Crispin, lending a reluctant ear to these confidences, had made a discovery. He hastened to share this with his employee.
‘Chippendale,’ he said, ‘you’ve been drinking.’
So manifestly true was this charge that the blush of shame would have mantled the cheek of a more sensitive man, but Chippendale acknowledged it with no change of colour. He did not go in much for blushes of shame.
The merest spot, chum,’ he said, ‘the merest spot. I looked in at the Goose and Gander for a few quick ones, and do you know what Beefy told me?’
‘Who the devil’s Beefy?’
‘Beefy Hibbs, the landlord, licensed to sell tobacco, wines and spirits. He’s the uncle of Marlene Hibbs I gave a bicycle lesson to on Simms’s bicycle, and he sad Simms had been molesting Marlene.’
‘Simms would never do such a thing.’
‘Well, he did. She has a dog called Buster she dotes on, what you’d call the bull terrier type, and he accosted her in the High Street and told her in a very harsh manner that it had bitten him in the trouser leg, and when she pointed out that every dog is allowed a first bite by law, he sad that if it happened again, he would prosecute it with the utmost severity and Buster wouldn’t have a leg to stand on legally and would be for it. Hurt the poor child’s feelings, as you can well imagine. I found her in tears by the village pump and had to stand her a strawberry ice cream before I could bring the roses back to her cheeks. The fact is the man’s drunk with a sense of power and needs a sharp lesson, and I’ve thought of a way of giving it him if I can work it.’
Here was Crispin’s opportunity to fulfil the promise he had made to Constable Simms that he would speak to Chippendale, but he let it pass. With so much on his mind he was incapable of interesting himself in the petty squabbles of these fretful midges. All that interested him was the question of Chippendale’s ability to function as a searcher of rooms when he was so plainly under the influence of the wines and spirits which Mr Hibbs was licensed to sell.
He put this point to him with no attempt to spare his hearer’s feelings with tactful circumlocution.
‘How,’ he asked, ‘are you going to find that miniature when you’re as tight as an owl?’
Chippendale weighed the question, and it amused him a good deal. He had to laugh like an entertained hyaena before he could reply. He knew that after those quick ones he was at the top of his form. Recovering his gravity, he admitted that he was perhaps a mite polluted, but ridiculed the suggestion that he was as tight as an owl.
‘Just keyed up, chum. In the circumstances, if I may use the expression, a couple of snifters were unavoidable. You can’t take on the sort of job I’m taking on without a little outside help. I remember when I was a nipper and used to go hunting for the stuff Father won on the dogs, I always had to have a swig of Mother’s Vitamin B tonic to nerve me to the task. Don’t you worry, mate. I’ll deliver the goods all right. You stay here, cocky.’ He wandered to the window, walking a little unsteadily. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the dame has emerged and is navigating down the drive en route for the vicarage. The coast is clear. I’ll be getting along and what’s the word, begins with sub, no it’s gone.
He left the room, frowning thoughtfully, to return a moment later.
‘Subject her belongings to the closest scrutiny,’ he sad. ‘Knew I’d get it.’
5
He left Crispin a prey to the liveliest misgivings. He had had misgivings before in his time, but seldom any as lively as these. So much was at stake, and it was not agreeable to think that success or failure were in the wobbly hands of an agent who showed such unmistakable signs of having had what is technically known as one over the eight. His assurance that he was merely keyed up had done nothing to ease his mind. He clung to his original opinion that few owls could have achieved a more pronounced degree of tightness. And this being so, how would he comport himself in Mrs Bernadette Clayborne’s inner sanctum? Many workers sing at their work. What guarantee had he that Chippendale would not sing at his? Even now the suite might be ringing with drunken melody, and people pouring in from all directions to ascertain what was going on.
Calmer thoughts prevailed. Chippendale was a business man, counting on this venture to enrich him by a hundred pounds, and he would not allow the urge to warble to get the better of him. He would keep the thought of that hundred steadily before him and go through his task with his music still within him. And the vital thing was that there was no chance of an interruption by Barney. She had been seen going down the drive, heading on winged feet for the vicarage. Everything, in short, was perfectly all right, and like Kipling’s soldier Crispin sad to his fluttering heart strings ‘Peace, be still’.
Nevertheless, a certain jumpiness still persisted, rendering it beyond his power simply to sit and wait for his agent’s return from the front. ‘You stay here, cocky,’ Chippendale had sad, and he had fully intended to do so, but the library with its hushed gloom was too much for him. He yearned for the great outdoors where there would not be seven or eight hundred bound volumes of early Victorian sermons eyeing him with silent rebuke. He rose and went down to the hall to get his hat, and was thus enabled to obtain an excellent view of Barney, who was coming in at the front door.
One of the less engaging qualities of the Gorgon of Greek mythology was, we are told, her ability to turn into stone anyone who was unlucky enough to catch sight of her, and it seemed to Crispin that this unexpected encounter with one who should have been tucking into tea and buttered toast at the vicarage had had a similar effect. It is a well-attested medical fact that the heart cannot take time off, but he would have required written proof to convince him that his own had not stopped beating.
