‘What did you say, Grandmother?’
The glass was at her lips. ‘Nothing, dear,’ she said when she had sipped.
‘Tell me about the bread. Who transferred the diamonds to the bread? You know I saw them once.
‘Mr Webster,’ she said. ‘Because I desired to have my merchandise quickly, as soon as the Hogarths brought it in. For the sake of the London end. Sometimes, at first, there was a little delay owing to Andrew being poorly after the journey and leading Mervyn a dance. So we arranged that Mervyn should break up his saints and rosaries and extract the stones as soon as he returned from the trips, which was always in the morning. Mervyn would telephone Mr Webster, because they use telephones, I stick to my pigeons. And then Mr Webster called at the Hogarths to deliver the bread.’
‘Ostensibly,’ said Laurence.
Louisa closed her eyes. ‘He called to deliver the bread as it might seem. You can’t be too careful. And he took the money for it.’
‘Along with the diamonds.’
‘Yes, you are clever, dear. Mr Webster has been invaluable. He would bring the merchandise to me on the following morning in my bread. I didn’t think it would be nice to let him slip the little goods into my hand as if there were some mystery or anything shady going on.’
‘Wonderfully ingenious—” Laurence said.
‘It was sport,—’ said Louisa.
‘But totally unnecessary, the bread part of it,’ Laurence said.
‘No, that was necessary. I never liked to have the diamonds carried loose.’
‘I can guess why,’ Laurence put in suddenly. ‘The police.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I don’t trust the police. Our local constable is a nice fellow, but the police all stick together if it comes to the bit, the world over.’
Laurence laughed. Louisa’s dislike of the police was a family joke. ‘It’s the gipsy in her,’ Helena would explain.
‘I should have thought,’ Laurence said, ‘that if you got the goods safely into the country, there would be no need for elaborate precautions.’
‘You never can tell. It was sport,’ Louisa said.
After a while Laurence said, ‘I believe Mrs Hogg gave you some trouble.’
‘None at all,’ she said, ‘nor will she.’
‘You think she’s likely to turn up again? Has she any evidence against you, Grandmother?’
‘I don’t know about that. But she won’t trouble me, that I know. She might try, but I shan’t be troubled.’ She added, ‘There are things about Mrs Hogg which you don’t know.’
At a later time when Laurence learned of the relationship between Mrs Hogg and the Hogarths, he recalled this remark of his grandmother’s, and thought that was what she must have meant.
‘And at a side altar, I do assure you, Caroline,’ said the Baron, ‘robed in full liturgical vestments, was Mervyn Hogg alias Hogarth serving cocktails.’ Thus he ended his description of the Black Mass he had recently attended at Notting Hill Gate.
‘It sounds puerile,’ Caroline said, lapsing unawares into that Catholic habit of belittling what was secretly feared.
‘You as a Catholic,’ he said, ‘must think it evil. I myself do not judge good and evil. I judge by interesting or otherwise.’
‘It sounds otherwise to me,’ said Caroline.
‘In fact you are right. This was a poor effort from the sinister point of view. For a really effective Black Mass you need a renegade priest.
They are rare in these days, when the Faith is so thin. But Hogg is the one who interests me. He assumes the name of Hogg on the dark side of his life and Hogarth by daylight so to speak. I am preparing a monograph on the psychology of diabolism and black magic.
‘And my informants tell me that Hogarth has recently un-bewitched his son, a man in his early twenties who since infancy has suffered from paralysis in the lower part of his body due to a spell. This proves that Hogarth’s magical powers are not exclusively bent towards evil, it proves —’Tell me,’ said Caroline, ‘have you ever spoken to Mervyn Hogarth?’
‘Not in his natural flesh. But I shall shortly. A private meeting is to be arranged. Unofficially, I believe, he has been into the bookshop, transformed into a woman.
‘I’m sure, Willi,’ said Caroline, ‘that you are suffering from the emotional effects of Eleanor’s leaving you. I am sure, Willi, that you should see a psychiatrist.’
‘If what you say were true,’ he said, ‘it would be horribly tactless of you to say it. As it is I make allowances for your own disorder.’
‘Is the world a lunatic asylum then? Are we all courteous maniacs discreetly making allowances for everyone else’s derangement?’
‘Largely,’ said the Baron.
‘I resist the proposition,’ Caroline said.
‘That is an intolerant attitude.’
‘It’s the only alternative to demonstrating the proposition,’ Caroline said.
