The Satan Sampler

by Victor Canning

  “It’s exactly what I would have expected you to say. Well, there it is.” Felbeck rose. “I must be getting back. But give my offer some more thought. Apart from everything else, you really would be welcomed as a Governor . . . very much so.” After Felbeck had gone, Seyton finished his letter to Roger and was on the point of going to bed when he heard a car pull into the side drive, heard the horn go in three well-known notes and went to the door to let Nancy in.

  In the study she came to him and kissed him and then said, “I knew you would never telephone—but when I heard it was a no-go I decided to come—to play the role of comforter, if that’s what you’d like. Anyway, just to be here.”

  He put an arm around her and kissed her and then—following a familiar impulse—held her close to him for a while before turning away to get her a drink.

  When he brought it to her, she said, “To answer the question you haven’t asked—I telephoned the Hall to find out what had happened.”

  “General Stripert?”

  “Yes. He told me. What did you think of him?”

  “Nice chap, I thought.”

  “So he is in many ways. Oh, Richard, I am sorry but . . . Well, even you must have known that it was a wild hope.”

  “It had to be tried first.”

  “First—what is there to come second?”

  “I don’t know.”

  With a slow, but clearly nervous movement, she put up a hand, absently smoothed her fair hair, and said, “Don’t look at me like that. . . as though . . . well, weighing up pros and cons. You heard what I said. What is there to come second? What’s working in you?”

  “Just a few thoughts.”

  “About?”

  “Punch.”

  “Go on. My God, I do have to drag things out of you. It’s me sitting here. Not some crooked old diamond merchant trying to do you down.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re dead right. It just is that I’ve got a bloody funny feeling about things—things to do with the Hall, that is—and Punch. Particularly Punch—you said yourself that he was changed towards the end. I’ve got a feeling that something was eating him and—if I’m right—then whatever it was had something to do with the Hall. Not only you noticed it. But so did Roger. And old Shipley.”

  “So?”

  “So—just that.”

  “No. I mean—what is there to come second still? You’ve done all you can do—and they’ve turned you down. Surely that’s the end of it?”

  “Not necessarily. There are certain conditions in the lease and if they break any of them I could get them out.”

  She shook her head, faintly exasperated. “Richard, I know you. Conditions, yes. But not some. You’re thinking of a particular one. Come clean.”

  “All right. There is one. I can’t quote it verbatim, but generally it is to the effect that the Foundation should not do or permit to be done on the premises any act or thing to the damage or annoyance of the lessor or any illegal or immoral act which would tend to injure the character——”

  “Richard!” Nancy laughed. “You’re talking about a charitable organization!”

  “I know all about that. But people are people—and think of some of the people who are Governors! If General Stripert pops into bed up there from time to time with Mrs Parmat and some servant finds out and the talk spreads and when I go to Hereford market some kind friend of mine asks how the brothel business is going—do you think that wouldn’t constitute damage or annoyance to me?”

  “And you’d make a case over that?”

  “That or whatever else it might be—yes, you’re damned right if I could get proof.”

  “But you’ve no grounds whatsoever for thinking——”

  “I know I haven’t. Not firm ground. Except that something began lately to rile Punch so that Felbeck offered him a place on the Board and Punch said No. Punch, who’d sit on anything from a vestry committee to a parish council! He loved that kind of thing. Damn it—if it had been possible he would have sat on a Mothers’ Union committee—and I’m surprised you think I’m talking rot. You told me yourself that he went off Felbeck and when you asked him why he just closed up. Or rather, said he only wanted to talk about him to me.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But I think that was just something personal—like the poor chap who took the salmon kelts.” She stood up and came to him and held his arm. “Richard . . . I know how you feel just now. That’s why I came over. Felbeck’s not the kind of man to let anything happen which might lose him his lease. You’ll accept that when you’ve slept on it. And talking of sleeping—that was in my mind too when I came over. But I know you well enough not to want you to start making polite noises about a busy day ahead and——”

  “No,” he interrupted her. “You’ve got it wrong. You go on up. I’ll be with you soon. I promised to give Figgins a ring.”

