‘You haven’t answered my question,’ she said in a tone of almost coy reproof.

  He let her go gently. ‘My dear girl, there’s a positive queue to hand Fleur down the aisle. I should be honoured, of course, but . . .’ The arms were moving again, less actively because there was a glass in the right hand. But for once the shrug of the shoulders was more than meaningless affectation.

  ‘Surely, the privilege is yours?’ Molly enquired deliberately.

  Conversation elsewhere in the room had tailed away. Most heads were turned toward Jarvas — along with some questing expressions.

  ‘But am I deserving of it? Have I nurtured the lovely Fleur? Protected her as a father should all these years?’

  ‘No, but . . .’ Amanda began.

  ‘It’s all buts, you see. Times and conventions change. Jack and I have just been talking about it. I really feel the honour should go to him.’

  And what does Fleur feel?’ asked Treasure from where he was standing with the girl.

  ‘That nobody cares a damn,’ snapped Fleur. And she didn’t burst into tears as many expected, nor did she run from the room.

  It was Noah’s voice that broke the silence. ‘Wish someone would give me away. D’you think anyone’d take me?’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Not sorry that’s over,’ said Molly Treasure, unzipping her dress. ‘The burglary made it eventful,’ her husband answered. He had taken off his jacket and tie, and was slipping a woollen sweater over his shirt.

  It was just before eleven o’clock. The two had returned to their room at the Orchard and were preparing to go down again.

  ‘One quick view of a fleeing thief doesn’t make up for two hours at dinner between somnolent Jack Figgle and solid, reliable Gino Grimandi.’ She stepped out of her slip, then considered the line of clothes hanging in the wardrobe. ‘And Silvano’s such a sweetie. He was miles away from me. So was that nice Noah. I had Mrs Millant opposite — and the Vicar. Couple of weirdoes, if you ask me. It was a rotten seating plan.’

  ‘You can hardly grumble at being sat on the host’s right.’

  ‘A penance not a privilege since he wasn’t uttering. Which made two of them.’ She took a pair of trousers from a hanger. ‘You were surrounded by gorgeous young women.’

  ‘Not as captivating as you with nothing on.’

  ‘Aren’t you gallant — and why am I feeling self-conscious? Stop staring. I do have something on.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I noticed the Bedwell twins never stopped drooling over you.’

  ‘Really? Imagine they’d strip down nicely. And quickly. Well, everybody’s good at something.’ He was transferring things into the pockets of his golf jacket. ‘Jack wasn’t sleepy. More likely pre-occupied. Upset over Jarvas’s deviousness.’

  ‘You don’t believe Jarvas will give Fleur away tomorrow?’

  ‘I think he will. In the end. He’s being foxy about it to avoid signing that letter.’

  ‘The one you drafted saying he approves the marriage? Does it make that much difference?’

  ‘It could.’

  ‘Even if he actually leads his daughter to the altar?’

  ‘Legally his consent would be a lot more binding if we had it in writing. There’s a good deal of money at stake. He’s playing a brinkmanship game with Jack, who I’ve just advised again not to sign that contract letter till Jarvas signs the other one. Somehow, though, I don’t think Jack’ll hold out. Jarvas won’t be at the church unless he’s got his contract, of course.’

  ‘But he’ll be there if he has?’

  Treasure hesitated. ‘Yes. Pretty certainly.’

  ‘Then from what you’ve told me, I think Jack should sign and risk it. We’ll all be at the church as witnesses, for heaven’s sake. What about the bit in the service where the priest says “Who giveth this woman?” ’

  ‘To which there’s no required verbal reply. Have you never noticed? Fathers don’t have to answer “I do” or say anything. It’s all done with gestures.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite. I looked it up before dinner. So I doubt what happens constitutes a commitment. Only implies one. And I think Jarvas takes the same view. There could be another commitment he’s avoiding too.’ He looked at the time. ‘Tell me, are you going like that?’

  ‘Very funny,’ said Molly who still hadn’t decided which of the six available sweaters she should put on. ‘I suppose we do have to go?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want. It’s only for an hour though. I think it’s rather a compliment. We’ve been included amongst what Noah calls the young. It’s quite warm out. Tim Shannon’s arranging a wine bar on the terrace in front of the pool. There’ll be dancing. You enjoy that.’

