Death at the Chase (13 page)

Two indistinguishable figures stood beside the car. They might, for all Bobby knew, be a couple of constables, summoned by an Ibell who had come to a better mind. Which could mean that, the next morning, Sir John Appleby would be faced with the job of offering tactful explanations to Colonel Thomas Pride. Boys will be boys. Still scarcely more than undergraduates. That sort of thing. Mr Robert Appleby (author of a promising first novel called
The Lumber Room
) found himself not liking this idea at all. However, the figures turned out to be Finn and Giles.

Giles looked pretty ghastly – so much so that Bobby found himself wondering whether his was a backside that was really half an ounce or so heavier than it had been fifteen minutes ago. But probably it was only funk. A young man whose ambition it was to snuggle into some womb-like museum or gallery for life was probably not apt for wild doings in the dark.

‘Pile in,’ Bobby said curtly. ‘Pile in, and I’ll start the car. That chap–’

He broke off – as one was apt to do when Finn produced one of those lunatic laughs. But there had been another sound as well. It had come from Giles, and it could be described only as a snarl. Bobby suddenly perceived that this tiresome evening had produced yet another annoyance. Finn and Giles were in the middle of a violent quarrel.

‘Stimied!’ Finn turned and hurled this at Bobby in a kind of mad glee. ‘Giles is stimied. And the old fox is preparing to ply his niblick in the bunker. Robina Bunker. Hooray!’

‘Stop it, Finn. You’re behaving like an idiot. And rather a nasty idiot, at that.’ Bobby’s patience had suddenly vanished. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t think I want to.’

‘You’re a prig, Bobby Appleby. All Applebys are prigs. And as for Giles, he’s a kind of cuckold. Uncle Martyn has booked the Bunker. It’s in
The Times
. I saw it in the pub.’

‘You’re a bloody liar!’ Giles advanced rather indecisively upon Finn. ‘A bloody liar and a horrid cad.’ Giles’ fury was not impressive. He might have been about to stick his fists in his eyes and blubber.

‘I thought we were going to have the fun of seeing Giles kicked out,’ Finn said. ‘But the old chap played it cooler than that. He sat back and laughed at his youthful rival. He’s toasting his toes, and drinking Giles’ confusion in Giles’ own champagne at this moment, I expect. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever met.’

‘Finn, I’ve had enough of you.’ Bobby had stepped between his two companions. ‘If Martyn Ashmore has really got this girl to agree to marry him it seems to me a pretty poor show. I don’t see anything particularly lovely about your pal Giles’ behaviour, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to shut up.’

‘Prig. Sir Prig, Lady Prig, and Baby Bobby Prig. All the Applebys.’

‘If you say part of that again, Finn, I’ll knock you down. It’s a promise. And I can.’

‘You can’t take a ruddy joke, either of you. I’m off, if I have to sleep under a hedge.’

‘We’re being silly.’ Bobby found it took a good deal of self-control to say this. ‘We’d better begin to–’

He was talking, so far as Finn was concerned, to empty air. The violent young man had turned, swung down the drive, and vanished into darkness.

‘I never knew Finn behave quite like that.’ As he said this to Giles Ashmore, Bobby realized how completely Giles Ashmore was a stranger to him. Whereas Finn he had known quite some time. Finn and he had been at private school together. ‘Why should he pick a quarrel with me? That’s pretty well what he was up to.’ Bobby peered at Giles, and even in the near darkness still didn’t like the look of him. ‘Get into the car,’ he said abruptly. ‘Perhaps Finn will be waiting at the top of the drive.’

‘I can’t believe it.’ Giles climbed into the car as he had been told – heavily, as if he were an old man. ‘About Robina and my uncle.’

‘You’re sure you made it clear to him about your engagement to this girl?’

‘Of course. I’ve said so already.’

‘And he didn’t bat an eyelid?’

‘No. He congratulated me. The filthy old swine!’

‘Do you think’ – Bobby started the engine of the Mercedes and slipped into gear – ‘that perhaps Finn has made it up? About the announcement in
The Times
? He seems to be fit for anything at the moment – just for the sake of a nasty laugh.’ Bobby, who was feeling sorry for the wretched Giles and the collapse of his miserable little plan, offered this suggestion without much conviction. ‘And how could your uncle have got all that way with Robina? How can he even have been continuing to see her?’

