‘Explaining, of course, that when you borrow books you always start by hiding in the nearest cupboard.’
‘I said I did that because I heard voices.’
‘Well, so did Joan of Arc, but she didn’t hide in cupboards.’
‘And I thought it was burglars and I was going to spring out at them.’
‘You told her that?’
‘Yes.’
‘It didn’t strike you as a bit thin?’
‘It was the best I could do. You must bear in mind that I had just been hit on the head by what felt like the Statue of Liberty. My mental processes were somewhat disordered.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘A little dubiously, it seemed to me. I suppose she assumed that I was loony.’
It was as if he had given her the cue for which she had been waiting. Her manner, hitherto that of Florence Nightingale condoling with a wounded soldier, took on the austerity of a governess who has discovered one of her charges in the act of raiding the jam cupboard. He had opened up a subject on which she had been brooding for some time.
‘Which you are, of course,’ she said tartly.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes, you do. All that apple sauce about loving that girl, and not being able to tell her so because she’s rich and you aren’t.’
‘Oh, that?’
‘Yes, that.’
‘I can’t help the way I feel, can I?’
‘Of course you can. It only needs will-power.’
‘Wouldn’t she think I was just after her money?’
‘Of course she wouldn’t.’
‘Everybody else would.’
‘Well, what do you care about everybody else? Let ‘em eat cake. What does it matter if a lot of fatheads think you’re on the make? And in passing why don’t you give a thought to the poor girl?’
‘You mean the rich girl.’
‘Well, whatever she is, why don’t you take her agony into your calculations?’
‘Her what?’
‘Agony was what I said. Distress, misery and torment, if you prefer it. Or anguish.’
She had opened up a new line of thought, one which had not occurred to Jerry. A modest young man, it had never struck him before that he was a sort of demon lover for whom women wailed. He stared at her, aghast.
‘Do you really think she feels like that?’
‘Of course she does. There she is, unfortunate little rat, yearning for you, pining for you, looking on you as her official Prince Charming, saying to herself every morning “Perhaps today he will come riding upon his white horse and put his arms round me and tell me he loves me”, and what happens? Not a yip out of you. I should imagine she would be in a horrible state, crying buckets, refusing nourishment, reducing herself to skin and bone and biting large holes in her pillow every night.’
She had made her point. Just as she had convinced him when using her eloquence on behalf of the Lincolnshire and Eastern Counties Glass Bottling Corporation, she convinced him now. How right she was, he felt, in saying that he ought to be certified. Any man who could behave as he had been behaving — to all intents and purposes like that base Indian who was such a poor judge of jewellery — could step straight into the most exclusive lunatic asylum and they would show him off to visitors as their star exhibit.
His scruples, of which he had been so proud, had gone with the wind. He advanced on her and breathed her name passionately.
‘Jane…Jane, will you—’
‘Half a mo’, cocky.’
It was not she who had spoken. Seeming to have popped up out of a trap, Chippendale had joined them.
‘Sorry to intrude, chum,’ said Chippendale with a courteous wink, ‘but the boss would like a word with you.
2
Although it had been said of Crispin Scrope with considerable justice that if men were dominoes, he would be the double blank, he was not without a certain intelligence and the ability to deduce and draw conclusions. Informed that his nephew Gerald had been found crouched in a cupboard in Mrs Bernadette Clayborne’s bedroom, it had occurred to him almost immediately that he must have had some reason for being there. Nephews, he told himself, do not crouch in cupboards merely to satisfy an idle whim, and a few moments ‘intensive thought had brought the solution of the mystery. He had written to Willoughby to tell him to disregard their telephone conversation, for since then he had changed his mind and was now heart and soul in favour of de-miniatureizing Mrs Clayborne, but Willoughby, feeling in his practical way that two heads were better than one, must have added Gerald to his corps of minions. It was only what might have been expected of a man so eager to get results.
Hope, crushed to earth by Chippendale’s withdrawal from the hunt, began to stir once more. Gerald had failed as a searcher of rooms, but he was a bright young fellow and might have other ideas, and ideas were what were particularly needed, for he himself had none.
‘Wasting no time on arguments and pleadings with Chippendale, for Barney’s prowess with statuettes had plainly impressed him so deeply that he could see they would be futile, he said:
‘Do you know where Mr West is?’
‘Probably putting his head under the tap somewhere.’
‘Find him and tell him to come and see me immediately,’ said Crispin, and disdained to answer Chippendale’s enquiry as to whether it was his intention to kiss the place and make it well.
Jerry’s mood as he entered was not sunny. That of a man who has sustained a head wound and has subsequently been interrupted in a proposal of marriage seldom is. He eyed Crispin bleakly and shot out a surly ‘Yes?’
Crispin did not fail to notice the absence of bonhomie, and bearing in mind the urgency of conciliating his only ally he set himself to supply bonhomie enough for two.
‘Sit down, Gerald. Will you have a cigar, Gerald?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘A drink?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Jerry.
His manner was damping, but Crispin persevered. ‘I asked you to come here, Gerald, because I have something to discuss with you.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, something very important. Chippendale has been telling me of your unpleasant encounter with Mrs Clayborne.’
