Sheiks and Adders

by Michael Innes

  ‘Good Lord! You lot do seem to be keeping tabs on us. We’re a shady crowd, you see.’ Mark had offered this last remark to McIlwraith, who had appeared to be a good deal startled to learn that top policemen were so thick on the ground. ‘And I’ve warned my father often enough. It must all catch up with him one day.’

  ‘I’m here simply because your sister Cherry invited me.’ Appleby had thought poorly of Mark’s last joke. ‘And I’ve been looking out for her.’

  ‘I’m looking out for her myself, as a matter of fact. I’m afraid she’s up to some mischief. Along with that juvenile admirer of hers.’

  ‘The young man called Tibby?’

  ‘That’s right – Tibby Fancroft. Has Cherry been chattering about him?’

  ‘His name cropped up during our short conversation yesterday.’

  ‘Cherry imagines our parents have a down on Tibby – simply because he isn’t an infant stockbroker. It’s quite untrue. My father’s rather soft on Tibby, really. He probably thinks the child is just about right for his younger daughter, and that Tibby could be fixed up in some harmless niche easily enough. I forget whether you’ve met our Tibby, Prof?’

  ‘I have not had that pleasure, so far.’ McIlwraith seemed unoffended by this facetiously familiar mode of address.

  ‘Tibby’s also lying low at the moment. My father won’t be at all pleased if they fly in the face of parental command.’

  ‘In the matter of the rescued or ravished maiden?’ Appleby asked.

  ‘Just that. Cherry seems to have been uncommonly communicative.’

  ‘It was much on her mind. Does your father go in for taking a stern line with his children, Mr Chitfield?’

  ‘Not in the least. He didn’t even disapprove of phonemic analysis – about which the Prof has no doubt told you. It’s just that about this particular thing he appears to have a bee in his bonnet. It puzzles me, as a matter of fact. And now I think I’ll take a look at the archery. It was a fashionable sport with the gentry until superseded by lawn tennis about a hundred years ago.’

  ‘It is a curious fact,’ Professor McIlwraith said, ‘that lawn tennis was originally introduced into these islands under the name of “sphairistike”. As you will recall, Sir John, sphairisticos was the classical Greek term for any sort of ball-game. Its adoption affords a striking instance of the continued vitality of that ancient tongue as an instrument of education in the latter part of the nineteenth century.’

  ‘“Striking” is just the word,’ Mark said, ‘although “pit-pat” might have been more accurate. As for archery, the gentlemen liked it, since it constrained the ladies to exhibit what was called their figures – and before the invention of the brassière, I imagine. But it was a long time before even lawn tennis permitted them to exhibit their legs.’

  ‘It is a remarkable circumstance,’ McIlwraith said, ‘that, in French, brassières were originally leading-strings for infants.’

  ‘I must look round for my friends the Birch-Blackies,’ Appleby said disingenuously.

  ‘I’ll come a bit of the way with you,’ Mark said promptly. ‘We’ll see you later, Prof.’ And with this he led Appleby away without ceremony. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he then went on, ‘I’m going to slip into the house and get rid of these togs. The joke’s rather boring.’

  ‘Well, yes – enough is enough.’

  ‘And that’s true of the Prof as well, wouldn’t you say? In your time, I believe, one talked about a sleeping dictionary as a nice means of picking up a foreign language. The Prof might be called a peripatetic one, it seems to me. And nobody would want to go to bed with him.’

  ‘Demonstrably not.’

  ‘You ought to have a go at the archery yourself. You and the Chief Constable can compete at hitting the gold. I believe that’s the expression.’

  ‘I believe it is.’

  It was with no great reluctance that Appleby parted from young Mark Chitfield a couple of minutes later. He was a clever young man, and his determined flippancy was not to be accounted seriously against him. But for the time being, Appleby felt, enough was enough, not only of the eminent retired lexicographer but of his late abortive pupil as well.

