The Last Houseparty (22 page)

“You don't agree?” she said.

“It isn't really for me to say. I follow your line of thinking, of course, but I don't see I can sit here and tell you you're right. It's too much guesswork for that, you know.”

“I suppose you can't. But do you understand that I believe it?”

“I can see you're pretty well fixed in your mind.”

“I am. I am absolutely sure that the man who attacked me cannot have been Vincent. Do you accept that? That's why I've been telling you all this.”

“So long as you don't ask me to go along with the argument.”

“Well, I would have liked you to, but if you can't, you can't. I see that it's difficult for you when so much of it takes place inside my mind. Now then.”

Miss Quintain pulled open the centre drawer of the desk and took out a small grey wash-leather bag and another file like the one which contained Harry's letter. She passed the bag to Mr Mason who took it and with large neat fingers eased it open, then shook the contents into his left palm. He turned the single coin over.

“Half a sovereign,” he said. “Haven't seen one of them for donkey's years. Someone's gone and drilled a hole in it, too. Against the law, that used to be.”

He looked up.

“I'd like you to tell me what it's for, please,” said Miss Quintain, enunciating each word as if taking part in a demonstration of English usage for foreign students.

“Anyone else, what with the hole, I'd say it was to wear for good luck.”

“No.”

“If it's for something, and what you've been telling me, and making me read the Major's letter, then it'll be one of these tests he was on about. In case this Vincent showed up.”

“Ah …”

“I see which way your mind's been working. I've seen some time it might come to this.”

“And …”

“No, Miss Quintain. I've got to tell you it won't wash.”

“Down with aunts,” said Miss Quintain, enunciating still but now with a note of embarrassed query.

Mr Mason shook his head. She sighed.

“I suppose there's no point in asking you to introduce me to the Duke of Catania.”

“Now, see here, Miss Quintain …”

“In that case, I'd like you to read this.”

“Now …”

“Please, Mr Mason. This is really very important to me. I'd never fully realised it, but ever since I got Harry's letter something of this kind has been waiting to happen to me. In a way I feel as if it's what my whole life has been for. Please help me to see it through.”

Normally Miss Quintain looked some years younger than her actual age, the whiteness of her hair if anything accentuating the effect. Now, suddenly, it was as if Time had emerged from his tower and the swing of his scythe had rushed her towards the shadows. Her left hand gripped the arm of her chair, quivering perceptibly, like the hand of a pensioner clenched on its walking stick. Mr Mason seemed at last to recognise the change. He gazed at her, clearly troubled, then pulled out his spectacles, adjusted them, and finally reached for the two or three sheets of paper she was handing him. After a characteristic jet of air up his face he started to read. Paper and handwriting were similar to those of the longer letter.

“
Tests to be put to a notional Vince-claimant

“(1) The coin. Its history is as follows. Vince and I used to come over to Snailwood on the Fourth of June and other Eton holidays. On the first such occasion my uncle made a great to-do about tipping us, giving us each a small envelope, the size used for visiting cards, marked with our names. When we opened them we found he had tipped Vince half a sovereign and me sixpence. I laughed, because it was so typical of my uncle, but Vince was furious. He took me off to the pantry and got Purser to change the half sov. into five bob for each of us. We gave Purser the sixpence. This became a regular thing. Sometimes I got the half sov., but more often it was Vince. Purser then changed it.

“One visit when we were about sixteen Purser wasn't there. I forget why. We waited in the pantry until we heard Smollett bringing the car round to take us back to Eton. It was Vince who'd been given the gold this time.

“‘Tell you what,' he said. ‘Let's toss for it.'

“I agreed. He had the coin perched on his thumb when he said, ‘Shall we make it the whole shooting match? Whoever he leaves it to?'

“‘Might as well,' I said.

“He tossed, caught the coin and turned it over on the back of his left hand, but before he uncovered it he said, ‘Not yet, Hal. One day when he pops it and we know what's in the will.'

“‘Right,' I said.

