‘ Your morning tea, sir?’
Gently prolonged the voluptuous moment of wakening in a superbly warm and comfortable bed. Off duty, that was the happy thought that came to him. No need to leap suddenly from the nurturing bowers of sleep, to race through his toilet, to plunge into the chaotic morning Underground. He was off duty, and miles away. Out here, waking up was a pleasure worth tasting and lingering over.
‘You didn’t answer, sir, so I took the liberty of bringing it in.’
He opened an eye. A neat little maid in uniform stood by the bed smiling at him. She was carrying, not a cup, but an interesting-looking bed-tray on which he could see, inter alia, copies of The Times and the Eastern Daily Post. He dragged himself up the bed a few points to receive this consignment. The atmosphere of the room was pleasantly warm, and he remembered with appreciation that the amenities of Merely Manor included central heating.
‘How’s the weather outside?’
‘Oh, there’s a nip in the air, sir, but it’s quite dry.’
‘Pike weather, would you say?’
‘I don’t rightly know, sir, but the master and some of his friends have got some big ’uns this last week or two. Will you want your bath run, sir?’
‘Mmm… all hot. By the time I’m through here it’ll be about right.’
The maid dropped a polite little curtsey and tripped away into the bathroom, from which direction Gently could soon hear the steady swish of water, and see the occasional tendril of steam. He unbonneted the pot and poured himself a fragrant cupful. Under a plated cover he found some fingers of toast; on a plate were some wholemeal biscuits. He chose the former, and dismissing yesterday’s resolution, settled down to peruse his papers.
Christmas… that was the subject! On the back page of The Times was a large photograph of King’s Cross looking like an illimitable bargain-basement at a peak period. The local paper, not to be outdone, had contrived a panoramic shot of Norchester Thorne Station in a similar state of chaos. QUEUES AT ALL THE LONDON TERMINI — Biggest Exodus Ever; LARGEST TEMPORARY POST OFFICE STAFF; STILL SOME TURKEYS LEFT — Consignment from Eire; 100-FOOT XMAS TREE; BRITISH RAILWAYS RUN 200 EXTRA TRAINS; T ROOP-SHIP ARRIVES FROM MIDDLE EAST… Gently surveyed it all with a benevolent smile. Up here, it was like a well-calculated performance laid on for his especial benefit. No longer was he a part of it. No longer was it an anxious time of probable trial and tribulation. Sipping his tea, he could savour the whole business as an idle spectator, with undercurrent thoughts of a day to be spent pike-fishing…
‘It’s all ready for you, sir.’
‘Thank you… what’s your name?’
‘Gertrude, sir. Gertrude Winfarthing.’
‘That’s a nice name, Gertrude. Well, thanks again!’
She bobbed out, still smiling, and Gently, setting the tray on a bedside table, lowered his feet on to the gratifying pile of a Wilton carpet. He paused there a moment, letting his eye run round the gracious room. By and large, this was how things ought to be. A wide, lofty, well-lighted chamber, with a moulded drop-ceiling, panelled walls, a great sunken sash window and white enamelled woodwork. The carpet went flush to the walls; the velvet curtains hung from ceiling to floor. The bed, disdaining the beggarly excuse of functionalism, spread extravagant panels of natural oak at head and foot, and the matching wardrobe standing near it seemed quietly to rejoice in its spreading amplitude. What was wrong with idle riches? There were times when one deserved them. Man, as the ancient writer had shrewdly noticed, could not live by bread alone.
Disdaining his slippers, Gently plodded across to the bathroom and was soon up to his chin in delicately scented water.
He had seen Sir Daynes the night before, but Lady Broke had already retired, and he met her now at breakfast for the first time. She was a tallish, large-framed woman of something over fifty, with greying hair, quick, green-brown eyes and a Roman nose, which gave her a quite unmerited appearance of severity. One expected to hear her bark in the manner of her formidable husband, but she did not, she had a soft, confiding voice; one saw very quickly that a great deal of sensitivity lay behind the austere countenance.
‘Good morning, Inspector. I hope you’ve forgiven me for not being up to welcome you last night.’