‘He’s what Finn said – deep. And it’s rather a thing in my family: marrying a young girl in one’s disgusting old age. Knocking her up, too. Kids around the place who might be one’s great-grandchildren.’ Giles paused disconsolately as the car gathered speed on the drive. ‘As for being able to chase up Robina, you never know what my uncle is up to. There are all sorts of queer stories about him. There’s one about some French people wanting to kill him because of something he did in that rotten old war. My father says that anything of that kind is all nonsense, and merely shows that Uncle Martyn is off his head. But I don’t at all know.’

‘It doesn’t seem terribly relevant, anyway – not to your affair.’

‘I suppose not. But there’s another thing. He’s supposed to be more or less a recluse, never leaving the Chase. But who knows?’ Giles again paused broodingly. ‘The old sod could skip up to town twice a week – couldn’t he? – without anybody being any the wiser.’

‘No doubt he could.’ Bobby had come to a halt at the head of the drive. There was no sign of Finn. The silly ass had simply walked out of the landscape. Bobby was annoyed to think that, on the following morning, he would have to tell his parents that their guest had departed in a huff. His annoyance made him turn rather sharply on Giles. ‘Are you really upset about this?’ he asked.

‘Certainly I’m upset.’

‘Let’s get this clear. Have you known that Robina is this sort of girl, or haven’t you?’

‘What do you mean – this sort of girl?’

‘For pity’s sake!’ Bobby got into motion again rather abruptly. ‘If Finn’s story is true, Miss Bunker has ditched you, without a word spoken, in favour of your rich uncle – and your rather old rich uncle, at that. I’m asking whether you did, or did not, know that this girl you were proposing to marry is a ghastly little bitch?’

‘I don’t think you should speak like that about Robina.’

‘I’m not speaking about her, as you call it. I’m just asking for information, and I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. But my curiosity isn’t all that intense, anyway. I’ll drive you home to King’s Yatter now. And that will be that.’

‘I don’t want to go home.’

Bobby shoved at the accelerator. This, he thought, was a bit too much. Perhaps Giles Ashmore expected to be taken back to Dream – as a kind of exchange for Finn – and have his hand held through the night.

‘I want to go to London,’ Giles said. ‘Now.’

‘What on earth do you want to go to London for?’

‘That’s where she is. Robina. I’ve got to have it out with her.’

‘Well, I’m all in favour of that.’ Bobby’s opinion of his companion rose a little. ‘But why not go back to the Chase, and have it out with your uncle first? If he has really pinched your girl and kept mum about it you should jolly well tell him what you think. You might even ask for your champagne and claret back.’

‘I don’t think I’d care to do that, somehow.’ Giles appeared to have taken Bobby’s suggestion quite seriously. ‘I don’t think I want to see Uncle Martyn again, at all. I’ve told you what I want to do. To go to London. Now.’

Bobby swore to himself. It wouldn’t have been decent to do so aloud. Whatever was to be thought of Giles Ashmore, the poor bastard had been given a raw deal, and it wouldn’t do just to let him down now. Yet Bobby didn’t much kindle to the notion of driving the rejected young lover through the night – and even perhaps being involved in some distressing scene with the faithless Miss Bunker herself.

‘I’ll drive you to town,’ Bobby said.

‘That’s very decent of you.’ Giles’ tone was unengagingly perfunctory, but at least his words were those that ought to have been spoken. ‘It will be pretty cold in the small hours in a car like this.’

This addendum, naturally enough, didn’t greatly take Bobby’s fancy. He had to resist a temptation to come abruptly to a halt – and not to move again until he had the Mercedes to himself.

‘I’m not sure there isn’t a decent night train that stops at Linger Junction. Will you please drive there, and we’ll see?’

‘As a matter of fact, I know there is.’ Bobby suddenly felt more cheerful. ‘Five past midnight, and Paddington first stop. You’d be there a lot quicker than if we drove. Not that three o’clock in the morning is too cheerful a time to arrive.’

‘I shouldn’t be feeling cheerful, anyway.’

‘I suppose not.’ Bobby felt rather touched by this naïve remark. ‘Have you got enough money for a ticket?’

‘I think so. But of course there’s breakfast before the banks open. Can you lend me five pounds?’

