Christmas at Candleshoe (19 page)

‘Approximately that, no doubt.’ Mr Archdeacon, who had the kindliest feeling for the simplicity of his employer, benevolently puffed tobacco at him as if intent upon fumigating the deerstalker. ‘But what I speak of is an incident perhaps three Wednesdays back. I had a small party, nearly every individual in which might without disparagement be described as a familiar type. One must remark, by the way, that the relationship between type and individual opens up a wide field of philosophic reference.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ It was Arthur who hastily interposed. ‘But something happened, all the same?’

‘In a modified sense of the term – yes.’ This time Mr Archdeacon puffed at Arthur. ‘There was an episode or incident. Or perhaps it would be more precise to say an occurrence.’

‘I see.’ Arthur found himself thrusting rather recklessly at the accelerator. ‘But go on.’

‘There were three men who – quite unwittingly – distinguished themselves from the group. Each preserved to the others the bearing of a stranger. Yet it was apparent to me that, in fact, some relationship existed between them. We come here upon the whole absorbing subject of intuitive perceptions. I myself incline to the interpretation of such phenomena in terms of simple hyperaesthesia.’

‘Being on the
qui vive
– eh?’ Once more Lord Scattergood had hit the nail remarkably straight on the head. ‘And what did these fellows do then?’

‘When we got to the octagon room, two of them simply fell to staring out of the window. This in itself, of course, was a circumstance by no means untoward. Many of our visitors are chiefly struck by the fact that the outer frames of the windows are protected by gold leaf and not by paint. Others give their whole attention to scanning the gardens – presumably in order to determine if they are worth a further half-crown. But now comes the rub, my dear Marquess. The third man minutely scrutinized the Titians.’

‘That’s common enough, too.’ Lord Scattergood had his own powers of observation and inference. ‘There are people, you know, who understand no more about painting than I do, who believe that the impressive thing before a picture is to rub their noses on it, or peer in a ferocious way into the top left-hand corner. Just self-consciousness, I’d say, in simple folk feeling rather small in a big place. No vice in it – no vice in it at all. Prefer them to Rosenwald here, any day.’

Arthur Spendlove swung the car out into the high road. ‘Do you mean that this chap had a go at the Titians in a professional-looking way? Not like the simple folk trying to impress themselves, but like our friend in the back seat making what he calls an expertise?’

‘You describe it very well.’ Mr Archdeacon could be dimly descried as nodding, Jove-like, within his cloud. ‘But it is in the sequel that the chief significance of the incident resides. Having completed his inspection, this person made his way unobtrusively first to the one and then to the other of the remaining two men. To each he rapidly muttered something – and while still endeavouring to sustain the appearance of being a stranger. This interested me very much. I have remarked a similar convention of conduct in cinematographic entertainments dealing with low life and criminal practice.’

‘Gangsters?’ Lord Scattergood was much struck by this. ‘Do you think these rascals came sneaking back, and somehow managed to steal the pictures? If so, aren’t we on a fool’s errand now? And in danger of being needlessly offensive to this poor old soul at Candleshoe?’

‘I think not.’ For a few moments Mr Archdeacon, who possessed a nice sense of climax, brooded in silence. ‘For account must be taken of the reaction of the first man to his study of the paintings, and of the other men to the intelligence then covertly communicated to them. It was one of consternation.’

‘Bless my soul! You think they had tumbled to what this Rosenwald person discovered tonight?’

‘I judge that there can be no doubt of it. The man who scrutinized the supposed Titians was sufficiently expert in these matters to know that they were not what they were held out to be. I should add that he presently made to approach me.’

‘What’s that? Arthur was really startled. ‘He was going to tackle you about it?’

‘The matter bore that appearance – or rather, I ought to say, does now so bear it. I simply had an impression – no more than a fleeting impression, upon which my mind did not again dwell until the revelation of this evening – that this man was minded to address himself to me; and that one of his companions – his clandestine companions, be it remembered – restrained him. I now pass to the succeeding Saturday.’

‘You what?’ Lord Scattergood had become a little dazed in the effort to follow all this.

‘I have now to record a further incident, at the time apparently unrelated to the first, which an irresistibly logical compulsion now, however, obliges us to concatenate with it. As so often in the history of ratiocinative processes, the apparently casual reveals itself as being, in fact, within the sphere of the causal. This is something which you must frequently have remarked.’

