Murder at Maddingley Grange, page 7
Laurie thought so too. Disappointment and ill temper disappeared as she watched the distant haze of fine silver spray spouting from the dragon, twisting and twining his huge bronze coils, in the center of the lake. Trees cast long dark shadows. The waters of the moat slapped against the stone parapet and grasshoppers rattled their dry legs. Laurie entertained the notion that Apollo might be present. That he had come, drawn by the calm formality of the landscape and the attendant welcoming stillness of the trees, to take his place among them all.
He had always been her favorite deity; so bright, serene and loving. Aged ten, she had argued forcefully with her classics mistress that as well as being in charge of healing, prophecy and music he was also the god of gardening. The fact that this designation had nowhere been noted in the annals of mythology bothered her young mind not a jot. Now she took a deep sustaining breath and experienced that well-known harbinger of stormy weather, a soothing calm.
Mrs. Saville and Rosemary were relaxing in a pair of basket chairs. They had opted for a Gibson and a sidecar, and Simon, having strained the drinks over ice and placed the glasses on a silver tray, handed it to Gaunt, together with a dish of freshly made caraway crackers and some cream cheese and anchovy twists, and watched him glide off.
“Look at that.” He nudged his sister. “Smooth as melted butter. You see how unnecessary it was—following up that reference. Wasting money on a long-distance call.”
“I don’t agree.” Laurie turned away from the sighing trees. She had called the number on the Hon. Mrs. Hatherley’s crested paper, discreetly from the landing extension after dressing for dinner, only to find that the lady herself had flown to Biarritz. Her secretary/companion to whom Laurie connected was on the point of following and had a cab at the door as she picked up the receiver. She spoke for a flurried moment only, leaving Laurie with the disturbing information that “poor dear Vivienne” had migrated south “to get over the tragedy.”
But when Laurie passed this disturbing snippet of information to her brother he laughed. “I expect she broke a nail. You know what these Tatler types are like.”
Laurie looked at him now. He appeared very pleased with himself, lifting his martini glass to toast Rosemary Saville.
Rosemary smiled her acknowledgment, leaned back and felt the flagstones warm through the thin soles of her evening shoes. She uncrossed her shiny, silk-stockinged legs, crossed them the other way and toyed with her jade bangle. She was thinking how easily and with what grace she had taken to the thirties mode. Not like the girl standing so awkwardly behind the drinks trolley. She looked quite hoydenish and wore that lovely frock in the manner of a child dressed up in its mother’s clothes.
Rosemary then fell to wondering where Martin was and felt a delightful shiver of anticipation at the thought of all her secret machinations, the shiver tempered slightly with concern that her gallant might be found somewhat wanting when the moment of truth arrived. For there had been more than a touch of wimpery, it seemed to Rosemary, in the Watteau room. She hoped she was not going to have to provide enough backbone for two. An accomplishment of which her mother had tirelessly boasted during the twenty-five years of her marriage. Rosemary’s father, a shadowy figure at the best of times, had faded away entirely in 1977. A movement caught her eye.
Mr. Gibbs had put his head around one of the folding terrace doors, gripped his throat with one hand, covered his mouth with the other, gargled, then struggling like mad with his invisible opponent, vanished behind a curtain. Meanwhile his wife had maneuvered her mother-in-law to a low-backed chair. When the old lady had settled, the chair completely disappeared. Her body covered the seat and back and her spreading skirts concealed the legs so that she seemed to be hovering on the air. This phenomenon struck no one present as humorous. She seemed quite at home, which surprised Simon, who was of the belief that Mrs. Gibbs senior’s most natural habitat must be under a stone. Or at the bottom of a pond.
Noticing that after a suspicious sniff the caraway crackers had been waved away, Laurie picked up a bowl of assorted nuts and braced herself to walk through the assembled company and offer this alternative form of sustenance.
Mother’s eyes gleamed and her countenance creased into folds of warty anticipation. She dipped hooked fingers in the bowl and scrabbled round. Laurie was reminded of those little cranes in a glass case at the fair that claw up a pile of gimcrack and swing over to the exit chute, dropping the one thing you wanted on the way. As the old lady crammed the nuts into her mouth, Fred said to Violet: “Don’t blame me if she cracks a molar.”
