Unbidden, the image of Sir Frederick Clinton superimposed itself on Sophie Kenyon ' — the wicked old devil! He said if I didn't want to take part the crate would be Peter's by default.
But he reckoned Peter would win it anyway.'
A dog barked joyously outside the house, at the back in the distance.
'Go on, David.' She swam back into focus, strangely relaxed now. 'Peter has a key — he can let himself in.'
The back had been a jumble of out-buildings and greenhouses full of carefully-wintered plants, he remembered, using the picture to obliterate Fred's obnoxious self-satisfaction. But could Peter ever exchange his exotic Amain coast for the rigours of even a south-facing Cotswold hillside?
'Go on, David.' She was almost serene now that her living man was back under her roof. 'But . . . how was it going to be judged, though?'
He could hear other noises now, so that it was hard to concentrate. 'He said he would leave us to judge ourselves.
But if we didn't agree then we could turn our entries over to the guests.'
The noises resolved themselves into a door clattering and the wretched dog scampering and sliding on the flagstones dummy1
outside before it started removing more paint from the sitting-room door.
And then the door opened and the creature hurtled through the gap, filling the room with furious uninhibited activity —
making for its mistress first, and then happily and incorrectly assuming that any friend of hers must be another friend.
'Down, Buster!' She attempted half-heartedly to restrain the animal's enthusiasm for his new pretended friend. 'Do you have a dog, David?'
'He hates dogs.' Peter Richardson spoke from the doorway.
'He has geese to protect him. Although he probably has electronic sensors now . . . Good to see you, David. I never thought I'd say that. But. . . autres temps, autres moeurs, eh?'
'I don't actually.' The years had greyed Richardson, too: he looked like a distinguished Italian nobleman fancy-dressed in someone's old clothes. (The dead husband's dothes, maybe?) 'I am relieved to see you, too, Mr Dalingridge.'
'Is that a fact?' The brown well-tanned face and the too-knowing smile on it hadn't changed. 'But ... as a matter of fact . . . you've just given me a nasty turn.' Richardson spread his hands out towards the fire. 'Brrr! I'd forgotten how chilly England can get . . .' He gave Audley a sidelong glance. 'The thing outside . . . You always used to drive a sedate Austin ...
not your thing at all, I thought.'
The thing was the Porsche, of course. 'No, Peter. Not my dummy1
thing at all — you're right.' He needed to assert himself. 'I borrowed it. Because it doesn't have a bug in it.' He managed to smile at Richardson at last. 'It belongs to one of your successors actually.'
'One of my successors?' Richardson turned to Sophie Kenyon at last, and his face softened. 'Give me a drink, Sophie . . .
And don't worry, dear: it's like I said, isn't it? It'll be David.
And that means someone else should be worrying a lot more than us.' He nodded at her, with a half-knowing, half-bitter little smile. Then glanced sidelong again at Audley over his outstretched arm. 'One of my successors, eh? Well, he never bought that on his pay — thanks, Sophie dear — but then, the Department of Intelligence Research and Development always favoured well-heeled young gentry, didn't it?' He sipped his drink. 'But it did give me a bit of a turn, I tell you.
I saw the lights from the copse by the road — that was fair enough, I just thought you'd been quick off the mark. But then I saw the back of the car . . . very nice, I'd have thought at any other time — like Cardinal Alberoni when he saw Philippe d'Orleans' backside: Que culo d'angelo . . . but not your sort of car, David. And that worried me for a bit . . .
Still, he must trust you, to lend you his Porsche. In fact, if he knows how you drive, he must be a friend indeed!'
There was an edge of bitterness there as well as strain, beneath the old banter: once upon a time Richardson had taken an equally ridiculous car of his own like that for granted. But Audley was not of a mind to soften the contrast dummy1
by recounting the tale of Mitchell's purchase of the thing second-hand, for cash, after last autumn's Stock Exchange debacle. Instead, he let the thump of Buster's over-worked tail fill the silence between them.
'David was just explaining . . .' Sophie moved loyally to break the deadlock, and then faltered '. . .he was just telling me why he knew you'd be here, Peter . . .' She faltered again.
'Oh yes?' Richardson sank into one of the dog-battered armchairs.
'But I still don't see how — ?' She waited for him to take up the story. Then when he failed her, she turned back to Audley. 'Which of you won the champagne, David?'
Audley watched Richardson. 'Peter bought the champagne —
the extra crate.'
Sophie recognized the unstraightness of the answer, but couldn't make sense of it. 'So you lost, Peter — ?'
Richardson was watching Audley. 'Fred Clinton said I was going to lose.'
'He said the same to me,' murmured Audley deliberately.
But. . . typical Fred, to spur them each in the same way!
'He also told me that David Audley didn't like to lose.'
Richardson smiled at her suddenly. 'He omitted to tell me that David Audley was a dirty player.'
'I didn't play dirty.' Audley addressed Sophie. 'I simply let Peter see my version of the evening, that's all.'
'Not all. He advised me that it would be better if I conceded dummy1
defeat. So I did. But mine would have been the winning entry, if we'd played fair.'
Sophie frowned interrogatively at Audley. 'I don't understand.'
To his surprise he didn't want her to think ill of him. 'I did give him Fred's champagne. So the honours were equal in the end.'
'You had a bad conscience!' Richardson accused him. 'You lost.'
'Not at all, my dear fellow! I was your host that night. I couldn't let you be out of pocket.'
'I still don't understand —' Sophie accused them both.
They looked at each other, each waiting for the other to speak.
'It's really . . . quite simple.' Audley decided that he must break first. 'We didn't know about Fred Clinton's game, of course.'
'But we played a game of our own, that evening, Sophie. You see.' Richardson cut in. 'Or . . .it was that tame Member of Parliament of yours — the barrister? Sir Laurie Deacon — it was his idea.' He stared at Audley. 'But he called it the
"Kipling game". So it may have been yours originally, David
— was it?' He shook his head, as though to clear it. 'So—'
Candlelight.
dummy1
Faint smell of damp beneath the fading dinner smells.
(Those were the days when Faith hadn't quite defeated the rising damp; and, of course, the cellar-door had been opened, to bring up another bottle).
Laurie Deacon: ' That fellow you've all been looking for — the one who did a bunk . . . The word is that you've found him, David — right?'
'Not me, Laurie. Peter here did the finding.'
Peter Richardson: ' Not me, either. It was Sir Frederick who did the finding — like Sherlock Holmes. He said the chap hadn't really done a bunk — hadn't defected . . . He'd just had a bit of a breakdown. And he wanted to be found . . .
only by someone sympathetic, that's all. So it was just psychology.'
Laurie Deacon: ' Ah — yes! He'd be one of Fred's old mates, from the war, of course. So Fred knew all about him, I suppose. But he had a pretty good hidey-hole, all the same