Death of a Delft Blue

CHAPTER ONE

A Conference Ends

The country which we call “Holland” is, in reality, The Netherlands, and the people we call “Dutch” are, in reality, Netherlanders.‘

Bernard Pingaud, trans. Harold Myers

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At the end of a fortnight, the Scheveningen Conference was over. The experts in higher education laughed, clattered and nattered — the last in a dozen different languages. They gathered up papers and pens, surged around their Dutch hosts and, (but for the melancholy fact that there was nothing to drink except the water in an austere carafe on the chairman’s table), they managed to produce the kind of cacophony usually associated with cocktail parties.

The chairman disentangled himself from an enthusiastic group and went over to where the distinguished alienist, Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, was the centre of a no less enthusiastic but a very much quieter circle. She was regaling them (by request) with details of some of the more bizarre and interesting deaths by murder and suicide which had fallen within her wide experience.

‘Extraordinary,’ thought the Dutchman, ‘how that mouth, so like the beak of a little bird, can produce those exquisite sounds.’ He paused on the outer fringe of the group to listen to these sounds before he muscled in and cut Dame Beatrice off from her circle of admirers.

‘Ah, Dame Beatrice,’ he said, ‘I am now giving a small luncheon party in the English manner. May I hope that you will join us? There will be just twenty people or so — the amusing ones, of course. I would like you to meet Professor van Zestien and his brother. They were so interested in your paper on Traumatic Regicides With Special Reference to the Death of Charles I. Professor Derde van Zestien has made a special study of the period, your English Puritans having points of interest for all Netherlanders, of course.’

‘Ah, yes. The Pilgrim Fathers came originally from this country.’

‘From Rotterdam. You should visit that city. There is much that is of interest. And do persuade Professor Sweyn van Zestien to describe to you Amsterdam. If you go there, be sure to look for the street organs, the barrel-organs, you know. They are a particular feature. He is sure to mention them. He admires them very much and is an authority upon their manufacture.’

Still chatting, he led her away, and it was not until some three hours later that she rejoined her secretary in the lounge of their hotel.

‘Did you talk Higher Thought all the time?’ asked Laura.

‘Talking shop was outlawed, politely but firmly, by Professor Derde van Zestien,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘I was seated between him and his brother at table and he told me of some of the places of interest which we ought to visit before we return to England.’

‘We?’

‘Well, as your dear Robert seems to be fully occupied with that tiresome Curlew murder, and your son Hamish is away at school, I had hoped that you would see your way to remaining here with me while I go on this promised tour. After all, sightseeing counts for nothing unless one is in a position to point out the obvious to one’s long-suffering travelling companion.’

‘There’s bound to be a lot of stuff that needs attention at your London clinic, you know. Oughtn’t I… ?’

‘Nonsense! Dr Anderson will cope. I will tell him to employ a temporary secretary.’

‘Oh, well, naturally, I’d love to stay here, especially if there’s nothing to stop us from gallivanting. We do propose to gallivant, I take it? — not all museums and art-galleries?’

‘We will Venice in Amsterdam, even if we also rijsttafel at the Bali restaurant there. We will cheese at Alkmaar. We will flower-market at Aalsmeer, seaside at Zandvoort and national costume at Bunschoten-Spakenburg or Staphorst. We will sheep and bird-watch on Texel, and you may swim there. We will yacht at Sneek, spice-bread at Deventer, labyrinth at Maastricht and walk, grotto, miniature-golf (and anything else you like) at Valkenburg.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t want any museums and art-galleries.’

‘Very well. There are sixteen Rembrandts in the Mauritshuis at The Hague, and Delft and Leiden are museums in themselves, so we will visit all.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about Holland.’

‘No, no, very little, in point of fact, and most of what I do know I gained at lunch-time from Professor Sweyn van Zestien, Professor Derde’s younger brother.’

‘Sweyn isn’t a Dutch name, is it?’

‘No. The professors had a Danish mother. I received much information about the van Zestien family tree from both the brothers. At present there are three branches, one might say. The Colwyn-Welches were fathered by Francis of that ilk, who married into the van Zestien family represented by the professors’ Aunt Binnen. She has three children, Opal, Ruby and Frank. After her husband’s death, and after the war, during which she served with the Resistance, Binnen returned to the family home in Amsterdam, where she lives with her two unmarried daughters.’

‘So that’s why Professor Sweyn is so interested in Amsterdam? — they are natives there.’

‘It seems so. The son, Frank, married a Scotswoman, Flora Beith, and lives in Scotland, where they own three hotels.’

‘Up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!’

