“So,” Quint said, “we move a little further along the line. The train may stop at all stations but the country in between has its divertissements. He takes her out to a dinner dance . . . country-house stuff . . . and they have a good time. Seyton proves himself human. Three times I gather before daybreak. He departs at what Warboys vulgarly calls ‘sparrow fart’—bearing with him a small gift from her, a drawing of the dove or pigeon house at the Hall. But, lo and behold, by half-past ten the next morning he is back, bearing his own gift, a great bouquet of flowers. To be exact, which our dear Georgina is never less than, it consisted of carnations and yellow and blue irises. The carnations scarlet. All a little vulgar, I think you will agree—or maybe they are his racing colours. Anyway, I gather, though Georgy put it more politely, he mounted her again. At eleven in the morning . . . dear, dear, love should keep more romantic hours.”
Bluntly Kerslake said, “Where is all this leading, sir?”
Quint smiled at him blandly. “To an opinion. Yours, I hope. But that can wait for there is a little more to be said—or rather read. I will give it to you in her own words—as transcribed from the answering phone. Here they are. I quote. ‘In view of what had happened between us—which is what you have bloody well been angling for—I would have expected a shift in our relationship, but not such a big one. He was up in the air about something more than just our loving, and I got the feeling that it was something to do with my gift of the dove house drawing. He thanked me for it again and said that one day he might be in a position to explain to me exactly why it meant so much to him. In the circumstances I would have bloody well thought that the other gifts would have meant more. I don’t know, but like a good little whoring girl I must give my pimps what they want, and I’m ready to bet that something has popped somewhere. I’ve been asked to dinner in two days’ time, and have said yes. And then without either of us needing to ask for it we made love again but—since you love these details and they may be important—not entirely in the nude as before. Throwing aside all the titillating detail you pretend to enjoy—or do you perhaps?—quite clearly something has happened to him. Whether it is significant or not isn’t my business unless you make it so. Undoubtedly I shall receive some directive from you.’ ” Quint leaned back and gave Kerslake a mild smile. “Well, what do you make of all that?” Himself now, all feeling purely professional, Kerslake shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve got the personal relationship which was wanted. Given a willing woman and an unattached man it doesn’t rank as a miracle.”
“A felicity. Go on.”
“The dove house part is interesting. But for the life of me I couldn’t begin to guess at the cause without more facts.”
“Go wild then. Cut the pack and see what card is turned up. Let your imagination have its freedom. To paraphrase and somewhat distort a sixteenth-century poet who turned from the love of women to the love of Christ—licence your roving mind, and let it go, before, behind, between, above, below. There may be some new-found land, some wild truth waiting to be discovered. A guess, a fantasy which when put into words may have the sudden ring of truth. Truth may be stranger than fiction. But lacking truth tell me a fairy story, some preposterous proposition. We are in the dark so let us amuse ourselves with fancies.” Quint smiled suddenly. “My dear Kerslake—I don’t idly tease you, nor do I underestimate you. Just give me any fiction which comes right off the top of your head, or perhaps more precisely the tip of your tongue.”
“Well . . . To begin with, what do we know? Seyton wants the Foundation out of the Hall. To do this there must be some legal way of breaking their lease—or, and why not, maybe they have already broken the terms of the lease in some way. More interesting is the fact that Seyton’s brother in the period not long before his death turned against the Foundation. The turning was a personal one. He wanted to have no more to do with any man or woman there in the Hall. He was an honest, straightforward man—why should he take against them personally? Because they were or are up to no good.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I have it from you. Why else would you give me an instruction regarding anything Sir Manfred Grandison might order me, in confidence, to do? For me that is as incomprehensible as Seyton getting excited about a drawing of his dove house.”
“Or spending long hours in the chapel?”
“Yes. Unless——”
“You pause—does some wild flight of fancy put you down?”
“It’s wild all right but that is what you are asking from me. So here it is. He could have been looking for something in the chapel. Let’s say something which—through his brother or from some other source—he knew was waiting to be found. Perhaps something which would help him to get the Foundation out. Let’s assume he didn’t find it. He probably could have gone looking elsewhere for it—without any luck. And then . . .”
“And then—what? I wait for you to have the honour, though I could take it from you.”
Kerslake grinned. “That’s generous of you. And then, I say, the lovely Georgina presents him with a drawing of the dove house and, by God, he says to himself, maybe that’s the place. Why didn’t I think of it before? So the gift of flowers—which seems to me a little too soon in the day—is more than saying a nice thank-you for their evening. But what could possibly be hidden in the dove house of importance is beyond me.”
“And for the time being I think it should remain beyond us. So what instruction do you think I should send to Georgina now?”
“You ask me that, sir?”
“I do, sir.”
“Well. . . I’m damned if I know.”
Quint laughed. “Honest, Kerslake. But you are right. No specific instruction. Just to let things run between them and to keep her eyes and ears open. And don’t be deceived by the way she talks or frames her reports. There is much of her father in her—but she possesses the one quality he could never acquire. His work made him miserable to the point of disaster. Georgina —despite her outbreaks—knows the wisdom of making the best and the most of a bad job. Nothing we can ask of her will ever really touch her. Do you agree?”
