The Book of the Dead Page 3

  ‘Oh, Christ.’ Maltravers looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. That was very clumsy of me.’

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ she told him. ‘I’m afraid you caught me off guard with a lot of defences down. I’m usually more careful when strangers ask me things like that because I know how much it can embarrass them.’

  She touched his arm with a gesture of forgiveness. ‘Anyway it was a long time ago now, and I’d rather have had my children and lost them than never had them at all.’

  Maltravers could think of nothing to say that did not sound either patronising or meaningless, then the moment between them was broken by an incongruous outburst of laughter from the other end of the table.

  ‘Gus has a much better one than that,’ Malcolm was saying. ‘Tell them about that MP you interviewed once. The one with the talking parrot.’

  For a while conversation around the table became general then settled down into smaller groups again and Maltravers started talking to Alan Morris. Urbane and cultivated company as a dinner guest, the widowed vicar of Attwater was obviously not inclined to throw open his vestry to the poor. If the Church of England was indeed the Tory party at prayer, Morris would be the perfect cleric to preach the sermon, assuring them that a rich man could enter the kingdom of Heaven with no difficulty, despite the founder’s warnings to the contrary. His conversation was highly secular and, when the subject turned to literature, displayed a familiarity with books whose contents bishops are expected to deplore. Maltravers, who had no illusions about Holy Orders producing automatic Becket-style conversions, felt that if he had been following his calling around the time Carwelton Hall was built, Morris would have been a classic pluralist and very worldly agent for the Almighty. He finally abandoned his entertaining company to talk to Charlotte Quinn again.

  ‘I understand Duggie Lydden has a shop in Kendal as well,’ he said. ‘Anywhere near yours?’

  ‘Two doors away,’ she replied and he was struck by the undisguised hostility in her voice. ‘At least it was still there when I set out this evening. I expect it to go bust any time. When you look at that shirt and tie, what can you expect?’

  ‘It is a rather eccentric colour combination,’ Maltravers agreed, intrigued by her instantly revealed animosity. ‘Do I gather you’re…not exactly the best of friends?’

  ‘I wouldn’t spit in Duggie Lydden’s mouth if his teeth were on fire,’ she said, the startling bluntness accompanied by a bland smile. ‘Does that answer your question?’

  ‘I think I grasp the general drift,’ Maltravers replied evenly. ‘I seem to be saying all the wrong things to you, don’t I?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve reached the stage in life where I don’t care what I say or what anyone thinks about it. It shocks some people, but you look as though you can handle it.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’ve had one drink too many tonight and some things have come too near the surface.’

  Maltravers caught her distasteful glance towards Jennifer Carrington.

  ‘I’m being rather slow, aren’t I?’ he commented mildly. ‘How long has Charles been a friend of yours?’

  One eyebrow arched as Charlotte Quinn gave him an appreciative but warning look.

  ‘Now that’s being too clever. You’re so sharp, you’ll cut yourself, as my grandmother used to say.’

  ‘Not all that clever,’ he contradicted. ‘You’re not making much of an effort to put a polite face on certain things.’

  It had not taken any particular brilliance for him to reach obvious conclusions about Charlotte Quinn’s feelings. He was about to say something else when Carrington stood up and spoke to his wife.

  ‘Geoffrey has asked to see round the house,’ he said. ‘Can you take everyone else back to the lounge for coffee? Unless anybody else would like the guided tour?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve never seen the Hall properly,’ said Malcolm.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to join us,’ Carrington said to Maltravers. ‘There’s something in the library you’ll certainly want to see.’

  Duggie Lydden and the Reverend Morris stayed with them, but Campbell and his wife went with the other three women as Carrington began to escort them through his family home. Rebuilt in the nineteenth century, but with roots going back to the Restoration, the house was a fine example of its period, but Maltravers had little taste for Victorian style. Its unremitting ponderousness always struck him as the product of the highly righteous and privileged section of a society convinced that God was an Englishman who would let his chosen people rule the world for ever and they should accordingly build their homes and furniture like their monuments, solid, uncompromising and permanent. He took only polite interest in what Carrington showed them—which was more than Lydden did—while Howard seemed endlessly fascinated and well informed and Malcolm and Morris made intelligent comments. But Maltravers’s interest rose considerably when he heard Carrington mention the library as they went downstairs and he followed the others through another door off the hall. Hurrying to catch up, Maltravers banged his head painfully on the top of the lintel as he entered the room.

