In Joe’s pocket rested a route-map which would have done credit to any army of invasion. Many alternatives were shown, but the recommended route, involving only one ford and a Forestry Commission track, was guaranteed to be the shortest by just under a furlong. Cyril had actually appeared to make a note of the mileage before they set off.
He was going to be disappointed, thought Joe grimly as he headed the minibus along the main road through the torrential rain.
Much of his sense of committal after his encounter with the young Trevigore set had quickly worn off. But a small core of anger still remained which he hoped might see him through. He nursed it carefully. It was all he had.
What I need’s a good old Robin Hood syndrome, he thought. Rob the rich to feed the poor. For poor read Cess and Lord Jim. And me. Oh yes. And me.
After his initial gesture with the first of Carter’s five-pound notes, it had been fairly easy to spend the rest. Joe was not at all certain where it had gone. The only tangible gain he had from the money was a new 4-wood which dispatched balls to impenetrable areas of the course whenever he used it. Every lost ball seemed like the judgment of God.
His relationship with Maggie had returned to a superficial normality. They were coldly polite to each other in public, but she resisted any attempt at a rapprochement. Staff-room gossip had seized eagerly on her friendship with Sergeant Prince and if the experts were to be believed she was seeing a lot of him. Joe’s only reference to him brought an immediate scornful reply about pub-brawlers, and the matter was allowed to lie, not dead but uneasily dormant
Now even the great western façade of Averingerett failed to work its customary magic. The driving rain didn’t help matters, obscuring the clean lines of the building and even absorbing into its own being the majestic jets of the great fountain. But it was more than just a personal reaction to the weather. Rather it was the other way round, Joe felt. The pathetic fallacy in action.
He put it to himself quite bluntly.
I am here to case the joint.
Cess’s instructions had been impressive in their own way. Joe was no expert in the techniques of joint-casing, but it seemed to him that this particular scheme of work had been well thought-out and prepared. By Cess? he wondered. He’d have placed Cess as a man of action, working intuitively rather than by thoughtful planning. Yet someone had planned thoughtfully, or he would not be here now, running through the rain for the shelter of the stables arch.
‘Hello there, Mr Askern,’ said the man collecting the admission money. ‘Back again?’
‘That’s right. Just eight of us this time, seven children and me. Is Jock around?’
‘I expect he’s in his office. Shall I buzz him for you?’
‘No, no,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll drop in later. Come on, kids.’
He paused at the edge of the stables arch and peered across the courtyard through the rain. The stable-block through the great archway which now acted as the visitors’ entrance, had been converted into the business centre of the house. The estate manager’s offices as well as the head steward’s room were contained here.
There was no internal connection between the block and the main house, and the route for visitors lay across the courtyard into what had once been the kitchen quarters but was now dignified with the title of entrance hall.
It was into the stable-block that Cess and Lord Jim had tried to force entry on their abortive mission a few weeks earlier, Joe recalled. That sounded a hare-brained scheme, Carter working intuitively rather than from a plan.
Dimly Joe recollected mocking Cess and Lord Jim for their failure. Now he wished heartily they had met with every success that night. Or failed so miserably they had been caught.
Either way, he would never have become involved.
‘Aren’t we going in?’ asked Maisie plaintively. She was wearing a tightly-belted fluorescent purple pvc raincoat along the sweeping curves of which raindrops were doing a wall-of-death act. Joe didn’t blame them for clinging.
‘Right, across we go. Make a run for it!’
Heads down, they sprinted through the downpour into the shelter of the entrance hall. Here Joe paused and considered his brood. A predictable lot, he thought. Fat Alf Certes and a trio of other misfits who had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon. Little Molly Jarvis, who loved him. Mickey Carter, who certainly didn’t love him. And Maisie Uppadine, whose motives were much more cloudy. She was certainly not a misfit and could have no difficulty in finding things to do on Saturday or any other day.
The stone floor of the entrance hall echoed hollowly under their feet. He had rarely seen the place so deserted. The rain must have discouraged many visitors and he had noticed the car-park held only a fraction of its normal Saturday quota of cars. The children grouped themselves around him expectantly.
‘Now, you all know what you have to do. I shall be making my own way round in about ten minutes so you’ll be able to ask me if you want any help about your work. All right? Then off you go. And remember. Don’t touch anything!’
Ironic, he thought as he watched them troop obediently along the prescribed route up the stairs out of the hall. Here am I, an accessory before the fact of housebreaking, instructing my flock to touch nothing.
But only before the fact, he comforted himself slightly. Once they’ve had the benefit of my researches, they’re on their own.
He recalled with pleasure the horror on Cess’s face at the thought of actually taking him on the job, and resolved to fall over a couple of chairs next time they met just to reinforce the impression of general incompetency.
But he had better be competent now. While he hoped with all his heart that Cess and Lord Jim would get their comeuppance, he had no illusions that they would be generous, understanding losers if they suspected he was in any way to blame. He set about his allotted tasks with care.
A good deal of what he had been told to find out, he could have told them without having to revisit the house. Contents of rooms, distances, dimensions, numbers and positions of windows and doors, for instance, and much else. But it was all worth re-checking. And there was much else to do. Types of locks on internal doors and display cabinets, window-fastenings, and above all, Carter wanted every minute piece of information he could glean on the alarm-system.
