Rum Affair: Dolly and the Singing Bird; The Photogenic Soprano

by Dorothy Dunnett

  I finished the cold salmon. With the turkey came a solo violinist, a producer, two critics, a broadcaster, an actress and a few of the Corps Diplomatique.

  Among these were old acquaintances: an Ambassador and his wife up from London to support their small but well-meaning opera company. She was wearing, no doubt for the first time in Edinburgh, a dress photographed in May when she attended the London Polio Ball. A mistake.

  With the Ambassador was Johnson. I could not be deceived. The black hair, the caterpillar eyebrows, the damned housefly bifocals. He had even the same knitted green pullover on. “May I introduce,” said the Ambassador, “an old family friend, Mr Johnson? Johnson, this is . . .”

  “She’s very like someone I spent last night with,” said Johnson, with thought. “Name of Smith.”

  The Ambassador sighed. “Now is not the time to play jokes. Johnson, it is not everybody I introduce to Tina Rossi, and why do you have to be dressed in this non-trendy suit? It is not, for example, cold.” His English was very good.

  “I’m the Higgins type,” Johnson said. He hitched a trouser leg up. “Look, too. Folksy socks.”

  “You are impossible,” said the Ambassador. “Madame Rossi, I apologise for my friend. I will leave him to pursue these eccentricities on his own. Should he become intolerable do not hesitate to abandon him entirely.” Bowing, he and his wife left us together.

  “Thought you’d be here,” said Johnson. He hauled out his pipe, looked round at all the black and white ties, and put it regretfully back. “Found your Kenneth Holmes yet?”

  “No,” I said. I was feeling regretful too. I might have known that in cash or kind I should have to pay sometime for last night’s assistance.

  “Wouldn’t tell me if you had, anyway,” said Johnson. “But if I were you, I’d get on to him pretty damned quick and tell him that he left you alone in the flat with the police and a dead man last night, and if anyone traces you, there’s going to be a lot of explanations necessary from someone some time soon. Even if he didn’t kill him.”

  “I told you he didn’t. You saw the killer yourself.”

  “No, I didn’t. Heard you call out, that’s all. But even if your Kenneth didn’t murder his flat-owning pal Chigwell, he might suspect who did, and why. I phoned the police, by the way. Are you doing anything tonight?”

  Just like that. I phoned the police. I kept my voice even. “What did you say?”

  “Are you doing anything tonight?”

  “No, damn it. What did you say to—” I broke off. The Ambassador had returned, smiling. He put a manicured hand on Johnson’s undistinguished shoulder.

  “Ah, I knew it. He is persuading you to go to the jazz club. Let me advise you to go. I do this for posterity, I tell you, and not from my affection for this undoubted moron. The world demands a Johnson portrait of Madame Tina Rossi.”

  And then I realised who Johnson was. A painter from London. My God.

  And I had just accepted an invitation to attend a late night revue at the Lyceum with a sunburnt gentleman with yellow hair, a shipbuilding yard and a divorced wife in Nassau. Michael would go crazy.

  “You’d rather not,” said Johnson helpfully as I hesitated. “Another time. Next year.”

  “I’d love to,” I said, and I meant it. “It’s just that I’ve already been asked by someone on the Festival Committee, and accepted. But tomorrow . . . ?”

  He shook his bespectacled head. “The Scottish Sabbath. Two concerts, then I’ve got to be off. I’m racing on Tuesday. Schizophrenic culture patterns, Madame. Bed to Bizet to boozet and bach to bed again.”

  Considering the time of year, it was an unlikely story. “Where do you race, dear man?” enquired the Ambassador.

  “On the sea. In a boat,” said Johnson with lucidity. “From Gourock to Tobermory this time, as a matter of fact. Off the Scottish west coast, you know. Picking up the nice little islands. Like Rum.”

  “Johnson,” I said. “Mr Johnson. May I come to the jazz club with you tonight?”

  The Ambassador grinned and moved off. “With pleasure,” said Johnson. “But what about the gentleman from the Festival Committee?”

  “I have a very bad headache,” I said. “Mr Hennessy will understand.”

