The Last Houseparty (25 page)

XIII

1

T
he group which Miss Quintain showed into the Great Hall had two distinct foci, or centres of regard. Naturally the Emir of Sorah was one of these. Any man whose decisions can affect the cost of a gallon in two-thirds of the petrol tanks in the Free World is bound to be a figure of some interest, as is the possessor of to all intents limitless wealth; but if one had not known who he was it would have been difficult to swear that one would have been more than slightly impressed by this short, fat, elderly man with his yellowish, too smooth skin and his neat grey beard; though when he spoke his chilly assumption of authority added weight to his superficial appearance. Still, after a glance at him one's eye would have turned to the woman in the wheelchair and would have stayed with her—would have done so had she not also been in her own way famous, certainly to most English people a better-known face than the Emir's.

From her first, half-accidental appearance on a business affairs programme which that week had concerned itself with values in the art-market, Dorothy Orleans had declared herself a formidable public personality. Viewers had at once rejoiced in the confident ferocity, the rudeness which would have seemed malice had it not been so impartially scattered among possible targets, the closely-informed denunciations of the claims and pretensions of most artists and all art purveyors. Perhaps the majority of the English have in them a servile streak; certainly there is something in our mentality which responds with a quiver of joy to those who assume mastery—to the actress able to portray a
grande dame
in full-feathered arrogance, to the dog expert who speaks to people in a tone that you or I might hesitate to use to a hound. Mme Orleans did not often raise her voice to that penetrative level, but the whip-lash snapped in her softest sentences. The word “sentences” is accidentally appropriate. There was something of the hanging judge in her manner, an effect heightened by her extraordinary appearance, the glistening white hair, still scarcely paler than the bloodless-seeming flesh, the little hawk-beak of a nose, the round small mouth painted always a peculiarly acid mauve, as if to simulate extreme age. The eyes, however, belonged to another order of judgment, not small and bloodshot from peering into legal volumes, but blue, clear and held permanently so wide open that the whole round of the iris was visible—eyes, in effect, of a creature whose specialisation is in its gaze. Finally, of course, her apparent physical helplessness contributed to her air of command; whoever was pushing her chair—usually a tough-looking young man in a uniform which might have been that of a chauffeur or a security guard—was clearly her creature, her well-trained packhorse, mindless apart from her direction; somehow he stood symbol for the rest of mankind in its proper relationship with Mme Orleans.

The party was scarcely in the room before, by two or three small gestures of her left hand, she directed her servant to push her round the main island of furniture to a point beside the piano from which she could scrutinise the Rex Whistler, using the hand-held eye-glasses so dreaded by dealers, so loved by television audiences. The Emir stayed near the door, looking slowly round the Great Hall.

“A very good try,” he said at last, speaking to Miss Quintain in his soft, slow but excellent English. “Not quite right, however. The piano is too small, for one thing.”

“It's the biggest I could find,” said Miss Quintain. “Countess Zena took hers to America. I believe this one's actually better to play on.”

“It lacks the element of overdoing things. That was her forte. To overdo things and get away with it. She didn't take the portraits, I am glad to see.”

“They still belonged to Lord Snailwood, sir. He'd left his affairs in great confusion. She couldn't have taken them even if everyone had been willing.”

“So she lost patience and went without them. I don't think greed was one of her vices, nor yearning for the past. Besides the piano (you will forgive my saying this?) there is of course the odour. I suppose it is unrecapturable. Times have their own particular odours. You could use the same furniture polish, fill your vases with the same flowers, instruct your maidservants to wear the right perfumes and yet … a large room, lived in in a certain way, maintained by trained servants in a certain way …”

“Oh dear,” said Miss Quintain. “I do try. We do use the old polish. I don't much care for this type of rose, but I grow enough in the vegetable garden to fill the vases …”

The Emir cut her short with a nod. He walked round to join Mme Orleans. Though he was wearing Western clothes he moved with a faintly gliding pace, as if in robes.

