Red Shadow by Patricia Wentworth Page B

have another cup of tea.”

CHAPTER XIII
    Catherine Werner came into the study about an hour later, shut the door behind her, and surveyed Basil Stevens. She had changed into a very tight silk dress of the shade called fuchsia. There was a fine green bloom upon her pale skin, and her lips were the colour of orange-peel. It is safe to assume that she would have scandalized Mr Rimington.
    Basil Stevens was at the table writing furiously. He looked up as she came in, wrote a little more, dipped his stylograph unnecessarily, wrote again, and finally flung the pen to the other side of the table.
    â€œWhy do you look at me like that?” he inquired angrily.
    Catherine’s single line of eyebrow made an exaggerated arch.
    â€œA cat may look at a king,” she said, separating the words like a child learning to read. “And that, as Sasha would say, is another English idiom. Do you find that I have come on with my English?”
    â€œWhy do you look at me like that?” He rapped out an angry oath. “You’d better be careful! You will go too far some day!”
    Catherine tilted back her head and laughed.
    â€œYou are a fine lord of creation, are you not? Listen to him—so clever, so superior, and with so much tact! Oh, my dear Vassili, you have really too many accomplishments! You are too clever! Now, if I had had to manage this affair——”
    â€œI will not be sneered at, I tell you!”
    â€œBut who sneers? You shock me, Vassili. I appreciate —I admire —I say to myself, ‘How bold—how dashing!’ Now, if I had wanted to find out whether Laura had had a letter, I should not have been bold and dashing like you—oh no!”
    â€œSome people are too clever to live,” said Basil Stevens in an unpleasant tone. He pushed back his chair and came round the table. When he was close to her, he took her by the shoulders and held her facing him. “Well now—if you are so clever, you can find that letter. It’s got to be found—make no mistake about that.”
    Catherine snapped her fingers under his nose.
    â€œGot to be found? And you begin by scaring the life out of the girl! Now listen to me! I will not have her scared—and I will not have her made ill again. I’ll help you to find the paper if you behave like a rational being, but not otherwise.”
    His grip relaxed.
    â€œWhat do you propose?”
    â€œTo bring her into the other room. She will jump at it, because I can leave the door open into mine, and that will reassure her—she needs it badly. I can’t congratulate you on her feeling for you at present. No, my dear Vassili, you need not glare at me. I am not Laura—I am very tough.”
    â€œYou want to move her?” he said, frowning.
    â€œI have said so. You will have to help me carry her, but you will be a beast of burden and no more. You are not to speak. I will guarantee that she takes nothing out of the room she leaves, and you may search it until you have found this terribly important letter. That, I think, will be better than frightening her into a seizure.”
    He let go of her and stepped back.
    â€œYes,” he said—“yes. That is a good plan. The letter must be found. She would not destroy it—no, that would be impossible. And afterwards——”
    â€œWhat?”
    He flared into sudden anger.
    â€œWhat is that to you?”
    Laura was carried over the landing which she had crossed on her own bare feet an hour or two before. Catherine had been quite frank.
    â€œHe wants a paper which you have—or which he thinks you have. Why can’t you be sensible and let him have it? He is not a good person to get bad with—is that right? Never mind, you will know what I mean. If he wants a thing, he must have it. He is like that. If you make him angry—” She shrugged her shoulders. “You want him to leave you alone, don’t you? Very well