The man in the hat looked startled but said nothing.
The roadsweeper said to the newspaper seller, ‘What did I tell you, sarge? Too many cooks.’
The newspaper seller replied: ‘You got me wrong, mate, I’m just a poor bloke makin’ a few coppers wiv the old pypers.’
‘Oh, right,’ said the roadsweeper. ‘Sorry, mate.’
The man with the clockwork spiders came up and said to the newspaper seller, ‘What’s up, sarge?’
The newspaper seller took no notice.
The man in the hat stared at them all.
Moon said, ‘Are you policemen?’
The newspaper seller laughed bronchially and spat.
‘Hee-hee-hee, didja hear that? Me, five years in the Ville, ten years on the Moor, and ‘e thinks I’m a rozzer!’
‘Hee-hee-hee,’ laughed the roadsweeper.
‘Hee-hee-hee,’ laughed the man with the spiders. ‘What a most comical idea!’
The man in the hat walked backwards a few paces and hurried away.
Moon rang the bell. The front door opened and Birdboot in his livery looked down on them all.
‘Right, clear off,’ he commanded. ‘His lordship will not have the dregs of society hanging about his gate like a lot of beggars.’ He paused and gazed searchingly at the newspaper seller. ‘And that goes for you too, Sergeant Harris.’
Moon said to Birdboot, ‘Good morning, I’ve come to see Lord Malquist, by appointment.’
‘Very good, sir, would you care to come in?’
He let Moon into the house and closed the door.
‘His lordship is not in but is expected back. May I take your coat?’
Moon allowed his overcoat to be lifted off his shoulders. The bomb thumped against the hatstand as Birdboot hung the coat up.
‘Would you like to wait in the library, sir?’
Birdboot opened the door and closed it behind Moon. A man who had been asleep in one of the leather armchairs started up and got to his feet holding a briefcase which he had been hugging to his stomach.
‘Forgive me, my lord,’ he said. ‘I must have dropped off – ah, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you before…’
‘Moon,’ said Moon. ‘How do you do?’
‘Good morning, my lord. Fitch, secretary to Sir Mortimer.’
He was a small frail man with wisps of grey hair streaking his scalp. He shook hands with Moon.
‘I’ll come to the point at once, my lord-the situation is grave. The finance company have cast certain doubts on our securities and want to withdraw their investment. I need hardly tell you where this would leave the estate. Sir Mortimer and I came over at once but I’m afraid he sends his apologies as he had a dinner engagement.
‘Breakfast,’ corrected Moon mildly.
‘Last night, my lord – I’ve been here all night.’
‘Oh, I see. Sorry. Incidentally, I don’t—’
‘The fact is my lord, the money simply doesn’t exist. I have the papers with me if you would care to see them. Sir Mortimer wishes me to say that his warnings have been frequent and ignored and that he would never have sanctioned your withdrawals had you consulted—’
‘Well, it’s nothing to do with me,’ said Moon.
‘My lord—’
‘Moon,’ said Moon. ‘My name is Moon.’
Fitch stared at him.
‘I was under the impression that you were Lord Malquist.’
‘Oh,’ said Moon. ‘Were you? I thought you were under the impression I was Lord Moon.’
‘If you permit me to say so, my lord, it was remiss of you to let me speak confidentially when you must have realised that I had mistaken you-an honest mistake-you for—’
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ Moon said. His stupidity seemed barely explicable. ‘As I say, I mistook the emphasis of your error – I thought you thought I was a lord, not the lord, so to speak, and it didn’t seem important enough to—’ He realised he was gabbling.
This is absurd. What am I doing here with a pocketful of tick-tick-tick-tick-tick (and how many ticks to a bang?) – I should be – where?
Fitch sat down. Moon decided to leave. He needed a remark to get him to the door but he couldn’t think of one, and stood uncertainly against the bookcase like a stranded actor denied the release of an exit because it would be purely arbitrary. He set off round the room (casually trailing an index finger along the wall to dispel the feeling of acting out a move) and (having failed to dispel it) stopped by the desk with a sudden show of interest faked for the benefit of the audience. After a few seconds he realised he was reading a list of names handwritten on a loose sheet of paper. He read:
Hansom
Brougham
Boycott
Wellington
Raglan
Cardigan
Sandwich
Mac Adam??
