The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (42 page)

^{He said, half-seriously, "Yes, I am and it isn't because I'm a puritan but because I don't care to get involved with you when I'm relying on your father to do me the biggest favour anyone has ever done me in my entire life."}

^{"Ah, so that's it," she said, thoughtfully, "I rather thought it was and it takes some of the sting out of it but that doesn't account for your not wanting to marry me, does it?"}

^{He looked exasperated for a moment and then laughed. He was finding it increasingly easy to laugh at her. "I know exactly what would happen if I was fool enough to do that," he told her.}

^{"What?" she said. "Tell me, Martin!"}

^{"In less than a year you'd be wondering how the hell it all happened. I'd be high and dry again, your father would be made miserable and you'd mope around for twenty-four hours telling yourself what a Jonah you were! Then I should be replaced by some other fad and that's about the middle and both ends of it!"}

^{She wriggled herself into the blankets and sat up hugging her knees like a child. "You're probably quite right, Martin," she said, "but what a wonderful year it would be for us both. Are you going to kiss me good night?"}

^{"It's nearly four in the morning," he reminded her, "it will be daylight in an hour. However, I'm not that pedantic I hope!" and he kissed her lightly on the mouth, evading the grab she made at his shoulders.}

^{"You'll never stop treating me like a child, will you, Martin?"}

^{"No," he said from the door, "because you'll never stop being}

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^{one! Don't put anything more on that fire, I should hate Olga to come home to a charred ruin and learn that a wanton I'd brought in from the streets had started the blaze!" and he turned out the light and went cheerfully upstairs to bed.}

^{He did not hear the knocking at the front door but opened his eyes when he heard Rachel call from the foot of the stairs. He struggled up and looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past eight o'clock and for the first time in days the sun was shining through his window.}

^{He had left home without a dressing-gown and had not yet bought one but had made do with a threadbare bathrobe of Olga's. He threw this over his pyjamas, hurried along the passage and half-way down the stairs but there he stopped for Rachel, barefooted and wearing his old mackintosh, was standing in the hall talking to a heavily moustached stranger. Or was it a stranger? At second glance Sebastian had an impression that he had seen the man before and linked his pink plumpishness with some kind of official business, insurance or income tax or licensing of some sort, he could not remember what.}

^{"Who is it, Ray? What does he want?" he demanded, embarrassment making him sound irritable.}

^{She shrugged her shoulders. "Better ask him!" she said, yawning, "I didn't even hear him knock, he came round and rapped on the window."}

^{The man addressed him in the kind of voice novelists sometimes describe as 'fruity' and Mr. Sermon at once decided that he did not care for his manner. It was too confident for an insurance man but not confident enough for someone sure of his ground. He said, with a note of query: "Mr. Sermon? Mr. Sebastian Sermon?"}

^{"Yes, that's me," said Sebastian, "have you come about last night's affair?"}

^{A flicker of amusement lit up the man's face and then died away as he recaptured his expression between blandness and shiftiness.}

^{"And this will be Miss Grey?"}

^26$

^{Rachel, who had been taking no more than a cursory interest in the exchanges, stifled a second yawn and stared at the visitor.}

^{"What is all this?" she demanded. "We didn't get to bed until four a.m., so if it's about the damage at the zoo and what happened to the animals, go over to the Council. We'll be over there after breakfast."}

^{"It's not about the zoo." said the stranger, and suddenly it occurred to Sebastian that the visitor was enjoying their bewilderment.}

^{"Then what the devil is it about?" asked Mr. Sermon, sharply.}

^{"It's about you, I'm afraid," said the man, "you and this young lady! I need not have introduced myself at all since I have what I came for but I thought it wasn't fair dinkum to go away without telling you!"}

