The Satan Sampler

by Victor Canning

  Going back, Kerslake thought, to a couple of stiff pink gins and then a hot lunch. He sat under the dripping spruces, had his first pull at his whisky flask (drink meant nothing to him; he could take it or leave it) and then ate some of the sandwiches the hotel had made up for him. They were pork luncheon meat and disgusting, but he ate them mechanically, hardly knowing he did so. Long ago he had learnt the art of just sitting and watching. There was a mental trick to it, like going into a trance. Not once had he given himself the passing relief of thinking about Georgina Collet or wondering what Seyton was up to, if anything, and, if something, why Birdcage should be showing an interest. His lunch eaten, he relieved himself, and then went back to his watching point. The river was running in rising spate, the brown waters curded with yellow froth. Two cormorants flew overhead with slow, piratical sweeps of their wings. At the head of a run of fast water a salmon showed momentarily and he wondered if the small rise in water had set it running or whether, like himself, it was reacting to boredom in the only way it knew.

  At half-past two Seyton came back, head down against the driving rain, and went into the chapel and from the way he handled the door it was clear that it was not locked which confirmed what Georgina had once said that it never was. But it would be interesting to know now, he thought, whether once inside Seyton had locked it. God’s house never barred to mankind. Come unto me all ye that are weary . . . An hour later a fallow deer came along the edge of the line of spruces, her coat lacquered with rain, and disappeared down a small track over the edge of the river bluff. He thought of the red deer of his own Exmoor and remembered the first time he had ever met Quint. In a bedroom of the Imperial Hotel in Barnstaple. That had been the beginning. He had realized then what he had wanted, had worked for it and got it, and was here now with no true regrets and would, one day, pass into Quint’s place and, if the dark gods were kind, beyond . . . Warboys’ place. But never Grandison’s. His background, breeding, education . . . practically every bloody thing you could think of was wrong. He had seen Grandison many times, but only ever talked to him alone once. That had been after he had killed his first man.

  Grandison had said, ‘You did well, Kerslake.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  And then he had gone on as though the subject of his commendation had no importance . . . no more than a weed pulled up, a fly swatted, an idle pot-shot at a roof sparrow . . . gone on to talk about Devon, asked him if he missed being there and, when he had said he did not and was glad to be away from it, had quoted something to him which he had never heard and which Quint—who had demanded a blow by blow account of their interview afterwards—had told him was from Herrick of whom he had also never heard. The words ran in his memory now. Such discontent I ne’er have known since I was born than here where I have been and still am sad in this dull Devonshire. And that night when he had taken his secretary to the theatre on tickets given to him by Quint and later had got into bed with her it had happened and went on happening until in the end he had given up trying. Sometimes he had had the odd intuition that Quint had guessed. Maybe that was why from then Quint had lifted their relationship to one in which he had been given greater licence in his speech with him . . . nothing great, but enough to be marked and appreciated.

  At four-thirty Seyton came out of the chapel and walked back through the rain to the Dower House. At five he saw him drive away from the Dower House in the Land Rover. Without relief or hurry Kerslake walked back through the woods to the lay-by where he had parked his car. He got into the back seat and, uncaring of any casual traffic which might come along the small back road, he stripped his wet clothes from him and put on a change he had brought in a suitcase and then drove off.

  As he came along the road towards her bungalow he saw the Land Rover parked outside. He drove by and a hundred or so yards down the road parked in a lay-by. He lit a cigarette and switched on the radio. He sat listening to it and, without really needing it, finished the last of his whisky. Twenty minutes later the Land Rover came down the road and passed him, disappearing into the fast-fading light and the still-steady rain. Kerslake drove back to the bungalow. Before he had reached the front door she had opened it to him.

  He said, “Is he likely to come back?”

  “No.”

  She stood aside and he went in, and from her manner he knew that some sort of concordat had been created between them. Nothing that would ever come to any flowering. It was all he wanted.

  In the small, rather prim drawing room of the bungalow she offered him the choice of whisky or brandy and he chose brandy. As she got his drink she asked, “You took a change of clothes with you?”

  “Part of the drill. Did your father never tell you?”

  “Until it was too late he never told me anything. I thought he was a pukka civil servant. What happened today?”

  “He spent time, morning and afternoon, in the chapel. At his prayers, would you say?” The new easiness in him was pleasant but never to mislead him. They were both what they were, and he knew, too, that they would both recognize the boundaries not to be crossed when they came to them . . . or, perhaps, and he was momentarily pleased at the aptness of his conceit, that there was no question of boundary crossing because they were both trapped and the pet shop owner had just happened to put their cages side by side. Birdcages.

  Bringing the brandy she said, “He’s the kind who reads the lessons. But I doubt whether he would ever wear out his knees with prayer.”

  “You like him, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s a bonus. I’m glad for you.”

  She sat down in a chair opposite him, crossing her legs under the working smock she wore and he was happy just to look at her and think of her breasts being nakedly exposed to him, as though it might be something she would do with a happy generosity to please him.

  Casually, as though confidences had long ago ceased to be any novelty between them, she said, “What’s happened to you?”

  “I’m not quite sure. But I like it.”