Again Arthur made the car leap forward. ‘Just what happened on the Saturday?’

‘I can be very brief.’ Mr Archdeacon paused – a sure sign that he was winding himself up for one of his most sustained rhetorical flights. Arthur again punched at the accelerator – and at this, whether by casual or causal impulsion, the oracle really did deliver himself with some conciseness. ‘A lady of unexceptional conversation and address spent some time with me after my party had dispersed. I found her – um – singularly charming. She was most interested in what we had done with our more valuable things during the war. She asked me about the Old Masters in particular – remarking that her brother had stored a collection of some importance in a salt-mine in Wales. She had never heard of Candleshoe, but when I explained that our paintings had gone there, she appeared to be uncommonly curious about it, and asked a number of questions. You will agree that all this must now appear significant.’

‘Uncommonly.’ Lord Scattergood put unflawed intellectual conviction into this reply. ‘But of what? Have you any ideas there, my dear fellow?’

‘The indications all point to attempted theft. The three men were making a preliminary survey of the ground, preparatory to stealing the Benison Titians. And they were no common thieves, since they included among their number an expert capable of detecting what our pilgrim from Rome has detected. Moreover they were in a position to command the services of a woman of genteel bearing, who elicited from me that the genuine paintings had for some years been at Candleshoe Manor. To Candleshoe Manor we are now ourselves proceeding. In the popular old phrase, the plot thickens.’

Lord Scattergood considered this for some time. ‘You think, Archdeacon, that these people may themselves have gone to Candleshoe and got a further line on the affair? They may have discovered who is likely to have abstracted our Titians from under the old lady’s nose and left those shocking fakes instead?’

‘I have no doubt whatever that they carried their inquiries to Candleshoe.’

Having said so much, the Marquess of Scattergood’s sage withdrew upon that obscurity within which he delighted to enshroud himself. The tobacco-smoke became so thick in the car that Dr Rosenwald woke up coughing, offered some observations in a German surprisingly unrefined, and went to sleep again. There was a silence which was presently broken by Arthur, who addressed his father. ‘What Archdeacon has in mind is this: that having learnt about Candleshoe and taken themselves off there, these rascals might find it unnecessary to take themselves further.’

‘My dear boy, I don’t at all understand you. If they were hot on the scent of our pictures–’

‘The point is that the scent may have
ended
at Candleshoe.’

‘Ended at Candleshoe?’ The car travelled about a quarter of a mile while Lord Scattergood addressed his labouring mind to the implication of this. ‘You can’t mean–’

‘It seems to be what Archdeacon means. I’m bound to say it wouldn’t be the first thing to come into my own head.’

Abruptly Lord Scattergood lowered a couple of windows, and his librarian once more became visible. ‘Archdeacon, my dear fellow, you can’t mean this scandalous thing?’ Lord Scattergood was much shocked. ‘You don’t suggest that this crazy but respectable old person – a kinswoman of mine, after a fashion, mark you – has stolen my Titians?’

For a moment Mr Archdeacon seemed unwilling to vouchsafe any reply to this plea; he puffed so hard that the air-stream now flowing through the car became a ribbon of smoke. Then, very slowly, he fetched from a capacious pocket a small portfolio of dark leather, secured with green tape. ‘I have here’, he presently pronounced, ‘the relevant documentation of the affair.’

‘You mean that you’ve been having inquiries made – that sort of thing?’ Lord Scattergood was aghast.

‘My inquiries, my dear Marquess, have been confined within the limits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Lord Arthur, pray stop the conveyance.’

‘Draw up?’ Arthur took his foot from the accelerator and looked in some surprise at his father’s librarian.

‘Precisely. Before we reach Candleshoe, it is highly desirable that you should be apprised – or is it reminded? – of certain historical circumstances connected with the family. Their almost alarmingly apposite nature has only come to me, I confess, as a result of the revelations of the present evening. Had they been within my knowledge on an anterior occasion, I might well have hesitated to embark with Candleshoe on the relations that I did. Regrets, however, are vain. I now propose to read to you – Marquess, will you switch on that light? – from the private diaries of William Spendlove, the first earl. I make bold to say that an acquaintance with what he has to say will be of some guidance to you later tonight. Shall I begin?’

