Death of a Delft Blue

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The She-Bear Defends Her Grand-Cub

‘I think I am pretty well conversant with your present condition. I don’t want you to consider me impertinent but I do want you to let me help you if I can.’

Guy Boothby

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So there is my Bernie!’ screamed Rebekah. ‘My Bernie that fights for his life against your secret police!’

‘Do come in, Mrs Rose,’ said Laura, who had gone into the hall when Célestine, obviously disapproving, had announced the visitor. ‘I expect you’d like to talk to Dame Beatrice.’ She conducted Rebekah into a large, book-lined room on the first floor of the tall house in Kensington and indicated an armchair. Rebekah ran a hand over it before she sat down.

‘Tottenham Court Road,’ she pronounced, with a sniff, ‘and is not matching in a suite. Job lots, I tell you. You have been cheated.’

‘Well, it’s a comfortable chair, anyway,’ retorted Laura. ‘What shall I say about you to Dame Beatrice? She’s got a patient at the moment, so you’ll have to wait a bit, I’m afraid.’

‘To wait is nothing, if it shall save my Bernie’s life.’

‘Why, what’s Bernardo been up to?BemieHalf a minute, while I get contact.’ She achieved this on the house blower and announced to Dame Beatrice that Mrs Rebekah Rose was among those present. She listened for a moment to Dame Beatrice’s reply and then turned again to Rebekah.

‘Would you excuse me? I have some letters to answer. There are magazines on the side table and sherry and some glasses in that cupboard.’

‘Biscuits?’ enquired Rebekah. As soon as Laura had gone, she prowled about the room, assessing the value of the furnishings in a growling undertone and occasionally clicking her tongue or giving a disparaging flip of the fingers at some intrinsically worthless object. She investigated the contents of the cupboard, took out the sherry and a couple of glasses, opened a tin of biscuits and selected the plainest she could find. This she munched with a martyred air and was ready for Dame Beatrice when the latter came in with a formal apology for keeping her waiting.

‘You are strained,’ said Rebekah grandly. ‘I shall give you a glass of sherry. You should buy cheaper. This is too good for customers. Me, I give customers at sixteen shillings and sixpence a bottle, retail, less wholesale from Julius Honerweg, distant connection. I do not offer South African sherry, although at a better price. So is my opinion of apartheid.’

She poured out two glasses of sherry and, with a royal gesture, presented one of them to Dame Beatrice, who pledged her with a solemnity that Laura would have admired.

‘And now,’ said Dame Beatrice, setting down her glass, ‘you wanted to see me. As I know that your time is valuable, it is something of importance, I infer.’

‘Of the first importance. It is my Bernie. He loses his life to your secret police.’

‘Dear me! I have heard from Detective Chief-Inspector Gavin, who interviewed him yesterday, and I do not think you have any cause for alarm.’

‘Where are the police is always cause for alarm. Why they are talking to Bernie?’

‘Look, Mrs Rose,’ said Dame Beatrice, seriously, ‘if I tell you something in confidence — in the strictest confidence, mind! —’

‘I can keep secrets. Not long is one in business who cannot keep secrets.’

‘All right, then. A very damaging accusation has been made against Mr Bernardo Rose and it must be investigated in order that his innocence may be proved.’

‘An accusation?’

‘Yes, and, as I say, of a very serious nature. It has been said that he sent a package of poisoned chocolate-cream to his cousin, Mr Florian Colwyn-Welch.’ To her astonishment, Rebekah received this news in silence and took another sip of her sherry. ‘Of course, nobody believes this,’ Dame Beatrice continued, on a cheerful note, ‘but to disprove it may take a little time.’

‘Bernie told his father, my son Sigismund, that the policeman is showing Bernie could have known where Florian was, to send him this poison.’

‘Chocolate-cream seems an unusual sort of present for one young man to send to another. Does Mr Colwyn-Welch like chocolate-cream?’

‘Chocolate-cream, heroin, purple hearts, all those poisonous snow, the young people take them all, and there are no questions,’ said Rebekah.

‘Mrs Rose, you are not being helpful.’

‘How to keep my Bernie from the gallows?’

‘Even if he were found guilty — which, I assure you, he cannot be — he would receive life imprisonment, not a hanging. He has robbed nobody.’

‘Is Joan of Arc accepting life imprisonment?’

‘According to George Bernard Shaw, no,’

‘So what is there in it?’

‘For you? To go on believing in your grandson’s innocence, in the sure faith that it can be proved.’

‘It is known,’ said Rebekah, doubtfully, ‘that there was a fight.’

‘What of it? Young men are made that way. Besides, Mr Colwyn-Welch got the worst of it.’