He stood speechless, and Barney hailed him with her usual cheeriness.
‘Hullo there, Crips. Came back to get a book I promised to lend the vicar. I left it in my room. I’ll run up and get it.’
These were probably the only words in the language that could have unfrozen Crispin. They destroyed the faint hope he had entertained that the tea party had been called off and that it would be possible to persuade her to come for a walk.
‘I’ll get it,’ he gasped.
‘Nonsense,’ said Barney. ‘What do you think I am, a cripple? I can still manage a couple of flights of stairs.’
And she was gone, taking them two at a time, and Crispin, walking slowly like an Alpine climber climbing the Matterhorn, went back to the library. His aspect was that of one who has been looking for the leak in a gas pipe with a lighted candle. Another man in a similar situation might have been running what are called the gamut of the emotions, but he was conscious of only one, a dub despair. This, it seemed to him, was the end. He was not as a rule very imaginative, but there rose before him as clearly as if it had been the top line on an oculist’s chart a vivid picture of what was going to happen next.
Barney, finding Chippendale subjecting her belongings to the closest scrutiny, was not the woman to refrain from comment. She would institute a probe or quiz, and Chippendale, grilled, would confess all, stressing his own position as that of a mere tool acting under the orders of the mastermind Crispin Scrope. The topic of the miniature would come up, she would stoutly deny ever having had it in her possession, and would probably sue him for defamation of character or slander or libel or whatever it was and be awarded heavy damages. At the best she would tell her story to the other paying guests and they would leave in a body. And while he was not fond of the other paying guests, he needed their money.
It was a situation that called for the burying of the face in the hands, and when he sat up after doing this he found that he had Chippendale with him.
From the point of view of an official of the Band of Hope or some other institution for promoting temperance Chippendale was in infinitely better shape than he had been on leaving the library. Then he had had the vine leaves in his hair and a drunken snatch on his lips. Now only an exceptionally abstemious Judge could have competed with him in sobriety
. The Band of Hope official would have thought he looked fine.
A doctor, however, going deeper into the thing, would have realized that this transformation was the result of a shock and that a severe one, for his eyes were glassy, he breathed stertorously and he was perspiring in a manner which would have reminded a traveller in France of the fountains at Versailles.
‘Cool!’ he said, and mopped his forehead.
‘Cor stone the crows!’ he said, and mopped it again.
‘I don’t want that one back,’ he said. ‘Have you ever been shut up in a small cage with a man-eating tiger?’
It so happened that Crispin had not, and he signified as much with a petulant shake of the head.
‘What,’ he asked, and would have added, ‘happened,’ but this voice failed him. Having gulped once or twice, he was able to articulate, though hoarsely. ‘What happened?’ he said.
‘You may well ask, chum,’ said Chippendale, continuing to mop. ‘I have passed through the furnace, pal, but I came out unscathed, if that’s the word, and I’ll tell you why I came out unscathed. I came out that way because I’ve got presence of mind. Always have had from a child. Where others would have stood shuffling their feet with guilt written all over their ruddy faces, I kept my head and pitched a yarn and what’s more made it stick. What would you have done if the dame had caught you in her boudoir same as she caught me? I’ll tell you what you’d have done, cocky, you’d have reddened like a rose and swallowed your tonsils. You wouldn’t have had a word to say. I, on the other hand —’
‘Get on!’ said Crispin.
‘I, on the other hand, put a finger to my lips as she entered the room and whispered “‘Ush!”. I don’t say she hadn’t scared me out of a year’s growth, because she had, but owing to this presence of mind I was speaking of I was enabled to up with my finger and put it to my lips and whisper “‘Ush!”. Naturally, being a woman, she didn’t ‘ush, but started asking questions. She wanted to know what I was doing there, giving me just the opening I required for telling the tale. Give you three guesses what I told her.’
‘Get on!’ sad Crispin.
‘I said I’d happened to be passing her door and chanced to hear noises within and being aware that she had gone off to revel at the vicarage I knew it wasn’t her that was making the noises, so I deduced it must be a burglar, who had sneaked in and was going through her effects. To which she responded that I was barmy, because burglars don’t burgle in the middle of the afternoon, and I said “Oh, don’t they, that’s where you make your ruddy error, because that’s just when they do burgle, knowing that that’s just when everybody’s outside playing tennis and what not. You’ll look silly,” I said, “if you ignore my warning and persist in what’s that word beginning with an s?”‘
‘Get on!’ said Crispin.’ Get on!’
‘Skip something, no not skip, skep. Sceptical, that’s it. “You’ll look silly,” I said, “if you persist in this sceptical attitude and find later that the Clayborne diamonds have done a disappearing act. A proper mug you’ll look, and no use then coming to me and expecting me to sympathize.” This had her looking a bit more thoughtful. She chewed her lower lip. “‘Well, where is this burglar?” she said. “Gone into the bedroom,” I said, and she said, “Well, we might as well have a look there,” so we went in and she said she didn’t see any burglar, and I said, “Well, the window’s open, isn’t it, he’s probably—”… You haven’t got a cigar, have you, mate? I need a sedative.’
