Murder at Maddingley Grange (23 page)

Hardly anyone was present on the terrace for midmorning coffee, which was served rather late. As Laurie hurried out with the tray, she found only Mrs. Saville and Mrs. Gibbs sitting bolt upright in the morning sunshine. They were about fifteen feet apart and silence stretched between them, thick as mud and getting thicker. Both ladies had abandoned their brief flirtation with the fashions of a bygone age. Mrs. Saville wore a greige linen dress with a tan belt, Mrs. Gibbs a hideous yellow-ocher cardigan scrunched up at the neck by a rabbit's-foot brooch, a skirt the color of spinach with a dippy hem, black net mittens and the hat. Laurie took the old lady some coffee and offered a blue majolica dish of
langues de chats
.

“I understand from my brother, Mrs. Gibbs, that you've seen a family ghost.”

“Can't say seen. 'E weren't there arter breakfast,” said the old lady. “Not a whiff. You can't count on 'em. Come and go like jackrabbits. I'll have another look-see afore me dinner. These'll give me some gyp,” she added, puckering at the cookies and scooping up all but three.

Mrs. Saville accepted one, pointedly holding it aloft like an auctioneer before placing it in her saucer. “This is so delightful, Laurel.” She waved at the tubs of oleander and bay and waddling doves. “I quite wish the weekend could last forever.”

Laurie, who thought it already had, murmured something suitably grateful. One of the peacocks, scenting a patisserie free-fall, approached dragging his magnificent train of bright-eyed feathers.

“Good boy,” instructed Mrs. Saville, releasing a vanilla-scented crumb. “What a charming sight. Is it really the case that their tails are so powerful that they can break a man's leg?”

“Ummm…I think that's swans.”

“Oh, surely not. Swans have hardly any tail at all. I can see you're not a bird person, Laurel.”

Laurie cheerfully admitted that was indeed the case and she couldn't tell storks from bitterns. Mrs. Gibbs then hooked her little fingers in the corners of her mouth, let out a piercing whistle and called for more snake oil. Laurie took over the coffeepot.

“How's that butler, young 'un? Still incognito?”

“He's injured his leg, I'm afraid.”

“Serve him right. Taking to armor at his time of life. You have to work up to that sort of thing. Start with something small. Like a meat safe. Pass it on.”

Laurie smiled. “I will.”

Mrs. Saville closed her ears against this squalid drivel and concentrated on a gold-fringed filament of sky overhead. The doves warbled a roundelay, underscoring the sound of girlish laughter. By craning her head Mrs. Saville could see her daughter strolling with Simon across the grass. His arm rested across Rosemary's shoulder and their heads were close. Mrs. Saville sat back again, nodding with satisfaction. She had been quite sure that Rosemary had not loved her latest acquisition madly in spite of all fervent protestations to the contrary. Rosemary had loved several young men “more than anything else in the entire world, Mummy” over the last three or four years, some more unsuitable than others. None as wildly unsuitable as the last, who seemed, if Rosemary's disjointed burblings were anything to go by, to be some sort of traveler in double glazing. One of those “cowboys,” no doubt, who went round knocking on doors persuading the elderly to part with their savings, then disappearing with nary a splinter installed, only to turn up months later on some consumer-protection program running hell-for-leather down the high street pursued by a fat man with a microphone.

Now Simon—Mrs. Saville took another peep, only to find that Sheila Gregory had muscled in on the happy couple—Simon was of a different stripe altogether. If not wealthy himself, he obviously had extremely satisfactory connections. Of course, his attentions to Rosemary might merely be those of an assiduous host but Mrs. Saville did not think so. She had seen the signs too often in the past. And if Rosemary liked him, the young man would really have very little to say in the matter. Not many things or people that Rosemary itched to get her pretty hands on remained unsubjugated for long.

Yes—Mrs. Saville finished nibbling her
langue du chat—
things here were turning out far better than she had expected. There were really only two flies in the ointment of her content. One minor (the irritating presence of the rag-and-bone contingent), the second of far greater significance. Until now Mrs. Saville had found hardly anyone with the time or inclination to play contract bridge. They all seemed preoccupied either with this childish murder or with croquet, and some people were simply doing nothing at all, as if there were no harm in squandering time, that most precious and finite of possessions.

