Corpse in a Gilded Cage (21 page)

‘It was on account of the swine fehver,' said Chin.

‘I beg your pardon.'

‘On account of the swine fehver. We was lookin' for pigs.'

‘It's like this, y' see,' said Chucklehead. ‘There's this bad attack of the fehver, up Limerick way, an' the eejuts up there will bring their little squealers out of the county to try an' save them—because the government's compensation's appallin'ly low. Thus spreadin' the sickness to the whole of the civilized globe, y' see. So we're mannin' this road block, see, an' we stop this ancient ve
hic
le—'

‘Not seein' it was British, or we'd never have troubled—'

‘No, not noticin' that, so that before you could say Cardinal MacFeogh we've opened up the back, put their luggage on the road, and pulled up the back seat—'

‘Because that's where the little darlin's often hide themselves.'

‘An' what do we find but this handsome bit of oil paintin', and a clock the like of which the Taoiseach himself hasn't got on his mantelpiece. All under the seat. So we think it's a bit suspicious, like, an' as how it might not be all above board. An' so we have this pair out of the car, and we tump them about a bit—'

‘Tump?'

‘That's right, we tump them about a bit, but all they say is they've no idea them things was there, an' they must have been planted, if y'd believe it. So we bring them back here, and we wonders if there's anythin' come from England about an old cream Escort.'

‘ 'Twas your idea entirely,' said Chin admiringly.

‘You'd have thought of it yourself eventually, Eamon. So when we find as how there was, we get on the line to Waterford, and there y' are.'

‘Well, we're very grateful to you,' said Peter Medway, feeling less strong than when he had arrived. ‘I think it might be a good idea if I saw them now.'

‘Sure you can, an' with pleasure. They're a snooty pair, an' no great fun to have around, so if you
can
arrange a spot of extradition, we wouldn't be cryin' any bitther tears.'

And when Peter Medway got to talk to Parsloe and Nazeby, he sensed they wouldn't be grieved to be out of there either. Parsloe, in fact, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of a British uniform. He was a fleshy man of middle height, with dark, slicked-back hair. In normal circumstances his impressive manner would stop you noticing the weak mouth, the slight air of going to seed. Nazeby was good-looking, thirtyish, with hard lines about the mouth and clear hazel eyes. Normally she would probably have a competent, slightly bossy air, and of the two she certainly seemed the more dangerous. Now both of them looked driven, off-centre; both were grubby, and Parsloe was bruised.

‘Look,' said the butler, looking straight at Peter Medway as if sizing him up, ‘I know what you've come for, and we'd better tell you what we told that precious pair out there. We recognize those things they found in the car—of course we do. They come from Chetton. But we had no idea they were there, not a notion in the world. Having blotted our copy-book with staying on there, we'd naturally be doubly careful. They must have been planted.'

‘Well, that's as maybe. You'd better tell me how you left Chetton.'

‘It was about half past six on the Sunday morning. We didn't want any unpleasantness. We don't make any bones about it: we shouldn't have been there. But when the Earl said we had to go, we went at once.'

‘When you think,' said Nazeby, who did seem inclined to make bones, ‘of what these hippie squatters get away with.'

‘And we did no harm at all to the house. We cleaned up so well you wouldn't know we'd been there. But it was wrong, we admit it. Still, the idea of stealing anything from the house: we simply wouldn't have contemplated it.'

‘Hmmm,' said Peter Medway. ‘The fact remains that you left Chetton shortly after the murder of the Earl, in possession of items of his property—wittingly or not. That puts you in a pretty serious position.'

‘We realize that,' said Nazeby, in her hard, managerial voice. ‘But we've talked it over, and we've decided to go back of our own accord.'

‘Ah!' said Medway, brightening. He hadn't fancied facing all the rigmaroles of extradition procedures, particularly in the company of the pair of comedians in the outer office. ‘That certainly will make matters simpler.'

‘We'll just have to hope,' said Parsloe, ‘that the British police are as fair and thorough as they're supposed to be.'

He didn't sound at all convinced they were.

‘Quite apart from anything else,' said Nazeby, whose decision this obviously was, ‘we'd never get another job, not with this hanging over us.'

