Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon: A Novel (16 page)

‘Thank you so much,’ she said.

‘Not at all, Ma’am.’

The inspector touched the peak of his cap and got back into the car which drove off round the corner.

Moon stared down at her, and she looked back tiredly with a certain beauty that held itself intact from the dissolution of years and the corrosion of the night. Her legs were heavy but long and skirted just above the knees which were parted to stretch the hem tight. Despite the cold, her tweed coat was caped loosely over her wide shoulders, unbuttoned against deep breasts, collar upturned to wall in her untidy dark hair.

Moon held the door open.

‘Good morning, Lady Malquist.’

‘Oh God, is it morning?’ – a whisky voice and a rueful stretch of her wide lips.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘I knew it was really. I was just dramatising the occasion of my coming out of jail.’

They stepped into the hall and Moon closed the door.

‘I’m Lord Malquist’s um, secretary.’

‘Boswell.’

‘Well, yes. Moon.’

‘He told me.’

She looked at him amused, then closed her eyes as though in pain.

‘Hrrrgh. My hangovers are straight out of the Book of Revelations.’

Birdboot appeared mysteriously from behind the stairs.

‘Good morning, my lady. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your ring.’

‘It’s all right, Mr Moon let me in. Is his lordship abroad, that is to say at home, that is to say up?’

‘His Lordship is expected home at any time, my lady.’

‘From where?’

‘From Hyde Park Police Station, my lady.’

‘Hyde Park! Don’t tell me he’s taken to importuning?’

‘His lordship telephoned late last night – I rather believe it was early this morning-to say that he had been apprehended on a boat on the Serpentine,’ said Birdboot.

‘What precisely was he doing on a boat on the Serpentine in the middle of the night?’

‘Punting, I understand, my lady.’

‘I don’t get it, Birdboot,’ she said.

Moon felt that he had a contribution to make here, but realised it did not amount to an explanation.

Birdboot said, ‘You may recall that by Royal gift the earldom of Malquist includes the prerogative to shoot, trap or snare at all hours such of the wild birds that might inhabit
or visit the non-tidal waters lying between Brixton and Muswell Hill, to which end Lord Malquist is in possession of a key to the Alexandra Gate.’

‘I don’t believe there
are
any wild birds in Hyde Park, Birdboot.’

‘Possibly not, my lady. At any rate, the police officers claimed that his rights did not extend to boating after sunset. His lordship telephoned because he was unable to get hold of Sir Mortimer.’

‘Well, Sir Mortimer was at home an hour ago because I got hold of him.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ Birdboot said. ‘I finally succeeded in reaching Sir Mortimer not long afterwards. He informed me of your predicament, my lady.’

‘Curt, was he?’

‘Somewhat estranged, I felt.’

‘And when you passed on his lordship’s message?’

‘Sir Mortimer took it rather badly, my lady. However he gave me to understand that he would take steps to secure his lordship’s release. He said it would be for the last time, and asked me to tell his lordship so.’

‘Bad form, Birdboot, leaving messages with butlers and all that. Still, I’m afraid we do rather
use
the old boy. Anything else of note?’

Birdboot coughed by way of apology.

‘I note that Sergeant Harris of the Special Branch and two constables have been stationed outside the house since early this morning, acting independently of Hyde Park Police Station.’

‘What for?’

‘I don’t know, my lady, but I fancy there may be a connection with a report I noticed in this morning’s
Times,
to the effect that a Mrs Hermione Cuttle was knocked down in Pall Mall yesterday evening by a runaway coach-and-pair.’

Moon gaped. That fat bundle dumped on the road, and
the roll of paper spinning itself out across the street-the scene seemed to belong to a different incarnation and he could hardly believe that it should intrude into his life now. ‘She had a petition,’ he said but apparently not aloud for they took no notice of him. He stared at the wall and in his mind the bundle did not crawl any more.

He heard the change in Lady Malquist’s voice.

‘Was she all right?’

‘I’m afraid she was killed, my lady.’

Pause. Moon looked at her face and the real emotion on it shocked him. It seemed so long since he had been exposed to anything so real.

‘Was she married?’

‘Yes, my lady. I understand her husband—’

‘Did she have any children?’ she asked impatiently.