‘They have two children, Florian and Binnie, aged twenty-three and nineteen respectively. These, however, no longer live at home, but with their granduncle, Bernard van Zestien, father of Derde and Sweyn, and brother to Binnen.’

‘Couldn’t they thole home life in Caledonia stem and wild?’

‘I gathered, but only by putting some apparently unrelated scraps of information together (and most probably, in the process, making an error of one, or even minus one, in the simple addition sum of two plus two), that their parents had an eye to their future.’

‘Granduncle stinks of money, I suppose.’

‘Not only that, but he has lost the companionship of his sons, Derde and Sweyn, who prefer to live over here and who hold professorships in the Universities, respectively, of Groningen and Amsterdam.’

‘Oh, the children and he don’t live in Holland, then?’

‘No. The granduncle is a diamond merchant, with contacts, of course, in his native city, but it seems he has a house in North Norfolk and an office in Hatton Garden. I gather that he has an extensive fortune, as you suggest.’

‘Which, obviously, somebody will inherit.’

‘Exactly. He was a lonely man when his Danish wife, Ingeborg, died and his sons and daughter left home. The daughter’s name is Maarte and she married a wealthy Jew named Sigismund Rose. They have one son, Bernardo, named after his grandfather.’

‘For obvious reasons, no doubt.’

‘Cynicism run riot, dear Laura!’

‘Don’t you believe it! I know the way of the world. I say, though, the family’s a bit of a mixed bag, isn’t it? Dutch, Jewish, Danish, Scottish and with even English (or, possibly, Welsh) ingredients! Which do the professors seem to favour — their Dutch or their Danish forbears?’

‘It is impossible to say. They are cosmopolitans. Moreover, not only do they muster seven European languages between them, but Derde is an authority on the Aztecs of Mexico and Sweyn’s special subject is the rune-stones of Denmark.’

‘Rune-stones? Mostly magic! I’d like to meet him.’

‘Why, so you shall. We are bidden to dine with the van Zestiens in Amsterdam. It is to be a family party, I understand. Grandmother Binnen, her daughters, her grandchildren, Florian and Binnie, her great-nephew Bernardo all will be there.’

‘At the ancestral home?’

‘No. The celebration is to be held in a private room at an hotel in Nieuwe Doelenstraat.’

‘But do they really want me? After all,’ argued Laura, with unwonted modesty, ‘I’m only your general dogsbody and humble telephone operator.’

‘In return for their family history, complete with family tree, sketched (I regret to say) upon a hitherto unblemished tablecloth by Professor Sweyn, I returned their civility by recounting a short and, I trust, pithy account of my own circumstances and environment. They were charmed with my picture of you and your Amazonian exploits, and are determined to have speech with you.’

‘I see. Weren’t you brought up to tell the truth and not to embroider merely in order to disguise the poor quality of the material you were working on? Anyway, when do we attend this binge?’

‘The festivities are planned for the day after tomorrow. At my request — for the hotels are full at this time of year — Sweyn has obtained rooms for us at an hotel in which his father holds shares (for diamonds are not Mr Bernard’s only source of wealth), and therefore we shall be able to take in something of the city tomorrow and on the following morning. In the evening Professor Sweyn will collect us from our hotel and transport us to the one in which they have chosen to entertain us.’

‘Fine! I can’t wait to meet your two professors and their Aunt Binnen. What’s her name mean, by the way? I don’t really know any Dutch, but somehow that word seems to ring a bell.’

‘Binnen means Come In,’ said Dame Beatrice, solemnly.

‘Blimey!’ commented Laura. ‘What with that, and daughters named Opal and Ruby—! Why not have called the son Diamond, while they were about it?’

‘Possibly because the daughters’ names were bestowed fortuitously. Their father, if you remember, was English and there is no reason, so far as my information goes, to connect him with Hatton Garden. Did you have a good lunch?’

‘Yes. I could now do with some exercise. What do you say to a stroll to Wesbroek Park to take a look at that miniature town they’ve built there, and then perhaps a round of miniature golf by the Grand Hotel in Gevers Diejnootweg?’

‘Both projects appear suited to my advanced years and physical frailty.’

‘Right, then. Let’s go.’

The walk along the promenade was pleasant, although a fresh breeze was blowing inland from the North Sea. Stone breakwaters in the form of jetties took the force of the sea itself and protected a firm sandy beach along which Laura, while the Conference was on, had walked for miles to the north and from which, at least twice a day, she had swum. There were dunes behind the beach proper, but these were fenced in, except for occasional narrow paths which accommodated walkers and the ubiquitous cyclist. The fencing was to protect the grasses whose roots held down the light and shifting sand.

