Detection Unlimited (2 page)

Mr Drybeck could think of nothing better to say than: 'Indeed!' and the Major, whose consciousness of his wife's absurdities impelled him to do what he could to justify them, said apologetically: 'Delicate little beggars, you know!'

'No, Lion! Not delicate!' said Mrs Midgeholme. 'But with a first litter one can't be too careful. Ullapool will be looking for Mother to come and hold her paw. I must away! Play well, both of you! Come, Peekies! Come to Mother!'

With these words, and a wave of one hand, she set off down the street, leaving the two men to proceed in the opposite direction, towards Wood Lane.

'Extraordinarily intelligent, those Pekes,' said the Major, in a confidential tone. 'Sporting, too. You wouldn't think it to look at them, but if you take them on the common they're down every rabbit-hole.'

Mr Drybeck, schooling his features to an expression of spurious interest, said: 'Really?' and tried unavailingly to think of something to add to this unencouraging response. Fortunately, they had reached the first of the shops, which combined groceries with haberdashery and stationery, and also harboured the Post Office, and a diversion was created by the emergence from its portals of Miss Miriam Patterdale, vigorously affixing a stamp to a postcard. She accorded them a curt nod, and thrust the card into the letter-box, saying cryptically: 'That's to the laundry! We shall see what excuse they can think up this time. I suppose you're going to the Haswells'? You'll find Abby there. I'm told she plays quite a good game.'

'Very creditable indeed,' agreed Mr Drybeck. 'A strong backhand, unusual in one of her sex.'

'Nonsense!' said Miss Patterdale, disposing of this without compunction. 'Time you stopped talking like an Edwardian, Thaddeus. No patience with it!'

'I fear' said Mr Drybeck, with a thin smile, 'that I am quite an old fogy.'

'Nothing to be proud of in that,' said Miss Patterdale, correctly divining his attitude.

Mr Drybeck was silenced. He had known Miss Patterdale for a number of years, but she had never lost her power to intimidate him. She was a weatherbeaten spinster of angular outline and sharp features. She invariably wore suits of severe cut, cropped her gray locks extremely short, and screwed a monocle into one eye. But this was misleading: her sight really was irregular. She was the older daughter of the late Vicar of the parish, and upon his death, some ten years previously, she had removed from the Vicarage to the cottage at the corner of Fox Lane, from which humble abode she still exercised a ruthless but beneficient tyranny over the present incumbent's parishioners. Since the Reverend Anthony Cliburn's wife was of a shy and a retiring nature, only too thankful to have her responsibilities wrested from her by a more forceful hand, not the smallest unpleasantness had ever arisen between the ladies. Mrs Cliburn was frequently heard to say that she didn't know what any of them would do without Miriam; and Miss Patterdale, responding to this tribute, asserted in a very handsome spirit, that although Edith hadn't an ounce of commonsense or moral courage she did her best, and always meant well.

'Are we to have the pleasure of seeing you at The Cedars, Miss Patterdale?' asked the Major, breaking an uncomfortable silence.

'No, my dear man, you are not. I don't play tennis -- never did! -- and if there's one think I bar it's watching country-house games. Besides, someone's got to milk the goats.'

'It's a curious thing,' said the Major, 'but try as I will I can't like goats' milk. My wife occasionally used it during the War-years, but I never acquired a liking for it.'

'It would have been more curious if you had. Filthy stuff!' said Mils Patterdale candidly. 'The villagers think it's good for their children: that's why I keep the brutes. Oh, well! There's a lot of nonsense talked about children nowadays: the truth is that they thrive on any muck.'

Upon which trenchant remark she favoured them with another of her curt nods, screwed her monocle more securely into place, and strode off down the street.

'Remarkable woman, that,' observed the Major.

'Yes, indeed,' responded Mr Drybeck unenthusiastically.

' Extraordinarily pretty girl, that niece of hers. Not a bit like her, is she?'

'Her mother -- Fanny Patterdale that was -- was always considered the better-looking of the sisters,' said Mr Drybeck repressively. 'I fancy you were not acquainted with her.'

'No, before my time,' agreed the Major, realizing that he had been put in his place by the Second Oldest Inhabitant, and submitting to it. 'I'm a comparative newcomer, of course.'