Kerslake shook his head. “No, sir. If you play with dirt you get defiled. You can wash your body clean but not your spirit. But it’s no great thing to shout about. It happens to the vast majority of the human race. It’s just one of life’s common hazards.”
Quint beamed. “And to think that but for me you would have stayed patrolling a small town’s beats . . . chucking out pub rowdies, spotting illegally parked cars, collaring petty thieves and, for high spot once a year, the murder of erring wife or husband by jealous ditto ditto. Well now, all that remains to be done for the present is for you to telephone her with her instructions; to push nothing, to probe for nothing, to foster the sweet romance, and to give us a daily report, so far as she is able, of Seyton’s activities, of their verbal and otherwise conjunctions, and of any acts or emotional displays which seem to make him pass out of character.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Kerslake did this a little later from his own room, he spoke precisely and unemotionally, yet picturing her clearly at the other end of the line, wearing a stained working smock, her auburn hair tousled from her habit of working her pencil end through it as she considered the effect of a line or some detail of shading and suddenly knowing quite clearly—and for the first time in his life—that he had fallen in love with her without hope, and wanting none. The emotion itself was enough.
She listened patiently to him until the end and then said with a lightness which sounded genuine, “What a marvellous time you both have. I suppose one day, if you run out of my kind—or maybe when you retire—the two of you will be reduced to visiting peep shows on piers . . . What the Butler Saw . . . The New Parlourmaid . . . The Midnight Bathing Party . . . Dear, dear, dear—and to think that Quint when he left Oxford was determined to turn Roman Catholic and become a priest. Well, he’s become a Father Confessor of a kind, hasn’t he? And what was yo
ur bucolic ambition, dear Kerslake?”
“I had none until I met Quint. And now—through him—I’ve achieved it. But. . .”
She caught his pause and indecision, and asked, “And but what now?”
He laughed gently. “Perhaps to have met you at a Rugby Club dance, and married you, and to have been a good policeman and a better husband. We all have pipe dreams. That’s mine for the time being. Thinking about it puts me nicely to sleep at nights.”
“And when it wears thin you’ll find some other dream.”
“Of course. Dreams come cheap. Anyone can have one.”
“There speaks the true, good Birdcage man . . .”
She put down the receiver at her end and for a moment or two he was left with the thin static and hum of a bad line.
* * * *
That evening after dark and when Mrs Shipley had left after dinner he went to the dove house and brought down the suitcase and the cardboard carton from the half landing. One or two of the birds flapped around bedazed by the light of his torch, but most of them sat tight. He carried the case and box to the yard at the back of the house and cleaned them free of dust, feathers and droppings. He took them up to Punch’s bedroom, slit the carton open with his knife and unlocked the case with the key which—as he had suspected—was on Punch’s ring. He made no detailed examination of the contents, but saw enough to satisfy him that they were what Punch had wanted him to find; knew, too, that there was no point in needlessly risking curiosity on the part of Mrs Shipley or the daily maid who came in from the village. He had to have time to himself. The next day was the Shipleys’ Hereford day—cold supper left for him. He would have the house to himself from lunchtime onwards.
Excitement now had abated. In some ways he had already regretted that morning’s lift of feelings which had taken him to Leominster for flowers and his time with Georgina afterwards. He wanted to share nothing until he knew what he had to share. Anyway, as far as she was concerned there could be no possible cause for worry. He could only be grateful to her, and that emotion for a while he had not handled too brightly. From now on he would not risk showing any difference in his demeanour to anyone. Not that the sudden shift in their relationship meant nothing to him. Something had happened more than a gay evening and getting into bed with one another. Oh, he had known that before with other women since Ruth . . . with Nancy—but not ever sensing a spring of emotion that took him out of control, or sent him flighting into a reconsideration of his own state and way of living. But something in the responses they had set up in one another was, he felt, uncommon . . . and perhaps at this moment likely to prove unwelcome. Well, whatever . . . But without doubt the stuff he had found hidden in the dove house took precedence over everything. One step at a time.
He locked the case and the carton away in Punch’s wardrobe, and went down and poured himself a whisky. Before he had finished it the telephone rang. It was Nancy from France to say that she was coming home at the weekend.
“Did Mrs Shipley tell you I called last night?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Oh, dear, I know that tone of voice. She told me that you took that little artist piece to Clyro.”
“That’s a bald, but not entirely exact description.”
“You mean ‘piece’ isn’t exactly exact?”
“By no means.”
“Did you stay for breakfast?”
“For God’s sake, Nancy!”
“What’s wrong with the question? I just wanted to know if you had a good time. Which clearly from your stuffiness you did. So what? I’m happy about it. Mind you, a little jealous too. But that soon goes. Anyway, what I really wanted to ask was if you would come over for supper on Sunday night. The old boy would like it as well as me. He hasn’t enjoyed himself here much. The weather and the company have browned him off.”
“Yes, I’d like to do that.”