Dame Beatrice and Laura walked as far north as the turning to Zwolse Straat and then, at Dame Beatrice’s suggestion, they turned about and went as far as Keiser Straat before returning to Gevers Diejnootweg and the Grand Hotel for their game of miniature golf. It was the only game, except for chess and croquet, at which Dame Beatrice could always beat Laura. This gave great satisfaction to both.

They had just concluded a round of the miniature golf when a young fresh voice hailed Laura.

‘I say! This is fun! It’s you again!’ it cried. Laura and Dame Beatrice waited politely for the girl to join them. She was, of course, Laura’s pupil in the lesson on the Anglo-Dutch rate of exchange.

‘Hullo,’ said Laura, with little warmth of tone. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it? We’ve just finished playing miniature golf.’

‘Oh, that’s what I thought I would do. I suppose… it isn’t much fun going round on one’s own…’

Laura and Dame Beatrice exchanged glances. Laura raised her eyebrows, indicating her willingness to accede to the unspoken request. Dame Beatrice nodded and (most mendaciously) said that she would be very glad of a rest before returning to the hotel. She would hire a beach-chair, she added, and Laura could come and find her when they had finished their game.

‘How went the purchases?’ asked Laura of the girl, when Dame Beatrice had left them. ‘Any luck?’

‘Oh, yes, but the things seem awfully expensive here. I wondered, after I’d bought them, whether I wouldn’t have done better to wait until we went to Amsterdam. Still, I had to get something for Gran and the aunts, who live in Amsterdam, and I suppose they’d much rather have things that came from somewhere else.’

‘If they live in Amsterdam, why on earth didn’t you bring them something from England?’ Laura enquired. ‘I should have thought it was the obvious thing.’

‘You don’t know Gran. She loathes everything English since our English grandfather died of flu in London. I believe she even loathes my brother and me quite a bit, simply because we live in England instead of over here. She grows bulbs — tulips, hyacinths, daffodils — and she’s always talking about Admiral van Tromp and things like that.’

‘Oh, yes, the Dutch carrying-trade and our rather dog-in-the-manger attitude regarding it. Well, I can’t say I blame her,’ observed Laura.

‘Anyway, I bought her a bit of Delft china and the aunts a tiny silver pin-tray each,’ said the girl. ‘I don’t know what to take home for Granduncle. He’s got everything. I shall have to take him some Dutch cigars, but, of course, he can get those in England. Mamma and Papa will just have to go on hoping. I can’t possibly afford anything for them this time.’

‘Oh, well, then,’ said Laura cheerfully, ‘you’ll have only your granduncle’s present to pay Customs duty on, won’t you? I don’t think we need toss for innings. You drive off, and may the best man win.’

‘I say, I do like you,’ said the girl, touching Laura’s arm.

‘Oh, so do lots of people,’ said Laura, irritably. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve bothered you. I’m sorry.’

Laura felt that she had been piggish, and they finished the game in silence and then went to find Dame Beatrice.

‘I’m sorry to have taken your daughter away from you,’ said the girl, with apparent contrition and sincerity.

‘You flatter me,’ responded Dame Beatrice. ‘Laura is not related to me, but, if she were, she would be my granddaughter, not my daughter. There would be a generation between.’

‘Sez you!’ said Laura. ‘Well, we’d better be going,’ she added to the girl. ‘Goodbye, and thanks for the game.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time,’ said the girl. ‘I’d counted on my brother, but he decided to go to Amsterdam a day early, and my uncles have gone there, too. They are planning a ghastly dinner-party. They’re giving it for some awful people they met at a Hague conference. Florian — that’s my brother — wants to do the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and then tour the red light quarter. He wouldn’t let me go with him. I suppose I can see his point, although I’m quite as much of a sociologist as he is, if it comes to that. Anyway, that’s why I’m on my own this afternoon.’

‘And the other morning?’ Laura could not forbear to ask. ‘You know… when we met on the quay.’

‘Oh, Florian never gets up before ten. He never has breakfast, you see. And the Uncles van Zestien were away at that silly Conference I mentioned.’

‘I see. Well, to save embarrassment later, perhaps I’d better tell you,’ said Laura, ‘that we are the awful people for whom the Professors van Zestien are giving the ghastly dinner-party. I take it that you will be present, so we’ll just say au revoir and toddle along.’ She grinned, and patted the stricken girl kindly on the shoulder. ‘Don’t weaken,’ she added. ‘All’s forgiven and forgotten, to coin a phrase.’