Coroner's Pidgin (15 page)

Stavros still hesitated, and then, surprisingly, he shrugged his shoulders and went back to Campion where he paused and looked him full in the eyes.

“What on earth does it matter?” he said, and went out.

He had not lowered his voice, and Don's incredulity would have been funny in any other circumstances. “It's got a kind of atmosphere, this place,” he said dryly.

The Bishop laughed. “My dear boy,” he said, “I really can't tell you how glad I am you are precisely the young man you are. Just let me look at that, will you?” He took the bottle reverently and brought it under the light, where the others joined him, Don doing his best not to look like the small boy who has picked up the rare fossil.

“Oh, yes,” said the Bishop of Devizes, “oh dear me, yes.”

Producing a penknife he attempted to raise a corner of the label. When he was satisfied this was impossible he turned his attention to the cork. For a long time he examined the black seal through a reading glass.

“Yes,” he said again. “Yes, I think so.”

Mr. Campion avoided Don, but the Bishop had no shame.

“Now,” he said, “where's that corkscrew?”

Old Fred brought it, unholy interest in his bleary eyes, but was bundled out unceremoniously.

“That's right,” said the Bishop. “We don't want anyone else here but ourselves. We ought to wait for the others, but I don't think we will, you know. I don't—think—so.”
He was at work as he spoke, his slender hands revealing practised skill. “No,” he said waving away his host's offer of assistance, “no, I'll do it myself, my dear fellow, if you don't mind. We must have the cork—we must have the cork intact.”

Don laughed. “This is making me homesick,” he said. “This is dad's performance.”

“Your father is a very sound judge,” remarked Mr. Campion's uncle without looking up. “Very sound. I don't altogether agree with some of his theories, but that chapter on the Rhône is masterly. . . . Ah!”

The cork had come out with a ghost of a pop; it was a beautiful sound, regretful, grateful, kind.

“There,” said the old man, placing the bottle cautiously amid the napery. “Now, let us see.”

Mr. Campion, who was quite prepared for a genie to come out of the bottle, by this time looked on with interest, as Don and the Bishop went over the cork with a reading glass. At first they thought it was unmarked, but finally the old man sighed, as he laid a finger on a minute stamp low down on the red-stained side.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I fear so.”

He attended to the remainder of the ceremony himself, the deep bright wine ran into the crystal, caressing it, clinging to it, but the Bishop remained silent, and when he placed the full decanter on the side table, brushed his hands with a napkin, he looked less happy than at any other time during the evening. Don suggested that they opened the second bottle, but the Bishop objected.

“I think Mr. Bush will want to do that,” he said, “but I couldn't resist the opportunity to satisfy my own curiosity. Where is Bush, by the way? And shouldn't Carados be here by this time?”

“He certainly should. I've been wondering. He was going to get here first.” Don was still good-tempered, but he was puzzled. “Bush was very keen to be here before me; he was going to bring some sherry. He said it was the only thing we dare drink before this. I don't know him, is he likely to behave this way?”

“No,” said the Bishop. “A most punctilious fellow. Dear me, I hope nothing has happened.”

Campion had been trying to dismiss a faintly nagging anxiety for some time now, but he shook his head. “If it has it would hardly delay Carados too,” he said. “Look, I don't want to appear unduly inquisitive but even I can hardly miss that there is something unusual about this party. Don't you think you might explain, sir? Quite apart from everything else, we seem to be behaving rather badly to our host.”

“Don't worry about me. I'm taking it my father has a great hand in this, Mr. Campion.” Don was at his best. “It seems to me that he must have got in touch with Mr. Bush without letting me know; the whole tone of the party has a kind of parental flavour. He still feels I need a lot of protection from the seamy side of life. Now I don't want to be suspicious in any way, but I'm getting an idea that there's a distinct possibility that this wine has been pinched from somewhere. Am I right?”

