"Race you to the bathroom, old man," Bannard cried out.
"Please go first," responded Maybury soberly. As he had no means of conveying the bread and butter off the premises, he hoped, with the aid of the towel, to conceal it in his skimpy pyjamas jacket, and push it down the water closet. Even Bannard would probably not attempt to throw his arms round him and so uncover the offence.
Down in the lounge, there they all were, with Falkner presiding indefinably but genially. Wan though authentic sunlight trickled in from the outer world, but Maybury observed that the front door was still bolted and chained. It was the first thing he looked for. Universal expectation was detectable: of breakfast, Maybury assumed. Bannard, at all times shrimpish, was simply lost in the throng. Cécile he could not see, but he made a point of not looking very hard. In any case, several of the people looked new, or at least different. Possibly it was a further example of the phenomenon Maybury had encountered with Bannard.
Falkner crossed to him at once: the recalcitrant but still privileged outsider. "I can promise you a good breakfast, Mr Maybury," he said confidentially. "Lentils. Fresh fish. Rump steak. Apple pie made by ourselves, with lots and lots of cream."
"I mustn't stay for it," said Maybury. "I simply mustn't. I have my living to earn. I must go at once."
He was quite prepared to walk a couple of miles; indeed, all set for it. The automobile organisation, which had given him the route from which he should never have diverged, could recover his car. They had done it for him before, several times.
A faint shadow passed over Falkner's face, but he merely said in a low voice, "If you really insist, Mr Maybury —."
"I'm afraid I have to," said Maybury.
"Then I'll have a word with you in a moment."
None of the others seemed to concern themselves. Soon they all filed off, talking quietly among themselves, or, in many cases, saying nothing.
"Mr Maybury," said Falkner, "you can respect a confidence?"
"Yes," said Maybury steadily.
"There was an incident here last night. A death. We do not talk about such things. Our guests do not expect it."
"I am sorry," said Maybury.
"Such things still upset me," said Falkner. "None the less I must not think about that. My immediate task is to dispose of the body. While the guests are preoccupied. To spare them all knowledge, all pain."
"How is that to be done?" enquired Maybury.
"In the usual manner, Mr Maybury. The hearse is drawing up outside the door even as we speak. Where you are concerned, the point is this. If you wish for what in other circumstances I could call a lift, I could arrange for you to join the vehicle. It is travelling quite a distance. We find that best." Falkner was progressively unfastening the front door. "It seems the best solution, don't you think, Mr Maybury? At least it is the best I can offer. Though you will not be able to thank Mr Bannard, of course."
A coffin was already coming down the stairs, borne on the shoulders of four men in black, with Vincent, in his white jacket, coming first, in order to leave no doubt of the way and to prevent any loss of time.
"I agree," said Maybury. "I accept. Perhaps you would let me know my bill for dinner?"
"I shall waive that too, Mr Maybury," replied Falkner, "in the present circumstances. We have a duty to hasten. We have others to think of. I shall simply say how glad we have all been to have you with us." He held out his hand. "Good-bye, Mr Maybury."
Maybury was compelled to travel with the coffin itself, because there simply was not room for him on the front seat, where a director of the firm, a corpulent man, had to be accommodated with the driver. The nearness of death compelled a respectful silence among the company in the rear compartment, especially when a living stranger was in the midst; and Maybury alighted unobtrusively when a bus stop was reached. One of the undertaker's men said that he should not have to wait long.
The Same Dog
Though there were three boys, there were also twelve long years between Hilary Brigstock and his immediately elder brother, Gilbert. On the other hand, there was only one year and one month between Gilbert and the future head of the family, Roger.
Hilary could not remember when first the suggestion entered his ears that his existence was the consequence of a "mistake". Possibly he had in any case hit upon the idea already, within his own head. Nor did his Christian name help very much: people always supposed it to be the name of a girl, even though his father asserted loudly on all possible occasions that the idea was a complete mistake, a product of etymological and historical ignorance, and of typical modern sloppiness.
And his mother was dead. He was quite unable to remember her, however hard he tried; as he from time to time did. Because his father never remarried, having as clear and definite views about women as he had about many other things, Hilary grew up against an almost entirely male background. In practice, this background seemed to consist fundamentally of Roger and Gilbert forever slugging and bashing at one another, with an occasional sideswipe at their kid brother. So Hilary, though no milksop, tended to keep his own counsel and his own secrets. In particular, there are few questions asked by a young boy when there is no woman to reply to them; or, at least, few questions about anything that matters.
The family lived in the remoter part of Surrey. There was a very respectable, rather expensive, semi-infant school, Briarside, to which most of the young children were directed from the earliest age practicable. Hilary was duly sent there, as had been his brothers ahead of him, in order to learn some simple reading and figuring, and how to catch a ball, before being passed on to the fashionable preparatory school, Gorselands, on his way to Cheltenham or Wellington. Some of the family went to the one place, some to the other. It was an unusual arrangement, and outsiders could never see the sense in it.
Almost unavoidably, Briarside was a mixed establishment (though it would have been absurd to describe it as co-educational), and there Hilary formed a close and remarkable friendship with a girl, two years older than himself, named Mary Rossiter. The little girls at the school were almost the first Hilary had ever met. Even his young cousins were all boys, as happens in some families.
Mary had dark, frizzy hair, which stuck out round her head; and a rather flat face, with, however, an already fine pair of large, dark eyes, which not only sparkled, but seemed to move from side to side in surprising jerks as she spoke, which, if permitted, she did almost continuously. Generally she wore a shirt or sweater and shorts, as little girls were beginning to do at that time, and emanated extroversion; but occasionally, when there was a school celebration, more perhaps for the parents than for the tots, she would appear in a really beautiful silk dress, eclipsing everyone, and all the more in that the dress seemed not precisely right for her, but more like a stage costume. Mary Rossiter showed promise of natural leadership (some of the mums already called her "bossy"), but her fine eyes were for Hilary alone; and not only her eyes, but hands and lips and tender words as well.
From within the first few days of his arrival, Hilary was sitting next to Mary at the classes (if such they could be called) and partnering her inseparably in the playrooms and the garden. The establishment liked the boys to play with the boys, the girls with the girls, and normally no admonition whatever was needed in those directions; but when it came to Hilary and Mary, the truth was that already Mary was difficult to resist when she was set upon a thing. She charmed, she smiled, and she persisted. Moreover, her father was very rich; and it was obvious from everything about her that her parents doted on her.