  5

  Appleby made his own way to the archery field a little later, having discovered that nothing was going to happen in the theatre for some time. It was during this walk that he saw his first sheik. Sheiks were in those days very thick on the ground – or were so if the word be taken to mean any adequately prosperous person self-evidently from the Middle East. Appleby saw a score of such visitors whenever he went to London, which it was apparent they thought of as an emporium rather than a city of historic interest. Being thus commanded by a laudable and single-minded impulse to spend money, they didn’t often stray beyond the capital. But here was at least a fancy-dress sheik attending the fête at Drool Court.

  Appleby, rather oddly, had got all this way in his thinking before Tibby Fancroft returned to his head. When this did happen he concluded that the figure he had just glimpsed in a crowd must be Tibby, defiantly attired in his forbidden costume. Then he realized that this was not necessarily so. Because of the very abundance of authentic sheiks on the metropolitan scene – not to speak of television – it was likely that dressing up in such a character might come into anybody’s head. This mightn’t be Tibby at all. Tibby might be quite elsewhere in the crush, blamelessly attired as a mediaeval knight. And there was yet a further possibility. The man mightn’t be pretending to be a real sheik. He might be pretending to be Lawrence of Arabia pretending to be a real sheik. And here a kind of infinite regress became theoretically possible. Appleby had glimpsed a real sheik who, for some deep purpose of his own, was pretending to be Lawrence of Arabia pretending to be a real sheik. Come to think of it, an aristocratic Arab of a satirical turn of mind might hit upon this little joke readily enough.

  And now Appleby saw his second sheik. The first had been a specimen of the portly kind, vaguely suggesting a sack of flour mysteriously endowed with a power of waddling locomotion. This one was of the tall, spare and stately sort, whose progress was as smooth as that of some proud galleon moving over a calm sea. He was featured like a hawk, a fact scarcely obscured by the large dark glasses through which he surveyed the vulgar herd around him. Could this be Tibby? If it was, then Tibby was wasting his time and talent upon any theatricals of a merely amateur order. There were possibly half-a-dozen men, not more, on the London stage who could put on this commanding turn.

  The second sheik, like the first, disappeared in the crowd, and Appleby found himself looking around for a third. He had a brief vision of an embarras of sheikdom fortuitously irruptive upon Mr Chitfield’s party; even of rival business men from the neighbourhood of Lombard Street or Cheapside, thus disguised and indignantly confronting one another, like two ladies who have chanced to buy the same clever little frock from the same clever little woman in Hampstead.

  But for the moment nothing disconcerting of this order happened, and Appleby was able to take a look at the archery. Some of those taking part in it were congruously dressed, so that they might have been limbering up for an engagement at Senlac Hill or Agincourt. Others were less in any such established picture, since they were drawing their bows with difficulty while habited as Teddy bears, golliwogs, Daleks, witches and deep-sea divers. Nevertheless the contests were being more or less expertly conducted, and it was to be conjectured that some local archery club had consented to turn up to lend colour to the occasion. Gentlemen were instructing ladies in the command of this former glory of England’s yeomen at arms. Some of them were doing so in the spirit touched upon by Mark Chitfield when reflecting on the charms of the female form. There is a certain hazard to life in archery when conducted in too light-hearted and casual a fashion, since a long-bow is quite as lethal a weapon as a revolver. But the present exercises appeared to be prudently regulated in tha
t regard. Appleby watched the proceedings until he remembered that he was carrying a bow himself – whereupon he was prompted to withdraw. A bow without a bow-string is a useless affair. He felt that he would in a sense be letting down the side if suddenly summoned by an officious marshal to the mark.

  Walking back towards the house, he wondered about its owner. Where was Mr Richard Chitfield? Where, for that matter, was Mrs Chitfield, née Parker-Perkins? Having thrown open their grounds and clearly put up a good deal of money in the interest of this charitable effort, they might have been expected to be moving around in a modestly welcoming way that would distinguish them from their guests. But Appleby could see nobody exhibiting that kind of comportment, whether in everyday clothing or in fancy dress. Then he remembered that Mr Chitfield’s leisure, when not given over to fly-fishing, was devoted to private theatricals. The forthcoming pageant in the open-air theatre was probably his particular concern, and he might well be there now, supervising the final arrangements. Having some curiosity about Cherry’s heavy father, Appleby moved in that direction again.

