whirling feet across to the window, where she stood looking out, and appeared quite unconscious of her hostess’s entry.
“Diva darling, how sweet of you to come so early!” she said. “A little cosy chat before the others arrive.”
Diva turned round, much startled.
“Hullo!” she said. “Didn’t hear you. Got Janet’s frock you see.”
(“What makes Diva’s face so red?” thought Miss Mapp.)
“So I see, darling,” she said. “Lovely rose-garden. How well it suits you, dear! Did Janet mind?”
“No. Promised her a new frock at Christmas.”
“That will be nice for Janet,” said Elizabeth enthusiastically. “Shall we pop into the garden, dear, till my guests come?”
Diva was glad to pop into the garden and get away from the immediate vicinity of the cupboard, for though she had planned and looked forward to the exposure of Elizabeth’s hoarding, she had not meant it to come, as it now probably would, in crashes of tins and bursting of bovril bottles. Again she had intended to have opened that door quite casually and innocently while she was being dummy, so that everyone could see how accidental the exposure was, and to have gone poking about the cupboard in Elizabeth’s absence was a shade too professional, so to speak, for the usual detective work of Tilling. But the fuse was set now. Sooner or later the explosion must come. She wondered as they went out to commune with Elizabeth’s sweet flowers till the other guests arrived how great a torrent would be let loose. She did not repent her exploration—far from it—but her pleasurable anticipations were strongly diluted with suspense.
Miss Mapp had found such difficulty in getting eight players together to-day, that she had transgressed her
