Death of a Delft Blue

‘I concluded that Binnie’s parents would be too busy with the management of their hotels to come south again unless the news of Mr van Zestien’s health was even worse than it is, and Binnie would hardly come without them unless she was fully reconciled with Mr Bernardo Rose. That reconciliation, I gather, has not come about.’

‘It would, if only they could be brought together,’ said Sweyn. ‘You will like to visit my father after dinner? He will be pleased.’

They were taken to his room shortly after the meal was over. The old man’s breathing was a matter for concern and he seemed to find it difficult to speak. Fortunately there was very little he wanted to say. It was evident he had been told that Dame Beatrice had been asked to look for Florian.

‘Find him,’ he said, ‘and tell him that he is still a grandnephew of mine. He has done wrong, but please find him, if you can. I must punish him, but I love him very dearly.’

‘The Lord loveth whom He chasteneth,’ said Dame Beatrice absently. She took her leave, as she added, ‘We shall do our best, and will let you have news.’

She and Laura left North Norfolk immediately after breakfast on the following morning, lunched in Boston and dined and spent the night in Durham. Binnie’s parents not only owned but were the resident managers of a large hotel just north of Peebles on the road to Penicuik. It was their latest and most ambitious venture. Rooms for Laura and Dame Beatrice had been booked by telephone from Norfolk and Binnie herself was at the reception desk when they arrived. She greeted them effusively and begged them to stay ‘a good long time.’

‘But we’ve only booked for one night,’ said Laura, signing the book after Dame Beatrice had had it.

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter. We’re not full. It would be so nice to have you for a bit. I could take you out and show you the countryside, you know. We could go in to Peebles sometimes. There’s a big hydro. there where there’s dancing and all kinds of entertainment. I know the manager. He’s an awfully nice person. I’m only looking after the office here because I get so bored doing nothing. Look here, let me show you your rooms and so forth, and then you must join me for a cocktail and tell me all that’s been happening since I saw you last. Mac, dear,’ she added to the porter, who had been hovering over the travellers’ luggage, ‘numbers seven and eight.’ The porter went off and Dame Beatrice followed. Laura would have done the same, but Binnie detained her. ‘I say,’ she muttered, ‘why have you come?’

‘You’d better ask Dame B.,’ returned Laura.

‘So there is something behind your visit! I guessed as much when we got Uncle Derde’s telephone message booking the rooms for you. Is it — well, you might as well tell me — is it anything to do with Bernardo?’

‘No,’ said Laura, ‘it is not.’

‘I haven’t heard from him since we broke it off, you know. I do wish he’d write. Of course, he’s proud and obstinate and he expects me to be the one to give in, and I always have, but this time I don’t see why I should. After all, he did hit poor Florian. I think he ought to climb down and offer me back the ring. I’d take it soon enough, if only he’d make the first move. It’s rotten here, with none of my friends, and Mummy and Daddy always so busy and, anyway, almost strangers to me.’

‘Hard luck,’ said Laura automatically. She got away and mounted the stairs. The porter was waiting to point out her room. Laura tipped him and walked over to the window. There was a fine view of the hills surrounding Peebles and Laura felt, with Binnie, that it was a pity to be making merely an overnight stay. She bathed and changed and then tapped on the door of number seven. Dame Beatrice was ready to go downstairs.

‘Binnie seems under the weather about her broken engagement,’ remarked Laura. ‘Which of them do you suppose ought to make the first move? Dashed if I would, if Gavin and I had a row of that sort, but perhaps she was a bit precipitate, chucking the ring at Bernardo like that. Of course, nobody wants to see a brother get manhandled, I suppose. All the same, she herself went for him later and blamed him for the broken engagement.’

‘Do you and our dear Robert ever quarrel?’ asked Dame Beatrice, interested because she had never thought of this before.

‘Oh, yes, of course we do. It isn’t healthy not to. We fight like fiends — literally — and then it always strikes us as funny and we begin to laugh. It’s ever such a good scrap while it lasts and we both enjoy it lots, but once you’ve laughed you’ve had it. Such a pity! I do love a really splendid maul.’

Dame Beatrice clucked sympathetically. Then she said,

‘I take it that Binnie knows nothing of Florian’s disappearance?’

‘I hardly think she does. She’s such a prattling, ingenuous little headache that she’d have babbled it out at once.’

Dame Beatrice agreed with this judgment and they went down to join Binnie in the cocktail lounge. She ordered, insisting that the drinks were on the house and therefore she would not have to pay for them, and then, when the drinks had been brought, she said:

‘Now, Dame Beatrice, do please tell me why you have come. Laura says it’s nothing to do with Bernardo, so I suppose it’s about Florian.’

‘What makes you think so?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Well, it couldn’t be about anybody else, unless Grand-uncle has gone and died, and I should have heard about that from Grandma Binnen or Uncle Derde, shouldn’t I?’

‘It is about Florian,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Your uncles would have come themselves, but it is imperative that they go up to their Universities quite soon, and so they felt that they could not spare the time for extensive travel.’

‘That’s a stock excuse of theirs if there’s any family hoo-ha on hand,’ said Binnie. ‘They’re typical dons. They simply loathe getting mixed up in anything except their own work. Uncle Sweyn is worse than Uncle Derde. Uncle D. does at least have some conscience about the family, but Uncle Sweyn is too utterly self-centred and unreliable.’

‘It is true that Professor Sweyn did not seem as concerned as Professor Derde,’ admitted Dame Beatrice.

‘Concerned? About Florian?’