She smiled at him as she gave him her hand.
‘I’d been very busy, you know — you’d be surprised at the preparation that goes on here! Even now the children have grown up and left us, there seems as much to do as ever. Were you properly looked after?’
Gently liked her straight away. They were soon chatting together like old friends. Before Sir Daynes put in an appearance she had shown him letters from her son Tony, a young officer in the Malaya Police, and her daughter Elizabeth, who had married a Canadian and was now living in Toronto.
‘There’ll be cables from them too, either today or tomorrow. It’s so strange, Inspector, to think that both my youngsters should be at the ends of the earth, while I go on here just the same, getting ready for another Christmas. This is the first time we’ve been quite on our own, you know. I was so glad when Sir Daynes thought of asking you down.’
‘I am honoured to be invited, ma’am.’
‘Oh, that was inevitable. My husband has got a “thing” about you, Inspector. But be frank — weren’t you a little annoyed by his high-handed way of getting you down here, right on top of Christmas? Personally I should have been furious if he’d done something like that to me.’
Gently grinned amiably. ‘Of course, knowing Sir Daynes-’
‘Enough said, Inspector. My husband has been a chief constable for too long, isn’t that what you’d say? But do sit down and begin your breakfast. It’s quite useless waiting for Daynes.’
Sir Daynes joined them at the marmalade stage, looking very crisp and new-minted. To Gently, he had always been the type par excellence of a county chief constable. Going six feet, he was still, at sixty, a strong, commanding figure without one of his grey hairs missing. His face was powerful, a large, straight nose, heavy grey brows, cropped moustache and distinguished lines about the eyes and mouth. There was a great deal of width across the cheekbones and jaw. The large head looked patriarchal and ripe with sapience. Though case-hardened supers had been known to wince when Sir Daynes was in full cry, Gently had several times had occasion to notice the absence of bite behind the baronet’s bark.
‘Morning, Gwen, morning, Gently.’
Sir Daynes was carrying a deckle-edged sheet of writing paper, over which he was frowning absentmindedly.
‘Hmn.’ He sat down, still staring at it. ‘Henry Somerhayes. Wants us to go over there.’
‘Henry?’ queried Lady Broke, pouring coffee into his cup.
‘Hmn. Informal party. Tonight at seven thirty. Why couldn’t the blasted feller have thought about it earlier?’
He dropped sugar into his coffee and shot a sharp look at Gently. ‘You wouldn’t be the reason, I suppose? He’s made a special point of mentioning you.’
Gently began to shake his head, but then he remembered Lieutenant Earle.
‘I travelled down with a guest of Lord Somerhayes… my name may have been mentioned to him.’
‘Ah, that explains it. You’re a blasted lion in these parts, man. Well, what do you say to a Christmas Eve with his lordship?’
Gently acquiesced, and Sir Daynes drank his coffee. From his attitude it seemed that he did not approve too highly of his neighbour.
‘Henry Somerhayes is a curious person,’ ventured Lady Broke. ‘We think it is a great pity he didn’t marry, inspector. He’s very much alone in the world.’
‘Curious!’ snorted Sir Daynes. ‘Damned unhealthy, I’d call him. But there you are, a man’s got a right to do what he thinks fit with himself.’
‘Oh come now,’ returned his wife, ‘you’ll give the inspector a totally wrong impression of him. I’m sure that if Henry could find himself the right woman he’d be quite a different sort of person. When you’ve lost all your family, as he has, it makes you broody and apt to take things to heart. And really you’ve nothing against him, Daynes, except his retreat from politics.’
‘It’s enough,’ said Sir Daynes, ‘that and the crowd he’s got up at the Place these days. But I won’t say any more. Gently can take him as he finds him. Let’s talk about the fishing, and forget Henry until this evening.’
They talked about the fishing. Sir Daynes was a live-bait practitioner, and Gently a spoon-man, and between them they managed to consign Lord Somerhayes to oblivion inside five minutes. An hour later, booted and armed, they set off through the December gloom for Merely Pond, where Gently had the good fortune to prove the efficacy of the spoon up to the hilt.
