The drive wound its way through hundreds of acres of formal gardens and parklands, dotted here and there with classical statuary, some of it quite voluptuous, and the occasional temple or folly beyond the odd pond. Dappled June sunlight on the lawns, lakes, and beds made the thing picturesque in the extreme.
It was all a bit much for Congreve’s tastes, but then, he was prepared not to like it. The Brixden Set, as they were called, had quite a reputation. Seances. Masked balls. Orgies. He inclined his head and looked at Sutherland, who seemed quite keen on this visit. Orgies, indeed.
“We might need to stop once or twice for petrol before we reach the house,” he observed, tamping down his fresh bowl of tobacco.
“Impressive,” Sutherland agreed.
“Built originally by the second duke of Buckingham,” Congreve said, suppressing a disapproving sigh. “A scoundrel and rake if ever there was one. Dodged a bullet in a duel with one of his mistress’s husbands, then died shortly thereafter after having caught cold pursuing his second great love after women, foxhunting. He seems to have set the tone.”
But the peach orchards they now drove through and the gardens spoke to Congreve of another age, dotted as they were by extensive greenhouses with walls of nectarines, mind-bending displays of orchids and bromeliads, rare fuchsias and almost extinct varieties of cyclamen, rare Lorraine-series begonias, and benches draped with thick strappy-leaved clivia and yellow Vico. When finally he spied a bed of his beloved dahlias, he found himself softening a bit toward Brixden House, if not its owner.
Anyone who shared his love of dahlias couldn’t be all bad.
The house itself was imposing when they finally caught sight of it. It was in the classic Italian style, and even Ambrose had to concede it was lovely. Built originally in the mid–seventeenth century as a hunting lodge, and rebuilt many times, the present Edwardian country house stood on great chalk cliffs with views of the rolling green Berkshire countryside. The main house overlooked an idyllic bend in the Thames while a large guesthouse in the Tudor manner, Spring Cottage it was called, sat right on the riverbank.
Sutherland drove briskly round a grand fountain at the head of the main drive, down a wide path of crushed stone, and into the car park. He tucked his Mini in the shadows between a spanking new Bentley Continental in racing green and an enormous 1980 Aston Martin Lagonda. Ambrose, despite all efforts to control himself, bent over and had a peek inside the Bentley. This notion of owning an automobile had quite taken him over, and he found himself admiring the rich interior and picturing himself behind the wheel. He now knew how addicts must feel, catching a whiff of burning opium or a sniff of glue.
“Come along, Sutherland, we’ve no time to dawdle,” he said, righting himself and buttoning his tweed jacket. He was wearing a stylish young check for his meeting with Lady Mars. A black-and-white dog’s-tooth pattern, three pieces, and, on his feet, his favorite double-buckle Derbys. The fine brown calf leather shoes were bespoke, John Lobb, and were slender with a beveled waist and a delicate hourglass contour. Precisely the kind of footwear, he reflected, a man with a vintage Bentley might wear on a country sojourn.
They were expected and shown immediately into the Great Hall to wait for her ladyship. Sutherland gravitated to the famous Singer Sargent portrait of Lady Diana Mars’s great-grandmother hung to the left of the fireplace while Ambrose inspected a fine suit of Spanish armor, one of a pair standing guard at the foot of a great sweeping staircase. You didn’t see armor much these days. It had become such a cliche in the mid–twentieth century that it had largely disappeared. Congreve, noticing the delicate filigree work on the breastplate, thought perhaps the stuff was due for a comeback.
“You must be Chief Inspector Congreve,” he heard a voice at his back say. “I’m delighted to have you here at Brixden House.”
“Lady Mars,” Ambrose said, turning to face her. “I am—” The words froze on his lips. He felt as if he had slammed into a wall of beauty.
“You are quite a celebrity, is what you are,” Lady Mars said, quickly covering for his obvious embarrassment. “I googled you just this morning, Chief Inspector. The ‘Demon of Deception,’ one newspaper called you. ‘The International Master of Mystery.’ My, my. I shall certainly have to watch my every word around you, shall I not?”
The chief inspector was beginning to perspire. “Well, I shouldn’t go that far, Lady Mars, I—I think anyone in my circumstances would have done as much. Why, these criminal cases I’m handed are all simple logic usually and—and—”
“Yes?” she said.
Sutherland, seeing his colleague’s inability to supply further dialogue, came to his immediate rescue. “Good afternoon, Lady Mars,” he said loudly, crossing the room in a single bound. “Detective Inspector Ross Sutherland, Scotland Yard.”
“How do you do, Detective Sutherland? Another good-looking policeman. I’m so very pleased to meet you. Diana Mars. Would you two like tea? A cold drink? You’ve come a long way and it’s brutally hot out, isn’t it? I believe service is waiting in the library.”
Sutherland looked at Congreve, who now seemed wholly incapable of responding to even the simplest question, and said, “That would be lovely, thanks very much.”
“Follow me, then, won’t you?” Lady Mars said, and then she was gliding over the highly polished parquetry floors and disappearing through a set of gleaming double doors.
Sutherland looked at Congreve and found him rooted to the spot. “Do I need to run get the defibrillator out of the boot, then, sir?” he asked.
“What? What’s that?”
“Are you quite all right, sir?”
“Indeed. Yes. What seems to be the problem, Sutherland?”
“Lady Mars is serving us tea. In the library. It’s over there.”
“What is your point, Sutherland?”
“She’s waiting in there for us, sir.”
“Ah. Well, let’s get moving then, shall we?”
“There you are!” Lady Mars exclaimed as they came through the doorway. “I thought I’d scared you two off. Come sit and have some tea, won’t you? Oakshott here has provided us with a wealth of lovely cakes as well. Haven’t you, Oakshott?”
“Indeed, Madame,” Oakshott said. He was quite tall and thin, with blond, curly hair, and when he bowed slightly from the waist his boiled shirt rose up uncomfortably under his chin.
After the two detectives had been seated in a deep brocaded velvet sofa, Lady Mars poured for Ambrose and then Sutherland. Congreve lifted the cup to his lips, desperately trying to steady his hand. There was a noticeable rattle of cup and saucer.
“You like dahlias, I take it, Lady Astor?” said Congreve, managing a sip, but just barely.
“Lady Astor?” she said, smiling politely enough for a woman who’d just been wrongly addressed as someone who’d been dead for nearly four decades.
“Sorry. I mean, Lady Mars. How silly of me. You see, I’m feeling a trifle warm. Terribly sorry, but—”
“Good heavens,” she said. “It is stifling in here. How rude of me. Oakshott, would you mind nudging the air- conditioning down a notch? The chief inspector here is burning up.”
“Not at all, Your Ladyship,” the butler said and, with a slight bow, he pushed his thick black glasses up on the bridge of his nose and slid silently from the book-lined room.
“You were speaking of dahlias, I believe, Chief Inspector,” Diana Mars said, looking at him over the rim of her cup with her impossibly large china-blue eyes.
“Was I?” Congreve said, swallowing a mouthful of hot tea. He seemed incapable of supplying further dialogue.
“Yes,” Sutherland said, somewhat frostily, “you were.”
“Would you care for an eclair, Chief Inspector?” Lady Mars asked.
“What?”
“I said, would you care for an eclair, Chief Inspector.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. I was listening to your voice and not what you said.”
Sutherland coughed discreetly into his fist.
