At the bottom of the case were two other objects of interest. First, coiled in a brown velvet bag, the sort of leather strap used by schoolmasters, at whose purpose, in view of the diary, it was easy to guess; and second, in a chocolate box, a gun.
FOUR
Telephoning for the local taxi to come and fetch me, I went to Oxford and bought a camera. Although the shop was starting a busy Saturday afternoon, the boy who served me tackled the problem of a one-handed photographer with enthusiasm and as if he had all the time in the world. Between us we sorted out a miniature German sixteen millimetre camera, three inches long by one and a half wide, which I could hold, set, snap and wind with one hand with the greatest ease.
He gave me a thorough lesson in how to work it, added an inch to its length in the shape of a screwed-on photo electric light meter, loaded it with film, and slid it into a black case so small that it made no bulge in my trouser pocket. He also offered to change the film later if I couldn’t manage it. We parted on the best of terms.
When I got back everyone was sitting round a cosy fire in the drawing-room, eating crumpets. Very tantalising. I loved crumpets.
No one took much notice when I went in and sat down on the fringe of the circle except Mrs van Dysart, who began sharpening her claws. She got in a couple of quick digs about spongers marrying girls for their money, and Charles didn’t say that I hadn’t. Viola looked at me searchingly, worry opening her mouth. I winked, and she shut it again in relief.
I gathered that the morning’s bag had been the usual mixture (two brace of pheasant, five wild duck and a hare), because Charles preferred a rough shoot over his own land to organised affairs with beaters. The women had collected a poor opinion of Oxford shop assistants and a booklet on the manufacture of fifteenth-century Italian glass. All very normal for a country weekend. It was my snooping which seemed unreal. That, and the false position Charles had steered me into.
Kraye’s gaze, and finally his hands, strayed back to the gem bookshelves. Again the door was opened, Charles’ trick lighting working effectively, and one by one the gems were brought out, passed round and closely admired. Mrs van Dysart seemed much attached to a spectacular piece of rose quartz, playing with it to make light strike sparks from it, and smoothing her fingers over the glossy surface.
‘Rex, you must collect some of this for me!’ she ordered, her will showing like iron inside the fluff: and masterful looking Rex nodded his meek agreement.
Kraye was saying, ‘You know, Roland, these are really remarkably fine specimens. Among the best I’ve ever seen. Your cousin must have been extremely fortunate and influential to acquire so many fine crystals.’
‘Oh, indeed he was,’ agreed Charles equably.
‘I should be interested if you ever think of realising on them… a first option, perhaps?’
‘You can have a first option by all means,’ smiled Charles. ‘But I shan’t be selling them, I assure you.’
‘Ah well, so you say now. But I don’t give up easily… I shall try you later. But don’t forget, my first option?’
‘Certainly,’ said Charles. ‘My word on it.’
Kraye smiled at the stone he held in his hands, a magnificent raw amethyst like a cluster of petrified violets.
‘Don’t let this fall into the fire,’ he said. ‘It would turn yellow.’ He then treated everyone to a lecture on amethysts which would have been interesting had he made any attempt at simplicity: but blinding by words was with him either a habit or a policy. I wasn’t certain which.
‘…Manganese, of course occurring in geodes or agate nodules in South America or Russia, but with such a world-wide distribution it was only to be expected that elementary societies should ascribe to it supra rational inherencies and attributes…’
I suddenly found him looking straight at me, and I knew my expression had not been one of impressed admiration. More like quizzical sarcasm. He didn’t like it. There was a quick flash in his eyes.
‘It is symptomatic of the slum mentality,’ he remarked, ‘to scoff at what it can’t comprehend.’
‘Sid,’ said Charles sharply, unconsciously giving away half my name, ‘I’m sure you must have something else to do. We can let you go until dinner.’
I stood up. The natural anger rose quickly, but only as far as my teeth. I swallowed. ‘Very well,’ I muttered.
‘Before you go, Sid,’ said Mrs van Dysart from the depths of a sofa, ‘… Sid, what a deliciously plebeian name, so suitable… Put these down on the table for me.’
She held out both hands, one stone in each and another balanced between them. I couldn’t manage them all, and dropped them.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs van Dysart, acidly sweet, as I knelt and picked them up, putting them one by one on the table, ‘I forgot you were disabled, so silly of me.’ She hadn’t forgotten. ‘Are you sure you can’t get treatment for whatever is wrong with you? You ought to try some exercises, they’d do you the world of good. All you need is a little perseverance. You owe it to the Admiral, don’t you think, to try?’
I didn’t answer, and Charles at least had the grace to keep quiet.
‘I know of a very good man over here,’ went on Mrs van Dysart. ‘He used to work for the army at home… excellent at getting malingerers back into service. Now he’s the sort of man who’d do you good. What do you think Admiral, shall I fix up for your son-in-law to see him?’
‘Er…’ said Charles, ‘I don’t think it would work.’
‘Nonsense.’ She was brisk and full of smiles. ‘You can’t let him lounge about doing nothing for the rest of his life. A good bracing course of treatment, that’s what he needs. Now,’ she said turning to me, ‘so that I know exactly what I’m talking about when I make an appointment, let’s see this precious crippled hand of yours.’
There was a tiny pause. I could feel their probing eyes, their unfriendly curiosity.
‘No,’ I said calmly. ‘Excuse me, but no.’
As I walked across the room and out of the door her voice floated after me. ‘There you are, Admiral, he doesn’t want to get better. They’re all the same…’
I lay on my bed for a couple of hours re-reading the book on company law, especially, now, the section on take-overs. It was no easier than it had been in the hospital, and now that I knew why I was reading it, it seemed more involved, not less. If the directors of Seabury were worried, they would surely have called in their own investigator. Someone who knew his way round the stock markets like I knew my way round the track. An expert. I wasn’t at all the right sort of person to stop Kraye, even if indeed anyone could stop him. And yet… I stared at the ceiling, taking my lower lip between my teeth… and yet I did have a wild idea…
Viola came in, knocking as she opened the door.
‘Sid, dear, are you all right? Can I do anything for you?’ She shut the door, gentle, generous, and worried.
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. ‘No thanks, I’m fine.’
She perched on the arm of an easy chair, looked at me with her kind, slightly mournful brown eyes, and said a little breathlessly, ‘Sid, why are you letting Charles say such terrible things about you? It isn’t only when you are there in the room, they’ve been, oh, almost sniggering about you behind your back. Charles and that frightful Mrs van Dysart… What has happened between you and him? When you nearly died he couldn’t have been more worried if you’d been his own son… but now he is so cruel, and terribly unfair.’