The thought of having been physically overwhelmed and so thoroughly demoralized by a dotty old woman who wasn’t even trying was utterly mortifying and would, he knew, take him a long time to banish from his consciousness. The maddening thing was that until the mad old biddy had materialized from nowhere and startled him into that fatal movement, the trip to Plummergen that morning had promised so well.
So many and varied were his contacts that it had been simplicity itself to find out when the lighting people planned to go to Rytham Hall to join the features editor of the magazine and Cedric Benbow’s factotum to examine the William Morris rooms in detail and work out what equipment would be needed and when. Prothero had intended to take advantage of the fact that a number of people more or less unknown to the Colvedens would be wandering freely about the place, and make his own leisurely reconnaissance. The cavalry twill trousers, hacking jacket, finely checked shirt, and quiet woolen tie would be sufficient in the way of camouflage: if they noticed him at all the fashion people would assume he was something to do with the family, and the family would think he was connected with the magazine.
If only he had stuck to that elegantly simple plan! Variants on it had served him so well in the past, when he had been planning break-ins at country houses whose owners he had known to be away. His expensive but well-worn casual clothes, his authentic upper-class accent with its echoes of Sandhurst, and his easy, charming but ever so slightly arrogant manner had taken in many a resident housekeeper, not to mention initially inquisitive gardeners and even the occasional passing policeman.
Curse it! After leaving the car in that perfect little concealed clearing on the other side of the lane so conveniently close to the Rytham Hall lodge gates he should have gone straight up to the house as large as life, not tried to be clever and spy out the land first with the aid of his binoculars. And it had been little short of madness to allow himself to be lulled by the total absence of other traffic in the lane and a fair-sized gap low in the hedge to have wriggled right into the confounded thing. The only thing he could be in the least proud of was that in his extremity he had kept his wits about him and thought of explaining away the binoculars with the tale about bird-watching.
The old woman was obviously gaga anyway, doddering about with an umbrella on a day like that, so she probably hadn’t listened. Too busy babbling about iodine and clinics. In fact, within half an hour she’d probably imagined she’d dreamed the whole thing. Prothero breathed deeply and forced himself to think calmly. It had been a minor tactical setback, nothing more, which had done nothing to undermine his broad strategic plan. Even if his neck and shoulder did hurt like blazes.
With some difficulty he looked at his watch, started to nod, and then thought better of it when it sent a wave of agony through his head. Reg Cobb had warned him over the phone that it was likely to be a busy evening at the club. There’d been a message to the effect that Omar Sharif might look in, and if word had reached the paparazzi, they were going to have their work cut out.
Prothero sighed. He honestly wouldn’t have minded staying home and watching TV for a change. Still, it wasn’t as if it were Peter O’Toole or Oliver Reed they were going to be coping with; and he’d probably be able to get away soon after midnight.
That would be a good time to start working on the girl.
chapter
~6~
EVEN AFTER their train arrived at Charing Cross and Nigel Colveden masterfully led the way to the taxi stand outside, Miss Seeton, though looking forward very much to seeing the Lalique jewelry, still felt something of an interloper. One had, she reminded herself, already suggested several times that, great treat though it was for her, it would surely have been much more pleasant for Nigel to have been accompanied by a friend of his own age, and one could hardly go on saying the same thing over and over again, could one . . .?
“How lovely, he’s taking us along the Mall, so we shall go through St. James’s Palace, shan’t we. And on such an agreeable morning, too. It is so very kind of you to invite me today, Nigel, though I can’t help thinking—”
“Now, then, Miss Seeton, not another word. My mother’s already explained that she’s got to preside over some area-women’s institute thing, and frankly, can you see my father in a Bond Street gallery with a lot of art critics and fashion writers?”
“Well, quite honestly, no, but since they passed on their invitations to you, surely one of your friends . . .?”
“And I’ve explained that the only person in the world I’d ask before you would be Marigold Naseby, and she’s going to be there anyway, surrounded by a lot of publicity staff. So you’ll be able to explain about Lalique to me and I’ll be able to introduce you to Marigold.”