^{Mr. Sermon recognised 'fair dinkum' as an Australian term but his knowledge of dialects told him that this man was not an Australian but a Londoner and a South Londoner at that. The certainty of this made him uneasy for in the back of his mind he caught at a wisp of memory that associated this evasive ass with Wyckham Rise. It had something to do with a group of people sitting in a row and smiling cheesy smiles, and a lot of people in fancy dress with this man and his idiotic moustache bobbing about in the foreground . . . and then the combination clicked, and out walked a drivelling photographer who attended Sybil's dress rehearsals in the Manor Hall.}

^{"Good God!" he exclaimed, "you're Scott-Jones, or Joneson Scott or Something. You're a photographer!"}

^{The man looked startled for a moment and then made a brave show of relaxing.}

^{"Bang on, Sermon! I didn't think you'd remember me. Sybil said you wouldn't but there, you have after all! It's 'Scott-James' as a matter o* fact old man!"}

^{"Sybil? My wife Sybil?"}

^{"That's right, and I'm acting for her."}

^{Sebastian rode out the impact of this statement with his calf braced against the seventh stair where he had remained during these exchanges. He now rubbed his eyes, wishing that he had remembered to pick up his glasses on leaving the bedroom and then,}

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^{moving slowly and carefully, he descended to hall level, hunching his bath robe around him like a toga. He went right up to Scott-James and* looked him in the face.}

^{"Acting for her, you said?"}

^{"That's it, unofficially I suppose you'd say but I'm no longer certain about that, not in the ... er ... circumstances!" and he turned his gaze to Rachel who had remained over by the sitting-room door with both hands thrust into the pockets of Sebastian's brown mackintosh. Following the man's glance Mr. Sermon was shocked to note that the mackintosh appeared to be her sole garment. He took a deep, reassuring breath.}

^{"Go and get something on, Ray and leave me to deal with our friend. Now, sir, acting for my wife you said! In ... er ... what capacity may I ask?"}

^{Scott-James, who had been slightly intimidated by Sebastian's approach, now assumed a kind of waggish heartiness, a trick of expression acquired almost unconsciously in the anteroom when aircrew were ragging each other about popsies.}

^{"Now look here, Sermon old man, let's be thoroughly adult about this! You know very well what I'm doing here and you'll have one hell of a job to bluff your way out of this! I'm a very close friend of your wife's, metter o' feet she came to me for advice and that's why I'm here."}

^{Mr. Sermon studied him bleakly. "That's what I mean," he said quietly, "but I don't understand
why
you are here, I don't understand that at all! I intend to find out, however, even if it involves taking you to court, you understand ?"}

^{"I shouldn't rely too much on courts, if I was in your shoes!" said Scott-James, unpleasantly, adding, "I should imagine that it will pay you to keep clear of the courts, old man!"}

^{"I want to be clear on one thing first," said Sebastian, continuing as though the other had remained silent. "I should like to know, for instance, if you have my wife's written authority for calling on me and forcing your way in here."}

^{"I didn't force my way in," blustered Scott-James, "your ... er ... Miss Grey invited me inside when I indicated that I wanted to speak to you."}

²⁶⁷

^{"Please answer my question," said Sebastian, stubbornly, "have you my wife's authority for this . . . this monstrous impertinence ?"}

^{"Yes, I have!"}

^{"Written authority? You mean you are a solicitor as well as a photographer?"}

^{"No, I'm not a solicitor!" shouted Scott-James. "It hasn't got to a solicitor yet but it will, Sermon, and when it does you won't have a leg to stand on!"}

^{Rachel joined in now and Sebastian noticed that she had ignored his order to get dressed but had remained standing by the door.}

^{"Who the hell is he? A private detective or somebody?"}

^{"No," said Mr. Sermon, grimly, "he's not a private detective, just a snooper and a very amateur one at that!" and without a flicker of warning he shot out his right hand, grabbed Scott-James by the jacket collar and planted a powerful, short-armed left in a region of the stomach that would have indubitably disqualified him from any boxing contest, amateur or professional.}

