Weekend at Thrackley

by Alan Melville

  No talking. Obviously hadn’t any visitors… sensible lad. But he wasn’t in bed yet: he could hear him walking up and down picking up things and laying them down, shutting wardrobe doors and pulling open drawers. Whistling, too. Why on earth should a man whistle a tune like “Up in the Morning’s No for Me” just before getting between the sheets? Edwin Carson closed his eyes and listened to the series of little sounds in the headphones. And pictured each action of Jim Henderson as clearly and as accurately as if he were in the room beside him. He was unscrewing the trouser-press now… now screwing it up again… placing it back on the low wooden shelf in that corner… taking something from the glass holders at the back of the dressing-table… yes, toothbrush, of course… cleaning them well, too… lighting a cigarette now… this last-minute-cigarette-before-we-turn-in idea seemed to be popular amongst his guests… thrown the match into the fireplace just as Henry Brampton had done… how careless people were… silence now… walking to just in front of the fireplace now… what the hell was he doing?… the sounds came down magnified, almost deafening… must be within inches of the microphone now… and then silence. Complete silence. Edwin Carson waited for over a minute. But the connection to room “F” had gone dead.

  He took the headphones from his ears and swore. Several times. Just what had happened? Had the man in room “F” accidentally severed a connection while doing something or other near the fireplace? Or had he seen the microphone in the chimney, and cut the wire not at all accidentally but with a very definite purpose? Had that idiot, Burroughs, left a loose wire hanging down from the chimney-piece which might be noticed? Edwin Carson took out his silk handkerchief and dabbed his brow with it. Well, nothing could be done until the morning; then he would see for himself when Jim Henderson was safely out of reach of his bedroom. But… he might find out now whether the disconnecting of the microphone were intentional or accidental. What would young Henderson do now—supposing that he had, for some inane reason, looked up his bed-room chimney and discovered the microphone? No… almost certain that he would go to the room of his friend, Usher, and tell him about his find. Very well, then… the switch marked “G”.

  Freddie Usher, too, was whistling. Slightly off key, in a tune which might have been anything but was probably an improvised nothing. Moving slowly around the room, and throwing each layer of clothing on to various chairs as he discarded it… obviously a young man accustomed to the services of a valet. Silence for quite a while… probably wrestling with his collar… yes, he could just hear a muttered “Dammit! Damn the thing!” in the headphones. And then quite distinctly a knock at the door of the bedroom. Freddie Usher’s voice saying, “Who’s that?”… The microphone did not pick up the answer, but… “Oh, it’s you, Jim—come in!” And as the door opened, Edwin Carson drummed with the fingers of both his hands on the desk in front of him: an action which meant only that he was angry and annoyed. Practically no doubt now that Henderson had seen the microphone and had come to tell Usher… but he would hear definitely when Jim Henderson spoke. But Jim Henderson did not speak. Freddie Usher said, “Hullo!” but there was no answer. Edwin Carson leaned forward In his chair and strained to catch the sounds in the phones at his ears. Still nothing audible happened in the room marked “G”… then the voice of Freddie Usher: “What the hell d’you think you’re playing at?” A very pertinent question, thought Edwin Carson; and one which he would dearly love to be in a position to answer. And then… those same magnified sounds which meant that someone was moving very near to where the microphone had been placed… and finally the same little click followed by an absolute silence. Edwin Carson did not wait in the hope that the wire would come alive again; he knew exactly what had happened, and he took the headphones off his head and swore for the second time that night.

  What an advantage these microphones were… and how utterly helpless one felt without them! What wouldn’t he give to hear exactly what Jim Henderson was saying to Freddie Usher at this minute… oh, damn that fool, Burroughs! For it must have been that he had left a wire showing when he was fixing up the things… no normal guest goes to peer up his bed-room chimney when he retires for the night at one o’clock. Under the bed, perhaps. But up the chimney, definitely no. Hell!

