[MaC] A pause in the music - Back in the lounge

[Dorothea Salo]

> "Don't mind him old boy."  James said to Anton, not even deigning to 
> give Fitzroy a look.  James sighed, smashed a fist into his palm and 
> mused aloud.  "Everyone in the building was invited to the party, 
> weren't they?" he said. "Every last one, social hermit or not."
> 
> "It's one of us." James deduced, unhappily.

> "No! No, it can't be!" Nicola protested. "There had
> to..." her voice trailed off. "Oh... you're right.
> Nobody could get into Mortmain Mansions and we were
> all here at the party." She looked around the room at
> the few stragglers that had been either too uneasy or
> too respectful to traipse through and gawk at Nola's
> body. "But... who?" She shivered in spite of her warm jacket.

	Pamela's lips thinned. She had come to the same conclusion, but need 
Mr. Drake frighten everyone with it? No point suggesting that perhaps 
someone *had* broken in, given that all the flats were empty tonight; 
that would not precisely reassure.

	The thing to do was to remain calm and matter-of-fact. Pamela patted 
Nicola's hand one more time and turned toward Lucinda. "Mrs. 
Skeffington-Nottle? Your husband was asking for you; perhaps you would 
come with me? Oh, and Mr. Hodges, we could do with whatever aprons -- or 
table-linen, even -- you could find for us. Anything at all; it needn't 
be new or even clean." Properly she ought to have asked Mr. Fitzroy, as 
the flat they were in was his, but hundreds of years of breeding firmly 
informed her that she simply could not speak to that common, vulgar, 
*nasty* little man.