The Girl in Blue (16 page)

He
stood speechless, and Barney hailed him with her usual cheeriness.

‘Hullo
there, Crips. Came back to get a book I promised to lend the vicar. I left it
in my room. I’ll run up and get it.’

These
were probably the only words in the language that could have unfrozen Crispin.
They destroyed the faint hope he had entertained that the tea party had been
called off and that it would be possible to persuade her to come for a walk.

‘I’ll
get it,’ he gasped.

‘Nonsense,’
said Barney. ‘What do you think I am, a cripple? I can still manage a couple of
flights of stairs.’

And she
was gone, taking them two at a time, and Crispin, walking slowly like an Alpine
climber climbing the Matterhorn, went back to the library. His aspect was that
of one who has been looking for the leak in a gas pipe with a lighted candle.
Another man in a similar situation might have been running what are called the
gamut of the emotions, but he was conscious of only one, a dub despair. This,
it seemed to him, was the end. He was not as a rule very imaginative, but there
rose before him as clearly as if it had been the top line on an oculist’s chart
a vivid picture of what was going to happen next.

Barney,
finding Chippendale subjecting her belongings to the closest scrutiny, was not
the woman to refrain from comment. She would institute a probe or quiz, and
Chippendale, grilled, would confess all, stressing his own position as that of
a mere tool acting under the orders of the mastermind Crispin Scrope. The topic
of the miniature would come up, she would stoutly deny ever having had it in
her possession, and would probably sue him for defamation of character or
slander or libel or whatever it was and be awarded heavy damages. At the best
she would tell her story to the other paying guests and they would leave in a
body. And while he was not fond of the other paying guests, he needed their
money.

It was
a situation that called for the burying of the face in the hands, and when he
sat up after doing this he found that he had Chippendale with him.

From
the point of view of an official of the Band of Hope or some other institution
for promoting temperance Chippendale was in infinitely better shape than he had
been on leaving the library. Then he had had the vine leaves in his hair and a
drunken snatch on his lips. Now only an exceptionally abstemious Judge could
have competed with him in sobriety. The Band of Hope official would have
thought he looked fine.

A
doctor, however, going deeper into the thing, would have realized that this
transformation was the result of a shock and that a severe one, for his eyes
were glassy, he breathed stertorously and he was perspiring in a manner which
would have reminded a traveller in France of the fountains at Versailles.

‘Cool!’
he said, and mopped his forehead.

‘Cor
stone the crows!’ he said, and mopped it again.

‘I don’t
want that one back,’ he said. ‘Have you ever been shut up in a small cage with
a man-eating tiger?’

It so happened
that Crispin had not, and he signified as much with a petulant shake of the
head.

‘What,’
he asked, and would have added, ‘happened,’ but this voice failed him. Having
gulped once or twice, he was able to articulate, though hoarsely. ‘What
happened?’ he said.

‘You
may well ask, chum,’ said Chippendale, continuing to mop. ‘I have passed
through the furnace, pal, but I came out unscathed, if that’s the word, and I’ll
tell you why I came out unscathed. I came out that way because I’ve got
presence of mind. Always have had from a child. Where others would have stood
shuffling their feet with guilt written all over their ruddy faces, I kept my
head and pitched a yarn and what’s more made it stick. What would you have done
if the dame had caught you in her boudoir same as she caught me? I’ll tell you
what you’d have done, cocky, you’d have reddened like a rose and swallowed your
tonsils. You wouldn’t have had a word to say. I, on the other hand —’

‘Get
on!’ said Crispin.

‘I, on
the other hand, put a finger to my lips as she entered the room and whispered “‘Ush!”.
I don’t say she hadn’t scared me out of a year’s growth, because she had, but
owing to this presence of mind I was speaking of I was enabled to up with my
finger and put it to my lips and whisper “‘Ush!”. Naturally, being a woman, she
didn’t ‘ush, but started asking questions. She wanted to know what I was doing
there, giving me just the opening I required for telling the tale. Give you
three guesses what I told her.’