‘Not many breakfasts for one cost five pounds. I can lend you thirty bob.’

‘That’s very decent of you,’ Giles Ashmore said. This time, he spoke frankly as a much injured man. ‘I expect I can make it do.’

The very grandest trains quite often stopped at Linger Junction. The effect was of a kind of slumming. Through the plate-glass windows of well-appointed Pullman carriages, and while toying with the delicious viands which only British Railways can provide, the better class of traveller would gaze out appalled upon the drab and often dripping or drizzling scene. Linger itself was scarcely visible. It was nearly a mile away, and architecturally not of a character much to impress itself even upon a middle distance. Prominently in view however were the Station Hotel (on one side of the main line) and the New Station Hotel (on the other). Nomenclature alone readily distinguished these gaunt and hideous structures, since both were a product of the same unaesthetic decade – one inordinately dedicated, one had to feel, to an optimistic vision of what the progress of steam locomotion was likely to achieve for this slumberous part of England. And slumber of a sort dominated the branch line, as it was flanked by a large and seemingly abandoned cemetery. In the angle between the lines there was a muddy yard in which buses manoeuvred and cars could be parked – the latter gratuitously but with dubious legality. The law-abiding and nervous used a sort of corral to which access was gained merely by presenting the snout of one’s vehicle before an electronically controlled barrier. This death-ray species of contrivance was the Junction’s triumph of modernity. When you wanted to get out again you shoved two shillings into a slot. But this was commonly less productive of any immediate result. Young Gregory Grope (whose father had been an engine-driver, but who had himself come down in the world and was the Junction’s only porter) was frequently to be observed by the passing traveller as painfully at labour upon some entirely primitive cranking device which had been thoughtfully provided by the manufacturers as a last resort in extreme emergency. There was also a tin shed labelled ‘Grand Junction Garage: Complete Overhauls’, and a derelict pump from which the proprietor of this establishment had once aspired to dispense cut-price petrol.

It was drizzling when Bobby pulled up. Remarking the unpromising pump, he glanced nervously at the appropriate gauge before switching off his engine. It appeared not improbable that while Giles Ashmore was speeding towards London and the false Robina in the night he himself would be dossing down in the back of the Mercedes in some god-forsaken lay-by.

‘There’s going to be rather a long wait,’ Giles said grumpily.

‘Well, yes – I’m afraid so. But perhaps you’ll find a waiting-room that’s been left open. It may even have a stove.’

‘We can go and look. I’ll buy your platform-ticket.’

‘My dear chap, you don’t expect me to see you on your train, and tuck you up in your corner?’

‘I’d like you to, please.’ Giles suddenly sounded quite humble. ‘I know it’s silly, but I have a thing about railway-stations. Particularly about platforms. I’m afraid of throwing myself in front of a train.’

‘There won’t be a train – not until your own comes in.’

‘That’s the one I’d be afraid of. I used to think it had something to do with reading
Anna
Karenina
at an impressionable age. Have you read
Anna Karenina
? It’s by Tolstoi.’

‘Yes, oddly enough I have read
Anna Karenina
.’

‘Then you remember what happened to her. But actually it turned out not to be about
Anna
Karenina
at all. I had an analyst once, and he worked it out for me. It seems there’s something called separation-anxiety. You have it when about to set out on a journey.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘People do, I mean. And I do. I wish you’d stay. It would be awfully decent of you, Billy. Bobby, that is.’

Bobby took a deep breath, and then climbed out of the car. He might have been described as in the grip of his code. The evident truth was that the events of the last couple of hours had been altogether too much for this wretched creature. Probably the demented Ibell and his slugs had scared the lights out of him. And in London, after all, he was facing a rotten sort of show.

‘All right,’ Bobby said. ‘But what about the other end? Shall you be able to beat it out of Paddington rapidly? Without, I mean, being hypnotized by those gleaming and evil lines of metal?’

‘Oh, yes. I know you haven’t much to do – but it’s nice of you to offer to come the whole way, all the same. But the other end of a journey is quite different. My analyst said–’

Bobby Appleby, although not an emotional youth, heard himself interrupt this with a kind of strangled cry.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on the platform, and see how we can pass the time. There may be something to distract you. One of those machines that bellow your weight at you. Or that you punch out names on to tack on your tuck-box or your toy-cupboard.’