hat off to her for that. She had a man’s grasp of things.” He squared his shoulders and took a cigar case out of his pocket. “Not that I admire managing women,” he said, sitting down by Miss Lynne, “but Auntie Floss was a bit of a marvel. You’ve got to hand it to her, you know.”

“Apart from her work as an M.P.?” Alleyn suggested.

“Yes, of course,” said Ursula, still watching Fabian Losse. “I don’t know why we’re talking about her, Fabian, unless it’s for Mr. Alleyn’s information.”

“You may say it is,” said Fabian.

“Then I think he ought to know what a splendid sort of person she was.”

Fabian did an unexpected thing. He reached out his long arm and touched her lightly on the cheek. “Go ahead, Ursy,” he said gently. “I’m all for it.”

“Yes,” she cried out, “but you don’t believe.”

“Never mind. Tell Mr. Alleyn.”

“I thought,” said Douglas Grace, “that Mr. Alleyn was here to make an expert investigation. I shouldn’t think our ideas of Aunt Florence are likely to be of much help. He wants facts.”

“But you’ll all talk to him about her,” said Ursula, “and you won’t be fair.”

Alleyn stirred a little in his chair in the shadows. “I should be vey glad if you’d tell me about her, Miss Harme,” he said. “Please do.”

“Yes, Ursy,” said Fabian. “We want you to. Please do.”

She looked brilliantly from one to another of her companions. “But — it seems so queer. It’s months since we spoke of her. I’m not at all good at expressing myself. Are you serious, Fabian? Is it important?”

“I think so.”

“Mr. Alleyn?”

“I think so too. I want to start with the right idea of your guardian. Mrs. Rubrick was your guardian, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“So you must have known her very well.”

“I think I did. Though we didn’t meet until I was thirteen.”

“I should like to hear how that came about.”

Ursula leant forward, resting her bare arms on her knees and clasping her hands. She moved into the region of firelight.

“You see—” she began.

CHAPTER II

ACCORDING TO URSULA

Ursula began haltingly with many pauses but with a certain air of championship. At first, Fabian helped her, making a conversation rather than a solo performance of the business. Douglas Grace, sitting beside Terence Lynne, sometimes spoke to her in a low voice. She had taken up a piece of knitting and the click of her needles lent a domestic note to the scene, a note much at variance with her sleek and burnished appearance. She did not reply to Grace, but once Alleyn saw her mouth flicker in a smile. She had small sharp teeth.

As Ursula grew into her narrative she became less uneasy, less in need of Fabian’s support, until presently she could speak strongly, eager to draw her portrait of Florence Rubrick.

A firm picture took shape. A schoolgirl, bewildered and desolated by news of her mother’s death, sat in the polished chilliness of a head-mistress’s drawing-room. “I’d known ever since the morning. They’d arranged for me to go home by the evening train. They were very kind but they were too tactful, too careful not to say the obvious thing. I didn’t want tact and delicacy, I wanted warmth. Literally, I was shivering. I can hear the sound of the horn now. It was the sort that chimes like bells. She brought it out from England. I saw the car slide past the window, and then I heard her voice in the hall asking for me. It’s years ago but I can see her as clearly as if it was yesterday. She wore a fur cape and smelt lovely and she hugged me and talked loudly and cheerfully and said she was my guardian and had come for me and that she was my mother’s greatest friend and had been with her when it happened. Of course I knew all about her. She was my godmother. But she stayed in England when she married after the last war and when she returned we lived too far away to visit. So I’d never seen her. So I went away with her. My other guardian is an English uncle. He’s a soldier and follows the drum, and he was very glad when Aunt Florence (that’s what I called her) took hold. I stayed with her until it was time to go back to school. She used to come during term and that was marvellous.”