  ‘Sorry, I should have warned you,’ Carrington apologised. ‘That door’s ridiculously low. However, this will take your mind off it.’

  He crossed to what appeared to be a cupboard next to one of the bookcases, but behind the wooden door was a wall safe with a combination lock. Carrington operated the dial then pulled it open and Maltravers could see that it contained a pile of identical books and some papers. Carrington took out one of the slender volumes and turned to offer it to him.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said with a smile. Maltravers accepted it and read the title embossed in gold leaf on the leather spine: The Attwater Firewitch. Underneath was Arthur Conan Doyle’s name and the Roman numeral I. Opening it with almost reverential care, he read the fading ink of the handwritten inscription on the flyleaf: ‘For my godson, William Redmond Carrington, on the occasion of his Christening, December 18th, 1894. From his most affectionate godfather, in the hope that in later years he will enjoy reading the final adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson.’ Underneath was Conan Doyle’s signature. Maltravers turned another page and saw the title of the first chapter—AN ENCOUNTER AT BUSHELLS—then closed the volume reluctantly but firmly.

  ‘I’m very tempted to start reading and then I wouldn’t want to stop,’ he said, offering the book back. ‘But thank you for letting me see it. I can still hardly believe the story of how you come to have it. Malcolm explained it all last night.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so unkind as to let you do no more than just see it.’ Carrington took the book and returned it to the safe. ‘From what Malcolm’s told me about your enthusiasm for detective fiction, that would be unforgiveable. I’ll lend you the photocopy I’ve made of the text, although I’m afraid I can’t do that immediately. There’s only the one copy and it’s with a great Sherlockian at the moment, but I’m expecting it back in a day or so. All I ask is that you return it before you leave or send it back by registered post.’

  Maltravers frowned at him. ‘You lend out a copy? Somebody could go off to a publisher with it.’

  ‘I’m careful who I lend it to,’ Carrington replied. ‘And I’m sure I can trust you as much as the others. Anyway, without the letters from Conan Doyle, which are also in the safe, it could be nothing more than a clever pastiche, so nobody can get away with anything.’

  Morris, who was standing next to Maltravers, nudged him.

  ‘Believe me, you’ll enjoy it,’ he said. ‘I’m another of the chosen few who’ve read it. You have as well, haven’t you Duggie?’

  ‘What?’ Lydden turned from leafing through a book he had taken from the shelf on the opposite side of the room. ‘Oh, yes, it’s quite good.’

  ‘Quite good,’ Carrington echoed slightly caustically, then smiled at Maltravers before joining Malcolm and Geoffrey Howard who were examining a set of water-colours of Borrowdale above the mantelpiece as Jennifer Carrington walk
ed into the room.

  ‘Your coffee’s going to be stone cold,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you finished yet?’

  ‘We’re just coming,’ Carrington replied, but Maltravers saw he was not looking at his wife. The instant she had appeared he had turned straight towards Lydden. ‘This is, if Duggie can tear himself away from that book.’

  ‘What?’ Lydden appeared startled. ‘Oh, yes. It’s just some poetry by a chap called Herrick. He was one of the Lake poets wasn’t he?’

  ‘Hardly,’ corrected Carrington. ‘Two centuries earlier.’

  ‘Never been keen on poetry anyway,’ Lydden said indifferently, replacing the book on the shelf. ‘I just thought he was local.’