  The lawns in front of the mansion were crowded – so crowded that any individual was liable to vanish from view seconds after one sighted him. Prudent persons were already entering a large marquee in the hope, if not of champagne, at least of strawberries and cream. There was a prematurely expectant crowd round the hot-air balloon: at present a floppy pear-shaped affair in a variety of brilliant colours, the preliminary inflating of which was being supervised by a man attired – uncomfortably and surely needlessly – as if his destination was going to be the moon. His actual project, whatever it was, appeared to be mixed up with an obscure competition involving the setting adrift of less ambitious gas-filled balloons of the children’s party sort. The military band, perched at the end of a terrace, laboured valiantly at its instruments without much hope of arresting either an ear or an eye.

  At a short distance beyond the large marquee there were two smaller ones, and these at present were unfrequented. Or so Appleby thought until, as he was about to pass them by, a figure emerged from between them. It was the figure of a man. Indeed, it was Appleby’s third sheik.

  This sheik, unlike the earlier sheiks, didn’t at once disappear again from view. In fact he approached Appleby in a wholly affable manner, and then paused to address him with confidence.

  ‘If it’s the bar you’re looking for,’ he said, ‘these are n-b-g, old boy.’ He paused as if to assure himself that his hearer was one to whom this demotic expression was intelligible. ‘They’re only the damned toilets.’

  ‘The bar should no doubt be one’s earlier port of call.’ Appleby saw that this sheik also wore dark glasses, but wasn’t otherwise made up so as to pass for any sort of authentic Arab. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen it myself.’

  ‘It mayn’t be open yet, come to think of it,’ the third sheik said unhappily. ‘They probably have to keep pub hours.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Appleby was glad to have an encouraging consideration to advance to this wanderer in a thirsty desert. ‘I believe one gets a special sort of licence for an affair like this, and can keep open all the time.’

  ‘Well, I’ll just take a walk round and see,’ the third sheik said, brightening a little. ‘The name is Pring,’ he added, as if recalling a necessary courtesy.

  ‘How do you do, Mr Pring? My name is Appleby. I hope you won’t feel awkward when you do find the bar. Arabs, you know, are not supposed to drink alcohol.’

  ‘That’s right!’ Mr Pring seemed both impressed and depressed by this consideration. ‘Something to do with their religion, it must be. And I wouldn’t like not to show respect, Mr Appleby.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that.’ Appleby was favourably struck by this honourable if confused feeling on Mr Pring’s part. ‘By the way, have you noticed that several other people have come in Arab costume?’

  ‘Is that so? I haven’t seen them. And it’s not what you might call very original, is it? I’d have thought of something better, I think I may say, if it hadn’t been for Mr Chitfield.’

  ‘You discussed the matter with Mr Chitfield?’ Although not hitherto really very interested in the parched Mr Pring, Appleby was suddenly alert.

  ‘Chitfield asked me to come and support his fête. And, business associations being as they are, Mr Appleby, it seemed to me I oughtn’t to refuse. Chitfield and me, that’s to say, having been partners in this and that.’ Mr Pring paused, and perhaps felt that this suggested an implausible degree of commercial elevation. ‘Not, mark you, that I put myself in Richard Chitfield’s bracket – not by a long way. Chitfield is one of the biggest men we have. But I’m substantial, Mr Appleby, I can fairly say. It’s twelve years now since Mrs Pring and I had our first executive-type home, and we haven’t stood still since then by no means.’

  ‘I am delighted to hear it. Is Mrs Pring with you today – as an Arab lady, perhaps?’

  ‘Mrs Pring, sir, is here as Joan of Arc. It was entirely her own idea, that was, and I’m bound to say she looks uncommonly well.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, and I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting her. So you consulted Mr Chitfield and asked him whether he thought it would be a good idea if you turned up as a sheik or emir or person of that sort?’

  ‘Well, no, Mr Appleby. That wasn’t the way of it at all. Chitfield brought the idea forward, and was really quite pressing about it.’