‘A wire, a switch, anything at all, you note it, Joe. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand it as long as you let us know.’
‘But you could do all this yourself,’ he had protested.
‘Oh no. Lord Jim or me poking about would be asking for trouble. You’ve got a head start, Joe boy. And, most important of all, you can get the inside stuff. Pump your mate Laidlaw for all he’s worth. About the alarms, about what happens at night, who’s about the place, how many servants live in, when is his bloody lordship in residence. That’s another thing you’ll see on our list. Get yourself back into the private bit of the house and do your stuff there as well.’
‘But …’ Joe had started to protest.
‘Do it, Joe,’ Cess had said softly.
Joe stopped protesting.
The public rooms were easy. Joe made his way round swiftly, exchanging a word or two with stewards he knew, but wasting no time. It was better this way. Once when he paused in the Tapestry Room and thought of Lord Jim bundling together pieces of the exquisite French silk-work, like so many nylon stockings he asked himself in horror, What am I doing?
Surviving, was the grim answer.
On his way round he overtook all the children. Maisie and Mickey stood close together, heads thrown back, silently contemplating an eager Venus chasing a reluctant Adonis across the ceiling of the State Bedroom. Joe went by them without attracting their attention. He had no need to dwell there, he felt. Even Cess could hardly be contemplating stealing a four-poster bed. Only Molly Jarvis held him up with questions about the duties of a lady’s maid. She came from a good working-class Tory background and obviously fancied herself all neat and tidy in a nice black and whit
e outfit. Joe was reluctant to leave her with all her illusions, but had to press on, promising to return later.
The reason for his haste was simple, almost noble. He felt a growing reluctance to involve his friend Jock Laidlaw in any aspect of the business. (Business! Crime, he told himself. I must stop talking to myself in euphemisms!) Pumping him for information would be bad enough, but he felt a special reluctance about asking Jock to take him into the private apartments today. In any case, he would probably refuse as the Trevigores were officially in residence, even though Joe had ascertained that most of the party had departed for the day to the North Midlands Horse Trials near Nottingham.
I hope dear Jule gets kicked in the crutch, thought Joe viciously, and Lady Helen wins a prize for the biggest crupper. Whatever that is.
He had a fair recollection of the route by which Jock usually led him to the Book Room. He had no intention of breaking new ground, but wished merely to confirm his recollections. Cess would have to accept that there were limits to his knowledge. As long as he was accurate within those limits, no one could complain.
After a swift glance over his shoulder to make sure he was alone, he stepped over the single-strand barrier at the end of the L-shaped Painted Gallery. The foot of the ‘L’ was thus amputated. Visitors might officially crane their heads round the corner to gawk at two undistinguished chairs and a cracked Grecian urn, but they were allowed no nearer the three doors which opened off this part of the gallery into the private rooms.
It was through the nearest of these that Joe had gone under Laidlaw’s supervision and he now gently turned the handle, eager to be through, but careful of what might lie on the other side.
It seemed to be locked.
Behind him he heard a sudden chatter of voices. A gang of sightseers must be approaching the gallery. Forswearing gentleness, he pushed with all his weight against the door.
It was definitely locked.
The voices were very near now. There was hardly time to retreat. In any case if he did, he knew he would not have the nerve to try again elsewhere. Quickly he moved down the foot of the ‘L’ out of the view of anyone coming down the gallery, and approached the next door.
His hand was almost on the handle when it turned itself, as though magically operated. Someone was coming through from the other side.
Three strides took him to the third and final door. He pushed it open as a figure emerged from the door he had just abandoned, stepped through, and only by a great effort of will prevented himself from slamming it shut behind him. Only when he had finally by infinitesimal degrees let the handle return to its original position did he realize he was trembling from head to foot.
He rested his forehead against the cool woodwork and took three deep breaths. Jesus! Cess was right. He wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing.
One last deep breath and he turned. Stretching out before him was a long unadorned corridor, its bareness contrasting strongly with the luxury of the apartments he had just passed through. The room he had intended entering must lie to his right. Once in there on relatively familiar ground, he could make a swift reconnaissance of the four or five rooms Jock had shown him over, then reappear in permitted territory through a small well-shaded door beneath the entrance hall stairs, a door which was only openable from the inside.
All he had to do now was to take the first door to the right.
He set off down the corridor.
The only trouble was that there didn’t seem to be a door to the right. In fact the only exits from the corridor were through the door behind him into the Painted Gallery or through the one which lay dead ahead, leading God knows where.
Carefully he pressed his ear to it and listened. Nothing. But nothing meant nothing when you built doors as thick as those at Averingerett. Nor was there a key-hole to peer through to check what lay beyond. It was dangerous. For all he knew, the entire Trevigore family could be sitting at lunch on the other side. Unlikely as they had gone to Nottingham. But it was risky for all that. The wise thing would be to retreat.
Behind him he heard the gallery door slowly open. Whoever had disturbed him before was now re-entering the private sector by this route.
