Dame Beatrice had seen modern replicas of such spoons, much less intricately fashioned, which were sold to tourists, but those on Honfleur’s wall were museum pieces, delightful things which must have occupied hours of patient and loving work.
She showed so much interest in them that Honfleur took each one down so that she could examine it more minutely. Conradda became restless and went apart to talk to Vittorio, who also showed no interest in the spoons.
‘1856,’ he said. ‘Well, around that time. Of nothing but local interest, I think. What of your friend’s two chargers? I see she has placed them on the table. Are they for sale, do you know?’
‘I could not say. You might make an offer, I suppose.’
Vittorio approached the other two with the intention of doing this. Honfleur turned round to him and said,
‘Put Dame Beatrice’s chargers on the dresser, so that they show to the best advantage.’
Vittorio moved two of the pieces and then, with an eye to colour and size, placed the delftware in what seemed to him a pleasing position on the shelves. Conradda expressed her approval.
‘Very nice,’ she said.
‘Is that where you would have placed them?’ asked Vittorio, surveying his arrangement by standing further back with his head on one side. ‘I think I like them like that. Now we get to business, perhaps, if Dame Beatrice is willing to part with the chargers.’
‘She has already agreed to part with them,’ said Honfleur.
‘But there has been no talk!’ said Conradda, scandalised.
‘Plenty of talk,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Mr Honfleur is going to take the platters in exchange for the love-spoons.’
‘Well!’ exclaimed the experts with, as it seemed, one voice. Dame Beatrice cackled and Honfleur laughed.
‘Oh, well,’ said Conradda philosophically, ‘it was a very nice dinner. A lot to drink, too.’ With this naive observation she went upstairs.
‘And,’ said Vittorio, ‘I did not collect those wooden spoons for him, so it is not the spoons I regret, but only the loss of a little business and a little fun. What does it mean, in English sport, to be given the wooden spoon?’
‘This, as it happens, was Welsh sport,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘These particular spoons are love-spoons.’
‘Love? Ah, we understand it well, we Italians. I kiss my hand to these spoons.’ He did so.
‘To be handed the wooden spoon is an English metaphor signifying that one or one’s team has come last in a sporting contest,’ explained Honfleur.
‘Like this cricket, which I do not pretend to follow?’
‘What with bouncers, body-line and one-day, limited-over games, they’ve ruined cricket,’ stated Honfleur. ‘At one time it was a gentleman’s pastime, but nowadays you injure the batsman or frighten him to death. Soon there won’t be stroke-play any more. It will be a case of the long handle and he who ducks quickest lasts longest. Look at this knock-out tournament of sixty overs an innings! Disgraceful! A travesty of a once glorious and classic game.’
‘If you are right, knock-out appears to be an appropriate word,’ said Dame Beatrice. Vittorio shook his head.
‘I do not understand this cricket,’ he said. Dame Beatrice, summing him up, decided that he understood it in neither the literal nor the figurative sense. Honfleur began tedious explanation of what he called ‘the finer points of the game’ and this was interrupted by the reappearance of Conradda from upstairs.
‘Well, it is getting late,’ said Dame Beatrice, glancing at her writwatch, ‘and I have a forty-mile drive.’
‘I came by train,’ said Conradda, ‘but I have booked in at a hotel for the night.’
‘Which one? Perhaps I could drive you there,’ said Vittorio. ‘I have my car here.’
‘The Parkway, a private hotel in Parks Road.’
‘Then you permit me?’ said Vittorio. ‘I have to go along Parks Road to reach my lodging.’
Honfleur bade his guests goodnight, Dame Beatrice, who had given her chauffeur a rough estimate of the time she would be leaving, got into her own car and was taken back to the Stone House just outside the Hampshire village of Wandles Parva and Conradda and Vittorio went off together. They seemed to have formed an alliance.
On the following morning Dame Beatrice received a telephone call while she was finishing her breakfast.
‘It’s from Conradda Mendel,’ said Laura, who had risen from the table to take the call. ‘She sounds urgent and agitato.’
‘That man Vittorio,’ said Conradda, when Dame Beatrice went to the telephone, ‘was asking me last night whether you are interested in Chinese art. I am cautious, as you know, so I asked him what kind of Chinese art. He says mostly ceramics, although there are carpets and some jade. I stalled, of course, until I found out what he had in his mind. So he asked me if I would like to see what he has. He thought Mr Honfleur might like it, but Mr Honfleur does not like the price. This Italian says he thinks you might be a better bet. Well, I go with him to his digs and he pours me a drink and I say I cannot stay long because my hotel closes at midnight and I do not want to knock people up, so while we are having this drink he says he will show me one or two things which may be of interest and if I get you to buy he will let me have something on the cheap, a really nice price, for my shop.’
‘Is that sort of offer usual?’
‘Not unusual, if a favour is being done. Well, I made no promises, of course, but I said I would like to see what he had to show me, but not carpets. He showed me the collection of jade first. Jade is nice, but there was nothing of any great interest and I did not betray any enthusiasm. I think this made him a little bit desperate. He said, “Well, I have some nice pots.”