  Maltravers inwardly despaired at another manifestation of the average Englishman’s ignorance of his literary heritage, but was much more interested in Carrington’s reaction when Jennifer had appeared. Coupled with the incident before dinner, he was now certain that Carrington was not as unaware about what was going on as Lydden—and perhaps his wife—believed. Lydden had not looked round until Carrington had spoken to him, so he might not have noticed anything, but Jennifer could hardly have missed it. She had turned and walked out of the room almost the moment Carrington had spoken. Maltravers wondered whose idea it had been that Lydden should be among the guests. If Carrington himself had suggested it, perhaps he had done so to give himself an opportunity of confirming something he suspected. And he would not do that unless he intended acting on any evidence; Maltravers wondered what he would do if he ever had proof.

  Back in the lounge, Lucinda and Charlotte looked relieved as the rest of the party re-joined them. Campbell was telling some faintly funny and lengthy legal story which he obviously thought hilarious; his wife’s face was set in the fixed smile of a mother listening to her child performing their inadequate party piece on the piano.

  ‘Did Charles show you the famous Sherlock Holmes book?’ Jennifer asked Maltravers as she handed him his coffee. ‘I expect I really ought to read it myself sometime.’

  ‘Haven’t you done that already?’

  ‘I keep suggesting it, but she’s not interested.’ Carrington, who was sitting next to Maltravers, smiled rather patronisingly at his wife. ‘Jennifer’s passion is for incredibly long historical romances.’

  ‘Well, putting aside its literary value, it’s almost certainly the most valuable thing your husband owns,’ Maltravers told her, then turned to Carrington. ‘You won’t allow it to be published even now?’

  Carrington shook his head firmly. ‘Not under any circumstances. Conan Doyle didn’t want it to be and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘No matter how much you were offered?’ asked Maltravers. ‘They say that every man has his price.’

  ‘That depends on what you’re trying to buy,’ Carrington replied simply. ‘Or at least it should.’

  In a world which judged everything by its potential monetary value, where people were constantly ready to ditch moral obligations or betray personal confidences to make a fast and sordid buck, Carrington’s attitude would be considered risible, but Maltravers found it reassuring that some people could still not be bought.

  ‘Then what about its literary importance?’ he pursued. ‘You’re denying millions the pleasure of reading it. That seems very selfish.’

  Carrington shrugged. ‘Then Conan Doyle was selfish and there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re not the first to try that argument, Gus, but it won’t change my mind.’

  ‘And what happens when you die?’ Maltravers added. ‘What guarantee have you got that whoever inherits it will have your…moral squint?’

  Carrington hesitated, as though deciding whether to say something.

  ‘I’ve made certain arrangements about that,’ he said finally, then smiled. ‘Any more questions, Mr Journalist?’

  ‘Only an occasional journalist now,’ Maltravers corrected. ‘But bad habits die hard. If I was still a reporter, I’d be looking for an angle on how secure your safe is in the circumstances.’

  ‘Four figure combination with the standard hundred numbers on the dial,’ Carrington replied. ‘Which gives a hundred million permutations if anybody wants to try and find it by chance. If they get it wrong too often, an alarm sounds in the offices of the firm I bought it from, who would call the police. I’m the only one who knows the right numbers.’

  ‘Duress signal?’ Maltravers enquired. Carrington looked impressed.

  ‘Yes—not many people know about those.’

  ‘I only do because a disgustingly rich friend of mine in London has a safe with one. He suggested I should have one fitted, but then the most valuable thing in my house would be the safe. Hardly worth it really.’

  ‘It is in this case.’ Carrington stood up. ‘Excuse me, but I’ve forgotten the liqueurs.’

  Maltravers watched him cross to the drinks cabinet, asking everyone what they would like. Presumably, with both his children dead, Jennifer would inherit the books; her track record of faithfulness did not suggest she would have any compunction about selling to the highest bidder. Did Carrington’s ‘certain arrangements’ take care of that? Maltravers’s eyes went casually back to Jennifer, now talking animatedly to Lucinda and Morris; Howard and Lydden were in conversation with the Campbells and Malcolm was flicking through a copy of Country Life he had taken from the magazine rack by his chair. It was a perfectly normal after-dinner scene, but one which decently ignored the fact that their hostess was an adulteress, a social solecism overlooked because it was bad manners to draw attention to it. Previous generations did not discuss certain things in front of the children or the servants; for all their outspokenness, their modern descendants were not greatly different.

