by Hugh Canham
‘Well thank you, Hector! Meaning I suppose that I’m not!’
‘No, no, no. I didn’t mean it like that. No, I’ve always thought you were – er – well – most attractive!’
‘Well, you’ve never mentioned it before.’
‘Of course not. One doesn’t say that sort of thing to a friend’s fiancée.’
‘I see.’
Lucasta seemed somewhat mollified, Hector thought. Although she did look rather odd in her boiler suit with a plastic shower cap on her head.
‘In fact,’ he continued, ‘you even look quite attractive dressed like that. Look, I’d like you to come with me to take the picture of the cherub to that fellow you told me about. He’s only a few streets away. And then, if you like, I’ll take you out to lunch at Scott’s, as I’m sure you want to hear all about my trip to the States!’
‘Oh, all right, I suppose so,’ said Lucasta, taking off her plastic shower cap.
Five minutes later Lucasta was in Hector’s office looking at the cherub painting and the damage thereto.
‘Mm, what’s underneath looks quite interesting, but the cherub’s not bad. You never told me who stole it or how it got damaged, though.’
‘Thought you were never going to ask me that,’ said Hector enthusiastically. ‘Hilarious really. This film star named Gloria – nice-looking woman, but a bit mutton dressed up as lamb – lives in an apartment, as they call it, in Manhattan. Large place – has to be because she has a large resident entourage, as I called it. She had an English butler chap who was really creepy. Not a nice fellow. Black jacket, pinstripe trousers, silver hair, thin as a rake. Kept on telling me about all the titled people he’d worked for. And there was a chauffeur; great big muscular fellow, but a real pansy.’
‘Hector, do you mean he was a homosexual?’
‘May have been. I didn’t find out, but he was as I say a real pansy . . . Kept rolling his eyes and flexing his muscles. Doubled as Gloria’s bodyguard. And then there was a maid-cum-dresser and a hairdresser-manicurist. Now they seem to be having some sort of quite open heavy lesbian affair, which Gloria condoned. She seemed to think it very amusing.’
‘A remarkable apartment, you could say. Anyhow, who’d stolen the cherub?’
‘Well, it was easy. I questioned them all of course. Before it disappeared one night, the cherub hung over the dining-room fireplace. Artificial fire, of course. Cherub, I thought, aha! As you see, he’s got a nice little chubby bottom. I asked all the women if they’d ever seen either of the men or any male visitor looking, well, longingly at the picture. Well, they all said the same. William – that’s the creepy manservant – had a sort of fixation on the picture and was always staring at it. So, as it happened to be his half day the next day, I searched his room, with Gloria’s permission of course, and there I found it under a pile of underwear in his chest of drawers, along with several very pornographic magazines. Well, to say that Gloria was pleased would be an understatement. Of course the silly fellow has damaged the paintwork, as you see – there and there. God knows what masturbation fantasy he was going through at the time!’
Lucasta was silent for several moments and sat looking primly at the damage to the picture. Then she couldn’t help laughing.
They dropped the cherub off at the expert’s gallery. The great man was away abroad, but a member of his staff promised that he would look at the picture on his return.
In recounting his adventures further over lunch at Scott’s, Hector rather glossed over his muted departure from Gloria, who had never spoken to him again, but who had sent her hairdresser to his bedroom with a message to say that she was still too upset to talk to him, but that she would like to know about the picture, and here was his fee, and his changed air tickets would be with the travel agent.
4
February 1970
As Hector and Lucasta returned from Scott’s and entered the hall outside Hector’s office, they were greeted by Jolly, who seemed in a state of great agitation. He was wringing his hands together and hopping miserably from foot to foot.
‘Mrs Elroy, your mother, sir. She’s been on the telephone five times. She seems most upset, sir. It’s something to do with her church I think – a theft. But I can’t quite make it out. I said I would ask you to telephone her as soon as you returned.’