‘This wine-glasses,’ said Rebekah, fingering her own, ‘are not too bad. You have a dozen?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘I offer — let me see, now. Is there a decanter?’

‘Yes, there is.’

Then I offer ten pounds. There is no sale for cut-glass decanters. And the sideboard. Is fumed oak. You will throw it in?’

‘No, I do not think so. It is useful, in its way. But you may have the glasses and the decanter as a gift, if you would like them.’

‘A gift? What is it, this gift?’ asked Rebekah, suspiciously.

‘An expression of goodwill and an assurance that Mr Bernardo Rose will not be hanged, transported or imprisoned.’

‘We shall take another glass of my good sherry,’ said Rebekah.

‘I offered you the glasses and the decanter, but not the sherry,’ said Dame Beatrice. Rebekah looked amazed.

‘Nothing to put in the glasses?’ she demanded.

‘At a price, yes.’

‘Mean dealing! Not so make my friends.’

‘I cannot help that. You must take it or leave it. I can replace the glasses, but I cannot replace the sherry. It was a gift from the Spanish government.’

‘You are telling lies!’

‘Yes, of course I am,’ Dame Beatrice equably agreed. ‘But, if you want the glasses and the decanter, you must buy the sherry.’

‘And the price?’

‘One hundred and twenty-five pounds.’

Rebekah laughed, her chins wobbling with mirth.

‘Now,’ she said, when she could speak, ‘we are understanding one another.’ She took up the decanter. ‘This is fake. Suppose I give you one hundred twenty-five including cellar full of sherry, and I find you genuine decanter, same year of date, you buy back at five hundred?’

‘Two hundred.’

‘Two hundred fifty.’

‘Done.’

‘And you save my Bernie from your gallows?’

‘Why do you think he is guilty?’

At this, Rebekah looked troubled.

‘I do not think so, but what else is there to think? And Florian does like chocolate-cream, so why is he giving it away to unknown girls?’

‘That, indeed, does give food for thought.’

Before there was time to digest this food, Célestine appeared. Bernardo Rose had called. He desired an audience of Dame Beatrice.

‘Mine Bernie!’ shrieked Rebekah. ‘I embrace him all quick!’

‘Show Mr Rose in,’ said Dame Beatrice. Bernardo was shown in. He regarded his grandmother with a disfavour which was off-set by an impudent wink at Dame Beatrice.

‘Hullo, Grandmamma,’ he said. ‘Are you engaged upon queering my pitch, as usual?’

‘I am saving your neck from pieces of rope, no?’

‘Well, I should rather imagine that you’re mulcting my exchequer of pieces of eight, Grandmamma. Anyway, what goes on?’

‘Dame Beatrice is telling you what goes on. She is employed by me to establish your chocolate-cream lark, isn’t it? How is it you are sending chocolate-cream to that creep?’

‘He likes it, Grandmamma.’

‘So?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘This chocolate-cream,’ said Rebekah, turning confidentially to Dame Beatrice, ‘is with me to clog the intestine.’

‘Drink orange juice,’ advised Bernardo.

‘Have some of my good sherry,’ said his relative. Bernardo eyed Dame Beatrice, who waved a yellow hand. He helped himself, but was pursued by the lamentations of Rebekah.

‘So lavish!’ she moaned. ‘So is the glass so full! I pay one hundred fifty pounds for this sherry, and you drink it like water.’

‘I don’t drink water,’ said Bernardo. ‘Now, then, why did you come here?’

‘To save your neck, you ungrateful!’

‘I still don’t see the point.’

‘You are poisoning Florian, isn’t it?’

‘Willingly — if I could do it without being caught. I don’t like the beautiful boy. He’s a headache.’

‘And to you?’ screamed Rebekah.

‘To me? I knocked his ribs in once, and I can do it again.’

‘So?’

‘So I didn’t murder those silly girls. Why not write that in your memoirs?’

‘You paid too much for that suit!’

‘No, I did not. What will you give me for it?’

‘Twenty-five pounds.’

‘Nothing doing. I like this suit.’

‘You do?’

‘What’s more, what on earth do you think you’re doing here, ruining my reputation with Dame Beatrice?’

‘She is not believing,’ she said, assessing the reactions with accuracy.

‘Of course she isn’t. You’d better let me take you out for a nice ride in my car, with dinner to follow.’

‘Where we are going?’

‘Wherever you like. You say, and that’s where we go.’

‘Marlow?’

‘All right.’

‘No,’ said Rebekah, with decision. ‘I go to where you murdered those pretty girls down in Derbyshire.’

‘O.K., then. Perhaps you’ll tell me where you got the poison, because I didn’t kill them, you know.’