  Well, no use wasting any more time swearing about it. He pressed one of the tiny discs at the side of his desk, and picked up the receiver of the telephone. He heard Kenrick’s voice whisper “Everything quiet—all O.K.”, and he nodded to himself and then grunted into the receiver, and laid it back on its pedestal. And then he rose from his chair and crossed to the little table standing at the side of the desk, and poured himself out another whisky-and-soda in which the whisky predominated. Then he returned to his seat and put on the headphones again. To hear something worth hearing this time. Room “B”… where Catherine Lady Stone, bless her, was sleeping the sound sleep of the just.

  Oh, yes; no doubt at all: Lady Stone was asleep. The sensitiveness of the microphone picked up her heavy breathing and sent the sounds down to Edwin Carson’s ears like the noise of waves rushing in on the surf. No other sounds for quite a while… he sat back and sipped his drink. No need to rush things; let Jacobson take his own time and do the job in his own way. A good man, Jacobson. A man he could trust. At least he hoped so. And Jim Henderson must surely be back in his room by now. Yes, any time now… no need to wait any longer… why the devil?…

  The door of Lady Stone’s room gave a tiny click as it opened and an even fainter one as Jacobson closed it behind him. After that, not a sound. Somehow he knew that Jacobson was in the room, though. There, now… he was at the dressing-table now, from the sound of things. Another faint noise, and another… feeling his way over all Lady Stone’s trinkets and powder-bowls and hairpins and cold creams and vanishing creams and other impedimenta… would he never lay hands on that jewel-case?

  And then Edwin Carson jumped from his chair, and sent the glass which had held his whisky flying with a movement of his hand, and the dregs of his drink spilled themselves slowly over the top of his desk.

  The voice of Catherine Lady Stone rang out in the phones on his ears. Almost deafening him, it seemed, after the silence of the previous few minutes. Eight words only, in that shrill, decisive voice of hers:

  “Move away from that dressing-table, whoever it is…”

  XI

  The house called Thrackley, with all its glut of furniture and fittings and food, was completely lacking in one thing. It possessed no alarm clock. Or, if it had such a thing, it kept it hidden and muffled and well in the background. And Jim Henderson, a bad riser at the best of times with a lusty three-and-elevenpenny alarm next to his ear, was a total failure at getting out of bed when there was nothing to go off with a loud commotion at eight-thirty. Which, no doubt, explains the fact that it was dangerously near ten o’clock when he rose on the Saturday morning. The pine-trees outside his window were another thing which could possibly be made an excuse for the hour of his rising; for in the bedroom at Mrs. Bertram’s establishment there was always a definite difference between day and night so far as the lighting effects were concerned. When you opened your eyes for the first time in the morning at Number 34, Ardgowan Mansions you knew at once by the amount of light coming through the holes in the cretonne curtains that it was getting near breakfast time and certainly time you weren’t lying there. Though, of course, on some mornings the light in the curtains had less effect on you than on other mornings; for when a November fog was wafting itself about your window, then all you said was that it couldn’t possibly be a minute after six. And turned over on your other side and went to sleep. But here at Thrackley there were no varying degrees of light. Always the same half-darkness; always, if you cared to look, the same dull shade of green framed in your window. No chance of being able here to say: “What a perfectly glorious morning! Criminal to miss a morning like this by frowsing here in bed!” You cannot, however hard you may try, work up an enthusiasm necessary t
o make you leave a warm feather mattress by merely saying: “What a marvellously dirty shade of dark green the trees are this morning!” Of course not.