Conradda paused as though to allow Dame Beatrice to comment, but all she heard from the other end was:
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Do you think anybody can tap this line?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes, quite alone. The servants are in the kitchen and Laura is in the dining-room finishing her breakfast.’
‘Good. I shall speak quietly, like this. Are you able to hear?’
‘Perfectly. You are making my flesh creep.’
‘So mine when I saw what was shown me. You know that I have made a special study of ceramics?’
‘I noticed that you were careful not to say so when we were at Basil Honfleur’s house.’
‘It does not do to say too much. Dame Beatrice, I was shown such articles as nobody unknown to the trade could have come by honestly. There was T’ang, there was Famille Rose of Ch’ien Lung period, there was enamelled porcelain of Chia Ching period, Famille Verte of K’ang Hsi period, painted stoneware of Sung dynasty. I have seen nothing like it outside a museum or perhaps the very best of private collections. It is fabulous.’
‘Why could it not have been come by honestly?’
‘Because I have seen descriptions very like some of these pieces before. You know where? In the lists the police issue to people in my line of business. Of course I shall not split on him because I do not want to cause trouble. Also I have not time to spare in police courts.’
‘But, my dear Miss Mendel, if you are sure these things are stolen, you might be in trouble yourself if you do not report your findings.’
‘I shall say nothing. I do not wish to get my throat cut. That Vittorio is an assassin. All I say to you is this: however nice a price he asks you, do not buy.’
CHAPTER 2
The Missing Coach-Drivers
« ^ »
Almost a year went by before Dame Beatrice saw Basil Honfleur again, and when she did the meeting was neither of his seeking nor of hers, although both consented to its taking place.
As for the Jewish antique-dealer, she had telephoned again just after Christmas to say that she had sold both her shops and was going to America.
‘I suppose when she knew she’d been shown some pretty hot goods,’ said Laura, ‘she was in a bi
t of a flap, especially as she didn’t intend to go to the police.
‘You don’t think she bought the stuff from Vittorio at a reasonable figure and took it to America with her?’
‘Your imagination, as usual, is running away with you. If she recognised some of the pieces, possibly others would be able to do so. I hardly think it would be worth the risk. The receivers of stolen goods, knowing them to have been stolen, face heavy penalties if they are found out, you know, and Miss Mendel is not a foolish or a reckless woman.’
‘Would it be easy to take the contents of high-class antique shops out of the country?’
‘I do not think she has attempted to do that. I gather that she sold all her business interests over here before she left, and that, I imagine, would include the stock. But to matters of greater moment: what did you make of the letter from the chairman of County Motors which came by this morning’s post?’
‘A cry from the heart. Honfleur’s bosses, aren’t they? Are you dipping into the affair? They certainly want your help.’
‘I had better go and see them and find out more about the matter. It sounds interesting.’
‘Do I accompany you?’
‘No, George will take me. When the interview is over I shall come straight back here unless there is any good reason for my remaining, but I really cannot imagine what the motor-coach company thinks I can do in an affair of this sort. It is a case for the police.’
As a result of a telephone call to the chairman, who had written from his private address, Dame Beatrice found herself once again confronting Basil Honfleur, this time in his office from which he worked out the schedules and appointed the drivers for his branch of County Motors. It was what might be called the mother house of the coach company and his job was a good one. He had to report at board meetings, but otherwise he was his own master and enjoyed almost unlimited freedom, except from responsibility.
He greeted Dame Beatrice cordially and said that he was glad to see her.
‘It’s these missing drivers of ours,’ he went on, when they were seated. ‘A most mysterious business. We can’t think what can have happened to them.’
‘No, indeed,’ Dame Beatrice agreed. ‘All the same, if I may invoke the formidable shade of Lady Bracknell and reiterate her concise opinion on such matters, to lose one driver may be a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. I suppose your directors have informed the police?’
‘Yes, of course, but you know what the police are! Report a missing child and they’ll turn on the whole works – dog-handlers, walkie-talkies, make life hell for every male in the neighbourhood, drag every river, canal, gravel-pit and dirty pond in the area and set a whole squad of flatties to search woods and beat bushes. Report a missing man, particularly if he’s married and the father of a family, and what do they do? Look at you as though you need to have your head examined and ask whether you know how many men go missing from their homes every year and are never traced.’
‘A fair enough question, of course. There comes a time in most men’s lives when they sicken of the trivial round, the common task, and yearn to explore fresh woods and pastures new.’
‘The police seem to think these men don’t want to be found.’
‘The police may well be right. They so often are right in matters which fall within their vast experience.’
‘You mean you’re not interested? The directors did hope you might be. They say they could believe that one of our steady, respectable fellows had felt the urge to cut loose and go missing, but that I must surely admit that for two of them to go off within the space of four weeks, and apparently vanish without trace, does take a bit of swallowing. They say even the police admit that and so, I suppose, do I.’
