‘Now, why not?’
‘You have to be cunning to be a detective. The C.I.D. are terribly sly and private detectives will stoop to anything. You aren’t a bit sly, dear.’
‘I notice extraordinary things,’ Laurence boasted casually, lolling his brown head along the back of the sofa. ‘Things which people think are concealed. Awful to be like that, isn’t it?’
Laurence had the feeling that they didn’t like him, they suspected him. He got nervous, and couldn’t seem to say anything right. They more and more seemed not to like him as he went on and on compulsively about the wonderful sleuth he would make. And all the time he was talking he actually was taking them in, sleuth-like.
Their presence in his grandmother’s house was strange and surprising, and for that reason alone did not really surprise him. Louisa is pouring out tea. She calls the young Hogarth ‘Andrew’. His father is ‘Mervyn’ to her. Webster is ‘Mr Webster’.
Mr Webster with his white hair, white moustache and dark nautical jacket is not easy to identify with his early-morning appearance — the tradesman in a sandy-brown overall who calls with the bread: Laurence felt pleased with himself for recognizing Mr Webster, who wore brown suede shoes, size ten by Laurence’s discernment, whose age might be going on seventy-five, and who, by his voice, is a Sussex man.
Mervyn Hogarth was thin and small. He had a washed-out sandy colouring. Louisa had prepared for him a thin slice of brown bread and butter.
‘Mervyn has to eat often, in small snacks, for his gastric trouble, ‘Louisa explained. By his speech, the elder Hogarth is a knowing metropolitan product. God knows what he is doing at Louisa’s, why he is on sufficiently familiar visiting terms for first names and gastric confidences. But Laurence was not a wonderer. He observed that the elder Hogarth wore unpressed flannels and an old ginger tweed jacket with the air of one who can afford to go careless. The son Andrew, with full red lips, was square and large-faced with glasses. He was paralysed in the legs.
As Louisa asked Laurence, ‘Did you have a nice outing, dear?’ Andrew winked at him.
Laurence resented this, an injustice to his grandmother. He felt averse to entering a patronizing conspiracy with Andrew against the old lady; he was on holiday for a special reason connected with a love affair, he wanted a change from the complications of belonging to a sophisticated social group. The grandmother refreshed him, she was not to be winked about. And so Laurence smiled at Andrew, as if to say, ‘I acknowledge your wink. I cannot make it out at all. I take it you mean something pleasant.’
Andrew started looking round the room; he seemed to have missed something that should be there. At last he fixed on the box of Bulgarian cigarettes on Louisa’s sideboard; reaching out he opened the box and helped himself to one. Mr Webster tried to exchange a glance with Louisa disapproving of her guest’s manners, but she would not be drawn in to it. She rose and passed the open box to Laurence.
Andrew told him, ‘They are Bulgarian.’ ‘Yes, I know. Rather odd, aren’t they?’ ‘They grow on one,’ Andrew remarked.
‘Bulgarian!’ his father exclaimed. ‘I must try one!’
Louisa silently passed the cigarettes. She inclined her head demurely towards Laurence, acknowledging an unavoidable truth: the fact that three stubbed-out fat Bulgarian ends already lay in the ash-tray beside Mervyn Hogarth’s chair.
Louisa sat passively witnessing Hogarth’s performance as he affected to savour a hitherto untried brand of cigarette.
‘My dear Louisa, how exotic! I don’t think I could cope with many of these. So strong and so … what shall I say?’
‘Pungent,’ said Louisa patiently, as one who has heard the same word said before by the same man in the same place.
He continued, ‘A flavour of — the Balkans, a tang as of — of—’
Louisa obliged him again, ‘Goats’ milk.’
‘That’s it! Goats’ milk.’
Louisa’s black shiny buttons of eyes turned openly on Laurence. He was watching the man’s face; he glanced towards the ash-tray with its evidence of the pose, then looked at Mervyn again. Louisa began to giggle inaudibly as if she were gently shaking a bottle of cough-mixture within herself. Mr Webster caught her movement with the corner of his eye. From where he was seated, and his neck being stiff, he had to swivel round from the waist to get a better view of Louisa. At this sign, her face puckered slightly, but presently she composed herself like a schoolgirl.
Laurence said to Andrew, ‘Do you live round here?’
Father and son replied simultaneously. Mervyn said, ‘Oh, no’; Andrew said, ‘Oh, yes.’
Louisa’s mirth got the better of her, and though her lips were shut tight she whinnied through her nose like a pony. Mr Webster clicked his cup into his saucer as if the walls had spoken.
The Hogarths immediately attempted to rectify their blunder.
Both started together again — Mervyn: ‘Well, we live in London mostly—’ Andrew: ‘I mean, we’re here most of the time—’ The father decided to let Andrew take over.
‘And we sometimes go abroad,’ he concluded limply.
Laurence looked at his watch, and said hastily to Andrew, ‘Coming for a drink? There’s about fifteen minutes to closing.’ Then he saw his blunder. For the moment the boy had looked quite normal, not a cripple at all.
‘Not tonight thanks. Another time, if you’re staying,’ Andrew said, unsurprised.
‘Laurence is stopping till the end of the week,’ said Louisa. Laurence hurried out. They could hear his footsteps crossing the quiet road and down the village street towards the Rose and Crown.