“That will be very nice. A Northamptonshire family, presumably. What a foolish man Charles the First was, but then weakness and obstinacy so often go together, don’t they? Tell me, how did you come to meet Miss Naseby originally?”
“In the last round of the competition. Of course, Mode’s business manager started negotiating with my father ages ago and it was all fixed for them to use the house and gardens as the background for the feature, but I don’t think my parents quite grasped just what would be involved when the time came. Anyway, as soon as my college term ended last month and I arrived home, Father told me he couldn’t cope with all the fiddle-faddle, as he called it, and that he was putting me in charge of the business arrangements. Personally, I’ve been finding it great fun. Well, I’ve already mentioned the last round of the Search for the Lalique Lady.” Nigel somehow contrived to pronounce the capital letters. “Once they were down to the last six, the publicity people said they wanted them all photographed in the same room if possible, so I agreed on the terms and booked them for an extra day.”
He smiled dreamily as the taxi left Berkeley Square and turned into Davies Street. “The models arrived together in a minibus and they were all smashers, needless to say. But after I’d met them one by one it was no contest as far as I was concerned. Marigold is so, well . . . so . . . anyway, Cedric Benbow chose her, didn’t he? Gosh, I still can’t get over your knowing him. I say, I’ve just realized that it’s very likely he’ll be there as well this morning.”
When he first arrived in England shortly before the war, the teenager Ferencz Szabo had thought it only sensible to put thoughts of his native city of Debrecen behind him as far as possible. He was clearly going to have to live on his wits, and given that the English seemed to regard all Central Europeans with the same mixture of uneasy sympathy and suspicious distaste, it seemed probable that he would do better with an English name.
Ferencz Szabo translated very neatly into the no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth Frank Taylor, so Frank Taylor he became, and so he remained for a very long time. During the first few months, while he was humping furniture about in the Harrods depository beside the Thames, he was called all sorts of other names and teased about his halting English and thick accent. However, Ferencz possessed a forgiving nature, an excellent ear, and a quick intelligence, and by the time he joined the army his speech was barely distinguishable from that of his workmates.
As a private and eventually a sergeant (acting) in the Royal Army Service Corps, Frank Taylor achieved no military glory. He did, however, vastly increase his vocabulary and master a useful range of new accents. He could soon do Brummie and Scouse to perfection, and in the sergeants’ mess of an evening Frank was often plied with free beer in return for reproducing with uncanny accuracy the confident barking of career officers with permanent commissions and the contrasting, timidly fretful woodnotes of “temporary gentlemen.” He was a godsend to the entertainment officer, who enrolled him in the company concert party, and his impressions often brought the house down in the Naafi on a Saturday night.
By the time Frank was released many months after the war ended he knew himself to be fitted for better things than rearranging furniture in Harrods depository. For a start, he knew a thing or two about the disposal of arm
y surplus stores. Within a year, successful and perfectly legitimate deals in boots, tools, office equipment, and vehicles had netted enough money for him to move into classier junk via an antiques shop in Chelsea.
There he based himself contentedly for a time, cultivating his eye for quality and assiduously studying auction catalogs. Over the next few years his flair, general savoir faire, and increasing experience propelled him steadily upmarket until he was able first to buy an interest in a Bond Street gallery and then to buy out its original owner.
That was a great day for him, except for one problem: what sort of a name was Frank Taylor for a dealer in rare and valuable objets d’art? Ideal for running a hardware or bicycle repair shop in East Acton, no doubt, but hardly Bond Street style. Ferencz Szabo, on the other hand, was absolutely right. Frank Taylor therefore quietly disappeared and the single word Szabo—gilded, and in slightly modified uppercase Perpetua lettering—appeared on the rich dark green paintwork of the fascia of the Bond Street premises, whose show window rarely displayed more than one item. The new proprietor’s original Hungarian accent had long ago disappeared from his impressive repertoire, but he worked at perfecting a reasonable copy of it, never failed to kiss his female customers’ hands, and prospered mightily.