His relative laughed. It was relaxed, delightful laughter and she surrendered herself to it. Dame Beatrice looked sympathetic.

‘So what is it, this laughing?’ demanded Rebekah, coming to. ‘You…’ she pointed to Dame Beatrice, ‘you are psychiatrist, isn’t it? Why am I laughing at a broken heart?’

‘Dame Beatrice,’ said Bernardo, ‘is a specialist, and a world-famous one, my love. Specialists expect to be paid for their professional services. Don’t cadge!’

‘And in name of friendship?’

‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend,’ quoted Bernardo.

‘And friend you are not!’ shouted Rebekah. ‘What way should be your friendship, when you don’t let me ask one small little simple question about broken hearts?’

‘Broken hearts can cost quite big money, my love.’

‘Is a breach of promise case you are meaning?’

‘You are so right, but you’re getting away from the point. I suggest that you stop bothering Dame Beatrice and that we take ourselves off. I’m certain we’re wasting her time. Besides, hotels don’t keep their dinners on all night.’

‘You should get yourself out of here, yes, and before I can say sixty-seven pesetas,’ said Rebekah.

‘Well, can you?’ enquired her grandson. ‘Thixty-theven pethetath doesn’t sound exactly right to me.’

‘Oh, you are English public school,’ yelled his relative. ‘How comes this Florian with all that poison? That is what I ask.’

‘The answer isn’t a lemon, you know,’ said Bernardo, coolly. ‘Bend the brain, dear. You know as well as I do where the poison came from. So does Dame Beatrice, I think. The only problem is to find out which of them actually sent it, and also why. I think I know, but I hesitate to commit myself. Rash statements have an awkward way, like those problem chickens one hears mentioned, of coming home to roost.’

‘When I am a girl,’ said Rebekah, ‘we are finding the hens’ eggs in a silly hedge.’

‘You are not referring to a cuckoo in the nest, by any chance?’

‘If there are cuckoos, they are Derde and Sweyn. What do they make, passing up on their father’s money, the way it is?’ Her tone changed. She turned to Dame Beatrice. ‘You are not letting my Bernie be hanged, you say?’ Dame Beatrice reassured her.

‘A neck God made for other use than strangling in a string,’ quoted Bernardo, to the fury of his grandmother.

‘Ingrateful! Here I am saving you from the hanging.’

‘Ungrateful. Ingratitude. How you can have lived in England all these years and still haven’t managed to absorb the very rudiments of the language, I shall never understand.’

‘I think,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that the time has come for us to put our cards on the table.’

‘A show-down, yes,’ said Rebekah, emphatically. ‘Then we all know where we are, and I go to a grand slam.’

‘I doubt it,’ said her grandson, ‘but it may clear the air a bit. Dame Beatrice, will you take first innings?’

‘So she shall give us ideas we do not have,’ objected Rebekah.

‘You may well be right, Mrs Rose,’ agreed Dame Beatrice. ‘Why should we not write down what we believe to be the truth and so compare notes? As I see it, there are four basic questions to be answered. Where did the poison come from in the first place? Who impregnated the chocolate-cream with it? Did Mr Florian Colwyn-Welch know or guess that the chocolate-cream was poisoned? If he did know this, or guess it, why did he give it to Effie the barmaid? Why not have thrown it away?’

‘Yes, I write my answers to all that,’ said Rebekah, ‘but I am not carrying pencils and paper.’

Bernardo took out a fountain pen and a used envelope. His grandmother twitched away the envelope, read the superscription on it and the date on the postmark, sniffed and handed it back. She gestured at his pen.

‘Fountain pen is old-fashioned,’ she sneered. ‘So you are not with it. Should be ball-point.’

‘This pen was a present from the family, darling, and, by the way, Dame Beatrice is trying to hand you a scribbling block and a silver pencil.’

‘Hall-marked?’

‘Hall-marked,’ Dame Beatrice assured her.

‘At trade price, with diamond in the top, I get you a gold pencil, if you save my Bernie’s life.’

Dame Beatrice did not commit herself to purchasing a diamond-topped gold pencil, even at trade price. She picked up the house telephone and made contact with Laura, who appeared in the doorway.

‘We are going to do a little writing,’ Dame Beatrice explained. ‘When we have answered the questions, I shall require you to help me to scrutinise the answers.’

‘Well!’ exclaimed Laura, when Rebekah and her grandson had gone. ‘So that’s what you were aiming at when you asked all those questions about where the various people spent the war! I suppose Bernardo is as innocent as he seems? The old lady was in a bit of a state when she got here.’

‘She has a persecution complex,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and, of course, the strongest affection for her grandson.’

‘Yes, you were right about that,’ said Laura. ‘Well, now, what about this analysis?’