‘The hell is, Peter, I’m in no position to castigate Maxwell really. I was about as faithful in my short-lived marriage as a jack-rabbit. And I’ve got a bit of a reputation, I’m afraid, for changing partners at the drop of a hat. But all that has changed since Lana-Lee. I know she’s what I need. I love her. I love her like I have never loved anyone before. Hell, I’m forty now; it’s time for me to settle down a bit. And meeting Lana-Lee was the trigger I needed. Her timing was impeccable.’
‘The mark of a good actress,’ I said, then realised the remark could be taken the wrong way. ‘I don’t mean she’s acting with you, Adam. Far from it, from the sounds of things.’
‘But you’re right. She might be, mightn’t she?’ He looked now like a little boy lost. ‘Playing being in love, rather than feeling it. Might explain things a bit.’
‘Don’t think she is. From her concern for you last night, I think her feelings are genuine enough. She doesn’t strike me as a twenty-four-hour actress type. Far from it.’
‘So can you explain her behaviour? Having such an odious man as Maxwell back?’
‘No, I can’t. But it sounds much more like a woman with problems we don’t yet know about, than anything else.’
‘Such as? I’ve wracked my brains to think of something — anything.’
‘Lord knows. Something in her past, that happened in Hollywood, maybe. I know so little about her. All I’ve seen are her old films on television.’
Longhurst drained the dregs of his beer, glanced at his watch, then looked at me apologetically.
‘Look, it’s almost lunchtime already. I’ve taken up all your morning, drinking your beer, and boring you with all my problems, when I only came just to thank you and your beautiful friend for last night.’
‘Don’t apologise. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. It’s a bit lonely, sometimes, this old toy business.’
‘I guess it must be. Everything, I guess, has its down side, its own problems.’
‘Toys don’t have too many, luckily,’ I smiled. ‘And at the moment, my major problem is of my own making.’
‘What’s that?’ he asked, with seemingly genuine interest. So I told him, all about my Flamingo project, and that I had just put the phone down on a possible box manufacturer, when he’d called at the shop.
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Finding a first-rate model maker to make the original brass master. I’d rather not put an advert in the Western Gazette — don’t want to alert potential competition.’
Longhurst did not comment right away, and I thought, for a second, I was boring him and his mind had reverted to Lana-Lee. But no such thing.
‘Think, curiously, I might know of such a fellow.’
I looked up. ‘They’re a bit thin on the ground, you know.’
‘I suppose they must be. But about two months ago, I advertised a cottage on my estate for letting on a three-year lease, renewable. Curiously, had few replies, probably because of the shortness of the lease, which I drafted in case I needed the cottage at any time for one of my workers. Anyway, in the end, I let it to a very quiet and respectable couple. The husband is ex-army on a pension. He was invalided out. They were quite happy with a short lease, as they were moving from Buckinghamshire or somewhere near London, and wanted to see if country life and the sea suited them before investing in a house of their own. Name of Muir. Mr and Mrs Muir.’
‘Is he the model maker or is it his wife?’
Longhurst laughed. ‘No, his wife’s a rather dour lady. Full of good works, I gather, WI and so on, and a great church goer, but I don’t see her whittling away at lumps of metal. No, he’s the one. Used to do it in the army when he was off duty and bored. The cottage is now full of the stuff he’s made. Mainly figures, soldiers, angels and the like. But there are also some tanks and military vehicles, Chieftains, Saracens, that kind of thing.’
‘Are they good?’
‘Look that way to me. Not big on the angel and the religious stuff myself, but the other figures and the army items seem first-class.’
‘Natural ability, I suppose, aided and abetted by lots of time on his hands.’
‘Like prisoners make huge galleons out of match-sticks.’
‘Yeah,’ I smiled. ‘Suppose so.’
‘I gather his father used to work in some toy factory doing the same kind of thing. So I suppose the talent runs in the family.’
I leant forward, and offered him another Heineken. If this Muir fellow turned out to be all he cracked him up to be, Longhurst was worth every beer I could offer. But he put up his hand.
