Death of a Ghost Read Online Free Page B

embrace which included Mr Campion, Donna Beatrice, and the stealthily retreating Lisa.
    When one considered Max Fustian’s appearance it was all the more extraordinary that his personality, exotic and fantastic as it was, should never have overstepped the verge into the ridiculous. He was small, dark, pale, with a blue jowl and a big nose. His eyes, which were bright and simian, peered out from cavernous sockets, so dark as to appear painted. His black hair was ungreased and cut into a conventional shock which had just sufficient length to look like a wig. He was dressed, too, with the same mixture of care and unconventionality. His double-breasted black coat was slightly loose and his soft black tie flowed from beneath his white silk collar.
    He had thrown his wide black hat and black raincoat on to the hall chest as he passed and now stood beaming at them, holding the gesture of welcome as one who realizes he has made an entrance.
    He was forty, but looked younger and appreciated his good fortune.
    â€˜Is everything ready?’ The indolent weariness of his voice had a soporific quality and he swept them down to the studio again before they had realized it.
    Potter had gone and the place was in darkness. Max switched on the lights and looked round with the quick, all-seeing glance of a conjuror surveying his paraphernalia.
    A frown spread over his forehead and he returned to his hostess.
    â€˜Dear Belle, why do you insist on those nauseating lithographs? It degrades the occasion into a church bazaar.’ He pointed contemptuously to the unfortunate Mr Potter’s display. ‘The fancywork stall.’
    â€˜Really, Belle, I think he’s right.’ Donna Beatrice’s low sing-song voice was plaintive. ‘There’ll be my little table over here with the Guild’s jewellery upon it, and really I think that’s enough. I mean – other people’s pictures in his studio – it’s sacrilege, isn’t it? The vibrations won’t be right.’
    Looking back upon that evening in the light of after events, Mr Campion frequently cursed himself for his lack of detachment. Seen in retrospect, after the tragedy, it seemed to him impossible that he could have spent so long in the very heart of the dormant volcano without hearing the rumblings of the eruption to come. But on that evening he noticed nothing save that which passed upon the surface.
    Max had disregarded his ally’s efforts and continued to look interrogatively at Mrs Lafcadio.
    Belle shook her head at him as though he had been a naughty dog, and glanced round the studio.
    â€˜The floor looks very nice, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘Fred Rennie scrubbed it and Lisa polished it.’
    Max shrugged his shoulders, a gesture almost contortionate, but having made his protest he gave way gracefully. Next instant he was himself again, and Campion, watching him, realized how he had managed to insinuate himself into the position of Lafcadio’s
entrepreneur.
    He strode down the room, flipped the shawl from the painting, and stood back enraptured.
    â€˜Sometimes Beauty’s like the Gorgon’s head. One’s spirit turns to stone, beholding it,’ he said. His voice was startlingly unaffected, and the contrast lent the extravagant phrase a passionate sincerity which startled everyone, including, it would seem, Max Fustian. To Mr Campion’s amazement the little dark eyes suddenly suffused with tears.
    â€˜We must all vibrate to green when we think of the picture,’ said Donna Beatrice with paralysing idiocy. ‘Beautiful apple green, the colour of the earth. That shawl is so helpful, I think.’
    Max Fustian laughed softly. ‘Green is the colour for money, isn’t it?’ he murmured. ‘Suffuse the picture with a green light and it’ll sell. Well, I have done my part. Tomorrow everyone will be here. Soldiers, poets, fat mayors buying for their cities, the