I nodded.
‘Well I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did, you were snoring your head off; making an awful racket!’
He grinned. ‘Ah, that may have been then, but I wasn’t later. Do you want to know what I was doing later?’
‘Not really.’
‘I’ll tell you then. I was out.’
‘Outside? In the night?’ I was surprised by this as normally the dog sleeps heavily till dawn and unlike myself has no inclination for nocturnal strolls. ‘Whatever for?’ I asked.
He explained that he had thought it was time to get the lie of the land just in case he had the sudden urge to make a midnight raid on the local rabbits, and thus he had wanted to test out the hidden escape route. I asked him what route he meant.
‘Oh, don’t you know, Maurice? The one in the cellar, of course, that door with the broken bit she hasn’t bothered to nail down, the one that leads up the steps to the kitchen garden. I thought you would have known all about it.’
As it happened I wasn’t even aware the house had a cellar but I certainly wasn’t going to tell the dog that. ‘Oh yes?’ I replied indifferently, ‘and then what?’
‘Then I scrambled out under the gap, sneaked into the lane and saw what I saw.’
There was a pause, presumably for dramatic effect, as he nonchalantly began to cock his leg against a flower pot, but I wasn’t playing that game. ‘That’s enough, Bouncer, tell me immediately!’ I hissed.
He lowered the leg. ‘Top-Ho on his bicycle.’
‘In the middle of the night and in the rain?’ I exclaimed.
He nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, I thought that was odd too which is why I followed him. He was moving at a good old lick so it was quite difficult keeping up.’
‘Don’t tell me you were going full pelt behind him on the open road. Ridiculous!’
‘’Course not. Wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I was running along on the other side of the hedge. That’s something O’Shaughnessy and me used to practise back in Molehill, trailing people without being seen …’ A wistful look came into his eye, and I wondered if the dog was missing his old cronies such as the dreadful Irish setter. (I winced at the memory.) Naturally he is fortunate to have my guidance, but dogs as a species are gregarious creatures and enjoy their own kind. I will make enquiries of Eleanor; perhaps she can suggest a canine companion for him – though not one as raucous as O’Shaughnessy and certainly not a poodle … the last thing one needs is another Pierre the Ponce and his Gallic whims.
‘So where was he going?’ I asked.
‘To one of those things we had on the pavement outside the vicarage.’
‘You mean a telephone box?’
‘Yes, that’s it, one of those. He went in there, gabbled away for a few minutes and then came out, got on his bike and scooted back home again.’ The dog gazed at me quizzically, head cocked on one side. ‘Like I said, a bit rum, isn’t it?’
I agreed that it was indeed rum. Why should Top-Ho leave his house in the dead of night in the pouring rain, and peddle off to make a call from a public telephone box when presumably he had a perfectly good instrument at home? Peculiar really; but then, of course, humans are apt to do things like that. Still, as all cats know, curiosity is an invaluable tool in divining, or frustrating, human intention, so I instructed Bouncer to keep on the qui vive.
‘On what?’ he grunted gormlessly.
I flicked my tail impatiently. ‘Prick up your ears!’
He leered. ‘Your language, Maurice!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Charles Penlow’s Journal
Six weeks of non-stop sun and rum is certainly to be recommended. But after a time you begin to experience a sense of unreality and an itch to return to something more abrasive. Not that one can call Lewes abrasive, unless you count the internecine furies of the Plantswomen’s Guild and the rivalries enjoyed by the town’s countless historical societies, but it has a parochial busyness, a sort of brisk, needling vitality, which after weeks of lolling in the lavish arms of the Caribbean I begin to hanker for. And a Sussex sea is different from a Tobago sea; and beautiful though that island is, it has nothing on Mount Caburn in the moonlight or Chanctonbury Ring at dawn. Agnes being less of a sentimentalist and more of a sybarite than myself is only too happy to cling to Tobago for another month before facing the harsher realities of Podmore Place and our project for its retrieval from ruin.