‘Get
on!’ sad Crispin.

‘I said
I’d happened to be passing her door and chanced to hear noises within and being
aware that she had gone off to revel at the vicarage I knew it wasn’t her that
was making the noises, so I deduced it must be a burglar, who had sneaked in
and was going through her effects. To which she responded that I was barmy,
because burglars don’t burgle in the middle of the afternoon, and I said “Oh,
don’t they, that’s where you make your ruddy error, because that’s just when
they do burgle, knowing that that’s just when everybody’s outside playing
tennis and what not. You’ll look silly,” I said, “if you ignore my warning and
persist in what’s that word beginning with an s?”‘

‘Get
on!’ said Crispin.’ Get
on!’

‘Skip
something, no not skip, skep. Sceptical, that’s it. “You’ll look silly,” I
said, “if you persist in this sceptical attitude and find later that the
Clayborne diamonds have done a disappearing act. A proper mug you’ll look, and
no use then coming to me and expecting me to sympathize.” This had her looking
a bit more thoughtful. She chewed her lower lip. “‘Well, where is this burglar?”
she said. “Gone into the bedroom,” I said, and she said, “Well, we might as
well have a look there,” so we went in and she said she didn’t see any burglar,
and I said, “Well, the window’s open, isn’t it, he’s probably—”… You haven’t
got a cigar, have you, mate? I need a sedative.’

Crispin
produced his cigar case. Nothing could ever make him fond of Chippendale, but
he was forced to admit that in a difficult situation he had shown considerable
resource and deserved a reward. He had heard only a portion of the man’s narrative,
but already he was experiencing a delicious sense of relief, for evidently the
subject of the miniature was not going to be touched on. Whatever turns and
twists the conversation between Chippendale and Barney might take, that much
seemed certain. So kindly did this make him feel that he not only gave the
fellow a cigar but lit a match for him.

Thanks,
pal,’ said Chippendale. ‘I always find a smoke soothes the nervous system. So
where was I? Oh yes, in the dame’s sleeping quarters, and she was saying “Well,
where’s your ruddy burglar?” and giving me the horse’s laugh, when guess what.
The cupboard in the corner of the room, which had hitherto not spoken, suddenly
sneezed.’

‘Good
gracious!’ said Crispin.

His
unconcealed interest pleased Chippendale. Too often when he told a story his
audience’s only response was to urge him to put a sock in it, but here was
someone he had really gripped.

‘You
may well say “Good gracious”, chum,’ he said. ‘It was roughly what I said
myself. I don’t mind telling you that sneeze went through me like a bullet
through a pat of butter. I jumped a foot. The dame, on the other hand, remained
unmoved.
“Gezundheit,”
she said, but when I informed her that it hadn’t
been me, but the cupboard, she displayed immediate interest. “So there really
is a burglar,” she said, and I said, “Not only a burglar, baby, but a burglar
with half an ounce of dust up his nose.” And this is where she started to act
like that tiger I asked you if you’d ever been shut up in a small cage with.
She stiffened like a monarch of the jungle scenting its prey. “This needs
attending to promptly,” she said, and she pops into the other room and comes
back with a statuette that had been on the mantelpiece, a thing about a foot
long with no clothes on, Shakespeare it may have been or Queen Victoria, and
she whispers to me to open the cupboard door quick, which I done, revealing a
bloke in a crouching posture, and she reaches in and lets him have it on the
topknot with the statuette, using a good deal of follow-through, and he tumbles
out, and it’s that ginger-headed young fellow that blew in a couple of days
ago, your nephew somebody told me he was, Best or West or something like that.’

‘Gerald!’

‘If
that’s his name.’

‘But
what was he doing in a cupboard?’

