Page 29 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

I paused. "Indeed?"

She looked up.

"Lady Rosalynd. Yes, indeed. There was something about the man."

"What sort of something?"

"He listened too closely."

"To what?"

"Everything."

Her companions nodded.

"He always seemed to know things one had never told him," said the second.

"And remembered them," added the third.

"That sounds rather alarming,” I said.

"It was. In his company one felt that one's words ought to be counted before being spoken."

Interesting. "And yet he was received everywhere."

"Oh, yes," said the first lady. "He knew everybody."

"No," corrected the second. "He knew somebody who knew everybody."

I turned to her at once. That was a distinction worth making. “What do you mean?"

"He was forever hovering about poor Sir Reginald Harcourt," she said. "Not that Sir Reginald ever seemed to encourage it. But if Sir Reginald attended a musicale or a soirée, one could be fairly certain Sir Basil would appear before the evening was over."

That was interesting. I opened my mouth to ask what Sir Reginald had made of the attention.

But before I could do so, a deep, rasping cough sounded somewhere behind me. It was followed by another. And then another. The fit seemed determined to empty the gentleman's lungs entirely. Conversation around the room faltered for a moment before resuming, everyone evidently accustomed to the interruption.

"Oh, poor Sir Reginald," one of the ladies murmured.

"His dreadful chest," said another.

"And his gout. Poor man."

I turned.

An elderly gentleman occupied an armchair near the window. One leg was stretched before him, a silver-headed cane resting across his knees. Every few moments he pressed a handkerchief to his mouth as another bout of coughing overtook him.

A respectful circle of empty space surrounded him. No one was unkind enough to avoid him deliberately. No one, however, appeared eager to stand too near him either.

"The catarrh has settled in his chest these last few years," one of the ladies said.

"He bears it remarkably well."

"He never misses a musicale."

"No, indeed. I do not believe Sir Reginald Harcourt would let death itself keep him at home."

A little laugh went around the circle.