It is, I fear, a ridiculously rash undertaking – though some have kindly called it bold – for the scale of restoration is huge, the work immense and the cost appalling. My younger brother, Jack, has advised me to stick to draughts and jigsaw puzzles, but since on principle one never listens to a younger brother I push on regardless. Why? Because to quote George Mallory, ‘Because it’s there’; but perhaps more pertinently because it has belonged to a branch of our family for generations. Its previous owner was an ancient cousin, and being the last of his line and with no one better to hand it on to, he left it to me. ‘White elephant,’ Agnes had protested.
But, as it happens, I am rather partial to elephants, and as a boy living in India, had once rescued a baby jumbo from a swamp. So I suppose I thought I could do the same again. However, this is no Indian jumbo: British, white, and certainly no baby! But then that’s the problem with sentimentality: it lands you with things, e.g. marriage and collapsing houses.
So I am back now, having rented out our house at Firle and installed myself at Podmore in the small east wing which we have made moderately habitable while the renovation progresses … or not, as the case may be. At least the grounds are taking shape and I have dreams for a small orangery, though God knows where. Meanwhile, I must make a date to see our friend Primrose Oughterard: Agnes has been receiving some rather strange reports from Emily Bartlett (why that woman chose to be secretary at the boys’ school after the dreary husband died beats me. She should have gone round the world and had a good time … well, as good a time as Emily is ever likely to have. Still, she seems to enjoy it which is the main thing. Horses for courses I suppose).
Anyway, according to Emily’s reports, I gather Primrose has recently taken possession of her late brother’s dog and cat, but is also pursuing some sort of grudge against one of the school’s masters. Emily says she is becoming quite unhinged over it. I have to say that being pursued by Primrose, with or without a grudge, is not something one would take lightly! But I rather like the woman: she is refreshingly frank and, despite certain oddities, no fool. She keeps a good class of whisky too – which cannot be said of the sherry: dry as a bone in the desert. I remember the brother sipping it dutifully with closed eyes and crinkled brow. Primrose doesn’t talk much about feelings, a good thing in my opinion, but I think she misses him. I shall go and cheer her up and inspect the new acquisitions. I could take Duster but don’t know if the new residents would look kindly upon him, you can’t be too pushy with animals. Best leave it for a while, we don’t want a godawful skirmish on Primrose’s terrace; it might unsettle the cows in the neighbouring field.
Saturday
Well that was certainly an agreeable nightcap. Primrose on typical robust form, dishing out copious Scotch and regaling me with her student capers at the Courtauld all those years ago. Though from what she described I imagine some of those ageing mentors are still reeling from the experience. But the animals were intriguing as well. The dog, Bouncer, a shaggy brute, seemed to take a shine to me and kept sniffing my trousers and making sheep’s eyes. For an uneasy moment I thought it was gearing up to perform a baptism, but luckily one was spared the honour. And then having ‘cased’ my turn-ups it began giving my knee a series of head buffets. Primrose was delighted and said it just went to show what a really sweet boy he was. I am not sure that sweet is quite the word I would use but the creature does have a certain rustic affability. The cat, on the other hand, is neither rustic nor affable: thin, aloof and unnervingly watchful. I don’t think it took its eyes off me the whole time I was there. It is e
ntirely black except for one white paw which now and again it wafted imperiously. Primrose assured me I should be flattered as generally when visitors call it stalks from the room in dudgeon; the fact that it remained was apparently an accolade. Well I suppose one should be grateful for such honours, however subtle.
Subtlety, of course, is not Primrose’s style. And over the whisky and Bath Olivers she held forth fulsomely on the subject of this new Latin master at Erasmus House. She is convinced that not only is he a charlatan but also some sort of shady mobster. I gather he looks and sounds not unlike the actor Peter Lorre, yet also rides a racing bicycle. Not noted for my imagination, except perhaps where grandiose building schemes are concerned, I have difficulty in connecting those features. However, I didn’t like to question Primrose’s description and listened instead to the more relevant details. These involved a series of coincidences which she was convinced pointed to the fellow having once worked in the infamous Christoff’s (now closed down), reputed to be run by the Messina gang. I asked how she made these deductions and she said she had got much of her information from Nicholas Ingaza.
