Murder at Maddingley Grange, page 25
“This”—Mrs. Gibbs poked at the notes—“against your shiners.”
“My…?”
The old lady pinched her withered-walnut lobes and Mrs. Saville slowly mirrored the movement, touching the star sapphires that winked and twinkled in her own. They had been a gift from Theophilus on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their nuptials, silver being considered far too base a metal to strike the appropriately festive note. They had set him back a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Naturally Mrs. Saville hesitated. Fatally she caught Mrs. Gibbs’s black-pupiled eye, sparking with malign intensity, and saw there a return of that earlier contempt. She felt angry until the actuality of the situation reasserted itself. There was no need to be angry. Or to fear. She was not a weak creature cliffhanging from a bluff but an empress rising, holding in her hand the keys of the kingdom. She removed her earrings and placed them on the table.
“Sunny side up then,” said Mrs. Gibbs.
Smiling an ineffably condescending smile Mrs. Saville spread out her cards. The nine and ten of hearts. Jack, queen, king. Mrs. Gibbs’s face was a picture. Her yellow snaggletooth worried at her lower lip, a frown puzzled her brows. She seemed to shrink in her chair with disbelief, taking on a patient, doomstruck air. Mrs. Saville, with a sorrowful lift of the shoulders, reached out her hand.
“Hang on, hang on.”
Mrs. Saville stopped in mid-reach. Hang on for what? The old lady placed her cards with slow deliberation on the table. The ten of spades. The jack, the queen, the king. Mrs. Saville stared, confounded and amazed. Of all the extraordinary coincidences. Here was a hand only a heart-stopping beat behind her own. Mrs. Gibbs’s final card was no doubt a second king. Mrs. Saville tried, as she waited, to make her breathing quietly even but the air was flannelly and seemed to choke her.
Mrs. Gibbs reached out and put her final card down, covering it with her hand. She looked across at her companion. A tranquil look. Easy, searching and pitiless; like that of an eagle riding the wind. And then she smiled.
It was on receipt of this smile that Mrs. Saville became aware that she had made an awesome mistake. This comprehension came upon her not gradually but instantly, with a sudden terrible assurance. She did not understand how it could be so. Her hand had been magnificent. The cards were from her own pack. She had shuffled them herself and they had been dealt in a straightforward manner barely an inch from her nose. Once dealt they had been kept safe by two disinterested parties and the deck had not been touched again. Yet somehow, between the first opening gambit and the turning upward of the last card a volte-face had occurred.
Mrs. Saville, her fate accomplished, reflected bitterly on her previous solid, overweening confidence now revealed for the hubristic posturing that it was. Perhaps the very brightness and aggression of this belief had instigated her downfall, activating in the gaudy figure opposite some unnatural goblin spirit of revenge.
For surely she had been bested by no ordinary adversary. As she waited, head bowed (the regulars of the Hawthorndon Bridge Club would not have recognized their proud dominatrix), it seemed to Mrs. Saville that this final game was being played out not, as she had presupposed, on the sunny terrace of a country house with a commonplace old gypsy woman but on a dark cold primeval plain with a figure alien to humankind. A casual dealer in chaos and revenge.
And yet, when Mrs. Gibbs (having removed her black pearl studs) turned over the fifth card, how artless and unmagical was the winning stroke. A question of simple forgetfulness on Mrs. Saville’s part. She looked down at the grinning red and yellow figure in cap and bells.
“Joker’s wild, we reckoned?” said Mrs. Gibbs. “I claim ace high. My dear.”
Back in the library things had rather ground to a halt. There was an air of indecision about the gathering, as if no one was quite sure what came next. Although Derek had been regarded mainly as a figure of fun, the withdrawal of his melodramatic vigor and enthusiasm left quite a gap.
Lunch, perhaps because of the post-repast theatricals, seemed to have taken place ages ago, yet it was still nowhere near time for what Gilly called drinky-poos. Or even teaeypoos. He tried to jolly things along by giving them a ukelele medley but it was indifferently received. Even “My Little Girl from Idaho” had but small effect, except on Simon, who groaned and put his head back in his hands. Rosemary rushed to his side.