‘I think you're very wise,' said Medway.

‘God only knows what might happen to us if we stayed here,' muttered Parsloe.

‘Quite,' agreed Sergeant Medway. ‘My guess is you'd be put down—on account of the swine fehver.'

•   •   •

At the end of the afternoon Phil was jubilant.

‘Well,' he said to the trio who had manned the phone, ‘that was a day and a half! You've done a job to be proud of. You two can go out now and play—and I'll slip you something when I have a spot of the ready. I'll unplug the phone soon, so we can get a bit of peace and quiet this evening.' He poked his head into the Drawing-Room. ‘Hey, Trevor, what do you think of this: five supermarket openings, one prize-giving at a Comprehensive, seven bazaars and a feeler whether I'd like to be on
Any Questions?
You're not the only one in the public eye any longer. By tomorrow they'll be asking me to turn on the Christmas lights in Regent Street.'

Dixie, a mountainous load of flesh and discontent in her usual chair over by the windows, stared at her husband with an expression hardly less lethal than it had been that morning.

‘What
the hell are you playing at, Phil?' she asked again.

‘I'm becoming a personality, Dixie. You know, the sort of bloke everybody recognizes, even though he doesn't do anything in particular. Don't you think I have the makings of a personality, Dixie?'

Dixie considered, glowering. When she spoke it was on another subject entirely.

‘I told you to keep that bastard of yours out of my sight.'

‘Raicho? Can't do that. Raicho's my right-hand man.'

Dixie cast at Raicho a look that comprised a whole armoury of daggers, then she muttered, ‘If you don't get rid of him, watch out I don't,' and stomped out of the room and up the stairs, arrested only by Phil's parting shot:

‘Oh, Dixie: be careful how you use that word “bastard”. He's not, you know. And it's a word you ought to be sensitive about.'

Dixie's choke of outrage was interrupted by the telephone, and Phil, with an amused shrug of the shoulders at his burgeoning popularity, went out to the Hall to take it.

‘Chetton Hall . . . Yes, this is the Earl . . . Who? . . . Oh, Sir Gerald
Dowley. Would that be of Brycenorton Towers? Yes, I've heard of the place . . . No, we haven't so far had the pleasure.' At the other end Sir Gerald launched into an elaborate apology for their previous ignorance of each other's existence, as if it was surprising they hadn't met up in some dinky little pub near the Billingsgate Fish Market. Phil listened with a tolerant expression, and when the fluent conventionalities showed signs of slowing down, cut in with an ‘Equally so. I'll hope to make your acquaintance before too long, Sir Gerald. Is there anything I can do for you now? . . . Well, that's very nice of you . . . Neighbourly. I appreciate it very much . . . Matter of fact, there are a couple of things I'd like to chew over with you . . . Now? I don't know what the cops would say to that. Perhaps if they could spare a man to drive me. You wouldn't object to that? . . . No, what I say is, cops are almost as human as the rest of us . . . Well, if you'll just hang on a minute I'll see what they say.'

Phil put down the phone, grinned at Raicho, and muttered, ‘Starting to get in with the local nobs.' Then he ambled over to the nearest policeman and sent him off to get permission from Hickory. Soon he came back to the phone.

‘Sir Gerald? Yes, I've okayed it with the law. They want to talk to me later, so I guess something's turned up, but it's in order for an hour or two. The police driver will know the way, I suppose. Be with you in as long as it takes.'

He put down the phone.

‘That's what I like about the aristocracy in this country. No side. As long as you've got the dibs they welcome you with open arms. Watch out for yourself while I'm gone, Raicho. What I'd suggest is a long walk in a nice open field, with a cop nearby.'

•   •   •

Phil hugely enjoyed his visit to Brycenorton Towers. After the police driver had been dispatched to the kitchen quarters, watched sardonically by Phil, Sir Gerald and Lady Dowley sat the new Earl down in a comfortable old armchair, offered him a drink (‘Anything that's going,' said Phil) and made him very welcome, rather as they might the postman at Christmas time. When they had gone through the condolences, and made the ritual noises of welcome to a new member of the landed classes, Sir Gerald asked Phil what it was he wanted to talk over with him.