  “Well, when you get round to finding words for it you can tell me.”

  “Maybe I will. Anyway, if I told it to anyone I’d like it to be you. What did Seyton want?”

  “Some friend of his saw a drawing I did of a mare and foal at the Hall. He asked Seyton to ask me if I could do something similar for him. His name is Captain Hope and he lives around here somewhere. It’s all on the telephone pad over there if you want it.”

  “We’ve got it already. The Captain’s daughter, Nancy Hope, is his girl friend. A relaxed, unserious arrangement.”

  “Those are the best sometimes.” She grinned then and went on, “Sitting out in the rain all day has done wonders for you. You’re almost human.”

  “Almost. Will you do anything for the Captain?”

  “No. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

  “Would you say there’s any change in Seyton?”

  “Not really. Well, yes, perhaps some. Or it could be imagination. He seemed . . . Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t he phone you about this Captain Hope?”

  “He could have done. He knows my number. But he didn’t. Perhaps that’s what I mean. A slight shift out of character. I wonder how long he’d been in the chapel before you got there this morning?”

  “God knows.”

  She was silent for a time, watching him sip at his brandy, his eyes on her all the while. There was something about his manner she realized now that oddly reminded her of her father, a gentle strain of what? Melancholy? Perhaps. Because somewhere in the past the smallest of coincidence’s tricks or a little time-shift of being somewhere he had not expected to be sent had set up an unexpected mood and no choice of ways because Fate was fingering him. That’s what her father had said once. He had come down with a science degree, ready to go into medicine and then, with a few months to spare, to relax and recharge himself before going to Guy’s he had gone touring in France with Quint, an older fr
iend in a Government ministry who had talked him round to taking a job in what was then the Admiralty and his subsequent seduction had followed.

  She said, “Yes, undoubtedly God does know. But do you think Birdcage do?”

  “Could be. Could be not. That’s not the point as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Don’t they tell you anything?”

  He laughed. “You know you shouldn’t ask that question. But, yes—they tell me something. But in my experience it’s not often the truth. But right now I know nothing.”

  “And you don’t mind that?”

  “Not at all.” He rose and said, “I’d better be going. He might come back this way and see my car. I don’t want that to happen. He could be the kind who remembers and if he sees it parked anywhere around the Hall area——”

  “I suppose so.”

  At the door before she opened it for him he turned, standing close to her, and said, “I shall be phoning Quint. Is there anything I can say about your progress?”

  “With him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, women are always supposed to have an instinct about it, aren’t they? Yes, I suppose I could say, given the right conjunctions of time, place and mood—and the mood the most important element—he’d take me to bed. But there’s one thing I don’t think he will ever do and that’s talk to me confidentially about his affairs. He walks by himself—a little bit of human and even loving slap and tickle on the side could arise. But real talk—the kind you’re after—No. He’s a Seyton. The men of that family have always kept women out of their affairs.”

  “You never know. Anyway, thanks for the drink and so on.” She stood at the door and watched him drive away, sorry for him, liking him now, and knowing perfectly well what he had meant by thanking her for, not the drink, but the ‘and so on’.

  * * * *

  Warboys lay back in a leather armchair, his head just high enough for him to mark the lights of cars passing up and down the distant Mall, their movements distorted by the rain which smeared the window while Quint sat at his desk talking on the telephone to someone about a routine matter, its substance of no interest to him. He had had lunch that day at the Savoy and was remembering now the distant days of his young manhood when he had danced there many an evening to the music of Carroll Gibbons and his Savoy Orpheans, and of one girl in particular whose death had changed the whole of his life. Her father had been the owner of a world-wide engineering firm . . . a self-made man, charming, and with a finely honed intellect which he had much admired. They had taken to one another and no objection had been made to him and the girl becoming engaged and, tied to that, an opening to be made for him in the firm. The whole thing had been a dream—and a sharp lesson in the workings of adult human nature, almost his first, but this one never to be forgotten and to lay the foundations of the twists of time and chance which had him sitting now in this armchair. Peggy. . . common sort of name, really. But a delight and modishly generous with her favours. A large town house and an estate in Hampshire with part of the Test running through it and the days those when there really was a splendid mayfly rise and excessive water abstractions and pollution had still to come. Hunt balls . . . Tiptoe through the Tulips, and marble table tops after midnight sticky with spilled White Ladies. A summer night, both of them a little tipsy, and she sitting on the stone balustrade of the steps that led down from the terrace to the precisely laid out herb gardens, each bed neatly bordered with close and low-cropped box shrubs. Then one joke, slightly risque, told by him, which had made her laugh and lean backwards. He had been too late to reach her as she went over and fell, the distance to the ground no more than eight feet. Fate had decreed that she should drop precisely between two rhododendron bushes, either of which would have cushioned her fall and saved her from hitting her head on the paved stone walk. Dead instantly. Lying there like someone disposed unmoving in an act of charade, the fingers of one hand entwined in a loop of her pearl necklace, her dress—black velvet—undisturbed, even modishly and a little seductively arranged as though she were posing for some fashion magazine. And that was that. The father had wiped him out of his existence. Twelve days later (why did the memory of such trivial detail persist?) he had met Grandison—then an M.P.—on the terrace of the Houses of Parliament where he was having tea with his father, Sir Eustace Warboys, also an M.P. Had liked him and so one thing had led to another and then to Birdcage. Which had fascinated him largely because he had so early learnt that life was of no importance. Merely a game which everyone had to lose sooner or later.

