They had some cocktails.
Then Dan and Baby went to their room; they must doll up, they explained, as they were going to a party given by a friend of Dan's, at a place of his near there.
Tony and Milly went in to dinner.
“He's a very nice boy,” she said, “and comes to the club a lot.
We get all sorts there, but Dan's one of the decent ones.
I was going to have gone abroad with him once but in the end he couldn't get away.”
“His girl didn't seem to like us much.”
“Oh, she was cold.”
Tony did not find conversation easy at dinner.
At first he commented on their neighbours as he would have done if he had been dining with Brenda at Espinosa's.
“That's a pretty girl in the corner.”
“I wonder you don't go and join her, dear,” said Milly testily.
“Look at that woman's diamonds.
Do you think they can be real?”
“Why don't you ask her, if you're so interested?”
“That's an interesting type — the dark woman dancing.”
“I'm sure she'd be delighted to hear it.”
Presently Tony realized that it was not etiquette in Milly's world, to express interest in women, other than the one you were with.
They drank champagne.
So, Tony noticed with displeasure, did the two detectives.
He would have something to say about that when their bill for expenses came in.
It was not as though they had been accommodating in the matter of Winnie.
All the time, at the back of his mind, he was worrying with the problem of what they could possibly do after dinner, but it was solved for him, just as he was lighting his cigar, by the appearance of Dan from the other side of the dining room.
“Look here,” he said, “if you two aren't doing anything special why don't you join up with us and come to the party at my friend's place.
You'll like it.
He always gives one the best of everything.”
“Oh do let's,” said Milly.
Dan's evening clothes were made of blue cloth that was supposed to appear black in artificial light; for some reason, however, they remained very blue.
So Milly and Tony went to Dan's friend's place and had the best of everything.
There was a party of twenty or thirty people, all more or less like Dan.
Dan's friend was most hospitable.
When he was not fiddling with the wireless, which gave trouble off and on throughout the evening, he was sauntering among his guests refilling their glasses.
“This stuff's all right,” he said, showing the label, “it won't hurt you.
It's the right stuff.”
They had a lot of the right stuff.
Quite often Dan's friend noticed that Tony seemed to be out of the party.
Then he would come across and put his hand on Tony's shoulder.
“I'm so glad Dan brought you,” he would say. “Hope you're getting all you want.
Delighted to see you.
Come again when there isn't a crowd and see over the place.
Interested in roses?”
“Yes, I like them very much.”
“Come when the roses are out.
You'd like that if you're interested in roses.
Damn that radio, it's going wonky again.”
Tony wondered whether he was as amiable when people he did not know were brought over unexpectedly to Hetton.
At one stage in the evening he found himself sitting on a sofa with Dan.
“Nice kid Milly,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I'll tell you a thing I've noticed about her.