“How are you feeling now?” she asked with an abundance of tender concern, laying cool fingers on what little of his fevered brow was visible.
“I’ll be all right.” Simon looked wanly up. He was being very brave as well as very wan but Rosemary could see at what a cost. “You’re so sweet,” he continued, “to be concerned.”
“I thought you coped quite wonderfully.”
“I don’t know about that.” Simon lifted his shoulders. The shrug was all insouciance. It implied that being accused of murder and dodging bullets were, if not actually all in a day’s work, nothing to get all steamed up about. “I’m only sorry other people were frightened.”
“I wasn’t frightened,” cried Rosemary stoutly.
“I’m sure you weren’t.”
Simon, like Martin, had noted that Rosemary was a chip off the old block. Unlike Martin he did not see this as any cause for alarm, being sure the woman was not born (and that included Mrs. Saville) whom he could not wrap around his empty bank account. “If ever I were in real danger,” he went on, implying that Derek’s homicidal pursuit had been no more than a frivol, “you are precisely the sort of girl I would hope to have by my side.”
“Ohhh, Simon,” breathed his companion, “and I would think it just too divine to be there.”
Rosemary responded one hundred percent (or, as she would have put it, with every fiber of her being) when Simon squeezed her hand. Her smile reflected his own. Both purest tungsten. And although nothing so vulgar as the maxim “It takes one to know one” would ever pass her lips, this comprehension, smothered by clouds of high romanticism, nestled, a nugget of comfortable reassurance, in her breast. Rosemary acknowledged that at long last she had met her match. And found her man.
She looked across to where Martin was sitting, trying pathetically to make her jealous by holding the hand of Simon’s sister. Earlier Rosemary had determined to take Laurie aside and put her firmly in the picture. Discovering that her new admirer had been engaged to another only twenty-four hours ago should make a dent in that tomboyish bounce and shine. Then Rosemary changed her mind. Let them have their little fling. She could afford to be generous. And it was hardly sensible to alienate someone who looked fair to becoming her future sister-in-law.
And so the time lag stretched with the two couples billing and cooing and Gilly wondering what kind of cake there would be for tea and if, to make things absolutely perfect, there might also be cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Fred was pondering on how soon he might decently raise the question of a noggin and Violet, realizing it must be either five to or five past, opened her mouth to enlighten the others. But this inaccurate little cliché was never uttered. For just then from the direction of the terrace came the most appalling sounds. Great rhythmical moos of pain and grief and loss. The call of the female hippo unexpectedly finding itself a calf short. Or a pair of sapphire earrings.
“Mummy!” Rosemary ran from the room followed by Simon and Gilly. The Gibbses looked at each other, nodding sagely.
“She wouldn’t be told. The daft gabby.”
“You did your best, Fred. No good blaming yourself.”
Outside Mrs. Saville, now surrounded by curious and sympathetic faces, rocked back and forth on her white iron chair, covering her naked ears with her hands. Her eyes were tightly shut and two tears of shame and fury glistened on the enraged scarlet cushions of her cheeks. The tears looked angry too; clear and hard like tiny glass chippings.
Rosemary knelt and tugged at her mother’s arm, asking what the matter was. Mrs. Saville shook her head. She rocked for a few moments more, gave a deep judder that set her chair vibrating against the stone flags, blew her nose on a large silk handkerchief and rose slowly to her feet. She took her daughter’s arm, saying: “Come, Rosemary,” and walked with a rigid and dignified slowness into the house. The others watched her go. There was about her progress something extra heedful. She picked her way gingerly and appeared to be holding herself together by a great act of will. Five minutes later Rosemary came rushing back.
“Simon—oh Simon!”
“What is it?” She took his arm and led him a little way from the interested group. “Don’t tell me,” continued Simon. “Mummy’s packing.”
“I came to give you this.” She handed him a card. MISS ROSEMARY SAVILLE. THE PADDOCKS. NORTON BELLINGS. SURREY. And a telephone number. “You will keep in touch?”
“Do you doubt it?” murmured Simon, placing a kiss in the palm of her hand and trapping it by folding over her fingers.
