Brand X

by Christianna Brand

  By this time it was not remarkable if the gregarious Miss Comfort, still caged up—though with all courtesy—at the police station, had fallen into chat with her fellow sufferers. The little man, however, proved resistant to her blandishments. ‘A fine mess of things you’ve made for me, Miss! The pain come on frightful and I took a swig of me stuff to ease it. What else do I carry it round for? And as for the picture—it’s my belief he’s got it upside-down, I was trying to see how it’d look if I righted it.’ Miss Comfort sh’sh’d him, to the great disappointment of everyone else present, and his voice died away to a reproachful grumble. Miss Comfort could be seen to be defending her actions. In fact she was saying, ‘It all went fine, Edgar. The Desiccated’s got them. You’ve drawn off the hunt most beautifully.’

  ‘When can you get hold of them?’

  ‘As soon as the police stop harassing you. And they soon must; there’s nothing to hold you on. Get in touch like we arranged and we can get on with it.’

  ‘No tricks meanwhile,’ said Edgar warningly.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Patsy warmly. And she meant it. He deserved his share thoroughly.

  When some days later she judged that the time was ripe, she went back to Dr. Fable’s. Miss Hodge was in the act of shrugging on her outdoor coat. ‘The doctor’s left, I’m afraid.’

  Patsy knew that. She had not come to see Dr. Fable.

  Miss Hodge took off her coat again and led the way back into her office. ‘You’ve come for the pills?’

  ‘I’ve tried to hold out. But the craving—it’s terrible,’ said Patsy, going into her act. ‘I just simply must have them.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Miss Hodge. She had turned and now half sat on the edge of her desk and she was looking very straight at Patsy. ‘You see, Miss Comfort—I know what the pills are.’

  Patsy played for time. ‘Well, I explained to you—’

  ‘I mean I know that they’re not pills,’ said Miss Hodge.

  ‘Oh,’ said Patsy. It did seem rather final.

  ‘You see,’ said Miss Hodge, ‘you made one small mistake. Yes, I am in love with Dr. Fable; to any one of your age, no doubt that’s very amusing. But it does mean something: it means that Dr. Fable knows he can trust me—that I’d never ever let him down. He would never in his life have warned you not to tell me.’

  So she’d looked in the box. But—having looked there, reflected Patsy, taking heart of grace, had done nothing; hadn’t gone at once to the police. Perhaps even the Miss Hodges of this world had their price? ‘Have you told this to anyone?’ she said.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ said Miss Hodge; (perhaps the glass of sherry was paying dividends then?) ‘I thought… Well, you have shown yourself very—friendly—towards me, Miss Comfort. And I know Lady Blatchett, she’s a patient of ours—and I know she’s a horrid old woman. So I thought I’d wait and hear your side of the story.’

  ‘Let’s sit down and have a natter, Miss Hodge,’ said Patsy.

  So they sat down side by side on the long upholstered seat beneath the upside-down picture where by arrangement with Miss Comfort Edgar Snaith had lately made a fool of himself. ‘You see,’ said Patsy, ‘Lady Blatchett is my aunt. And when my uncle died, she fiddled things—nothing illegal that anyone could get hold of: just worked on our doddering old family solicitor till she’d done us out of something like twenty thousand pounds. Well, that was too bad; but now my father’s dead and my mother’s ill—so beautiful, she is, Miss Hodge, and still quite young—and so dreadfully ill! And twenty thousand pounds—or ten thousand or five, for that matter—might make all the difference to her living a little longer and living that little in comfort. So… Well, one day our little house in Scotland was burgled and I caught the thief—no one more surprised than I was; unless it was him!—and locked him up in a room. And then, instead of sending for the police, I had a little chat with him. I mean, suddenly I saw that if I could bring in a professional, I might get some of my own back—and I do mean that, Miss Hodge,’ said Patsy, ‘get my own back. The pearls would be only a part of the value of what she’s robbed us of. So—we went into partnership. His name, no doubt you realise, was Edgar Snaith.’ And she went off into fits of giggles describing the alternative plans she and Edgar had devised, for drawing the fire of the police. ‘He’s safe enough. He’s never touched the pearls, they can’t pin anything on him for drinking pink medicine and looking at a picture. Unless, of course,’ she asked, raising her sweet blue eyes, half alarmed, half smiling, ‘you’re going to give us away?’

