Authors: R. T. Raichev
A maid opened the door and let Lady Grylls and Major Payne in. As they walked across the hall, Payne paused to glance at the photographs in silver frames.
The drawing room, with its high ceiling and Adam chimneypiece, was furnished with restrained good taste. Half a dozen early-nineteenth-century paintings of dogs hung on sashes against walnut panelling that had been glazed in three shades of pistachio green. The moment they entered, the carriage clock on the mantelshelf chimed eleven.
Felicity Remnant, a placid-looking woman in
hound’s-tooth
tweeds and two strings of pearls, rose from the sofa. She had a preoccupied air about her. She seemed unable to tear her eyes from the frozen black-and-white image on the TV screen.
Putting the remote control on the low coffee table, she turned to her visitors.
‘So good of you to come.’ She and Lady Grylls exchanged kisses. ‘Gerard is sorry he can’t be here, but he’s had to go to Remnant. Meetings with solicitors and all sorts of other people. As you can well imagine, my brother-in-law’s death has pitched us into a wholly new life with a lot of incredibly tedious responsibilities. It’s complete madness.’
‘Felicity, my dear, I don’t think you have met Hugh, have you? Hugh is my favourite nephew. The only one of my living relatives who understands me.’
Payne gave a little bow. ‘Lady Remnant. How do you do?’
‘How do you do? I have heard an awful lot about you, Hugh, and I must say I am intrigued.’
‘So good of you to let me look at your Damascus chest.’
‘I understand you are renowned for your stratospheric IQ and uncanny gift for divining guilty secrets. Can you really do the Sherlock Holmes trick of guessing facts about people in a seemingly legerdemain manner?’
‘I believe I can.’
‘Frequently with spectacular success, or so I have heard?’
‘Usually with spectacular success. Usually rather than frequently,’ said Payne in a meditative voice. ‘I wouldn’t call it a trick but a knack. And it isn’t exactly guessing, it’s deducing.’
‘How terribly tantalizing. I wonder if you could deduce anything about me?’
‘You’d like me to tell you things about yourself which no one but you could possibly know?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Wouldn’t you think it presumptuous of me?’
‘Not a bit of it.’
‘You may find what I am going to say annoying.’
‘I am sure I won’t,’ she reassured him.
Major Payne’s eyes narrowed. ‘Well, you have been careful to cultivate a perfectly plausible patina of respectability and an instantly recognizable type of Englishness. You speak and dress and do your hair the way your mother and grandmother spoke and dressed and did theirs, but underneath lurks a highly unconventional woman.’
Lady Grylls beamed. ‘Isn’t he wonderful?’
‘In what way unconventional?’ Felicity asked.
‘Once you were something of a wild girl. You had a passion for rock-and-roll. You are a dab hand with a gun. You have a quirky sense of humour. You used to have a tattoo, which you sported pretty prominently.’ Payne drew his forefinger across his jaw. ‘You have a Lithuanian maid and you smoke Cuban cigars.’
‘Not Trichinopoly ones?’ Felicity’s brows went up ironically.
‘No. Cuban. As a child, you were scared of pom-pom dahlias. Your second boyfriend was a strategy analyst at a government-sponsored institution called Stonehenge Madagascar.’
‘I suppose you recognized Goda’s accent, but how on earth did you know about the gun?’
‘Who or what is Trichinopoly?’ Lady Grylls asked.
‘Place in southern India. Location of a famous battle … A silver-framed photograph in the hall shows you and your husband wearing combat gear and handling guns in a most expert manner.’
‘You are certainly good at noticing things. But you can’t be sure that’s my husband. It may be my lover. Or my dentist. I may have been entertaining my dentist, so there.’
‘No,’ Payne said firmly. ‘It’s your husband Gerard Fenwick, who is now the thirteenth Earl Remnant. I believe I was introduced to him once. I never forget a face. It was at a dinner at the Military Club, I think, or perhaps Brooks’s. Can’t remember which one exactly.’
‘Gentlemen’s clubs are all the same,’ she said acidly. ‘How did you know about the rock-and-roll?’
Payne pointed to a shelf above the TV set. ‘Those videotapes. Glastonbury 1971, 1972 and 1973. They can’t possibly be your son’s – I understand he is still at school – too young. Besides, it is all DVDs nowadays. Or are you going to tell me they belong to your husband?’
Felicity looked a little annoyed. ‘Perhaps they do.’
‘No, they don’t,’ Lady Grylls wheezed. ‘They are all yours, my dear. I remember your mama being frightfully worried about you when you were eighteen. About the shiny black leather you used to wrap yourself in! There were pictures of you in
Tatler
, I remember. Sorry. Shouldn’t butt in. This is Hugh’s show.’
‘You have had a small tattoo removed from just above your wrist. The scar is infinitesimal, practically invisible to untrained eyes. I believe you had the operation done about twenty-five years ago. Was that when you first got married?’
