The Satan Sampler

by Victor Canning

  “And where did you get?”

  “Nowhere specifically. Except that the book mentioned a rumour that there was a secret, underground way from the Hall to the chapel. Fascinating?”

  “Not particularly. If Seyton wants to go to the Hall he can go in through the main entrance.”

  “Ah, now you’re being deliberately obtuse—or perhaps more accurately, you won’t play at wild guesses. You must have one small fact before you let fancy take flight.”

  “Well . . . assuming you are right. Why go mole-like from A to B?”

  Warboys smiled blandly. “I have no idea.”

  Quint shrugged his shoulders. “Well, what do you want me to do? Suggest this possibility to Kerslake and Georgina Collet?”

  “No. Not to anyone—above or below our station in this organization. We will just sit and cherish the possibility of the mole theory between ourselves. It may well turn out to be one of those ‘barren optimistic sophistries of comfortable moles’. No?”

  Quint sighed openly, and said, “Ah . . . now I have lost you.”

  “It has little aptness. Just a fancy to top off our conversation. But I think you cheat. ‘Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge’?”

  Warboys heaved himself slowly from his chair and went to the door and looked back smiling at Quint as he half opened the door.

  Quint suddenly chuckled and shook his head. “All right—since you must be fed. Matthew Arnold. But call me a light half-believer of your casual creed. Also I doubt the existence of the British Museum book you mentioned. You just had a quiet doze to settle your lunch.”

  “That too.”

  Warboys went. Quint sat, and found himself thinking of Grandison and Felbeck, and feeling suddenly very tired and very old.

  * * * *

  Since dinner time he had been sitting broodingly in front of the fire, relaxed and thinking of Punch’s unfinished letter, and particularly of its last unfinished sentence. But just in case anything goes wrong this end before you can get here all you have to do is to look in that place where we used to each . . . To do what? Hide things, clearly. But there were dozens of places where over their years they had hidden things; in the Hall, in the country around, in the Dower House and in the farm and estate buildings and as some became known or unsuitable finding new ones. Bulk, too, was a factor—in the present circumstances a helpful one because if Punch had acquired film and tape and for these would want a projector and tape player then the hiding place had to be reasonably commodious. Already he had been through the house without success, except for a collapsible film screen which had been on top of Punch’s wardrobe. Tomorrow if he finished his work in the chapel tunnel he would begin on the farm and estate buildings. Though he had a feeling that Punch would not have wanted to cache his stuff too far afield where by chance someone might come across it. Old Shipley, for instance, would be quick to notice anything unusual in places like stables or barns.

  Hearing the rain beating against the windows he hoped that it would continue through the next day. While he was safe enough once in the chapel and down into the passageway, there was always the chance in good weather of some local or someone from the Hall coming into the place. As it was he had decided against locking the door once he was in the chapel. Before first light on his initial working visit he had taken up shovel, pick and working dungarees to the passage and had left them there. And today, too, he had made good progress, spreading the fallen soil back along the tunnel. Three or four hours tomorrow should see him through.

  Feet sprawled to the blaze of the fire, a half-drunk glass of whisky forgotten on the table at his side, he found himself thinking of Georgina Collet. Late that afternoon he had decided to go into Leominster to buy himself a more powerful torch for use in the tunnel, and on the way had called on her to tell her about Hope’s request. It had meant a small detour and he was mildly curious with himself for making it when he could so easily have telephoned her. Company? A little relief from all this chapel lark. God knew. All he knew was that he had done it. Odd, too, that he probably would never have bothered if he had not remembered Nancy’s look when he had told the Captain about Georgina. Things must have been pretty bloody for her when her father was taken up. Not the kind of thing you’d choose to want to live with—though he could not feel that she let it worry her much. Or perhaps she did and just kept it on a tight rein.

  After a while he went to his desk and began to write his weekly letter to Roger. Remembering his own father’s irregular and not very informative or interesting letters to himself, he had always made a point of putting himself in Roger’s place and making his letters the way he would have liked to have had them from his own father. Writing now he could wish that he might be able to tell Roger about the chapel tunnel business. He would have loved it. Well, perhaps one day he would be able to tell him. Just as he finished the letter Figgins, who always rang late, knowing that she was more likely to catch him, telephoned to clear up some business points and some queries which Beaton had raised. He answered them mechanically, efficiently, aware that although they were important his real interest in them was now remote. The time would come again to take up the reins . . . Hall back or no Hall back. It could never be self-supporting on its own unless he turned it into a bloody circus. Better to stick with diamonds than that. . . what in God’s name had turned up that money-making flair in him? Ruth’s death? Punch’s pig-headed decision to go his own way?

  With her business queries finished Figgins said, “What are you doing with yourself. . . generally, that is?”

  “Oh, mucking around. Tidying a few things up.”

  “That tells me nothing. You know what I mean. The Hall. Is there still a bright little gleam in your eyes?”

  “Could be. I must look.”

  “There probably is—and that would tally.”

  “With what?”

  “Well, let’s say, with someone not just going to accept that there’s an end to things about the Hall. Felbeck, for instance. Who knows you’re not the kind to give up.”