  It was turned midnight when they left, skeins of stars bright and cold as the gathering frost glittering like diamond fragments scattered in soot. Smoke from roaring exhausts billowed yellow in the glare of headlamps as they scraped a crust of ice from car windows and shouted goodnight to each other. Campbell waved to Howard, Morris and Maltravers to back up so that he could negotiate round Lydden’s car which was parked in front of his, then they all moved towards the gates.

  ‘Executrix,’ Maltravers murmured as he pulled away.

  ‘What?’ said Malcolm.

  ‘Nothing important. Just something I was trying to work out.’ He glanced at Lydden’s car as he drove past it. ‘It looks as though Duggie’s been invited to stay for a nightcap. Interesting.’

  ‘He must be…’ Lucinda turned round to look through the rear window, but the front door of Carwelton Hall was closed. ‘No, he’s not coming. What’s going on?’

  Maltravers turned left on to the main road, following the others. ‘I spied with my little eye something beginning with S. Suspicion. And if turns into C for certainty it could become D for divorce. O for and done with. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Do you mean Charles knows?’ asked Malcolm.

  ‘He’s getting there I think—which is more than Campbell and Howard are incidentally. Why are they going this way? The motorway’s in the other direction.’

  ‘Turning right out of Carwelton Hall on that blind bend can be fatal,’ Malcolm explained. ‘You go left and turn round in the lay-by just up here. There they go.’

  Maltravers flashed his lights at the two cars as they and Morris passed them.

  ‘It also seems that Duggie was the first to arrive this evening,’ he added. ‘His car was parked at the front of the queue. Revealing comment on modern etiquette. Screw the wife, then turn up early so the husband can serve you what we might call cuckold’s gin.’

  ‘Duggie Lydden’s a conceited pig,’ Lucinda said bluntly. ‘Tonight was just the sort of thing that would appeal to his warped sense of humour.’

  ‘Well he and Jennifer may soon have to stop laughing,’ Maltravers commented. ‘I also had an interesting chat with Charlotte Quinn. What do you know about her?’

  ‘Ah, that’s quite another story.’ Lucinda leaned forward from the back
seat to talk to him. ‘Things would have been very different for Charles if she’d had her way.’

  ‘That I’d worked out. He could have saved himself a lot of grief if he’d married that lady. What went wrong?’

  *

  Jennifer Carrington leaned over the banisters halfway down the stairs trying to hear the conversation in the library, but the door was closed. She thought of standing outside the door, but would look foolish if it was unexpectedly opened. Carrington had suggested she should go to bed while he and Duggie Lydden talked about business. Frustrated, she went back upstairs and lay fully dressed on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  Downstairs, Lydden watched Carrington guardedly as he poured him another drink. The request to stay as the others left had been made discreetly but with an air of anticipated acceptance. Jennifer had shrugged at him behind her husband’s back, indicating that she was as mystified as he was. As he waited for Carrington to speak, Lydden remained as calm as he could.

  ‘It’s about the shop, Duggie,’ Carrington said as he handed him the glass. He had not poured one for himself. ‘The bank’s been on to me.’

  Lydden maintained his impassiveness as he accepted the gin and tonic, but felt instantly alert and defensive.

  ‘Business is quite good,’ he said casually. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Repayment of the loan.’ Carrington sat down behind his desk. ‘You’ve cancelled your standing order.’

  ‘Oh, that was just a temporary thing because of a cash flow problem,’ Lydden protested. ‘There’s no real difficulty.’

  ‘Nothing has been paid for six months.’ Carrington gazed at him across the flame of his gold lighter as he lit a thin cigar. ‘The bank advised me after three and I told them to let me know if it reached this stage. That doesn’t sound like a temporary cash flow problem.’

  ‘Six months?’ Lydden covered his sense of being trapped with a tone of disbelief. ‘That’s ridiculous. I wrote to the bank after only a month to tell them to start it again. They can’t have received my letter.’