Jevanny Lodge was a tall, square, red-brick house, built in the reign of Queen Anne. A stone-pillared porch had been added in the purer classical style of 1790; the windows of the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes and thick white woodwork. A pediment, pierced with a round window, crowned the front. There were wings to right and left, connected by curious glazed galleries, supported by colonnades.
‘It looks like a fit. We’ll take him upstairs, Miss Thornton,’ Fenella Frayle told the teacher she had called, a freckled young woman whose physique suggested a gym mistress.
‘He is not epileptic, is he?’ Miss Thornton asked.
‘I have no idea. I hope not.’
‘Can I go with them?’ Eddy asked.
‘Certainly not.’ Antonia kept a restraining arm across her grandson’s chest.
‘Why not?’
‘It would be inappropriate.’
‘What does that mean?’ Eddy looked up at her.
‘It means you would be in the way.’
‘Will the man die?’
‘He may, if you go on asking questions.’
She needed to keep an eye on Eddy. He was bored. A minute earlier he had taken advantage of the disturbance; as soon as Miss Frayle had left the room, he had walked up to her desk and started examining the papers that lay on it. Antonia had had to call him back.
Miss Frayle’s office door had been left wide open. Antonia and Eddy stood beside it, looking at the little group in the hall, ranged round the base of the stairs.
‘Are the children OK?’ Fenella Frayle asked.
‘Overexcited,’ Patricia Thornton said. ‘They know something’s happened and they all want to be part of it. I left them in Frostbite’s care. I mean Lilian Frobisher.’
‘Good. Excellent. Poor fellow – can he walk or will we have to give him a piggyback?’
‘I am fine, really.’ Charles Eresby staggered between his manservant and Patricia Thornton. ‘I can walk. I feel a little better. It’s so hot.’
‘You are not epileptic, are you?’ Patricia Thornton asked.
‘I am not.’
‘You may be without knowing it.’
‘I am not.’
‘You haven’t got a dicky heart, have you?’ Fenella Frayle said.
‘No. My heart is fine. It’s broken but otherwise it’s fine.’
‘I’d hate it if you were to keel over and snuff it on the premises,’ Fenella said cheerfully. ‘We’d have to send the children home and the parents wouldn’t like it. You gave poor Eddy a great fright, you know – that clever little boy over there –’ She pointed towards the top of the stairs.
‘He didn’t give me a fright.’ Eddy’s eyes flashed indignantly.
‘He thought you were dead!’
Eddy glanced up at Antonia and mouthed, ‘I don’t like her.’
The dark man in the alpaca coat cleared his throat. ‘I am afraid Mr Eresby is not used to high temperatures.’
‘Oh, you know each other? What a relief. Jolly good. Makes all the difference. I took you for a Good Samaritan. I thought you were a casual passer-by.’
‘I am Mr Eresby’s manservant. My name is Bedaux.’
Antonia gazed at them curiously. Master and servant promenading en plein air? A rare phenomenon these days, surely, even in this part of London? Antonia had imagined that only people like Prince Charles had valets. The master, as far as she could see, was a delicately built young man dressed in a somewhat crumpled white linen suit. His hair was very fair and floppy. He was probably quite good-looking in a young-Anthony-Andrews-as-Lord-Sebastian-Flyte kind of way, but was at the moment deathly pale, and somewhat slack-mouthed … What was it he said? It was something curious … It’s broken … He’d meant his heart, which suggested his fainting fit might not be exclusively due to the heat …
Antonia’s attention shifted to the servant who was a tall dark man with an impassive face, immaculately dressed. A gentleman’s gentleman, eh? Clearly, they did exist … This one seemed to run to type … Was he really one of those chaps whose entire life, like that of the late Queen Mother, was based upon duty, obligation, discretion and restraint? Something monkish about him but the eyes were watchful and – what was it? – calculating? The eyes of a man who enjoys dice games for dangerous stakes … The eyes of a Machiavelli … I mustn’t let my imagination run away with me, Antonia reminded herself.
Beside her Eddy chanted under his breath, something that sounded like, ‘Aunt Clo-Clo must die, Aunt Clo-Clo must die’, but she paid no attention.
‘Are we ready? Let me go first – can Mr Eresby manage the stairs?’ The irrepressible Miss Frayle led the way up. ‘We normally have a resident nurse, but she phoned in sick this morning, now wasn’t that a nuisance? Would you like us to call an ambulance?’
‘It might be a good idea, to be on the safe side,’ Bedaux said.
‘No, thank you. No ambulance. No need. I’ll be all right,’ Charles Eresby countered. ‘I just want to sit down quietly for a bit. I need to clear my head, that’s all … I am frightfully sorry for being a nuisance.’
‘Not a bit of it … Can happen to anyone, even to the best of us … I felt a bit faint myself this morning … Here we are. Journey’s end.’ Fenella pushed open a door. ‘My cubbyhole … I call it my “snuggery” … How about a drop of brandy? Old-fashioned remedies are usually the best … You aren’t a teetotaller, are you? It’s a bit stuffy here … I’ll open the window, shall I?’
‘You are frightfully kind,’ Charlie said. ‘I already feel better.’
But the next moment he was seized with another giddy spell and once more he heard the sound of rushing water … The figures round him started moving in a nightmarish dance … He saw Bedaux and beefy Miss Thornton whirl round, they might have been waltzing … The super nanny in her blue suit and brooch started bobbing up and down like the piston of an old-fashioned steam engine …
Shutting his eyes, he allowed them to lead him to the sofa.
