The house was full of noise, most of it emanating from Herewaid Fielding's sitting-room. Dalziel met Bonnie in the hall. She looked exasperated but her face lit up when she saw him. He did not know what he had done to cause this reaction but felt himself basking in the glow.
'There you are!' she said.
'I went for a walk,' he explained.
'We'll have to do something about that surplus energy,' she said. 'These people have arrived; you know, the award people. But Herrie's throwing another tantrum. I used to think Conrad was the world champion, but he was minor country stuff compared with this. Do you think you could speak to him?'
'Me?' said Dalziel. 'You must be joking! I'm not even good with animals. Besides I don't know what the old bugg – fellow is talking about half the time.'
'That's part of your charm,' said Bonnie. 'He mentioned you at lunch today, said it was nice to have someone safe and ordinary about the place for a change. I know it's a liberty, but if you could just let him know you think it's daft to turn down good money, he might take some notice.'
Dalziel let himself be led into the sitting-room, the whiles considering safe and ordinary. They were not adjectives many of his acquaintance would have applied to him, he thought. But safe in particular was an interesting choice for the old man to make. The room seemed crowded with people, all gathered round the bay window in which, looking both defiant and trepid, stood Fielding. Dalziel's expert eye categorized the onlookers in a trice. The family and the other residents were there, of course. In addition there were two men in athletic middle age and well cut grey suits, wearing such similarly cast serious expressions that differences of feature were eliminated and they might have been brothers. They also might have been gang leaders, astronauts, presidential aides or Mormon PR men, but they were unmistakably American. Alongside them preserving the symmetry of the tableau were two equally unmistakably Englishmen (it's something about the eyes, decided Dalziel) who had had the misfortune to turn up, presumably without premeditation, in identical off-white corduroy suits. They looked as if they were part of an advertising campaign for spaghetti, thought Dalziel. One was balding rapidly but wore his hair so long at the back that it seemed as if the weight of it had merely pulled his forehead up over his crown. Associated with him was a pop-eyed girl, festooned with the impedimenta of photography and wearing a light green tunic which matched her chosen make-up. The other spaghetti man was presumably the radio interviewer for no one else could so impassively have ignored the comments and questions of a small negro with hornrimmed spectacles who was fiddling apparently haphazardly with a large tape-recorder.
'Let's all have a drink, shall we?' said Bonnie in her best no-nonsense voice. No one, Dalziel noticed with approval, attempted to breach Herrie's well fortified drink cupboard, but Tillotson disappeared and returned almost immediately with a laden tray, which must have been prepared for just such an emergency. Pausing only to seize two large glasses of scotch, Dalziel joined the old man.
'You drinking?' he asked, glancing at the almost empty brandy balloon which stood on the window sill. 'Well, sup up and try this.'
'You're still here,' stated Fielding with a scornful surprise. But he took the drink.
'Aye,' said Dalziel. 'I only start enjoying parties when I've outstayed my welcome.'
'I'm sorry. I had no right to be rude,' said Fielding, suddenly contrite.
'Don't apologize for Christ's sake,' said Dalziel. 'Once you start that game, you never can stop. I've no right to tell you to take this sodding money, but I'm going to. Why don't you want it?'
'It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing,' protested Fielding, raising his voice so that the others could hear him. 'All these people can talk about is Westminster Bridge which I published in 1938. They seem to imagine I've written nothing since then.'
'Keep your voice down,' said Dalziel grimly. 'All you want to worry about writing now is cheques. Don't give me this point of principle crap. What's the matter with the money?'
Hereward Fielding glared at him with an air of indignation approaching the apoplectic. Dalziel began to feel that his excursion into diplomacy was going to be as unsuccessful as it had been uncharacteristic. But now the old man's face paled to a less hectic hue and he said in a low conversational tone, 'Money's not everything.'
Dalziel sensed that this banal assertion was not a mere continuation of the hurt pride debate.
'A thousand quid's two hundred bottles of good brandy,' he said reasonably. 'That's a lot of drinking.'
'Which needs a lot of time,' mused Fielding. 'It's your considered opinion, is it, Dalziel, that I would have this time?'
It was an odd question, but Dalziel took it in his stride.
'I can't guarantee it,' he said. 'But it's worth a try.'
'Mr Fielding, sir,' murmured a low, flat, American voice.
One of the Americans had approached with an expression of deferential determination, like an undertaker who is not going to let you buy pine.
'Sir,' he said, 'let me assure you that the Gumbelow Foundation is aware of and wishes to honour the totality of your achievement. My colleague, Mr Flower, mentioned Westminster Bridge merely as a volume of radical interest to the student of your mature work. Volumes such as Victory Again, Indian Summer and A Kiss on the Other Cheek are, of course, equally well known to us and equally admired also. It would be a grave disappointment…'
'Oh come on,' snapped Fielding impatiently. 'Let's get on with it.'
Long-winded the American may have been, but he could move at great speed when the circumstances demanded. Fielding was led to an armchair by a low table on which copies of what Dalziel presumed to be his books were strewn. There were five or six, about the size and thickness of police promotion manuals. The photographer, who answered to Nikki (the spelling formed itself unbidden in Dalziel's mind), took a stream of pictures not seeming to care much who she got in the frame. Her camera appeared to require as little reloading as one of those guns the good cowboys used to have in the pre-psychological westerns. The tape-recorder was switched on and the Negro placed a microphone on the table and invited Fielding to say a few words.
'Must we have this sodding thing cluttering up the place?' he demanded. He referred to the microphone, but each of the visitors looked perturbed for a moment.
'We'd like to get the moment permanently recorded for posterity,' said the second spaghetti man.
'Who are you?'
'I'm Alex Penitent, BBC. I shall be interviewing you after the presentation.'
'Shall you? We'll see.'
'Gentlemen, gentlemen, may we commence?' said the American. 'Mr Flower.'
'Thank you, Mr Bergmann.'
Flower sat on a hard chair opposite Fielding while Bergmann stood alongside his colleague and put one hand inside his jacket. They looked as if they were about to make the old man an offer he couldn't refuse.
'Gentlemen, gentlemen,' said Bergmann. 'Right, Mr Flower.'
Flower began to speak in the deep vibrant tones of the travelogue commentator.
'For fifty years and more the Gumbelow Foundation of America has been seeking out and acknowledging rare examples of merit in the Arts. The Gumbelow Foundation does not make annual awards, for so high is the standard set that in some years no work attains this standard. Past recipients of awards have included…'
Here followed a list which might have been an extract from a telephone directory to Dalziel except that it contained the name of a British artist whose talents had burgeoned during a gaol sentence for armed robbery. Dalziel did not know him through his paintings but through the more personal contact of having kneed him in the crutch when he resisted arrest. As far as he could make out, the Gumbelow Foundation had not given any money to a policeman.
Flower proceeded with his potted history of the Foundation and after a while Dalziel was pleased to note most of the others were beginning to look as impatient as he felt. Someone squeezed his arm. It was Bonnie who smiled at him and mouthed 'Thanks.'
Fielding brought matters to a head by turning away from the table and waving his empty glass at Tillotson who nodded understandingly, came forward with a bottle and tripped over the microphone wire.
When the confusion had been sorted out, Flower looked enquiringly at the tape-recorder man and said, 'Shall
