The Seven Dials Mystery quotes

Yet, hang it all, why should the woman look at him like that?

To come down at a punctual nine-thirty when staying in a country house simply wasn’t done.

To be sure, it was now a quarter past eleven which was, perhaps, the outside limit, but even then—

Also, she was an earnest woman, and she could not help asking herself what possible good these young people would ever do in the world without early rising. As Sir Oswald so often said, to reporters and others:

“I attribute my success entirely to my habits of early rising, frugal living, and methodical habits.”

Lady Coote was a big, handsome woman in a tragic sort of fashion. She had large, dark, mournful eyes and a deep voice. An artist looking for a model for “Rachel mourning for her children” would have hailed Lady Coote with delight.

An artist looking for a model for “Rachel mourning for her children” would have hailed Lady Coote with delight. She would have done well, too, in melodrama, staggering through the falling snow as the deeply wronged wife of the villain.

She looked as though she had some terrible secret sorrow in her life, and yet if the truth be told, Lady Coote had had no trouble in her life whatever, except the meteoric rise to prosperity of Sir Oswald.

As a young girl she had been a jolly flamboyant creature, very much in love with Oswald Coote, the aspiring young man in the bicycle shop next to her father’s hardware store.

MacDonald was a very chief and prince among head gardeners. He knew his place—which was to rule. And he ruled—despotically. Lady Coote approached him nervously.

He spoke as head gardeners should speak⁠—mournfully, but with dignity⁠—like an emperor at a funeral.

“I was wondering—could we have some of those late grapes for dessert tonight?”

She had been instructed in her history of England. Had not Sir Francis Drake and his knightly companions been playing a game of bowls when the Armada was sighted? Surely a gentlemanly pursuit and one to which MacDonald could not reasonably object.

But she had reckoned without the predominant trait of a good head gardener, which is to oppose any and every suggestion made to him.

“Nae doot it could be used for that purpose,” said MacDonald non-comittally.

The reproof was dignified, but unmistakable.

So might a prince of the Church reprove a Turk or an infidel who had unwittingly committed a solecism in all good faith.

Lady Coote blushed for the second time that morning. But a welcome interruption occurred. The door opened and a serious, spectacled young man put his head in.

“Yes, distinctly inconsiderate.

I often find these self-made men are inconsiderate. Very possibly that is why they amass such large fortunes.

”

“I wish you wouldn’t use that word, Bundle. We were just getting away from the subject.”

“I don’t see why you’re so frightfully sensitive about it,” said Bundle. “After all, people must die somewhere.”

“They needn’t die in my house,” said Lord Caterham.

“I met Gerry Wade once,” said Bundle. “He was a friend of Bill’s. You’d have liked him, Father, I never saw anyone more cheerfully inefficient than he was.”

“I don’t like anyone who comes and dies in my house on purpose to annoy me,”

said Lord Caterham obstinately.

“Half-sister, I believe. She was much younger. Old Wade ran away with her mother—he was always doing that sort of thing.

No woman appealed to him unless she belonged to another man.

”

“I’m about ready for some more,” said Bundle. “Not that I expect I shall find any in town. But at any rate I shan’t dislocate my jaw with yawning.”

“In my experience,” said Lord Caterham, “people who go about looking for trouble usually find it.”

He yawned. “All the same,” he added, “I wouldn’t mind running up to town myself.”

“M’m. She couldn’t be by any possible chance my Aunt Jemima, could she? Because if so, I’m damned if I’m going to get up.”

“The lady, sir, could not possibly be anyone’s aunt, I should say, unless the youngest of a large family.”

“Aha,” said Jimmy. “Young and lovely. Is she—what kind is she?”

Stevens opened the door and proceeded to bring in a most recherché meal. An omelette was followed by quails and the very lightest thing in soufflés.

“Why are men so happy when they’re single,” said Loraine tragically. “Why are they so much better looked after by other people than by us?”

“Oh! but that’s rot, you know,” said Jimmy. “I mean, they’re not. How could they be? I often think—”

“We’ve got a very good rule to go by,” said Battle.

“The more they talk, the less they’ll do. You’d be surprised how well that works out.”

“And I’ve heard that very often you let them go on?”

“Ah!” said the Superintendent.

“You’d be surprised what a lot of things there are that sisters don’t know.”

Bundle again felt baffled. She sat in silence till a man came in with a typewritten sheet of paper, which he handed to the Superintendent.

“No,” said Superintendent Battle. “Never knew a young lady who was less so. What I’ll do for you, Lady Eileen, is this. I’ll just give you one little hint. And I’m doing it because I never have thought much of the motto ‘Safety First.’

In my opinion half the people who spend their lives avoiding being run over by buses had much better be run over and put safely out of the way. They’re no good.

”

“But it’s impossible, my lady. You’ll get me into trouble and I’ll lose my job.”

“You’ll lose it anyway when you go to prison,” said Bundle unkindly.

“But as a matter of fact, you needn’t worry, nobody will know anything about it.”

Stevens permitted himself a faint, discreet smile.

“Most American gentlemen that I have known, sir, carry something very different in their hip pockets,” he observed.

She felt a sudden violent resentment which, she told herself, was absurd. After all, contrasting Lord Caterham with Sir Oswald Coote, there was no doubt as to who would go to the wall.

Sir Oswald had one of those powerful personalities which make all those with whom they come in contact appear faded.