Our hostess is called Fenella Frayle and her sitting room is papered in sunny Georgian yellow – red chintz curtains hang from gilded pelmets at the windows – the large sofa is of a bright cobalt blue. Even on the dullest day, I imagine one would feel uplifted by the cheerful mix of colour and pattern, the sparkle of mirror and glint of glass. The overall effect is most envigorating.
Miss Frayle offers Mr Eresby a glass of sherry, which he accepts. It should have been brandy, but it turns out she has run out of brandy. Mr Eresby takes one tiny sip, then another. His eyes close. He coughs. Mr Eresby is not used to strong drink. He shouldn’t be drinking, really. Miss Frayle raises her eyebrows at me and points to the sherry decanter. I politely decline. I remain standing, my hands behind my back. I preserve a sentry-like stillness. I am gratified to observe Mr Eresby’s cheeks turn a little pink.
‘Eresby, did you say?’ Miss Frayle says. ‘Unusual name. Any connection with Eresby’s Biscuits? Hope you don’t mind my asking? I believe they are defunct now, or are they?’
‘My father. My late father. He sold the company. That was ages ago. I was two at the time.’ Mr Eresby speaks haltingly. ‘I have no recollection of any of it. The biscuits do exist but they are called something else now.’
‘So you are the son of the man himself! How terribly exciting! My aunt used to love Eresby’s biscuits.’ Miss Frayle frowns slightly. I get the impression she doesn’t like her aunt.
Miss Thornton has left the room, but another youngish woman enters, whom Miss Frayle addresses as ‘Miss Cooper’. Miss Cooper appears to be Miss Frayle’s secretary. Miss Frayle asks her to stay with us, she then apologises, says she will be back soon and leaves the room.
Miss Cooper is thin and bespectacled and she is wearing an attractively patterned silk dress. She sits down beside the desk. Her dress rustles.
‘We are used to accidents here,’ she says. ‘You would never believe what happened last March. One evening it was very cold and we were sitting here, in this very room, reading by the fire. Suddenly we noticed a strange roaring coming from the chimney, then outside there were flames and sparks lighting up the sky like a beacon! Two fire engines and several gallons of water later, the danger was over, but Miss Frayle was sternly warned by the firemen that before we ever put a match to another fire, the chimney had to be relined.’
‘Did you hear that, Bedaux? Relined and sternly warned,’ Mr Eresby says. There are two bright spots on his cheeks. ‘This is fascinating. We should have our chimneys relined and sternly warned as soon as possible, don’t you think?’
I hope he is not getting drunk.
I suspect the main reason for Miss Cooper’s presence is to ensure that we don’t get up to any mischief. We are, after all, strangers. For all Miss Frayle knows, we may be a pair of confidence tricksters specialising in gaining entry into respectable households under false colours and relieving them of any valuable objects. Mr Eresby’s fainting fit could have been no more than a charade, his deathly pallor the result of some artfully applied make-up.
Miss Cooper asks whether Mr Eresby would like to glance at The Times. He says he would like to die.
The next moment I remember something. ‘I don’t think I locked the front door, sir,’ I tell Mr Eresby.
‘A grave omission, Bedaux.’ He doesn’t sound particularly concerned. ‘I suppose it was my fault, rushing out madly the way I did.’
‘No, not at all, sir. Would you mind if I went back and checked if everything is in order?’
‘By all means. Take a cab, if you like. Do you suppose the old homestead may have been burgled?’
‘I consider that a most unlikely contingency, but it would be best to go and ascertain. It wouldn’t take me long.’ I glance at my watch. ‘I could be back in half an hour … Will you be all right, sir?’
‘What a peculiar question. I will never be all right, Bedaux.’ Mr Eresby takes another sip of sherry. ‘Not as long as –’ He breaks off. He leans his left elbow against one of the brocade cushions and once more shuts his eyes.
I give a bow and leave the room.
As I walk down the stairs, I hear the sound of a piano and children singing lustily: ‘I’d rather be a colonel with an eagle on my shoulder than a private with a chicken on my knee –’
That is a First World War song, I believe. This is an unselfconsciously old-fashioned establishment and no mistake.
I am in luck. The moment I come out of the front door I spot a cab. I hail it and get in. ‘Sloane Square,’ I tell the driver.
What was it Mr Eresby was about to say to me but was prevented by Miss Cooper’s presence? He would never be all right – not as long as – what? – not as long as Olga Klimt lived? I am certain that he intended to say something along those lines.
I lean back and dab at my forehead with my handkerchief. Did I say I was something of a student of English literature and that I sometimes indulge in making parallels between real-life people and personages in novels? It occurs to me that, odd as it may appear, the literary character Mr Eresby brings to mind most at the moment is the spinster schoolmistress in Notes on a Scandal – at one and the same time violently besotted and viciously vengeful.
Mr Eresby asked me to kill Olga Klimt for him but I don’t think he really meant it. He would be devastated if I did kill her. I believe he is experiencing a temporary derangement, what is known as a ‘psychotic episode’. This is not as uncommon as some may imagine. I read somewhere, I think it was in the Telegraph, that seventy-six per cent of the population of the British Isles have had at least one psychotic episode at some point in their lives.
As it happens, I have murder on my mind too, though, unlike Mr Eresby, I am perfectly serious and rational about it.
Murder, yes. I have been thinking of little else the last couple of days.
How ironic that Mr Eresby should want me to kill Olga Klimt. I smile, one of my rare smiles. If only Mr Eresby knew.