Lucasta noticed a change come over Hector as Jolly was speaking. At first he looked horrified and then gradually he drew himself up to his full and not inconsiderable height, and stuck out his chin and then his chest.
‘Thank you, Jolly. I will deal with it. Five times, you say she’s telephoned?’
‘Yes sir, five. I kept a careful note.’
‘For goodness’ sake! Come into my office with me please, Lucasta. I need moral support.’
‘Why? What’s the matter?’
‘My mother is very difficult, if not impossible. Please sit down over there and smile at me from time to time while I’m on the phone.’ As he was saying this, he was dialling a number and standing very straight behind his desk.
‘Hello Mother. I’ve only just come back in . . . Well . . . how could I know that you’d want me? Now what’s the matter? Jolly said something had been stolen from the church . . . The altar? How could anyone steal the altar? . . . Oh yes, of course, it’s a wooden communion table, isn’t it? . . . Someone just came in and took it? . . . Yes, I see!’
There was then a lengthy tirade down the telephone from the other end, which Lucasta could hear from where she was sitting several yards away.
‘Yes, yes, yes, now calm down, Mother! Yes, of course, I’ll come down straight away, but please try to calm yourself. Have you spoken to the vicar?’
This last remark occasioned a further tirade.
‘Look, Mother, you’re wasting time, I can’t come straight away if you keep talking, can I?’
Apparently this satisfied Mrs Elroy and Hector put the receiver down and sank into his desk chair.
‘Please, please, Lucasta, come with me to see my mother. She’s in a terrible state, as you will have gathered. Somebody’s stolen the communion table – it’s Elizabethan – from her church and she somehow thinks I can get it back for her – “Just like that”, as Tommy Cooper says. It will be totally traumatic, but I’m sure you’ll be able to calm her down a bit.’
‘How do you know?’
‘One just gets, well, hunches about these things.’
‘It doesn’t sound as if it is going to be very easy, from what I’ve just heard coming down the phone. Why is she like that?’
‘She’s always been like it. Why do you think my father came to live here?’
‘Oh, okay,’ said Lucasta, and she was soon sitting beside Hector in his car.
‘At this rate I’ll never get any legal work done! There were quite a few things waiting for me when I came back from the States – nothing vitally urgent, but one can’t leave things for ever. Look, Lucasta, it’s terribly kind of you to come with me. I really do appreciate it, you know!’
‘Well, yes. But you’d better tell me all about your family so that I know what to expect.’
‘Well, Mother didn’t have me until she was 45 or so. I was quite a shock as she and the old man had been married, as far as I can gather, in perfect marital disharmony for twenty years. They lived in Pinner then, in a largish villa. Father used to travel to the City every day on the Metropolitan line along with hundreds of other City gents wearing bowlers, carrying briefcases and rolled umbrellas, and with copies of The Times under their arms. I can just remember the old house. I liked it. Then, when I was about five, Mother inherited this large estate in Hampshire from her uncle – her father’s brother. He had no children and my mother was an only child. So we all moved there. It’s in some ways a wonderful place, as you will see, but I have never really liked it, I suppose because I was never happy there. We inherited three servants from my great-uncle, who lived on his own there, but by then they were getting rather old. I had to have a full-time na
nny, befitting my new social station, although why a boy of five needs a nanny I don’t know! Father was supposed to give up his partnership in his firm and stay at home and be the local squire, and Mother took on the role of Lady Bountiful in the village and the district around it.’
‘Ah! I thought you must have had a nanny.’
‘Why?’
‘Never mind at the moment. I’ll explain later. Go on.’
