Miss Silver Deals With Death by Patricia Wentworth Page B

wedding because Henry Arden had been killed at Mons. But Uncle James had been most lordly and open-handed about the ring. “Oh, keep it, my dear, keep it! Bless my soul, I don’t want it back!” Uncle James, rolling in money, playing at being generous and cheating her all the time. He had had the name for being mean—but to be as mean as that! Life was very surprising.
    She turned the stone. It flashed and made a rainbow as bravely as if it had been real. That Miss Roland who had taken the top flat had one just like it. It had winked at her only yesterday from a long hand with scarlet nails when they went down in the lift together. She wondered whether that stone too was a sham. Girls like Carola Roland often had very valuable jewellery given to them. It might easily be real. Looking back, she remembered how bright the stone had looked—brighter than her own, because she had slipped her glove down to make sure that the ring was there. And then she had pulled on her glove in a hurry because the rings were so much alike and that offended her pride.
    She went on thinking about the rings and how much alike they were.
    CHAPTER 14
    Mrs. Underwood packed parcels for the bombed until a quarter to five. Then she had a few straight words with Miss Middleton and went out to play bridge. In the course of the words she informed Miss Middleton that she wouldn’t be coming again, and that, “My niece isn’t really strong enough, and I think it would be very much better if you made arrangements to fill her place. She comes home quite worn out, and I’m sure I don’t wonder.”
    At 5:30 Agnes Lemming met Mr. Drake by appointment in the town. She had intended to tell him with all the firmness to which she could constrain herself that he must stop thinking about her, and that they must never meet again, but as it turned out she did nothing of the kind. The reason for this change of purpose was really no reason at all. It was trivial, it was inadequate. It was also, one would have said, quite out of Agnes Lemming’s character. But it sufficed. There is, after all, such a thing as the last straw. Julia Mason’s parcel was the last straw.
    Julia was a cousin, good-natured and extremely well-to-do. She was the kind of woman who buys clothes and doesn’t wear them, or wears them three times and then gets bored to tears. Periodically she sent parcels to the Lemmings. One had arrived by the midday post, and it had arrived addressed, not to Mrs. Lemming, but to Agnes. Opened, it was found to contain a delightful tweed suit in one of the soft shades between brown and sand with the least coral fleck in it. There was a long coat to match with a warm fur collar, shoes, three pairs of stockings, a felt hat, a handbag and gloves, and a jumper and cardigan in a dull coral shade. Tucked inside the cardigan was a letter from Julia.
    “Dear Agnes,
    I do hope you’ll be able to make use of these things. I must have been off my head when I bought them. They are too tight, and I look a fiend in the colour. Marion has given me all her coupons, so I can get something else. She’s just gone back to America, so she doesn’t want them…”
    Agnes picked up the coat and slipped it on, tucked a fold of the jumper inside it to try the effect of the colour, and pulled on the hat. The effect was quite magical. These were her clothes—designed for her, made for her—exactly right. As a rule Julia’s things were too big. These fitted. And generally they were the last things on earth which Agnes Lemming could or should have worn. These were hers.
    And then Mrs. Lemming came in, picked up the cardigan, and walked over to the glass. When she turned round she had a pleased, excited look.
    “What a charming colour! I don’t always care for Julia’s taste, but this is really very charming indeed. Just take off the coat and let me slip it on. Why, it couldn’t be better! The shoes won’t fit me—you can have those, and the stockings. Tiresome that Julia’s