A Red Herring Without Mustard

Upstairs, at the far end of the west wing, Daffy would still be awake, though, goggling by candlelight, as she loved to do, at the Gustave Doré engravings in Gargantua and Pantagruel. I had found the fat calf-bound volume hidden under her mattress while rifling her room in search of a packet of chewing gum that an American serviceman had given to Feely, who had come across him sitting on a stile one morning as she was walking into the village to post a letter. His name was Carl, and he was from St. Louis, in America. He told her she was the spitting image of Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. Feely, of course, had come home preening and hidden the gum, as she always does with such tributes, in her lingerie drawer, from which Daffy had pinched it. And I in my turn from her.

For weeks afterwards it was “Carl-this” and “Carl-that” with Feely prattling endlessly on about the muddy Mississippi, its length, its twists and bends, and how to spell it properly without making a fool of oneself. We were given the distinct impression that she had personally conceived and executed the formation of that great river, with God standing helplessly on the sidelines, little more than a plumber’s assistant.

I smiled at the thought.

It was at that precise instant that I heard it: a metallic click.

For a couple of heartbeats, I stood perfectly still, trying to decide from which direction it had come.

The drawing room, I thought, and immediately began tiptoeing in that direction. In my bare feet, I was able to move in perfect silence, keeping an ear out for the slightest sound. Although there are times when I have cursed the painfully acute sense of hearing I’ve inherited from Harriet, this was not one of them.

As I moved at a snail’s pace along the corridor, a crack of light suddenly appeared beneath the drawing-room door. Who could be in there at this time of night? I wondered. Whoever it was, it certainly wasn’t a de Luce.

Should I call for help, or tackle the intruder myself?

I seized the knob, turned it ever so slowly, and opened the door: a foolhardy action, I suppose, but after all, I was in my own home. No sense in letting Daffy or Feely take all the credit for catching a burglar.

Accustomed to the darkness, my eyes were somewhat dazzled by the light of an ancient paraffin lamp that was kept for use during electrical interruptions, and so at first I didn’t see anyone there. In fact, it took a moment for me to realize that someone—a stranger in rubber boots—was crouched by the fireplace, his hand on one of the brass firedogs that had been cast into the shape of foxes.

The whites of his eyes flashed as he looked up into the mirror and saw me standing behind him in the open doorway.

His moleskin coat and his scarlet scarf flared out as he came to his feet and spun quickly round.

“Crikey, gal! You might have given me a heart attack!”

It was Brookie Harewood.

FOUR

THE MAN HAD BEEN drinking. I noticed that at once. Even from where I stood I could detect the smell of alcohol—that and the powerful fishy odor that accompanies a person who wears a creel with as much pride as another might wear a kilt and sporran.

I closed the door quietly behind me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, putting on my sternest face.

Actually, what I was thinking was that Buckshaw, in the small hours of the morning, was becoming a virtual Paddington Station. It wasn’t more than a couple of months since I had found Horace Bonepenny in a heated nocturnal argument with Father. Well, Bonepenny was now in his grave, and yet here was another intruder to take his place.

Brookie raised his cap and tugged at his forelock—the ancient signal of submission to one’s better. If he were a dog, it would be much the same thing as prostrating himself and rolling over to expose his belly.

“Answer me, please,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

He fiddled a bit with the wicker creel on his hip before he replied.

“You caught me fair and square, miss,” he said, shooting me a disarming smile. I noticed, much to my annoyance, that he had perfect teeth.

“But I didn’t mean no harm. I’ll admit I was on the estate hoping to do a bit of business rabbitwise. Nothing like a nice pot of rabbit stew for a weak chest, is there?”

He knocked his rib cage with a clenched fist and forced a cough that, since I had done it so often myself, didn’t fool me for an instant. Neither did his fake gamekeeper dialect. If, as Mrs. Mullet claimed, Brookie’s mother was a society artist, he had probably been schooled at Eton, or some such place. The grubbing voice was meant to gain him sympathy. That, too, was an old trick. I had used it myself, and because of that, I found myself resenting it.