‘Well, it's this matter of house security,' said Phil. ‘O' course, I know a bit about it, but that's from the other side of the fence, as it were.'

Sir Gerald laughed a fruity, landowner's laugh, and Lady Dowley leaned forward.

‘You're thinking of opening to the public, then?'

‘Well, it's going through my mind, yes.'

‘Good. The old Earl kept the place
much
too closed, for one of our great houses.'

‘That's what I thought. No disrespect, but from what I can gather even them eighteenth-century blokes were more willing to let people in for a dekko.'

‘You'll find plenty of problems on your plate, though,' said Sir Gerald with relish, and he launched into an exposition of those problems. It was a subject that was very close to his heart. He explained that thieves had broken into Brycenorton earlier in the year, aiming at its superb china collection, and since then he prided himself that the house had been made burglar-proof, or as nearly so as any old place could be. He went into detail on the circumstances of the robbery (which Phil seemed to enjoy) and on all the measures taken, the devices fitted, the redeployment of the attendants. Phil took it all in, and even made the odd note.

‘It's like this,' said Phil at the end; ‘it seems to me that, with the old bloke keeping the place so closed, there must be thousands of connoisseurs just itching to have a peep at it. Not to mention the ghouls—after all this. And what I thought was: Lillywaite says there's no way I can keep the house. OK, he should know. But it's going to be years before the dear old Chancellor puts in his bill. Just think of making an up-to-date inventory of all the stuff in there—and that's before they start putting a price on everything, and before I start quibbling and quarrelling and entering into negotiations. Get the idea? It could take five years, easy. Meanwhile, anything I make out of the place is mine, by my reckoning. And my guess is, I'd make a bomb.'

‘You could be right,' said Sir Gerald. ‘It's a thought.'

‘And then there was this joker in the House, yesterday, with his obliging suggestion, which tickled me pink. So, all in all, there seem to be various possibilities opening up.'

So they chewed over these and other matters, and had a couple more drinks, and when Phil had collected his driver from the kitchens he invited his hosts over to Chetton ‘when all this bovver's cleared up', and he said he'd welcome Sir Gerald's opinion as to which rooms at Chetton could most easily be opened to the public ‘without them getting their thieving hands on anything of value'. He left in an aura of goodwill (‘Quite a card,'
said Sir Gerald to his lady, ‘but somehow basically sound, didn't you feel?'), and he sat out the drive back to Chetton in deep thought. The journalists at the gate were much augmented in numbers since the success of the
Grub
and
Telegram
men the day before, but Phil ignored them. He jumped out of the car in the courtyard, and went straight along to have his talk with Hickory.

‘Tatty old room you picked here,' he said, looking around the Pink Damask Room. ‘Looks like a high-class knocking shop—and, my ancestresses being what they were, that's probably what it was.'

‘Wouldn't have been my choice,' said Hickory apologetically, gazing round with his glum, farmer's expression of never expecting anything but the worst. ‘I just sort of landed up here. Well, I thought I'd better tell you the news: there's two people arrested in Ireland, and my man has just confirmed that they are Parsloe and Nazeby, and that in their car were several items from this house.'

Phil looked at him, frowning.

‘Really? What were they doing in Ireland? You don't hook it to Ireland. Once you're there there's nowhere else to go. Quite apart from all the security checks against the IRA and that mob.'

‘They were on their way to a new job there, in County Cork. They were arrested at a place called Dungarvan.'

Phil looked at him acutely.

‘That doesn't figure, and you know it doesn't. Not with the murder. They might have thought they could get away with filching a few odds and sods from the house, but if they'd done the murder they'd never have gone calmly off to a new job without ditching the stuff.'

‘The thought had occurred to me,' said Hickory. ‘We're not entirely ignorant of the criminal mind, in the Force. At the moment I'm regarding this pair as a piece in the jigsaw—nothing more. But I thought you'd like to know.'

‘Thanks a million,' said Phil. ‘You got any ideas when this mob can get away from here? They're my family, and I love them very much, mostly, but there's an atmosphere out there like Hitler's bunker in April 'forty-five.'