Chapter 3Chloe Pye tied a long red silk skirt and a kerchief over her bathing dress in honour of lunch, which was served with obstinate ceremony on the part of the servants at a quarter to four.
The two visiting stars had departed with apologies, already two hours late for other appointments, and Ned Dieudonne, Sutane’s invaluable accompanist, had been given a drink and a sandwich and bundled off to return the borrowed score to Prettyman, in Hampstead, who was doing the orchestrations.
The rest of the party ate hungrily. Apart from those he had already met, Campion noticed only two newcomers at the table: the young man with the golden curls whom he had last seen fighting with the doorkeeper over a silver-plated bicycle, and the incomparable Slippers Bellew.
Slippers was a nice girl. As