  ‘You mean,’ said Miss Hodge, ‘that I’m simply to hand over the pearls to you!’

  Patsy half opened her mouth to propose a ‘cut’; but knew better and closed it again. ‘Would you—please?’ she said.

  Miss Hodge got up and fetched the round white box with its green lettering. She sat nursing it in her hand. She suggested pleasantly, ‘Fifty-fifty?’

  ‘Fifty-fifty?’ said Patsy; incredulous.

  ‘Twenty-five per cent each for you and Mr. Snaith. The other half to me.’

  Patsy made a wild snatch at the box. It was empty. ‘I was waiting for that,’ said Miss Hodge. She added that Miss Comfort need not worry; the pearls were quite safe—but not where she would find them.

  ‘Fifty-fifty?’ said Patsy.

  ‘Make up your mind,’ said Miss Hodge.

  Patsy’s quick little mind shifted: spotted a discrepancy. ‘Possession is nine points of the law,’ she said. ‘You have possession of the pearls. Why divvy up? Why not scoop the lot?’

  ‘I am not an habitual criminal,’ said Miss Hodge simply. ‘I wouldn’t know how to dispose of them.’

  ‘Impasse,’ said Patsy.

  ‘Impasse,’ agreed Miss Hodge.

  And yet, not quite. ‘Possession’s nine points of the law,’ said Patsy again. ‘But the law will not allow you to possess Lady Blatchett’s pearls. You do possess Lady Blatchett’s pearls. Suppose I cut my losses and inform the police?’

  ‘You do just that,’ said Miss Hodge, growing alarmingly less desiccated every minute, ‘and see where it will get you.’

  ‘It won’t get me anywhere: except one up over you. And if I can’t have my proper share of the pearls, that’ll do next best for me. Twenty-five per cent—of what a fence will give for them!—it’ll be worth that much to see you doing time. And don’t think you won’t. You can say what you like to them about me—I haven’t got them, I’m in the clear; they don’t even know that I know Edgar. But Edgar was at that old woman’s last night, and he was here the next morning. You wait till Edgar starts coming clean to the police: how you bribed him to deal with the sale of the pearls—which you’d already stolen on one of the old woman’s visits here, replacing them with false ones: perfectly easy while the doctor was examining the patient. You’d have told him to look for them behind the picture frame,’ said Patsy warming to her theme, ‘and to swallow them down with some medicine and so smuggle them out…’ She shrugged. ‘Lots of holes; but Edgar will stop all those up, never fear! He’s a past master, is Edgar, at conning the police. And there’ll still be nothing against him; he won’t ever have touched the pearls, he’ll tell them you have them, and that’ll be true. And against me also—nothing.’

  ‘Except, of course,’ said Miss Hodge, ‘that the most casual enquiry will reveal you as being the Niece from Scotland: with a grudge against Lady Blatchett and a well-founded conviction that what she possesses is rightfully yours.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ said Patsy. ‘No dice there, I’m afraid, love! You didn’t really fall for that, did you?’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Miss Hodge. ‘You cooked it all up on the spur of the moment from what poor Gladys had confided to your friend, Mr. Snaith. You thought such a story must surely win over my sentimental spinster heart, and I’d turn over the pearls to you.’

  ‘But you didn’t believe it?’

  ‘Lady Blatchett is an old woman,’ said Miss Hodge. ‘So odd for her to have a niece of your generation; e
specially as your poor dying mother is still so young—you are not the child of elderly parents.’ She smiled at Miss Comfort with the smile of a crocodile. ‘So much more likely, don’t you think, that the Niece from Scotland is by now at least a middle-aged woman.’

  Miss Comfort saw the light immediately. ‘Like you?’ she said.

  ‘That’s right, my dear,’ said Miss Hodge. ‘Like me.’

  The Niece from Scotland: obliged to earn her own living, wangling herself at last with her excellent references into a post where she might observe the old aunt at close quarters: might even ingratiate herself into her favour. The older one becomes, the more frequent one’s visits to the doctor—chosen because he dwelt so handily just across the way—and the more necessary the attentions of the doctor’s kindly receptionist. Miss Comfort bowed to necessity. ‘You are the Niece from Scotland?’