  ‘Well, I’m not swimming.’ She glanced at the swimming trunks he was holding.

  ‘Neither shall I probably. Indoor pool though. Water’s kept at eighty-two.’

  ‘Then I’ll content myself watching you cavorting underwater with the Bedwells.’

  ‘Except you’ll be too busy being lionised for taking on the burglar single-handed.’

  ‘By mistake,’ Molly laughed. ‘I mean it was largely unintentional. As I told the policeman, I was first out of the dining room, and went into Jack’s study, thinking it was the drawing room. The burglar saw me and fled. It made me sound so heroic to the others.’

  ‘But you did give chase.’

  ‘I gave a sort of whooping noise, and advanced thinking there’d be others behind me. Then I walked into the display case. He was through that window like a shot. Sort of reaction that gets a girl bad notices.’ She pulled a multi-coloured Dolman-sleeved sweater over her head. ‘I should have gone for the light switch, of course. If I’d seen his face I could have picked him out in the Rogue’s Gallery, or whatever they call it.’

  ‘If he’d looked around again. Didn’t you say he was wearing . . .’ ‘Jack’s duffle coat. They found it outside on the drive. He had the hood over his head, of course, so I might not have got a proper look at his face.’

  ‘What’s surprising is he was working in the dark. He must have put the lights out. Jack says he left them on before dinner. He and Jarvas both remembered.’

  ‘But Jack didn’t leave the window open?’

  ‘No. And it wasn’t forced from outside either. Chap probably came through the open drawing room window, then went through the hall to the study.’

  ‘What a nerve.’ Molly was tidying her hair at the dressing table. ‘I mean busting in when the house was full of people.’

  ‘All more or less in one place. It’s quite common. Bet he intended to do all the bedrooms too, after he’d gone through the wedding presents which he thought would be in the study. That was your policeman’s theory.’

  ‘But the presents . . .’

  ‘What there are of them. All in Fleur’s bedroom. He never reached it, thanks to your intrepid intervention.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Molly smiled all the same. ‘I’d think he just got the timing of dinner wrong. He must still have got away with a lot from the study. I mean he had quite a large bag. I did see that. Did Jack say what was gone?’

  ‘Still checking when we came away.’

  Molly made a tutting noise. ‘I should have run after him properly.’

  ‘Glad you didn’t.’

  ‘Well, someone should have. There’s too much crime.’ She frowned severely into the mirror.

  ‘But nobody knew till you ran back to the dining room. Amanda was seeing to the coffee. The other women seem to have gone upstairs in a body . . .’

  ‘And the men were guzzling port.’

  ‘All except the Vicar who’d gone to the loo. So had old Ware. Straight after the pudding. But he hadn’t come back. Jack had gone for something. Brandy bottle. Someone wanted brandy. I suppose any of them could have run into the thief. Or heard your whooping.’

  ‘Well, if they did, they didn’t do anything about it.’ ‘The cloakroom’s on the other side of the hall.’

  ‘Well, they couldn’t all have been in it. Not at the same time, surely? Anyway, if the thief wasn’t in a car, and nobody heard one . . .’

  ‘Probably had it parked on the main road. Got to it across country. It’s not far.’

  ‘What I mean is, six or seven able-bodied men, spread out, could have caught him. Some on foot, some in cars.’

  ‘Sounds obvious after the event, I agree. We didn’t think quickly enough. Most people staying in the house went to check their own rooms pretty smartly. Anyway, it’s only supposition the man didn’t have a car on the spot somewhere. It might not have been heard.’

  ‘Little Robin Figgle says he didn’t hear one, but his room’s on the garden front. Wasn’t he sweet when he came down? All packaged in his Jaeger dressing gown?’

  ‘Sent to bed early to be fresh for tomorrow but still awake reading in bed. The family’s fearless watchdog illegally sleeping in his room too.’

