The Curious Incident at Claridge's

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘Which you did! Yes. Lady Tradescant doesn’t want her husband to die, but nor does she want him to know about the attempt on his life, so she tells him nothing about it … She knows the person who performed the first switching around of the capsules … It’s someone she is averse to getting into trouble … Who is he? We assume it’s a “he”, don’t we?’

  ‘We assume no such thing. Just because she is an attractive girl, it doesn’t follow that she’s got a lethal lover. What kind of man would have access to Sir Seymour’s medicine cabinet anyway? Sir Seymour’s valet?’

  ‘Do baronets still have valets?’

  ‘They most certainly do.’

  ‘You sound positive.’

  ‘You seem to be forgetting some of my best friends are baronets.’

  ‘What if you found that Sir Seymour was dead, but the doctor insisted that he had died of natural causes? What if no positive proof of foul play ever came to light? Oh well.’ Antonia picked up her book proofs once more. ‘In the end it is the mystery that counts and not the explanation.’

  ‘Is the pretty lady a poisoner, or isn’t she? Will we ever know? It’s a bit like My Cousin Rachel …’

  ‘Oh, don’t let’s be bookish and clever, Hugh. Life is not a bit like mystery fiction.’

  ‘With us it always is somehow. Haven’t you noticed? Happens all the time. Sometimes I think we should be in a book ourselves … Where did I leave the damned car keys?’

  ‘Is Lady Tradescant really attractive?’

  ‘Her charms deserve to be dithyrambically extolled. Just to look at her mouth makes one think of great poetry and wide seas … Hope you aren’t jealous.’

  ‘Not a bit.’ Antonia tapped her teeth with her pen. ‘Sir Seymour might have forgotten to take the capsule. If you do get to speak to him and he’s still in possession of it, will you ask him to hand it over for inspection?’

  ‘I most certainly will. Otherwise my journey would have been a waste of time. My mission would have been fruitless or bootless. He’s bound to think me mad. On the other hand he may be perfectly friendly and cooperative. I glanced at my family tree earlier on and discovered that a Payne had married a Tradescant girl back in 1750.’

  ‘That should break the ice. Aren’t you going to change?’

  ‘You think I should?’

  ‘Why don’t you put on your uniform?’

  ‘That would make me appear wildly eccentric. I shall wear a dark double-breasted suit with a discreet stripe and a bowler, perhaps?’

  ‘A bowler would be equally eccentric,’ said Antonia. ‘Though perhaps they wouldn’t think so at the place where you are going.’

  11

  Manoir de mes rêves

  It clouded over as he drove along the narrow road, which, if his antiquated map spread out on the seat beside him was to be believed, led to Mayholme Manor. He had got the address from the Mayholme Manor website. How easy everything was nowadays. All one needed to do was to turn on the computer. They had been buying books and CDs and DVDs on Amazon and only the other day a Mark & Spencer van had delivered their shopping to their front door. His aunt, it seemed, had discovered the delights of Amazon too. Her butler had helped her set up her computer and now she spent hours on end in front of it, she informed him. She had phoned over the weekend to say she had managed to find a copy of a book her Scottish governess had read to her back in 1933—long out of print. She had bought it from a private seller for the curious sum of sixteen pence.

  He wasn’t going to drive into a storm, was he? Everything turning the colour of gun metal. A sinister Valkyrie sky. He should be listening to Wagner, not to Django Reinhardt. What was the name of the piece that was playing? Manoir de mes rêves. The manor of my dreams? He hadn’t quite decided on his line. Was he a friend of Sir Seymour’s, come to say hello? Or was he looking for a suitable retreat for his decrepit old uncle? Or was he, perhaps, writing a book about Mayholme Manor and its history? Mayholme Manor had been a monastery once.

  There it was. Massive iron railings with rusticated corner piers topped by eagles—most certainly not Elizabethan—more of an eighteenth-century addition—‘Mayholme Manor ’ in big block letters at the top. Squat gate-piers. Sentry boxes. Would there be French horns for visitors who wanted to announce their arrival? Would the porter be clad in a monk’s habit?