“My dear boy, I really must apologize.” The Bishop's face was as grieved as a mourning cherubim's. “I wouldn't have had this happen for worlds. We all did so hope it might never be necessary to tell you. I did point out to Bush that we were putting ourselves in a most invidious position by behaving like this, but as he said there are rather serious complications and strict secrecy is absolutely necessary in the circumstances. I had not met you so I had no idea that we should find a young man of your age so remarkably—er—tolerant and courteous.”

Don was rather startled by the compliment and Mr. Campion came to the rescue. “Is the suspect identified?” he enquired.

“Oh yes, I think so.” The Bishop took up the decanter and sniffed it heartily. “I fear so. We must taste it, of course, but even if one's palate were the scientifically exact instrument which some of us are stupid enough to hope, even then the other evidence must weigh very heavily. The cork, the seal, and the bottle are all beyond question in my opinion. In fact from those, and from the colour and the
bouquet I think I can commit myself and say definitely that this is the genuine
Les Enfants Doux
of nineteen hundred and four.”

Mr. Campion saw no reason to disagree with him, but wondered, albeit respectfully, where precisely that conclusion might be expected to lead them. Don was more practical.

“I think we'll have Mr. Stavros in right away,” he said.

“Oh, no. Don't do that, my dear boy, whatever you do.” The Bishop was firm. “There's a great deal more to it than that. I promised Bush to leave any explanations we might have to make entirely to him, but since you've asked me directly I really do feel I must be allowed to tell you at least the little I know.”

Mr. Campion looked up. “You had three cases of
Les Enfants Doux
in the lorry which got lost when the Museum of Wine was evacuated, hadn't you?” he said.

“I had. You know the story then?”

“No, I don't. All I know is that there was such a lorry. Bush told me so this morning.”

“Ah. And do you know of it, Lieutenant?”

“No. I never heard of the Museum even.”

The Bishop was happy to explain. After some considerable preliminaries he got down to the main story.

“This lorry went out of London during the second big raid in September, nineteen forty,” he said, his beautiful precise voice lingering on the words. “Poor Bush had left things dangerously late, silly fellow. He realizes that now. The lorry carried the most valuable exhibits in the entire Museum; the Gyrth Chalice was there and the Arthurian Vase, priceless things, both of them, as well as a great deal more, and also by way of make-weight, I suppose, the two cases of my
Les Enfants.
This lorry was last seen turning into Theobald's Road while the raid was actually in progress. Its path lay through that part of the City which was very badly damaged that night. It never reached its destination, and neither the driver nor his mate, both reputable men with wives and families, was ever seen again.”

“Were the bodies found?” enquired Campion with entirely new interest.

“There's a great deal of uncertainty about it.” The Bishop found the tale painful and his bright blue eyes were cold and angry. “The remains of many lorries were found in London after that night, several of them under buildings which had collapsed on them. Three were never claimed; one of these did contain two charred corpses, but complete scientific identification was never possible and there was no trace of any of the Museum's property. Finally it was assumed that this lorry had belonged to the Museum and all it contained was written off as a total loss. In other circumstances the enquiry might have been more thorough, but at that time, you may remember . . .” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Then I walked in on Mr. Bush with my story,” said Don. “Well, I can understand his interest.”

Mr. Campion, who had been sitting on the arm of a chair, looking at the crimson glow in the decanter, now stirred himself.

“Forgive me,” he said diffidently, “but by what method does one identify one particular bottle or set of bottles? I don't doubt that you can do it, sir, but I'd like to know how.”

“Of course you would.” At last the Bishop had extracted the question he was waiting for. “Now,” he said. “This is the part of the story I always did mean to tell myself. I don't suppose either of you young men have ever heard of
Les Enfants Doux
before, have you?”

They shook their heads and he sighed, put crime behind him, and plunged happily into fairer country.

“Nearly all the vineyards of Vosne are small, and most of them are good,” he began, lecturing them gently, one hand tucked under the tail of his coat and the other free for delicate emphasis. “Most of them are famous. There are, as you know, the three
Romanées
and the
Richebourg
, the
La Tache,
the lesser known
Les Malconsorts,
and others less important. But there is one little vineyard, I doubt if it extends to more than three-quarters of an acre, which is
different, and in some opinions, in most years superior to them all. Its produce never reaches the market.” He paused for his announcement to have the right effect. Nothing so forceful as a dramatic effect, but one in which just the right element of surprise and interest was as carefully blended as in, say, a very good Highland whisky.