“Now let’s get you all something to drink.” Simon bent toward the trolley’s bottom shelf where the brown ale lurked shyly behind the Punt e Mes and Oloroso. “Mrs. Gibbs?”
“Violet to you, dear. And I’ll have a G and T.”
“Oh,” said Simon, coming up a layer. “Ice and lemon?”
“Got any limes?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Lemon it is then. And a Campari and orange for Mother. Only the juice has got to be fresh. Anything else gives her the gripes.”
“And easy on the Campari,” interrupted Fred. “One nip and she’s out the window.”
Simon beckoned the butler, who put down his tray of delectables and drifted over. “Squeeze half a dozen oranges, would you? Make sure the juice is strained.”
“Very good, sir.” Gaunt made his way toward the steps descending to the moat. Laurie hastily redirected him and Simon foolishly asked Fred what his pleasure was.
“Can’t tell you that in front of the missus,” said Fred. “I’d never hear the last of it.” He winked and gave the trolley a brief but penetrating once-over. “Is that what I think it is?” crouching for a closer look. “Clock this, Vi—stout.” His wife joined him and said: “Well, I never.”
“It’s been a good few years since I tasted that. Remember them steak and oyster puddens in the Cock and Bull? We used to swill ’em down with that stuff.”
“Well, you’re not having it now. It’s too rich for your blood.”
“I could have it diluted,” said Fred hopefully. “Black velvet. Got any champagne, Simon?”
“No,” said Simon, who had no intention of wasting his Krug on the likes of Fred.
“I’ll have me usual then. Scotch. On the rocks. Talisker if you’ve got it.”
“Teachers?”
“That it then?” Simon gave a tight little nod. “I suppose it’ll do at a pinch.”
“He’s spoiled rotten,” confided Violet. “Won’t hurt him to come down in the world for once.”
Simon picked up a chunky cut-glass tumbler and reached for the tongs. It was becoming obvious that the Gibbses were not even going to have the decency to run true to form. Typical. He poured a generous measure of whiskey, added ice, handed the glass over and made Mrs. Gibbs’s gin and tonic. Fred then said: “The tide’s going down from where I’m standing, John,” and returned his empty glass. Simon refilled and handed it back with a winning smile, saying: “I’m afraid we don’t have any tankards.”
Fred guffawed. “That’s what I like—a man with a sense of humor. Because without a sense of humor, Simon, where are you?”
“I assume exactly where you were before but without a smile on your face.”
“He’s dry, isn’t he? Isn’t he dry, Violet?”
Violet agreed that Simon was very dry. The Gregorys appeared, closely followed by Mr. Lewis. Two medium sherries and a tomato juice. First names were offered and exchanged all round with the exception of the two matriarchs. An air of gaiety began to prevail. Simon abandoned the trolley to chat and charm his way around the company at large, leaving Laurie standing next to the young man in round spectacles now known to her as Martin. She couldn’t help wondering what had brought him to Madingley Grange, for he looked as ill at ease now as he had when first stumbling from the bus. She forgot her own awkwardness in trying to make him feel more at home and offered a cheese and anchovy twist.
“I made them myself.”
“Did you really?” Martin took one. The pastry was like flakes of snow and melted on the tongue; the cheese lingered longer. “They’re absolutely gorgeous.” He felt himself relax a little and was surprised because this glamorous girl, cool as ice water, was the last sort of person he usually felt comfortable with. Then he noticed her hands, very brown with short, not quite clean nails. They didn’t seem to go with the rest of her at all. She was asking if he was sure he didn’t want something stronger in his tomato juice.
“Quite sure,” replied Martin. “I don’t want to go to sleep, you see.”
“Oh.” Laurie presented the tray again. “It’s a bit early, isn’t it? To worry about dozing off.”
“I mean”—Martin took a twist—“I don’t want to go to sleep at all.”
“Golly. What are you going to do all night, then? Wander round the bedrooms?”