“We talked about this a bit more in the car and came to a definite agreement that when my uncle died we would toss for the bulk of the estate, that is to say Snailwood itself and enough capital, farms, etc. to maintain it and for one to live in it in reasonable style; the rest to go to the loser. Till then we would conduct our lives as though my uncle was going to live to be ninety. Later we adopted the custom of occasionally tossing for the custody of the coin, usually on our return to Snailwood; we had done this the evening before Vince disappeared, and he had won. He had, by the by, drilled a hole in it so that we could tell it from other coins, though gold was largely out of circulation some years before the whole business had begun. We kept the ritual private to ourselves, partly I suppose because our friends would have found it an embarrassingly
BOP
arrangement (though in the circumstances of our relationship we would surely have settled our inheritance in something of this manner) and partly because our mothers, not to mention my uncle and various lawyers, would have kicked up a fuss.

“Dressing for dinner the evening after Vince had gone I found the coin in my stud-box. I can only assert that, in a manner incomprehensible to lawyers, this was Vince's way of telling me that he had relinquished his rights in Snailwood.

“(2) The chant against aunts (dating from the reign of Aunt Clara but with almost equal reference to our own mothers) goes as follows:

Down with aunts!

Gott strafe Tanten!

Les tantes à la lanterne!

Delendae sunt materitae!
(Old pronunciation, of course.)

“(3) The Duke of Catania is the stone lion at the eastern end of the House Terrace, the one in the Whistler picture of Zena. This might be guessed by a clever impostor, so the form of introduction matters. It consists of walking slowly past the Duke, looking in the other direction and talking about the weather, the point being that the aristocracy of Catania are so haughty that it is good form for everybody to cut everybody else (Vince's invention, in case anyone should think that he was incapable of fantasy). In the imaginary campaigns we fought around the garden Catania was a difficult ally. There was of course a whole imaginary geography, and much imaginary history to go with it, but Catania should be a sufficient test.”

“Supposing I was to change my mind now,” said Mr Mason as he handed the sheets back. The note of mock reproof in his voice showed that he was doing his best to reduce the tension. Miss Quintain had made an effort in the same direction, to judge by the briskness with which she replied.

“It wouldn't do you any good,” she said. “And if you are who I believe you to be, you know.”

The single sheet she passed across the desk this time was different, being full folio size, yellowish, typed with a large print machine, and bearing in an oval cartouche the outline of the crown of England. The address was that of the office of HM Consul-General in Cairo and the date the twenty-fourth of November 1941.

“To whom it may concern,

“I, the undersigned Vincent Hillaby Masham, being of sound mind, do hereby irrevocably renounce in favour of the heirs and assigns of the late Major Harold Pollixer Quintain on behalf of myself my own issue and heirs whatsoever absolutely and in perpetuity all ownership claim and other contingent rights whatsoever on the estate of the late James Lacey Pollixer Redstart Snailwood, sixth earl of Snailwood in the county of Buckinghamshire.

Signed: Vincent Masham

In the presence of: Jean A. Taylor, Vice-Consul

Percy Woodnutt, Clerk”

“Not much doubt about that then,” said Mr Mason, with a definite tone of relief.

“Cairo, you see?” said Miss Quintain. “Where were you in the winter of 1941, Mr Mason?”

“I was still in Egypt all right, along of getting on for half a million other blokes.”

“I found Miss Taylor, the Vice-Consul. She actually remembered Vincent coming to see her because it was an odd occurrence anyway, and then later on she discovered that he was theoretically still wanted by the police over here and she worried about not having known. She told me Vincent was businesslike and formal and quite clear what he wanted. He was wearing civilian clothes but they didn't quite fit him and he had a military haircut. He'd shaved off his moustache. And old Mr Petting told me that the language of the document isn't quite correct but that provided the signature was accepted as genuine it would do what Vincent wished. Now would you please look at this?”

With a resigned movement Mr Mason took from her an airmail letter, folded and unfolded often enough to have needed mending with Sellotape. There was no date or address, but the postmark was Cairo and the date-stamp July 1941. Mr Mason read as carefully as always.