  “At this hour?”

  “There’s a phone by her bed and she’d slaughter me if I didn’t call tonight.”

  At the end of his talk with Figgins, she said, “And what are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Liar.”

  “So?”

  “You’re thinking of clause seven?”

  “Gould be—but it seems a bit wild.”

  “I didn’t tell you before because I wanted to hear how the vote went, but some fair time before he had his accident Punch came to town and saw—or so I imagine—Helder. Anyway he asked for his phone number. Do you want it?”

  “I’ll sleep on it, Figgy.” He paused, and then added, “Is that why you would only pay Helder fifty instead of a hundred?”

  “That’s it—though I’m quite sure we didn’t get all he found for Punch. That could still be waiting for you—at a price.”

  * * * *

  Warboys was having an early working breakfast with Sir Manfred Grandison, and hating it. Breakfast was a meal he preferred strongly to take alone, and work was not something you mucked up with all the paraphernalia of cutlery and plates and mustard pots and toast. A file sticky on one corner from spilled marmalade was an abomination to him. In addition, he wished to God he knew just what Grandison was playing at, or thinking of playing at, or had long ceased playing at. Availing himself of an established, but seldom exercised, privilege he made no effort to conceal his feelings. While waiting until they had cleared quite a few matters of minor importance to them but of major interest to the people concerned and, since Regent’s Park and its Zoo lay immediately to the south of their window, remembering intermittently his mother’s odd passion for the reptile house and his own delight in its warmth when she dragged him into it in winter, he said eventually, “I think, Sir Manfred, before we take the last file——” he tapped the folder which carried the name of Richard Seyton that lay to the side of his plate, “it would be of some help to me administratively—if not realistically—if I could have a little of the truth or a scrap of convincing fiction to feed to those lower mortals who are now working in an irritating darkness on Seyton.”

  Grandison, in a green dressing gown worn over primrose coloured pyjamas, lit a cheroot to smoke with his last cup of coffee and said flatly, “ ‘A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience’. I quote back to you what you have so often—and always aptly—quoted to me.”

  Warboys inwardly groaned, hating the smell of the cheroot wafting towards him, but responded to a well-known ritual—or perhaps, less that than, a boring intellectual game which always gave Grandison a near childish delight—by back quoting, “ ‘It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.’ Your province and, with all modesty, my wisdom. And now that we have played out our little game—what can I have to throw to my starving hounds? Principally Quint who will see that some of the scraps from his portion reach the others.”

  “Let them go hungry. No, perhaps not. Give them this part fiction. Felbeck Foundation. World wide. Immaculate in behaviour. No scandal. Worthy, worthy, beyond t
he wideness of the heavens. So it would seem, but—the sweetest apple must have a maggot at its core. That’s what I want. The maggot. Given that—then we can use the Foundation for our own purposes. Discreetly, but effectively. Remember, my dear Warboys, that at heart all religious institutions are political. That’s one of the main reasons why Christ was crucified. It would be nice for us to have in our hands even the smallest of whips to crack now and then over the plump quarters of the Foundation.”

  Sourly, because doubt still inhabited him, Warboys said, “Why not go for the Church of England or the Holy Roman Catholic Church? Or is someone ahead of us there?”

  “You jest, of course.”

  “Of course, Sir Manfred. But as a placebo your fiction is too thin for me and will be for the others because your target is Richard Seyton. The question will be stirring in their minds—Where does he figure in all this?”

  “Naturally. And the answer is clear. He wants the Hall back and—for your information—has just been denied it. But he is not the sort of man to take denial lying down.”

  “What can he do?”

  Sir Manfred Grandison rose and went to the window, trailing a blue swirl of cheroot smoke, an airy serpent. Surveying the green grass of the park, lightly touched with a mild hoar frost, he said, “That is just what I want to know. Perhaps mine is an extreme precaution, remote . . . maybe never to materialize. But I do not want any outsider frightening off our game as it peacefully grazes.”

