A Night of Errors

by Michael Innes

  ‘In the restaurant? I just didn’t notice him. Too dashed dumbfounded by Oliver’s behaving that way.’

  ‘You are sure it was Oliver?’

  ‘Good God! Of course I am. There he was. And I heard him talk as well. I tell you, Kate, I don’t like it.’

  ‘Clearly not. By the way, Sebastian, how are your money affairs?’

  ‘How are any Dromio affairs these days? I can tell you, I don’t want any sort of rumpus at the moment. Let the world hear that one of us has bolted or lost his nerve–’

  ‘I see. And that is why you arrive at Sherris as if you were bringing the bad news from Aix to Ghent.’ And Lady Dromio, unconscious of having achieved any witticism, took another stab at her embroidery. ‘Here is Robert with your cases.’ She rose. ‘We shall dine, as usual, at eight.’

  ‘Very well. I could do with something to eat after that beastly luncheon. Nobody coming in, I suppose?’

  ‘Well yes. We didn’t expect you, you know, until long after dinner. And so I asked Mary Gollifer to come across. And now, as you seem interested in her–’

  ‘I’d like to know a little about her past,’ Sebastian Dromio said.

  And Lady Dromio shivered.

  Grubb locked the tool-shed and, as was his invariable custom, thrust the key beneath a piece of sacking on the windowsill. It was twenty to eight. Having spent a particularly long day in substantial vacancy of mind and idleness of limb, Grubb felt tired and glum. He climbed to the terrace and walked heavily round the house, dimly hoping that his leaden and exhausted gait would attract the compassion – or if not the compassion then the resentment – of his employers. But the house turned upon him only a succession of blank windows. They would be upstairs, he reflected, getting into their tomfool clothes. Between that and eating and ordering folk about they passed their days. Grubb’s thought turned to the cold bacon waiting for him in his solitary cottage. Actually, and at an instinctive level, the image of this rose before him accompanied by sensations of simple pleasure. But quickly, and because he had long schooled himself in the prime duty of being disgruntled, Grubb achieved the darkest view of his supper. He commiserated with himself as one iniquitously defrauded of his just inheritance of caviare and champagne. It was not that Grubb held levelling views. He would altogether have disallowed William’s claim to caviare, and even Swindle’s to port. But it seemed to Grubb that he was, or ought to be, a man exceptionally privileged. Such was the monstrous unfairness with which the world had treated his beautiful nature that the Deity, as a special recompense, had excused him – and him alone – from the observance of certain of the more irksome moral laws. Grubb was no doubt unaware that he thus possessed what was technically a criminal psychology. Nevertheless his action was dictated by this feeling. He paused outside the study and his eye swept the terrace. A particularly morose expression came over his face. He looked round again – this time plainly to make sure that he was unobserved – and moved with a rapid shuffle towards the French window.

  Ten minutes later Grubb was trudging across the park – not directly towards his cottage and waiting bacon but by a slightly circuitous route. This route represented his settled choice at the end of his day’s labours, and often enough it had caused speculation among the outdoor servants. A sort of ritual attended it.

  Grubb trudged across the park, muttering strangely as he went. Such browsing sheep or cattle as he met with he cursed heartily. Eventually he reached the boundary of the property and paused. Before him here, and almost on the highroad, stood a cottage evidently long untenanted. Its windows were boarded up and in places the roof had fallen in. Even amid the pervasive disrepair of Sherris it was arrestingly dreary and forlorn. Grubb halted and for some moments stared. Several times, and with a curious effect of unsuccessful experiment, his features worked, contorting themselves into a semblance of sudden inspiration. Then they clouded again; moroseness took up its settled stance; with a gesture baffled and discouraged Grubb scratched his jaw.

  It was eight o’clock.

  It was eight o’clock and Mrs Gollifer would be late; nevertheless she found it difficult to throw away her cigarette, press the self-starter and complete her drive to this awkward dinner. Oliver Dromio presumably was still abroad, so there would be no call for the final and fantastic insincerity involved in a meeting with him. But was there not insincerity enough?