  Quint put down his telephone, slewed round, and said, “Sorry about that. You were saying that——”

  “I had lunch today at the Savoy with Grandison and Felbeck. Arranged, of course. I’d only met Felbeck once before. It was felt that I should come a little closer. Boiled turbot with a Scharzhofberger and then saddle of mutton with a Chateau Leoville, this last ‘A shapely filly out of Scharzberg Flint by Phoebus Apollo; the sire passionate; the dame highly bred but so cold.’ ”

  Quint grinned. “Only one man could ever have said that. Dear Andre Simon?”

  “Quite so.”

  “And did you come closer?”

  “To Felbeck—no. We remain in our own orbits. All was polite and interesting. He talks well. Mostly about himself or his Foundation for which he bears a commendable, I suppose, passion. Meanwhile our Lord and Master sat jocund and benign and . . .” he eyed Quint with a sly look, “. . . I would have given a lot to have been able to read his mind. Or even to know it at second-hand. Somewhere in all this there is a very ancient and fish-like smell, or I deceive myself. I say no more. As for the solid foundations, the brick by brick facts, well . . . Time will or will not tell. You are with me?”

  “Lagging a little. But I understand the possibility. And I thank you for the confidence—behind which I hope there are no true facts for concern.”

  “Folie de grandeur? It comes with age. But here there is not even ground for guesswork—always a delightful exercise. Only let me ask this. In the past there were practised many quite barbaric cures for madness. Will you won’t you join the dance? If we have to—and this is a passing whiff of fancy, no easily defined true Havana—you would, of course, join me in the treading of a medieval measure?”

  “Of course.” Quint smiled. “Purely for self-protection. But quite honestly I think either the Scharzhofberger or the Leoville has played too large a part.”

  “In no way. Fancy I admit, and without definition. But in this service one acquires a nose for every lurking pride which can find a lodging in the human soul.”

  “A little mixed, but I take your meaning.”

  “I accept the ‘mixed’ but am glad you take the meaning. Grandison, as you may or may not know, brought me into all this at a time when I had a low opinion of human nature. That has been modified a little in detail but not in the main content. A few notable exceptions, of course.”

  “Myself one?”

  “Of course, or I should not be talking so to you, my dear Quint. But, anyway, enough of that. What news have you from the banks of the Wye? A beautiful river, but give me the Test. The salmon may be king, but the humble trout is God’s darling and His eyes’ delight.”

  Quint told him of Seyton’s two visits to the chapel and of his call on Georgina Collet and of her assessment—passed on like the rest—by Kerslake that evening, and finished, “Do you want this taken further? If he goes in again tomorrow then Kerslake could play an inquisitive tourist and try the door to see if he has locked it. I understand from Miss Collet that the door is normally never locked. The local people are free to use it when they wish.”

  “No. Leave him undisturbed. And only use Kerslake in bad weather. Otherwise he keeps away. But tell Miss Collet to have a look inside when the weather allows her to be at the Hall about her business. There’s no fear that she will run into any trouble. If Seyton is up to anything he will have taken precautions to protect his activities. She has just got to b
e what she pretends to be. Kerslake is bad weather only and not now to go into the park or anywhere near the Hall.”

  “But why should he spend so much time in there?” Warboys shrugged his shoulders. “I said just now that nothing positive occurs to me. But I could provide you with a Gothic hypothesis. You don’t read romantic historical novels, do you?”

  “Not often.”

  “Well, I do. Always when travelling by air. They take my mind off a constant fear that the wings will fall off. I’d rather travel like the mole.”

  Quint was silent for a while, not from want of speech but from admiration and the pleasure that Warboys could sometimes give him by the pure brilliance of his deceptions and the lightning reach of his intuitions. With deliberate vulgarity, he said, “You’ve been sitting there all this bloody time and all the while you’ve bloody well known. You are a sod.”

  Warboys put his head back and chuckled with pleasure. Then shaking his head, he said, “You give me too much credit. I don’t know. But there’s no harm in a wild guess. Or even a preposterous conjecture. After lunch I went along to the British Museum Reading Room. A delightful place to sit and recuperate from a good lunch. I did a little reading too—in a delightful book written in the eighteenth century called Marshals English Eccentrics and Notabilities. There is a very interesting account in it of the Seyton family, and particularly of one Sarah Seyton—who even then retained the old spelling of the name. But more interesting was a description of the Hall, outlining the various stages of construction over the centuries, and with this a lot of tittle-tattle of legends and family secrets and scandals. Priest holes and secret chambers. They were—still are—Royalists. In Good King Charles’ Golden days and before—and, who knows, now?—it was always handy to have a way of coming and going without being seen. I say no more than that. But it set up a romantic train of thought. So I began to speculate about Seyton going into his chapel yesterday with a stout long pole.”