A Twist in the Tale

by Jeffrey Archer

  “Whisky!” he bellowed as Adams appeared once again. “Barker?”

  “Not for me,” said Barker with a thin smile.

  “Ah,” said Hamilton. “Want to keep your taste buds at their most sensitive, eh?”

  Barker did not reply. Before we went in to lunch we learned that the estate was seven thousand acres in size and had some of the finest shooting outside of Scotland. The Hall had one hundred and twelve rooms, one or two of which Hamilton had not visited since he was a child. The roof itself, he assured us finally, was an acre and a half, a statistic that will long remain in my memory as it is the same size as my garden.

  The longcase clock in the corner of the room struck one. “Time for the contest to begin,” declared Hamilton, and marched out of the room like a general who assumes his troops will follow him without question. We did, all the way down thirty yards of corridor to the dining room. The four of us then took our places around a seventeenth-century oak table that could comfortably have seated twenty.

  Adorning the center of the table were two Georgian decanters and two unlabeled bottles. The first bottle was filled with a clear white wine, the first decanter with a red, the second bottle with a richer white and the second decanter with a tawny red substance. In front of the four wines were four white cards. By each lay a slim bundle of fifty-pound notes.

  Hamilton took his place in the large chair at the top of the table while Barker and I sat opposite each other in the center, facing the wine, leaving Henry to occupy the final place at the other end of the table.

  The butler stood one pace behind his master’s chair. He nodded and four footmen appeared, bearing the first course. A fish and prawn terrine was placed in front of each of us. Adams received a nod from his master before he picked up the first bottle and began to fill Barker’s glass. Barker waited for the butler to go round the table and fill the other three glasses before he began his ritual.

  First he swirled the wine round while at the same time studying it carefully. Then he sniffed it. He hesitated and a surprised look came over his face. He took a sip.

  “Um,” he said eventually. “I confess, quite a challenge.” He sniffed it again just to be sure. Then he looked up and gave a smile of satisfaction. Hamilton stared at him, his mouth slightly open, although he remained unusually silent.

  Barker took one more sip. “Montagny Tête de Cuvée 1985,” he declared with the confidence of an expert, “bottled by Louis Latour.” We all looked toward Hamilton, who was unable to hide a triumphant grin; but in contrast, the butler’s face went ashen-gray.

  “You’re right,” said Hamilton. “It was bottled by Latour. But that’s about as clever as telling us that Heinz bottles tomato sauce. But as my father died in 1984 I can assure you, sir, you are mistaken.” He looked round at his butler to confirm the statement. Adams’ face remained inscrutable. Barker turned over the card. It read: “Chevalier Montrachet Les Demorselles 1981.” He stared at the card, obviously unable to believe his eyes.

  “One down and three to go,” Hamilton declared, oblivious to Barker’s reaction. The footmen reappeared and took away the fish plates, to replace them a few moments later with lightly cooked grouse. While its accompaniments were being served Barker did not speak. He just stared at the other three wines, not even hearing his host inform Henry who his guests were to be for the first shoot of the season the following week. I remember that the names corresponded roughly with the ones Hamilton had suggested for his ideal Cabinet.

  Barker nibbled at the grouse as he waited for Adams to fill a glass from the first decanter. He had not finished his terrine after the opening failure, only taking the occasional sip of water.

  “As Adams and I spent a considerable part of our morning selecting the wines for this little challenge, let us hope you can do better this time,” said Hamilton, unable to hide his satisfaction. Barker once again began to swirl the wine round. He seemed to take longer this time, sniffing it several times before putting his glass to his lips and finally sipping from it.

  A smile of instant recognition appeared on his face and he did not hesitate. “Château la Louvière 1978.”

  “This time you have the correct year, sir, but you have insulted the wine.”