‘No more for me, thanks. I ought to be going.’ He unfolded his large frame from the chintz of my chair, and towered above me. The Heineken seemed to have added inches to his height. I got up myself, and stood by him. I am five feet ten inches, but, as the sports writers would phrase it, I was giving him at least five inches in height. (And about the same in chest measurement, I wouldn’t wonder.)
‘Anyway, would you like to meet him?’ he asked. ‘Then you could see if the quality of his work is up to the kind of standard you require.’
‘That would be a great help.’
‘Well, I’ll have a word with him. Perhaps get him to ring you.’ He began walking back towards the shop.
‘Have you got a card?’
I stopped by the counter and gave him a Toy Emporium one.
‘Better warn you, though,’ he added. ‘Muir’s not a million laughs. He’s almost as quiet as his wife.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ I saw him to the door. ‘Does he have a regular job? I mean, I assume he has an army pension, but he probably works as well, doesn’t he?’
Longhurst nodded. ‘Yes. But he’s freelance and works from home.’
‘What’s he do?’
‘Like you. What was once his hobby has now become his business. That’s why I suggested him. He makes brass masters and sometimes one-off finished models for firms who market all that polished brass stuff you see in shop windows and specialist brass shops. You know, bucking horses that get used as doorstops, fancy door knockers, brass models of dogs and animals, eagles alighting on eeries, eagles for pulpits, angels, Christ on the cross, and so on. Keeps pretty busy, I hear. Still, I dare say he might find your Flamingo project quite a welcome change. Let me know how you get on.’
He shook my hand vigorously, and I winced once more. And soon he was gone, the six special wheels of his Range Rover flicking the loose gravel on the road outside. I went back and sat down behind the counter once again. Bing jumped up on to my lap to remind me it was lunchtime. But I didn’t take his hint right away, but just sat contentedly there, toying with the odd thought that one man’s problems can, on occasion, go to provide another man’s solutions.
*
I stayed open until four o’clock that afternoon, but only had one customer. Still, he did at least buy something. (A lot of old toy buffs just haunt shops like mine to gawp, touch and compare, but seldom shell out for a purchase.) And seemed thrilled with his seventy-pound find — one of Gus’s Ford Minics, mint and boxed. As Arabella, I knew, would not be back until around 7.30 p.m., I decided to stroll round to Gus’s cottage, and regale him with an account of the events of the night before. Gus loves a bit of gossip.
Bing seemed to sense where I was going, for he began swearing at me in downtown Siamese as I made for the front door. So there was nothing for it but to attach a lead to his collar and take him with me. He loves going to Gus’s, I guess, for the extra variety of smells around that place, from today’s fish to yesterday’s goodness knows what.
But when I arrived at Gus’s cottage, no amount of banging on his knocker would raise him. As I was about to leave, I heard a regular swishing noise start up in the garden. I use the word ‘garden’ rather loosely. You remember Brer Rabbit and the briar patch? Well, forget the rabbit. Just conjure up a briar patch, add some long, straggly grass, some bits of old agricultural and marine equipment rusting out of banks of stinging
nettles, and two dilapidated sheds — one of which houses my old 1966 Daimler v8 that I am always intending to restore, the other the remains of a clinker-built boat that hasn’t felt the brine since Gus was eighteen — and you have the complete picture. Still, there’s no place like home. And certainly no place like Gus’s home.
‘You’re late,’ Gus grumbled, and stopped what he was doing, which was beating an armchair with a stick.
‘What do you mean, I’m late?’ I remonstrated. ‘I didn’t say I was coming at all.’
Gus gave the chair another enormous whack, and dust flew out like smoke from a fire. Gus had cleaning spells, when he washes up, sweeps what’s left of his carpets, cleans the cottage windows so that you can just see out, and puts his three piece ‘Utility Mark’ suite in the garden to beat it to death. I’d obviously interrupted one of these fits.