  ‘I see. Do you happen to know whether he made similar specific suggestions to any other of his – um – colleagues and associates?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure.’ Mr Pring was a little surprised by this question. ‘He’s often very fertile with his suggestions, Chitfield is. But in the business way, I mean. Throws out this and that, like he was Napoleon giving tips to his generals.’

  ‘He sounds most impressive. A dominating character, no doubt. Would you say that he was fond of his joke, Mr Pring?’

  ‘He can tell the right sort of story in the right place, Chitfield can. Never before the ladies, you know, and not even to a barmaid. It’s a touchstone, that, Mr Appleby, I think you’ll agree. Never a dirty word to the girl drawing the beer, and you can tell yourself you’re a perfect gentleman.’

  ‘It’s something we ought all to remember, Mr Pring. So Mr Chitfield likes a laugh in the right place. Would you say he was any sort of practical joker? It’s not quite the same thing.’

  ‘Definitely not.’ Mr Pring was again surprised. ‘He just wouldn’t give time to such a notion. Always plenty on his plate. A true man of affairs is Richard Chitfield.’

  6

  But were they, Appleby asked himself as he walked away, conceivably shady affairs? Tommy Pride had referred to Richard Chitfield as ‘just the ordinary City scum’, but that had been a matter of the routine and more or less harmless intolerance of a man contemptuous of all money-making other than that of earning an honest day’s pay. Nothing whatever could be founded on it. Mark Chitfield made a joke – also with a touch of routine to it – to the effect that one day the entire Chitfield family was bound to end up in jail. Of such a freakish pleasantry there was nothing to be made either. Cherry’s quarrel with her father might be so much petulant nonsense, blown up out of some passing irritation on his part. Chitfield’s telling his humble associate Pring to dress up as an Arab might hitch on to this in some obscure and trivial way. What really needed chewing over was the extraordinary circumstance of Pride’s having been asked (and with what looked like typical Secret Service hush-hush flummery) to place this overblown garden fête under surveillance – something he had in fact done in a singularly sparing way. But the fête was Chitfield’s creation. It was Chitfield who deserved a long straight look-over. Appleby decided he was hunting for the elusive host of the afternoon.

  So he moved on to the theatre, and presently found that a good many people were doing the same thing.
It occurred to him to glance a little more attentively than he had done so far at the programme which the elder Miss Chitfield had given him on his arrival. It seemed that the theatrical part of the entertainment was due to start in ten minutes – which probably meant that it would start in half an hour. It didn’t sound too promising in terms of powerful dramatic experience. Various local groups, societies and coteries, it seemed, had undertaken to present a series of scenes or sketches linked together on the grand theme of English History. There were to be some Ancient Britons hunting bears and other equally Ancient Britons putting up a tough fight against Julius Caesar and his legions. There was to be (what ought to interest Appleby) a scene of outlawry in Sherwood Forest, with appropriate speeches from As You Like It thrown in. Several troops of Boy Scouts were combining to enact the relief of Mafeking, in which the part of Colonel R S S Baden Powell was to be sustained by Master William Birch-Blackie. And there was to be much else. It would all be great fun, clearly, for the senior Birch-Blackies and such other spectators as had loved ones cavorting on the stage. On others it might a little pall.

  And not everybody was making for the theatre. Appleby was amused to see several men actually moving with a certain unobtrusiveness against the stream. And some of these recalcitrant persons appeared to be among the more exuberant of Mr Chitfield’s guests, at least if they were to be judged by their attire. As Mark Chitfield had observed, the majority of fancy costumes on view betrayed a certain yearning after exalted station, or at least an enhanced social consequence, on the part of their wearers: hence all the gentlemen in powder and knee-breeches and ladies in eighteenth century grande tenue. Any note of the broadly comical or grotesque (as with Mark’s own Deadly Sin) was confined to a scattering of males, and it was among these that the prospect of the theatrical entertainment didn’t seem to be much fun. One of the deep-sea divers, a couple of fantastically painted circus clowns, a Chinaman, a man in an ass’s head presumably to be thought of as Shakespeare’s transmogrified Bottom were among the defectors to be remarked. Perhaps like Mr Pring, these more enterprising persons were sloping off in quest of the bar.