“Well, my dear,” he said. “Do you like it as much as you used to?”

Mme Orleans pressed the catch of her glasses, causing them to close with a snap like the click of a safety-catch.

“A decidedly minor talent,” she said.

“I still think it has charm. And it is very like her, at least in certain moods.”

“A cartoon for a cover of
Harper's Bazaar
. Of course it has charm. The charm of fashion, wholly unreliable. He was really at his best as a stage designer, and even then as a
pasticheur
of other periods. If it had been bought as an investment, now would be the moment to sell.”

“My dear, how could you?”

“I am going to look at the Birley. The John of course is repulsive rubbish—he painted nothing else after thirty. But I am thinking of persuading Peter to put some Birleys together for an exhibition. He did far too many aldermen, but there is some tolerable work.”

She gestured again with her left hand. Unhesitatingly her automaton wheeled her away. Evidently there was no question of her treating the Emir any differently from other clients, either for his rank or for old times' sake. Perhaps she had decided that accompanying him to Snailwood—where, after all, there was little else by way of prey for her than these three pictures, none for sale—was enough acknowledgment of his importance and of the long association during which they had built up his collection. The Emir, apparently unperturbed, continued to study the Whistler for a while before moving to rejoin his entourage. On his way over his eye was caught by the double line of photographs beneath the gallery, so far unnoticed because they had been behind him from his moment of entry.

“Those also are an innovation,” he said to Miss Quintain.

“They used to be in albums, sir. They are Countess Zena's week-end parties. There's a lot of interest in them nowadays, so I decided to put them out where they'd be easier to look at.”

“All the week-ends? Am I in this exhibition?”

“I think so, your highness. I only realised it might be you when we were introduced. Over here—the last week-end of all.”

This time the entourage made as if to accompany their master, but with a sideways movement of his hand he stopped them. He looked closely at each of the sitters in the photograph, then beckoned to Miss Quintain. His finger touched the glass.

“Vincent Masham,” he said. “Was anything more heard of him?”

“No, your highness.”

“A great pity,” said the Emir in a dead tone that gave no hint whether his regret lay in the failure of justice to catch its victim or elsewhere. He continued to contemplate the photograph.

“Forgive me, your highness,” said Miss Quintain.

“Well?”

“Vincent never got in touch with you, did he?”

“Why should he have?”

“I've sometimes wondered. You were his friend. He was in the Near East during the war.”

“You have a personal interest?”

“My stepfather, Vincent's cousin Harry Quintain …”

“Of course. This one here.”

“That's him. He was always convinced … do you know what happened that week-end?”

“Much happened. Lord Snailwood fell ill, there was a fire, a child was attacked and Masham was accused. Moreover I met Mme Orleans. An historic week-end, despite our failure to solve the problem of Palestine.”

“My stepfather never believed that Vincent attacked the child.”

“I was told she had identified him.”

“I was the child.”

“Indeed.”

“I don't think I understood. I'm sure I didn't really remember. I said what I thought they wanted me to say.”

“Very likely … And now, if Vincent were to be found?”

“Found? Well … Yes, if … Someone he trusted, who could tell him he can stop hiding. Especially now, with this happening.” She seemed suddenly rather confused and gestured feebly at the room. The Emir watched her dispassionately.

“Masham was in a sense my host,” he said at last. “His name had been used as an excuse to invite me to Snailwood. If he had asked me for help at anytime I would have given it. An attack such as that upon a child was unimportant among my people compared with my obligation to him as host and friend. You understand?”

“In any case, he didn't do it.”

