Au Reservoir

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  Lucia waved away such a quaint notion.

  ‘Should the Chairman of the museum wish to express his gratitude, perhaps by asking Georgie to open a new exhibition with the aureus as its centrepiece, I am sure he would be only too happy to oblige,’ she said graciously.

  Mr Chesworth looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Ah, if only, Mrs Pillson. Sadly, the mounting of new exhibitions costs money, and funding has been in short supply since the war.’

  ‘Then your committee must talk to Georgie and he will see what can be arranged,’ she said with an even more gracious smile. ‘Really, I can’t think why they haven’t approached him before. He is already a well-known patron of the Royal Opera House.’

  Naturally everybody’s gaze turned to Georgie at this point, and he tried to compose his face into an expression that was at the same time cultured, wealthy and generous.

  Elizabeth’s mouth had for some time been opening and closing silently. Now suddenly she found her voice.

  ‘Suppose it’s a fake?’ she asked.

  ‘Like your family portrait, you mean?’ Diva countered at once.

  Mr Wyse, who had been the innocent cause of its unmasking, winced visibly.

  Major Benjy said, ‘Here, steady on, what!’

  ‘I can assure you, Mrs Mapp-Flint, that the coin is genuine,’ Mr Chesworth said.

  ‘But you just said that you’d never seen one before, that nobody had.’

  ‘That is so,’ he replied quietly yet firmly, ‘but I would stake my life on its being genuine. Apart from anything else, something like this would be almost impossible to fake. You would need an original coin from which to take an impression.’

  ‘But if you’ve never seen an original,’ she persisted desperately, ‘then you wouldn’t know what one would look like, would you?’

  ‘I beg to disagree,’ said Mr Chesworth, who was clearly beginning to be irritated by such dogged opposition. ‘Just because nobody has ever seen one doesn’t mean that we don’t know what it would look like, what it should look like, if it did in fact exist.’

  ‘Perhaps it was bought in a coin shop?’

  This time Mr Chesworth really did laugh.

  ‘Oh dear me, no,’ he said. ‘Seeing this coin in a coin shop, even a specialist one like those around the British Museum, would be like seeing a Rembrandt in a high street antique shop. Why, it would be recognised and noticed at once.’

  ‘It’s a trick!’ Elizabeth repeated, her voice becoming very shrill. ‘Can’t you all see? It’s a trick!’

  Fortunately at this point Grosvenor came into the room and asked, ‘You rang, madam?’

  ‘Champagne please, Grosvenor, and lots of it,’ Lucia commanded. ‘I find we have something to celebrate.’

  ‘Champagne, is it?’ marvelled the Padre.

  ‘Indeed, Padre mio,’ Lucia cried. ‘And since the weather is so wonderful perhaps we might take it in the garden.’

  Amid the ensuing murmur of acclaim and agreement, she turned to Mapp and smiled sweetly.

  ‘Will you join us, Elizabeth dear, or must you dash off?’

  Mapp’s red and contorted features goggled at her noiselessly, and then she turned towards the door. Major Benjy followed her stiffly, aware that total defeat rather than total victory had attended his wife’s best efforts, nervous of having to endure her emotional outpourings for their walk back to Grebe and the evening which lay ahead, and deeply regretful at having to leave behind what sounded like limitless supplies of champagne.

  Mr Chesworth hovered indecisively as his host and hostess for the weekend made their departure.

  ‘Do stay, Mr Chesworth,’ Lucia implored him. ‘We have so much to celebrate, and so much to discuss. Cadman can run you back later in the Rolls.’

  To reinforce her plea, she tucked her arm in his and steered him deftly into the garden.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ she said as the others pressed round, smiling excitedly and raising their champagne glasses, ‘is what you were doing staying at Grebe for the weekend in the first place. Elizabeth never has house guests.’

  ‘Truth to tell, madam, no more do I,’ he replied. ‘Mrs Mapp-Flint started corresponding with the museum some time ago about some valuable Roman finds which were in the possession of an eccentric lady who lived locally, and asked if someone could come down and persuade her to reveal them so they could at least be catalogued. Naturally, as her letter concerned Roman Britain, it was passed to me, it being my specialty. Things just sort of moved on from there.’