Crispin produced his cigar case. Nothing could ever make him fond of Chippendale, but he was forced to admit that in a difficult situation he had shown considerable resource and deserved a reward. He had heard only a portion of the man’s narrative, but already he was experiencing a delicious sense of relief, for evidently the subject of the miniature was not going to be touched on. Whatever turns and twists the conversation between Chippendale and Barney might take, that much seemed certain. So kindly did this make him feel that he not only gave the fellow a cigar but lit a match for him.
Thanks, pal,’ said Chippendale. ‘I always find a smoke soothes the nervous system. So where was I? Oh yes, in the dame’s sleeping quarters, and she was saying “Well, where’s your ruddy burglar?” and giving me the horse’s laugh, when guess what. The cupboard in the corner of the room, which had hitherto not spoken, suddenly sneezed.’
‘Good gracious!’ said Crispin.
His unconcealed interest pleased Chippendale. Too often when he told a story his audience’s only response was to urge him to put a sock in it, but here was someone he had really gripped.
‘You may well say “Good gracious”, chum,’ he said. ‘It was roughly what I said myself. I don’t mind telling you that sneeze went through me like a bullet through a pat of butter. I jumped a foot. The dame, on the other hand, remained unmoved. “Gezundheit,” she said, but when I informed her that it hadn’t been me, but the cupboard, she displayed immediate interest. “So there really is a burglar,” she said, and I said, “Not only a burglar, baby, but a burglar with half an ounce of dust up his nose.” And this is where she started to act like that tiger I asked you if you’d ever been shut up in a small cage with. She stiffened like a monarch of the jungle scenting its prey. “This needs attending to promptly,” she said, and she pops into the other room and comes back with a statuette that had been on the mantelpiece, a thing about a foot long with no clothes on, Shakespeare it may have been or Queen Victoria, and she whispers to me to open the cupboard door quick, which I done, revealing a bloke in a crouching posture, and she reaches in and lets him have it on the topknot with the statuette, using a good deal of follow-through, and he tumbles out, and it’s that ginger-headed young fellow that blew in a couple of days ago, your nephew somebody told me he was, Best or West or something like that.’
‘Gerald!’
‘If that’s his name.’
‘But what was he doing in a cupboard?’
‘I didn’t stop to ask. I buzzed off. I wanted to be out of reach of that statuette, and the sooner the better. And what I looked in to tell you, cocky, was that as far as I’m concerned that enterprise we were discussing is off I’ll be losing money, but worse things can happen to you than not getting a hundred quid. Any further mucking about with the private apartments of a woman with a wallop like that you’ll have to do yourself,’ said Chippendale, blowing a smoke ring.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1
Jerry, having parted from Barney and gone in search of Jane, found her outside the front door. She was standing by her car, and since he had last seen her she had changed her dress for something more ornate. This surprised him.
‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Are you off somewhere?’
‘London. My New York lawyer has come over and wants to see me. He’s just telephoned. Something about my legacy, I suppose. I’ll be back this evening. But never mind that, I want to hear what happened. How did you get on?’
‘Not too well.’
‘I thought as much.’
It had not taken great perception to bring her to this conclusion. Even at a distance he would have struck her as being on the sombre side. To be obliged to retreat in disorder from a stricken battlefield always tends to lower the spirits. Napoleon, who had this experience at Moscow, made no secret of the fact that he did not enjoy it, and Jerry, going through the same sort of thing at Mellingham Hall, Mellingham-in-the-Vale, was definitely not at his perkiest. One glance had been enough to tell Jane that it was no tale of triumph that he had come to relate. Just so might a knight of old have looked when about to confess to his damsel that he had been unhorsed in the opening round of the big tournament.
‘Something went wrong?’
‘Everything went wrong.
‘My poor lamb!’
‘She came in and caught me.’
‘But she said she was going to the vicarage.’
‘She must have changed her mind. If people who say they are going to the vicarage would only go to the
vicarage, this would be a better and happier world,’ said Jerry bitterly. The subject was one to which he had given much thought. ‘She blew in before I’d had time to get really started.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything at the moment. I was hiding in a cupboard.’
‘You were… I don’t think I got that.’
‘I was in a cupboard, concealed.’
‘Oh, I see. You heard her coming.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And she looked in the cupboard?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What made her do that?’
‘I sneezed. There’s no need to laugh.’
‘I wasn’t laughing, just smiling. I was thinking of that thing in Alice In Wonderland. Speak roughly to your little boy and beat him when he sneezes. He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases. Did she speak roughly to you?’
‘As far as I can remember, there wasn’t any conversation. She just biffed me over the head with some sort of statuette.’
‘Golly!’
‘And then she asked me what I was doing there.’
‘An awkward question.’
‘Very.’
‘Difficult to find the right thing to say.
‘It did elude me for a moment. Fortunately I remembered I had been talking to her at lunch about a book she recommended highly. I said I had come to borrow it.’
The Girl in Blue Page 11