  ‘So not everyone was in the same place. I’m glad that thief never got to the bedrooms. Despite the dog. Those kind of people can be quite ruthless, especially if they’re panicked.’

  ‘Should have thought of that when you started giving chase.’ ‘D’you think I did? Sort of subconsciously?’ Molly sighed, and

  stood up. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ she demanded accusingly, strutting toward the door. ‘On with the dance.’

  ‘I don’t care what anyone says to the contrary, that Jarvas is an absolute outsider. Belongs to a type the world would be better off without.’ The Reverend Greville Sinn was standing before the uncurtained window of the vicarage kitchen in his shirtsleeves, applying polish to an already shining pair of shoes. He could see, and be seen by, passers-by outside where a lamp illumined the junction of the village street and the manor drive. He regularly performed his menial domestic chores on this spot so that parishioners could witness that he undertook the humblest tasks, and with proper zeal. His wife was preparing the hot chocolate drink they took each night before retiring.

  ‘That’s not a very Christian attitude, dear,’ Penelope replied, but more in question than reproach. She was watching the milk in the saucepan to see it didn’t boil over. At the same time she was preparing to swot a wasp. Greville liked the milk just under boiling, so as not to destroy the goodness. She had put a butcher’s apron on over the pink taffeta, in case of splashes. Combined with her Wellington boots – she had just been out to lock up the chickens – the lipstick, and the leather-handled fly swatter, she was close to a Max Ernst print of an aging participant in a Thirties German cabaret.

  Sinn looked at the time, and ignored his wife’s irrelevant observation. ‘You know the bounder should have done military service when he was eighteen?’

  ‘Everybody did in those days, Greville.’ Now she was poised on one leg like a Raphael nymph — swatter at the ready.

  ‘Not Mr Jarvas. He bragged to me – bragged! – he got a false medical certificate from some crook in Harley Street. Never did a day in the Service — nor a day’s work in his whole life from what he says. Drone. Parasite.’ The Vicar’s brushing had reached a frenzied pace. ‘You know he’s been in jug?’

  ‘Somebody had the charity to remind me. Yes.’ The milk had reached crisis point. Quickly she lifted the pan from the cooker. The wasp dived straight into it and promptly expired in the scalding liquid. ‘Some kind of fraud, wasn’t it?’ She glanced around to make sure Greville hadn’t witnessed the fatality. He was facing the other way. She extracted the dead body quickly. He was difficult about germs.

  ‘Yes. And you know something else?’ He’d looked about sharply. She froze with the wasp on the end of the long cooking spoon. ‘Oh, good shooting, old girl. With a spoon, too.’ He nodded approvingly, looking at the time again, before returning to the point and the polishing. ‘According to Ware he could stop the wedding still. Remember we heard he didn’t approve in the first place? Thought it fishy, his turning up at all. Jack’s in a state about it all. Explained when he came in before . . .’

  ‘But Fleur’s of age.’

  ‘Nothing to do with age. Money. Family trust. Ware hasn’t got the details clear.’

  ‘If it was after dinner, Mr Ware was a bit drunk.’ She stirred the chocolate in the cups.

  ‘If he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have been so forthcoming. Jack’s in deep trouble with his business. Didn’t realise till tonight he’s going bankrupt.’ He snorted. ‘All to do with unfair foreign competition.’

  ‘Did Mr Ware say that?’

  ‘No. I’m saying it. Obvious anyway. He’s motor trade. Been ruined by Japan and France. Why can’t people buy British?’ He hadn’t mentioned Germany. He always stretched a point over the Germans, whom he rather admired.

  ‘I don’t quite see how that’s affected by the wedding. Want a biscuit, dear?’

  ‘Well it is.’ He waved away the biscuit tin as he went to wash his hands at the sink. ‘Seriously affected. Jack implied as much. Ware confirmed it.’ He sat down at the table with Penelope and began eyeing the top of his chocolate. She looked across surreptitiously in case there was anything like a dead wing floating on it. ‘Meant to corner Jack again before we left.’ So he was cogitating not scrutinising. He looked at his watch. ‘Shouldn’t have left a friend in trouble – comrade in arms – not without offering help. Trouble was he had Jarvas with him. We gave him marching orders over Dick Clay. Then I left them. Couldn’t stick his company. Jarvas, I mean.’ He was breathing deeply. ‘Jack was decorated for bravery. In the war.’

