Embarrassment of Corpses, An (6 page)

“So, Squire Random's finally trodden the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire, eh Ina, old thing?”

The voice stopped abruptly. Half a minute later, Lorina put her head around the door of the living room and smiled awkwardly at them.

“Look, sorry about this, but Ambrose has turned up, and I think he may have been drinking.”

Mallard got to his feet instantly. “I have to leave anyway, my dear,” he said quickly. “Thank you for the refreshments, and once again, my condolences on your loss, which I trust you'll extend to your brother. Come, Oliver, I'll give you a lift home.”

He brushed his lips against Lorina's cheek and swept into the hallway, which was visibly empty of Ambrose, although a well-stuffed backpack had been dropped on the parquet.

“Will you be okay?” Oliver asked her anxiously as they stood at the front door. She nodded.

“I can handle Ambrose, whatever mood he's in. He's scared of me.”

She hugged him closely and watched him until he reached Mallard's Rover. Then, with a sigh, she closed the door.

Chapter Three

“Yes, sir, they certainly were innocent times,” said Dworkin wistfully. “Take the works of Arthur Ransome, for instance. Boys and girls—barely adolescent—camping together, bathing together, living as free as nature intended. Did they hide their shame behind scraps of clothing, the swaddling bands of civilization?”

“I seem to recall some mention of bathing drawers,” muttered Oliver to the porter's shoes.

“Ah, but there was nothing about scurrying behind bushes to change, was there, sir? Swallows, Amazons—these are names from nature, from myth. Bold and free, as nature intended. I certainly picture them all naked. That island in the lake was a return to Eden for them. Where else could a young girl be proleptically called ‘Titty' without the vile sniggerings of censorious society?”

“Where indeed?” grunted Oliver, finding himself wondering where Dworkin, the day porter at the Sanders Club, had picked up the word “proleptically.” Must have been reading Anthony Burgess again.

Dworkin's obsessions with Adamitic innocence were notorious at the club, and most members avoided eye-contact with the dapper ex-sapper. It had been noted that, since Dworkin had arrived a couple of years earlier, the club's copy of Hans Christian Andersen's collected tales always seemed to fall open at the picture of the Little Mermaid, and all the illustrated editions of
The Water Babies
had disappeared. Unfortunately, Dworkin was the only other occupant of the club lobby, and because the porter had initially applied for the job after serving on a jury with Sir Harry Random, Oliver felt obliged to put up with him for his late friend's sake.

Oliver was at the club that Wednesday afternoon because of a brain wave that had struck him earlier in the day. On the night Sir Harry died, Oliver recalled, he had been waving a piece of paper that was in some way connected with his supposed assignation at six o'clock on Monday morning. This paper was in Harry's possession while the two men were playing poker in the club's card room; but it was gone by the time the police searched the body that he and Urchin had dragged from the fountain. Oliver knew that Harry never disposed of any paper carelessly—the state of his study suggested that Harry seldom disposed of any letters or notes at all. So where had the paper gone? If Harry had dropped it outside the Club, Oliver knew there was no chance of recovering it. But the fastidious old man was much more likely to have tossed it into one of the Club's rarely emptied waste paper baskets. So at five o'clock, Oliver had hurriedly left the sleepy premises of Woodcock and Oakhampton and taken a taxi to the Sanders Club.

The basket in the card room had yielded nothing, so Oliver had moved on to the lobby. Under the curious eye of the dreaded Dworkin, he had scattered the contents of the metal rubbish bin across the lobby floor and was on his hands and knees, examining every piece of paper. If this failed, he would be forced to investigate the noisome rubbish pail in the gentlemen's toilet. But even this had its appeal, compared with the porter's flapping tongue.

“And then there's Enid Blyton,” droned Dworkin, idly watching Oliver. “
Five Have an Adventure
. I bet they did, with no adult chaperons. Ah, good morning, Mr. Scroop!”

These last words were addressed to a tall and well-dressed member—the author of several short novels about a boy whose football turns out to be an entire alien world—who had hurried in from the sunshine and, like most members, was not prepared to break his stride until he was well past Dworkin. But catching sight of Oliver, crouched at the porter's feet, he paused.

“Afternoon, Swithin.”

“Hello, Mr. Scroop,” said Oliver, hardly looking up. He disliked the author, who used a constant veneer of flippancy to mask his shallowness.

