Detection Unlimited Read online

  ‘Are we to have the pleasure of seeing you at The Cedars, Miss Patterdale?’ asked the Major, breaking an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘No, my dear man, you are not. I don’t play tennis – never did! – and if there’s one thing I bar it’s watching country-house games. Besides, someone’s got to milk the goats.’

  ‘It’s a curious thing,’ said the Major, ‘but try as I will I can’t like goats’ milk. My wife occasionally used it during the War-years, but I never acquired a liking for it.’

  ‘It would have been more curious if you had. Filthy stuff!’ said Miss Patterdale candidly. ‘The villagers think it’s good for their children: that’s why I keep the brutes. Oh, well! There’s a lot of nonsense talked about children nowadays: the truth is that they thrive on any muck.’

  Upon which trenchant remark she favoured them with another of her curt nods, screwed her monocle more securely into place, and strode off down the street.

  ‘Remarkable woman, that,’ observed the Major.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ responded Mr Drybeck unenthusiastically.

  ‘Extraordinarily pretty girl, that niece of hers. Not a bit like her, is she?’

  ‘Her mother – Fanny Patterdale that was – was always considered the better-looking of the sisters,’ said Mr Drybeck repressively. ‘I fancy you were not acquainted with her.’

  ‘No, before my time,’ agreed the Major, realising that he had been put in his place by the Second Oldest Inhabitant, and submitting to it. ‘I’m a comparative newcomer, of course.’

  ‘Hardly that, Midgeholme,’ said Mr Drybeck, rewarding this humility as it deserved. ‘Compared to the Squire and me, and, I suppose I should add, Plenmeller, perhaps you might be considered a newcomer. But the place has seen many changes of late years.’

  ‘And not all of them for the better,’ said the Major. ‘Tempora mores, eh?’

  Mr Drybeck winced slightly, and said in a pensive voice, as though to himself: ‘O tempora, O mores! Perhaps one would rather say tempora mutantur.’

  The Major, prevented by circumstance from expressing any such preference, attempted no response. Mr Drybeck said: ‘One is tempted to finish the tag, but I do not feel that I for one have changed very much with the times. It is sometimes difficult to repress a wish that our little community had not altered so sadly. I find myself remembering the days when the Brotherlees owned The Cedars – not that I have anything to say in disparagement of the Haswells, very estimable people, I am sure, but not, it must be owned, quite like the Brotherlees.’

  ‘Not at all, no,’ said the Major, in all sincerity. ‘Well, for one thing, the Brotherlees never entertained, did they? I must say, I think the Haswells are a distinct acquisition to Thornden. Nice to see that fine old house put into good order again, too. But if you’re thinking of the present owner of Fox House, why, there I’m with you! A very poor exchange for the Churnsikes, I’ve always held – and I’m not the only one of that opinion.’

  Mr Drybeck looked pleased, but only said, in a mild voice: ‘Rather a fish out of water, poor Warrenby.’

  ‘I can’t think what induced him to move out of the town,’ said the Major. ‘I should have said he was a good deal more in his element in the Melkinton Road than he’ll ever be at Fox House. Not by any means a pukka sahib, as we used to say in the good old days. Ah, well! It takes all sorts to make a world, I suppose.’

  Mr Drybeck agreed to this, but as though he found it a regrettable thing; and the two gentlemen walked on in meditative silence. As they reached the corner of Wood Lane, Gavin Plenmeller came out of the gate set in the wall of Thornden House, and limped across the road towards them. He was a slight, dark young man, a little under thirty, with a quick, lively countenance, and a contraction in one leg, which had been caused by his having suffered from hip-disease in his childhood.

  It had precluded him from taking any very active part in the War, and was held, by the charitable, to account for the frequent acidity of his conversation. He had inherited Thornden House, together with what remained, after excessive taxation, of a moderate fortune, from his half-brother rather more than a year previously, and was not felt to be a newcomer to the district. He had been used to living in London, supplementing a small patrimony by writing detective stories; but he had visited Thornden at frequent intervals, generally remaining under his brother’s roof until the combination of his mocking tongue and Walter’s nerve-racked irritability resulted in an inevitable quarrel – if a situation could be called a quarrel in which one man exploded with exasperation, and the other laughed, and shrugged his thin shoulders. Walter had taken an all-too active part in the War, and had emerged from it in a condition nearly resembling a mental and physical wreck, his temper uncertain, and his strength no more than would allow him to pursue, in a spasmodic way, his old, passionate hobbies of entomology and bird-watching. After each rift with Gavin he had sworn never to have the young waster in the house again; but when Gavin, wholly impervious to insult, once more arrived on his doorstep he invariably admitted him, and even, for several days, enjoyed his companionship. His indifferent health made him disinclined to see society, and when he died, and Gavin succeeded to his place, even persons of all-embracing charity, such as Mavis Warrenby, could scarcely regret the change. Gavin was not popular, for he took no trouble to conceal his conviction that he was cleverer than his neighbours; but he was less disliked than his brother had been.

  The two elder men waited for him to come up with them. ‘Coming to The Cedars?’ the Major asked.

  ‘Yes, do you think it odd of me? I expect I shall play croquet. Mrs Haswell is sure to ask me to: she has such a kind disposition!’

  ‘A game of considerable skill,’ remarked Mr Drybeck. ‘It has gone out of fashion of late years, but in my young days it was very popular. I remember my grandmother telling me, however, that when it first came in it was frowned on as being fast, and leading to flirtation. Amusing!’

  ‘I can’t flirt with Mrs Haswell: she regards me with a motherly eye. Or with Mavis: her eyes glisten, and she knows I don’t mean the dreadful things I say. Besides, her uncle might take it to mean encouragement of himself, and that would never do. He would force his way into my house, and I’m resolved that it shall be the one threshold he can’t cross. My brother used to say that to me, but he didn’t mean it. The likeness between us was only skin-deep, after all.’

  ‘Oh, yours won’t be the only one!’ said the Major, chuckling a little. ‘Eh, Drybeck?’

  ‘No, you’re quite mistaken, Major. Warrenby will cross Mr Drybeck’s threshold by a ruse. He will simulate a fit at his gate, or beg to be allowed to come in to recover from an attack of giddiness, and Mr Drybeck will be too polite to refuse him. That’s the worst of having been born in the last century: you’re always being frustrated by your upbringing.’

  ‘I trust,’ said Mr Drybeck frostily, ‘that I should not refuse admittance to anyone in such need of assistance as you indicate.’

  ‘You mean you trust you won’t be at home when it happens, because your fear of appearing to the rest of us to be callous might prove stronger than your disinclination to render the least assistance to Warrenby.’

  ‘Really, Plenmeller, that borders on the offensive!’ protested the Major, perceiving that Mr Drybeck had taken umbrage at it.

  ‘Not at all. It was merely the truth. You aren’t suggesting, are you, that Mr Drybeck lived for long enough in the last century to think the truth something too indecent to be acknowledged? That seems to me very offensive.’

  The Major was nonplussed by this, and could think of nothing to say. Mr Drybeck gave a laugh that indicated annoyance rather than amusement, and said: ‘You will forgive me, Plenmeller, if I say that the truth in this instance is that Warrenby’s presence in our midst does not – though I think it hardly adds to the amenities of Thornden – occupy my mind as it seems to occupy yours. I am sorry to be obliged to tamper with the dramatic picture you have painted, but honesty compels me to say that my fee