The Wheel Spins (The Lady Vanishes) - Thriller Classic
CHAPTER THREE. CONVERSATION PIECE
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When the honeymoon pair returned to the hotel the four remaining guests were sitting outside on the gravelled square, before the veranda. They were enjoying the restful interlude of "between the lights." It was too dark to write letters, or read-too early to dress for dinner. Empty cups and cake crumbs on one of the tables showed that they had taken afternoon tea in the open and had not moved since.
It was typical of two of them, the Misses Flood-Porter, to settle. They were not the kind that flitted, being in the fifties and definitely set in their figures and their habits. Both had immaculately waved grey hair, which retained sufficient samples of the original tint to give them the courtesy-title of blondes. They had also, in common, excellent natural complexions and rather fierce expressions.
The delicate skin of the elder-Miss Evelyn-was slightly shrivelled, for she was nearly sixty, while Miss Rose was only just out of the forties. The younger sister was taller and stouter; her voice was louder, her colour deeper. In an otherwise excellent character, was a streak of amiable bully, which made her inclined to scold her partner at contract.
During their visit, they had formed a quartette with the Reverend Kenneth Barnes and his wife. They had travelled out on the same train, and they planned to return to England together. The vicar and his wife had the gift of pleasant companionship, which the Misses Flood-Porter-who were without it-attributed to mutual tastes and prejudices.
The courtyard was furnished with iron chairs and tables, enamelled in brilliant colours, and was decorated with tubs of dusty evergreen shrubs. As Miss Flood-Porter looked round her, she thought of her own delightful home in a Cathedral city.
According to the papers, there had been rain in England, so the garden should look its best, with vivid green grass and lush borders of asters and dahlias.
"I'm looking forward to seeing my garden again," she said.
"Ours," corrected her sister, who was John Blunt.
"And I'm looking forward to a comfortable chair," laughed the vicar. "Ha. Here comes the bridal pair."
In spite of a sympathetic interest in his fellows he did not call out a genial greeting. He had learned from his first-and final-rebuff that they had resented any intrusion on their privacy. So he leaned back, puffing at his pipe, while he watched them mount the steps of the veranda.
"Handsome pair," he said in an approving voice.
"I wonder who they really are," remarked Miss Flood-Porter. "The man's face is familiar to me. I know I've seen him somewhere."
"On the pictures, perhaps," suggested her sister.
"Oh, do you go?" broke in Mrs. Barnes eagerly, hoping to claim another taste in common, for she concealed a guilty passion for the cinema.
"Only to see George Arliss and Diana Wynyard," explained Miss Flood-Porter.
"That settles it," said the vicar. "He's certainly not George Arliss, and neither is she Diana."
"All the same, I feel certain there is some mystery about them," persisted Miss Flood-Porter.
"So do I," agreed Mrs. Barnes. "I-I wonder if they are really married."
"Are you ?" asked her husband quickly.
He laughed gently when his wife flushed to her eyes.
"Sorry to startle you, my dear," he said, "but isn't it simpler to believe that we are all of us what we assume to be? Even parsons and their wives." He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and rose from his chair. "I think I'll stroll down to the village for a chat with my friends."
"How can he talk to them when he doesn't know their language?" demanded Miss Rose bluntly, when the vicar had gone from the garden.
"Oh, he makes them understand," explained his wife proudly. "Sympathy, you know, and common humanity. He
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