“Any particular reason why you're treating the lobby like a garbage tip? Still hunting your precious Snark? Or is this the remains of some attempt on the world origami record?”

Scroop laughed, too loud and long for the weakness of the joke, and Dworkin—who had just realized he would have to clean up after Oliver—switched sides quickly and joined in the mockery. Oliver smiled.

“Actually, Mr. Scroop, I've lost my ferret.”

“Your ferret?” Scroop repeated nervously.

“Well, my books have been so successful since I introduced a ferret that I thought I'd buy a real one as a mascot. He just got away. Can you help me look for him?”

“You brought a ferret into the club?” Scroop said aghast.

“Yes, I wanted to show it to Mr. Dworkin. But I suppose it will turn up. Somewhere.”

“You're mad!” spluttered Scroop. “Ferrets! Why they're like long rats. They
bite
! Oh, my God! The committee shall hear about this.”

As he scurried away, his elegant boot caught a screwed-up piece of paper, sending it across the marble floor and under the porter's desk. Oliver made a dive and fished the paper out again. He flattened it carefully and read it. Then he calmly folded it and slipped it into his pocket.

***

Under the cloudless sapphire sky, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew were basking in the warm coral and amber light of the early evening. Although still an hour from setting, the sun was hovering low above the broad, tree-lined horizon, almost dim enough to look at directly. Long, mauve shadows stretched across the elegant lawns. Inside the Temperate House, the massive Victorian greenhouse designed by Decimus Burton, the white girders and mullions were overlaid with a competing web of soft-edged shadow, which climbed slowly as the sun descended, creating new moirés and traceries with every minute. Former Colour-Sergeant Derwent Prussia, now a park attendant at the Gardens, observed the delicate effect from a walkway and hated it.

Prussia glanced at his watch. Nearly time to throw out the last remaining visitors, gawping at the tall palms and other plants that thrived in the hot, humid conditions. Which is more than could be said for him. He hated heat, hated summer, and only ventured into the Temperate House for the pleasure of shouting “This building is now closed!” at the end of the day. He liked that. It reminded him of his days in the army. His new boss had thought so, too.

“You sound like a sergeant-major,” Mr. Birdwich had once murmured, overhearing the park attendant at closing time. Prussia had been flattered. A sergeant-major! That was more than he'd ever dreamed.

“Have you ever considered asking them to leave politely?” Birdwich had continued, with a smile that disturbed only one side of his moon-shaped face.

“We'd never get the place emptied, sir. They'd take their time, pausing for one more read of the labels, one more sniff of the flowering shrubs.”

“Well, we can't have people enjoying themselves in a public park, can we,” said Birdwich reflectively as he drifted away.

Prussia, immune to irony, smiled at the memory. Good head on that one, despite his youth, he thought. He looked at his watch again and braced himself against the handrail.

“This building is now closed!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Visiting hours are over!”

Prussia was poised on a catwalk that girdled the interior of the vast, rectangular greenhouse, about halfway up its sloping side, giving a view of the Kew pagoda across the treetops. He liked to deliver the message from an elevated position; it awakened some atavistic sense of authority within him. Perhaps he should try it in more than one language, what with all these foreign tourists—they were the hardest to get rid of. For some reason, German struck him as an appropriate alternative.

Fifty feet below, after several startled glances in his direction, the few visitors began to wander along the gravel paths toward the main doors of the building, the central pavilion in a string of greenhouses. Good. Obedience was good. He would be home early at this rate. But wait a moment! What about those two down there? Two men—are they men? The one staggering toward the spiral staircase in the opposite corner of the building certainly was. And he was climbing it!

“Oi! You're going the wrong way!” Prussia shouted. The man paused, staring over the curving banister at the attendant above him. Then he ran on.

“Right!” thought Prussia, who habitually addressed himself in the same tones he used for members of the public. He marched swiftly along the catwalk, hoping to intercept the man, who was still climbing upward in an awkward helical path. But the man reached the top of the staircase first, and headed around the walkway in the opposite direction. There was nothing for it. Prussia was forced to run.

“Just you stop there!” he shouted as he made the turn. The man was wearing a lightweight business suit and seemed to be in his early forties. He looked back, grinned, and stumbled, striking his head on a girder. But he stayed on his feet and kept trotting away. The perspiring Prussia was starting to regret his vow never to remove his uniform jacket under any circumstances.