  “In view of the Koh-i-noors hanging under your ears, he won’t be surprised,” said Johnson irritatingly. “Did you say Stanley Hennessy?”

  “It was Stanley Hennessy who invited me out, yes,” I said. “Do you know him?”

  The bifocals glistened. “Everyone knows Stanley Hennessy,” said Johnson. “Builds oil tankers. He’s racing on Tuesday too. In a yacht like the Queen Mary. He’s worth going out with, as well. Bed to Bizet to boozet and bach to . . .”

  “I got it the first time,” I said. “What did you tell the police?”

  “When? Oh. Said we’d seen a fellow run out of the flat and gave them the Rossi Identikit. Small, thin, big nose and wart on the cheekbone: that’s it, isn’t it? They might as well improve their minds looking for him instead of bothering anybody else. Then when they find the late Mr Chigwell, they’ll really have something to think about.”

  “Did they find your burglar?” I asked. “The one who stole your camera?”

  “No. All the better,” said Johnson. “I’ll collect the insurance, and wart face the blame, and you will come on a little holiday with me on Dolly to keep my mouth shut. Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And let me paint you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Clothed?”

  “Even that.”

  “Stanley Hennessy will be very, very angry,” said Johnson. He did not appear to be upset at the thought.

  “So will Michael Twiss,” said I.

  Next day Michael, of course, was apoplectic. As far as ethics went, he wouldn’t care if I slept with a Dr Barnardo’s ball boy, so long as it didn’t affect my career. My career, which had brought Michael his Reliant Scimitar and his alpaca overcoat and his Nivada Grenchen steel watch, was a religion with Michael. He and Eddie Ugboma. All through breakfast, he sat on the edge of my bed and complained, while I sold him a cruise on Johnson’s yacht Dolly.

  “I’d never have let you go off, if I hadn’t thought you were with Hennessy. What he’ll think . . .”

  “It’s all right, Michael. Really. He sent me six dozen pink roses this morning and all kinds of manly condolences over my headache. He’ll never find out I went with Johnson instead.”

  “And what sort of tub is it, anyway; and who the hell’s heard of Johnson? You’ll ruin your voice. I got you that trip in the Aegean last year; what’s the point of souring all that with a tinpot canoe tour of the peasantry?”

  “She’s thirty-four tons.”

  “Look, the Christina’s one thousand eight hundred.”

  “She’s a gaff-rigged auxiliary ketch which can be handled by three at a pinch. Johnson owns her.”

  “He does?” I knew that would help. “What does he do, anyway? Apart from making potty remarks?”

  “He makes me laugh,” I said lightly.

  It had been a rather good, if decorous, evening. The Club had produced mainstream jazz and a respectable meal, and Johnson had come up with a chaperone: a big golden Guards Officer named Rupert Glasscock, who was also the mate of Johnson’s gaff ketch, the Dolly. We danced a Hully Gully. And then, since nobody recognised me, Johnson performed a frenzied Watusi. It was like before and after with Flit. I smiled incautiously now, and Michael snapped back. “Well, you can call the whole bloody thing off. The tub’s probably not even leakproof.”

  “She can go anywhere. She’s racing.”

  He thought he’d got it now. “Bluebottle there?”

  “No, it’s more a Britannia thing. It’s a sort of Club cruise in company, open to all classes of boat, with a handicap. They start off at Gourock on Tuesday and get back to Tobermory, Mull, a week or so later, checking in their sailing times at various islands en route.” God knew if I’d got that off right, but it sounded
good. “Look, they’re not all proles, Michael. You’ve got to be pretty well-heeled to own a yacht between ten and fifty odd tons. You haven’t heard yet what Johnson does for a living.”

  Michael was unappeased. “Let me guess. He’s a soloist with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.”

  I had kept the straight left till the last. “He’s the Johnson. The Academician. He’s the portrait man, Michael. And he’s going to paint me sailing on Dolly.”

  And that did it, of course.

  The clash between Johnson and Hennessy took place next day, and was the last event in the sporting calendar before I left Edinburgh. It was inevitable, even though my defection to jazz remained, miraculously, unexposed. In fact, it came about by sheer chance, when Stanley Hennessy took me out for lunch and found Johnson and his friend Captain Glasscock at a neighbouring table.