  Although he was not going to put it in words, Warboys knew that the inference was clear that there was something which Seyton—know it or not at this moment—could do. And Grandison, moreover, might know or guess what it was. But if Grandison knew, then why the devil put up this charade, because he would have in his hands already the knowledge which he would deny Seyton, and having that made everything he had already said a nonsense? With a momentary sensation of helplessness and confusion, he said, “I see.”

  Grandison turned, grinned and tugged at his beard and then, slowly adjusting his monocle, said sadly, “No, you do not see, dear Warboys. And you are entertaining unworthy thoughts. I strongly suspect that there is something rotten in the heart of the Foundation—but I do not know its nature. I shall be very happy if Seyton uncovers the canker for us. Though it will be a sad day for him because—and this I would rather not be saying since it may never arise, but you have clumsily dragged it from me—he must be then neutralized . . . disposed of so that we alone have a free hand to play the advantage which he will have made available to us if Miss Georgina Collet conducts her part well.”

  “The poor bugger.”

  “Not necessarily. He may fail—or there may not be anything for him to uncover. On such small arrangements of time and chance and facts or no facts are destinies dependent.”

  “He may succeed—but Georgina Collet may fail. Then where are we?”

  Grandison shook his head and smiled. “Without going into details I may say that Miss Collet is not the only one cultivating the Felbeck Foundation field. But for the time being you have had an answer to your enquiry . . . or rather a reasonable thesis to pass on to your worthy underlings. Are you satisfied?”

  “Partly, Sir Manfred.”

  Sir Manfred Grandison gave a great laugh and said, “How like you—so honest. Which I appreciate between us. Alas, for those below us . . . well it is too strong a virtue to be worn openly. But remember this—if the Felbeck Foundation can be plucked, then the fruit must fall into our basket.”

  * * * *

  At eleven o’clock when Seyton came back from having a final talk with the Rector about the memorial service for Punch, Mrs Shipley came to him and gave him a large manila envelope.

  “Somebody pushed this through the door while you were out.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Shipley. And I shan’t be in to lunch. I want to go to the bank in Hay. I’ll get a bite there.”

  When she was gone he opened the envelope. Inside was a large sheet of cartridge paper and on it a pencil drawing which he at once recognized. It showed a small paddock beyond the Seyton chapel and in it Punch’s chestnut mare with her small foal at foot. For some reason far removed from the brilliant naturalness of the study it raised a lump in his throat as he remembered the many times he had ridden alongside Punch hunting, Punch up on the mare, and going hell for leather; and vividly too other memories . . . Punch putting the old bull-nosed Morris at the ha-ha, Punch climbing the ivy on the chapel bell tower to take jackdaws’ eggs . . . Recovering from his emotion, he turned the sheet over—knowing already who must have drawn it—and read the inscription on the back. Acceptable, I hope, where the dippers weren’t, and again my apologies. G. Collet.

  Shipley was just finishing washing down the Land Rover when he went outside.

  “Just smartened her up a bit for you, Mister Richard. You off to Hay now?”

  “Yes, Shippey. Thanks. You’ve made a good job there. By the way, have you seen that drawing woman around this morning?”

  “Yes. She was up on the bank by the Quarry Pool some time ago.”

  He drove up the river track, but there was no sign of her near the Quarry Pool. He followed the track until he hit the road and drove on to Hay, where he did his few chores and then had a beer and some sandwiches in a pub. Coming back he turned down to the river and followed the bank and found her just below the Quarry Pool.

  He said, “I came to look for you some time ago, but you weren’t around.”

  “I went down to Bredwardine for lunch.”

  “Are you just starting something?”

  “Thinking of it.”