‘It was. I didn’t want my mother-in-law to have a fit. My mother-in-law was the most disapproving woman who ever lived.’ Felicity’s expression did not change. ‘OK. You are right about my wild youth. I was something of what is known as a “rock chick”. But you are wrong about the cigars. It is my husband who smokes cigars. That’s why the house reeks of them.’
‘There is fresh cigar smoke in this room. You have tried to get rid of it by opening the window, but you haven’t been entirely successful. Besides,’ Payne went on, ‘there is a bit of a cigar leaf stuck to the thumb of your right hand.’
‘Is there? Oh yes, how tiresome. Very well. I help myself to Gerard’s cigars every now and then. I don’t think he notices. That’s my one guilty secret.’
‘Only one?’ Lady Grylls laughed.
Felicity frowned. ‘What about my quirky sense of humour? And what about the pom-pom dahlias? However did you deduce that?’
‘You have created a persona that is
too
good to be entirely true. It is clear you get a kick out of misleading the world. Then there are the dogs in those pictures.’ Payne pointed. ‘They seem to have been chosen for no other reason than their exceptional ugliness. I don’t think you care for dogs much, do you?’
‘I detest dogs. What about that nonsense about my second boyfriend working at Stonehenge Madagascar? I don’t believe such a place exists. And I never had a second boyfriend.’
‘I said that to impress my aunt,’ Payne admitted.
‘Hughie!’ Lady Grylls cried in an outraged manner.
‘And I suppose it was your aunt who told you about my childhood phobias?’
‘I did.’ Lady Grylls nodded. ‘Your mama was terribly worried, you know. Thank God you grew out of it.’
Felicity turned to Payne. ‘Do you have any idea at all in which story Sherlock Holmes makes the following deduction: “You have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband.” I assume you know the “canon” inside out?’
‘I believe I do,’ Payne said, ‘but that’s not Sherlock Holmes. It is Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman.’
‘I must say, Nellie, your nephew is quite something.’
‘He is my favourite nephew,’ Lady Grylls said as though that explained it all.
‘I have the feeling of having passed a test,’ Payne said.
‘Perhaps you have. Would you like some coffee? You are not in too terrible a hurry, I hope?’
‘We’d love some coffee. I hope it is not decaffeinated? At my time of life, I can’t tolerate any manner of dietary deprivation. Are you all right, my dear?’ Lady Grylls peered at Felicity Remnant. ‘You are not ill, are you? You strike me as a bit preoccupied.’
‘Something awfully peculiar happened this morning. And how curious that you should be here now. I have an idea Hugh might be able to help me.’ Felicity’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Major Payne. ‘But let’s have coffee first. No, it is not decaffeinated. It is Davidoff Supreme Reserve.’
‘It isn’t a well-known fact but American police have their own coffee brand,’ Payne said. ‘Gun Barrel. I read about it in the
Telegraph
.’
‘I won’t be a jiffy. Do take a look at the Damascus chest, Hugh. It’s over there.’ Felicity pointed. ‘I hope it comes up to your expectations.’
It was a chest of drawers of exceptional workmanship. Standing beside it, Major Payne ran his hand across its surface. ‘Mid-nineteenth century. Made in Damascus. Typical of the region. Outstanding quality. Inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory and silver wire.’
‘It actually changes colour in the light. Can you see it? Or is it my eyes?’ Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose.
‘It does change colour in the light, you are absolutely right, darling. It would look marvellous against a
salmon-coloured
background.’
‘It gives the impression of
exuding
light. It’s got a fairyland quality about it.’
‘They usually have secret drawers, chests like this … One needs to press one of these small marquetry insets –
comme
ça
.’ Payne demonstrated and imagined he heard an old spring being triggered somewhere. A little panel shot out.
‘Goodness – there is a secret drawer! Are you ever wrong, Hughie?’
‘No, not often.’ He opened the secret drawer.
‘What’s that piece of paper? A secret message! What does it say, quick!’
Payne unfolded it. ‘Doesn’t seem to be much. Um. Headed paper.
The Grand Jewel Hotel, Marrakesh – I accept. You are
right. All I need to do is shave off my whiskers and go bald! But we need to meet, so I can get the details right. Q
.’
‘Who is Q?’
‘Not Quiller-Couch, for sure. And I can’t imagine the Queen writing cryptic notes. Besides, she signs herself ER. It may be James Bond’s Q. Marrakesh suggests foreign intrigue.’
‘Extraordinary. Why
does
Q want to go bald? What’s this all about?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest, darling. I don’t suppose we are meant to be reading this. Terrible manners.’
‘Felicity need never know,’ Lady Grylls said as she watched her nephew fold up the note and return it to the tiny drawer.
Their hostess reappeared, accompanied by the maid Goda, a languid-looking girl with pale straw-like hair and wide-set mournful eyes of lymphatic blue. She was pushing a trolley with a large coffee pot, three Meissen porcelain cups, a cake and a stand with sandwiches.
