Into the Valley of Death by Evelyn Hervey Page B

forward to escort the dancer away. But he was not allowed to reach her.
    Another figure came smartly out of the throng, a man of much the same age as the General.
    “Gad, no, Pastell,” Miss Unwin heard his voice ring out. “You fellows of the Light Brigade have had more than your share of our dear friend’s charms this evening. It’s the turn of the boys of the Heavy Brigade now.”
    The stout, middle-aged man marched bravely up to the exhausted dancer. “Madam, may I have the honour of taking you in to supper?”
    “General Bickerstaffe,” came Mrs. De Lyall’s voice, tinged with just a hint of Spanishness, “I should be delighted.”
    General Bickerstaffe, Miss Unwin said to herself. General Bickerstaffe, of the Heavy Brigade, those brave soldiers of the Crimea who had had their full glory dashed from them when the Light Brigade had made its blunder-led charge into the Valley of Death. Is he the man I am looking for, after all?
    And it was true, she thought, that someone as comparatively aged and as socially respected as a general would be a great deal more likely to be Alfie Goode’s victim than someone younger and perhaps unmarried.
    She decided that, if the supper hour had come, she had better get back to her post in the morning-room.
    There she found that her services were much in demand. A good many ladies wished to make themselves more presentable before taking supper. For the best part of twenty minutes, she did not have a moment to think of her own affairs.
    At the back of her mind, she hoped Phemy Pastell was stillin her hiding-place, and had the sense to do nothing that would give herself away while the room was occupied.
    But at last the rush abated, and soon there were only two rather elderly ladies standing in front of the cheval glass put into the room for their use, each politely offering it to the other as they chatted.
    “My dear, such an exhibition.”
    “Yes, my dear. Disgusting is, I think, the
mot juste.”
    “Indeed it is. And it was not that dance alone.”
    “No, indeed. There was afterwards.”
    “Poor Bickerstaffe is plainly besotted, my dear.”
    “Yes. Yes. Such a pity. Such a brave man. Such a reputation.”
    “Yes, indeed, although I must say that I never approved of that absurd rivalry of his with dear General Pastell. Why men can never talk to each other without wishing to quarrel like two barnyard cocks is more than I can imagine.”
    “I am afraid your farmyard allusion is not far from the truth in this case, my dear. If you ask me, that woman is at the root of the whole rivalry.”
    “But don’t you think that Captain Brackham …? I understand he is staying at the Fox and Hounds, not a hundred yards from her door, and is in her house from earliest morning till late at night.”
    “If it is not the other way round, my dear.”
    “Oh. Oh. Do you think so?”
    “Well, I certainly heard through my maid, who seems to know one of General Pastell’s keepers rather better than she ought, that a person has been seen making his way through the De Lyall gardens at a very early hour.”
    “Oh, my dear. Every day?”
    “No. No, to tell the truth, I gather that this was some months ago and that it has ceased to happen recently. If what my Elmore says is at all correct.”
    “But Captain Brackham was at the Fox and Hounds at that time?”
    “History does not relate, my dear.”
    And the two tittle-tattlers left the morning-room, oblivions of the discreet presence of a lady’s-maid in its far corner.
    As soon as the door was shut behind them, Miss Unwin hurried over to the window and its heavy curtains.
    “Phemy,” she whispered, “are you there?”
    “Aren’t I just?” said Phemy, stepping out into the room. “And didn’t we just hear something?”
    Miss Unwin longed to administer a rebuke. But the need to have the opinion of an expert on the revelations that had just come out was too strong.
    “Do you think it was all more than just gossip?” she asked.
    “Oh,