Martin’s hand opened and his glass shattered on the stone flags. Tomato juice ran everywhere. “What…what do you mean?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry…Nothing…I was just trying to make a joke. I’m absolutely hopeless at this sort of thing. You know… social chitchat.”
Laurie bent to pick up the pieces, and by the time Martin’s glass had been tidied away and a new one refilled, some of the roses had returned to his cheeks and Laurie had become enmeshed in a frozen silence. Rigid with embarrassment she added a dash of Worcestershire sauce to his juice and held out the glass.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened. As Martin took the drink, his fingers closed around her own and Laurie felt a warm tingling sensation, as if hundreds of tiny needles were playing over her skin. The warmth continued to spread, flowing along her forearm, then upward until the whole arm felt hot, soft and malleable. Martin apologized, disentangled himself and smiled. On receipt of the smile Laurie’s stomach looped the loop and flopped vigorously down again. Dazed, she was still trying to assimilate this extraordinary behavior on the part of an organ that had always been yawningly predictable, when a voice cooed sweetly in her ear: “If you’re not too busy perhaps I might have a refill?”
While Laurie made Rosemary a second sidecar and, Gaunt having cracked the terrace/kitchen/terrace circuit, Mother’s Campari and orange, Simon continued to mingle. He had been civil to the Savilles, gracious to the Gregorys and now braced himself for a grapple with Violet, Fred and his scrofulous old boot of a mother. Keenly aware, especially after his gaffe with the nut brown, that his knowledge of working-class life could be balanced easily on the left leg of a house mite, Simon racked his brain for a conversational opening gambit. One thing he did know from the occasional careless exposure to sordid documentaries on the fourth channel was that the majority of Fred’s sort seemed to spend the larger part of their lives slumped in front of television sets, cans of lager stapled to their lower lips, a bag of chips in one hand and an elegant sufficiency of pork scratchings in the other. He bared his teeth at Mother, who squinted malevolently back.
“I expect,” said Simon, “while you’re here you’ll miss the…um…goggle box?”
“She never watches,” said Violet.
“Too much King Kongery,” added Mother.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nature programs,” obliged Fred. “She can’t abide the nature programs.”
“Perhaps you have another hobby then, Mrs. Gibbs?”
Mother nodded decisively. “Gambling.”
“Gambling?” Probably bingo, reflected Simon. Or a whist drive at the senior center. “What sort of gambling?”
“Poker. Blackjack.”
“Really?” Grudgingly he admitted to being surprised. “I enjoy poker myself. We must have a game later.”
“I shouldn’t, Simon,” cut in Fred. “She’ll murder you.”
Gaunt arrived with the Campari. Mother knocked it back, replaced the glass on the tray, winked and said, “Encore, Antonio.” The butler, an expression very much like respect flitting across his features, bore the tray away.
“And you yourself, Fred…?” Simon plowed on, determined that even if his whiskey wasn’t up to snuff no one was going to fault him on la politesse. “Do you have a favorite—”
“Me? You must be joking. What time do I have for television?”
“He’s glued to his computer and telex,” explained Violet. “Because of the markets, you see.”
“Ah. Then perhaps you…?”
“Not really, dear. It’s all I can do to keep an eye on the business. We employ over two hundred and they work all hours.” Violet smiled sympathetically at her host. Poor boy. Doing his best to be sociable but really quite out of his depth. That was the trouble with young people. Spent their lives glued to the telly. No wonder they had no conversation. “Any scrap of spare time I do have—and it is a scrap, believe me, Simon—I like to do a bit of embroidery. Ecclesiastical mainly. I’m halfway through a lovely chasuble.”
“Chasuble,” said Simon, treading water. “Yes.”
“And when I can I go to Mother’s seances.”
Oh, God, thought Simon. I wish I were in Timbuctu. You knew where you were in Timbuctu. All the people down on the ground, all the monkeys up in the trees. “Seances?” he murmured. “How interesting.”
“She’s the seventh son of a seventh son,” Violet explained further. “Or would’ve been if she was a boy.”
“Her grandfather on her mam’s side,” chimed in Fred, “was Trafalgar ‘Scamp’ Gwatkin. And his mother was the great Gypsy Ouspenskaia. One hundred percent pure Romany. Born in the Carpathians. Came over here horse trading. Never looked back.”