Spooner (ism)
He saw that this was the end of a list that stretched back onto another sheet underneath. There was also a thicker wad of manuscript squared neatly with the corner of the desk, the top page numbered 43, and on the exact centre of the gilt-tooled red leather desk-top was page 44 ending in mid-sentence a few lines down. Turning back for a moment to Act II Scene 2, he read, there is a due concern for literal relevance and metric quality in ‘Her Privates We’ (F. Manning, Davies, 1930), though possibly with not quite the effect of C. Hare’s choice, ‘With a Bare Bodkin’ (Faber & Faber, 1946). This line – it occurs in Act III Scene 1 – has an alliterative weight but is perhaps weakened by the esoteric nature of its noun, which many people take to mean a yokel or some kind of waistcoat. The same speech is the source of a great many ambiguities, as when we find ‘Mortal Coils’ (A. Huxl
That the page ended in mid-word disturbed Moon to the point where he caught himself looking round for a pen to complete it. Huxl made him nervous, it stopped time. Marie-celestial Huxl, he thought, and then it occurred to him that Lord Malquist must have reached this point in his book when he had arrived for tea that day; yesterday. The recognition of time so compressed sent a shock-wave through him.
Fitch was sitting broken-necked with his eyes closed and his mouth open. Moon nodded at him for security and walked quickly into the hall, closing the library door. He lifted his coat off the hat-stand and opened the front door. A police car was just drawing up.
Moon stood on the doorstep feeling quite calm. A uniformed police inspector got out from the back of the car and held the door open. (The roadsweeper swept with ostentatious diligence, the newspaper seller watched out of the corner of his eye, and the hawker of clockwork spiders saluted.) A woman neither old nor young came carefully out of the car, barefoot, carrying a single shoe.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said.
‘Not at all, Ma’am.’
The inspector touched the peak of his cap and got back into the car which drove off round the corner.
Moon stared down at her, and she looked back tiredly with a certain beauty that held itself intact from the dissolution of years and the corrosion of the night. Her legs were heavy but long and skirted just above the knees which were parted to stretch the hem tight. Despite the cold, her tweed coat was caped loosely over her wide shoulders, unbuttoned against deep breasts, collar upturned to wall in her untidy dark hair.
Moon held the door open.
‘Good morning, Lady Malquist.’
‘Oh God, is it morning?’ – a whisky voice and a rueful stretch of her wide lips.
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘I knew it was really. I was just dramatising the occasion of my coming out of jail.’
They stepped into the hall and Moon closed the door.
‘I’m Lord Malquist’s um, secretary.’
‘Boswell.’
‘Well, yes. Moon.’
‘He told me.’
She looked at him amused, then closed her eyes as though in pain.
‘Hrrrgh. My hangovers are straight out of the Book of Revelations.’
> Birdboot appeared mysteriously from behind the stairs.
‘Good morning, my lady. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your ring.’
‘It’s all right, Mr Moon let me in. Is his lordship abroad, that is to say at home, that is to say up?’
‘His Lordship is expected home at any time, my lady.’
‘From where?’
‘From Hyde Park Police Station, my lady.’
‘Hyde Park! Don’t tell me he’s taken to importuning?’
‘His lordship telephoned late last night – I rather believe it was early this morning-to say that he had been apprehended on a boat on the Serpentine,’ said Birdboot.
‘What precisely was he doing on a boat on the Serpentine in the middle of the night?’
‘Punting, I understand, my lady.’
‘I don’t get it, Birdboot,’ she said.
Moon felt that he had a contribution to make here, but realised it did not amount to an explanation.