‘No, my lady.’

She turned away, and back, and her voice changed back. ‘Is there any food in the house?’

‘Very little, my lady. Harrods have ceased deliveries again.’

‘Oh dear. Perhaps Sir Mortimer might arrange something with them.’

‘I have informed him, my lady.’

‘All right, Birdboot. Would you send Esme up.’

Birdboot coughed again.

‘I’m afraid both Mr and Mrs Trevor left our service yesterday.’

‘They said they’d give us another week.’

‘And Mrs Minton left this morning. I shall endeavour to do the cooking today myself though perhaps without Mrs Minton’s skill, my lady.’

She pulled down her wide lips into a grimace of affection at the butler and Moon was surprised by a shaft of jealousy.
I’ll cook for you! Name it and I’ll
—

‘Things seem to be coming to a head, Birdboot.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘All right then. Thank you.’

‘Thank you, my lady.’

Exit Butler.

MOON (falling to his knees and feverishly kissing Lady Malquist’s hands):
My dear Lady Malquist, I pray you dry your sweet tears and put your trust in my faithful service for I would die ere—

‘Would you do something for me, Mr Moon?’

‘I pray you – I – of course …’

She moved to the stairs.

‘The drink is in the pantry in a locked cupboard the key of which is behind Fenner’s
Piscator Felix
in the library. It is a large book the colour of brandy and pink champagne mixed, and I have mixed them in my time. Thank you.’

With her hand on the banister post she looked back at him with a worn smile that looted Moon of all his love.

‘It is a fishing book.’

She went up two more stairs and turned again.

‘Please don’t drop the bottle. It cost five pounds including information.’

Moon watched her until she reached the top of the stairs but she did not look down any more.

Fitch was still asleep, and this time he did not wake when Moon opened the library door. It took him several minutes to find the book. As he searched he was aware of an excitement which he had not felt since a particular summer’s day on a river bank when a teasing honey-haired child with lascivious hips ordered him to garland her with daisy chains and surprised him with a kiss as hard as teeth.

The key was a small brass one. Moon took it and replaced the book. He went quietly out of the library. Fitch looked worried even in sleep.

Behind the stairs he found a door that looked unprepossessing enough to lead to the servants’ quarters. He went through
and found himself in a stone-flagged passage. The second door on the left was the kitchen. Birdboot was ironing
The Times.

‘Hello,’ Moon said. ‘Where’s the pantry?’

‘May I be of any assistance, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Moon. ‘Where’s the pantry?’

‘Across the corridor, sir.’

Moon opened the door opposite. A cell of stone shelves. He found the locked cupboard and inserted the key.

‘Excuse me, sir, his lordship has given me certain instructions—’

‘Come, come, Birdboot, I too have certain instructions, I am instructed up to the eyeballs, so let us have a little less of the pursing of the lips and a little more unlocking of the juice, what?’

Good grief, Wooster to the life.
His mind had contracted and cleared like muddy water turning into ice. He felt hysterical with happiness.

A whisky bottle, nearly full, was the only thing in the cupboard. Moon picked it up, smiled up at the great stone face of the butler and started to leave.

‘If I may suggest, sir, perhaps it would be advisable to re-lock the cupboard and replace the key.’

‘Good thinking, Birdboot. Cover up the tracks, what? The key resides in the library behind
Piscator Felix,
a fishing book by a chappie whose name will be engraved on my forehead as soon as I can recollect it.’

‘Fenner, sir. The Reverend Godolphus Fenner, a clergyman of the early Victorian age.’

‘The very same, Birdboot.’

And flashing the old retainer one of my sunnier smiles I legged it upstairs with the water of life clutched to my bosom, and grinning like a golden retriever coming back to base with the first pheasant of the season.

At the top of the first flight of stairs was a pair of large
double doors painted cream with gilt mouldings. Moon remembered passing them on his way up to Lord Malquist’s dressing-room on his first visit. He opened them to a narrow gap and saw himself in a mirror opposite, looking at himself through a gap in a large pair of double doors painted lilac. The walls were lilac coloured too, with many paintings including portraits, presumably ancestral. It was a big rectangular room with tall windows, and pretty chairs, couches and tables placed without focal point on an oriental carpet. There was a chandelier, several lamps and two ornate fireplaces at the two furthest ends of the room. It smelled clean and cold.