  ‘Now I see things very clearly,’ Lucia said drily. ‘So you don’t work in a bank, you and Elizabeth don’t have mutual friends in London, and you’re not on the south coast for a walking holiday and to study birds?’

  ‘Is that what Elizabeth said?’ Diva asked, shocked, as Mr Chesworth shook his head in response to Lucia’s question.

  ‘It is indeed,’ Lucia confirmed sadly. ‘Poor Elizabeth! We must pity her.’

  ‘Pity is a charitable instinct indeed, Lucia,’ Susan Wyse observed, ‘but I am not sure the rest of us take quite such a charitable view. Why, her conduct recently has been quite appalling, even by her standards.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ seconded Irene, who had been recalled from Taormina by telephone, where she had been sobbing convulsively, and was already on her second glass of champagne.

  The Padre murmured something Anglican and platitudinous, whereupon Lucia fixed him with a brilliant smile.

  ‘And of course we have yet one more thing to celebrate, namely the winning of the amateur prize at the bridge tournament by a team from Tilling.’

  More clinking of glasses ensued, with embarrassed mumblings from the Bartletts and Diva. Irene by contrast shouted, ‘Aren’t we all wonderful?’ delightedly and drained her glass.

  ‘Yes, Irene, dear,’ Lucia agreed as she gazed contentedly around the garden, ‘I rather think we are.’

  Chapter 27

  So successful was Lucia’s impromptu champagne garden party that few of those attending it had any clear idea the next morning of how they had got to bed that evening, let alone when.

  Georgie called for coffee with his breakfast in a rather hoarse voice, and sat slumped at the breakfast table. He gazed at Lucia, who also looked a little peaky, strangely so, for, as was her habit, she had imbibed very little.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Lucia?’ he asked. ‘Not too much champagne, surely?’

  ‘No indeed, caro mio, not like you,’ she said with a smile. ‘Though I did get bitten by some wretched insect in the garden yesterday evening. Unfortunately it’s right between my toes and rather painful. I must put some camomile lotion on it after breakfast.’

  ‘Oh, poor you,’ Georgie said with feeling. He had a horror of all insects, notably wasps, but anything which was of a biting or stinging nature was anathema to him.

  ‘Now tell me all about it,’ he urged her. ‘I never got a chance to ask you yesterday with all those people around, before I went to bed.’

  ‘Before Foljambe took you to bed, I think you’ll find, Georgie,’ Lucia replied with an amused expression, ‘though not in the biblical sense, of course.’

  Now he came to think of it he had a distinct recollection of Foljambe unlacing his shoes and slipping his braces down over his shoulders. He decided not to strain his memory any further.

  ‘Oh, come on, Lucia,’ he said. ‘Where on earth did you get it?’

  ‘From a coin shop by the British Museum,’ she admitted slyly. ‘So you see, Elizabeth was right after all, though by that time she was so thoroughly exploded that nobody would even listen to her. It was when I came back from Italy just before the Wall Street Crash – do you remember? – I was sitting in a taxi in a traffic jam in the City, thinking of some errands I had to run, and it just suddenly came to me.’

  ‘Out of the blue you mean? Just like that?’

  ‘Not exactly, Georgie, no. I’d always thought that she might try something like this one day, and I had long resolved
to find some genuine Roman find to put in along with our poor things. A sort of insurance policy, you might say.’

  ‘Aren’t you clever?’ marvelled Georgie. ‘But that still doesn’t explain how you managed to conjure into existence a previously unknown coin.’

  ‘That was just luck, really, or happenstance, or serendipity, or whatever you want to call it. You see, I went into the shop and asked the little man at the counter if he had something really special. I said I didn’t just want one of those Roman coins you can buy for a few shillings, but something nobody would be expecting.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, he looked at me and obviously worked out from my clothes and so on that I was a serious purchaser, then he locked the door and pulled down the blind and went into the back. I peeked round the corner and saw him take something out of the safe. He brought it back to me and that’s when I saw it and knew instinctively that it was what I wanted.’

