18
Mr. Patel! carolled Millie. You are just in time!
We were back at the farmhouse, ushered through a door so cunningly disguised in all that pearly light that I hadn’t noticed it. At least twenty people were already thronging Millie’s parlour, and more were arriving all the time, attended by flashes of soft light and bursts of ambrosial music.
‘For what?’ said Jay, looking about in confusion.
Millie’s response was delivered in the form of a burst of song. A Captain Bold in Halifax, who Dwelt in Country Quarters, seduced a maid who Hanged Herself one morning in her garters! She accompanied herself on an invisible piano — no, I take that back, it was not invisible. Tucked into one corner of the cosy country parlour was a shabby spinet, the keys of which were cheerily playing themselves.