‘Damned detectives ought to make good fishermen!’ observed Sir Daynes enviously as Gently gaffed his sixth fish. ‘But I tell you, man, you’ve struck a lucky day. Blasted pike aren’t looking at live-bait, for some reason. Another day they wouldn’t look at a damned spoon.’
Gently smiled agreeably as he inserted the disgorger.
The frost was setting in sharp as they returned to the Manor. Redbrick Georgian, it glowed warmly in its setting of tall beeches, smoke rising straight from its twisted stacks, lights shining comfortably in the high windows.
‘Wish we hadn’t got to shift…’
Gently was thinking so too. Glutted with their sport, and tired, it would have been pleasant to spend the evening chatting by the wood fire in the Manor lounge.
‘Damn that feller Somerhayes! Ought to have told him we couldn’t make it.’
‘After all, it’s Christmas…’
‘Some people take advantage of it.’
But after a whisky Sir Daynes felt better about the business. He began remembering Christmases when the old lord had been alive. From that it was a short step to bragging about the Place, the finest thing Kent ever did, and to wanting Gently to see it and judge with his own eyes. By the time they had had tea, and Lady Broke had exerted her soothing influence, Sir Daynes was in a mood of charity suitable to a Christmas Eve party.
Gently could never remember exactly what had been his first impression of Lord Somerhayes. The meeting took place in the great hall of Merely Place, and the great hall, for those who had never seen it, was apt to set aside mere humanity while it consolidated its regal impact. It was all the more stunning for being unexpected. Driving up in Sir Daynes’s Bentley, Gently had made out little of the outside architecture of Merely except its size, which the lighted windows had intimated. The headlights had picked out a plain, rather flat-looking Doric portico as the Bentley swung round on the terrace, and through a single door beneath this they had been admitted by a manservant. It was then that a sparely built man of about forty had come forward and welcomed them with a little, self-conscious smile; but against the sudden soaring divinities of the great hall he had faded into a spectral undertone.
It was a vast, magical rectangle of space, perhaps as high as it was long, and more than half its length in width. Far overhead rose a great coffered ceiling, bewildering in its perspective, narrowing at the far end to a clasping, semi-circular apse; supporting this was a range of fluted Corinthian columns, linked at their base by richly gilt wrought-iron pales, and beneath them a glowing foundation of polished marble decorated with Hellenic friezes, embracing beneath the apse a fall of curved steps that seemed to flow down from the marble portal above. The detail was no less rich than the broad features. The plasterwork of the ceiling, the triumphant frieze above the columns, the illuminated azure and gilt secondary apse above the portal, all these contributed like so many matching trumpet voluntaries to the overpowering vision of the whole. Here, surely, was one of those rare examples when the genius of a great artist found its full and unqualified expression, the fortunate one occasion of an ambitious life.
At all events, it bowled Gently over. His impressions of what followed were vague. They were led through a tremendous suite of rooms, icy as the tomb, and came at last to a less magnificent but decidedly warmer chamber where a yule log burned on the hearth, and a handful of people paused in their conversation to observe the newcomers.
‘What will you drink, Mr Gently?’
Gently was startled to find a pair of sad, grey-blue eyes staring fixedly into his.
‘Oh — a whisky, please.’
‘Good. You will like this whisky. I have it sent down each year from Edinburgh. May I recommend a petticoat-tail to go with it?’
‘Yes… yes, please.’
‘They are also sent down from Edinburgh. They are baked by Mackie to a special recipe.’
Equipped with liquor and shortbread, Gently was marshalled with Sir Daynes and Lady Broke to meet the other guests. Already he had an inexplicable feeling that Lord Somerhayes was distinguishing him in some way. It was not so much a matter of attention, for Somerhayes distributed it evenly; but in the manner of it there was a distinct singularity that Gently was at a loss to place.
‘Janice, you already know Sir Daynes and Lady Broke. This is Mr Gently, the chief inspector from the Central Office. Mr Gently, my cousin Mrs Page, who is kind enough to act as my secretary.’