Given his reputation as the slickest spiv south of London, some might think such a source dubious. But I happen to know Ingaza, or did once upon a time – though these days our few encounters are marked by a mere nod and a wink – and I can say he is no idiot. Far from it – you don’t get an Oxford first, or indeed the Fitzer Memorial Prize for Greek prosody, for nothing. Slippery as butter, of course, always was; nevertheless there’s a kind of bastard integrity there … otherwise they would never have used him at Bletchley. One of our best operators he was, sharp as an East End ferret! Well those days are long gone, but even now it’s all hush-hush and we’re still bound by the OSA on pain of some dire penalty or other. Of course his subsequent life is hardly to my taste, pretty scandalous really by all accounts. But old comrades and camaraderies die hard and in a way I can’t help liking him.
But that’s beside the point: the point being that if he thinks this Topping is the same cove that was on Malta with the Messinas then there is a fair chance that he is. However, as I pointed out to Primrose, just because a chap has had a seedy past doesn’t mean that he is still at the same game. For all one knows he may have undergone a spectacular moral conversion, and the drilling of small boys in the basics of Latin grammar is all part of the penitential process. I don’t think Primrose thought much of that as she remarked dryly that sometimes talking to me was not unlike talking to her deceased brother.
She also insisted it was obvious that no such conversion had occurred as quite by chance she had overheard Topping engaged in a highly suspect telephone conversation with some unknown. ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘and I suppose you just happened to have been passing and by chance had stooped to tie your shoelace?’ She said it was exactly that and how shrewd of me to have guessed. The few fragments she cited – ‘far too much at stake’, ‘we can’t let that go on’ and something about ‘fifty grand’ didn’t really amount to much – though I suppose the last might be an unusual term from a quiet schoolmaster – but clearly Primrose sets great store by such ‘evidence’. And since it had not been my ear clamped to the keyhole, possibly I am in no position to judge … Thus I said that she had better watch out she doesn’t get a knife in her back, and in the meantime was it too much to ask if I might be allowed a drop more whisky. She said it certainly was too much and promptly filled my glass to the brim.
Yes, a most amicable evening; and on reflection I really quite like that dog of hers. With luck he and Duster might get on – though one will need to beware the cat.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Dog’s View
‘You see, Maurice,’ I told him, ‘she said I was sweet. Now that’s something, isn’t it!’
‘Dilooded,’ the cat replied, ‘just like our master was. It’s amazing how blinkered human beings can be.’
Maurice has a thing about ‘dilooshun’ and says the word a lot: he likes it. I think it means you don’t know what you are talking about. Well you can’t say that about Bouncer because I know, you see. And I know that although P.O. is the sister of F.O. she is not dilooded. She is like me: got a sixth sense. So if she thinks I’m SWEET you bet she’s right – and if she thinks Top-Ho is BAD then most likely he is!
Mind you, I thought that Charles person we saw this evening was NOT bad, especially as he’s got that really good whiff about him. It reminds me of a Jack Russell I used to know … Cor! He was a good mouser if ever there was one. Put old Maurice in the shade all right. Anyway, I made sure I was on my best behaviour as I quite liked that Charles – a bit like F.O. really (though the vicar was dafter, of course). And I also like a good trouser leg. Ladies’ stockings aren’t nearly as good: sort of thin and cold and they don’t pick up spoor in the same way … Hmm I wonder whose spoor that was? I’ll have to do a bit more sniffing around and find out. Just like P.O. with that Topping person: we’ve both got to keep our muzzles to the ground. As a matter of fact, the Prim has got quite a long muzzle but I bet I get there first.
Maurice says he did not dislike that Charles person … So crikey that’s a turn up for the bones. If the cat didn’t dislike the visitor then he must be all right! Perhaps we’ll see more of him. I hope so because I’d like to discover more about that nice niffy trouser leg, it had a really matey smell.