^{The success of the blow amazed him. Scott-James uttered a loud grunt and folded like a half-severed bullrush, bending almost double and spreading his arms wide like a diver. The overcoat he had been carrying across his arm slithered across the polished floor and landed at Rachel's feet and Mr. Sermon, unable to resist the tempting target of Scott-James' head, moved in with a right and a left swing, the right landing a heavy blow on his victim's ear, the left-by far the most powerful of the two-striking home on the side of Scott-James* thickish nose.}

^{"Good God!" exclaimed Rachel, putting a hand to her mouth and stepping back across the threshold of the sitting-room door as Scott-James, dazed under the impact of the three blows swayed left, then right and finally plunged forward to sprawl across a hall chair in an attitude of prayer. His nose began to spurt blood and he groped wildly for his polka-dot scarf while Sebastian, now as white as a sheet, watched him incuriously, not even holding himself in readiness for a counter-attack but breathing hard as though at the end of a strenuous round.}

^{"Now, sir," he said, breathlessly, "you hinted something about evidence you had. I assume you mean photographic evidence.}

²⁶⁸

^{Where is your camera?" and he bore down on the helpless man as though he meant to conduct a search.}

^{"It's in here!" said Rachel suddenly and picked up the overcoat. "But . . . how did you ... I mean, why did you . . . ?" and she surrendered the coat with a gesture signifying wordless amazement. Mr. Sermon turned his back on Scott-James and delved into the pockets, his hand emerging with a camera in a canvas case.}

^{"Ha, I thought as much!" he said, triumphantly. "Peeping Tom at the window, eh? Well, it won't avail him very much!" and he extracted the camera, threw the case on the floor, took out the roll of film and put it carefully in his bathrobe pocket.}

^{"Right! Now open the door, Rachel," he said briskly, "and then do as I say. Get dressed at once, do you hear?"}

^{Rachel slipped across the hall and opened the door and when she turned Sebastian had replaced the camera in its case and was holding it suspended by its strap. Scott-James, who seemed to be losing an alarming amount of blood, had now struggled into a sitting position and seemed to be trying to say something but his words were muffled by the scarf clamped to his face.}

^{"You can add this to your account of what happened down here!" said Sebastian and whirling the camera round his head in the fashion of a mediaeval slinger he flailed it against the door with such force that the strap fastenings broke and it rolled down the steps and bounced into a clump of herbaceous border plants.}

^{The deliberate destruction of his camera roused Scott-James as the assault upon his person had failed to do. He rose to his feet and rushed through the open door with a bellow of rage.}

^{"By God, I'll have satisfaction for this!" he shouted. "I'll get the police up here you . . . you vicious little swine! You won't only be cited for divorce! I'll have you in court for assault and battery! My Leica! My God, my Leica!" and he plunged down the steps and began scrabbling among the beds where the camera had rolled. When he found it he raised it in both hands, gibbering half-articulate protests and suddenly the sight of him in this posture, with the ruined camera held up as evidence of his assailant's vandalism, must have struck Mr. Sermon as mildly comic, for he smiled a very tight-lipped smile and said:}

²⁶⁹

^{"Take it to court, my dear fellow! Label it exhibit Number One! And perhaps your nose will be Exhibit Two, you unmitigated busybody!" and he slammed the door as though upon a spectacle that, whilst having diverting aspects, was nauseating to a man of good taste.}

^{He marched into the sitting-room and found Rachel watching a retreating Mr. Scott-James from the window. Even now she had only partially obeyed his twice-repeated instructions to get dressed, for in place of the mackintosh she wore only a semi-transparent pair of briefs. The sight of her brought a blush to his cheek but she seemed not to notice this and said, dismally: "I warned you I was a Jonah! Now perhaps you'll believe me! I hadn't the faintest idea he was snooping. I thought he was someone from the Council Stores about the animals we dumped there. He didn't say anything, he just rapped on the window and pointed to the front-door, so I nipped out of bed and let him in without another thought. Did I do wrong ? Have I let you in for something dreadful? Oh dear, I do hope -not."}