‘Well, Father got fed up with his new role after about a year or so and moved here, where he set up in practice. He used to come home once a fortnight on a Saturday afternoon, stay for the night, and depart again after lunch on Sunday. He always claimed to be very, very busy, you see. As far as I know, he never had any other women, but of course he may have done. He was a very quiet and discreet person. I was sent away to school when I was eight, and that was pretty grim, but I frankly dreaded coming home for the holidays. Mother, by this time, had engaged a youngish couple to look after her and they’ve remained faithfully with her, although they must be past retirement age by now. How people put up with her I don’t know. I once asked them. “Practice, Mr Hector,” was all that I could get out of Jenkins. As you’ll see, there’s this sodding great house with the parish church quite literally beside its rear lawn and a large park and a home farm, which Mother let against my father’s advice some years ago. There’s a small village with a pub and a post office and general store. There are several estate cottages, some of which have been let out as weekend homes. Credit where credit’s due, though – Mother has never sold anything.’
‘I see. Your mother must be very old then?’
‘Yes. She’s over ninety. Though you would never know it physically. She lives in a time warp.’
‘As your father did!’
‘I suppose so, yes. Nothing has changed in the house since I was a boy. I think that the Jenkinses must have bought the fridge and the washing machine with their own money. Mother never goes into the kitchen and has nothing to do with the shopping.’
‘Well,’ said Lucasta, ‘I look forward to seeing all this. You seemed to be worried about money when we were in Norfolk, but presumably you will inherit the estate from your mother.’
‘Mother owns it outright and she’s no intention of passing anything over to me until time has taken its course. There’ll be a huge amount of death duty to pay, so undoubtedly I shall have to sell the whole lot. Although I had been earning a great deal when I worked for the firm in Lincoln’s Inn, now I have just a small private income, and Father’s practice just about breaks even. That’s why I’m hoping some of the books may be valuable and, well, I’ll be frank, it’s why I’m advertising my services as an investigator of art thefts.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘Oh! How?’
‘Someone told me – they were connected with the enquiry you had here while you were in the States.’
‘I see!’
Hector looked so crestfallen that Lucasta wanted to pat his hand as she had done with Derek, but somehow she thought she’d better not.
‘There we are,’ said Hector some time later. ‘Long Wensum.’
‘Ah – yes, I see what you mean,’ said Lucasta.
The house with its church and parkland were impressive and unspoilt but somehow dismal and lacking in charm.
A grey-haired gentleman in black trousers and a grey jacket opened the door to them. He must be Jenkins, thought Lucasta.
‘Pleasant to see you, sir, in spite of the tragic circumstances. Mrs Elroy’s in the drawing room.’
Jenkins led Hector, with Lucasta following behind, down a long hallway and through double doors into a large room with three full-length windows which overlooked the lawn and the church.
‘And about time too, Hector. You don’t know how worried I’ve been. It’s absolutely disgraceful. It’s theft and it’s blasphemy all at once. I wouldn’t have believed it! It’s impossible.’
‘Yes Mother. Try to calm down. Just tell me – when did it go missing? I mean, who noticed it was gone?’
Lucasta, who was standing in the background, noticed that Hector’s usual calm composure was gone. And how on earth could such a tiny, thin woman as Mrs Elroy was produce such a large son as Hector?
‘Lunchtime, of course. That’s why I was ringing you all afternoon. Lunchtime. That silly woman who does the flowers came rushing across the lawn, apparently – told Jenkins that the altar was missing. He wouldn’t believe her of course, but then she got him to have a look and he reported it to me.’
‘And have you been over and had a look yourself?’
‘Of course not – what, at my age?’
‘But Mother, you go across to church every Sunday. . .’
‘That’s different. No, I trust Jenkins’ word absolutely!’
‘It’s Friday today isn’t it?’
‘Of course it is. Don’t you even know what day of the week it is now?’
‘Well, generally yes, Mother, but you see I’ve been in the United States and you get a trifle confused with the time changes and that sort of thing.’
‘The United States! That’s America isn’t it? I suppose it was for one of your art-theft capers that you told me about. Your father never had to go abroad all the time he was practising law.’
‘Well yes, it was about an art theft, Mother.’