  Immediately Barker turned the card over and read it out incredulously: Château Lafite 1978. Even I knew that to be one of the finest clarets one might ever hope to taste. Barker lapsed into a deep silence and continued to nibble at his food. Hamilton appeared to be enjoying the wine almost as much as the half-time score. “One hundred pounds to me, nothing to the President of the Wine Society,” he reminded us. Embarrassed, Henry and I tried to keep the conversation going until the third course had been served—a lemon and lime soufflé which could not compare in presentation or subtlety with one of Suzanne’s offerings.

  “Shall we move on to my third challenge?” asked Hamilton crisply.

  Once again, Adams picked up a bottle and began to pour the wine. I was surprised to see that he spilled a little as he filled Barker’s glass.

  “Clumsy oaf,” barked Hamilton.

  “I do apologize, sir,” said Adams. He removed the spilled drop from the wooden table with a napkin. As he did so he stared at Barker with a desperate look that I felt sure had nothing to do with the spilling of the wine. However, he remained mute as he continued to circle the table.

  Once again Barker went through his ritual, the swirling, the sniffing and finally the tasting. This time he took even longer. Hamilton became impatient and drummed the great Jacobean table with his podgy fingers.

  “It’s a Sauternes,” began Barker.

  “Any halfwit could tell you that,” said Hamilton. “I want to know the year and the vintage.”

  His guest hesitated.

  “Château Guiraud 1976,” he said flatly.

  “At least you are consistent,” said Hamilton. “You’re always wrong.”

  Barker flicked over the card.

  “Château d’Yquem 1980,” he said in disbelief. It was a vintage that I had only seen at the bottom of wine lists in expensive restaurants and had never had the privilege of tasting. It puzzled me greatly that Barker could have been wrong about the Mona Lisa of wines.

  Barker quickly turned toward Hamilton to protest and must have seen Adams standing behind his master, all six foot three of the man trembling, at exactly the same time I did. I wanted Hamilton to leave the room so I could ask Adams what was making him so fearful, but the owner of Sefton Hall was now in full cry.

  Meanwhile Barker gazed at the butler for a moment more and, sensing his discomfort, lowered his eyes and contributed nothing else to the conversation until the port was poured some twenty minutes later.

  “Your last chance to avoid complete humiliation,” said Hamilton.

  A cheese board, displaying several varieties, was brought round and each guest selected his choice—I stuck to a Cheddar that I could have told Hamilton had not been produced in Somerset. Meanwhile the port was poured by the butler, who was now as white as a sheet. I began to wonder if he was going to faint, but somehow he managed to fill all four glasses before returning to stand a pace behind his master’s chair. Hamilton noticed nothing untoward.

  Barker drank the port, not bothering with any of his previous preliminaries.

  “Taylor’s,” he began.

  “Agreed,” said Hamilton. “But as there are only three decent suppliers of port in the world, the year can be all that matters—as you, in your exalted position, must be well aware, Mr. Barker.”

  Freddie nodded his agreement. “Nineteen seventy-five,” he said firmly, then quickly flicked the card over.

  “Taylor’s, 1927,” I read upside-down.

  Once again Barker turned sharply toward his host, who was rocking with laughter. The butler stared back at his master’s guest with haunted eyes. Barker hesitated only for a moment before removing a checkbook from his inside pocket. He filled in the name “Sefton Hamilton” and the figure of £200. He signed it and wordles
sly passed the check along the table to his host.

  “That was only half the bargain,” said Hamilton, enjoying every moment of his triumph.

  Barker rose, paused and said, “I am a humbug.”

  “You are indeed, sir,” said Hamilton.

  After spending three of the most unpleasant hours of my life, I managed to escape with Henry and Freddie Barker a little after four o’clock. As Henry drove away from Sefton Hall neither of us uttered a word. Perhaps we both felt that Barker should be allowed the first comment.

  “I fear, gentlemen,” he said eventually, “I shall not be good company for the next few hours, and so I will, with your permission, take a brisk walk and join you both for dinner at the Hamilton Arms around seven thirty. I have booked a table for eight o’clock.” Without another word, Barker signaled that Henry should bring the car to a halt and we watched as he climbed out and headed off down a country lane. Henry did not drive on until his friend was well out of sight.

