‘I will keep his secret locked in my heart for ever,’ whispered Mrs Lace, her eyes shining.
‘And now the time has come for me to fulfil my errand,’ said Jasper, looking furtively over his shoulder and lowering his voice, ‘where can the – where can my friend see you for a while alone and without fear of interruption.’
Mrs Lace, her colour heightening, considered. At last she said, ‘In Chalford Park, not so very far from the Old Manor, there is a small lake on whose shores a pink and white temple stands. It is almost entirely overgrown with ivy, honeysuckle and amaryllis, and is concealed from view by the wild-rose bushes which surround it. Nobody ever goes there.’
‘Ah! happy Noel,’ cried Jasper gallantly. ‘With how much envy do I contemplate his lot. Will you, then, be there tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock punctually, and when you hear the hooting of an owl answer with the cry of a woodpecker if you are certain that the coast is clear?’
‘Yes, you can count upon it,’ said Mrs Lace. Unversed in ornithology she resolved that at dinner she would learn from Major Lace, who was, the cry of the woodpecker.
Jasper now rose and, with a courtly gesture, he kissed her hand prior to taking his leave. At that moment, however, Major Lace could be heard banging about in the hall, and Anne-Marie, who enjoyed showing off her friends to him, begged Jasper to stay a few moments. ‘He always complains if people leave as soon as he comes in.’
Major Lace, it appeared, had been attending a sale of pedigree cows. His usually good-humoured face was clouded with extreme bad temper, as he had, during the sale, turned over by mistake two pages of the catalogue instead of one, and had thus been misled as to the cow for which he was bidding. He bought the wrong one for an exorbitant price only to discover that his purchase was totally lacking in that desirable piece of anatomy – the udder.
‘It appears that this brute is well known at sales,’ he cried angrily. ‘They’ve been hawking her round the country for months in the hope of finding some mug who would buy her. Chap next to me said, “Why the hell have you bought that cow, Lace?” I said, “Why not? Good cow, good pedigree, heavy record.” “Some mistake there, Lace,” he said, “her pedigree is all right, but she’ll never have a record. Brute is bagless.” Then I found out what I’d done, see, turned over two pages of the b— catalogue at once. There was such a glare, you know.’
‘Very easy thing to do,’ said Jasper sympathetically.
‘Damned stupid of me all the same. I should have taken a good look at the brute, then it would never have happened. Bagless she is, absolutely bagless. Have a whisky and soda, Aspect?’
Jasper liked Major Lace. When they had drunk several whiskies he accompanied him round his cow-byres and pigsties and they exchanged dirty stories. Major Lace, who had a jolly, bawdy mind, thought that Jasper was distinctly a cut above Anne-Marie’s usual friends, and was soon restored to a good temper.
As for Mrs Lace she slept but little that night. She was tormented with curiosity to know more about Noel, and quite unable to see how this could be achieved. She racked her brains, trying to recall the physiognomy of some royal person who might remotely resemble him. Then it occurred to her that he was perhaps a film star of enormous fame. In any case, he was clearly not unworthy of her chariot wheels, and this thought did much to restore her peace of mind.
No sooner had Jasper left the Jolly Roger and walked off in the direction of Comberry Manor, than Noel began to fall into a shocking state of restlessness. He cursed himself bitterly for consenting to any arrangement whereby Jasper was to enjoy a prolonged tête-à-tête with Mrs Lace; the full horror of the jealous torments he himself would be condemned to endure had not assailed him until the moment when he saw Jasper swinging jauntily down the village street. Dreadful thoughts now came to discomfort him. Jasper was notorious as a seducer of women, and had never shown himself averse to scoring off an old friend if the occasion presented; moreover, Mrs Lace had already shown an obvious predilection for him. Worst of all, she had by no means succumbed, as yet, to Noel’s own blandishments, and he greatly feared that she found him uninteresting. He sat gloomily biting his nails, once indeed so desperate did he feel that he started up and made a move to pursue Jasper, but remembering that it was of the utmost importance to find out the motives of the two detectives, and having no wish to cut a jealous figure of fun in the eyes of Jasper and Mrs Lace, he forced himself to remain where he was. He hung about the village in a terrible state of nerves, trying to console himself with the consideration of Jasper’s alleged love for Poppy St Julien and his own slight financial hold over Jasper. Neither of these facts afforded him much reassurance.
Presently Eugenia appeared on the scene and talked to him for a little while, but she seemed disappointed not to have found Jasper, whom she evidently regarded as a more satisfactory Social Unionist than Noel. She then busily set to work arranging an empty cottage, whose key she had wheedled out of her grandfather’s estate agent, as a Union Jackshirt head-quarters for Chalford and district.
