‘Scintillating metaphors,’ breathed leclerc.
‘Young Swinburne was the main one. That’s what he was doing the night he was attacked. Encouraged by your wife, he was helping himself to documents from his father’s room. What would have been the next step I do not know. Contact with the newspapers? Or perhaps you just planned to have him caught. Whatever the case, it was interesting that much of the stuff he found in his parent’s room shouldn’t have been there. These for instance. Conference minutes.’
He pulled a sheaf of papers from his inside pocket and chucked them on the table—Swinburne looked at them in amazement.
‘Fortunately Miss Allen, into whose room the boy was carried by Madame leclerc after she found him unconscious in the corridor, had the wit to conceal these and show them only to me.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Swinburne. ‘I never took such papers from the conference room. It would have been a gross breach of security!’
‘No. But leclerc did. It would have helped to discredit you personally as well as the whole conference.’
‘Interesting,’ drawled leclerc. ‘But I deny it completely. Does the boy say this? A fevered imagination stimulated by the blow to his head.’
‘Not just the boy. Your wife also,’ said Boswell grimly. ‘You may care to go to her. To get the truth, I had to tell her the boy was on the point of death. And if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I shall go also. I think I’ve had enough of answering your questions.’ .
He turned and headed for the door. Swinburne overtook him in the ante-room.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me all this personally, you fool? We might have salvaged something. By God, how we could have used this information!’
‘Go to hell, Swinburne,’ said Boswell wearily. ‘Think yourself lucky I didn’t tell them all in there that your son’s a member of a student group so far left it makes Traherne seem like Disraeli, that you knew this, and that your wife had given you a pretty good picture of what was going on early last evening. She told Miss Allen everything. How Stephen had told her he was a member of InterPax and had come to Dingley Dell to try to wreck the conference. He wanted his mother to leave you, did she tell you that? Luckily for you, she’s a woman of strong loyalties. Like me. So I won’t tell the others. They probably know about Stephen, anyway. leclerc certainly did. That’s how he knew the boy could be worked upon. Not that he needed much work, though. The slap-and-tickle was just a bonus. The only reason he had for spending Christmas with his ever-loving parents was so that he could balls-up the whole operation. And you know what? I’m beginning to think he was right!’
The door made a most satisfactory slamming noise behind him.
17
I might take up with a young ’ooman o’ large property as hadn’t a title, if she made wery fierce love to me.
MR. SAM WELLER
‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ said Arabella.
‘Perhaps not. I was angry.’
‘I take it you’re resigning?’
Boswell began to laugh.
‘That’s an understatement! I wonder if I can reclaim my superannuation?’
‘Not to worry. I’ve got plenty.’
He sat up in bed and looked to where he could see her opening a bottle of Scotch by his dressing table. Her naked body gleamed gently in the moonlight pouring in through the window.
It was still only nine o’clock on Christmas Night. Below from the ballroom they could hear sounds of merriment. The festivities were continuing as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had taken place during the day. It would need a pretty big carpet for all the recent events to be swept under, but it was a pretty big broom that was doing the sweeping. And with the telephone still not officially working, the hotel guests could be kept cut off from contact with the outside world, at least until Boxing Day.
For Boswell, however, the festivities below had no attraction. He was much happier where he was.
‘What do you mean?’ he said.‘I’m not a pauper. I’ve got my Fellowship. And my books.’
‘Fellowship and a book at bedtime. Is that the best you can offer?’
‘Hurry up with that drink and we’ll talk further.’
‘Just a sec. No ice.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Wait.’
She went to the window, opened it and looked out. The sky was now completely clear and the moon was at its full.
‘There’s a draught! What are you doing?’
‘Getting some snow. Scotch and snow. How’s that for kinky? The new Christmas drink!’
‘Christmas. What a hell of a way to spend Christmas. Not what Dickens had in mind.’
‘This?’ she said, mock-offended.
‘No. That,’ he answered. ‘Close the window and come to bed.’
‘Wait,’ she said again. ‘What’s that?’
‘What?’
She was staring out of the window. After a moment he climbed out of bed and went to join her, shivering exaggeratedly.
Coming down the drive towards the front of the house was a small flotilla of lights, bobbing and weaving.
‘What is it?’ asked Arabella once more.
‘I don’t know. The Russian Army, perhaps, come to blow us off the face of the earth.’
‘Don’t talk like that. Wait a minute! I see what it is,’ she said excitedly. ‘Lanterns. Boz, it’s children with lanterns.’
‘Oh no,’ he said, leaning out. ‘You’re right. It’s the carol-singers. They should have come last night, but the blizzard kept them away. No one can have told the vicar.’
‘Told him what?’ .
‘What indeed?’ said Boswell.
‘Still, if there’s a vicar out there, I’d better cover up.’
She went to the wardrobe and slipped on Boswell’s dressing gown, then returned to the window. The children had reached the front of the house now and grouped themselves in a semicircle. Someone below must have spotted them too for suddenly the record player which was substituting for T.T. and T.T.H.M. faded away and the noise of voices died down.
The vicar stood in front of the children and raised his hands.
The children’s voices, a little cold and uncertain at first but rapidly picking up in strength and enthusiasm, launched into God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
They listened in silence for a few minutes. Boswell thought of Wardle. Be you welcome to Dingley Dell. Of Thomas Traherne and his young men. Especially the bass guitarist who had watched with such delight the hare leaping through the snow.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said Arabella, leaning back against him and breaking into his melancholia.
Suddenly it seemed a possibility after all.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he answered.
About the Author
Reginald Charles Hill FRSL was an English crime writer and the winner of the 1995 Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1972 by the Estate of Reginald Hill
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5799-8
This 2019 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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