  My sympathies were entirely with Barker, although I remained puzzled by the whole affair. How could the President of the Wine Society make such basic mistakes? After all, I could read one page of Dickens and know it wasn’t Graham Greene.

  Like Dr. Watson, I felt I required a fuller explanation.

  * * *

  Barker found us sitting round the fire in the private bar at the Hamilton Arms a little after seven thirty that night. Following his exercise, he appeared in far better spirits. He chatted about nothing consequential and didn’t once mention what had taken place at lunchtime.

  It must have been a few minutes later, when I turned to check the old clock above the door, that I saw Hamilton’s butler seated at the bar in earnest conversation with the innkeeper. I would have thought nothing of it had I not noticed the same terrified look that I had witnessed earlier in the afternoon as he pointed in our direction. The innkeeper appeared equally anxious, as if he had been found guilty of serving half-measures by the customs and excise officer.

  He picked up some menus and walked over to our table.

  “We’ve no need for those,” said Barker. “Your reputation goes before you. We are in your hands. Whatever you suggest we will happily consume.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said and passed our host the wine list.

  Barker studied the contents inside the leather-bound covers for some time before a large smile appeared on his face. “I think you had better select the wines as well,” he said, “as I have a feeling you know the sort of thing I would expect.”

  “Of course, sir,” said the innkeeper as Freddie passed back the wine list leaving me totally mystified, remembering that this was Barker’s first visit to the inn.

  The innkeeper left for the kitchens while we chatted away and he didn’t reappear for some fifteen minutes.

  “Your table is ready, gentlemen,” he said, and we followed him into an adjoining dining room. There were only a dozen tables but as ours was the last to be filled there was no doubting the inn’s popularity.

  The innkeeper had selected a light supper of consommé, followed by thin slices of duck, almost as if he had known that we would be unable to handle another heavy meal after our lunch at the Hall.

  I was also surprised to find that all the wines he had chosen were served in decanters and I assumed that the innkeeper must therefore have selected the house wines. As each was poured and consumed I admit that, to my untutored palate, they seemed far superior to those which I had drunk at Sefton Hall earlier that day. Barker certainly seemed to linger over every mouthful and on one occasion said appreciatively, “This is the real McCoy.”

  At the end of the evening when our table had been cleared we sat back and enjoyed a magnificent port and smoked cigars.

  It was at this point that Henry mentioned Hamilton for the first time.

  “Are you going to let us into the mystery of what really happened at lunch today?” he asked.

  “I’m still not altogether sure myself,” came back Barker’s reply, “but I am certain of one thing: Mr. Hamilton’s father was a man who knew his wines, while his son doesn’t.”

  I would have pressed Barker further on the subject if the innkeeper had not arrived by his side at that moment.

  “An excellent meal,” Barker declared. “And as for the wine—quite exceptional.”

  “You are kind, sir,” said the innkeeper, as he handed him the bill.

  My curiosity got the better of me, I’m sorry to admit, and I glanced at the bottom of the slim strip of paper. I couldn’t believe my eyes—the bill came to two hundred pounds.

  To my surprise, Barker only commented, “Very reasonable, considering.” He wrote out a check and passed it over to the innkeeper. “I have only tasted Château d’Yquem 1980 once before today,” he added, “and Taylor’s 1927 never.”

  The innkeeper smiled. “I hope you enjoyed them both, sir. I feel sure you wouldn’t have wanted to see them wasted on a humbug.”

  Barker nodded his agreement.

  I watched the innkeeper leave the dining room and return to his place behind the bar.

  He passed the check over to Adams the butler, who studied it for a moment, smiled and then tore it into little pieces.

  A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS

  WE FIRST MET Patrick Travers on our annual winter holiday to Verbier. We were waiting at the ski lift that first Saturday morning when a man who must have been in his early forties stood aside to allow Caroline to take his place, so that we could travel up together. He explained that he had already completed two runs that morning and didn’t mind waiting. I thanked him and thought nothing more of it.

