6.

AT THE MANOR HOUSE (II)

Scroggs found him first by the statue of Eros,

Impossible to mistake

The man (the same Burberry, gun)

Who watched me from the ends of lanes;

And yet by morning he was gone.

All day we searched the grounds, the woods.

I remember the way the rooks

Cawed in the treetops. Sinister, that.

Rugg, the cook, took fright and packed.

Next day we found him by the lake.

We thought it odd. The chauffeur, Quickly,

Stumbled on him three days later

Face down in the kitchen garden.

Then by evening, he was gone,

The cabbage patch completely wrecked.

Vanished, nothing left

Except his glove and trilby hat.

Now Scroggs has gone, and Rugg and Quickly.

Well, what did I expect?

You can’t keep servants after that.

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I wait alone, except for Sneed,

Whom I distrust. All day I sweep

Binoculars across the lawn.

The formal garden’s gone to seed.

The locals stand about ten-deep.

I’ve picked out Snively, Whipsnade, Crumb,

Having a turn round the estate.

What does it mean? I still can’t shake

The feeling that I’m being watched.

They’ve called the Yard in much too late.

The case will, in the end, be botched.