  “Spell it out.”

  “Oh, you know the way they do it. Suddenly Tax people and Customs and Excise chaps become a little more efficient. Not probing. All very gentlemanly—as far as they know how to be. But taking another look at currency transfers and foreign dealings.”

  “We’ve nothing to hide. And anyway Felbeck wouldn’t have that kind of pull.”

  “I don’t know. You could have made him uncomfortable.” She chuckled. “Perhaps he asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to have a word with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

  “He can get on the hot line to the Archangel Gabriel as far as I’m concerned. We’ve never played funny tricks. I can’t think——”

  “What gave me the feeling? About you?”

  “If you like.”

  “Well. . . towards the end Punch was up to something. First Helder and then badgering the life out of me to try and find out just exactly where you were. And now—oh, I’m as good as a Welsh witch—they’re the best kind. You’re brooding and I don’t think it’s on any china egg. And I’m very fond of you, Master Richard, sir.”

  “Ditto, in reverse. But you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “And Felbeck?”

  “Well, he’s got all those starving millions and the preservation of such Church treasures as he can get his hands on.”

  “He’s a gamecock. Mind how you ruffle his feathers.”

  “Why don’t you get on your broomstick and fly off to a jolly midnight coven?”

  “Too rainy for flying. So it’s bed.”

  “Good night.”

  Ten minutes later, when he had finished his whisky and was thinking of going to bed, Nancy telephoned.

  “Richard, would you mind very much if I stood you up?”

  “About what?”

  “You know . . . the supper dance thing of the Harecastles over at Clyro.”

  “No . . . But why?”

  “That bloody
boring tax exile brother of father’s in Monaco has asked us down for that week. He always sets out the dates very precisely. Father wants to go but not without me. You know I always have to play umpire for them when they get going. I’ve never understood why they bother to visit each other. But I know the old man could do with the change. Would you mind very much?”

  “Of course not. Do the old boy good. And you.”

  “You’re a darling. What will you do?”

  “Dunno. Probably send a nice regret letter and stay here and sulk—thinking of you lying in the sun.”

  “Stick-in-the-mud. Ask somebody else.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Well, what about your glamorous artist girl? Georgina Something?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Oh, come on. Give the girl a break.”

  “Don’t be an ass. I hardly know her.”

  “No? Well, she phoned this evening to tell the old boy that she just couldn’t take on any new commissions at the moment. I must say he took it very well and very soon put on his gallant, chucking-under-the-chin act—metaphorically that is. But if you don’t fancy it, you don’t. But it was good of you to phone her about it. The old boy sends his thanks.”

  Seyton said nothing for a while, deliberately letting the silence between them hang, a theatre curtain imminently to rise. There was no malice in her. Just Nancy enjoying what he now recognized had been a carefully well-worked-out ploy. Then he said, “My dear Nancy, did she really say that I had phoned her?”

  “No, she told father that you’d called on your way to Leominster.”

  “So I did.”

  “You’re honest. And I’m a bitch. But it was fun—and I’ve won a quid from the old boy. He said you would say you had. But I knew better. Do you fancy her?”

  “Are we going to start one of those inquisitions?”

  “No. But I just like to keep abreast of things. Why don’t we get married? Then I wouldn’t have to bother.”

  “I’ll give it thought. Perhaps you ought to know that I called on another woman, too, on my way to Leominster.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs Shipley’s old sister at Weobley to drop in a pair of mittens Mrs S. had knitted for her. And don’t think she hasn’t still got a twinkle in her aged eye. She had two illegitimate children before she was twenty. Good night.”

  He rang off to the sound of her laughter.

  The next morning he had an early breakfast and was in the chapel by half-past eight. By half-past ten he was through the blockage and walked the tunnel as far as the cellar entrance, but—as it was daytime—made no attempt to go into the cellar. He left the chapel at eleven o’clock, leaving all his gear behind him in the passageway. As he came out he saw that the rain which had persisted all night was now fining with a shift of the wind to the east and would soon stop.

  Kerslake, who had stationed himself in the trees on the edge of the high bluff across the river at first light and had seen his entrance and exit, went back to his car and changed most of his clothes and then drove to a country pub for a bar lunch. Afterwards he telephoned Quint from a roadside call-box. Their conversation was short and surprised him.

  Driving back to Leominster, the rain now gone and patches of blue sky beginning to show, he called at Georgina’s bungalow. She was working in the sun room which overlooked the garden and small stretch of orchard which ran down to the river. She greeted him pleasantly and then returned to a large drawing board where she was working up from her rough field sketches a final composition of a bankside with a pair of nesting dippers.

  “I’m not disturbing you?”

  “No. In fact I don’t mind being talked to while I work. Is this an official visit?”

  Sitting on the arm of a small settee, he said, “Yes. Quint has called me back to London.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes. I’m going back to collect my things from the hotel.”

  “Does that mean I might have to sit out in the rain watching Seyton?”

  “No. Just carry on your good weather work. He was in the chapel for quite a while this morning.”

