“Lazy type,” repeated the Bishop very distinctly. “Policeman.”
“I’m sorry you find us lacking in energy, sir,” said Henry.
“You need help. Help. Just think.”
“I’m trying to.” Like most people coming into contact with the Manciple family for the first time Henry had the impression of struggling through cotton.
“Help! Help!”
“What sort of help?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Very ingenious. Think.”
Henry gave up. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir, what you…”
“Aid,” said the Bishop. “Aid.”
“Aid for Bugolaland, you mean?”
“Aid. A-I-D. You start with the three-toed South American sloth…”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I should have told you sooner. Three letters.”
“I thought you said three toes.”
“That’s the sloth. The lazy type. Ai.”
“What?”
“Ai. A-I. The three-toed South American sloth. Don’t you know him? A most useful little fellow. Don’t know what the compilers would do without him. That leaves D. D means a penny. A penny is a copper. A copper is a policeman. A-I-D. Aid. Means help. That’s what you need. Ingenious, isn’t it?” The Bishop thrust his copy of The Times under Henry’s nose. It was folded so as to display the crossword puzzle to advantage. “Fourteen down.”
“Most ingenious,” Henry agreed.
“Of course,” said the Bishop kindly, “not everybody has a crossword brain. It’s a knack.” It was clear that he was trying to find the most charitable explanation for Henry’s obtuseness. “I don’t get much chance to do them at home. When I stay with George, I’ve got time on my hands.”
“Are you making a long stay in Cregwell, sir?” Henry asked.
“Heavens, no. Just a few days.” The Bishop laughed again. “Poor young fellow. Must be a bit of an ordeal. But we’re not so bad when you get to know us. The family, I mean. Now, the Head, he was a different kettle of fish. You never knew my father, did you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Remarkable old man. Most remarkable. What you would call a character. Between you and me, he became a little eccentric in his later years, although his brain remained crystal clear right to the end. He was eighty-two when he died…”
“That’s a very good age,” said Henry.
“A good age?” echoed the Bishop, astonished. “My dear sir, in our family a man is considered a youngster until he is ninety. Look at Aunt Dora, the Head’s sister. You’ll be meeting her in a minute. Ninety-three and as bright as a button. No, no. The Head would have lived for another twenty years at least had nature been allowed to run her course. I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That he was killed in a car smash. Not his fault, of course. The other driver was to blame.”
“You mean, your father was driving? At his age?”
“Certainly.”
“I’ve always thought,” said Henry, “that it’s rather risky to go on driving after seventy.”
“Goodness me, what a bizarre idea. The Head didn’t learn until he was seventy-five. He was a most remarkable driver.”
“I can imagine that.” Henry was thinking of the portrait in the hall.
“If he had a fault behind the wheel it was his reluctance to keep to the left. He considered it dangerous to drive too close to the curb, preferred the middle of the road where he felt safer. After all, as he frequently pointed out, as a taxpayer the highway was his property. Unfortunately, this very point of view was shared by his greatest friend, old Arthur Pringle, who was the Head’s solicitor. On this occasion, apparently, their two cars were approaching each other at some speed traveling in opposite directions. Neither driver would concede right of way to the other, and the vehicles met in a head-on collision. A great tragedy. Pringle was killed outright, and the Head died a few hours later in the hospital.” The Bishop sighed. “Ah, well, it’s all a long time ago now. Fifteen years or more. I always say…”
At this point the drawing-room door opened and a girl came in, a tiny, blonde girl who walked like a dancer. Despite the fact that she wore a plain blue linen dress and no ornaments of any kind Henry was reminded of the fairy doll on a Christmas tree. There was the same pink-and-white perfection, the same sparkle.
“Ah, there y’are, Maud,” said the Bishop approvingly. “Mr. Tibbett. My niece, Maud Manciple. Here’s one for you, Maud. Lazy type, the policeman. You need help.”
“How many letters?” Maud asked without hesitation.
“Three,”
She wrinkled her small forehead. “Lazy type. Sloth. Ai. Policeman, copper, D. Aid. Am I right?”
“Well done! Capital,” exclaimed the Bishop. To Henry he added, “Can’t catch this girl out. She’s got the Manciple brain, all right. First class honors in…”
“Oh, honestly, Uncle Edwin,” protested Maud. “Do you mind?” She smiled dazzlingly at Henry. “How do you do?” she said. “You must be John Adamson’s detective from London.”
“Yes, I am,” said Henry.
“I suppose you’ll want to talk to us all about Raymond Mason.”
“I’m afraid so. But later on.”
“Thanks for the respite.”
The Bishop, who had returned to his crossword puzzle, looked up. “Where’s your young man then, Maud?”
“I wish I knew,” said Maud. “I thought he might be here.”
“Probably down on the range with George.”
“Oh, help. I’d better go and rescue him. I’m convinced that Daddy will kill somebody one of these days…” She stopped suddenly, scarlet-faced. Then, to Henry, she said very deliberately, “That was a joke. The shooting range is perfectly safe.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Henry. “Anyway, I don’t think that your father is there. I met him in the garden just now…”
The door opened again, and Violet Manciple looked in. She had put on a butler’s apron and carried a wooden spoon.
“Has anybody seen George?” she asked.
“Mr. Tibbett says he’s in the garden,” said Maud.
“Was he shooting at tennis balls?” Mrs. Manciple asked Henry.
“No,” said Henry. “He was up a tree.” After as little as ten minutes in Cregwell Grange this exchange of remarks seemed quite normal to him.
“Oh, I am glad. Experimenting again, I suppose. I’ll go and call him.” Mrs. Manciple withdrew.
Maud looked at Henry with distinct amusement. “Are you Irish by any chance, Mr. Tibbett?” she asked.
“No, I’m a Londoner. I believe my family came from Cornwall originally.”
“Ah, Celtic. That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The fact that you seem to understand what we’re talking about.”
“I wouldn’t bank on that,” said Henry.
“I’m afraid we are rather strange,” said Maud.
At this the Bishop looked up from his newspaper. “Strange? What d’you mean, strange?”
“All the Manciples,” said Maud, “are mad.”
“What utter rubbish,” retorted the Bishop with spirit. “Now, that fellow Mason, he was definitely deranged. Should have been locked up.”
“Really?” Henry was interested. “What makes you say that, sir?”
“I’ll tell you. First time I met the man, two years ago…”
Again the door opened, cutting short the Bishop’s reminiscence. The man who came in was younger than either the Major or the Bishop, but his long face and angular jaw marked him unmistakably as a Manciple. He wore a suit made of rough tweed, which might easily have been homespun, and he was accompanied by a middle-aged woman who might easily have spun it. She had the dark hair and skin of a gypsy, and she was dressed in a peasant blouse and dirndl skirt; her sandals, clumsily sewn with thick leather thongs, were almost certainly home-made; and she wore a necklace of massive, hand-baked pottery beads.