  Kate Dromio was an old friend. She was – yes, surely she was – deeply beholden to Kate. Kate could not have foreseen this eventual disaster, and she would be heart-broken if she knew. Or would she? Making an effort of will and throwing away the cigarette, Mary Gollifer frowned. You just couldn’t tell with Kate. Her feelings about Oliver, her feelings about Lucy – there was something oblique or uncertain in them. And she was correspondingly uncertain about the feelings of others. Otherwise she would not give little dinners of just this sort.

  The truth was that she, Mary Gollifer, should have stopped knowing the Dromios long ago. She should have stopped her son Geoffrey knowing them… They were not a satisfactory spectacle. And all the trouble – or all the trouble as Mrs Gollifer saw it – proceeded from Lucy’s position in the household. With Kate Dromio, and as an adopted daughter, Lucy had failed to come off. And the girl knew it. Not that she was a girl; she was a woman who ought to have been married and away from the place long ago.

  But what if Lucy wanted to marry Oliver? And what if her own son Geoffrey wanted to marry Lucy? Mrs Gollifer felt anger leap in her like a flame; felt consternation and panic gather round her like a cloud. She let in the clutch and drove fast for Sherris, reckless in these winding lanes.

  She brought her mind back to dwell on the Dromios as the mind of a disinterested acquaintance might do. And she saw that with Lucy, clearly, Kate Dromio had bitten off more than she could chew. In personal relationships one can commit no greater crime – and mere generosity and lack of self-knowledge can lead to it. Long ago, and after tragedy and disappointment, Kate had wanted the child. But she had not wanted her enough. Or not enough to weigh against something else. But against what? Mrs Gollifer had no idea. Kate’s tragedy had been deeper than was known and the little girl – a waif, thought Mrs Gollifer, no more than a waif – had failed to ease it into oblivion. Between mother and adopted daughter the right thing had not grown, and when that happens the wrong things grow instead. Nothing very wrong, surely, but enough to make frustration and disillusion the dominant notes at Sherris. Frustration and disillusion… Who would willingly dine – or live – with these?

  Kate was not to blame; in fairness it was necessary to hold to that. Mary Gollifer’s foot pressed the accelerator as she made the assertion. If disillusioned and defeated, that was to say, Kate Dromio had ample cause. She could be hardly unaware that Oliver was – well, that Oliver was no good.

  It was nearly ten past eight. Mrs Gollifer’s car swept round the last curve of the Dromios’ drive and the house was revealed to her. The property of Sir Oliver Dromio, fifth baronet. But if Lucy had actually become… Again the flame of anger licked up in Mary Gollifer. Then her heart sank for a moment to her evening shoes. A figure in a dinner-jacket was pacing the terrace with overt and uncivil impatience. She looked again and sighed with relief. It was not Oliver but his uncle, Sebastian Dromio. He was a disagreeable old man to whom she was entirely indifferent.

  In large houses and among well-bred people guests do not commonly overhear embarrassing conversations about themselves. That Mrs Gollifer did so was substantially Swindle’s fault.

  Just before leaving home Mrs Gollifer had told her butler, a retainer almost as far declined into the vale of years as Swindle himself, to telephone Sherris Hall with the information that she might be late. Swindle, being hard of hearing, had made no more of this than a mere mumble. Whereupon, with the obstinacy or malice of the aged, he had chosen to announce to his mistress that Mrs Gollifer was unable to dine. When Mrs Gollifer actually arrived she was shown, according to the familiar habit of the house, into Lady Dromio�
��s boudoir. At that moment Lady Dromio and her adopted daughter were conversing over some final adjustment of dress in the elder lady’s bedroom next door. Mrs Gollifer would have interrupted them at once. But the first two words stopped her.

  ‘Oliver’s Gollifer!’ Lucy Dromio’s voice held what was not a sympathetic laughter. ‘How many of the silly stories about Oliver are nasty too, mamma. But not many are so exquisitely cacophonous.’

  ‘Lucy, dear, it is to be wished that you would not colour so when Oliver’s name is mentioned in such connexions. It will be remarked.’

  ‘Then why mention it?’

  ‘Because before Swindle told me that Mary Gollifer was not coming to dinner I thought I had better warn you of this piece of scandal in Sebastian’s mind. Not that I really understand it. He seems to think that Mary has been getting money from Oliver.’

  ‘Because she is his mistress? Was ever anything so absurd! For surely it would be the other way round. Oliver would require quite a lot of money from the lady.’

