'I've to put salt? Pepper?'
'That's right. But go easy, love.'
Vaughan was eyeing the lad with a look of dislike.
'I'm off through,' he said, and he went into the dining room, or so I supposed.
'It's the second course that's the French dish,' said Amanda Rickerby, turning back towards me. 'I can't pronounce it. Mr Fielding found the recipe in one of his books some weeks ago, and we thought we'd try it tonight.'
She slid a bit of paper across the table to me. At the top somebody had written 'Croquette de Boeuf'.
'That's French all right,' I said.
'Can you go through Sunday without a treat of some kind, Mr Stringer?' she enquired. 'Don't tell me: you go to a Morning Service every Sabbath without fail?'
'That's not what I call a treat,' I said.
'Nor me,' she said, and took from behind the knife polisher the object she had hidden: a glass of red wine, and she boldly took a sip, as if to say, 'There's nothing to be ashamed of in a glass of wine.'
Her brother was removing a tin tray from the oven, making the room even hotter. The stuff inside it was red and lumpy – smelled all right though.
'Is it done, our lass?' he said, holding it in the hot cloth and offering it towards his sister.
'It's beautiful, Adam,' she said. 'Mr Stringer,' she ran on, turning back to me, 'supper is about to be served.'
'I'll go into the dining room then,' I said.
'Good thinking,' she said. 'And do take a glass of beer with you.'
She indicated a line of glasses on a shelf near the door. I took one and helped myself from the barrel.
'Shall I take one for Mr Fielding?' I enquired.
'No,' said the brother, looking up at me sharply as he put the meat into a serving dish, and then he added, in a somewhat calmer tone, 'E 'as wine.'
I thought how the house was that fellow's life. He was master of all its little details.
Returning to the door of the dining room I clashed with Howard Fielding, who held a wine glass and a bottle of white wine, half full with a cork in it.
'Good evening again, Mr Stringer,' he said, and he made his way towards the head of the table with his twinkling sort of walk. He indicated that I should take the place to his right side. Vaughan was already sitting to his left, looking sadly at his beer glass, already empty in front of him. Miss Amanda Rickerby then entered holding her wine glass and a black album, saying, 'We're all here then – no need to ring the bell,' and sat down at the end of the table opposite to Mr Fielding. Finally, Adam Rickerby came in with a big tray, and began distributing the soup bowls. As he did so, Miss Rickerby eyed me in the most thrilling way. I must be just her sort, I decided.
'Cedar-wood box after supper, Howard?' Vaughan asked Fielding, without looking up from his empty glass.
'Perhaps Mr Stringer would care to join us at the box?' said Fielding, pouring himself a glass of wine, and he turning and looking his mysterious question at me, with head tilted, so I said, 'I'm sure I would, thanks,' and took a drink of my beer.
Everybody had the soup now, and I was just about to fall to, when I saw Fielding close his eyes and sit forwards. I thought for a fraction of time that he'd actually pegged out there and then, but he was saying grace, and the final word of it was hardly out of his mouth when I heard a terrible racket such as is made in a bath when the last of the water goes down the plug. This was Theo Vaughan taking his first mouthful of soup.
'What's in the cedar-wood box?' I enquired, after Theo Vaughan's second mouthful, which was quite as loud as the first had been.
'Cigars,' said Vaughan, and I felt an ass, for what else could have been in it?
I flashed a look at Amanda Rickerby. She was still eyeing me, an amused expression on her face. She was turning the pages of the black album while sipping her soup. Every so often she would exchange a muttered word with her brother, but she hardly left off staring at me throughout the meal, and I felt that she was a temptress in league with the naked bicyclist.
'Mainly Shorts, I'm afraid, Mr Stringer,' said Fielding. 'We've smoked the last of the Coronas from Christmas.'
'Well, even a short cigar is longer than a cigarette,' I said.
'Diplomatically spoken,' said Fielding, which made me feel rather a fool.
Fielding and Vaughan both being cigar smokers, the stub in the top room might have belonged to either of them just as easily as to Blackburn. It was plain that Fielding thought himself superior to Vaughan, but the two seemed to jog along together pretty well in spite of the failure of the business they'd worked in, and in spite of Vaughan's dealing in improper post cards. Fielding's private means must be greater than Vaughan's, for his clothes were not only cleaner but of better quality. His linen cuffs were a bit out at the edge, but it was only decent cloth that would fray like that, and the cuff links looked to me to be made of good gold.
I glanced over at Amanda Rickerby. She met my gaze, I looked away quickly; looked back again more slowly to see her smiling.
'This is the guest book for last year, Mr Stringer,' she said, indicating the black album before her.
Was the name of Blackburn in there, and was she teasing me by keeping it from me?
'I put ticks next to the ones I want back, crosses against the ones I don't,' she said.
And she suddenly turned to Fielding.
'Do you remember Mr Armstrong, Mr Fielding?'
Fielding smiled and nodded.
'He was a very strange… well, I was about to say gentleman,' Amanda Rickerby continued. 'He collected seaweed, Mr Stringer. It was his hobby. It was left all over the room to dry. He needed pails of fresh water to clean it – and then he had the nerve to complain about Mrs Dawson's cooking. But Mr Fielding took him in hand.'
Fielding nodded graciously again, saying, 'I merely pointed out that sole a la Normande was supposed to contain fish. He collected seaweed but did not eat fish – slightly paradoxical, I thought.'
'Howard didn't care for him at all,' Vaughan put in, addressing me. 'He drank beer from the neck of the bottle.'
'He was rather a vulgar young fellow,' Fielding explained. 'He was from Macclesfield. The North Bay of this town would have been more to his liking… You'd have thought that a man interested in marine biology would have had more decorum.'
7 wouldn't,' said Amanda Rickerby. 'I'm putting a cross by his name.'
And she did so, before turning the page.
'Mr and Mrs Bailey,' she said, looking towards Fielding again,'… from Hertfordshire.'
'Rather a pleasant couple, I seem to remember,' said Fielding.
Miss Rickerby made no answer to that but looked down at the book and came over very sad, it seemed to me. I wanted to help her, bring her back to smiling, but after a couple of minutes I was aware of Adam Rickerby standing over me and saying, 'Yer've done, 'ave yer?'
I hadn't quite but I gave him my bowl and he took it away along with all the others. Only after he'd left the room did I think: Ought I to have eaten that? Perhaps Blackburn had been poisoned? The soup had seemed quite tasty anyhow, if nothing to write home about. The meat, when it came in, was the cause for a little more in the way of excitement.
'Croquette de boeuf cooked to a turn, Miss R,' said Fielding, when he'd taken his first mouthful, and she seemed to come round from a stupor or a dream.
'I only superintended,' she said. 'It was Adam who cooked it really.'
But there seemed no question of complimenting Adam Rickerby.
'Beef patty, I call it,' said Vaughan, who'd already eaten half of his.
'Oh come now, Vaughan,' said Fielding. 'What about the delicious dressing?'
'Beef patty,' repeated Vaughan, 'with tomato sauce. Perfectly good though,' he added.
'Certainly is,' I said, trying to direct my remark to both Amanda Rickerby and her brother.'… Goes down very nicely.'
But there was something in it I didn't care for, some spice, and the taste of it somehow made me think the dining room fire too hot. Had I been poisoned? No. It took hours to notice if you had been, and what could possibly