  To begin with, it rated no more than an exchange of cool nods, and we got down to the menu. But all too soon, the subject of yachts floated into the arena: Hennessy’s sunburn waxed with enthusiasm and his stiff yellow hair curled and crackled with vim as he described the joys of the sea.

  There was no point in concealing my plans. Over the pâté I confessed I was sailing on Dolly, and over the trout my sunburnt friend pulled all the switches he knew to persuade me to sail off on the Hennessy yawl Symphonetta instead. Symphonetta had just made a killing at Cowes. Symphonetta, it appeared, was in the Clyde and willing to abandon the nasty old race and leave for any part of the world at my whim.

  It was tempting; but Hennessy was not, he would be the first to concede, a court painter of world renown. With real regret, I refused.

  Then, as I sat, in blonde tweed from Bergdorf Goodman and the champagne diamond I earned from La Gioconda, peaceably eating my lamb noisettes, I was irritated to find Hennessy rising, with the briefest apology, and departing to lean over the unoffending table of Skipper Johnson and his mate Mr World. He greeted them chattily and said, in the voice that built oil tankers: “I hear you’re in for the Royal Highland cruise. I’ve been telling Madame Rossi she’ll find Dolly quite a nice little boat.”

  “Thank you. You’re just cruising around this year, Stanley?” said Johnson. The Archbishop of Canterbury addressing Cardinal Spellman. It was the same sort of tone.

  Hennessy said: “To be honest, I got a bit bored with winning the thing. Thought I’d let all you others in for a stab. But I’m tempted to alter my mind.”

  The bifocals glinted under the pink-shaded lights. “You mustn’t think about us. We’ll all have a jolly good sail; and we’ll do our damndest to give you a race. Won’t we, Rupert?”

  Rupert agreed, in time, and Hennessy, his voice sharpened a little, said chaffingly: “Oh, come now. I’ve said Dolly’s a nice little boat, but you won’t pretend she’s a match for Symphonetta. Gave her a birthday present this year: complete new set of sails – jib, stays’l, main, mizzen, the lot; and a hell of a lot of new gadgets you’ve never heard of, you bunch of caravan owners. You’ll never see Symphonetta, far less make better time.”

  His manner was jocular, though his words were not. Johnson merely grinned, but Rupert said, with equally furious levity: “What d’you bet?”

  “Five thousand quid,” said Hennessy.

  And Rupert said: “Done!”

  The retort of a child. As Hennessy returned and sat down, I remarked: “Why do that? He’ll never pay if you win.”

  He was not displeased that I had overheard. “Oh, these young Guardsmen are rolling in loot. I know Dolly. She’s been here before with her bloody circus act: glass-eyed Rembrandt and a boatload of models. They’ll make a cock-up of the whole thing before the race is a couple of days old, you mark my words, and you’ll be glad to cross over to old Hennessy’s boat.”

  And bach to bed again: I suppose.

  THREE

  The Royal Highland Club headquarters at Rhu was full on Monday evening when I arrived from Edinburgh in my chauffeur-drive Humber Imperial, with my luggage and one or two cases of Michael’s. Here, I was to stay overnight. For the next six to seven days, as everyone knew, I was to sail with Johnson on his yacht Dolly, where I was to be painted in oils.

  The send-off from Edinburgh had been memorable: Michael had done a good job. It was a pity that the sea made him sick. He would join me instead at Tobermory, where the Club race would end, and where we had booked rooms in the biggest hotel.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t a pity at all that Michael would not be on board when I got to Rum to see Kenneth. Michael disliked Kenneth and had done his utmost to part us. Happily, he had never discovered that, although I wrote to Kenneth in London, the letters were actually forwarded to Rum. If Michael had known about Rum, I should never have been singing at this year’s Edinburgh Festival. On thinking that over, it struck me that Michael was acquiring altogether too much grip on my life.

  In any case, the press and television coverage had been good, and in the evening papers there was quite a lot about Johnson, as well as the usual rags to riches blurb on my life. Michael was skilful at keeping the story alive. People resent success: but not when it happens to one of themselves.