Later
Do you know what? There is a cairn in the neighbourhood and it’s called Duster. Maurice has been quite useful and made some enquiries of that Persian friend of his, the cat with a face like a grey mop – Eleanor I think her name is. Anyway, Mop Face says that Duster belongs to a tall man who lives in a big house just outside the town. Now being what you might call a sharp sort of dog I’ve put one and one together and made TWO. (Maurice says I’m getting jolly good at my numbers these days.) So number one is that the man here last night was tall; and the next number one is that his trouser leg smelt of cairn. So putting those together you get two: which means that the tall man owns a cairn; and I bet you the tall man is Charles and his dog is the Duster that the Persian was talking about … See? No fleas on this one’s coat and that’s for sure. I’ll go and tell the cat what I think.
His nibs was kipping under the dining-room table. (It’s where he goes when he thinks he won’t be seen; but I could see him all right because he’d forgotten to fold that white paw under his chest so it stuck out like a sore whatsit.) I was going to wake him up but thought better of it; there’s still a scratch on my nose from the last time. Besides, I want to do a bit more thinking about that Top-Ho chap. There’s a funny smell there you know, and smells just happen to be Bouncer’s for-tea, as Maurice would say. But before I start thinking I’ll just trot off to take a dekko at those daft chinless wonders in their hutch. If they’re having a kip like the cat I’ll soon wake ’em up … Wah-ho, Bunnnies! Here I come!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Primrose Version
I had spent a long day at the easel, ‘rusticating’ the church tower and trying to give the features of the cropping sheep a semblance of expression. Why go against nature one might ask? Because that is what the punters want. They have a sentimental view of the countryside, and ancient churches and personalised sheep are what sell my pictures. You mean you attended the Courtauld simply to churn out bogus rural idylls for the urban and undiscerning? an inner voice asks. ‘Certainly,’ I reply, ‘since that is precisely what delivers maximum dosh for minimum effort.’ It also happens to keep me in gin, pays for this comfortable house and allows me periodically to indulge the occasional aesthetic urge in trips to foreign meccas – Paris, Vienna, Venice. Stuck in a garret grappling with serious stuff might enhance one’s artistic integrity but hardly one’s bank balance. I tried to explain this to Francis on a number of occasions but he never quite grasped it … unlike Ingaza who grasps it wholeheartedly. That said, commercial empathy is no guarantee of close amity, and our relationship rests on a mutual wariness – a condition also of mutual approval.
Anyway, having at last supplied the sheep with a trace of animation and contrived a gothic aura for the church, I was about to call it a day and lose myself in the soothing scandals of the Daily Telegraph, when I was rung up by Melinda Balfour.
‘That wretched girl has ratted,’ she cried.
‘Which of the many?’ I enquired.
‘Blanche, of course. Swanned off to London at the last moment and left me in the lurch without a partner, and I’ve got everything arranged!’ she wailed. ‘You couldn’t possibly substitute, could you? I mean I know it’s fearfully short notice but I do have the most marvellous supper laid on. You wouldn’t starve.’
Melinda’s bridge suppers are renowned, and participating invariably means a convivial evening, especially if her husband is otherwise engaged; that awful pipe and grating laugh – features surely the cause of many a missed trick. Thus despite the rigours of the day I said I would be delighted to fill the gap but would she mind if I brought Bouncer as he and Maurice had had a little spat earlier on and it was best to leave the cat to its own devices for a while. ‘Of course, of course, anything you like,’ she trilled. Such was her relief that doubtless she would have welcomed a pack of staghounds had I requested. Thus swapping my painting pinny for a vampish black sheath dress – a mite tight I fear – and dousing myself in some indiscreet scent, I seized the dog and sallied forth to slay them at the bridge tables.
Negotiating the tortuous lanes leading up to Firle Beacon, I contemplated the evening ahead. Undoubtedly the food would be good, some of the guests amusing, the stakes interestingly high – and providing Freddie Balfour was out being worthy at a Rotary dinner, my own performance might proceed with customary luck. The real question mark was the dog: would it behave itself? I glanced sideways at the passenger seat. ‘You have got to be very good, Bouncer,’ I warned him, ‘one false move and I’ll never take you anywhere again.’ The words were met with silence followed by a mild burp.
The Primrose Pursuit Page 5