  Added to this there was no Mrs. Bertram to thump on the bedroom door with a heavy hand, to rattle the handle and finally to crash open the door with a jab of the breakfast-tray. For with all her faults and her prattling of the murders and bankruptcies and divorces of the day, there was this to be said for Mrs. Bertram: she did wake you up. Now Jacobson, when he paid his early-morning visit, left no impression on you at all. He knocked on the door (a stealthy, slimy, half-nervous sort of knock), and he slid into the room and drew back the curtains at the window slowly and with a tenderness of touch which suggested that if he used any force on the wretched things they would fall to pieces before his face. Mrs. Bertram, when she drew the curtains of her bedroom (only they went up at Ardgowan Mansions instead of sideways as at Thrackley) did so with a flourish and a clatter, as if to say: “Well, if you aren’t awake yet, that ought to do the trick!” Mrs. Bertram, too, was not above giving you a hefty shove or yelling a loud “Hi, you!” in your ear. But Jacobson merely murmured “Good morning, sir” to the outline of what he presumed was Jim Henderson underneath the sheets, and added in an even quieter whisper: “A very nice morning, sir. Quite warm and pleasant, sir. Would you be wishing a hot or cold bath, sir? And could I lay anything out for you, sir? Breakfast will be ready just when you wish it, sir. In the dining-room, sir,” and receiving no answer to any of these remarks, drifted silently from the room and closed the door after him, taking quite half a minute to do so so as not to disturb the sleeper inside. Again, no doubt, the perfect butler; but quite useless at making one realize that this was after nine o’clock on a Saturday morning, and what about it?

  When at last he did waken it took Jim some time to realize that he had been sleeping in a very charming bedroom of a very delightful mansion in Surrey. He thought: now what will dear old Mrs. B. have to tell me this morning? A society scandal? Or a famous financier fraud sensation? Or a couple of meaty suicides? Rather pleasant to lie here and wait for the dear old thing with her morning’s budget, knowing quite well that some morning she might open the door with Greta Garbo strangled or the Prime Minister swimming the Channel. And what for breakfast this morning? Not so wide a scope for speculation here, he remembered: kippers, hadn’t it been these last few days, and all because of the government, poor souls. He blinked across at the window and came slowly to the conclusion that Mrs. Bertram had at last invested in new curtains. Not before time, either. And then he turned to see what the alarm clock had to say about it, and suddenly remembered: Thrackley!… Edwin Carson and Raoul and the Bramptons and Mary Carson and Lady Stone. Lady Stone… and the man who had gone into Lady Stone’s bedroom last night… Heavens, yes!… and the microphone in his chimney. He threw his feet over the side of the bed, and fastened the sash of his dressing-gown around him, and collected his shaving-brush and his shaving-soap and his bath-towel and his face-towel, and disappeared to where he could hear the pleasing, gurgling sounds of water careering hotly through a tap.

  Plus-fours, he thought: for hadn’t someone suggested last night a game of tennis, and he had no intention of being involved in a mixed doubles with the Bramptons or the Raoul woman. A single against Mary Carson, certainly; but any other combination, definitely no. When he at last reached the dining-room he found the Bramptons busy with grape-fruit. There was no sign of any other members of the house-party.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “’Morning,” said Marilyn Brampton. “You help yourself from the sideboard.”

  “Thanks,” said Jim, and proceeded to do so. A pleasing selection of breakfast items, he reflected, and much to be preferred to the kippers of Ardgowan Mansions. The misbehavings of the government, as far as they affected the breakfast-table, had apparently no effect here at Thrackley. The grape-fruit was kept iced in a small refrigerator, the eggs and the sausages and the bacon and the rest of them still kept warm on their electric heaters. He poured out coffee for himself and for Marilyn Brampton (“while you’re busy,” she said, and stretched out a cup in his direction), and as he crossed to his seat at the table beside the Bramptons the door of the dining-room opened and Mary Carson came in. Thank God, he thought. (Now why should he think that, eh? Well, of course, breakfasting with the Bramptons would have been rather an ordeal without someone to help in the conversation. And Mary Carson was a remarkably nice girl. Funny, though, thinking that… not often that he took very much notice of the opposite sex. It must be, he supposed, that Mary Carson’s attractions stood out in bold relief from those of the other females at Thrackley. Well, anyway, a remarkably nice girl.)