  ‘Lucy, that is not nice.’ There was unusual agitation in Lady Dromio’s voice. ‘And I wonder that you can make such jokes about Oliver. Especially when you–’

  ‘Yes, mamma. But uncle Sebastian must be mad. For surely Mrs Gollifer has lots of money. Her son Geoffrey is enormously wealthy.’

  ‘Well, dear, I do not know that Mary has as much money as she had. So many people haven’t. And, as I say, I don’t at all understand what Sebastian means. He seems merely to have come upon some hint of money transactions between these two, and he may have got it quite muddled. But I mentioned it because he might have been very tactless and brutal and I should have needed you to help me head him off. But as Mary isn’t coming–’

  ‘She has come.’ And Mrs Gollifer, gathering her skirts and her courage about her, swept through to the adjoining room.

  3

  It was quarter to nine when Geoffrey Gollifer drew up outside his mother’s house and ran indoors, almost colliding with Martin, the butler, who had held so luckless a telephone conversation with Swindle an hour before.

  ‘Good evening, Martin. Is my mother at home?’

  ‘Why, good evening, Mr Geoffrey. This is a great surprise. And Mrs Gollifer is out, sir, I’m sorry to say. Dining at Sherris and drove herself over in the car. I understood her to say you would be sailing tomorrow morning, sir.’

  ‘And so I am, Martin. That’s what I’ve come about. It seems that when I brought my mother back from Switzerland in January I left my passport with hers. I think I’ll drive over and ask her about it… I suppose Miss Lucy is at Sherris?’

  ‘I suppose so, Mr Geoffrey.’ Martin’s tone was benevolent.

  Geoffrey Gollifer glanced at his watch. ‘Would you say they’d have finished dinner?’

  ‘Why, yes, sir. By the time you arrive there I venture to think they’ll be taking their coffee.’

  ‘Good.’ Geoffrey Gollifer turned to the door. Then he hesitated. ‘Sir Oliver not back there yet, I suppose?’

  ‘I couldn’t positively say, Mr Geoffrey. But, come to think of it, it seems very likely, sir. He has been in expectation for some time. There has been quite a mystery, if I may say so, sir.’

  ‘Mystery, Martin? Tommyrot. Lot of country gossip, I suppose.’

  ‘As you say, sir. But I do think he may be back, and this little dinner a celebrating of the fact. Not that the mistress mentioned anything of that kind, Mr Geoffrey.’

  ‘I see.’ Geoffrey Gollifer did not sound particularly pleased. ‘Well, I think I’ll just telephone across and ask where the passports are kept. It will save time. Just see if you can get Sherris on the line.’

  ‘Very good, Mr Geoffrey.’

  But Sherris for some reason was unobtainable. And Geoffrey frowned irresolutely. ‘Dash it all,’ he said, ‘where are such things kept? Would my mother lock them up?’

  Martin, perhaps because his mumblings to the girl on the local exchange had been ineffective and half-hearted, was eager to help. ‘Very probably your passport would be in Mrs Gollifer’s bureau, sir. I believe that one or two of the drawers are kept locked, but as likely as not the document would not be in one of those.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll have a look. I don’t suppose my mother will mind. Just come along, Martin, and lend me a hand.’

  The bureau was ancient and capacious, and for some time Geoffrey rummaged in vain, Martin making ineffective fumbling motions beside him. ‘Dash it all, Martin,’ he said irritably, ‘don’t you think you could get through on the telephone, after all? We might be a couple of burglars.’

  ‘Well, sir–’

  ‘And now this drawer is stuck. Damn!’ The drawer at which Geoffrey was tugging had flown open with a splintering crash. ‘It must have been locked after all.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The piece is an old one and the woodwork must have been unsound.’ Martin was respectfully malicious. ‘Mrs Gollifer has always been particularly attached to this bureau.’

  ‘And here I am behaving like a bull in a china-shop.’ Irritably and rather shamefacedly, Geoffrey Gollifer was flicking over papers in the drawer. Suddenly his hand stayed itself and turned a couple of papers slowly. ‘Martin,’ he said, and his voice had sharpened unaccountably, ‘go and fetch me a brandy and soda.’

  ‘Very good, Mr Geoffrey.’

  ‘But first, just find Thomas and ask him to make sure that there is plenty of petrol in my car.’

