Death of a Delft Blue

it seemed, was already gathered in the ante-room in which cocktails were being served. Soon Dame Beatrice and Laura were pounced upon by Binnie.

‘Oh, hullo,’ she said. ‘I say, here’s a mess! Great-aunt Rebekah Rose, Bernie’s grandmother, has invited herself and Aunt Petra to the dinner. Oh, Lord! Here they are! Nobody’s safe while Great-aunt Rebekah is around. Do have some sherry or something. I hope dinner will come soon. I’m famished, wolfish and starving.’

Dinner was announced, and at the table Laura found herself next to Sweyn van Zestien. He declared that he was delighted.

‘Oh, so am I,’ said Laura. ‘I hear you’re an authority on rune-stones, especially those in Denmark. We’ve got some at home in Britain, but when I was in Sweden last year I was told that in about a.d. 1000 the runes took a new lease of life and the rune-stones became more numerous in Sweden than anywhere else. Would that be so?’

Sweyn embarked upon a long, elaborate and very learned reply. Laura listened attentively, but could not help overhearing a far more enthralling conversation which was going on elsewhere. An old, strident, self-assured voice dominated the milder tones of her relations, who were attempting to apply the soft pedal.

‘So I am paying for an empty pea-shuck, is it? So I am to be cheated by rascally shopkeepers, yes?’ shouted Rebekah Rose.

An exquisite young man, who had been introduced as Bernardo, and who was a Byronic, very handsome fellow, took issue with her.

‘Now, now, Grandmamma! You can’t expect us to swallow that one, you know! You took back an empty pea- shuck? It just sounds silly to me.’

‘Silly?’ screamed his grandmother. ‘So what? Is silly when, in a bar, you are asking for whisky and paying for it, too, and you get an empty glass? That would be silly, isn’t it, when you don’t complain?’

‘It’s not the same thing, Grandmamma, not the same thing at all. An empty pea-shuck, well, that’s only one among many, and can make no possible difference; but an empty whisky-glass is a thing in its own right, don’t you see.’

‘And a whisky-glass is accounting for all these deaths on the road, hein? A little ordinary pea-shuck is not doing that, yes? So it has no importance? Stupid boy!’

‘Runic stones in Denmark are to be found mostly in village churchyards,’ pursued Sweyn’s thoughtful, cultured voice. ‘Many of the runes are accompanied by very interesting designs based upon those used in wood-carving. There is a notable example…’

Laura tried to listen to him, but was soon defeated.

‘So I am calling you, Bernardo, an outraged twit!’ screamed Bernardo’s grandmother.

‘Outrageous, not outraged! Mind your innuendos, Grandmamma,’ protested the handsome Bernardo. ‘You should go to evening classes and learn English.’

‘So why you are dodging the synagogue?’ his relative demanded hotly, taking the battle on to her own ground.

‘But I’m not dodging it, Grandmamma. I just don’t care to go, that’s all. A lot of old men in beards, and all of them wearing their hats! The synagogue doesn’t appeal to me at all, especially on a Saturday. I’d rather play golf with my friends.’

‘Of course, there was Asmund, a professional writer of runic inscriptions, who seems to have lived, (or, more likely, to have worked), somewhere between a.d. 1025 and 1050.’ went on Sweyn, patiently, to Laura. ‘By that time, of course, Christianity had taken over, and we find a rune-stone of the period commemorating a death — the death of a much-loved son. It concludes with the words:‘God and God’s mother help his soul.’

‘So what was good enough for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, is not good enough for you!’ yelled the Jewish grandmother to Bernardo.

‘But the patriarchs didn’t go to the synagogue, Grandmamma dear. There weren’t any synagogues in those days,’ explained Bernardo, amused, but also slightly apprehensive.

‘So you risk to die, like poor little Isaac, for someone’s jealousy, yes?’ demanded Rebekah.

‘At one time,’ pursued Sweyn, ‘the runic alphabet was reduced to sixteen letters. Later, however…’

‘You’re talking through your top-knot, Grandmamma,’ protested Bernardo, his voice rising higher.

‘I am? Then think of this, maybe. Who else but this Hagar is wishing to see this Isaac dead? Yahweh? Phooey! Why He should wish to murder a little small boy on the top of a hill? Hagar is pitched out, with child Ishmael, no? Jealousy, envy, hatred, malice, all in Sarah’s heart. She made to have Hagar turned away into the desert. I tell you, Abraham was got at! Why he should want to have a son by this Sarah, when he has already this beautiful little boy by slave-girl Hagar?’

‘The magical inscriptions,’ went on Sweyn, ‘protected, not only people, but the rune-stones themselves. There is quite a powerful curse put on the Bjorketorp stone in Norway, for example.’

‘But nobody killed Isaac, Grandmamma,’ argued Bernardo. ‘There was a ram in a thicket, if you remember.’

‘I remember good. Why not? He is in my stars, this ram. In April I am born, isn’t it? You may give me a little ram in diamonds for a coat-brooch on my birthday, April ninth. You are not forgetting?’

‘The Golden Fleece!’ muttered Bernardo to Binnie, who giggled wildly and began to choke.

‘Runes,’ went on Sweyn, his quiet voice now audible in the silence which had followed Rebekah’s request, ‘were little used from the end of the sixth century until the beginning of the eighth century. England then developed her own alphabet of twenty-eight letters and this was increased in the ninth century to the number of thirty- three.’

‘So twenty pieces of money are given for Joseph, sold into Egypt,’ said Rebekah, glaring at Bernardo.

‘Bulbs,’ announced Binnen, from her seat between Bernardo and his grandmother, who had been arguing with one another across her, ‘are of more importance than money, in my opinion. Anything which grows is of more value