  But no porter was in evidence. The place seemed deserted. The gates gaped open and, after a pause, he drove through. So anyone could enter and exit undeterred …

  Payne was driving very slowly now. He saw a mossgrown pyramidal structure on his right. It had an ancient and abandoned air about it—a Victorian ice-house? On his left he caught sight of a Chinese-style pavilion. It sported trelliswork, umbrella’d sages, dragons and bells and, in his humble opinion, seemed better suited to adorn the shores of a Soochow lake. There should be a ditty about it, Payne thought idly. Dastardly Rhoda rents a pagoda.

  The parking. A couple of cars were already there. No police cars and no ambulance either. All seemed to be well. Perhaps, after all, Sir Seymour hadn’t died in suspicious circumstances. Payne parked his car beside a battered two-seater the colour of what he believed to be a cedar rose.

  Placing the bowler firmly on his head, he made for the main entrance. The manor of my dreams, eh? An exuberant Elizabethan frontispiece. 1570s, at a guess. A bit like old Somerset House in London. A screen of ivy, through which, on a bright day, the sun rays would come in fancy patterns, he imagined—a sight that would no doubt please the more aesthetically inclined residents, or ‘brothers’, as they seemed to style themselves. As he went up the flight of steps to the front door, he heard rapid footfalls and laboured breathing. The next moment the door was flung open and nearly hit him in the face.

  A woman emerged.

  She wore a velvet golf suit in a rusty colour, the trousers exaggeratedly baggy, and a silk shirt of a striking shade of reptilian green. Her hair was short, bobbed and jet-black—it brought to mind silent film actress Louise Brooks. The woman’s face was dead-white with make-up, so her age was difficult to guess. Far from young—and ugly as sin. The black hair was too glossy and too perfectly shaped to be real. A wig?

  ‘Really!’ The woman glared at Payne.

  ‘So sorry,’ he murmured, taking off his bowler, though it was she who should have apologized. Her right hand was in a velvet glove embroidered with rosebuds. Cedar roses. Her other hand was bare. She was wearing a ring that appeared to be loose, Payne noticed. She held on to it with her gloved hand.

  Something of the bloodhound about her features … Pendulous cheeks … She reminded Payne of somebody.

  For a moment her eyes rested speculatively on his bowler, then she pushed past him and stumbled down the steps. She’s the owner of the two-seater, he suddenly thought. The next moment several things clicked into place—

  ‘Miss Tradescant?’ Payne called out. ‘It is Miss Bettina Tradescant, isn’t it?’

  She swung round. ‘Can’t stop. Got to dash.’ She spoke in a hoarse contralto voice.

  ‘My name is Payne. I am—um—a friend of your brother’s.’

  ‘A friend of Seymour’s?’ She stopped short, an incredulous expression on her face.

  ‘I don’t think we have met before—’

  ‘Did you say “Payne”?’

  ‘Yes. Major Payne. I believe we are distantly related.’

  She took a step towards him. ‘Belinda de Broke married a Jack Payne. You are not—?’

  ‘That’s my mama,’ Payne said with a smile.

  ‘You are Belinda’s boy? How lovely. I knew your mama.’ Her features softened. ‘Not terribly well, but I remember her. She had glamour. Glamour is terribly important, don’t you think?’

  ‘Absolutely. Your brother is still here, isn’t he?’

  ‘You want to see Seymour?’ Her hand gripped her loose ring. ‘I am afraid you can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She licked her lips. Her tongue was very pale. ‘Nobody is allowed to go
anywhere near Seymour’s room. He is unwell, or so it is claimed. It’s all very hush-hush. He has issued a strict injunction not to be disturbed. That’s what the bearded fool told me. Complete rot. Chap known as “the Master”. I personally think that Seymour is dead.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Payne asked lightly.

  ‘That’s the reason I came, actually. To check. I find I am frequently misunderstood. Most people are fools, have you noticed? I haven’t been able to get down to any work today. That’s the effect the chill has on me.’

  ‘The chill?’ I am in the presence of an eccentric, he thought.

  ‘Nag, nag, nag. Here.’ She touched her bosom. ‘As though I’ve swallowed an ice-cube that’s refusing to melt. Though it starts here.’ She now touched the back of her head. ‘It’s been like that ever since I was a girl. The bane of my life. Each time Seymour had a nosebleed, I had one too. Frightful bore. Funnily enough, it never happened the other way round, if you know what I mean, so people used to suspect me of fibbing.’