‘I didn’t
stop to ask. I buzzed off. I wanted to be out of reach of that statuette, and
the sooner the better. And what I looked in to tell you, cocky, was that as far
as I’m concerned that enterprise we were discussing is off I’ll be losing
money, but worse things can happen to you than not getting a hundred quid. Any
further mucking about with the private apartments of a woman with a wallop like
that you’ll have to do yourself,’ said Chippendale, blowing a smoke ring.

CHAPTER TWELVE

1

Jerry, having parted from Barney
and gone in search of Jane, found her outside the front door. She was standing
by her car, and since he had last seen her she had changed her dress for
something more ornate. This surprised him.

‘Hullo,’
he said. ‘Are you off somewhere?’

‘London.
My New York lawyer has come over and wants to see me. He’s just telephoned.
Something about my legacy, I suppose. I’ll be back this evening. But never mind
that, I want to hear what happened. How did you get on?’

‘Not
too well.’

‘I
thought as much.’

It had
not taken great perception to bring her to this conclusion. Even at a distance
he would have struck her as being on the sombre side. To be obliged to retreat
in disorder from a stricken battlefield always tends to lower the spirits.
Napoleon, who had this experience at Moscow, made no secret of the fact that he
did not enjoy it, and Jerry, going through the same sort of thing at Mellingham
Hall, Mellingham-in-the-Vale, was definitely not at his perkiest. One glance
had been enough to tell Jane that it was no tale of triumph that he had come to
relate. Just so might a knight of old have looked when about to confess to his
damsel that he had been unhorsed in the opening round of the big tournament.

‘Something
went wrong?’

‘Everything
went wrong.

‘My
poor lamb!’

‘She
came in and caught me.’

‘But
she said she was going to the vicarage.’

‘She
must have changed her mind. If people who say they are going to the vicarage
would only
go
to the vicarage, this would be a better and happier world,’
said Jerry bitterly. The subject was one to which he had given much thought. ‘She
blew in before I’d had time to get really started.’

‘What
did you say?’

‘I didn’t
say anything at the moment. I was hiding in a cupboard.’

‘You
were… I don’t think I got that.’

‘I was
in a cupboard, concealed.’

‘Oh, I
see. You heard her coming.’

‘That’s
right.’

‘And
she looked in the cupboard?’

‘Exactly.’

‘What
made her do that?’

‘I
sneezed. There’s no need to laugh.’

‘I wasn’t
laughing, just smiling. I was thinking of that thing in
Alice In Wonderland.
Speak roughly to your little boy and beat him when he sneezes. He only does
it to annoy, because he knows it teases. Did she speak roughly to you?’

‘As far
as I can remember, there wasn’t any conversation. She just biffed me over the
head with some sort of statuette.’

‘Golly!’

‘And
then she asked me what I was doing there.’

‘An
awkward question.’

‘Very.’

‘Difficult
to find the right thing to say.

‘It did
elude me for a moment. Fortunately I remembered I had been talking to her at
lunch about a book she recommended highly. I said I had come to borrow it.’

‘Explaining,
of course, that when you borrow books you always start by hiding in the nearest
cupboard.’

‘I said
I did that because I heard voices.’

‘Well,
so did Joan of Arc, but she didn’t hide in cupboards.’

‘And I
thought it was burglars and I was going to spring out at them.’

‘You
told her that?’

‘Yes.’

‘It
didn’t strike you as a bit thin?’

‘It was
the best I could do. You must bear in mind that I had just been hit on the head
by what felt like the Statue of Liberty. My mental processes were somewhat
disordered.’

‘How
did she take it?’

‘A
little dubiously, it seemed to me. I suppose she assumed that I was loony.’

It was
as if he had given her the cue for which she had been waiting. Her manner,
hitherto that of Florence Nightingale condoling with a wounded soldier, took on
the austerity of a governess who has discovered one of her charges in the act
of raiding the jam cupboard. He had opened up a subject on which she had been
brooding for some time.