The Riddle at Gipsy's Mile (An Angela Marchmont Mystery 4) by Clara Benson Page A

enjoying the sights and sounds of the city, the motor-cars and the wagons, the delivery-boys and the office-girls going about their business, and thought how pleasant it was to be in London at this time of year. A whinnying and snorting s ound suddenly caught her attention, and she looked up to see a rag-and-bone man attempting to calm his horse, which had taken fright at the noise of a motor-cycle as it roared down the street. The horse was a mangy creature, and Angela could not help but c ompare it in her mind with Castana, Lucy Syms ’ s well-fed mare. That train of thought led her back to the lunch at Blakeney Park the other week, when the clash of personalities between Lucy and Lady Alice had been plain for all to see. She wondered how the two women would get on after the wedding. Would Lady Alice retreat with a good grace into the background, or would she remain to assert her ascendancy over Blakeney Park? And how would Gil take it all? He did not seem to have the tact required to keep thi n gs rubbing along smoothly, but perhaps he had hidden qualities about which she knew nothing.
    Angela was brought back to the present by a peal of church bells and a hubbub of voices before her. She looked up and saw that she had reached St. George ’ s, and th at a small crowd of people had gathered outside the church, including a number of reporters. Evidently somebody important was getting married inside, for a large, shiny limousine was waiting in the street, under the watchful eye of its driver and a police m an in uniform, who now and again shooed away various small groups of children that were hovering about.
    Even as Angela watched, the crowd surged forward and she was just able to distinguish the happy couple as they emerged from the church. She was preparin g to pass on, when she was accosted by a somewhat disreputable-looking young man who until a few moments previously had been leaning with bored nonchalance against some railings across the road, notebook and pencil in hand.
    ‘ Hallo, Mrs. M, ’ said Freddy Pil kington-Soames.
    ‘ Freddy! ’ exclaimed Angela. ‘ What are you doing here? ’
    ‘ Earning an honest living, of course, ’ he replied. ‘ Society weddings are singularly dull, but it appears that the public appetite for them cannot be sated, and so here I am. ’
    ‘ Oh, I see . The Clarion sent you, did it? And how do you like being a reporter? ’
    Freddy closed his eyes briefly and gave a little shudder.
    ‘ I don ’ t think I can possibly describe to you in words how frightfully tiresome it is, ’ he said. ‘ To begin with, they force me to come in at half-past eight. Half-past eight! Have you any idea of the unearthly hour at which I have to get up? Then they send me out to stand in the streets for hours on end like a flower-girl, just because the public clamours to know the details of t h e wedding between some loathsome aristocrat and his shop-girl paramour. And they make me work in the evenings, too. Imagine that! I spent last Wednesday night attending a trade union meeting in a vile, damp, draughty hall in Bethnal Green, at which Mr. Ro w botham spent a good two hours holding forth — with quite execrable grammar, I might add — on the subject of The Working Man And His Future. Bethnal Green! I do believe I ’ d never been any further East than the Alhambra before that. I felt I was taking my life i n my hands. Fortunately, as it happened, there was a chap there I knew at school, who has rather gone off his head and joined the Labour Party. He expects to stand at the next election, as a matter of fact. I suppose I shall write something flattering abo u t him for the paper. One can ’ t let down an old friend. ’
    Angela could not help laughing at the disgusted expression on his face during the greater part of this speech.
    ‘ And what shall you write about this wedding? ’ she said. ‘ Who are they, by the way? ’
    ‘ He is Lord Blanchard, and she is a Miss Christabel Plunkett,