  ‘Is that the twin thing? You and your brother are twins, of course.’

  ‘I am so glad you understand. Your mother was always kind to me. Once I threw myself down the big staircase at Tradescant Hall. I did it quite on purpose. I must have been about thirteen. That’s the age a girl becomes a woman.’ Bettina sniffed. ‘I was so innocent, so trusting, so full of hope. I was blue all over. I wanted to see if Seymour would get mysterious bruises, the way the cognoscenti claim, but he didn’t. Oh, never mind. Fussing like an old hen, so annoying. Cluck-cluck-cluck. I mean the Master. Have you ever met the Master of Mayholme Manor?’

  ‘No. I haven’t had the pleasure.’

  ‘Pleasure doesn’t come into it. I am afraid I lost my temper with him. Gloriously garbed, I must say. Looks like somebody who attended the Paris conference in 1918. I can forgive a true original almost anything.’ Her restless eyes fixed on the bowler in Payne’s hands. ‘No, not black. Please, not black. You will look good in a grey bowler. Have you ever worn a grey bowler?’

  ‘I have. Ages ago. Which one is Sir Seymour’s room?’

  ‘No idea. If I were you I’d go away. You’d be wasting your time. Abandon hope all ye—’ She broke off. ‘Terrible place. Gives me the creeps. Heaven knows what Seymour saw in it. The only thing I liked was the radiator. Sealing-wax red. It’s got hold of my imagination. Oh—and the orange habits. Glorious gorgeous orange!’ Bettina Tradescant sang out as she walked briskly in the direction of the car park.

  Payne entered the flagstoned hall. It felt so chilly that he shivered. There was a musty monastic smell too. One almost expected to see coffers containing old bones. What was wrong with Sir Seymour? Was he really dead? Bettina seemed to think so. Bettina had spoken of her brother in the past tense. Twins, eh? As a matter of fact, Bettina Tradescant looked like Sir Seymour in drag. What if—? No—too fanciful for words! He should be ashamed of himself.

  The hall was bare apart from a console table made of black marble and what looked like a font. A tall obelisk-like vase containing mauve gladioli stood on the console table. The windows were narrow and had a sucked-in, religious kind of shape, imparting to the whole area the appearance of a Victorian church.

  One whole wall was taken up by an ancient frieze showing monks wearing orange habits. The monks were kneeling and they all had ecstatic expressions on their faces. They were holding their hands up in adulation of what looked like a spaceship descending from the sky. The spaceship was bubble-shaped and transparent and inside it stood a figure. Payne stared. Good lord. The chap, if a chap indeed was what he was, had no head. Can’t be a spaceship—some aura-like thing, surely? Perhaps there had been a head once but it had been erased by Time?

  That old fraud Erich von Däniken would be interested in seeing this, Payne decided. Von Däniken’s book—an international bestseller in the ’70s, if he remembered correctly—made the claim that Greek gods were in fact extraterrestrial beings who had arrived on the planet Earth thousands of years ago. Von Däniken had referred to the writings of the ancients, including Aristotle, to prove that gods interbred with humans, performed genetic experiments, and bred ‘mythical’ creatures, such as centaurs and Cyclops. The oracular site of Delphi was apparently an aircraft refuelling station. Jason’s pursuit of the golden fleece was in fact a search for an essential aircraft component.

  Payne’s thoughts turned once more to Bettina Tradescant’s strange goat’s eyes, suffering lips and female-impersonator’s voice. Bettina claimed to possess the telepathic twin thing. One twin always knows when something awful happens to the other … Parapsychology … Was it all nonsense?

  Father Ronald Knox had decreed against twins in his famous decalogue for detective story writing. Rule number ten—Twins and doubles must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them. Bettina’s relevance to the plot might not go beyond providing the usual exotic obfuscation. Well, this was not a detective story and if there was a twin sister, there was a twin sister, and absolutely nothing could be done about it.

  ‘May I help you, sir?’

  Payne turned round. A man in a monk’s habit. Early forties, short cropped hair, perfectly ordinary features. One of the stewards. So they did wear monks’ habits!

  ‘Oh, hello. I am a friend of Sir Seymour Tradescant’s. Would you be kind enough to direct me to his room?’

  ‘You will need to talk to the Master first, sir. Would you like me to escort you to the Master’s study?’