“In the early hours of next morning, between four and five o'clock, I was standing in the courtyard, close to the left-hand arches. I had just returned from driving Mme Orleans back to Bullington in Masham's car. It was a poet's dawn, full of foolish birds singing while the stars went slowly away. I had no wish to go to bed so I stood and watched the clock strike and the figures come and go. I heard a door close under the tower. I had no desire to share my private dawn with anyone, so I moved into the shadow of the cloisters. After a short while a man came towards me, not going out in the open across the courtyard, but round under the cover of the cloisters. Having begun to hide I felt it would be ridiculous now to show myself, so I moved round a pillar as he passed. He may perhaps have smelt the smoke of my cigarette but he showed no sign of having seen me. I looked out after he had gone and saw his back. It was Vincent Masham.”

“No! But …”

“I told no one, though after he had run away we were all asked if we had seen him at any time that night or next morning. He was my host. The accusation of the child seemed clear. But I considered that what I had seen had no connection …”

“Oh, but it had! He told me! He told me it must be the same person!”

Before the Emir could answer, one of his officials approached and spoke deferentially in Arabic, at the same time indicating his wristwatch.

“He says it is ten minutes to noon,” said the Emir. “I hope the clock will strike for us. I hear you are having it repaired.”

Miss Quintain did not seem to hear him. His casual glance of enquiry hardened. Her head was moving slowly from side to side in vague negation, but clearly not in response to his question.

“You are having the clock repaired?” asked the Emir again.

She pulled herself together enough to answer, but in a flat mutter, as though under hypnosis.

“The clock. Oh yes, it's going again. He says it's going again.”

2

Winter struck. Woodmen and foxes danced about their pathetic goddess until the clinking quarters ended and Time scythed them into darkness. The two warriors emerged at the higher level and as the twelve strokes of noon clanged out they exchanged blow for blow until, on the final stroke, one head sprang from its shoulders. Then they backed smoothly away and their doors closed upon them.

Down in the courtyard the Emir led his attendants in a polite round of clapping. His face became suddenly boyish. He began to speak with quite unregal enthusiasm to Miss Quintain but then, perhaps registering that she had not yet managed to reconstruct her carapace of calm and competence, he turned to Mme Orleans, who had actually smiled during the dance of Winter and now began to speak with definite approval about the clock as an aesthetic object. Another group of watchers—Mrs O'Rourke, Mrs Floyd and all the Snailwood staff apart from the gardeners—had been watching from under the arcading by the kitchens and joined the applause with an excitement which must have made it obvious that the performance was not staled by familiarity. The mottled flock of pigeons, equally unused to the clamour and in any case still not having accepted their exclusion from the clock tower, settled back on to ledges and protrusions.

Up in the clock room Mr Mason straightened from where he had been doling out the hour strokes on the big bell. More slowly than ever—like a piece of machinery designed to be governed to a steady pace, but whose spring has unwound too far to provide the energy for even that rate of work—he walked across and peered down one of the slots in the floor through which stretched the ropes that carried the weights. Those that had hauled the figures through their motions now dangled only a foot or two above the floor below. The ropes ran over pulleys, unconnected to any of the machinery of the clock itself. Mr Mason had set both dance and battle in motion by removing clamps from the ropes, and the machinery had stopped of its own accord when another set of clamps had reached the stops. The whole display had been, in a sense, a fraud. Only the going train kept a genuine account of time, turning the hands across the clock face and filling the room with the monotonous clack of its escapement.

Having checked that his clamps were holding, Mr Mason rose and crossed to the outer corner where a vertical ladder led to the upper gallery, the realm of the Saracen and crusader. He paused, one hand on a rung. He was visibly drained with tiredness. The spirit that had filled his large shape, willing his every movement to conform to his chosen personality and so to leave no scope for action on the part of any other personality he might have had—that spirit seemed to have withdrawn. Unexpectedly this made him look younger. It was as though the other man, to suppress and as far as possible abolish whom the whole idea of Victor Mason had been constructed, was now allowed for once into the open and stood there as he might have been, physically the same age as Mr Mason, but spiritually almost unmarked by the abrasion of the thirty-two years that had passed since he had climbed into the clock tower at Lichfield and found Sid Lauterpracht working there.