“Good. If you’d like to—bring your artist girl friend. I’d like to meet her and so would the old boy—he might get her to change her mind about doing something for him. Now come on—don’t be stuffy. You ask her.”
“All right, I will.”
“Jesus. The line is just vibrating with your enthusiasm. Do I fancy that my dear Richard is, in fact, not the least bit interested in me, my dear bored papa, or even the lovely drawing lady? What’s eating you?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s all right then. A nice polite lie, and I’ll bet you’ve got the stiff tycoon look—straight ahead, your line across country quite clear to you.”
He laughed then, though in himself there was a touch of irritation that he could—to her, at least—so easily betray his mood. With an effort, he said lightly, “My dear Nancy . . . I’ll bring her over and we’ll have a jolly evening. And that’s all I had with her.”
“I can believe that—and it makes me sorry for you. You need more than that. Being a big noise in the diamond world just isn’t enough. Neither is wanting the Hall back. With only those two interests you’re in danger of becoming a bore, and I couldn’t bear that. Darling Richard, rather than that I’d gladly see you married to someone else than me. Good night.”
The next afternoon, as soon as the Shipleys had gone off to Hereford, Seyton went up to Punch’s bedroom. He set up the small collapsible film screen and—with the help of the maker’s instructions still in the box—fixed up the projector. The projector with three spools of film were in the cardboard carton. In the suitcase were a tape player and three tapes. The tapes were marked One and Two and Play this first—all in Punch’s hand.
Knowing his own excitement, he schooled himself to deliberate, unhurried action and put on the tape marked—Play this first, keeping the volume down. Punch’s voice came alive in the room and the sound, for a moment or two, shocked him with swift emotion, setting the blood tingling in his cheeks.
‘. . . Richard, I’ve got so bloody worked up about all this that I can hardly trust myself to speak about it. But I must take precautions. In case, by the remotest chance, anything goes wrong somewhere. You never know, do you? After you’ve heard this and played the other tapes and seen the film—pretty poor stuff technically, but the best I could manage, you’ll know what a boil Pm in—especially as I can’t get in touch with you yet. None of this would have been necessary if you’d only set up a forwarding address or left a phone number where you could be reached. Sod you. The film’s poor, not only from the conditions I had to work under but because I wasn’t so hot in processing it. By the way I’ve chucked all that equipment into the river, and the camera I sent back to the Andover bloke because I only had it on hire . . .
I don’t know, but I’ve got the nasty feeling that something will go wrong, so that’s why Pm chuntering away like this. It’s a sort of comfort really—as though I was really talking to you before going into all the details and showing you the stuff. Which, I suppose, is the best way to imagine it. As though I was really talking to you. You see, I managed to slip up the old back so-called secret way at the Hall on my own. Just poking about and I found that they’d taken a small panel out of one of the walls so that they could look into the grand bedroom. The one Sarah Seyton always used. And been bloody clever about it, too. They’d done it right behind that big gilt mirror with the cupid and satyr frame and I got the shock of my life because they’d taken out the mirror glass and fitted some see-through stuff . . . you know, the one-way stuff.
Well, you know me. At first I went up like a rocket, but I pretty soon came down again. So instead of going charging off to take old Shanklin by the scruff, I sat and thought. And then I went back down and checked all the inside wall with a torch and then I found something else. In the side wall of the library they’d cut a small square right through to the top row of the book shelves—but obviously hidden from the room side by the books and there neatly tucked away was a microphone and a coil of flex which they could run down the few steps to the cellar where probably they connected up the recorder and so on when they wan
ted to. All this from a religious organization! I can tell you I was hopping mad. All right—I know I can be a bull in a china shop, but not this time. I just went back to the Dower, sat down with a large whisky and did some thinking.
At first I didn’t see my way ahead at all. But on my second whisky it suddenly came to me. I didn’t have a bloody thing to worry about. I mean about being caught or found out if I had a shot myself at doing what they had done or were even still doing. And my God, when you come to that part you’ll go over backwards. If I was to be caught I could just say—that’s not the point. What have you damned well been up to, you religious Joes and bible-thumping bastards? I can tell you too that’s when I thought here’s the way out. I could get them by the short and curlies, get you to make good your offer to finance the Hall etcetera, and break their lease under the disrepute and so-on clause. I mean can you imagine if someone on their side gabbed in his drink and the word got round and one day in Hereford some chum of mine came up and said with all the good will and chumminess in the world, “I hear your tenants have turned the Hall into a high-class knocking shop”?
So I did have a go. Mot for long but long enough. And all the damned time I’m trying to get in touch with you! I really did need you to hold my hand. Anyway it’s all on film or tape and the moment I get in touch with you plain sailing. But I was nearly damn well caught. I never left any stuff in place. Always took it back into the chapel tunnel. But one night when I went over—and I didn’t go over every night you understand, only when they had big-wig guests at the Hall and then not always—well, they’d put everything back in place, and a damned good job somebody had made of it too. You wouldn’t have known. And I knew it was a damned good bet the mirror had got its original glass back in.
The Satan Sampler Page 20