'Hardly that, Midgeholme,' said Mr Drybeck, rewarding this humility as it deserved. 'Compared to the Squire and me, and, I suppose I should add, Plenmeller, perhaps you might be considered a newcomer. But the place has seen many changes of late years.'

'And not all of them for the better,' said the Major. 'Tempera mores, eh?'

Mr Drybeck winced slightly, and said in a pensive voice, as though to himself: 'O tempora, O mores! Perhaps one would rather say tempora mutantur.'

The Major, prevented by circumstance from expressing any such Preference, attempted no response. Mr Drybeck said: 'One is tempted to finish the tag, but I do not feel that I for one have changed very much with the times. It is sometimes difficult to repress a wish that our little community had not altered so sadly. I find myself remembering the days when the Brotherlees owned The Cedars -- not that I have anything to say in disparagement of the Haswells, very estimable people, I am sure, but not, it must be owned, quite like the Brotherlees.'

'Not at all, no,' said the Major, in all sincerity. 'Well, for one thing, the Brotherlees never entertained, did they? I must say, I think the Haswells are a distinct acquisition to Thornden. Nice to see that fine old house put into good order again, too. But if you're thinking of the present owner of Fox House, why, there I'm with you! A very poor exchange for the Churnsikes, I've always held -- and I'm not the only one of that opinion.'

Mr Drybeck looked pleased, but only said, in a mild voice: 'Rather a fish out of water, poor Warrenby.'

'I can't think what induced him to move out of the town,' said the Major. 'I should have said he was a good deal more in his element in the Melkinton Road than he'll ever be at Fox House. Not by any means a pukka sahib, as we used to say in the good old days. Ah, well! It takes all sorts to make a world, I suppose.'

Mr Drybeck agreed to this, but as though he found it a regrettable thing; and the two gentlemen walked on in meditative silence. As they reached the corner of Wood Lane, Gavin Plenmeller came out of the gate set in the wall of Thornden House, and limped across the road towards them. He was a slight, dark young man, a little under thirty, with a quick, lively countenance, and a contraction in one leg, which had been caused by his having suffered from hip-disease in his childhood. It had precluded him from taking any very active part in the War, and was held, by the charitable, to account for the frequent acidity of his conversation. He had inherited Thornden House, together with what remained, after excessive taxation, of a moderate fortune, from his half-brother rather more than a year previously, and was not felt to be a newcomer to the district. He had been used to living in London, supplementing a small patrimony by writing detective stories; but he had visited Thornden at frequent intervals, generally remaining under his brother's roof until the combination of his mocking tongue and Walter's nerve-racked irritability resulted in an inevitable quarrel -- if a situation could be called a quarrel in which one man exploded with exasperation, and the other laughed, and shrugged his thin shoulders. Walter had taken an ail-too active part in the War, and had emerged from it in a condition nearly resembling a mental and physical wreck, his temper uncertain, and his strength no more than would allow him to pursue, in a spasmodic way, his old, passionate hobbies of entomology and bird-watching. After each rift with Gavin he had sworn never to have the young waster in the house again; but when Gavin, wholly impervious to insult, once more arrived on his doorstep he invariably admitted him, and even, for several days, enjoyed his companionship. His indifferent health made him disinclined to see society, and when he died, and Gavin succeeded to his place, even persons of all-embracing charity, such as Mavis Warrenby, could scarcely regret the change. Gavin was not popular, for he took no trouble to conceal his conviction that he was cleverer than his neighbours; but he was less disliked than his brother had been.

The two elder men waited for him to come up with them. 'Coming to The Cedars?' the Major asked.

'Yes, do you think it odd of me? I expect I shall play croquet. Mrs Haswell is sure to ask me to: she has such a kind disposition!'

'A game of considerable skill,' remarked Mr Drybeck. 'It has gone out of fashion of late years, but in my young days it was very popular. I remember my grandmother telling me, however, that when it first came in it was frowned on as being fast, and leading to flirtation. Amusing!'

'I can't flirt with Mrs Haswell: she regards me with a motherly rye. Or with Mavis: her eyes glisten, and she knows I don't mean the dreadful things I say. Besides, her uncle might take it to mean encouragement of himself, and that would never do. He would force his way into my house, and I'm resolved that it shall be the one threshold he can't cross. My brother used to say that to me, but he didn't mean it. The likeness between us was only skin-deep, after .ill.'