Birdboot said, ‘You may recall that by Royal gift the earldom of Malquist includes the prerogative to shoot, trap or snare at all hours such of the wild birds that might inhabit or visit the non-tidal waters lying between Brixton and Muswell Hill, to which end Lord Malquist is in possession of a key to the Alexandra Gate.’
‘I don’t believe there are any wild birds in Hyde Park, Birdboot.’
‘Possibly not, my lady. At any rate, the police officers claimed that his rights did not extend to boating after sunset. His lordship telephoned because he was unable to get hold of Sir Mortimer.’
‘Well, Sir Mortimer was at home an hour ago because I got hold of him.’
‘Yes, my lady,’ Birdboot said. ‘I finally succeeded in reaching Sir Mortimer not long afterwards. He informed me of your predicament, my lady.’
‘Curt, was he?’
‘Somewhat estranged, I felt.’
‘And when you passed on his lordship’s message?’
‘Sir Mortimer took it rather badly, my lady. However he gave me to understand that he would take steps to secure his lordship’s release. He said it would be for the last time, and asked me to tell his lordship so.’
‘Bad form, Birdboot, leaving messages with butlers and all that. Still, I’m afraid we do rather use the old boy. Anything else of note?’
Birdboot coughed by way of apology.
‘I note that Sergeant Harris of the Special Branch and two constables have been stationed outside the house since early this morning, acting independently of Hyde Park Police Station.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know, my lady, but I fancy there may be a connection with a report I noticed in this morning’s Times, to the effect that a Mrs Hermione Cuttle was knocked down in Pall Mall yesterday evening by a runaway coach-and-pair.’
Moon gaped. That fat bundle dumped on the road, and the roll of paper spinning itself out across the street-the scene seemed to belong to a different incarnation and he could hardly believe that it should intrude into his life now. ‘She had a petition,’ he said but apparently not aloud for they took no notice of him. He stared at the wall and in his mind the bundle did not crawl any more.
He heard the change in Lady Malquist’s voice.
‘Was she all right?’
‘I’m afraid she was killed, my lady.’
Pause. Moon looked at her face and the real emotion on it shocked him. It seemed so long since he had been exposed to anything so real.
‘Was she married?’
‘Yes, my lady. I understand her husband—’
‘Did she have any children?’ she asked impatiently.
‘No, my lady.’
She turned away, and back, and her voice changed back. ‘Is there any food in the house?’
‘Very little, my lady. Harrods have ceased deliveries again.’
‘Oh dear. Perhaps Sir Mortimer might arrange something with them.’
‘I have informed him, my lady.’
‘All right, Birdboot. Would you send Esme up.’
Birdboot coughed again.
‘I’m afraid both Mr and Mrs Trevor left our service yesterday.’
‘They said they’d give us another week.’
‘And Mrs Minton left this morning. I shall endeavour to do the cooking today myself though perhaps without Mrs Minton’s skill, my lady.’
She pulled down her wide lips into a grimace of affection at the butler and Moon was surprised by a shaft of jealousy. I’ll cook for you! Name it and I’ll—
‘Things seem to be coming to a head, Birdboot.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘All right then. Thank you.’
‘Thank you, my lady.’
Exit Butler.
MOON (falling to his knees and feverishly kissing Lady Malquist’s hands): My dear Lady Malquist, I pray you dry your sweet tears and put your trust in my faithful service for I would die ere—
‘Would you do something for me, Mr Moon?’
‘I pray you – I – of course …’
She moved to the stairs.
‘The drink is in the pantry in a locked cupboard the key of which is behind Fenner’s Piscator Felix in the library. It is a large book the colour of brandy and pink champagne mixed, and I have mixed them in my time. Thank you.’
With her hand on the banister post she looked back at him with a worn smile that looted Moon of all his love.
‘It is a fishing book.’
She went up two more stairs and turned again.
‘Please don’t drop the bottle. It cost five pounds including information.’
Moon watched her until she reached the top of the stairs but she did not look down any more.
