The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham Page B

daisy. Must have fallen out of an aeroplane.”
    They both looked at him fixedly and he laughed again all over his face.
    â€œThat’s what I put on my report, anyway,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything else. I only mention it to explain why I say that open fields are very tricky places. Now I’ll trouble you further, Mr. Lugg, if I may. You and me will go round to the back door together and you can introduce me to the help. Here comes the gentleman who understands the value of time. We’ll leave him to you, Mr. Campion. Good-day.”
    They went off together, walking a little way round to avoid Smith, who was hurrying back, his hands in his pockets, as the Snipe slid away.
    â€œWe’re going to see the arrangements for the party,” he announced as soon as he was within earshot. “I’m bringing the Augusts, you know.”
    The Imperial Augusts, that celebrated quintet of clowns who were modelled on the pre-war Parisian Fratellini, had been a non-stop success in London for so long that Mr. Campion was surprised at the proprietorial note.
    â€œI didn’t know they were one of your ventures.”
    â€œThey’re not. I passed on the message. Tonker Cassands told me to tell them there was a party, and I did.” He smiled briefly and his flat baby face was mildly amused. “I think your wife’s amazingly clever,” he added, and turning to Amanda, with whom they had now caught up, said, “I’ve been telling your good husband I think you’re amazingly clever.”
    â€œThat will please us both,” said Amanda gravely and slid her arm through Minnie’s.
    The S.S.S. man’s attention was recalled to the business in hand.
    â€œWe’re to arrive here for lunch, aren’t we? Or was it four o’clock?”
    â€œFour,” said Minnie with a firmness which startled herolder friends. “Come earlier and you’ll have a long dull patch with nothing but tea to drink and probably children dancing on the lawn. The Augusts aren’t coming until five when they’re going to arrive as a group of artisans in 1890 going down the Thames on a wherry with their girls on a beanfeast. Or that was the programme when last I heard it.”
    They had crossed the lawn to the river’s bank as she spoke and Smith looked into the shallow water trickling over gravel bright as boiled sweets.
    â€œYou’ll never get a wherry down here,” he protested with instant suspicion.
    â€œNot a real wherry,” she explained earnestly, “but a raft disguised. We shall have more water too. There are sluice gates down there in the fen meadows. We let it out in the ordinary way so no one can fall in and we can get across by the stones. On Saturday the boat house is to be the pub which the beanfeasters are making for—The Prospect of Dunstable, or something. A lot of exciting people are coming, I believe, and certainly all the people I’m fond of are, so it ought to be all right.”
    â€œWait a minute,” he said curiously. “Is this river which you let run out
our
river up at the Estate?”
    â€œYou own the river bank and the stream to midway across,” said Minnie with the same unexpected authority. “If you want to keep it deep up there you can build your own sluices.”
    â€œThen you wouldn’t have any water here.” He sounded rather pleased at the prospect.
    â€œIf I didn’t have any, you’d have too much,” she said promptly. “There’s quite enough for everybody. And if you contaminate it, you’re fined. Now, we eat over there in the barn.”
    He nodded gravely, as if he were getting it off by heart, but the word had made him dubious.
    â€œIt’s a real studio inside,” she explained hastily. “My father, who was a well-known painter, had it properly converted.”
    â€œSo it’s done rather well, is it?”
    â€œI think