As Gently shook hands with the queenly ash-blonde he felt Somerhayes’s eyes covertly watching him.
‘Lieutenant Earle’s acquaintance you have already made…?’
‘Hiya, you old hound!’ interpolated the irrepressible American.
‘… and this is Leslie Brass, the director, I may say creator, of the tapestry workshop. But no doubt you will have heard of Mr Brass and perhaps have seen his pictures.’
This time Gently was painfully aware of his host’s silent scrutiny, and at the same time he caught a glimpse of irony in the bold green eyes of the artist to whom he was being introduced. Brass had noticed Somerhayes’s curious attitude. More than that, Gently thought he had understood it.
‘And these very talented people are the tapissiers who actually produce the tapestry. Miss Hepstall and Miss Jacobs are ex-pupils of Mr Brass. Mr Johnson joined us from Wales. Mr and Mrs Peacock are Lancashire people, and Mr Wheeler comes from Yorkshire.’
But now the keenness had left Somerhayes’s glance; he did not seem so interested in what Gently would make of the tapissiers. Perhaps, in spite of his graciousness, the nobleman did not regard them as important — his short list terminated with Mrs Page, Leslie Brass and possibly Lieutenant Earle. At all events, he was obliged to relinquish Gently for the moment. Lady Broke claimed him with the acknowledged freedom of a neighbour, and Gently, set at liberty, was immediately seized by Lieutenant Earle.
‘Say now, come and meet these nice people properly — neither one of them has run across a man from Scotland Yard before!’
Gently smiled and joined the group over by the fire. Earle was sitting on a long settee with Mrs Page; Brass, an enormous man with ginger hair and beard, was sunk deeply in an armchair beside them. Gently pulled up a straight-backed chair.
‘Now, was I wrong when I said Janice was the next contender for the Miss Universe title, or was I guilty of understatement?’
Mrs Page blushed slightly but didn’t look displeased. She was a woman in her later twenties and she had the same eyes as her cousin — except that in her case they possessed a vitality and sparkle. The nose was straight and finely nostrilled, the cheekbones high, the complexion exquisitely transparent. She had very beautiful lips and a long white neck, a feature that she emphasized by wearing drooping jade ear-drops from pierced ears. Her figure was moderate but proportioned with exact symmetry, and her voice, pitched high, sounded lively and excitable.
‘Please pay no attention to this enfant terrible, Mr Gently — we’re trying to keep him in order, but I doubt whether the President of the United States himself could manage it.’
‘Now, Janice, is that fair!’
‘You’ve really got to behave, Bill.’
‘Gee, and it’s Christmas Eve — don’t fellers ever get the pitching in this doggone British festival?’
Brass winked at Gently from the depths of his armchair.
‘These ruddy young Yankee Casanovas!’ He had a vigorous, vibrant voice with a trace of cockney in it. ‘Sex, sex, nothing but sex. You’ll say it’s all the revolting sex-treacle their radio pumps into them, but is it? Is it? Would the radio, films and other pimps bother about it if they weren’t sure of a psychopathic demand?’
‘Say, Les, you’re talking about the Great American Nation!’
‘I certainly am, little Don Juan Doughboy.’ Brass ruffled Earle’s boyish locks with a sort of contemptuous affection. ‘God’s gift to corruption with a loud voice — America! The Brave New World with a petticoat rampant! I say your youth is psychopathic, little man; it’s got sex on the brain. And you are a fine example, little Check-with-Kinsey; you prove my point every other time you open your mouth.’
‘Now, Les, how can you say these things to me!’
‘Why not, petit sex-fiend?’
‘Right here, in front of the people!’
‘They are rational, mon ami, not one of them comes from Boston.’
‘Heck, I give you up!’ Earle turned to Gently with a despairing wave of his hand. ‘This guy just hates the American Nation, lock, stock and spittoon — can you imagine it? I tell him if it wasn’t for America there wouldn’t be nothing interesting going on, like the numbers racket and Billy Graham. But no, he’s dug his toes in. That guy has got no gratitood. Guess it’ll have to wait till I get him down to Missouri and feed him southern-style fried chicken.’