“My dear Purser,

“I am sorry to give you any extra trouble when things must already be pretty difficult, but I'd be very grateful if you would let me know what is happening at Snailwood. I was extremely sorry to hear of Master Harry's death, and I would like to make things as easy as I can for whoever is coping with the estate. I have absolutely no intention of coming back myself, so I beg you not to show this letter to anybody else. You were always a very good friend to Harry and me, and knew how to keep our secrets. I would like you, for old times' sake, to do so once more.

“I gather that there has been some difficulty over Snailwood concerning my mother. I don't imagine Lord Snailwood left his affairs in a tidy state, so it would obviously be best for everyone if I tried to remove any complications concerning my side of the family. Will you please write your answer to Brian Gearing, c/o Pastello Exports, 305 Victoria Road, Cairo, Egypt.

“I hope you are well. I am, and quite happy with the new life I have made for myself. So do your best, old chap, and see that nobody else knows about this letter. I really don't want to find myself dragged back into all that.

Yours ever,

Vincent Masham”

“Interesting kind of handwriting,” said Mr Mason, far from casually.

“I sent it to a graphologist,” said Miss Quintain. “I sent him this at the same time.”

She handed him yet another document. He glanced at it only briefly, then held the two sheets side by side and appraised them with a slight smile, as if humouring her. The handwriting of the letter was very regular, the individual letters small and square, often unjoined, with overlong ascenders and descenders, the words widely spaced. The sheet from a note-pad detailing costs of self-winders for the clock was written in the sloping hand of the old-fashioned schoolroom, the letters fully rounded and formally joined, often by way of loops.

“Different as chalk from cheese,” said Mr Mason.

“That's what I thought. It's almost as if someone had gone out of his way to make them different. The graphologist's report is rather long and technical—I could show you if you liked—but the gist of it is that they could very well both be written by the same person. I tried to pin him down, but he wouldn't go that far. All I could get out of him was that it was more likely that they were than that they weren't. Wait. There's one other thing. You've never told me your first name. I had to look you up in the new electoral register. It's Victor, isn't it? Victor Mason. Vincent Masham.”

Mr Mason nodded, squaring his broad old shoulders.

“I can see I'm going to have to take this serious,” he said. “I shouldn't ever have come, but there's no going back—I've learnt that much in my life. Mind you, I've guessed which way your mind might start working since you brought me the Major's letter to read. All this week I've been wondering whether to pack in, but I could see that'd set you fretting even more. And there was the clock. I'm set on getting that done. So I've been telling myself you were a sensible woman, which you are, and you'd know in your heart it was only a fancy. You've a lot to take on alone, and you're doing wonders. I can't blame you. And now I've seen these letters and things, I can see how it all fits in and makes a picture. Though you told me yourself, just now, that it's something you've been living for all your life, and when that kind of thing takes hold you start seeing pictures as aren't really there, like a kid lying in a sick-room, finding faces in the wallpaper.

“You're right about one thing. I've been keeping it from you because I could see from the first it would only cause trouble, but I'll level with you now. It was me as the Major wrote about to your mother. He came in under the camouflage with Mr Toller and he didn't say a word and off he went. I was back with my head in the cabin of the Lysander when he came up behind me and said ‘Vince'. He started talking as if he knew me, and I told him he'd got it wrong. Told him and told him. He was in a proper state, highly excited, gabbing on about his Aunt Ivy and this place Snailwood and such. I kept trying to tell him as he'd got the wrong man, but he wouldn't listen.”

“He knew his cousin extremely well.”

“Course he did, and judging by the photos there's a bit of a likeness, and top of that I had my face all mucky with sweat and grease. All I can tell you is how it struck me at the time. I told myself, Here's this fellow, due to fly off this afternoon on a nasty little recce, Germans up to something, our fighters all in Greece, one chance in three thereabouts he won't come back, and he's got this long-lost cousin—I'd made out that much—who's been preying on his mind, hoping to meet somewhere. Told me that, he did, first thing he said, ‘I'd always hoped we'd meet somewhere'. All of a sudden he runs into this mechanic who looks something like, and maybe sounds something like, and the Major's got all this inside him not to mention jitters about the recce, and it just comes streaming out. War's like that. It puts strains on a man, so he finds himself doing things he doesn't want and can't help, particularly running off at the mouth when things look like getting dangerous. You follow my reasoning?”