  ‘And you a professional thief,’ said Miss Hodge, ‘and that’s all about it.’ She rose, dusted down her charmless dress. ‘So I think fifty-fifty is a very fair division. Where do we begin?’ she said.

  At Number 20, Lady Blatchett rang the bell for Gladys. She continued a serial lecture upon the sins and follies of careless talk in public. ‘But I have decided after all to retain you in my service.’

  Gladys was not entirely astonished; not for nothing had she made herself indispensable over all these years. She said however, with due deference: ‘Thank you, my lady.’

  ‘I have had a nice cheque from the insurance people so I feel rather better.’

  ‘Oh, I am glad,’ said Gladys, much relieved. ‘Now your ladyship can have some pearls again.’ She said humbly, for in some mysterious way the theft was acknowledged to have been all her fault, ‘Always seeing you with them—I’ve missed them, my lady.’

  ‘I hadn’t intended…’ But Lady Blatchett looked into the mirror. ‘Perhaps I do need something.’

  Bare, ancient, crêpey throat, where the dewlap hung unlovely and the ‘bracelets’ deepened with each succeeding year. ‘I was even thinking that your ladyship might have got a double row, this time. You’ll never match the last, I know; but perhaps two rows of something not quite so good—?’

  Her ladyship thought on reflection that that might be a good idea. After all, a nice bit of jewelry was better for her, really, than all that money lying in the bank.

  Better for Gladys too. What a blessing the burglary had been! Not that she hadn’t been, for simply ages, working towards something of the sort—all that carefully indiscreet talk in pubs! She’d been beginning to be a bit desperate by the time Mr. Smith turned up; the money from the first pearls wouldn’t last for ever—and if she died for it, her poor brother wasn’t going to be moved to some public institution where he wouldn’t have his proper privacy: a man of his background mixing with just ordinary patients…!

  Behind the shop front of a respectable jeweller’s, Miss Hodge, Miss Comfort and Mr. Snaith stood aghast at an offer of twenty-five pounds for some nice cultured pearls; and up in her comfortable room, Lady Blatchett’s well-paid housekeeper was writing off to an address in Scotland…

  A Miracle in Montepulciano

  IN OCTOBER, THE VINEYARDS of Tuscany are beginning to take on their autumn colours, lying russet and gold beneath the silver veil of the olive trees; and in the romantic little hilltop towns above them the summer visitors stroll—and cannot see any of it because the walls are so romantically high.

  This year I walked there too, up the weed-grown street of the tiny fortress town of Montepulciano, ‘Pearl of the Sixteenth Century’; and after my progress through the tiny fortress towns of San Gimignano, Volterra, Pienza, etcetera, etcetera, with five more still to do, reflected that just for a little while I would not care if I never saw a tiny fortress town again. And, thus musing, glanced down and there at my feet, trembling and shivering in a clump of wet stinging nettles, was a very small kitten, filthy and exhausted, with blood coming from its nose and all round its eyes.

  I stood there transfixed with horror: and looked up at the tremendous height of the walls above me, from which the little thing had obviously tumbled down. My husband also stood transfixed with horror, not only on account of the kitten but because to his rueful knowledge, no cat, dog or any other beast ever falls down any cliff, casts itself over any precipice or indeed comes to any kind of grief without first selecting my feet to do it at, thereby involving him in trouble absolutely untold. He now saw himself faced with an itinerary of five more hilltop towns through Italy, not to speak of an aeroplane journey home, with a disabled kitten on his hands.

  I, meanwhile, had contrived to collect the inevitable crowd, springing up from between the nettles and out of the rock crevices, for no person had been in sight two minutes before. I appealed to them: innocent of more than two words of Italian, I launched into my only too well-known act. The crowd was sympathetic and, indeed, no place in the world is more animal-loving than Tuscany—and of cats above all; but, like all crowds faced with the necessity for action, they disclaimed responsibility. The poor little gattino! A deplorable sight! Yes, indeed, they understood that the Signora was English and soon must depart from Montepulciano. Yes, indeed, what was she going to do with a sick gattino? Back into the weeds and rock crevices, like crowds the world over, they discreetly melted away.

