Black Coffee

Carelli joined Barbara and Miss Amory around the gramophone, and all three of them began to sort through the pile of records. Richard now seemed engrossed in his magazine.

Lucia rose, moved slowly and apparently aimlessly across to the centre table, and glanced at the tin box. Then, taking care to establish that the others were not observing her, she took a tube from the box and read the label. ‘Hyoscine hydrobromide.’ Opening the tube, Lucia poured nearly all of the tablets into the palm of her hand. As she did so, the door to Sir Claud’s study opened, and Sir Claud’s secretary, Edward Raynor, appeared in the doorway. Unknown to Lucia, Raynor watched her as she put the tube back into the tin box before moving over to the coffee table.

At that moment, Sir Claud’s voice was heard to call from the study. His words were indistinct, but Raynor, turning to answer him, said, ‘Yes, of course, Sir Claud. I’ll bring you your coffee now.’

The secretary was about to enter the library when Sir Claud’s voice arrested him. ‘And what about that letter to Marshall’s?’

‘It went off by the afternoon post, Sir Claud,’ replied the secretary.

‘But Raynor, I told you—oh, come back here, man,’ Sir Claud boomed from his study.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Raynor was heard to say as he retreated from the doorway to rejoin Sir Claud Amory in his study. Lucia, who had turned to watch the secretary at the sound of his voice, seemed not to realize that he had been observing her movements. Turning, so that her back was to Richard, she dropped the tablets she had been holding into one of the coffee cups on the coffee table, and moved to the front of the settee.

The gramophone suddenly burst into life with a quick foxtrot. Richard Amory put down the magazine he had been reading, finished his coffee quickly, placed the cup on the centre table, and moved across to his wife. ‘I’ll take you at your word. I’ve decided. We’ll go away together.’

Lucia looked up at him in surprise. ‘Richard,’ she said faintly, ‘do you really mean it? We can get away from here? But I thought you said—what about?—where will the money come from?’

‘There are always ways of acquiring money,’ said Richard, grimly.

There was alarm in Lucia’s voice as she asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ said her husband, ‘that when a man cares about a woman as much as I care about you, he’ll do anything. Anything!’

‘It does not flatter me to hear you say that,’ Lucia responded. ‘It only tells me that you still do not trust me—that you think you must buy my love with—’

She broke off, and looked around as the door to the study opened and Edward Raynor returned. Raynor walked over to the coffee table and picked up a cup of coffee, as Lucia changed her position on the settee, moving down to one end of it. Richard had wandered moodily across to the fireplace, and was staring into the unlit fire.

Barbara, beginning a tentative foxtrot alone, looked at her cousin Richard as though considering whether to invite him to dance. But, apparently put off by his stony countenance, she turned to Raynor. ‘Care to dance, Mr Raynor?’ she asked.

‘I’d love to, Miss Amory,’ the secretary replied. ‘Just a moment, while I take Sir Claud his coffee.’

Lucia suddenly rose from the settee. ‘Mr Raynor,’ she said hurriedly, ‘that isn’t Sir Claud’s coffee. You’ve taken the wrong cup.’

‘Have I?’ said Raynor. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Lucia picked up another cup from the coffee table, and held it out to Raynor. They exchanged cups. ‘That,’ said Lucia, as she handed her cup to Raynor, ‘is Sir Claud’s coffee.’ She smiled enigmatically to herself, placed the cup Raynor had given her on the coffee table, and returned to the settee.

Turning his back to Lucia, the secretary took some tablets from his pocket and dropped them into the cup he was holding. As he was walking with it towards the study door, Barbara intercepted him. ‘Do come and dance with me, Mr Raynor,’ she pleaded, with one of her most engaging smiles. ‘I’d force Dr Carelli to, except that I can tell he’s simply dying to dance with Lucia.’

As Raynor hovered indecisively, Richard Amory approached. ‘You may as well give in to her, Raynor,’ he advised. ‘Everyone does, eventually. Here, give the coffee to me. I’ll take it to my father.’

Reluctantly, Raynor allowed the coffee cup to be taken from him. Turning away, Richard paused momentarily and then went through into Sir Claud’s study. Barbara and Edward Raynor, having first turned over the gramophone record on the machine, were now slowly waltzing in each other’s arms. Dr Carelli watched them for a moment or two with an indulgent smile, before approaching Lucia who, wearing a look of utter dejection, was still seated on the settee.