The only person who had shown the slightest interest in the game was young Mr. Lewis, and Mrs. Saville could not help feeling that his odd nocturnal behavior, coupled with paroxysms of apparently uncontrollable yelping, made him, as a partner, far from ideal. Yet, if no other devotee of the tables showed their hand, approach him she must. For, as far as cards were concerned, Mrs. Saville was an obsessive. A day without play to her was a day so without savor as to be hardly worth the living. She never went anywhere without at least two packs in her possession and, when not actually engaged in the cut and thrust of battle, would sometimes hold one of the pasteboard rectangles talismanically in her hand and experience a tremor of excited anticipation. Nothing of course like the excitement that arose when they were turned surface upward and the rejuvenating hieroglyphs were revealed.

The one great disappointment of Mrs. Saville's life was that Rosemary remained impervious to the thrills and alarms such happenstance could wreak in the human breast. She had even once referred to card games as pointless. True, she had been twelve at the time, but the wound had been deep and slow to heal. Mrs. Saville's thoughts returned to Martin. If enough people could not be found for a rubber, he would know other games. Card players always did. The tips of Mrs. Saville's fingers tingled at the very thought.

She was feeling especially deprived at the moment for her usual bridge group, a cowed compliant bunch, had failed to meet the previous Thursday due to the fact that Davina Bingley's mother had thoughtlessly died. Miss Bingley, Mrs. Saville's regular partner, had rung up timorously with the news at five-thirty, “Far too late,” as Mrs. Saville had crisply informed her, “to find a substitute.” The rest of the group had been glad of a breather, for Mrs. Saville was an alarming opponent. Nerveless, forceful and almost invincible. On the rare occasions when she was defeated, her rival had hardly drawn a victorious breath before being pounded by waves of silent fury as cards for a return bout were hurled down.

Now she folded her copy of the
Telegraph
(all the posh papers had been delivered in time for breakfast), drained her coffee and prepared to move. Not that she wasn't perfectly comfortable in her present position but she had no intention of being forced into conversation with her companion. Mrs. Saville felt she had imbibed enough homely maxims of unlettered wisdom already. But then something happened to put any idea of a move right out of her mind. She heard a sound. A contracted whirring. Brief and ending with a tight snap; then a heavyish tap. All this immediately repeated. Mrs. Saville did not need to turn her head. To an
exalté
of the tables the sound of a deck being split, shuffled and reassembled is unmistakable.

What dreadful luck! How absolutely and utterly galling that of all the visitors to Madingley Grange the one person with whom any sort of social discourse was absolutely out of the question should be another gamester. Violet, or even at a pinch the unspeakable Fred, might just have been permitted to wear the mantle of opponent. After all, once the game had commenced, the sheer amount of energy and attention needed would help to water down the more obnoxious aspects of their personalities. But this foul old gypsy…Mrs. Saville clenched her fists in sheer frustration. And the old woman was keen, too. She also needed to play, otherwise why travel with a pack?

Here Mrs. Saville made her first mistake. The word
need
implying as it did a certain vulnerability in the player, a dependence upon the game, was quite inappropriate when applied to Mrs. Gibbs. Cards were not for her the means of passing a pleasant hour or weapons with which to best a quailing adversary. Rather were they the tangible manifestation of life's dark undertow. She did not
play
cards but regarded them as the divine instrument of sibylline revelation. Momentarily their display would halt the celestial flux of rushing meteors and shifting incandescent stars and act on these marvels like isinglass in a pan of soup, clarifying and making bright, exposing to the eye of the seer runic patterns of dynamic precision and power. True, on occasion Mrs. Gibbs gambled, but she did so supremely, like an Olympian, with a stylish impassivity that bordered on disdain.

Mrs. Saville knew nothing of theurgy and was irritated to find her attention being tugged sideways, again and again, to encompass the humped form of the old lady. Mrs. Gibbs had hitched her chair closer to the table. She placed her right arm across the front of her body, the hand, slightly arched, resting on the metal rim. Then swiftly she flung her hand across the table, describing a semicircle. There was a multicolored blur as the cards fluttered and fell, immaculately edge to edge. Then the old lady covered the final card with her left hand, reversed the procedure, and the cards, turning on their backs, were with thrilling, almost magical speed and precision once more in the palm of her hand.