‘That will be all, Goda. Thank you very much.’
Lady Grylls exclaimed, ‘My dear – a feast! Romantic passion, overweening ambition and fabulous wealth all pale into insignificance beside such mouth-watering elevenses … That was a clean, nice-looking gel,’ she said after the maid had left the room.
‘Goda is Lithuanian, as Hugh correctly guessed. We try to move with the times. She came staggeringly cheap. I got her on the black market,
not
through an agency. I seem to have contacts in the most unlikely places. There is always some risk involved, but I like taking risks.’
‘You’re not afraid she may skedaddle with the spoons?’ Lady Grylls raised her cup of coffee to her lips.
‘No, not really. I don’t believe she will. She has turned out to be the best maid I’ve ever had. Pure gold.’
‘Entrap the alien at the proper time,’ murmured Payne.
‘That was old Kipling’s shockingly non-PC advice to our island race.’
‘The gel is very quiet,’ Lady Grylls observed. ‘She’s not one of those unfortunate semi-mutes, is she?’
‘No. She’s shy. She doesn’t speak English terribly well,’ Felicity said. ‘Her accent is marked but not particularly tiresome. I give her English lessons. One hour every evening.’
‘I suppose you take it out of her salary?’ Lady Grylls bit into an egg-and-cress sandwich. ‘No? Jolly generous of you, my dear. Well, I taught my butler the rules of vingt-et-un. I also did it for free.’
‘Does Goda ever keep you waiting?’ Payne asked.
‘No, never. Why? She is most punctual. Oh. Is that a joke?’
‘Yes. A somewhat feeble one, I fear.’ The two ladies continued to look puzzled. ‘
Waiting for Goda
.’
The conversation then turned to the Damascus chest. Felicity explained that it had been the property of her late brother-in-law, but Clarissa had asked Felicity to take it off her hands. ‘Clarissa believed the chest was haunted. She warned me there was a noise coming from inside. She described it as a
crump, crump, crump
kind of noise. She kept hearing it, she said. A ghostly kind of munching.’
‘Did
you
hear it?’
‘Oh yes.
Crump, crump, crump
. Exactly as she’d described it. It was particularly bad at night. Gerard said he couldn’t bear it. It really got on our nerves, so I took the chest to a shop in Kensington Gore. I explained about the noise.’
‘I bet they thought you were prey to aural illusions,’ Lady Grylls said.
‘Well, they heard it too, so they agreed to investigate and to reline the drawers, as they seemed to have been gnawed by some sort of creature. A couple of days later they called me and showed me a jar containing what looked like a cross between a worm and a slug. The thing was large, white, obese and obscene beyond belief!’
‘How perfectly ghastly.’ Lady Grylls took a sip of coffee.
‘They found it inside the chest wall, they said. Heaven knows how long it had been there, but it had managed to eat all the surrounding wood of the drawers. To cut a long story short, the creature was handed over to the Natural History Museum where it now stands, pickled for posterity, while the chest was repaired and returned to me. It is perfectly all right now. No more monsters.’
‘It’s definitely got a presence about it,’ Lady Grylls said.
‘I’ve had the chest back for six months now and it’s as quiet as the grave,’ Felicity said.
‘It is magnificent. I would be delighted to have it,’ Payne said. ‘If you are still willing to sell it.’
‘Oh yes, I am. Clarissa insists the creature was in fact a reincarnated Remnant who came to haunt her. She is convinced it was one of Roderick’s late uncles, who was repulsively white and quite fat.’
‘My dear, what is that you’ve been watching?’ Lady Grylls gestured towards the frozen image on the TV screen. ‘It all looks terribly melodramatic. Is that man dead or dying? They strike me as familiar somehow – that woman with the wild hair – the dashing chap – where
have
I seen these actors before?’
‘They are not actors,’ Felicity Remnant said. ‘Look carefully, Nellie.’
Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘I have an idea I saw them at the crematorium yesterday, but I am sure I am imagining it. I get more and more muddled these days.’
‘You did see them at the crematorium yesterday.’
‘What in heaven’s name do you mean, Felicity?’
Their hostess seemed to have come to a decision. ‘I received a package early this morning. It came in a Jiffy bag. As a matter of fact, it was addressed to Gerard. I had an odd feeling about it, so I opened it. It contained a videotape, which had no label – no writing of any kind – nothing to
indicate what it was. An old battered videotape. I put it on – and I had the shock of my life.’
Major Payne finished his coffee. Realization had dawned on him. ‘You don’t mean that the man lying on the chaise longue is the late Lord Remnant?’
‘That’s my brother-in-law, yes. My brother-in-law’s death has been captured “on camera”, as I believe the expression is. I’d like you to see it.’ Felicity picked up the remote control. She looked at Major Payne. ‘I may need your advice.’