  Penelope concluded that outrage was upsetting the order of his thoughts. ‘Not really our business, Greville,’ she offered soothingly. ‘Pass by on the other side, you mean?’ He never felt quite right about calling up scripture — at least not in private. ‘Friend in need is a friend indeed,’ he added. That was better. ‘Think I’ll go back

  now.’

  ‘It’s quite late.’

  ‘Wouldn’t say that if you knew something tragic might happen.’

  ‘Oh dear. D’you mean . . .’

  ‘Didn’t like the look of Jack all evening. From the moment he came in with that toad Jarvas. I tell you, he reminded me of Percy what’s-his-name. That young adjutant. When I was serving in Cyprus.’

  ‘The one who committed suicide?’

  ‘That’s him. He looked the same way Jack did tonight. In the mess. The night he took his life.’

  ‘But his daughter wasn’t getting married next day.’

  ‘Percy didn’t have a daughter. Did he?’ The Vicar frowned. ‘Don’t think so. He wasn’t married.’

  ‘Well, stop talking rubbish. I’m going back to help old Jack. He’ll still be up.’

  Penelope smiled and watched him leave. It was at times like these she admired the brightness of his Christian thought and action. In fact he was thinking darkly about Renault and Toyota and Kitson Jarvas.

  ‘I’m asking you for the last time, Rosie, what happened in that room before I got there?’

  Mildred Clay was standing, arms akimbo, in the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom. Rose was moving quickly about the room snatching the articles of clothing she intended to wear from drawers and shelves. ‘And for the last time, Mum, I’m telling you nothing happened.’

  ‘So why d’you have to lock yourself in the bathroom? Why were your shoes off by the bed? What else did you take off? You went in that bathroom to dress, didn’t you? You’d been acting like a slut, hadn’t you?’ Fury showing in every expression and movement, Mildred advanced further into the room.

  The girl flushed. ‘That’s a lousy thing to say. It’s not true and you know it.’

  ‘How do I know it?’

  ‘Well, for a start I’d only been there a couple of minutes. I couldn’t have left the bar for long.’

  ‘Why d’you leave it at all?’

  ‘Because evening room service for drinks is part of bar and reception duties. Ask anyone. Ask Mr Shannon.’

  ‘So Jarvas told you to bring up a bottle of gin and two glasses? Two glasses to his single room? And you did it?’

  ‘He rang down with his order like anyone else would. Yes, he asked for two glasses. Plenty of guests have other guests in their rooms for drinks. He could have been asking Mr Grimandi from the room opposite or . . .’

  ‘Oh, he could have been asking the Prince of Wales. But he wasn’t, was he? He was asking you.’

  ‘I don’t drink gin.’

  ‘He wasn’t to know that. So why didn’t you just take in the tray and leave? And how long’s a couple of minutes, I’d like to know?’

  Rose stopped what she was doing and faced her mother across the bed. ‘Long enough to apologise. That’s how long it was.’ She bit her lip. ‘To say I was sorry for mentioning to Dad . . .’

  ‘That Jarvas had had his dirty hands on you?’

  ‘For mentioning he’d made a play for me. Harmless. In fun. To say I was sorry my father had gone spare about it. Hitting Mr Jarvas and everything.’

  ‘And that’s when you started undressing?’

  ‘I didn’t, I tell you. He was ever so nice about it. Oh, Mum, I was so ashamed, I was crying.’ And tears were welling up now in her eyes. ‘He told me to sit down.’

  ‘On the bed?’ The mother’s tone had not softened.

  ‘There wasn’t anywhere else. You know the size of those single rooms. He said to dry my eyes. To have a drink before I went back.’

  ‘He would. And the rest.’

  ‘I’d been on my feet since four. Those shoes were killing me. They’re ever so tight. I kicked them off. Sort of without thinking. Then you knocked. I didn’t know who it’d be. My face was such a mess, I dashed in the bathroom.’

 

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