They reached the next turn, and again, Prussia's quarry slipped, falling heavily onto his palms and knees on the metal balcony. He scrambled up and scuttled on for half the width of the building, stopping at the bottom of a long flight of metal steps. These steps, which were suspended under the sloping glass roof, climbed even higher to a small inspection platform, slung from an iron cross-beam. A padlocked gate sealed them from the public. Prussia reached the man as he stood staring fixedly at the steps, apparently wondering how to ascend.

“Just where do you think you're going?” Prussia gasped. The man smiled foolishly and pointed.

“Gotta go up,” he said in a slurred voice. He appeared to be drunk, yet Prussia couldn't detect any alcohol on his breath.

“Can't go up there,” panted Prussia. “Official business only. Members of the public not allowed. I can go up there, if I want, but you can't.”

“Gotta go up,” the man said again, falling against Prussia. “Treasure's hidden up there.”

“There's no treasure,” replied the attendant, steadying the man with a firm hand on each lapel. “Now come on, or there'll be consequences.”

“Awright. Sorry. Nice park keeper,” mumbled the man contritely, idly brushing Prussia's sleeves. Then he struck out, catching Prussia on the cheek and making him fall back. Prussia toppled against the handrail, skidding on something oily that had been spilled onto the catwalk. Recovering, he watched in horror as the man swung the gate open and began to climb.

“That's supposed to be locked!” Prussia shouted helplessly. But the other man continued to drag himself up the long iron staircase, his feet sliding on every tread, and slithered onto the inspection platform. Prussia tried to follow, but his shoes wouldn't grip on the steps. There was more oil.

“Now for the treasure!” shouted the man, spinning around above Prussia. “Not here! Gotta go further!”

He stepped off the platform onto another narrow catwalk high in the roof, singing wildly.

“‘Sixteen men on a dead man's chest,'” he caroled, leaning out over the dizzying void. “‘Yo ho ho and a rottle of bum.' Look at me, I'm walking the plank! Wheee!”

His balance became precarious. Prussia made another attempt to scale the steps, but fell, catching his chin. Some blood dripped onto the white paint, but he didn't notice. His eyes were on the interloper.

The man was swaying wildly, laughing all the time and waving his hands in a last attempt to stay upright. Then he was gone. Prussia almost expected him to hover there, a hundred feet above the foliage, like a cartoon character granted a temporary deferment of the law of gravity. But the man plunged instantly to the floor of the greenhouse, far below. The falling body slapped the overhanging leaves of a towering Chilean wine palm and landed in the planted beds with less noise than Prussia had anticipated. The man moved his arm once, then didn't move at all.

Prussia stood up and walked cautiously back along the catwalk, hoping he would wake up from the dream in a minute or two. But the sudden pain from his bleeding chin convinced him this was real. He hurried on, keeping the body in sight and praying that it would move again. Nobody else was left in the building—Prussia had been the only witness to the stranger's brief flight.

He paused at the top of the spiral staircase, scraping his oily shoes on the edge of the catwalk and trying to clear his misty vision before attempting the corkscrew descent. His concentration taken up with the need to stay upright, he wasn't sure if he really saw the figure dart into the building, lay something on the body, and slip out again.

“More than my job's worth,” Prussia wheezed as reached the bottom and passed out on the
Pavonia Spinifex.

***

Oliver let himself into the Edwardes Square house that he shared with three of his friends, clutching a take-out meal from a nearby Indian restaurant. He had tried to telephone his uncle from the Sanders Club, but Mallard was unavailable. So Oliver had walked home, enjoying the early evening sunshine and thinking again about Sir Harry Random's death.

“Hello, Ollie,” said Geoffrey Angelwine, looking up from his saucepan as Oliver drifted into their shared kitchen. “Hey listen, I have a great idea for a Railway Mice story.”

Oliver had known Geoffrey for years, long before he became a junior executive with the public relations firm of Hoo, Watt & Eidenau, which was also the firm hired by Oliver's publisher to market Finsbury the Ferret. Geoffrey was considerably shorter than Oliver, with nut-brown hair, a razor-bill nose, and small, piercing eyes that always looked amused. He resembled a puffin who'd just heard the one about another puffin's mother-in-law. He also had the irritating habit of finishing other people's sentences, unfortunately with little accuracy. Oliver adored him.

A muffled, rhythmic groaning was coming from the upper floors of the building, which were used by their friend Ben Motley as a photographic studio. There was also a faint squeaking of bedsprings.