Mrs. Saville, her mouth dry, stared. The old lady then took ten cards and set them out, face upward, in the form of a five-pointed star. She leaned over them, her face ferocious and enclosed, her lips pushed forward judiciously. She was mumbling. The same syllables over and over again. It sounded to Mrs. Saville like “nearly nearly nearly.” Then Mrs. Gibbs made another catchall movement and the cards were gone. An involuntary “Oh!” escaped Mrs. Saville. Immediately she turned her head away.

Several minutes passed; then, as the old lady showed no signs of having even heard, let alone being about to respond to, Mrs. Saville's exclamation, she sneaked another look. It appeared that Mrs. Gibbs was about to start a run of patience. Cards were laid down, each appearing to flower suddenly at the tips of her fingers when required. Mrs. Saville, gazing at the silent figure in the vile cardigan, had never seen anything like it. Suddenly, although her glance had not once lifted from the table, Mrs. Gibbs said: “You'll know me next time, missus.”

Mortified to find herself in the discomfiting position of
voyeur
, Mrs. Saville made an embarrassed gobbly clucking sound.

This attracted the attention of one of the doves, which flew up and tried to sit on her lap. There was a brief tussle during which she attempted to remove the bird and think of an appropriate reply. To apologize was naturally out of the question. On the other hand something must be said, if only to make it plain that she was not the sort of person to be left with the penultimate word.

Her mind formed various rejoinders, all quite quashing. She selected the most pointed and was consequently horrified when her lips parted and the words “Perhaps you might care to play” emerged. She leaned back, palpitating in her wicker chair, regarding the old woman with trepidation and dismay. How had this rash utterance come about? Surely not because of some obscure and sinister influence? No. That was nonsense. She was simply the victim of nothing more alarming than her own overwhelming compulsion to play a game, any game, of cards.

As Mrs. Saville mulled over her strange predicament, her attention was caught by the extraordinarily long lobes of Mrs. Gibbs's ears. Wrinkled leathery flaps pierced by black pearls, they really looked quite mummified. At home Mrs. Saville had a book on famous murder trials which had left her with the definite impression that long earlobes were a sure sign of the killer temperament. Any move therefore that might put her in a confrontational position vis-à-vis the old lady was to be resisted at all costs. She picked up her chair and closed the gap between them.

“No one seemed very interested in bridge last night, did they?” No reply. “Hard to settle down, perhaps, after Mrs. Gregory's little drama.” Ditto. “Of course, there are games that only two can play. If you'd care…?”

“Games.” Mrs. Gibbs hawked and spat the word like a gob of phlegm.

Mrs. Saville had offended. Obviously, all that necromantic feinting and carrying on was meant to impress. And playing cards quite beneath Mrs. Gibbs's dignity.

“Just to pass the time till lunch.” Mrs. Saville's voice, attempting airiness, failed miserably. “D'you play gin?” A violent head shake. “I'll teach you.” She reached out for the cards. The old lady barked “Oy!” and gathered up the pack. A scroop of silk, the reticule gaped and the cards vanished.

“No matter. I have some.” Mrs. Saville opened her handbag. “You must teach me that trick. Where you made them open out and jump back so quickly.” That would put them in their place at the bridge club. Especially Major Withers.

Mrs. Gibbs shrugged. Her dark eyes glimmered with a complicated mixture of emotions. Irony, malice, amusement, anger. But she spoke softly. “I don't do tricks.”

“I didn't mean to be patronizing,” said Mrs. Saville, as near to making amends as she had been in her entire life. She waited a moment, then, as no revelations seemed to be forthcoming, continued. “Right. Gin is it?” She dealt two hands of ten cards. “Now this is a very easy game. As the nondealer you take what we call the ‘up' card. You see…?” A smile of encouragement. “Oh. I will then…”

“Load of rubbidge.”

“At least try,” coaxed Mrs. Saville, anguished at seeing the chance of her first game in three days slipping away. “Next step—I'll explain about the deadwood—”