‘Certainly, my dear Archdeacon. We are entirely in your hands. It’s an odd time for family history, I’m bound to say. But quiet.’ Lord Scattergood made the best of the matter. ‘In fact, an uncommonly peaceful scene.’

This was incontestable. Arthur had drawn up on a stretch of grass by the roadside, and it was possible partly to see and partly to sense around them an empty countryside, slumbering snugly beneath its tidy coverlet of field and copse. It was very still when the purr of the engine faded. Arthur lowered the window beside him, for the car was still heavy with Mr Archdeacon’s tobacco, faintly blended with a residual tap-room smell from Dr Rosenwald. Then he paused, arrested. ‘Odd,’ he said. ‘Can you hear a bell?’

‘A bell, Arthur?’ Lord Scattergood shook his handsome head beneath its deerstalker. ‘I can’t say that I do. And who would want to ring a bell at an hour like this? Could it be people ringing one of those tiresome marathon peals at Abbot’s Benison?’

Arthur leant out of the car. ‘It’s gone. Perhaps I imagined it. It wasn’t like bell-ringing of that sort – more like an alarm bell.’

‘Indubitably an auditory hallucination.’ Mr Archdeacon, with his manuscript open before him, was impatient of this distraction. ‘The delusive impression of hearing a bell-like note may be traced to acoustic laws which themselves depend upon the simple fact that the ear is a cartilaginous funnel. But of this I may speak on another occasion. Let me repeat: shall I begin?’

‘By all means, Archdeacon. We are all attention. Arthur and myself, that is to say. Perhaps I had better wake up Rosenwald?’

‘It is unnecessary – and might even be indiscreet. What I am to read is a good deal concerned with paintings, including what is incontestably the Leda of Titian. But if our Roman friend is to help us, it may be judicious to let him sleep as long as may be.’

‘Clear-headed when he wakes up – eh?’

‘Precisely. And – so far as the Leda is concerned, the better able to distinguish between a goose and a swan.’ Mr Archdeacon paused to allow time for any merriment that this sally might provoke, and then cleared his throat. ‘I proceed, then, to the diary of William Spendlove, first Earl of Scattergood, for the year 1720.’

1720. 1 Aug. This Day my Son Rupert, together with his late
Companion de Voyage
and former Fellow at
Westminster School
, Jack Candleshoe, is safe returned from his Travels. Mr Drake, the Boys’ worthy Tutor, declares them to be now perfect in
Latin
Verses (each indeed what Horace desired to be called,
Romanae fidicen Lyrae
) as well as largely exercised in the Mathematics and the several Branches of Natural Philosophy. That so much regular Instruction can have been combined with the
peripatetical
Part of their Education is a Thing to marvel at – if not to take, as my good Neighbour and Cousin Thomas Candleshoe doth aver,
cum granum salis
. The Conversation of both Lads at Dinner (to which I bade Squire Candleshoe and his Wife) was indeed edifying and learned to a gratifying and surprising Degree, with much Talk of large Collections – as alike of Books, Minerals, Plants, Antiquities both Classical and Gothick etc. – presently to follow them back from
Italy
. To all this deep Commerce with the
Muses
it is my own Hope that a decent Acquaintance with the
Graces
has been added; and that Rupert, whose Talk appeared to me to smell somewhat musty and of the Lamp, has equally improved himself in
le Ton de la bonne Compagnie
, and gained from his Wanderings those polished Manners and that
certaine Tournure
so necessary in the Station that he must (in the Fullness of Time) be called upon to fill and, if possible, adorn. I would have my dear Boy, above all Things, confirmed in the exactest moral Principles of a rationally believing Christian, as also of solid Knowledge and correct Judgement as to his intellectual Parts. It would be sadly vexatious however were he to turn out mere Parson or Pedant, fitter for the Laurels of a
College
and Plaudits of a
School
than for the just Esteem of the
Court
and
Senate
of his Country. Let honest Candleshoe’s Boy aspire to slumber in some
Brasenose
Garret or
Christ Church
Stall. Rupert must consider that from simple
Earl
(a middle Station accordant with my own retired and unostentatious Temper) he is like to be
Duke
or
Marquess
; and learn to combine polite Learning and a fixed and unenthusiastick Piety with due Attention to Circumstance, Dignity, and the Bearing proper in the
magnificent
Man. (Aristot.)