Concluding the deal with Mode magazine over the Lalique jewelry show was the most deeply satisfying to date of his many and varied achievements, and it was with justifiable pride that Ferencz Szabo stood near the entrance of his gallery, side by side with the editor of Mode, to welcome invited guests to the special press show.
Press show it was, and publicity was its object. It therefore had to begin at what Ferencz personally considered to be the uncivilized hour of eleven in the morning, so that the people from television and the evening papers could meet their deadlines; but media free-for-all he had no intention of allowing it to become. The young women checking invitations just inside the doors—which invitees had been warned would be closed at eleven-fifteen precisely—had been selected for their looks and style, but an extremely large security guard in uniform lurked behind them to discourage aspiring gate-crashers, and a number of equally formidable colleagues of his were watching over the exhibits. Their services were instantly available in case of need.
Security was of course a crucial consideration, though both the Szabo Gallery and the magazine had been required by the owners of the pieces to arrange full insurance cover at vast expense, quite apart from paying a fee Ferencz preferred not to think about for the loan. Publicity was, however, the name of this game, and it did Ferencz’s heart good to see the crowd of people who had gathered outside to watch and to speculate about what was going on. One TV crew had already filmed the scene in Bond Street, and the thought that his gallery’s discreetly elegant frontage would in all probability be seen by millions of viewers added to his pleasure.
The fashion writers, art critics, and a handful of experts from museums like the Victoria and Albert and so on had been warned that their invitations were strictly personal to themselves, and Cedric Benbow had himself chosen the very few photographers to be admitted. This almost guaranteed the stirring up of a fury of competitive envy on the part of those excluded, which could only bring about highly satisfactory results in terms of coverage.
It was a pity the Mode features editor had insisted that an exception must be made in the case of Sir George and Lady Colveden, who in accepting had nominated their son, Nigel, and a Miss Emily D. Seeton as their representatives. Making the arrangements with Sir George for the use of Rytham Hall for a full week of shooting had, she reminded them, been a tortuous, even harrowing business, and it was simply not on to offend the Colvedens at this stage. In any case, she had added in a calmer voice, Nigel Colveden was all right, very helpful actually; and no doubt this Emily Seeton girl of his was an appropriately decorative popsy. . . .
Wendy Smith cringed miserably in her corner of the big limousine until it was nearly at Bond Street, and then with a supreme effort forced Marigold Naseby to take her place. For crying out loud, it was only for an hour or so, Liz had exploded at her earlier. “Course you’ve got to go, you daft cow, and watch that mascara! Don’t feel well? Hoo, hark at her! Matter, got the curse or something? Well, that’s what they call Sod’s Law, innit? Think of it this way, you look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm already, exactly the way that old queen Benbow wants, so you won’t even have to work at it this time. Just keep it that way and you’ll have Hollywood on the phone by teatime.”
Liz was a freelance makeup artist, engaged by the magazine to take care of Wendy’s appearance for the duration of the project, and Wendy thought she was terrific. She knew all sorts of juicy scandal about famous people, for a start. She was full of beans that morning, excited about the do at the gallery and keeping up a steady flow of chatter while looking out of the window on her side of the car. But it was all right for her. It wasn’t Liz who had answered the phone in the suite at the Dorchester well after midnight and heard that quiet, insistent voice.
It had taken a while for what the man was saying to begin to sink in. When it did, Wendy told herself to slam the receiver down, but by then she was feeling like one of them rabbits caught in headlights and too scared to run away. He wasn’t a heavy breather, not like that creep they finally caught at Shepherd’s Bush—the one whose kitchen window overlooked the Smith bathroom, and the coppers worked it out that even with the curtain drawn like it always was he could see shadows when the light was on. No, he hadn’t said anything crude. Nor was he what you could exactly call smarmy, even when he was going on about her face, a lot of fancy stuff about classic Fan De Sickle looks or something. He sounded sort of cold and snooty, like he could take it or leave it.