It’s like a bloody French farce, he thought humourlessly, all the exits and entrances in full swing, disaster just a hinge away.
Even as he thought, he had acted. Perhaps, he told himself with surprise, I am like Cess, intuitive rather than calculating.
He was in a long room, broad enough to be called a gallery rather than a corridor, but a long way from the dignified proportions of the Painted or the Sèvres Galleries. There were three windows in shallow bays looking out over the formal gardens lying to the rear of the house. It was still raining hard, he had time to notice, before turning his mind to the task of choosing which of the three doors opening off the gallery he should go through. He stood, uncertain, unwilling to commit himself. Nothing helped him. Not a sound was to be heard.
I’m at it again. Calculating, he told himself. Let your instincts work.
His unconscious pursuer must be close. All right, instincts, work! But quickly!
Be bloody terrified! Get out of sight! answered his instincts brutally.
He pushed open the nearest door and stepped into a bedroom. Not one of your richly-ornamented-and-four-postered Queen-Anne-slept-here bedrooms but a lived-in or slept-in room, comfortably furnished in a pre-war style which came near to rampant avant-gardism in a place like Averingerett. Perhaps even the doors had been brought up to date, for through the one which stood directly opposite that which he had just closed (a draughty arrangement, surely) he distinctly heard voices. Someone was approaching.
Retreat was impossible. Whoever was behind him had probably just entered the gallery and would be very surprised to see him backing out of the bedroom. It was better to take his chances where he stood. No one could be going to spend much time in a bedroom early on a Saturday afternoon. The doors of a large wall-cupboard stood invitingly ajar to the left of the door opposite; it was with a rather comforting back-to-the-womb sense of security that he settled back among the hanging clothes (all male) and saw the outside world reduced to the merest edge of light where the doors met.
I like it in here, he thought. A man could settle down here. A life of meditation, untroubled by income-tax and Onions and lust and Lord Jim. Completely safe.
Unless whoever had just come into the room wanted a change of clothing.
His mind threw-up vivid pictures of the family and their guests, soaken at the horse-trials, returning early eager to get out of their wet togs.
Mulled wine in the mulled-winery in minutes five, Toby, old son!
Right-ho, dear boy. I’ll just pop up the Harry stair-ers to rid me of these damp rags.
Exit, humming Eton Boating Song.
Opens wardrobe door.
Who the hell are you?
I’ve come to read the meter.
No that wouldn’t do.
Laundry, sir. Just checking your dry-cleaning needs.
Hardly.
You rang, sir?
Better. But why the hell was he being so subservient? If he was going to try a lie, why not lie on the basis of equality?
Toby, my love! Surprise, surprise! Give us a kiss, one for me and one for m’tutor!
Then kick him in the balls and run?
Not the best of recommendations, this, to Cess and his gang. But who the hell wanted to be recommended to that lot anyway? On the contrary, discovery now might have advantages.
Not that it seemed likely to take place. Everything had gone very quiet. Joe sat in the dark, straining his ears. Not a thing. Perhaps it had been a flying visit, perhaps just a chambermaid turning down a silk coverlet or replenishing the warming-pan.
He counted up to two hundred, then slowly pushed the doors open.
And was immediately aware that his previous assessments of the situation had fallen short in two particulars.
Firstly, he had quite ignored the on
e activity which might well occupy two people in a bedroom for a long period on a wet Saturday afternoon.
Secondly, when sifting through his selection of excuses for his presence in the room, he had not considered the possibility that he might be known to the discoverer.
In short, the Honourable Julian Trevigore was preparing to have it away on the bed.
The girl involved looked familiar and for one awful moment Joe thought he had strayed into Iris Murdoch country and she was none other than the Hon. Helen Trevigore. But a second look convinced him the resemblance was generic rather than familiar.
Once more Joe found himself faced with a choice. Wait, with the risk of being discovered if Julian felt like a change of gear at the finish of his labours.
Or try to make off under cover of the heavy breathing.
For a moment his desire for escape warred desperately with his hatred of action. He glanced through the crack in the door again. The Hon. Julian, he assessed, wasn’t here for a quick plunge but intended to take a long, leisurely dip. Which meant good cover for an escape and a long wait if he held his ground.
That settled it. Choosing his moment carefully, he pushed the doors gently open and began to crawl across the room pausing only when he was in the lee of the bed and attending carefully to the activities above. Getting through the door was the most perilous task; he wanted a moment of maximum inattention.
It seemed to be approaching. The bed creaked in genteel protest, providing an antiphony to the gasps and groans of the hard-struggling pair.
Now! thought Joe. This is the moment.
It might well have been.
Only his progress was impeded by the sudden descent of two closely intertwined naked bodies over the edge of the bed.
‘Jesus!’ gasped Joe, his breath knocked out of him.
‘Ouch!’ exclaimed Julian, who seemed to have sustained an injury in the fall.
‘Aaahhh!’ shrieked the girl whose passion-flushed face had come to rest about three inches from Joe’s.
Despite his inferior position, Joe was first up with Julian close behind.
‘Who the hell are you?’ demanded Julian, as yet sounding more incredulous than angry.
A Fairly Dangerous Thing Page 10