“This little vineyard of
Les Enfants Doux
lies just beyond
La Tache.
It is hidden from the main road by a very gentle dip in the ground,” he went on, his voice as mellow as the grapes of which he spoke. “The land has always belonged to a peasant family called Bigot, and at one time they had the honour of providing the great ladies of the House of Bragelonne with a wet nurse, whenever one was required.” He paused, and smiled faintly. “I cannot tell you, I'm afraid, how this was arranged so felicitously, but that is the story, and on one occasion the twin sons of a certain Comte de Bragelonne were placed as infants in the care of Heloise Bigot, the beautiful young wife of the owner of this little patch of land. About six months after their arrival an epidemic broke out in Burgundy, and the children died. The young nurse was fear-stricken and the mother heart-broken. The great lady, and the great ladies of France in those days were terrifyingly great, left the Court and drove down like a thunder-cloud upon the unfortunate Bigots. Her rage and grief, or perhaps it should have been the other way round, were formidable indeed, but when she came at last upon the woman she found her, so the story goes, dead of remorse (or of course it may have been the fever) lying across the tiny biers of her two charges.

“The Comtesse, touched by this devotion, for although heart-broken, you understand, she was nowhere near dying herself, suffered a most satisfactory change of heart, and instead of pressing home the punishment she had prepared for the wretched Papa Bigot, she made him what amends she could by providing a sum of money to be spent on planting his field with the Pinot, and undertaking that her family should purchase the entire output of the vineyard for ever.”

“And they still do?” Don enquired.

“They still did until the beginning of this war,” said the Bishop. “Heaven alone knows what tragedy may have occurred now, of course. The little place flourished, and the wine which grew there (some say from the very soil where the sweet children and their faithful foster-mother lie buried, but that is unlikely) certainly had a strange, gentle freshness to be found in no other vintage in the world. The Bragelonne family reserved the whole of the growth, about forty-five to fifty dozen a year, I suppose, and a superstition grew up among them decreeing that ill luck would befall the children of the house should the wine ever find its way off the estate.”

“And yet you had three cases of it,” ventured Mr. Campion.

“I had six cases once,” said the Bishop of Devizes, “and I'll break my rule and tell you how I came by it. I never have told this story because it is both sentimental and romantic, and neither of those delightful things is the better for an airing, don't you know.”

“If you'd rather not, sir,” began Don hastily, and fumbled for the end of the sentence. “I guess we've got pretty positive proof by this time.”

Mr. Campion knew his uncle well and was fond of him.

“I think I should like to hear it,” he said.

“Over-ruled,” murmured the Bishop smiling at Don.

“Well, many years ago when I was a very young man, just after I came down from Oxford, I spent a holiday at Bragelonne tutoring the heir who was a very delicate and rather stupid boy. He had an elder sister, her name was Elise; she was very beautiful and her birthday fell on the seventeenth of July. Now I would stress that there was no love affair. In those days we were circumspect, and in hopeless situations we may have formed attachments but we never had affairs.”

He stood looking at them, his bright blue eyes alive with unconquerable youth. “For three years running I visited Bragelonne in the summer,” he went on, “and on the last occasion I was able to congratulate my Elise on her betiothal to her cousin, Henri de Bragelonne, next in
succession to her brother. I was present at the wedding and after that, although we never met, I used always to send her some trifle on her birthday and always in return she wrote to thank me and to give me an account of her fortunes. I suppose we corresponded in this way for twenty years. In the last war the little custom came to an abrupt end, but when at last the fighting was done and the German armies retreated I received a letter from a notary telling me Elise was dead. He enclosed a letter from her written very near her end, and also told me that six dozen of Burgundy was being forwarded to me at her order.”