‘Expected you hours ago, I did. Had the beers on the table.’
‘Don’t talk to me of beers,’ I grimaced.
‘Went ahead without me?’ Gus grinned, as he resumed his furniture flagellation.
‘Had an unexpected visitor,’ I coughed through the dust clouds. ‘Otherwise, I might have been over sooner.’
‘Been itching to hear all about your film star woman’s do last night. Who was the visitor who delayed you? The same one who poked you in the eye?’
‘Longhurst.’
Gus scratched his head, then asked, ‘Which Longhurst? The pop-eyed verger over in Swanage, the one whose sister got arrested the other day for soliciting sailors down at Portland?’
I shook my head, and I’ll swear dust came out of my hair.
‘Can’t mean the other one, can you? That show-off, who races round the place in fancy cars with unpronounceable names. And who, I’ve heard, has turned his poor old dad’s house inside out, so that it now looks like a toff’s brothel. Given it a poncy Italian name too — Muddy Yellow, or something.’
‘Maranello,’ I corrected him, ‘home of Ferrari cars.’
‘Silly bloody name. His dad’s was much better — Wideacres Farm. Still, what do you expect from a guy who was cashiered from the army, and chases everything in or out of a skirt for a living?’
I sat down in one of Gus’s armchairs, and Bing leapt on to my lap. Gus raised his arm once more.
‘Hang on, Gus, put that stick down. Tell me a bit about Longhurst — and I don’t mean the one with the jolly jack tar sister.’
Gus subsided on to the settee. I don’t know which gave out the most dust, he or the furniture.
‘What’s he been visiting the likes of you for?’
I ignored the put-down and told him the whole story of our stormy night adventures, and Longhurst’s morning apologies.
Gus did not comment for a while, then turned to me. ‘Lavinia whowasit?’ he asked.
‘Saunders. Lavinia Saunders.’
‘Yeah.’ Gus subsided into silence, his left hand idly playing with a rampant stinging nettle as if it were a dock leaf.
After a while, I couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘Come off it, Gus. You can’t ask “Lavinia whowasit?’’, get the answer and then say “Yeah’’. You know something, don’t you?’
‘Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. ’Tis only rumour, after all.’
‘Okay. What rumour?’
‘Well, did you notice anything between Longhurst and that Lavinia whatsherface?’
‘Hardly,’ I laughed. ‘He was flailing about, shouting the house down, and everyone else was trying to stop him murdering Maxwell. That’s how I got my shiner. But why do you ask?’
‘They do say that Longhurst had a girlfriend called Lavinia, once. Year or two back now, I suppose. Married woman, she was supposed to be. Remember her name because it’s not an everyday one, is it? Would have forgotten a Maud or a Mabel, a Dulcie or a Doris, wouldn’t I?’
I forbore reminding Gus that these were hardly everyday names nowadays. Sometimes I think to Gus time stopped somewhere around 1928.
‘Likes married women, does Longhurst, by all accounts. Means he doesn’t have to marry them. Must be their attraction.’
I then suddenly remembered the other little gem of information Gus had let slip, when I’d first mentioned Longhurst’s name.
‘Never mind his women for a minute, Gus. What was that about him being cashiered from the army? I assumed he had resigned his commission when his father first became ill, and he was needed back on the farm.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Gus retorted, and exchanged a stinging nettle for a thistle. His huge hands make saddle leather seem sensitive by comparison. ‘Cashiered, he was. Striking an officer. Something like that, so I heard at the time. All hushed up, of course. His dad’s money saw to that. I got the wink from a corporal I used to know at Bovington Camp. Swore me to secrecy, of course.’
‘Of course,’ I smiled. Gus broke off the thistle and began smelling the few fading purple blooms at its lethal tips. ‘Not much control over his temper, it would seem, our Adam Longhurst,’ I remarked, waiting for the scream.