He was, as Lord Caterham had said, a human steamroller. And yet, undoubtedly, in many ways, Sir Oswald was a stupid man. Apart from his special line of knowledge and his terrific driving force, he was probably intensely ignorant.

“Ah!” said Superintendent Battle. “That’s a pity.

Gentlemen who have no sense of humour get to taking themselves too seriously⁠—and that leads to mischief.

”

“Ah!” said Battle. “Sir Oswald’s a great man—and a great man always knows better than to explain unless an explanation is demanded.

To rush into explanations and excuses is always a sign of weakness.

Sir Oswald knows that as well as I do. He’s not going to come in explaining and apologising—not he. He just stalks in and hauls me over the coals. He’s a big man, Sir Oswald.”

“But you did give me a hint, Superintendent Battle. You told me to ask Bill Eversleigh.”

“It’s dangerous to give people like you a hint, Lady Eileen. I never dreamt of your going to the lengths you have.”

“Well, it’s all right, Superintendent Battle. My death doesn’t lie at your door.”

Jimmy’s arm was in a sling, but he bore little other trace of the night’s affair.

The Superintendent eyed all three of them benevolently, somewhat with the air of a kindly curator explaining a museum to little boys.

On the table beside him were various objects, neatly labelled. Amongst them Jimmy recognised Leopold.

His failure in that respect did not appear to rankle with him.

George Lomax did not look particularly well pleased. He detested levity of any kind.

“I’ve got everything taped out pretty clearly,” went on the detective.

“I know, dear, I’m just going.”

Lady Coote withdrew, carrying the empty medicine glass as though it were a goblet out of which she had just administered a death potion.

“Well, Battle,” said George Lomax, “it all seems clear enough. Yes, perfectly clear. The man fires a shot, disabling Mr. Thesiger, throws away the weapon, runs along the terrace and down the gravel path.”

This awful prospect knocked Bundle out completely. She could only stare helplessly at George. This did not discourage him—on the contrary.

His main objection to women was that they talked too much. It was seldom that he found what he considered a really good listener.

He smiled benignly at Bundle.

“Look here,” said Bill. “What the hell was Codders holding your hand for?”

“It wasn’t my hand,” said Bundle wildly. “It was my budding mind.”

“Don’t be an ass, Bundle.”

“I might do worse, Lady Eileen. They say it’s never too late to start. And I’ve got one good quality that will tell at any game.”

“I don’t know when I’m beaten. If everything goes wrong, I turn to and start again!”

And with a determined look on his face, Superintendent Battle came out and joined them, shutting the door behind him.

“It’s like a runaway horse,” said Lady Coote. “Got the bit between its teeth and away it goes. It’s the same with Sir Oswald.

He’s got on, and he’s got on, till he can’t stop getting on.

He’s one of the richest men in England—but does that satisfy him? No, he wants still more. He wants to be—I don’t know what he wants to be! I can tell you, it frightens me sometimes!”

She began to roll up her work very carefully. Sir Oswald looked at her, made as if to speak, then shrugged his shoulders. He followed her into the house. Lady Coote, walking ahead, wore a very faint smile on her face.

She was fond of her husband, but she was also fond⁠—in a quiet, unobtrusive, wholly womanly manner⁠—of getting her own way.

“What else but the crown jewels of Russia that were brought to Mr. Lomax secretly to deposit in the Bank of England.”

“What a bloody liar you are,” said Socks without emotion.

“A liar, I? And the jewels brought over by aeroplane with my best friend as pilot. This is secret history I’m telling you, Socks. Will you ask Jimmy Thesiger there if you don’t believe me.

“And what more horrible two words could you have?” said Mr. O’Rourke, and added piously. “

Thank the heavens above I’m an educated man and know nothing whatever upon any subject at all.

”

“I told you at breakfast, Tredwell, that I should be particularly engaged this morning.”

“Go and tell Mr. Lomax that you have made a mistake, that I am out in the village, that I am laid up with the gout, or, if all else fails, that I am dead.”

“Mr. Lomax, my lord, has already caught sight of your lordship when driving up the drive.”

“Oh, it’s nothing to do with me,” said Lord Caterham hastily; “Eileen settles her own affairs. If she came to me tomorrow and said she was going to marry the chauffeur, I shouldn’t make any objections. It’s the only way nowadays.

Your children can make life damned unpleasant if you don’t give in to them in every way.

I say to Bundle, ‘Do as you like, but don’t worry me,’ and really, on the whole, she is amazingly good about it.”

“Heaven knows,” said Lord Caterham. “A lot of damned nonsense, anyway.

Never say too much, that was always my motto. Grab the girl’s hand and let events take their course.

”

“When what’s all over? What is Lomax supposed to be doing?”

“Hush,” said Lord Caterham. “He’s proposing.”

“Marriage. To Bundle. Don’t ask me why. I suppose he’s come to what they call the dangerous age. I can’t explain it any other way.”

“He? Why, he’s decrepit—senile! I—” Bill positively choked.

“Not at all,” said Lord Caterham coldly. “He’s five years younger than I am.”

“Of all the damned cheek! Codders and Bundle! A girl like Bundle! You oughtn’t to have allowed it.”

“Bundle! Bundle! Why, I’ve never dared to ask Bundle to marry me because I knew she’d only laugh. And George—a disgusting windbag, an unscrupulous, hypocritical old hot air merchant—a foul, poisonous self-advertiser—”

“Go on,” said Lord Caterham. “I am enjoying this.”

“My God!” said Bill simply and with feeling. “Look here, I must be off.”