‘Is that a recipe for America-haters?’ enquired Gently with interest.
‘Why yes, I’ll say it is. The way my momma cooks fried chicken would make an American citizen out of a top-brass Red. You never been to America, Gently?’
Gently shook his head. ‘It’s always been on my agenda.’
‘Sakes, you don’t know what you’re missing! You come down to Missouri — any time, any day. This old buzzard here is going to make the trip next fall, and Janice hasn’t said no to it, leastways not in my hearing.’
Mrs Page shrugged her shapely shoulders. ‘Bill, you talk too much,’ she said. ‘And if you go on inviting people down to Missouri, you’ll have to charter the Queen Mary to get them all there. Now be a dear and fetch me another sherry — and I’m sure Mr Gently would like to have his glass topped up.’
‘To hear is to obey, Princess!’
Earle jumped from the settee and knelt gallantly to take Mrs Page’s glass from her.
‘The Carpetville Heart-Throb!’ grinned Brass to Gently. ‘But the boy has talent, make no mistake. He’s done a cracking good cartoon since he was here last, real tapestry stuff. I’m going to let him use a spare low-warp loom we’ve got here to weave it on. He’s not much of a tapissier yet, but spoiling his nice cartoon will teach him plenty. On the quiet I’m going to have a go at it myself… it’s too good a cartoon to let him waste.’
‘I’m afraid this is rather over my head, Mr Brass,’ Gently admitted.
‘It won’t be,’ laughed Mrs Page, ‘not if Les gets his claws in you. We live and eat and sleep tapestry here, Mr Gently.’
‘So you do, madam, so you do,’ assented Brass sardonically. ‘It’s the only way to produce tapestry. Come up after Christmas, Gently, and I’ll show you over the workshop. You have to get the stink of wool in your nostrils before you can understand tapestry.’
Gently agreed readily enough. He felt he would like to have a private session with Brass. All the time they had been talking together Somerhayes’s glances had kept wandering in their direction, and Gently was reasonably certain that Brass could offer him enlightenment. What was the enigmatic nobleman’s interest in him? Surely he wasn’t being carried away by the glamour of Gently’s ‘Yard’ tag! Under the cover of filling Dutt’s pipe, Gently unobtrusively quizzed his host, adding detail to his rather confused impression of him. Assuredly there was the stamp of high breeding in his features. The high, straight forehead, the perfectly chiselled nose, the high cheekbones instinct with pride, the thin-lipped mouth, the small, graceful chin and jaw, the neat, close-set ears, all these combined to give an immediate effect of nobility. It was the eyes that spoiled the picture. They lacked the fire that should have brought the whole to life. Large, handsome, evenly set beneath strongly marked brows, their dominant characteristic was a pensive languor, as though the man behind them were tired and brought to a standstill by disillusions. They were the eyes of one who had already accepted his defeat from life.
‘Sir Daynes beef much about coming this evening?’
The cynical look told Gently that Brass had observed the direction of his attention.
‘He doesn’t like me, you know. I’m blasted peasantry. If you think the world has moved on much in these parts, you’re ruddy well mistaken. Up here it’s the last stronghold of medievalism.’
‘Les, I won’t have that!’ exclaimed Mrs Page with warmth. ‘When did you ever experience any snobbery, here at the Place?’
‘Oh, I don’t say at the Place, my dear’ — Brass’s cynical look renewed itself — ‘the Place is a beacon-light of social enlightenment in a wicked county world… or something like that! But dear old Sir Daynes gets restive when he has to hob-nob with the hoi polloi. We’re all right in Bethnal Green, but gad sir! Not in the drawing room at Merely.’
‘I think you’re wrong, Les,’ returned Mrs Page. ‘You often mistake people. I’ve known Sir Daynes longer than you, and I assure you I’ve never found him the least bit of a snob.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t, Janice my pet. Why should you, with the blood of the Feverells running in your veins? But if you watch Sir Daynes, you’ll see him wince every time Percy Peacock says “thanking you”.’