  “Perhaps he really has got religion.”

  He smiled, watching her as she stood back a little from her board and eyed her work critically. He had the feeling that she was only half with him.

  “Maybe. But I got the impression from Quint that he didn’t care a damn what he was doing or might have got. Not that it’s any of my business anyway. Sometimes I’ve spent weeks marking a man and then suddenly I’m called off and never hear another word about him.”

  “Frustrating.”

  “Used to be. Now . . . well, it’s part of the play. Still . . .” He went silent, watching her, and realizing curiously without surprise that he was just watching her. No more than that. No undressing; just a very good-looking woman, auburn hair untidy, taking high points from the light of the angle-poise lamp, the loose stained overall masking her body, only her legs bare, sun-browned, her feet in canvas tennis shoes, one of them unlaced. Almost sluttish—yet conveying a feeling of warmth and ordinariness.

  She said, “I like that. ‘ . . . part of the play’. That’s what my father used to say it all was. Towards the end, that is; when he was beginning not to bother to hide things from me. Oh, it was done obliquely I see now. A kind of letting his hair down but still keeping his face hidden.”

  “I never met him.”

  “You wouldn’t have had much in common. You don’t suffer from his kind of doubts.” She turned then and moved away from her work, smiling at him. “You just suffer. Only a little. And only now and then. Like now—hating being called off. Hating not knowing what it’s all about?”

  “I suppose so.”

  She came up close to him, smiling, a faint wetness on her red lips, the edge of white teeth showing momentarily and then hidden by her lips closing with a little nervous tremble. Then she gave a small shrug of her shoulders, laughed briefly, and said, “Well, take a little comfort—or maybe kindness. I don’t know. . .”

  She put her arms around him and kissed him gently on his lips. For a moment or two he submitted and then slipping his arms around her shoulder and waist, held her fiercely, but briefly, and then let her go.

  She walked away from him back to her work and asked, “Better now?”

  He laughed, not at her, but to mark the lift in his spirits, and said, “You’re an odd so-and-so.”

  “It’s a nice compliment. But don’t think the comfort was all one-sided. I’m the one who is being bitched up—not you. At least, as far as you are concerned, I have a free choice. To give or not to give. But not with bloody Seyton if the cards fall that way. Whoring is respectable commerce by comparison. And now——” she took up a red chalk and leaned over her board, her hand moving surely as she began to thicken the shade and detail of a stream boulder, “——back you go to your masters.”

  “Yes, of course. And thank you.” He turned and began to walk to the door which led into the tiny hall. She kept her back to him, working at her drawing. He paused momentarily and wished he could find something more to say, but there was nothing in him to give except a surprising compassion for which he had no words.

  * * * *

  Shanklin called on Seyton just after six o’clock that evening and had drinks with him. Big, bluff, assured and almost perceptibly wearing a halo that came from good works and self-satisfaction, he explained that he had been away for a holiday . . . a much-needed break to recharge the batteries before the new season began when the Hall would be open most of the week except Sundays.

  “Also Felbeck is coming down towards the end of next week. We wondered if you would care to come up and have dinner?”

  “Yes, of course.” No matter his feelings towards these people now, Seyton realized the unwisdom of any overt change in his manner.

  “That’s splendid. Also this summer we’re having an International conference at the Hall and as we are anxious to provide accommodation for quite a few of t
he visitors we were considering one or two minor structural improvements . . . wash basins, and two bathrooms, all that kind of thing on some of the top attic floors. There would be nothing radical, but naturally under the lease we must have your approval. Perhaps you could spare some time fairly soon to come up and see what we would like to do?”

  “I don’t see why not. Punch used to make a quarterly inspection, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. You just say when you want to do it.” Shanklin paused, eyed his glass of sherry as though, like some crystal gazer, he might be expecting to get some glimpse of the future from it, and then went on, “Pardon the question, Mr Seyton—but I understand that you have considerable business interests abroad—chiefly in the South Americas?”

  “Yes, that’s true. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, it’s an area in which the Foundation has not been significantly active. Mostly because of the large Roman Catholic presence there. We—that is the Foundation—were wondering if when we have this International conference you would perhaps care to come and say a few words about . . . well, your experiences there. Your feelings about the cultural and social aspects. We’re going to put quite a large body of field workers over there. But I’m not suggesting you talk about religion. Oh, no.” He smiled broadly, a big, open-hearted man of the world Christian. “Just a few general dos and don’ts about everyday life and . . . well, pitfalls to be avoided and any helpful notes about the handling of social and official approaches. It all might seem superficial to you, but to someone going out there for the first time a small mistake in etiquette or bureaucratic niceties means a lot, or could do.”

  Seyton shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it’s hardly my cup of tea.”

  “We’d all be happy if you gave it thought. Please do.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” Shanklin stood up. “Well, I must be on my way. But before I go I would like to say—and this quite privately—that I’m sorry the Governors’ votes went against you. Oh, yes, indeed. I understand your deep feelings about the Hall and sympathize with them . . . but I may say that were I a Governor of the Foundation and not just its servant, I would have given you my vote.”