  ‘But where had he got it from?’

  ‘Well, obviously I questioned him very carefully. I didn’t want to receive stolen property, after all. He said it had been owned by a reclusive old gentleman and that when he died his son brought it into the shop to sell it privately because he didn’t want to have to declare it for death duties. He showed me a bill of sale, which appeared to back up what he was saying.’

  ‘But why hadn’t he put it up for auction or something like that if it was so valuable?’

  ‘Because then he would have had to prove its provenance,’ Lucia explained simply, ‘and he couldn’t do that without disclosing the chain of ownership, which would mean that those blood-suckers at the Revenue would check and discover it had never been declared for death duty purposes, and they would have confiscated it, and everyone would have got into trouble – including the little man himself, of course.’

  She paused to take a sip of tea.

  ‘He said that the natural owner of the coin ought to be someone who had access to a Roman excavation and could pretend to have found it there. He looked right at me as he was saying it, almost as though he knew that’s exactly what we had in our back garden. Honestly, Georgie, it was one of those spine-tingling experiences when you know that the workings of fate have come together to define that single moment when you are presented with one of life’s perfect opportunities.’

  ‘But how much did you pay for it?’ Georgie asked nervously. ‘Wasn’t it terribly valuable? After all, Mr Chesworth said it was priceless.’

  ‘As I pointed out to the little man in the shop,’ his wife replied with a smile, ‘without somebody ready and willing to buy it, it was worth nothing. Anyway, we settled on one thousand pounds.’

  ‘A thousand pounds?’ gasped Georgie. ‘Well, that was jolly expensive insurance, I must say.’

  ‘But you must remember, Georgie, that I had just discovered that I had come into a great deal of money by shorting the market,’ Lucia countered. ‘About one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to be exact. So, in the circumstances, it seemed a fairly modest outlay for something so wonderful.’

  She poured herself another cup of tea, a smile playing around her lips.

  ‘The only thing I misjudged was poor Elizabeth. I thought she would think of this line of attack years ago. To be honest, I’d quite given up hoping, and was beginning to think of another way I could convincingly arrange for its discovery.’

  Georgie was beyond speech. He could only laugh. Lucia joined in.

  ‘But hang on a minute,’ Georgie said suddenly, ‘what about the little man? As soon as the coin goes on show he’ll know it must be the same one. And what about the former owners? They’ll know too.’

  ‘I kept up a discreet surveillance on the shop,’ said Lucia calmly. ‘I used to pop in from time to time when I was in London. The little man died and the shop passed into new ownership. Then it was bombed in the war, so even if there were any records of our transaction they will certainly have been destroyed one way or another. As for the former owners, even if the son is still alive, they can hardly say anything without exposing their own tax fraud, can they?’

  She shrugged her shoulders dismissively.

  ‘Now,’ she said, glancing at the clock. ‘We really must get ready for church, Georgino.’

  When Mr Wyse was shown into the drawing room on Monday morning, Lucia received him recumbent upon a chaise longue with bare feet, looking for all the world like a pre-Raphaelite painting.

  ‘Mr Wyse,’ she welcomed him. ‘I hope you don’t mind me presuming upon our long friendship by receiving you in this outrageously informal manner. I find I am somewhat troubled by an insect bite on my foot. Silly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not silly at all, my dear lady,’ he assured her. ‘Why, I remember one summer when my stepdaughter Isobel got bitten by a mosquito. She suffered an allergic reaction and her whole arm swelled up. She was really quite ill for several days, and in considerable pain.’

  ‘Yes, quite,’ Georgie broke in. ‘I want to call the doctor to take a look at it, but she won’t let me.’

  ‘May I?’ asked Mr Wyse, and leaned forward to inspect the offending toe through his monocle. ‘Yes,’ he said after a pause. ‘It is definitely swollen – see, it’s about twice the size of the other one – and there is discolouration as well. I would definitely recommend a visit from the doctor, Mrs Pillson.’

  ‘It shall be as you say,’ Lucia said, raising a hand to acknowledge defeat. ‘After all, I have asked you here to seek your advice.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ replied Mr Wyse, sitting down delicately in the wing chair which had already been positioned ready for him by the chaise longue, ‘and I am sure Susan will be too.’

