Sir Clinton shook his head.
“They must be fresh acquisitions since my day. I’ve never even heard of them.”
“Ever see the picture of Medusa in the Uffizi Gallery? It’s attributed to Leonardo da Vinci; but some people say it’s only a student’s copy of the original Leonardo which has disappeared. It seems my father came across three medallions with almost exactly the same Medusa on one side and a figure of Perseus on the reverse. And what’s more, he was able to get documentary proof that these things were really Leonardo’s own work—strange as it seems. The thing’s quite admitted by experts. So you can imagine that these Medusas are quite the star pieces in the museum. And Maurice calmly proposes to sell them to Kessock, the Yank millionaire; and Kessock has sent this man Foss over here to negotiate for them.”
“It seems rather a pity to part with them,” Sir Clinton said, regretfully.
“Maurice doesn’t feel it so,” Cecil retorted, rather bitterly. “He got a friend of mine, Foxy Polegate, to make him electrotypes of them in gold—Foxy’s rather good at that sort of thing for an amateur—and Maurice thinks that the electrotypes will look just as well as the originals.”
“H’m! Cenotaphs, I suppose,” Sir Clinton commented.
“Quite so. In Memoriam. The real things being buried in the U.S.A.”
Cecil paused for a moment and then concluded:
“You can imagine that none of us like this damned chandlering with these things that my father spent so much thought over. It’s enough to make him turn in his grave to have all his favourites scattered—and just for the sake of Maurice’s infernal miserliness and greed for cash.”
Sir Clinton rose from his seat and took a last glance at the view before him.
“What about moving on now?”
Cecil agreed; and they retraced their steps towards the pine-wood. As they entered the spinney, Sir Clinton noticed another of the Fairy Houses set back among the trees at a little distance from the path.
“Another of those things?”
Rather to his surprise, Cecil moved over to examine the little edifice, and, bending down, opened the door and glanced inside.
“The Fairy’s not at home at present,” he said, standing aside to let Sir Clinton look in.
Something in Cecil’s voice forced itself on the attention of the Chief Constable. The words seemed to be pointless; but in the tone there was an ill-suppressed tinge of what might almost have been malicious glee at some unexplained jest. Sir Clinton was too wary to follow up this track, wherever it might lead to. He did not quite like the expression on Cecil’s face when the remark was made; and he sought for some transition which would bring them on to a fresh subject.
“You must have some curiosities in Ravensthorpe itself, if parts of it are as old as they seem to be. Any priest’s holes, or secret passages, or things of that sort?”
“There are one or two,” Cecil admitted. “But we don’t make a show of them. In fact, even Joan doesn’t know how to get into them. There’s some sort of Mistletoe Bough story in the family: a girl went into one of the passages, forgot how to work the spring to get out again, lost her nerve apparently, and stayed there till she died. It so happened that she was the only one of the family in the house at the time, so there was no one to help her out. Since then, we’ve kept the secret of the springs from our girls. No use running risks.”
“And even Joan hasn’t wheedled it out of you?”
“No, not even Joan. Maurice and I are the only ones who can get into these places.”
Sir Clinton evidently approved of this.
“Short of opening the passages up altogether, that seems the best thing to do. One never knows one’s luck. By the way, in an old place like this you ought to have a stock of family legends. You’ve got these Fairy Houses. Is there anything else of general interest?”
Cecil seemed to have recovered something of his normal good humour; and his face betrayed almost a grin of amusement as he replied:
“Oh, yes! We’ve got a family ghost—or so the country-folk say. I’ve never come across it myself; but it’s common talk that the family spectre is a White Man who walks in the woods just before the head of the family dies. All rot, you know. Nobody believes in it, really. But it’s quite an old-established tradition round about here.”
Sir Clinton laughed.
“You certainly don’t seem to take him very seriously. What about Family Curses? Are you well supplied?”
“You’d better apply to Maurice if you’re keen on Family Curses. He seems to have specialized in that branch, if you ask me.”
Chapter Two. MR POLEGATE’S SENSE OF HUMOUR
“How time flies!” said Joan Chacewater, in mock despondency. “To-night I’m in my prime. To-morrow I shall be twenty-one, with all my bright youth behind me. Five years after that, I shall quite possibly be married to Michael here, if I’m still alive and he hasn’t died in the meantime. Then I shall sit o’ nights darning his socks in horn-rimmed spectacles, and sadly recalling those glad days when I was young and still happy. It’s dreadful! I feel I want to cry over it. Give me something to cry into, Michael; I seem to have mislaid my bag.”
Michael Clifton obligingly held out a handkerchief. Joan looked at it disparagingly.
“Haven’t you anything smaller than that? It discourages me. I’m not going to cry on a manufacturing scale. It wouldn’t be becoming.”
Una Rainhill laid her cigarette down on the ashtray beside her.
“If you’re going to be as particular as all that, Joan, I think I’d be content with a gulp or two of emotion or perhaps a lump in the throat. Cheer up! You’ve one more night before the shadows fall.”
“Ah, there it is!” said Joan, tragically. “You’re young, Una, and you never had any foresight, anyway. But I can see it all coming. I can see the fat ankles”—she glanced down at her own slim ones—“and the artificial silk stockings at three-and-eleven the pair; because Michael’s business will always be mismanaged, with him at the head of it. And I’ll have that red nose that comes from indigestion; because after Michael ends up in bankruptcy, we won’t be able to keep a maid, and I never could cook anything whatever. And then Michael will grow fat, and short of breath, and bald . . .”
“That’ll be quite enough for the present,” interrupted the outraged Michael. “I’m not so sure about letting you marry me at all, after that pleasant little sketch.”
“If you can’t drop those domineering ways of yours, Michael, I shall withdraw,” Joan warned him, coldly. “You can boss other people as much as you choose; I rather like to see you doing it. But it doesn’t go with me, remember. If you show these distressing signs of wanting your own way, I shall simply have to score you off my list of possibles. And that would no doubt be painful to both of us—to you, at any rate.”
“Oh, to both of us, to both of us, I’m sure. I wouldn’t dream of contradicting you, Joan. Where would you be, if the only serious candidate dropped out? Anything rather than that.”
“Well, it’s a blessing that one man seems to have some sense,” Joan admitted, turning to the others. “One can’t help liking Michael, if it’s only for the frank way he acknowledges when he’s in the wrong. Skilful handling does a lot with the most unpromising material, of course.”
Cecil leaned over in his chair and peered athwart the greenery which surrounded the nook in the winter-garden in which they were sitting.
“There’s Foxy wandering round.”
He raised his voice:
“Are you looking for us, Foxy? We’re over here.”
Foxton Polegate’s freckled face, surmounted by a shock of reddish hair, appeared at the entrance to their recess.