‘Oh?’
‘I hope your head is less painful?
‘It isn’t.’
‘Still aching?’
‘More than ever.
‘I am sorry. A nasty thing to have happened. Mrs Clayborne is very robust. She found you in her cupboard, I understand. You were looking for your Uncle Willoughby’s miniature, of course?’
Jerry’s mood of resentment changed to one of bewilderment. His estimate of Crispin’s intelligence had always been more or less identical with that of the critic with the dominoes metaphor. Certainly he had never credited him with clairvoyance.
‘I should mention,’ Crispin continued as he stared dumbly, ‘that Willoughby rang me up on the telephone informing me of the theft of the miniature and urging me to do everything in my power to recover it. He wanted me to search Mrs Clayborne’s suite. I was somewhat taken aback, but naturally I wished to do what I could to help him, so I confided in Chippendale and promised him a substantial emolument if he would undertake what you might describe as the active work.’
‘So that was why Chippendale was there!’
‘Exactly. He was searching. He is an experienced searcher. As a boy, when his father won money at the dog races and hid it to prevent his mother finding it, he used to track it down on his mother’s behalf, and always, I understand, successfully. I gather that it is a gift, and I was relying on him absolutely, but being an eyewitness of your encounter with Mrs Clayborne has unfortunately had a lowering effect on his morale. He has just told me that he wishes to have nothing further to do with a woman of such direct methods. His actual expression was a woman with such a wallop.’
‘He’s including himself out?’
‘Precisely.’
‘And you want me to take up the torch from where he has dropped it?’
‘You put it poetically but accurately.’
It seemed to Jerry that before anything in the nature of a partnership could be formed a strict understanding must be arrived at. There were limits to what he was prepared to do to oblige his Uncle Bill, even though success would mean so much to himself. Nor could such an attitude be considered unreasonable. If Barney’s direct methods had had such a pronounced effect on Chippendale, a mere onlooker, it is not surprising that the actual recipient of her attentions should hesitate to come within arm’s reach of her again.
‘You aren’t expecting me to play a return date in her suite, are you?’ he said. ‘Because if so…’
‘No, no,’ said Crispin, though that was what he had been hoping for. ‘Once bitten, twice shy.’
‘And the burned child dreads the fire.’
‘Precisely. Though if some afternoon I were to take her for a long country walk?’
‘Not even then.’
‘Or to Salisbury to see the cathedral?’
‘The car would break down before it got out of the gates, and she would be back, complete with statuette.’
‘And she has already seen the cathedral. No, we must hit on something else. Let us think.’
They thought.
‘Have you any ideas?’ asked Crispin after a pause.
‘One.’
‘I have, too.’
‘Two?’
‘I am sorry. I should have said “also”. I should be glad to hear yours.
‘It’s just a suggestion.’
‘Quite. Proceed.’
‘Well, I remembered a detective story I read as a kid. There was a kleptomaniac who was always pinching things from people, and one day he took a packet of bank notes from the overcoat pocket of a man named Gibbs. He was dining with Gibbs and the coat was hanging in the hall and Gibbs had forgotten to take the stuff out, and the fellow got away with it.’
‘Interesting. But how does it help us?’
‘I’m coming to that. The detective called on the fellow and said, “Could you let me have the package you took from Mr Gibbs’s overcoat pocket on the night of January the twenty-third?”, and the fellow said, “He wishes it returned, does he?” and handed it over.’
There was a somewhat lengthy silence. Watching Crispin fingering his moustache, Jerry had the uneasy feeling that he had not been as bright as he could have wished. It was a long time since he had read the story he had mentioned, and he rather fancied he had left something out.
‘H’m,’ said Crispin.
‘You don’t think much of it?’
‘Not a great deal. The kleptomaniac seems to have been of a singularly easygoing disposition. I doubt if Mrs Clayborne would prove so amenable.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. Yes, I suppose she would be more likely to bean you with the nearest statuette.’
‘Me?’
‘I was assuming that you, as an older man whose personality carries more weight, would undertake the negotiations.’
‘You were mistaken,’ said Crispin.
There was another silence. Jerry resumed the conversation.
‘You said you had an idea.’
‘Ah yes. Mine oddly enough also derives from a detective story. You are familiar with the exploits of Sherlock Holmes?’
‘Know them by heart, but which of them would be any use to us? Would it be the Adventure of the Five Orange Pips? Are you planning to intimidate Mrs Clayborne by sending her five orange pips, with a message telling her to put the miniature on the sun dial?’
That had not occurred to me.’
‘It might work. It would depend, of course, on whether she’s allergic to orange pips. Many people aren’t.’
‘My plan is based not so much on a story as on something Holmes said in one of the stories. He said, if you recall, that when a house is on fire, everyone’s impulse is to carry out from the flames the thing most precious to them; in Mrs Clayborne’s case, I think we may assume, the miniature. That seems to me a correct statement of human psychology.’
Jerry, having no moustache to finger, fingered his chin.