  “I’d like it if you would come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

  For a moment or two Georgina was puzzled by his manner. There had been no polite greeting, no mention of her gift . . . and then, as he got out of the Land Rover and opened the door for her and she had a full view of his face, to her surprise she read him clearly. His was the emotional mood she had known well in her father when he was moved by some unexpected act or gift which touched him so much that he could find only gruffness or almost a lapse into gaucherie to signal his feelings. But what feeling here? She had devised a little ploy on her part to recover lost ground by the gift of a quick impression of a mare and foal—in fact, almost an act of desperation on her part, because she had this bloody job to do and, if it meant pushing, then she would push up to a point.

  She said, “Of course.” She picked up her sketching block and got into the Land Rover. And then as they drove off, recovered, and looking for any advantage, any lead to take her closer to her quarry, she said, “Have I done something wrong again?”

  Seyton laughed. “Just the opposite. Your drawing moved me very much. You couldn’t know it, but the mare was my brother’s hunter. The whole thing just hit me . . . I don’t know . . . it’s not something I can explain. It just brought him back. Not in a bad way. You know . . . the loss and the waste. But in a good way. While he lived he had a full life and enjoyed it.” He half turned and gave her a warm smile. “So I came looking for you, to say thank you, and to show you something which I know will give you pleasure.”

  “I see.”

  And she really did see now more than she had expected. That he was her quarry made no difference, that he was giving her a lead-in which she must now, and knew she could, exploit for bloody Quint and company was almost incidental for she was beginning to see—and respect—the true and inner man. It was like one of those moments which she had known when she had started to draw the mare, when hand, eye and brain fused, became something all compact and with their own fused qualities merely used her as a conductor. So now she saw and sensed the real Richard Seyton; not wealthy landowner, nor a business tycoon lately come who had out of innate instincts excelled those who had given all their working lives to making profits based on sharp or shrewd dealings, but the man himself wearing for a while his true heart and vulnerable emotions on his sleeve. Luck had given her the key to him, and luck, her f
ather had often said—bad or good—was something that always operated independently of human control.

  In the Dower House he helped her off with her coat and then led her into the dining room whose windows looked out over the park and to the sudden rise of the southerly slopes of the river valley.

  He said flatly, “I knew that you would like to see these. Perhaps you knew that we had them?”

  Her eyes already taken by the paintings and pencil drawings on the walls, she said, “No, I didn’t.” Then she moved away from him, forgetting him, into her own world.

  The pictures were all the work of the ill-starred Herefordshire artist, Brian Hatton, who, in 1916, at the age of twenty-nine had been killed in action in Egypt, a man who had early been acclaimed the rarest of all things—true genius . . . unique in the history of British art. There was a collection of pen-and-ink drawings, mostly with horses as subjects, a masterly quick impression in white paint on brown paper of two fighting stallions, some pencil drawings of hunting and country scenes, and over the great stone fireplace a large oil of a man in uniform sitting on a grey gelding with the Seyton private chapel and a glimpse of the Wye in the background. One glance at the man told her that he was a Seyton.

  Behind her Seyton said, “That was my grandfather. He’s wearing the uniform of the Hereford Regiment. I’m quite sure you know about Hatton.”

  “Yes, indeed. I’ve already been to the Hatton Gallery in Hereford. But like these, of course, most are in private hands and seldom come on the market.” She turned to him. “They’re marvellous and they make me feel . . . well, humble and inadequate.”

  Seyton shook his head. “I don’t think you need be. Punch’s mare could hold a place up there. Anyway I wanted you to see them. Any time you want to come back and study them just give me a call. Now, let’s go and bully Mrs Shipley into giving us some tea.”

  With an unconscious naturalness he put out a hand and took her arm to lead her from the room, and in the few moments of being held she knew what was going to happen. Some unbidden but sure instinct told her that there was a compatibility, no matter how recently nascent, waiting to develop between them. She had known it before in unconstrained and quite innocent encounters. That it should be happening now, in a situation which was quite artificial so far as she was concerned, bewildered rather than surprised her. Later, as they took tea and chatted, she detected too what had always been evident in the past with others. Given no unseasonable frosting the ultimate blooming was inevitable.