  ‘I find, indeed, that I may be in even greater need of your services than I anticipated,’ Lucia said with a wry smile. ‘Mr Wyse, as I am finding walking rather difficult at present, I was wondering if you might deputise as Chairman at this afternoon’s meeting? I am so sorry to have to impose upon you in this way, particularly when there may be a delicate matter to resolve.’

  ‘Not at all, not at all,’ he protested, waving a hand as if batting away any such difficulties as may arise. ‘I should be honoured.’

  ‘Well, then let me explain the situation,’ Lucia said gratefully. ‘Here is the proposed constitution of the club, which you will hopefully have a chance to glance through prior to the meeting. You will see that it provides for a formation date before the tournament, so that once it is approved retrospectively then the club will have been in existence, and affiliated to the English Bridge Union, in good time to hold the event. I must confess that this point did not occur to me at the time, hence the need for some … flexibility of drafting.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so,’ Mr Wyse acknowledged, taking the folder which he was handed.

  ‘You will see that it also provides for my appointment as the first Chairman,’ Lucia said, darting a keen glance at him. ‘Lest this may seem presumptuous on my part, I should make clear that it was intended as a mere procedural convenience, to be replaced by a more permanent arrangement once the club was up and running.’

  ‘Quite so,’ he said again, ‘and, if I may say so, given your organisational efforts, not to mention your financial generosity in making the tournament possible, it is hard to imagine anyone opposing such a proposition.’

  ‘Well, that’s where you may be wrong actually,’ cut in Georgie, who had been listening in the background. ‘The Mapp-Flints may object.’

  ‘Really?’ Mr Wyse asked in evident surprise. ‘But in view of what you told me earlier about the awkward situation arising from their behaviour at the tournament, I would have thought they would be looking to “keep their heads down”, as it were.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Georgie agreed. ‘By the way, did you notice that they weren’t at church yesterday? That’s very unusual for them.’

  ‘Perhaps in the light of the events at your tea party, they may have felt it more circumspect to worship at home,’ Mr Wyse suggested mildly.

>   ‘Not dare to show their faces is how Irene put it,’ Georgie told him.

  Mr Wyse’s nose wrinkled in delicate distaste.

  ‘Miss Coles’ turn of phrase is not always of the most diplomatic kind,’ he observed.

  ‘But it does make it difficult to discuss how to arrange matters at the meeting,’ Lucia said, ‘if we don’t know whether they are even going to be there or not. If they’re not, do we assume they have become members or not?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Mr Wyse suggested, ‘you should simply tell me all the relevant facts and then we can discuss the various issues arising.’

  ‘Well,’ Lucia said, and then launched into an expert summation, making reference occasionally to entries in her notebook.

  Mr Wyse listened carefully, nodding from time to time. He paid particular attention to Lucia’s account of her telephone conversation on Friday.

  ‘Interesting, most interesting,’ he said when she had finished. ‘The issues to me seem clear. First, were the Mapp-Flints members of the club at the time of the tournament? If so, then clearly they must have been subject to its disciplinary jurisdiction, and that of its parent body. Which would mean that the Chairman would be bound to reply to the disciplinary letter, and to acquiesce in whatever decision is made.’

  ‘Bravo!’ said Lucia. ‘My analysis exactly.’

  Mr Wyse gave her a modest bow, and continued.

  ‘Second, who is the Chairman? It seems to me that if the constitution is adopted then there can be no doubt that this would be you, madam, and so to you would fall the task of answering the letter.

  ‘And may I say,’ he said, taking out his monocle and polishing it furiously on a gorgeous silk handkerchief, ‘that nobody could quibble with your proposed response.’

  ‘It is indeed a relief,’ Lucia said, ‘to know that your position is the same as mine.’

  ‘Similarly, the third issue seems to me quite clearly answered by the constitution, assuming it is duly adopted,’ he went on. ‘If they were not members, then they would clearly need to apply for membership either now or in the future, which would need to be approved by the committee and subject to the overriding veto of the Chairman.