'Oh, yours won't be the only one!' said the Major, chuckling a little. 'Eh, Drybeck?'

'No, you're quite mistaken, Major. Warrenby will cross Mr Drybeck's threshold by a ruse. He will simulate a fit at his gate, or beg to be allowed to come in to recover from an attack of giddiness, and Mr Drybeck will be too polite to refuse him. That's the worst of having been born in the last century: you're always being frustrated by your upbringing.'

'I trust,' said Mr Drybeck frostily, 'that I should not refuse admittance to anyone in such need of assistance as you indicate.'

'You mean you trust you won't be at home when it happens, because your fear of appearing to the rest of us to be callous might prove stronger than your disinclination to render the least assistance in Warrenby.'

'Really, Plenmeller, that borders on the offensive!' protested the Major, perceiving that Mr Drybeck had taken umbrage at it. 'Not at all. It was merely the truth. You aren't suggesting, are you, that Mr Drybeck lived for long enough in the last century to think the truth something too indecent to be acknowledged? That seems to me very offensive.'

The Major was nonplussed by this, and could think of nothing say. Mr Drybeck gave a laugh that indicated annoyance rather than amusement, and said: 'You will forgive me, Plenmeller, if I say that the truth in this instance is that Warrenby's presence in our midst does not -- though I think it hardly adds to the amenities of Thorn-den -- occupy my mind as it seems to occupy yours. I am sorry to be obliged to tamper with the dramatic picture you have painted, but honesty compels me to say that my feeling in the matter is one of indifference.'

The Major turned his eyes apprehensively towards Gavin, fearing that it could scarcely have escaped his acute perception that Mr Drybeck's loathing of his professional rival and social neighbour was fast approaching the proportions of monomania. But Gavin only said, with a flicker of his unkind smile: 'Oh, I do so much admire that attitude! I should adopt it myself, if I thought I could carry it off. I couldn't, of course: you would have to be a Victorian for that.'

'Now, now, that's enough about Victorians!' interposed the Major. 'Next, you'll be calling me a Victorian!'

'No, you have never laid claim to the distinction.' -'I am not ashamed of it,' stated Mr Drybeck.

'How should you be? The Squire isn't. By what means, do you suppose, did Warrenby obtain a foothold in Old Place? The Ainstables do receive him, you know. I find that so surprisisng: I'm sure they wouldn't receive me if I weren't a Plenmeller. Do you think Sampson Warrenby employed devilish wiles to induce the Squire to include him on his visiting list, or are we all equal, seen from the Olympian heights of Old Place? What a corruscating suspicion! I can hardly bear it.'

The Major could only be thankful that they had by this time reached the front gates of The Cedars.

2.

mr HENRY haswell, who had bought The Cedars from Sir James Brotherlee, was one of the more affluent members of the county. His grandfather had founded a small estate agent's business in Bellingham, which had succeeded well enough to enable him to send his her to a minor public school. Not having himself enjoyed the advantages of such an education, he regarded them with a reverence soon justified by the rapid expansion of the business under the management of his son. William Haswell made the firm important, and himself a force to be reckoned with in civic affairs; penetrated nun society which his father did not doubt was out of his own reach; contracted an advantageous marriage; and presently sent his own son to Winchester, and to New College. Sticklers who looked askance at William accepted Henry as a matter of course. He knew the right people, wore the right clothes, and held the right beliefs; and since he was an unaffected person, he did not pretend to despise the prosperous business which had made it possible for him to acquire all these advantages. He threw a large part of his energy into the task of expanding it still further, but always found time to promote charitable schemes, sit on the board of the local hospital, and hunt at least once a week. He sent his only son to Winchester and Oxford, not because he hoped for his social advancement, but because it was the natural thing to do; and although he would not have opposed any desire on Charles's part to abandon estate agency for one of the more exalted professions he would have felt a good deal of secret disappointment had Charles not wished to succeed him. But Charles, born into an age of dwindling capitals and vanishing social distinctions, never expressed any such desire: he knew himself to be fortunate to have a sound business to step into, and felt a good deal of pride in its high standing. He had just been made a full partner in the firm, and his mother had begun to tell her friends, but without conviction, that it was time he was thinking of getting married.