That was what had made it all the more horrible when he’d started going on about these friends of his. Alfie, Uncle George, and the Slicer. And how the Slicer’s missus had been having it away with some bloke and the Slicer came home unexpected, and . . . and well, it was afterward they’d started calling him that. But this scary man on the phone said it needn’t come to that, need it, because the famous Marigold Naseby would be glad to do him a little favor, and as long as she did he certainly wouldn’t go in for crude threats about telling the Slicer she was his girlfriend and had been playing around.
What’s more, if she was to do him this little favor he’d give her a really nice present: the negatives of these photos he had of her. You know, intimate photos. The photos and the negatives, the lot. Otherwise . . . well, there were all sorts of possibilities, weren’t there, Miss Naseby. Apart from the Slicer, of course, who had this thing about girls who played around.
Certain newspapers would pay a lot for those photos, and they’d print them like a shot, and Cedric Benbow wouldn’t like that one bit, would he? Probably call off the whole project, indeed, and bang goes Marigold Naseby’s career as a top fashion model. Anyway, that was all hypo . . . hypocritical or something. Meaning it need not happen, and once she’d had the nature of the little favor explained to her and seen how simple it was, she could set her mind at rest, couldn’t she?
The limousine drew up outside the Szabo Gallery and somebody opened the door. In a trance of sick despair Marigold Naseby somehow managed to step out of the car, brave the cameras outside the gallery, and then go in. Liz followed her, a look of concern on her own cheerful, freckled face. The kid looked great, absolutely great, but there really was something wrong with her, Liz decided. Something worse than a bad case of stomach cramps.
Miss Seeton was obviously far from being the decorative popsy the features editor had envisaged. She was, however, by no means the only lady of mature years at the show, nor was she the least fashionably attired among them. She was outdone in the latter respect by a formidable expert from a museum in Austria who liked to be addressed as “Doctor Doctor,” and by a remote, fey-looking woman in vaguely ethnic draperies smelling strongly of stale biscuits.
Moreover, Miss Seeton was in no sense a fish out of water in the Sza
bo Gallery. When in London for the day, she usually visited the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, or one of the other collections, and knew very well how to comport herself. That day she was, as always, neatly and unobtrusively dressed. Nigel had been afraid that she might make a fuss when deprived of her umbrella on arrival, but Miss Seeton was quite used to surrendering it when visiting museums and art galleries and had handed it over at the improvised cloakroom quite meekly in return for a numbered ticket.
Now she was, there was no doubt about it, enjoying herself very much. Especially after the glass of delicious champagne that the charming Hungarian gentleman had insisted on her taking. The only odd thing was that nobody except herself seemed to be showing the slightest interest in the Lalique jewelry. Even Nigel seemed to have drifted off somewhere while she was explaining why the William Morris rooms at the hall would be such an appropriate setting for the great man’s work. Always supposing, of course, that the clothes Miss Naseby was to wear were sympathetic.
The dress she had on that day was perfectly splendid, but not perhaps absolutely right for Lalique. It must have taken two or three dozen yards of handprinted silk in a rich melange of subtle forest colors to produce the great full sleeves and skirt. There was lace at the simple V neck, and on top of everything a little open jerkin in dusty pink and ivory, and by way of both hair decoration and garland a tangle of flowers, ribbons, and marabou feathers that made one think of Ophelia. The horizontally striped stockings that peeped out below the skirt suggested Tenniel’s Alice, though.
Poor Nigel! It seemed most unlikely to Miss Seeton that he would have an opportunity to speak to Miss Naseby himself, much less be able to introduce them. She was in such demand. Never mind, she was in clear view most of the time and Miss Seeton always preferred if possible to form an impression of someone from a distance and in her own time. The child was indeed beautiful—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she had been made to look so. The features were good but not extraordinary, and it was the styling of the hair and the makeup that really gave her such a convincing Lalique look. That and the expression on her face. Whoever had coached her had done well, but someone should explain, or show her from paintings, the difference between gentle pensiveness and withdrawal into a private dream. Whatever sort of dream could it be?
Miss Seeton, By Appointment (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 6) Page 5