  I carried with me the one invaluable jersey stole which was to see me through the rest of my travels in Italy, where it was excessively cold (of course) for the time of year. In this I tenderly wrapped the wet, dirt-encrusted and doubtless flea-ridden little creature and we began our reluctant pilgrimage. The kitten nestled its filthy little bleeding nose against my neck and hair and I would not have a chance to wash my hair again for quite some time, for the Pearl of the Sixteenth Century has plumbing to match; but I did not care for, miraculously, it began faintly to purr. Tears streamed down my idiotic face. My husband walked gloomily beside me; and neither of us had the faintest idea what to do next.

  And then, suddenly, I thought to myself that I was in the heart of the country of St. Francis of Assisi, lover of all dumb creatures, and that this must not be allowed to be just a coincidence. And I turned a corner and came into a little square bordered with Renaissance buildings of entrancing loveliness; and on a corner of the square was written up in faded letters, PIAZZA SAN FRANCESCO D’ASSIS.

  And in a corner of the square stood a building with a statue over the doorway. Orphanage of St. Anthony of Padua. St. Anthony of Padua—saint of lost things. And—orphanage!

  ‘I think you had better wait here,’ I said to my husband. ‘You’ll be happier out of the way.’ And I hitched the kitten higher up on my shoulder, where it continued to purr like a lunatic, and marched up to the orphanage door. An ancient nun answered the bell.

  ‘Look,’ I said in straight English. ‘A kitten. It is lost. And an orphan.’

  ‘Eh?’ said the ancient.

  I spoke in Italian. ‘Gattino. La poverella,’ I said pitifully, though I had an idea that this meant that the kitten had no money which perhaps was self evident. ‘But it has rich friends,’ I added, pulling out a well-filled pocket-book. It was well-filled because fifty pen’orth of Italian money makes a tidy, or rather untidy—not to say rather dirty—bulge.

  ‘Gattino?’ said the old nun.

  ‘Orfano,’ I said, looking up at the motto over the door.

  The old lady burst into a flood of Italian, which seemed to me to consist largely of indignation, but this after all is a peculiarity of most continental languages to the flat English ear, and I persevered. ‘San Francesco. Molto amore animals,’ I said.

  ‘Non capisco,’ said the old nun, beginning to close the door.

  ‘Well, you’ve jolly well got to try and capisco,’ I said desperately. ‘Here is a gattino. Yes?’

  ‘Malata,’ said the old lady, complacently.

  ‘Yes, it is, very malata. It has fallen down from the walls. It’s ill and it’s lost. So what are you going to do about it? Here in the Square of St. Fran
cis and the House of St. Anthony, an orphanage…’

  ‘Non capisco,’ said the old lady closing the door.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what he will think of you, that’s all,’ I cried, tears streaming down my face, pointing at the name on the wall. But the door stayed shut.

  I took the kitten back to where my husband apprehensively awaited me, and had a good howl.

  ‘We can take it back to the hotel and I suppose we can carry it through Italy…’

  ‘I suppose we can,’ said my husband, loyally.

  ‘But can we take it back into England? And, anyway, it’s ill.’ I looked round me again, despairingly. CHIESA DI SAN FRANCESCO. ‘We’ll try the church.’

  So we went into the church, kitten and all, and the kitten and I said our prayers like mad. It was too much that the Lord should have directed us to the Orphanage of St. Anthony in the Square of St. Francis and then should leave us flat. (Who knows how hard my husband must have prayed?)

  And suddenly, out of the door leading through from the church to the orphanage, appear two small, smiling, elderly nuns; and we all go into our act, familiar routine of Seeing over a Church. You wish to see the church? Yes, we wish to see the church. You wish me to turn on the lights? If you will be so gentile, yes, please do. Here then, beneath this altar is our Santa Clermana, embalmed, you see (some four hundred years ago)—her blackened feet thrust into pink satin shoes, her terrible hands folded on the breast of her mauve satin, Streatham High Street gown, a crown of jewels ringing her shrunken skull; her face mercifully covered by a mask of clear pink and white… Charming, charming, we find her bella, belissima. Yes, indeed, she is very beautiful; and a wonderful miracle-worker too, no one ever appeals to her in vain. Here is a little picture of her, take it and she will answer all your prayers. You will never fail…