  Johnson’s background was landed gentry: his people were well known in Surrey. After public school and university he had joined the Royal Navy, thank God: I was apprehensive a trifle about my future on Dolly. But for the last fifteen years he had been known for one thing: his celebrity portraits. From being a good technician and a sympathetic artist, he had become probably the best known portrait artist there is. By now, of course, the hallmark of having arrived is a portrait by Johnson. Long before then, he could choose his commissions from a list as long as the phone book.

  He was unmarried. Who needs a wife with a boatload of models?

  I had wondered, as Michael made all the arrangements, whether I was being quite wise. But I was too well known, and Johnson was too well known, to do this in secret. Do it with a fanfare of publicity, and let the press have their interviews at the times and places we wanted, and we had control of the thing. Let it be discovered by some underpaid local correspondent and all hope of privacy had gone.

  I had wondered, too, whether I should have made the attempt to reach Rum alone. But how to shake off Michael, when I had no tale to tell but the truth? Michael would never allow me to meet Kenneth, or to travel alone. And even if I had no Michael to contend with, I might still be recognised, and what of the news stories then?

  When you are well known there is no certain way to do these things. This, with its chance at least of a private encounter with Kenneth, offered the best hope. And I was, at the same time, keeping an ally in Johnson and having painted a portrait which would be invaluable in my career. I said nothing to Johnson about Kenneth’s presence on Rum. The fewer I had to trust now, the better. Until I knew what part in all this Kenneth had played.

  At the Clubhouse, my room and Rupert the mate were found without difficulty. Johnson, it seemed, was in the bar. Large, giggly and golden, Rupert steered me in there to find him.

  For dining with Johnson, I was wearing a Princess Galitzine trouser suit in Bangkok quilted silk with a little bow on the bottom. Rupert wore a white Navy sweater under a blazer from Rugby. Johnson, when we located him, was dressed in immaculate dungarees and talking to a thin man in a pixie cap and a tarry sweater four inches above the knee. Rupert said: “Oh Christ,” under his breath; and conveying me up to the bar called: “Hallo, Ogden. Hallo, Skipper.” He eyed Johnson’s attire.

  “What’s packed it in? The engine? The cooker? The heads?”

  “None of them. So far,” said Johnson; and turned, solemnly welcoming.

  Rupert said: “Good; I’ll stay then,” and unbuttoned his blazer. “Madame Rossi, what’ll you drink?”

  It was not the Aegean. The queue for the one-armed bandits, hunting for sixpences inside their jerseys, did not appear to be Financial Times readers. Neither did the two small rotund persons, one male, one female, who now passed within an arm’s length of me, both w
earing gum boots, big jumpers and thick knitted hats, with their arms full of tonics.

  To these last two, Rupert waved. “Binkie,” he remarked in explanation. “My God: that wee wife isn’t tanned, she’s jolly well cured.” He relayed our orders and continued to Johnson: “Then why dungarees?”

  “To keep me pretty for dinner.” Unzipping the dungarees carefully, Johnson simultaneously introduced the thin man beside him. Inside the dungarees was the same green pullover and brown flabby suit that Johnson wore while in Edinburgh. Underneath his companion’s pixie hat was a long, melancholy face with a chin like the end of a dog bone. This was Cecil Ogden, owner-skipper of a cutter called Seawolf, who would be racing against us tomorrow, “if we can fish up his port navigation light in time. The string broke,” said Johnson, explaining.

  Rupert, it seemed, had to smother emotion. “Did it? Did you have it tied on with string, Cecil?”

  “I had a lot of string,” said the man called Cecil Ogden, without a trace of a smile. His voice was English, and cultured, with no regional accent I could trace.

  “Ogden built Seawolf himself single-handed from nothing practically but a half-rotten keelplate. A jolly good show, actually. He’s still building it, aren’t you, Cecil? A few bits to do. But he entered for the Club cruise last year and did pretty well.”

  Two patches of red appeared above the long ribs of Ogden’s jawbone and cheeks. “She was caulked in wet weather,” he said sulkily. “The planks always spring when they dry out. The bloody Britannia leaks in dry weather.”