Fitch was still asleep, and this time he did not wake when Moon opened the library door. It took him several minutes to find the book. As he searched he was aware of an excitement which he had not felt since a particular summer’s day on a river bank when a teasing honey-haired child with lascivious hips ordered him to garland her with daisy chains and surprised him with a kiss as hard as teeth.
The key was a small brass one. Moon took it and replaced the book. He went quietly out of the library. Fitch looked worried even in sleep.
Behind the stairs he found a door that looked unprepossessing enough to lead to the servants’ quarters. He went through and found himself in a stone-flagged passage. The second door on the left was the kitchen. Birdboot was ironing The Times.
‘Hello,’ Moon said. ‘Where’s the pantry?’
‘May I be of any assistance, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Moon. ‘Where’s the pantry?’
‘Across the corridor, sir.’
Moon opened the door opposite. A cell of stone shelves. He found the locked cupboard and inserted the key.
‘Excuse me, sir, his lordship has given me certain instructions—’
‘Come, come, Birdboot, I too have certain instructions, I am instructed up to the eyeballs, so let us have a little less of the pursing of the lips and a little more unlocking of the juice, what?’
Good grief, Wooster to the life. His mind had contracted and cleared like muddy water turning into ice. He felt hysterical with happiness.
A whisky bottle, nearly full, was the only thing in the cupboard. Moon picked it up, smiled up at the great stone face of the butler and started to leave.
‘If I may suggest, sir, perhaps it would be advisable to re-lock the cupboard and replace the key.’
‘Good thinking, Birdboot. Cover up the tracks, what? The key resides in the library behind Piscator Felix, a fishing book by a chappie whose name will be engraved on my forehead as soon as I can recollect it.’
‘Fenner, sir. The Reverend Godolphus Fenner, a clergyman of the early Victorian age.’
‘The very same, Birdboot.’
And flashing the old retainer one of my sunnier smiles I legged it upstairs with the water of life clutched to my bosom, and grinning like a golden retriever coming back to base with the first pheasant of the season.
At the top of the first flight of stairs was a pair of large double doors painted cream with gilt mouldings. Moon remembered passing them on his way up to Lord Malquist’s dressing-room on his first visit. He opened them to a narrow gap and saw himself in a mirror opposite, looking at himself through a gap in a large pair of double doors painted lilac. The walls were lilac coloured too, with many paintings including portraits, presumably ancestral. It was a big rectangular room with tall windows, and pretty chairs, couches and tables placed without focal point on an oriental carpet. There was a chandelier, several lamps and two ornate fireplaces at the two furthest ends of the room. It smelled clean and cold.
Moon closed the doors and went up to the second floor. The upstairs hall was a hollow square bordering the stairwell. He remembered that Lord Malquist’s dressing-room had been round the corner to the left. He knocked on the nearest door and heard Lady Malquist call out. He went in and found himself in a nursery.
It was a small pretty room with a mahogany Empire cot tented with white muslin, a nursing chair upholstered in apricot velvet, a basketweave bassinet, a sewing box painted with flowers, an empty whisky bottle, a very beautiful rocking horse and a sad brown monkey that stared at Moon with blind button eyes. Everything smelled new as in a shop. There was no baby.
Moon backed out of the nursery, bumping into Lady Malquist who was holding open the door of the next room. She had undressed and was wearing a red towelled robe tightly belted.
‘Not in there, Mr Moon.’ She smiled at him, opened her mouth wide and pointed her finger into it. ‘In here.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Would you like to come in a minute – the house seems so empty and I don’t like being by myself and I don’t know what to – perhaps a bath will make me sleepy.’
He followed her into the bedroom which was large and white, gilt-trimmed, lemon-draped, and dominated by a four-poster bed which, white, gilded and draped, seemed like a miniature of the room itself. In the wall opposite were two French doors with mock balconies overlooking the street. To his right was a closed door leading to the nursery, and to his left two more doors, one open to black tiles and water-sounds. He recognised the bathroom from his previous visit, having glimpsed it from Lord Malquist’s dressing-room (the other side of the closed door).
‘My husband told me you were positively heroic the other day when his beastly lion got loose.’