Читать книгу Bring the Monkey - Miles Franklin - Страница 5

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Through the evidence and gossip that surrounded the case, by information gleaned from an articulate police official, by deduction and inference--without which any chronicler is a dunce--there was no difficulty in reconstructing the procedure preliminary to Lady Tattingwood's party.

The impending week-end at Tattingwood Hall was noted by the Yard. After the years of comparative freedom from robberies upon jewel owners, which had followed the smashing of Cammi Grizard's and Leiser Guttwirth's gangs just before the war, there had been recently a recrudescence of such depredations. It looked as if the lesser gangs which had been disrupted in the late twenties, by the arrest and conviction of the master spirits, were attempting re-organisation around new leaders.

The tactics of Ydonea Zaltuffrie, the dazzling film star, were such as to generate independent burglarious activities. Her press agent's concoctions raved through the press with such virulence that the police had had to disperse the traffic outside the Ritz. The credulous were doped by the news that she was so startlingly beautiful that she ravaged the hearts of princes and rajahs, as well as those of talking-picture fanatics. She was now about to lay waste the remnants of the English aristocracy. She was to open her campaign in one of the few remaining country houses, where the Hon. Cedd Ingwald Swithwulf Spillbeans, second son of the family, had taken to films as a career. They allured him as a more pulsating adventure than that followed by his elder brother St. Erconwald, in securing, without any thrills or frills, a nice tame heiress, who had risen to the demands of primogeniture by producing two male infants.

Owing to post-war taxes and the rising cost of living in every direction, the Baron himself was threadbare. Tattingwood Hall had become a devouring monster that put him on the rack. Keep it up as of yore, he could not; give it up he would not--not even to his son to evade death duties. It was his life, his love, his religion, his hobby. His second wife had been chosen for the sake of Tattingwood--a Miss Clarice Lesserman. (Soap.) She had invested in Lord Tattingwood some ten years before I met her, for the glamour of the title, and as a bulwark against a war-time infatuation for a man many years her junior. Now mergers, rationalisation and other humorosities of business efficiency were deflating her suds and paralysing her products far below the needs of Tattingwood Hall.

She had no declared children of her own, so was comfortably assimilated by her step-sons, and she welcomed the distractions of the younger's film enterprises.

This week-end was the apex of opportunity towards which Cedd had been diligently working for months. To have captured the fabulous Ydonea Zaltuffrie, in itself was achievement, and the idea was to involve her to the extent of starring in a film story which Cedd had gathered together without the interference of an author. Cedd hoped to direct it. He was even prepared to marry Ydonea for a spell, should art or career demand such lengths. That she might be too independent to marry him, he was not quite Over-Seas or post-war enough to grasp.

Lady Tattingwood had become friends with Zarl Osterley on Mount Cook or Lake Taupo, where she had gone to get a little fresh air, being that way inclined, and where Zarl had lent her some safety-pins in emergency. Lady Tattingwood had been there for fresh air, it has been suggested, and Zarl was taking a little exercise, because one of her fortes is to be secretary to some great man or another on hegiras to the ends of the earth to meditate upon the past history or to inspect the present private life of some bug or weed. This gave her an intimate nook in many different cliques.

Lady Tattingwood was uneasy about the Ali Baba trove of jewels advertised in connection with her film star guest, who wore them with a nonchalance becoming to beads from Woolworth's. There was no telling whom they might attract to the village, so Lady Tattingwood had a heart-to-heart talk with the local police. Lord Tattingwood sent a peremptory message to New Scotland Yard. This was considered by the right official and passed on to Chief Inspector Stopworth.

The Yard had earlier been consulted by Miss Zaltuffrie's Grand Vizier, with the result that a Yard officer was to reinforce the lady's private detective force.

The Chief Inspector, or Captain Stopworth, as he was more familiarly known to his friends, considered the police aspects of Miss Zaltuffrie's advent. Her pictures met him on every illustrated page, and some of them were remarkable. It was not her beauty however, but her jewels that interested Captain Stopworth. It was rumoured that the heir to the Maharajah of Bong or Bogwallah, or some such marvellous or mythical principality, had gone mad about Ydonea in Paris. The press freely stated that he had given her stupendous State Jewels, but probably there was exaggeration in the interests of a commercial headline or two.

Captain Stopworth had plenty of salt to sprinkle on such "publicity," to keep down mortification, but he carefully extracted the grains of news, and re-read Lord Tattingwood's demand. He then put through a call to Supersnoring and requested the Butler to bring Lady Tattingwood to the telephone. When he had established his identity, the Inspector asked her ladyship to inform her husband that there would be a sergeant and constable in his service from Saturday night till Monday morning; and then his tone changed.

"I have not seen you for a long time, old girl."

"Whose fault is that?"

"Well, have you a spare bed for this week-end? I could kill two birds--from Saturday afternoon till Sunday after dinner."

"Yes, oh, my dear, do come, and bring what we spoke of. It will be safer. I'll explain when you are here."

"All right. I'll see you some time during the next forty-eight hours--privately I mean: au revoir."

He replaced the instrument and tattoed a tune on his desk for a few moments while sunk in thought. He then touched a buzzer and a smart young officer came in. Calls to the Ritz Hotel and the Mayfair Police Station were then put through, and there were conferences. Eventually Captain Stopworth informed Detective-Constable Manning that he would proceed to Tattingwood Hall for the week-end in the role of valet, while Detective-Sergeant Beeton was to have the privilege of being present to see Cedd Spillbeans' film, he supposedly being interested in sport and the allied arts.