I’m afraid, the state apartments are no more than a museum which in summer we open to the public. At other times they are merely an insuperable inconvenience to the poor inhabitants.’
‘Going round the clock… who lives where?’
‘Going round the clock, we have first the south-east wing, in which the tapissiers and the outdoor staff have their quarters — it has entry, you see, into the coach-houses and stabling, part of which has been turned into the tapestry workshop. Next at that end is the south-west wing where Mr Brass has rooms, and above him the indoor staff. In that wing are also the kitchens. Coming to this end, we have, first, the north-west wing, which is my cousin’s sacred domain, and second the north-east wing, in which we are now, and which Thomas and myself inhabit. In the usual way all meals are taken in the kitchen wing, but it was decided that over Christmas my own suite would be used, and so the yellow drawing room here was the scene of last night’s party. I trust you can find your way about now, Mr Gently?’
Gently nodded broodingly. He placed a stubby finger on the top of the great stairs.
‘That’s about equidistant from each of the four wings.’
‘The landing of the marble stairs is, I believe, the geometric centre of the house.’
‘In fact it’s the logical place for a rendezvous… don’t you think?’
Somerhayes said nothing, but his eyes never left Gently’s face.
‘We’ve got to ask ourselves why he went there — at that time of night. It isn’t just round the corner… see here, there’s four or five rooms to go through after you’ve left this wing, not to mention the gallery on the north side of the hall. What was he after, unless he’d arranged to meet someone?’
Somerhayes shook his head slowly. ‘I can suggest no reason…’
‘And what was the object of the meeting, which was presumably clandestine?’
Again the head shook, unhurriedly but with determination.
‘Gad, Gently, you’ve got something there,’ broke in Sir Daynes. ‘If the feller went to meet someone, must have been clandestine. D’you think he was a bad ’un, and this tapestry fal-de-lal was just a blind?’
‘Be a good way of getting in, sir,’ put in Dyson, with interest.
‘Damn it, yes — confounded clever. And not above some of the johnnies we’ve had to deal with.’
It was Gently’s head that was shaking now. ‘He comes from a US camp, you know…’
‘That’s just the point, man,’ exclaimed Sir Daynes. ‘Who’s going to check his credentials, when he turns up at an Air Force lecture? Feller’s genuine — take him at his face value — and all the time he’s a crook, infiltrating his way into a country house. It’s been done before, I tell you. There’s no end to the tricks these johnnies get up to.’
‘But surely they’d know their own officers at the camp?’
‘Not necessarily — not at Sculton. Place is a staging-post, men in and out the whole time. And the whole business fits in… You’ve got a motive there to play with. Feller lets his accomplice into the house, say — they quarrel about the division of the loot — accomplice fetches him one with the truncheon, and clears off sharp without touching anything. There you are, man, in a nutshell. Answer to the whole confounded mystery.’
Gently shrugged his bulky shoulders. ‘Just one minor objection. Did they happen to know who you were talking about when you phoned Sculton Camp this morning?’
Sir Daynes gave him the look he usually reserved for defaulting constables…
They could get little more out of Somerhayes. For the benefit of the record he repeated his description of the finding of the body, of his suspicion about the injury, of the search he had made with Thomas, and the subsequent phoning of the police and Sir Daynes. And all the time Gently had the curious impression that he had been constituted as some sort of special audience, that he was a gallery to whom Somerhayes was playing. But why? And with what object? — the circumstances remained a mystery. Somerhayes’s last look, like his first, was an unclassifiable smile aimed at the man from the Central Office.
‘Hmp!’ grunted Sir Daynes, as the door closed behind his lordship. ‘What do you make of it all, Gently, what do you make of it? Can’t say I like the way things are shaping — damn feller Somerhayes doesn’t seem to realize his position.’
‘He was the last person to-’ Dyson was beginning complacently, but he discreetly ended there as he caught the expression on the baronet’s face.
‘Confound the man!’ Sir Daynes turned to stare gloomily into the fire. ‘What a blasted kettle of fish to turn up on a Christmas Day, eh? I feel like a drink… I feel like some of that 1905 cognac.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Leslie Brass, dressed in green Harris tweed with a red line, seemed to bring a current of vitality with him into the room, which Somerhayes had chilled and enervated. One only had to catch a glimpse of his strong features with their Semitic nose and twinkling green eyes to be impressed by a feeling of warmth and energy — the ginger beard suited Brass; it seemed to grow out of his personality like an overplus of good spirits. When he sat down, the chair creaked under his massive but boyish frame.
‘Leslie Edward Brass, thirty-seven, artist — this isn’t the first time I’ve given the police my particulars! — late of Kensington, W8, now of Merely Place, Northshire — servants’ wing, if you want to be precise.’
Nothing was going to make this serious for Brass. He grinned irreverently at the whole of the set-up. Policemen might impress the bourgeois, but from Brass they just bounced off — his piratical spirits surrounded him like an envelope of India rubber.
‘What do you want to know — if I did for our young friend?’
Dyson tried to quell him with a might-take-you- at-your — word look, but it was a pure waste of talent.
‘We’d like you to tell us what you know of the deceased, Mr Brass, and everything you can remember about last night.’
‘I can tell you straight away that I’ve got nothing for you.’
‘We’d like it in the form of a statement, sir, if you don’t mind.’
Brass didn’t mind. He was a born raconteur. Without further prompting, he launched into a racy account of his meeting with Earle at the Sculton lecture, of his amusement at the young man’s gaucherie and enthusiasm, of the American’s impact on the small, closed world of the Place.
‘My trained seals didn’t know what to make of him at first — he spent half his time chasing the females, and the other half telling us how to weave tapestry. Lucky for him he was a natural charm-boy. We could have hated his guts if he hadn’t been. But he soon found out he didn’t know much, and he never minded admitting it. Had ’em all eating from his hand, he did, by the time he’d spent a couple of days with us. And as I’ve said before, many a time, he had some real, hard talent in him. If I could have kept him with me a few years, the name of Earle would have meant something in the dovecotes. But he wouldn’t have stopped over here, so it didn’t signify. He’d got some wild ideas about setting up a tapestry workshop in the States, as though you could learn tapestry in five minutes — then he’d got another idea about transplanting me to Carpetville, Missouri. The kid was full of notions. It’s a pity they’ve gone to pot.’
‘Feller never had a quarrel with any of the whatd ’you- call-’ems — tapissiers?’ enquired Sir Daynes from over his commandeered cognac.
Brass made a gesture with his white, conical fingers.
‘You couldn’t quarrel with a kid like that. He had a born sweetness of disposition. You could rib the lights out of him — I often did — and he’d never dream of taking offence. As far as he was concerned, it was a world without malice. You could club his feelings as somebody clubbed his head, and he would just think it one hell of a lark.’
‘Mmn.’ Sir Daynes didn’t seem to favour the parallel. ‘You can’t suggest anyone who might have had it in for him?’
‘Not a soul, I’d say. Unless it was Hugh Johnson.’
‘Johnson? Who’s he?’
‘A Welsh griffin we’ve got in our outfit. But don’t make a mistake — Johnson wouldn’t have brained the kid. He was just a bit sore because Earle put his nose out of joint. Johnson’s a fine designer, and I’ve been grooming him for stardom. Then Earle came along and I spent a lot of time on him, as a result of which dear Hugh decided to be huffy.’