“Ring me next week.” A faint boom came from an upstairs window. “Must dash. She’s lost her smelling salts.”
Simon rejoined the others. He regarded Mother with some sourness. She beamed back radiantly, prodigiously adorned. The sapphires did not look at all incongruous in spite of being set off by the emerald felt. Rather did the hat and Mrs. Gibbs’s dark batrachian features obtain a bloom of reflected grandeur.
Her son came and stood behind his mother, his expression a mixture of rueful pride and disapproval. He shook his head at his host.
“She wouldn’t be told—Mrs. S. I tried to warn her.”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure,” Simon replied testily. He could see Rosemary’s mother forever linking him in memory with her tragic loss, thus making his entry into the banking fraternity a tad more difficult. In this he did the lady an injustice. Mrs. Saville was prepared to forgive anyone almost anything who had firm connections to a moated mansion and a hundred and fifty acres of rolling real estate.
Now, with his plans for the weekend all awry and the guests departing in droves, Simon could see himself being lumbered with nothing but hoi polloi for the next twenty-four hours. He briefly considered offering Gilly and the Gibbses a fifty percent refund and inviting them also to shove off, then realized he was talking about five hundred pounds and thought again. And, after all, if they became too obnoxious he could always fake a migraine. Laurie could cope. Indeed, faking might not be necessary. At the very thought of one more chorus of “Idaho” Simon felt a definite premonitory stab behind his left eyebrow.
But what was he saying? The dramas of the last two hours had played havoc with his memory. No one could go anywhere. The phone was still out of order, the minibus had gone and the nearest taxi (Alf Figgins) was at Madingley. Of course, if Derek was really determined to shake the dust he might hoof it down there. But Sheila wouldn’t. Rosemary wouldn’t. And Mrs. Saville certainly wouldn’t. This brisk winnowing of names left only one plainly in the sieve.
Simon sighed deeply. He didn’t know what appealed to him least. The thought of a four-mile slog in the baking heat or being exposed to the deeply unpleasant atmosphere that would no doubt prevail if he refused to go. He was musing thus when Derek appeared, caped and deerstalkered, followed by Sheila, mopingly hanging on to a white leather hatbox.
But before Simon could open his dissertation comparing the wish for an early departure with the sorry lack of equipment to accomplish same, all necessity for such a comparison disappeared. For the outside world came tootling along in the form of a wire-wheeled roadster going: “Parp, parp.”
Everyone crossed to the parapet and watched the long scarlet bonnet appearing and disappearing as the drive wove through the trees before unfolding into the straight. The MG slowed up, eased over the rattling drawbridge and, with a final “Parp, parp,” came to a halt in front of the steps. The driver, a young, very tall, fair-haired man with a reddish complexion and a bluff jolly smile, waved and clambered out.
Laurie, fist against her lips just in time to trap a cry of shocked recall, gazed at the jodhpured figure in dismay. Even in the perfect confidence of her newfound love she had been aware of a tiny niggle tugging away at its blissful center. And here was that niggle enlarged, clarified and made flesh. Laurie stepped forward, smiled weakly, swallowed and said: “Hullo, Hugh.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The driver of the red MG was not alone. A girl was in the passenger seat. She wore battered khaki shorts held up by a snake belt and a flowered halter top. She was very pretty and had dark hair tied with bits of gingham in two glossy bunches. She climbed over the door and came toward Laurie, smiling. Laurie felt perplexed. The girl in the shorts looked vaguely familiar and certainly her welcoming cry of “Laurie!” implied some previous acquaintance.
Hugh said: “Laurie—are you all right? Simon?” He looked round. “What’s going on? I’ve been trying to get you on the blower. And then when we saw the bus we thought something frightful must have happened.”
“We were terribly worried.”
“Just a minute,” said Laurie. “I’m not sure…This is awful, I know, but…” She broke off, embarrassed, staring at the girl. Could impeccably straightened teeth wreak such a transformation? Could awkwardness be so ironed out and plainness so disguised? Laurie recalled her own image in the bathroom mirror the previous evening and knew that it could. Then she noticed that the girl was holding Hugh’s hand and her suspicions were confirmed. She said, with no sense of incredulity: “Pacey.”