  ‘Is Sir Seymour ill?’ Payne asked as he followed the steward up a flight of flagstoned steps.

  ‘Sir Seymour hasn’t been feeling very well.’

  Did that mean Sir Seymour had been poisoned after all? Sometimes people didn’t die, only became ill …

  Payne noticed that the hood hanging on the back of the steward’s habit was rather large, twice the size of the chap’s head. ‘Do you ever put your hood up? If you don’t mind me asking.’

  ‘We rarely put our hoods up outdoors, sir, and never indoors,’ the steward explained. ‘It would be against the regulations.’ His otherwise neutral tone held a touch of asperity.

  12

  The Bafflement of the Elusive Baronet

  ‘How very interesting. Most gratifying too, of course—though, if you don’t mind me saying so, Major Stratton, I am a little puzzled. Major Payne. So sorry. Ha-ha. We used to get regular visits from a Major Stratton at one time. A most remarkable fellow. There have already been two histories of Mayholme Manor. I’ve got them both …’ The Master waved his hand towards the carved and highly coloured group of heavy panels, vaguely Burmese in style, which, Payne imagined, concealed bookshelves filled with vellum-bound volumes. Earlier on the Master had referred to this massive freak of fancy as his petit cosy-corner chinois.

  ‘I am certainly familiar with the previous two books.’ Payne executed a stiff nod. Before setting off that afternoon he had done some research on the net. ‘One by Lofthouse, the other by Smithers. Both privately published.’

  ‘Magnificent editions. Gold-embossed. Lavishly illustrated. A joy to handle.’

  ‘But not to read?’ Payne was sitting on what he believed to be a sham Louis XVI canapé in grey painted wood.

  ‘To read too! Oh. Ha-ha. You have reservations about Lofthouse and Smithers?’

  ‘Tout au contraire. I regard those two books as absolute triumphs of the embalmer’s art.’

  ‘I fear the weather is letting us down, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Most decidedly.’

  ‘I fear there will be a storm. Coffee. Let’s have coffee, shall we?’ The Master rose. ‘I do hope you will find my coffee no worse than modestly meritorious.’

  The Master’s study had tall windows, improbably draped with enormous velvet curtains, abundantly tasselled and overlooking the smoothest shaven lawn imaginable. Payne’s eyes lingered on its razor-trimmed edges enviously. A showcase lawn. Where did the money come from? Donations from grateful brothers?

  A gigantic clock made o
f dark ebony stood in one corner, its pendulum swinging to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous sound. There was also a Regency armoire, which Payne suspected was only the façade for a well-stocked bar.

  The Master poured coffee out of a silver Queen Anne pot. He handed the cup over to his visitor with a ceremonious gesture, then he poured a second one for himself.

  ‘Sugar? No?’

  The Master was dressed in a charcoal-grey frock coat and wore a waistcoat the colour of port wine and a cravat striped red and black. His silver beard ended in a sharp point. His gestures could only be described as ‘courtly’. He looks and sounds as sham as the canapé on which I am sitting, Payne thought. Very much like a character actor playing a part. Modestly meritorious indeed. How long did the fellow take to groom his beard each morning?

  ‘I always imagined our establishment was of a somewhat esoteric interest,’ the Master went on. ‘That’s why I can’t help being a little surprised. Do you believe you will have anything new to say?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have made a couple of rather curious discoveries. The original name of the frieze in the hall downstairs, for example.’ Until quarter of an hour ago Payne had had no idea such a frieze existed.

  ‘It’s already got a name.’ An impatient note crept into the Master’s voice. ‘The Vision of St Adolphus.’

  ‘That name was given much later. At least a hundred years later. Initially the frieze was called The Dreadful Holiness of the Groaning Bubble.’ Payne had been a little unsettled by the mad-eyed monks and the headless figure and this now was his revenge. Reductio ad absurdum. Make the bloody thing appear as silly as possible. Burst the bloody bubble. ‘I came across it in a thirteenth-century document. Fascinating stuff. Made my hair stand on end. You had no idea?’

  ‘No. The groaning bubble? Why groaning?’

  ‘It’s a literal translation from Latin.’ Payne took a sip of coffee.

  ‘Bartholomew Lofthouse makes no mention of an earlier name.’