‘Good. So now you can get to work on finding the stolen altar. I know why they stole it. That stupid young vicar – the one before this one – unscrewed it from the wall and moved it forward so he could say Communion facing us all. Some new-fangled idea from Rome. Ridiculous! He was a very ugly fellow too. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been handsome like Mr Miller – you remember him in the fifties? A very nice man – but he – I can’t remember his name – was very ugly and had a big red nose. He didn’t stay long though, thank goodness. But this new one is not much better and has still insisted on facing us all. Thieves couldn’t have stolen the table if it had been still screwed to the wall. No, they would have needed a screwdriver and it would have taken ages and they’d have been caught. As it was, they just lifted it and marched off with it. At least the candlesticks and the cross were put away somewhere or else they would have had them too, no doubt. I’ve telephoned the Bishop but he’s not answering.’
Mrs Elroy paused for breath, her small chest quivering under her pearls and twin-set. It was getting dark in the room and she peered bad-temperedly through the gloom to where Lucasta was standing.
‘And who’s that over there?’ she asked Hector.
‘Oh, that’s my friend Lucasta,’ replied Hector.
‘Gosh!’ thought Lucasta. ‘I’ve been elevated from “assistant” to “friend”!’
After considerable argument, Hector managed to persuade his mother that he really couldn’t do much investigating that day as it was now getting dark. But to pacify her, he and Lucasta did make their way to the church and, with the aid of a torch, examined the ground outside the doorway. As Mrs Elroy was a patron of the living, she had her own personal key to the church, which they now used to open the main door and go in, switching on the lights in order to have a look round. The church itself, Lucasta noted, was totally unremarkable. Small and unadorned, it had no special features apart from, presumably, the Elizabethan communion table which, before it was stolen, had stood away from the east wall in the middle of the sanctuary. Hector could see the marks of the four feet where it had stood, and on careful examination, he could also make out where it had originally been fastened to the east wall by means of four brackets. The screw holes had only been filled in roughly.
‘Mmm,’ said Hector. ‘Dreary church, isn’t it? Just like the rest of the place. Can’t do much more today I think. I suppose we shall have to stay the night.’
‘But Hector, I haven’t brought any things with me – toothbrush, hairbrush, pyjamas. . .’
‘Nor clean underwear. No, nor have I, just like when we took the statue to Scotland. We’ll just have to manage. Mother
will give us beds and we can get some sort of a meal at the pub, I hope. I don’t suppose the Jenkinses were expecting us for dinner.’
But as it turned out, Hector was wrong.
‘I’ve told Mrs Jenkins you’ll be stopping to dinner and I’ve asked her to air the beds in two single rooms, whatever your private sleeping arrangements are,’ Mrs Elroy announced on their return, glaring belligerently collectively and individually at Hector and Lucasta. ‘I won’t have that sort of thing under my roof!’
‘“That sort of thing”, as you call it, is not taking place, I assure you, Mother. Lucasta has in fact been employed by me to sort out Father’s library. She’s also ably assisted me on one or two of my investigations. That is why I asked her to come with me.’
Lucasta didn’t think anyone actually said it and that it was only printed in books, but Mrs Elroy did actually utter ‘Harrumph!’ ‘Well, I shall open some wine. It’s nice to have you for dinner, Hector – you usually only come for Sunday lunch. Do you like wine, Lucasta?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Good. Come a bit closer so I can see you properly. My eyesight is not as good as it used to be.’
This is awful! thought Lucasta. But I’d better not antagonise her. And so she stepped two or three paces forward, conscious that she was dressed very plainly in a green jumper and grey trousers. There was a long silence as Mrs Elroy looked her up and down.
‘Mmm . . . Not bad looking at all. You’ve got a very large bust, haven’t you? I don’t suppose you can see your feet if you look down!’
For a moment Lucasta felt as though she should look down to see if it were true. She’d never thought of it before – but she restrained herself.
‘Yes. You’ll do!’ said Mrs Elroy enigmatically. ‘Now Hector, draw up a chair for Lucasta. Why are you letting her stand all this time? I shall ring for some sherry!’
In the morning, Hector and Lucasta had another look at the church, together with the graveyard and surrounding area.