Moon closed the doors and went up to the second floor. The upstairs hall was a hollow square bordering the stairwell. He remembered that Lord Malquist’s dressing-room had been round the corner to the left. He knocked on the nearest door and heard Lady Malquist call out. He went in and found himself in a nursery.

It was a small pretty room with a mahogany Empire cot tented with white muslin, a nursing chair upholstered in apricot velvet, a basketweave bassinet, a sewing box painted with flowers, an empty whisky bottle, a very beautiful rocking horse and a sad brown monkey that stared at Moon with blind button eyes. Everything smelled new as in a shop. There was no baby.

Moon backed out of the nursery, bumping into Lady Malquist who was holding open the door of the next room. She had undressed and was wearing a red towelled robe tightly belted.

‘Not in there, Mr Moon.’ She smiled at him, opened her mouth wide and pointed her finger into it. ‘In here.’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Would you like to come in a minute – the house seems so empty and I don’t like being by myself and I don’t know what to – perhaps a bath will make me sleepy.’

He followed her into the bedroom which was large and white, gilt-trimmed, lemon-draped, and dominated by a four-poster bed which, white, gilded and draped, seemed like a miniature of the room itself. In the wall opposite were two French doors with mock balconies overlooking the street. To his right was a closed door leading to the nursery, and to his left two more doors, one open to black tiles and water-sounds. He recognised the bathroom from his previous visit, having glimpsed it from Lord Malquist’s dressing-room (the other side of the closed door).

‘My husband told me you were positively heroic the other day when his beastly lion got loose.’

‘Did he?’

‘And retrieving his hawk for him.’

‘Really I didn’t do anything. I just stood and watched.’

‘He thinks that’s a heroic attitude, I suppose. Did you say something about a drink?’

‘Oh-yes.’

He had forgotten to bring a glass.

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Never mind, I’ll open my mouth. Will you pour or shall I?’

‘I think perhaps …’

He gave her the bottle. Lady Malquist uncorked it, put it to her mouth and swigged.

‘Mmmm. Wheww! In the nick of time. Have some?’

‘No thank you, my lady, I don’t drink.’

‘Nor do I really. I occasionally have a bottle before luncheon.’

She took another swig, her eyes switched white to watch him, challenging him to disapprove. But Moon was enchanted. When she walked across to her dressing-table (it was actually a marble shelf set against a gilt-framed mirror on the wall) he followed her with an undefined sense of expectation.

‘Have you ever been in jail, Bosie?’

‘No, my lady.’

‘Not even overnight?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ (
but I would do life for you, and you can call me Puss in Boots for all I care
.)

‘I’ve been in jail four times,’ she said impressively. ‘Police cells anyway,’ and drank again, white-eyed but merry. ‘God, that’s better. No booze in jail, you know, Bosie. They put me in a temperance prison. Without bars. Witty?’

Her wide happy smile glanced off the mirror, transfixed him. She sat astride the rectangle of the dressing-stool, and put down the bottle, misjudging the distance so that it banged on the marble top.

‘Think how awful if one got a month inside, quite insane. Fortunately the Sergeant is always very sweet about things and lets me telephone Sir Mortimer. So here I am again.’

‘I’m very pleased,’ said Moon with unnecessary fervour.

‘Sir Mortimer was furious. He said I compromised him. He’s very correct, Sir Mortimer.’ She mused. ‘Until you get to know him.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Moon suspiciously.

‘Oh, he’s a chairman of things, you know, companies and commissions and committees and things.’ She picked up the bottle and this time sipped from it quite delicately. ‘Sit down a minute, won’t you? Tell me how you like Boswelling.’

There was a straight-backed chair against the wall beside the dressing-mirror. Moon sat down and hooked his feet round its cabriole legs and put his hands on his lap.

‘Do you think Malquist is worth a
Life?
’

He didn’t understand.

‘A life?’

‘Moon’s
Malquist.
It has a classic ring to it.
Being the Peripatetic Peregrinations of the Ninth Earl.
Hits off the tone of the Doctor, do you think?’