  It was nearly ten minutes before Martin returned. The bureau was closed. Geoffrey Gollifer was standing by the window, looking out into the gathering dusk. His passport was in his hand. ‘I found it,’ he said.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, sir.’ Martin, as he set down his tray, glanced at his employer’s son in some surprise. Mr Geoffrey, it seemed to him, had spoken with altogether disproportionate emphasis.

  ‘Yes, I found it. I had a notion it was there – quite dimly. And – by Jove! – it was… You say Sir Oliver is probably at Sherris?’

  ‘I believe he may be, sir.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I had better be off.’ And Geoffrey Gollifer drained his glass. ‘By the way, Martin, where have they put those army things of mine?’

  ‘In your old dressing-room, sir. I put them carefully away myself.’

  ‘Good. I’ll just run up and get something.’

  Geoffrey strode to the door. Martin followed. ‘Can I be of any help to you, sir?’

  ‘No, thank you, Martin. I’m pretty sure I don’t need any help.’

  And Geoffrey Gollifer went off upstairs. In the old way, Martin thought – with a sort of jump at the bottom and then two steps at a time. And Martin shook his head doubtfully. He was getting on, he knew, and the mistress was already hinting at a pension. But was it so bad that he had come to fancy things? For he thought he had seen a young and handsome face suddenly transformed – pale, strained, and the forehead showing beads of sweat.

  Smoothly the car slid away from the little inn. The hands of the clock on the dashboard were at nine-fifteen. It was growing dusk.

  The two men drove silently for some time. ‘Not a bad idea,’ said the first, ‘turning off the main road to dine. The bigger places are most of them a bit spoilt nowadays. It was a quiet spot, that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the second, ‘quite out of the way.’

  The first glanced at a sign-post. ‘Getting near,’ he said, and paused. ‘You know, I just don’t see how I can face it.’

  ‘Oh, come, my dear chap. That’s quite morbid, surely.’

  ‘I suppose it is. But I’ve always been a bit like that. And you just don’t know what it–’

  ‘Say!’ The second man, who was driving, braked sharply and drew into the side of the road. ‘Did you see that? Looked as if it might have been a hit-and-run accident. Fellow knocked into the ditch.’

  ‘Good lord! I didn’t notice.’ The first man spoke not altogether attentively, as if his thoughts were far away. ‘Better get out and look.’

  ‘Don’t you bother. I’ll j
ust run back.’

  And the second man climbed out of the car. He was absent a couple of minutes. ‘Nothing at all,’ he said casually when he returned. ‘Just a tramp dead drunk and fast asleep. He’ll come to no harm. We’ll drive on.’

  And the first man nodded. ‘Right-ho,’ he said. ‘Better face it. And the fellow will come to no harm, as you say.’

  Oliver’s Gollifer. It rankled, Mrs Gollifer found as she bent down to admire Lady Dromio’s embroidery. That she should be supposed at her age to be any man’s mistress was – or ought to be – merely comical. Doubtless there were such horrible old women, and what did it matter if she were taken for one of them by a horrible old man? And Sebastian Dromio was certainly that. It had become clear during dinner that he was worried, but he had seemed to take this as licence for being as disagreeable as he pleased – except to Lucy, for whom he seemed to have some slight affection. A horrible old man spreading a horrible slander… But it was not the slander itself that really stung. It was – Mrs Gollifer discovered with some surprise – the disgusting collocation of gobbling sounds with which Lucy Dromio had ridiculed it. Oliver’s Gollifer.

  She had greatly disrelished wedding herself to a Gollifer. The outlandish name had been one of two considerations which had weighed almost decisively against her going to the altar with the very wealthy man who bore it… But she had gone, all the same. And Samuel Gollifer had proved a very decent fellow. They had teamed up well. She had been very sorry when he died.

  It was not all that man desires (thought Mrs Gollifer, looking thoughtfully at Lucy laying out a card-table, and at the same time letting her mind stray back across the years). But it was all that man requires – or approximately so. And, for good measure, there had been Geoffrey, her only son. Mrs Gollifer was sometimes puzzled to know where her love for Geoffrey came from. But it was there… Mrs Gollifer’s finger made a little arabesque in air, tactfully picking out some special elegance in Lady Dromio’s needlecraft. If only, after all, Geoffrey and Lucy –