make it slightly difficult to concentrate.
Although it is after ten A.M., I have only just finished breakfast, having risen disgracefully late and with a slight hangover. For this I entirely blame Terry, of whose disgraceful behaviour I am about to give full particulars: really, I don’t know what carpenters are coming to nowadays.
He arrived yesterday evening at about seven and readily agreed to go out to dinner rather than eat at the flat. What I had envisaged was a modest meal at one of the cafes in the
It was in a narrow side street a few minutes’ walk away, behind the sort of unassuming frontage which in France so often conceals a restaurant of some distinction. Inside, it was quite luxuriously furnished and decorated, in a quasi-Moorish style: thick carpets and silky draperies; divans round low circular tables in alcoves divided by carved wooden screens; brass lamps of the kind one might rub if one hoped to be given three wishes. At the end of the room, a piano and a small dais suggested that later in the evening some form of musical entertainment might be provided.
Rather to my alarm, the waiters all greeted Terry like a long-lost brother or nephew: the thing most likely to inspire such fond and enduring memories seemed to me to be a habit of reckless overtipping, which I feared I would be expected to emulate.
It also occurred to me that this might well be the same restaurant in which Sir Robert was taken ill in the summer. I decided not to risk the
I refrained throughout the meal from any mention of bookcases. Terry was in an odd sort of mood, one moment excessively animated, the next despondent, so that I was reluctant to say anything which might depress his spirits. Besides, on the first evening of his holiday, I felt it would be unkind to reproach him. On the other hand, I thought it no more than polite to enquire about his plans for the refurbishment of Benjamin’s flat.
“Oh,” he said vaguely, “I’m thinking
But I was dismayed to observe that he spoke listlessly, with none of the enthusiasm which he used to show for such matters. I began to wonder if there were such a thing as carpenters’ block, like writers’ block, causing carpenters to be incapable of getting on with any work, and, if so, how long it might last.
So preoccupied was I with this question that I almost failed to notice the entry into the restaurant of the very people in whom I was so deeply interested — that is to say, Sir Robert Renfrew and his two codirectors, accompanied, of course, by Miss Tavistock.
For some reason — perhaps Lady Renfrew had objected to spending an evening hearing them talk business — they had evidently decided, like ourselves, to eat out. It was clear that Sir Robert was a known and valued customer: the headwaiter greeted him by name and deferentially conducted him with his guests to the table in the alcove next to ours.
I now felt no doubt at all that this was indeed the restaurant where he had suffered his attack of food poisoning last summer. It seemed likely, however, from the fact of his returning there, that he did not hold the restaurant to blame for it — presumably he is well aware that on that occasion he had not actually eaten anything. I even began to wonder, indeed, whether he himself suspected that one of his codirectors had had some hand in the business and was staging one of those reenactments of the crime which I believe are popular in detective fiction. I thought that if so he was being extremely foolhardy.
The new arrivals took no particular notice of Terry and myself. There was no reason why they should — apart from Sir Robert’s unfortunate collision with Terry a few months ago, which we all hope he has entirely forgotten, none of them had met either of us before. And since Terry was gossiping away with one of the waiters in fluent though ungrammatical French, they probably did not even realise that we were English.
In these circumstances I found that I was able — as of course you know, I would not dream of deliberate eavesdropping, but these carved screens do give an illusion of privacy and they were making no effort to lower their voices — that I was unable to avoid hearing a substantial part of their conversation. Moreover, when we had finished our main course Terry went off to the kitchen to say hello to the chef, who he said was an old friend of his, leaving me with nothing to distract me from it.
I gathered that Sir Robert had suddenly decided that morning that the time was ripe to proceed with a major acquisition which the Bank had for some time been considering on behalf of a client; he had summoned his fellow directors to Cannes with a view to taking action before the Christmas holiday. If I had known which company they were talking about, I might have managed to persuade myself that there would be nothing improper in having a modest flutter on it: but they all discreetly referred to it as “the target company,” rather than by name. Indeed, it appeared that before their arrival here neither Albany nor Bolton had known which company was to be the subject of discussion.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Chairman,” said Albany, sounding decidedly peevish, “it’s a pity you didn’t feel able to tell us before we left London which target you had in mind. We’d have found it helpful to check what we had on file about it — at least, I know I would.”
“Ah well,” said Bolton, in his pronounced Lancashire accent, “I dare say we’ve looked at this one often enough to know pretty well what’s what.”
“It’s a question of security,” said Sir Robert. “Once you start mentioning names on the telephone, you might as well make a public broadcast and have done with it.”
Still, it must have been a little disconcerting for them, like being at school and having an unexpected exam — particularly for Albany, who evidently remembered almost nothing about the company under discussion. His rival, on the other hand, despite the lack of preparation, seemed to have all the relevant details at his fingertips.
Becoming, as a result of this, increasingly illhumoured, Albany rather forgot himself. He began making remarks to Bolton which were close to being openly offensive, most inadequately disguised as the kind of jovial banter acceptable between friends and colleagues. For example, after Bolton had asked some question about the meaning of something on the menu: “I say, Bolton, old chap, don’t you find it a bit of a bore not knowing any French? Why don’t you go on one of those courses?
“Nowt wrong with plain, old-fashioned English, in my opinion. It were good enough for old Bill Shakespeare, weren’t it? And he were a great writer — or so they tell me.”
“So most educated people seem to think. But I suppose they didn’t go in for literature much at that college of yours at — where was it? Sorry, I always forget — Birmingham, was it?”
“It were Worcester — bit southwest of Birmingham. Oh aye, there were a few lads there that studied poetry and such, but I wanted summat that would help me make a bit of brass.”
Even without the possibility of anyone being poisoned, I could hardly imagine, in such an atmosphere, that any of them was having a very agreeable evening. It must have been rather a relief to them when the lights, already low, were dimmed still further, the pianist took his place at the piano and the patron stepped forward to tell us that we were to have the inestimable privilege of hearing
Whether Madame Zingara had any just claim to be described as beautiful it was impossible to tell: one had an impression merely of a tall, slim woman with a mass of dark hair and wearing more than enough makeup to conceal any defects of complexion. She was swathed in some kind of white, gauzy material, draped round her in the manner of a sari or toga. Inasmuch as it completely covered her from neck to ankle, one might have considered it a rather decorous garment; but the undulating movement of her hips and shoulders somehow made it look as if it were continuously in the process of slithering to the ground, so that the actual effect was rather the reverse.
When she began to sing, however, her voice was unexpectedly attractive: a husky contralto with a touch of harshness, not of course in the class of Lenya or Mercouri but more than acceptable for delivering the same songs. So we had “Surabaya Johnny” and “Banal” and several others of that sort, mainly on the theme of overtrusting women deserted by heartless lovers. These were interspersed with songs of a rather different type, all unfamiliar to me and in the highest degree improper: from what I understood of them, which was rather less than half, I was extremely glad of my inability to understand the rest. The audience, however, seemed to find them amusing: they were greeted with much laughter and enthusiastic applause.
I felt a certain uneasiness, while all this was going on, about those in the adjoining alcove. The conditions were rather worryingly suitable, if one really believed Albany or Bolton to be capable of such a thing, for putting something unwholesome in someone’s coffee cup. Still, there was nothing I could do about it. So far as I could tell, nothing untoward occurred save for Bolton suffering a fit of coughing and Albany, with manifestly insincere