‘Oh, I admit it, too, but there is an aspect of the matter which no doubt the police have touched on.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, it seems to me that your drivers are in almost a unique position, even more so than sailors or commercial travellers. There they are, under no official supervision once the tour leaves the depot. They have a suitcase already packed, money in their pockets and anything from five days to a fortnight, I suppose, in which to put their plans into operation.’
‘I think that’s an exaggerated view of the amount of freedom they have. Hotel managers, for example, would soon be on the blower to us if a coach failed to arrive on the appointed day.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. To turn to another aspect, I suppose your men are happy in their work?’
‘Happy? I don’t see why they shouldn’t be. We’re a subsidiary of the bus company, you know, and we recruit our men from among their drivers. It’s a promotion for those whom we employ. The pay is better and the conditions are excellent. Then, of course, there are the perks.’
‘The perks?’
‘The drivers put up at the same hotels as the passengers and get the same food. At the end of each tour most of the passengers put something into the hat and when you consider that we run the tours from the end of April to the middle of October, these tips can amount to something pretty substantial. It’s not a job that chaps would chuck up without a jolly good reason, I can tell you.’
‘I see. No wonder the defection of two of these fortunate men has upset and perplexed the directors. I should be interested to hear more. Begin at the beginning, if you will. I am intrigued by what you tell me. How does it all start? What happens after the middle of October, I mean?’
‘In November we issue a leaflet setting out what we expect to do during the following year. About mid-December we follow this up with a glossy, colourful brochure with photographs, little route-maps, full details of all tours, prices, insurance cover, hotels, luncheon stops, special attractions and so on. These brochures can be picked up at any of our booking offices and we also send one to every passenger who has ever travelled with us over the last five years or so.’
‘Really? You have a regular clientèle, then?’
‘Oh, rather! People travel with us year after year. Some of them book again – provisionally, of course – almost as soon as they get back. There’s terrific competition for the front seats, as you’d expect. Of course, we have a great deal to offer. If they did the tours privately, using the same lunch-stops and hotels as we do, it could cost them twice as much as they pay us. On our very popular nine-day tours, for example, which go out on the Saturday morning and return in the evening of the Sunday week, we reckon to put the coach up at two four-star hotels and the other hotels are usually three-star or, out in the wilds, the very best we can get.’
‘So you receive no complaints from your passengers.’
Basil Honfleur laughed.
‘Of course we get complaints, and we investigate every one. After all, our whole concern rests upon good-will and satisfaction. Sometimes the same complaint comes from several sources. In that case, as often as not, we remove that particular hotel from our list. Usually we find, though, that solitary individual complaints are not justified. There are people who make a hobby of complaining. Most of them write to the newspapers or the BBC, some write to their MP and some write to us. They don’t seem happy unless they’re nursing some fancied grievance. However, they are the exceptions so far as our passengers are concerned and as they usually travel with us only the once, we’re not too terribly concerned with them. Of course, as I said, we do investigate every complaint we receive, just in case there’s something in it, but there very seldom is.’
‘And what kind of people travel with you more than once?’
‘Our passengers are mostly middle-aged and elderly, and there’s a preponderance of women – lonely spinsters, you know, or a couple of widows travelling together for company. We get more married couples than we used to, though. It means that Dad can have a chance to admire the scenery and take his ease on holiday, instead of being tied to the driver’s seat of the family car and having to keep his eyes on the road.’
‘Yes, I can appreciate that.’
; ‘At one time the people who booked with us liked travelling but had no car. That is far from being the case today. Years ago, too, the kind who took coach tours had never previously been inside a hotel. That certainly is not true today. You hear them discussing holidays in Greece and Yugoslavia, not to mention Italy and the Costa Brava. They’re not poor, our present-day clients. You should see what they buy in the way of souvenirs and presents. How the devil they get all the stuff home I sometimes wonder. You find, too, that a number of them have already had a holiday on the Continent that very same summer. They tell us they like to take one of our tours ‘to unwind’. Times have changed with a vengeance! Instead of saving up for a rainy day they reckon the Welfare State will provide the umbrella for that, so the slogan is: You can’t take it with you. And, of course, their children are in good jobs, so they don’t need any future provision made for them. Add the bogeyman Inflation, and you can’t blame them for their attitude. I wonder, though, how much longer it can last.’
‘However, while it does last, your company is not ungrateful.’
‘Well, hang it all, our passengers get their money’s worth, and they know it. Of course, they’d do things a lot cheaper in a caravan or at a holiday camp, but they prefer to travel in our coaches. After all, it’s a grand way to see the country, even if you can’t choose your stopping-places. Then, something which appeals very much to the women, all the meals are laid on and there’s no washing up to do.’
‘The meals? Ah, yes, a most important part of any holiday.’
‘Also, there are no problems for them with regard to their luggage. Once it’s on the coach we handle it for them everywhere they stay. Apart from putting it outside their bedroom doors so that we can collect it while they’re at breakfast each morning, they don’t have to tote it about at all, and that’s a big concession to elderly people.’
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