Too Many Cousins

her again. “How did you hear of the death of Mrs. Porteous?”
“That was queer,” said Cecile, recalling herself to current affairs. “Somebody sent me a copy of a Guildford paper, with an account of the inquest. It came the day before yesterday. I thought at first that Mortimer, Blanche’s brother, had sent it, but it had a London postmark.”
“Mortimer had not written to you about the death?”
“No. I haven’t heard from Mortimer for a long time. We exchange Christmas cards, that is all—and his wife sends theirs. Mortimer is not like the others. Except for Blanche —and I think he patronised her, though she was his sister —he has always rather ignored us. He is too grand for us, I dare say. He is somebody—in Bedford.”
“A little provincial, perhaps?”
“Yes. That is just what he is. Provincial. Bourgeois. And his wife. They both despise people who work in offices. All the same, Mortimer should have told me about poor Blanche. I wrote to him, yesterday, and said so.”
“Did you mention your own misadventure last April?” Cecile nodded. “I had been thinking about these accidents. I am curious to hear what Mortimer says.”
“Does your cousin Vivien know about Mrs. Porteous?”
“I’m sure she doesn’t, or I should have heard from her. I have telephoned to her twice, but she has been out. I am surprised,” said Cecile, in the slightly acid tone she used when referring to her cousin at Bedford, “that Mortimer has not told her. He used to look down on Vivien too, but now she is secretary to a very important man at the Ministry of Supply. Imperial Sansil, you know, is practically a branch of the ministry. Or so Mortimer says.”
Harvey put away his pencil. “You want some advice, I take it, Mile Boulanger?”
She met his scrutiny with her look of candour. “I would like to know whether I am silly to take these accidents seriously.”
“No, I don’t think you are silly. Whether you are justified is another matter. My advice to you is not to think too much about them. At the same time, look about you before you cross roads in the dark. Don’t stand too near the edge of railway platforms. By taking care, you will probably soon reassure yourself. You will feel safer. When you look round, you will see there is no one near you. After a time, you won’t worry any more. You will put these accidents down to coincidence, and forget about them. And in a few months your step-great-grandmother will be dead, and your troubles ended.”
On this somewhat specious note, which left the visitor looking a little dubious, she presently departed. When she had gone, Mr. Tuke met his wife’s accusing glance with a thoughtful frown that made her raise her delicate eyebrows.
“What is it, Harvey? You have been keeping something back. And all that talk to Gecile about coincidence and forgetting after a time. . . . That was not like you. You are not usually what she calls woolly.”
“What was I to say? She will take care of herself now.”
“If you think she really is in some danger, you should have told her. It is a queer story, eh?”
“Queerer than you know. Or, apparently, than she knows. Gould you get her out of this country, at once? Paris— anywhere. Even to some French naval base here, provided it is a good way from London.”
His wife opened her dark blue eyes. “So you do think she is in danger?”
“Her family certainly seems to attract calamities. Her cousin Raymond has also recently died—by accident.”
“Harvey! Why didn’t you tell her?”
“Ex abundantia cautelae, my dear. In other words, you never know, do you?”
“You mean, Gecile herself? . . . Oh, that is ridiculous, Harvey! And horrible! . . . ” Yvette brushed the idea aside. “But as for getting her away. . . . It will be difficult. Her work now is records. They are here, ill London. There is no work for her at a base. And to get back to France at present is like getting into paradise. Besides, Cecile has never even said she wishes to leave England. She is more English than French now.”
“Well, suggest it to her,” Mr. Tuke said. “See how she takes it.”

CHAPTER IV
SIR BRUTON KAMES, the Director of Public Prosecutions, sat at his immense desk, looking very like a large comatose fish. It was the day after Mile Boulanger’s visit to the Tukes’ flat—that is, it was Monday, a day when few office workers, however eminent and pampered, appear at their best.
The Director unhooked his horn-rimmed glasses, swung them violently, and glared malevolently at Mr. Tuke.
“What are you doing here? Thought you were on holiday. Aren’t I to have any peace?”
“I forgot before I went,” said Mr. Tuke, “to tell you about the two elderly Fellows of Oriel who craved an existence arboreal—
They said ‘We are bees,
But there aren’t any trees ’,
So they swarmed on the Martyr’s Memorial.”
Sir Bruton had a childish passion for limericks, and was compiling an anthology containing many of his own contrivance; and though he grunted in a disparaging way, he was making notations on a pad.
“I know a new one too,” he said. “Old Lincolnshire folk song:
There was a young lady of Leadenham
Who said, ‘Though I’ve ribbons to thread in ’em,
I’m in rather a fix,
For regarded as knicks,
Well, between you and me and the gatepost, I wouldn’t be seen dead in ’em.’ ”
“You can be trusted to give a vulgar twist to the cleanest fun,” Mr. Tuke commented. “But you might at least scan.”
“Anyhow,” retorted Sir Bruton, “you didn’t come back to recite a bit of doggerel. What do you want?”
“Yvette sends her most distinguished compliments, and will you come to dinner to-night?”
“My compliments to your wife, with knobs on. I will. But you could have invited me over the ’phone—or she could, which I should have preferred,” said Sir Bruton, returning to the charge. “What have you got up your sleeve, Tuke?