“Poppy actually. Younger sister. You remember—I used to put toads in your bed.”
“Little minx.” Hugh beamed as if he had personally put her up to it, but quickly reverted to solemnity. “The fact is, Laurie, old girl…”
My God, thought Laurie. Old girl. How did I ever bear it?
“Just simply can’t go on…not honorable. Been putting it off—”
“He’s been terribly worried.”
“The truth is…must be said…me and Pops…well…”
“Oh, Hugh!” Laurie rushed at her erstwhile fiancé as much to halt continuing exposure as in felicitation. “How absolutely wonderful—I’m so happy for you both.”
“Oh.” Hugh shuffled a bit, looking like a large shambly dog who has had his bone whipped away and just as inexplicably returned: alarmed, bewildered, hopeful and, finally, delighted. “If only I’d known you’d take it li—”
“Hugh, Poppy—this is Martin. Darling, Hugh is a… um… childhood friend and I went to school with Poppy’s sister. They’re engaged.”
Catching the “darling,” Hugh and Poppy exchanged oopsadaisy glances before rushing into a vocal cover-up.
“So we thought—” began Poppy.
“Naturally, being childhood friends—”
“That we’d rush over—”
“And tell Laurie—”
“Only to find…”
“Yes,” smiled Laurie, entwining fingers with her beloved and feeling a surge of joy.
“How super,” cried Poppy, and Hugh agreed it jolly was. All four stood around looking quite silly with happiness; then Simon spoke.
“I hate to inject a sour note into such an idyllic gathering but did I hear some vague reference to a bus?”
“That’s right. It was in a ditch the far side of Toot Balden. It had Madingley Grange on the front, so naturally we stopped—”
“We were terribly worried.”
“The police were there.”
“We thought it might be you or Laurie.”
“Then we talked to a constable and discovered it wasn’t.”
“Was anyone hurt?” asked Simon hopefully.
“Just shaken up, apparently,” Hugh replied. “The officer we spoke to said the people in the coach were at the station—”
“Helping with their inquiries.”
“He didn’t actually say that, Pootles.”
“No, but I bet they are. I hope they’re charged with dangerous driving. Wrecking your dear little bus.”
“Didn’t realize you had one actually, Laurie,” said Hugh.
“It’s a bit big, isn’t it? For two?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Was in a hell of a mess. Fenders crumpled, lights smashed. Hood every which way, wasn’t it, Poppies? Bit of a write-off, I’m afraid.”
“You must be terribly worried.”
“Not at all.” Simon airily waved away the very idea. “A mere bagatelle in the great artificer’s scheme of things. Believe me.”
“Was the van stolen?”
“Oh yes.”
“The police’ll be along then.”
“Let them all come,” cried Simon. “It’s Liberty Hall here.”
Hugh, lowering his voice, moved closer to Laurie. “That chap…” He jerked his head in the direction of the car. “Is he all right?”
Four heads turned. Gilly was draped orgasmically over the MG’s bonnet, his cheek nestling against the warm, shiny red paint. As they watched, he slid off, then, crouching down, started to stroke the wire spokes, making happy little crooning sounds.
“He’s fine,” said Laurie. “He’s a thirties buff. Absolutely adores anything and everything from the period.”
“Perhaps he’d like to meet Nanny,” said Poppy.
“Little juggins.”
Derek, who had been circling round the quartet and almost jumping up and down in his efforts to attract Hugh’s attention, finally managed it. Hugh said: “Hullo,” while giving the caped crusader what used to be called an old-fashioned look. “Bit hot for that rigout, isn’t it?”
As he spoke, Laurie saw Hugh’s glance stray over to the family Gibbs and back to the MG. He raised his eyebrows at Poppy, who lifted her own delicate arches in response.
“The fact of the matter is,” said Derek loudly, “we’re cut off.”
“Not at all,” replied Hugh. He spoke kindly from his great height (six feet two) as if patting Derek on the head. “We drove straight here—no problem.”