Mrs. Saville, who had been listening to all this while apparently gazing at the horizon, was delighted to have her worst hopes confirmed and gave her daughter a costive but satisfied smile.
“Very exotic,” said Simon faintly.
“People’d cover the length and breadth to have her grand-dad tell their stars. Very well thought of he was.”
“A better man,” said Mother, “never wore out a balalaika. Course he was a posh rat.”
“A posh…?”
“Married out. Weakened the gift in his babbies.”
“Don’t you believe her,” said Fred. “She’s a wowser with the grounds.”
“I can see we won’t be short of after-dinner entertainment. Now if you’ll excuse—”
“’Ang on.” Mother grabbed at the cream barathea and Simon jerked to a halt. She beckoned and, reluctantly, he lowered his head. She whispered and her breath blew a compelling mixture of Campari, bull’s-eyes and masticated nuts into his ear.
“You got a presence, Simon. In the house. Savvy?”
“A present? What sort of present?”
“A spirit presence. Very powerful. Black currants mainly.”
“Thought you said raspberry jam,” said Violet.
“It varies. Fruit though—no doubt about that. You got an ancestor was in greengrocery, Simon?”
“Certainly not. And now I really must…” Simon pulled himself away, and almost collided with the butler winging his way back with the second Campari. “There’s something on your sleeve, Gaunt. No—underneath.” Gaunt lifted his arm and Simon made a wild grab at the glass and dish of nuts. “Looks like flour.”
“Most mysterious, sir.” Gaunt produced a handkerchief and flicked disdainfully at the broad white streak before sashaying off. Simon returned to Laurie.
“I wonder what’s happened to—” He broke off, staring. “What on earth’s the matter?”
“I feel funny.”
“Funny peculiar? Or funny ha-ha?”
“Funny queasy.”
“You haven’t been on the gin, have you?”
“Of course not.”
“Because I could swear when I set out this lot there were two bottles.”
“Simon, if I had consumed an entire bottle of gin I would not be standing here chatting to you. I’d be flat on my back under the trolley.”
Laurie moved irritatedly away and leaned on the parapet. She gazed down at the water freckled by a million pinpricks of dazzling light, then across the park. The brightness continued. Shrubs appeared, hard and brilliant, their outlines so cleanly drawn they could have been cut from paper. Leaves sparkled like green glass. Flower beds were gorged with unnaturally intense color and the sky hummed with light. None of this seemed alarming. Indeed, it appeared to Laurie entirely natural. As if this was the way things truly were and that she had previously been viewing the world through a gray curtain. It occurred to her that she might be slightly drunk. Simon mixed a mean martini and she had had no time for lunch. That must be it. A mixture of alcohol and inanition. Then she recalled Mrs. Tiplady, who was inclined to be otherworldly and have what she called beyond-the-veil experiences, and what Aunt Maude called one of Ivy’s turns. Perhaps, thought Laurie, I am having a turn.
Disturbed by a susurration of “ahh’s” she realized the swans had drifted into view. They bobbed indifferently beneath admiring eyes, paddling vivid orange feet. Laurie hoped their appearance would go some way toward consoling Violet for the stubborn behavior of the peacocks and was pleased when Mrs. Gibbs exclaimed with pleasure, asking if that wasn’t an absolute picture and it must be nice to know you’d got a mate for life.
Derek, who, magnifying glass in hand, had already disappeared and reappeared several times, now turned up again, his pilgrim’s gaze directed at his host. “What a superb setting for a murder, Hannaford. When are we going to get moving?”
“Hear, hear,” cried Mother. “Let the dog see the rabbit.”
“Everything will be explained at dinner,” said Simon. “It will all start to happen then.”
Derek approached the parapet, whickering in excited recognition. “This is so like the moat where the body of the Comte de Heliot was found.” He leaned over, dislodging a small pot of myrtle which fell into the water. One of the swans hissed at him. “He had been killed with a single thrust from an exquisitely wrought Malayan kris.”
“Good gracious.” Mrs. Saville approached the parapet in her turn and peered with some trepidation over the edge.