Mrs Page laughed outright. ‘Well, so do I, for that matter — and so do you, when you’re being honest. But I suppose you’re not going to call me a snob, Les, because I speak English? Bill doesn’t, and he’s a Great American Democrat.’
‘You taking my name in vain?’ sang the latter, coming up and presenting Mrs Page’s glass with a flourish, which nearly spilled the contents. ‘Don’t deny it — I heard you! My reputation is mud with the Britishers.’
At the sound of Earle’s voice, Gently noticed Somerhayes’s head turn sharply.
Supper was served in the adjoining dining room. It was a well-chosen but moderate meal, restrained as though it were intended to look forward to the excesses of the morrow. Gently found himself placed next to his host, but the circumstances led to nothing. Somerhayes attended to him with a sort of earnest graciousness. He seemed always on the point of saying something, without being able to bring it out. And whenever Gently raised his eyes, he was sure to meet those of the other, watchful, apologetic.
After supper some games were organized. Brass was particularly good at that sort of thing, and he was soon installed as master of ceremonies. For assistant he had Percy Peacock, the comical little bald-headed Lancastrian, while Earle could be relied upon to give zest to any festive undertaking. Even Sir Daynes and Lady Broke were drawn into the fun. Sir Daynes, set to mime a lachrymose crooner, displayed histrionic powers that surprised everyone, including himself. Brass was rather disappointed, Gently thought… the artist had deliberately given Sir Daynes a forfeit that was calculated to make a fool of him. But Brass was soon in the midst of fresh revelry, Sir Daynes with him, and the proceedings went forward like the wedding bell of proverb. Only one person held back. Somerhayes, a glass of port in his hand, stood silently watching by the hearth with its half-consumed log. He had relinquished his command. He had handed over to Brass. Until goodbyes were to be said, there was no more occasion for the master of Merely Place.
Soon after half past eleven Lady Broke reminded her husband that this was Christmas Eve, not Christmas Night, and the roistering baronet was prevailed upon to adjourn his revels.
‘Say, Pop, we’ve sure got to see some more of you!’ cried Earle enthusiastically. ‘What say we get together again for a session on Boxing Day?’
‘Young man, I’ve a better idea,’ returned Sir Daynes, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Henry, I shall be most offended if you fail to bring your people over to the Manor the day after tomorrow. That’s a chief constable’s order, man, and as much as your life is worth to dispute. What do you say — will you come?’
Somerhayes came forward, his thin lips twisting in a slow smile. ‘If it’s an order, Daynes, how can I do myself the disservice of refusing?’
‘Yippee!’ whooped Earle. ‘It’s a date, you old horse-thief! We’ll surely set that Manor of yours alight, and nobody’s kidding.’
Somerhayes turned to Gently. ‘And shall I have the pleasure of another visit from you, Mr Gently, before long? I should be very happy to show you over the state apartments and our workshop.’
Gently mastered his surprise. There was something very like an appeal in the broken grey eyes.
‘Certainly… I’ll be pleased to come,’ he replied.
Somerhayes nodded his acknowledgement and turned hastily away.
‘Well, I must say they’re not a bad crowd, not bad at all,’ boomed Sir Daynes as he gunned the Bentley down the Place carriage-drive. ‘You get ideas in your head, Inspector, and sometimes they take a lot of shifting. That Brass feller is a lad, give the devil his due. And I like that young American, with all his blasted impertinence.’
‘Don’t leave out the little blonde girl with the ponytail,’ said Lady Broke. ‘Isn’t it shocking, Inspector, how a man of three score can flirt with a little chit young enough to be his granddaughter?’
‘Pooh, pooh! Christmas Eve, m’dear,’ chortled her husband. ‘Once a year, y’know, once a year! And I didn’t notice you holding back when that young Wheeler feller was going round with the mistletoe, eh? But what do you make of Henry Somerhayes, Gently, now you’ve had a good look at him?’
Gently shrugged invisibly in his voluptuous bucket-seat.
‘I’d have to have notice of that question,’ he replied.