‘Let’s get this straight. For the moment I’m a little fogged. Are you proposing to set fire to Mellingham Hall?’
Crispin could not repress a wistful sigh. The picture of a heavily insured Mellingham Hall in flames was a very attractive one.
That will not be necessary. You will simply ring the fire alarm.’
‘I will?’
‘It is young man’s work.’
‘I don’t know where the fire alarm is.
‘I can show you.
‘I just press a button, do I?’
‘You pub a rope. This rings a bell.’
‘And out will pop Mrs Clayborne?’
‘I think we can rely on that.’
‘With the miniature on her?’
‘Presumably.’
‘How does one find out? Does one frisk her?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Do I pass my hands up and down her person, as in the movies?’
‘I never thought of that.’
‘And if she has got the thing on her, do I knock her down and grab it?’
‘I did not think of that, either. No, I am afraid my suggestion does not prove to be very fruitful.’
‘I wouldn’t call it frightfully hot.’
‘It’s just as good as yours,’ said Crispin with spirit.
‘Just about,’ Jerry had to agree. ‘You haven’t anything better?’
‘I am afraid not.’
‘Nor have I. The fact is it’s impossible to get one’s brain working properly in a stuffy library full of volumes of collected sermons. I can only think when I’m walking. I shall now put in four or five miles, and I hope when I get back to have something sizzling to submit to you.’
When Jerry returned some eighty minutes later, his face was flushed not only with exercise but with the light of inspiration. He informed Crispin that he had got it.
The test of a great general,’ he said, ‘is his ability to learn from his defeats. Where the second-rater on getting clobbered by the opposition merely says “Ouch!” and retires to his tent and tries to forget, the top-notcher lights his pipe and sits down and says to himself “That last battle was a bit of a washout and certainly won’t look any too well in my Reminiscences, but what I have to do now is brood on it and see how I can profit by its lesson”. Take me, for example. I have suffered a defeat. I have made myself an object of the deepest suspicion to Ma Clayborne, for I’m not ass enough to suppose that she swallowed that story I told her. She has me docketed as a bad guy who will bear watching, and she will believe anything anyone says to my discredit. So what you must tell her on her return from whooping it up at the vicarage is that I’ve been a sneak thief since boyhood and a constant grief and anxiety to the family. Say I was sacked from school for stealing, broke my mother’s heart and have cost you a fortune in hush money. The only prudent thing for anyone to do who’s staying at Mellingham while I am there, you tell her, is to hand over anything they value to you and you’ll put it in the safe, like when you go on an ocean liner and entrust your jewellery to the purser. Otherwise, you say, I shall infallibly get away with it. Are you prepared to bet that she won’t thank you brokenly for tipping her off and give you the miniature?’
Crispin drew a deep breath. ‘Gerald, this is genius!’
‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘I do not see how it can fail.’
‘It can’t. So off you go. She must be back by this time.’
3
Crispin went on his way with a buoyant stride far different from the shambling totter with which he had mounted the stairs so short a while ago, and Jerry sat thinking how extraordinarily lucky his uncles were to have someone as clever as himself to extricate them from their difficulties. No need for them to worry when on the horns of dilemmas, for there wer
e few of these that would not yield to treatment by G. G. F. ‘West. He wondered why a man so gifted had never thought of going into the diplomatic service.
He had been musing thus for some minutes, when the door opened and Chippendale entered with his customary affable air of being sure of his welcome. Jerry felt no surprise on seeing him. He had been at Mellingham long enough to know that, whatever other shortages might occur in that stately home of England, there would never be any stint of Chippendale’s society. He had no wish, however, for a tête-à-tête with him.
‘He isn’t here,’ he said, hoping to avert this.
‘Pardon, cocky?’
‘If you’re looking for Mr Scrope, he’s stepped out.’
Chippendale disclaimed any desire to see Mr Scrope. He had come, he said, to enquire after Jerry’s head and to verify his suspicion that its owner’s sojourn in the cupboard had been linked up with the search for the ruddy miniature. Sifting the evidence, he said, he had deduced that Jerry must be one of Mr Willoughby Scrope’s corps of assistants.
‘Like you,’ said Jerry, seeing no point in not admitting the charge.
‘Well, they always say The more, the merrier. I’m no longer an operative, by the way.’
‘Yes, my uncle told me you had ratted.’
The verb appeared to pain Chippendale.
‘I’ve handed in my resignation, yes. I thought it best when I saw what lengths that dame would go to when stirred. Which reminds me, how’s your poor head?’
‘Not too good.’
‘I thought it wouldn’t be. Muscular dame, that. Strong wrists. Not sure I altogether approve of her. I like women to be feminine. American, isn’t she? I thought so. They get that way in America from going on all those demonstration marches and battling the police. And talking of police, do you know the thought that crossed my mind as I watched her start her backswing? I was wishing it could have been Simms in that cupboard instead of you.’
Jerry said he would have been glad if it had been anybody in the cupboard instead of him. Who, he asked, was Simms?
The local Gestapo. Constable Simms he calls himself. Him and me have a feud on owing to his harsh and arbitrary methods.’
‘Harsh, is he?’