The Case of the Gilded Fly Read Online Free Page B

I’m still uncertain: I think Helen. Yseut’s quite incapable of playing comedy, and anyway I dislike her so much I simply couldn’t bear it. There’s one other girl, apart from the older women, but I’m told she does such extraordinary things on the stage that I simply mustn’t give her anything more than a bit part. I’m giving Yseut a bit part too – only on in the first act. But,’ he added maliciously, a little smile creasing the corners of his mouth, ‘I shall insist on her taking a curtain every night, so that she can’t take off her make-up and go home.’
    Nicholas whistled, took out a cigarette case, opened it, and balanced it on the table with a gesture of invitation. ‘Yseut is really very unpopular,’ he said. ‘I’ve never met anyone who had a good word to say for her.’
    Nigel, as he took a cigarette, flicked his lighter, and handed it round the little group, thought he saw a gleam of interest appear in Robert’s eye.
    â€˜Who in particular dislikes her?’ Robert queried.
    Nicholas shrugged. ‘Myself, for one, on more or less irrational grounds; though I have a friend who’s making a bloody fool of himself over her. “I am as true as truth’s simplicity, and simpler than the infancy of truth” – you know. Helen, for another – what a sister to have to drag about with one! Jean – oh, you don’t know her of course; girl called Jean Whitelegge, because she’s in love with the Troilus aforementioned – the humble village maiden waiting for her knight to stop fooling about with the wicked princess. Everyone in the company,because she’s an intolerable little bitch. Sheila McGaw, because – Oh, God!’
    He broke off abruptly. Looking up to see what had caused the interruption, Nigel saw Yseut come into the bar.
    â€˜Talk of the devil,’ said Nicholas gloomily.
    Nigel studied Yseut curiously as, with Donald Fellowes, she came into the bar, and was struck by her total lack of ret semblance to Helen. The brief interchange he had just heard interested him, though for the moment he was inclined to be no more than superciliously amused at the antagonism which the girl seemed to arouse. She looked a compound of negative qualities – conceit, selfishness, coquetry – and little more besides (later he was to appreciate malice as a positive quality). She was dressed very simply, in a blue sweater and blue slacks which set off the red of her hair. Nigel noticed the almost imperceptible traces of disagreeableness in her features, and sighed: but for that, a model whom Rubens, or Renoir, would have delighted to paint. Certainly, Nigel admitted to himself with perhaps a little more than mere scientific interest, she had a magnificent body.
    By comparison, Donald Fellowes seemed uninteresting; he moved awkwardly, and with little address. Nigel thought he recognized him; but where on earth had he come across him before? He made a futile, indefinite attempt to summon up the memory of his acquaintance during his years at Oxford, and as always happens on these occasions, could not remember a single one – only a phantom pantomime of blank, indistinguishable masks. Fortunately the problem was solved for him by a gleam of recognition which appeared in Donald’s eye. Nigel smiled feebly, foreseeing a certain amount of gaucherie and embarrassment in the near future; he never had the courage simply to tell people that he didn’t remember them.
    There followed the ceremony of mumblings, apologies and recognitions which always occurs when a group of people only partially acquainted are brought together, and a great and complicated manoeuvring of chairs. Nigel, about to go off once again to the bar, was forestalled by Nicholas, who as he ordered pink gins contemplated with unconcealed glee the extremely uncomfortable relationships which were likely to be established within the next few