Detection Unlimited Read online

  ‘Is it? It doesn’t seem so to me. Are you quite well, Mrs Ainstable? Well enough to be driving alone?’

  ‘Thank you, perfectly well! Is this your way of asking for a lift?’

  ‘No, I should be afraid,’ he retorted.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so silly!’ she said, rather roughly putting the car into gear.

  He watched her sweep through the gates on to the lane, and walked on to rejoin the rest of the party.

  One of the sets had come to an end, and Delia Lindale, who had been playing in it, was taking leave of her hostess. Since it was past Rose-Veronica’s bedtime, Mrs Haswell made no attempt to detain her. Her husband waved to her from the other court, and she sped away through the gate into the public footpath.

  ‘I ought to be going too,’ said Abby.

  ‘No, you oughtn’t: I’m going to run you home,’ said Charles.

  ‘Oh, rot! I can easily walk.’

  ‘You can do more: you can walk beautifully, but you aren’t going to.’

  She laughed. ‘You are an ass! Honestly, there’s no need to get your car out just to run me that little distance.’

  ‘Of course not, and I shouldn’t dream of doing so. I’m doing it for Mr Drybeck,’ said Charles, with aplomb.

  ‘Really, that is very kind of you, my dear boy,’ said Mr Drybeck. ‘I am far from despising such a welcome offer. A most enjoyable game, that last.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to motor Abby and Mr Drybeck home, you could give the Major a lift too,’ suggested Mrs Haswell. ‘You won’t mind waiting till the other game finishes, will you? Mavis, now that I’ve got you both here, I want you and Mrs Cliburn to help me over the prizes for the Whist Drive. I ought to get them on Monday, I think, but we never settled what we ought to spend on them. It won’t take many minutes. Ah, I see the game has ended! Who won? You looked to be very evenly matched.’

  ‘Yes, a good ding-dong game,’ said the Squire, mopping his face and neck. ‘Midgeholme and I just managed to pull it off, but it was a near thing. I’m not as young as I was. Hallo, you back, Plenmeller? Thought you’d gone.’

  ‘But could you have doubted that I should, sir? Your words struck home: I have fetched the correspondence which has for too long languished on my desk. I have no excuse: I didn’t even find it interesting.’

  The Squire stared at him under his bushy brows, and gave a grunt. ‘No need to have rushed off for it then and there. However, I’m obliged to you. Where is it?’

  ‘Can it be that I have erred again? I gave the envelope into Mrs Ainstable’s keeping.’

  ‘Pity. Lindale could have taken it home, and run his eye over it. If you’re going my way, I’ll walk along with you, Lindale.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not, sir. We didn’t come in the car. I’m going by way of the footpath.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s all right, so am I. Going to have a look at my new plantation. My land stretches as far as the path, behind this place, you know.’

  ‘Now, nobody must go before they’ve had a drink,’ interposed Mrs Haswell hospitably.

  ‘Nothing more for me, thank you,’ Mr Drybeck said. ‘I must not hurry my kind chauffeur, but I have promised my housekeeper I will not be late. She likes to go to the cinema in Bellingham on Saturday evening, you know, and so I make it a rule to have an early supper to accommodate her.’

  ‘By Jove, yes!’ said the Major, glancing at his watch. ‘I must be getting along too!’

  ‘Perhaps I had better go quietly away,’ said Gavin, setting down his empty glass. ‘Something tells me I am not popular. Of course, I see now: I should have presented those papers to the Squire on bent knee, instead of handing them casually to his wife. It is all the fault of my upbringing.’

  ‘If you want a lift, it’ll be a bit of a tight squeeze, but I’ll see what I can do,’ said Charles, disregarding this speech.

  ‘No, I shall wend my lonely way home, a solitary and pathetic figure. Goodbye, Mrs Haswell: so very many thanks! I enjoyed myself enormously.’

  He followed the car-party to the drive, and saw them set off before limping in their wake.

  ‘I say, is it all right? I mean, oughtn’t you to have given him a lift?’ asked Abby, who was sitting beside Charles in the front of the sports car. ‘Does it hurt him to walk?’

  ‘Lord, no!’ said Charles. ‘He can walk for miles. Just can’t play games.’

  ‘It must be fairly rotten for him, I should think.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Charles, with cheerful unconcern. ‘He’s always been like it, you see. Trades on it, if you ask me. People like my mother are sorry for him, and think they’ve got to make allowances for him. That’s why he’s so bloody rude.’

  ‘I must say, it was the outside edge to walk off like that, and leave Mavis stranded,’ admitted Abby.

  ‘Yes, and absolutely typical. Does it for effect. Walter Plenmeller was a God-awful type too, though I daresay being smashed up in the War had something to do with that. I say, sir,’ he called over his shoulder to Mr Drybeck, ‘were all the Plenmellers as bad as Walter and Gavin?’

  ‘I was not acquainted with all the Plenmellers,’ replied Mr Drybeck precisely. ‘The family has been established in the county for five centuries.’

  ‘Probably accounts for it,’ said Charles. ‘Run to seed.’

  ‘Tragic affair, Walter Plenmeller’s death,’ remarked the Major. ‘Never more shocked in my life! I must say, though I don’t like Gavin, I was damned sorry for him. Of course, the poor chap wasn’t in his right mind, but it can’t have been pleasant for Gavin.’

  ‘He committed suicide, didn’t he?’ said Abby. ‘Aunt Miriam’s always a bit cagey about it. What happened?’

  ‘Gassed himself, and left a letter to Gavin, practically accusing him of having driven him to it,’ said Charles briefly, swinging the car round the corner into the High Street. ‘It was all rot, of course: he used to have the most ghastly migraines, and I suppose they got to be a bit too much for him.’

  ‘Set me down at the crossroads, Charles,’ said the Major, leaning forward to tap him on the shoulder. ‘No need to come any farther.’

  ‘Sure, sir?’ said Charles, beginning to slow down.

  ‘Quite sure – and many thanks for the lift!’ said the Major, as the car stopped. ‘Goodbye, Miss Dearham: I hope we shall have the opportunity of playing again before you go back to town. Goodbye, Drybeck. Right away, Charles!’

  They left the Major striding off in the direction of Ultima Thule, and turned the corner into the Trindale road. A few hundred yards along it, Charles stopped again to set down Mr Drybeck, and then drove forward, and into Fox Lane.

  ‘Come in and have a drink!’ invited Abby. ‘Aunt Miriam would adore you to. She never drinks anything herself, but she’s firmly convinced I can’t exist without having gin laid on, practically like running hot and cold water, so she lays in quantities whenever I come to stay. She’s an absolute toot, you know. Most people’s aunts disapprove madly of cocktails, and say “Surely you don’t need another, dear?” but she never does. In fact, you’d think she was a confirmed soak, the way she fills up the glasses.’

  ‘Of course I’m coming in,’ said Charles, swinging his long legs out of the car, and slamming the door. ‘That’s why I brought you home.’

  ‘I’ve a good mind not to ask you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be any use at all. I’ve been hopelessly in love with your Aunt Miriam for years, and I shan’t wait to be asked. What’s more, she’s my Aunt Miriam too.’

  ‘She is not!’

  ‘You ask her! She adopted me when I was a kid,’ said Charles, opening the wicket-gate into the neat little garden of Fox Cottage, and stooping to thump with hearty goodwill, apparently much appreciated, the elderly and stout black labrador, who had advanced ponderously to greet him. ‘You see! Even Rex knows I’m persona grata here, and you wouldn’t say he was bursting with intelligence, would you? Go on, you old fool, get out of the light!’

  ‘No, an