‘Not much control over his willie, either,’ Gus guffawed, ‘from the stories going round of his love-life. I wonder if that Lana-Lee, who he claims loves him, knows a ha’p’orth of his goings on. Or doesn’t it matter in show-business, where they’re probably all at it, anyway?’
‘No, I don’t think she is. I told you, Gus, she seems a genuinely nice person. Quiet, if anything. Not the brassy type you’re thinking of at all.’
‘Her husband, that Maxwell, he’s a bad lot, isn’t he? Maybe she’s one of those women who go for the smell of bad eggs. Wouldn’t be the first time. Now remember that Lady Whatsit, who used to live the other side of Corfe — her whose husband got killed later in the War...’
I leaned across and put a hand on Gus’s shoulder.
‘Gus. Before you go on, I’ll tell you now, I don’t.’
‘How d’you know yet? I haven’t got to the bit...’
‘Gus, don’t bother. I wasn’t even born till after the War.’
Gus looked at me hard, as if I were suddenly a stranger.
‘Yeah. ’Course. Forgotten that,’ he said slowly, then sniffed.
Bing looked up, ears cocked. Gus’s sniffs are like that. You can’t miss them, unless you’re using a pneumatic drill at the time. ‘Well, anyway,’ he went on, ‘does no harm knowing someone like Longhurst, especially if he owes you one. Money talks, you know. Get him to buy something big and expensive from your shop, did you?’
I sat a little straighter in my armchair. ‘No, Gus, I did not. I don’t expect returns for favours, however rich the person involved.’
Gus pursed his lips like a doubting Thomas. ‘Like that beer now?’ he asked.
I made a show of looking at my watch.
Gus laughed like a drain. ‘Sums you up, that little gesture does.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, a mite tetchily.
‘Sometimes, old dear, you just don’t know the bloody time of day.’
4
As I rolled back to my modest Toy Emporium and my equally modest living accommodation above and beside it, I was in no fit state to really appreciate what met my eyes on arrival. For there seemed to be some kind of flower festival in progress outside my front door, with Arabella’s head peeking out between banks of profligate blooms. I went up to her, as she bent down to forage amongst the stems.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for a card,’ she mumbled.
‘Needn’t bother.’ I grinned to myself as my mind suddenly snapped back into crystal-clear focus. Arabella stood up, holding two of the huge cellophane-covered bouquets. (There were at least ten others.) Her beautiful face bore a puzzled and incredulous expression.
‘Can’t be from you. Tell me it can’t be you...’
‘Nope,’ I replied, ‘ain’t me.’
‘Then who is it? Maybe they’ve delivered to the wrong place. I just found all this here when I got back tonight.’
‘They’re from the man you kissed last night.’
‘You said it wasn’t you,’ she immediately countered.
‘It was the other man you kissed. Cast your mind back.’
‘I didn’t kiss any...’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Oh yes I did. It’s Longhurst, isn’t it? But how did you know?’
‘He called this morning to thank me. Obviously the flowers are to thank you.’
She pointed to the banks of bouquets propped up against the shop window. ‘This much thanks?’
‘He’s that kind of fellow. Lives life OTT all the time. Gus has been telling me some more about Dorset’s raging bull.’ I bent down and began picking up more of the bouquets. ‘Let’s get this Interflora benefit night stuff in and I’ll tell you all about it.’
She looked at me. ‘What are we going to do with all this indoors? We haven’t got enough vases by a million miles.’
I laughed. ‘Screw the vases, my darling. We haven’t got enough rooms.’
*
I could hardly sleep that night, the aroma was so compelling. Still, the flowers did provide an incredibly romantic setting for our love-making, although Arabella did remark self-consciously at one point that she felt the other visitors to Kew Gardens must be watching us. I said, ‘Let ’em. Flowers do it. Birds and bees do it...etcetera.’
At breakfast, we had to put some of the smaller blooms in the sink, whilst we used the teapot for its original purpose. And, of course, all this time, we couldn’t help talking about their provider, Longhurst.
Die-Cast (A Peter Marklin Mystery) Page 5