  As soon as we reach the top my wife and I always go our separate ways, she to the A-slope to join Marcel, who only instructs advanced skiers—she has been skiing since the age of seven—I to the B-slope and any instructor who is available—I took up skiing at the age of forty-one—and frankly the B-slope was still too advanced for me though I didn’t dare admit as much, especially to Caroline. We always met up again at the ski lift after completing our different runs.

  That evening we bumped into Travers at the hotel bar. Since he seemed to be on his own we invited him to join us for dinner. He proved to be an amusing companion and we passed a pleasant enough evening together. He flirted politely with my wife without ever overstepping the mark and she appeared to be flattered by his attentions. Over the years I have become used to men being attracted to Caroline and I never need reminding how lucky I am. During dinner we learned that Travers was a merchant banker with an office in the City and a flat in Eaton Square. He had come to Verbier every year since he had been taken on a school trip in the late Fifties, he told us. He still prided himself on being the first on the ski lift every morning, almost always beating the local blades up and down.

  Travers appeared to be genuinely interested in the fact that I ran a small West End art gallery; as it turned out, he was something of a collector himself, specializing in minor Impressionists. He promised he would drop by and see my next exhibition when he was back in London.

  I assured him that he would be most welcome but never gave it a second thought. In fact I only saw Travers a couple of times over the rest of the holiday, once talking to the wife of a friend of mine who owned a gallery that specialized in oriental rugs, and later I noticed him following Caroline expertly down the treacherous A-slope.

  * * *

  It was six weeks later, and some minutes before I could place him that night at my gallery. I had to rack that part of one’s memory which recalls names, a skill politicians rely on every day.

  “Good to see you, Edward,” he said. “I saw the write-up you got in the Independent and remembered your kind invitation to the private view.”

  “Glad you could make it, Patrick,” I replied, remembering just in time.

  “I’m not a champagne man myself,” he told me, “but I’ll travel a long way to see a Vuillard.”

  “You think highly of him?”

  “Oh yes. I would
compare him favorably with Pissarro and Bonnard, and I believe he still remains one of the most underrated of the Impressionists.”

  “I agree,” I replied. “But my gallery has felt that way about Vuillard for some considerable time.”

  “How much is ‘The Lady at the Window?’” he asked.

  “Eighty thousand pounds,” I said quietly.

  “It reminds me of a picture of his in the Metropolitan,” he said, as he studied the reproduction in the catalogue.

  I was impressed, and told Travers that the Vuillard in New York had been painted within a month of the one he so admired.

  He nodded. “And the small nude?”

  “Forty-seven thousand,” I told him.

  “Mrs. Hensell, the wife of his dealer and Vuillard’s second mistress, if I’m not mistaken. The French are always so much more civilized about these things than we are. But my favorite painting in this exhibition,” he continued, “compares surely with the finest of his work.” He turned to face the large oil of a young girl playing a piano, her mother bending to turn a page of the score.

  “Magnificent,” he said. “Dare I ask how much?”

  “Three hundred and seventy thousand pounds,” I said, wondering if such a price tag put it out of Travers’ bracket.

  “What a super party, Edward,” said a voice from behind my shoulder.

  “Percy!” I cried, turning around. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be able to make it.”

  “Yes I did, old fellow, but I decided I couldn’t sit at home alone all the time, so I’ve come to drown my sorrows in champagne.”

  “Quite right, too,” I said. “Sorry to hear about Diana,” I added as Percy moved on. When I turned back to continue my conversation with Patrick Travers he was nowhere to be seen. I searched around the room and spotted him standing in the far corner of the gallery chatting to my wife, a glass of champagne in his hand. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder green dress that I considered a little too modern. Travers’ eyes seemed to be glued to a spot a few inches below the shoulders. I would have thought nothing of it had he spoken to anyone else that evening.