  “Good morning, Miss Carson,” he said.

  “Good morning. I’m glad someone else is late for breakfast beside myself. Good morning, Miss Brampton. ’Morning, Mr. Brampton.”

  “’Morning.”

  Mr. Brampton had rather too much sausage in his mouth to answer. He nodded.

  “Did you sleep all right?”

  “Yes, thanks—fine,” said Jim.

  “Was it Noel Coward who said that he always considered that question an impertinence?” said Marilyn Brampton.

  Henry Brampton swallowed the last of his sausage, and said: “No. Beverley Nichols.”

  “I’m sure it was Noel.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. Pass the marmalade.”

  A very long pause in the conversation. “What about a walk after breakfast?” said Mary Carson. “The country at the back of the house is rather lovely.”

  “I never walk,” said Henry Brampton.

  “He means,” said Marilyn, “that he never walks if there’s a chance of going by car.”

  “I’ll get Burroughs to get the car out, then.”

  “Personally,” said Jim, “I never go by car if there’s a chance of walking.”

  “Really?”

  “Pass the toast, Marilyn.”

  “You’re slightly nearer it than I am.”

  “Oh, all right…”

  Another long pause.

  “So if you could be bothered, Miss Carson,” said Jim, warming to the point, “I’d very much like to see a bit of the country at the back of the house.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Splendid.”

  “Right after breakfast, then?”

  “Fine.”

  “I think walking’s very bad for one,” said Henry Brampton. “Marilyn used to think out the plots for her books when she went for long walks, and they were all perfectly appalling. Now she does it lying on a sofa. Naturally they’re far spicier now. Pour me out another cup of coffee, Marilyn.”

  And the third very long pause was interrupted by the entrance of Edwin Carson. He had his arm linked in Raoul’s, and Freddie Usher followed them into the room.

  “Good morning, everyone,” said Edwin Carson. “I hope you’re all looking after yourselves?”

  Everybody was.

  “I’ve just been showing Raoul and Mr. Usher round the grounds. Trying to tell them which were calceolarias and which weren’t… I’m afraid I don’t know quite as much about my garden as I do about my other hobby.”

  “I think it is wonderful that you should know of any other thing when all your life is given to your jewels,” said Raoul in her deep voice.

  (And Jim, recognizing the look in Raoul’s eyes, thought to himself: Heavens, another famous actress leaves stage sensation for Mrs. Bertram.)

  “What annoys me, Carson,” said Freddie Usher, “is the indecent behaviour of one of your guests.”

  The little man turned and screwed up his face at Freddie.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Usher?” he asked.

  “Late last night, when I was in no condition to say anything but ‘all right, I give in’,” said Freddie, “Lady Stone made a date with me. A very early date—before
breakfast this morning, in fact. We were going to have a nice little twelve-mile hike and she was going to tell me all about the aims and objects of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Aged Organizers of Charity Bazaars, or some such title.”

  “And?…”

  “And what happens? I rise at an hour quite three hours before my usual hour. I put on my stoutest shoes. I gird my knapsack on my loins, or wherever it is one girds these things. I am on the appointed spot at the appointed time. And here we are… not a moment earlier than ten-thirty… and no signs of Catherine Lady Stone. Still snorting upstairs in her bedroom, I suppose.”

  “Cries of ‘shame’!” said Jim.

  “Well, my dear Usher,” said Edwin Carson, “I am afraid that I am somewhat to blame. I should have told you earlier… but then I did not know that Lady Stone and you were having this early morning rendezvous. I’m sorry to say that Lady Stone has had to return to London.”

  “Return to London?”

  “Yes. She had a wire from town asking her to return immediately. In any other postal district but Adderly the wire would have been delivered last night… but here in Adderly telegrams are treated in the same leisurely manner as ordinary letters, and it was not delivered until the first post this morning. She left before eight; I gave her the use of my car.”

  “Then the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to whatever-it-was will just have to struggle along without me?” said Freddie.