Freddie obliged, and Sophie took herself off on some made-up errand.
Freddie sat down again, extending his feet toward the fire. It was a beautiful room; and Reggie happened to know, because Adelina had told him, that all the furniture and draperies were new, and of the latest fashion. He accepted the port Freddie offered him. That was jolly good too, damned old.
“Well?” Freddie inquired.
Reggie frowned, trying to frame his thoughts without betraying himself too far. Freddie was a good chap, but no point in telling him anything he did not need to know.
“Had that police fellow nosing around again?” he asked, looking up.
Freddie’s fair eyebrows rose in surprise.
“Don’t really know. Suppose he’s bound to question the servants, and so forth. Haven’t seen him myself, but then there’s nothing I could tell him anyway. Don’t follow the romantic affairs of the servants’ hall!” he smiled.
“Course not,” Reggie agreed. “No one does. But has it occurred to you the damage they could cause by a bit of mischievous gossip in the wrong place? I’ve spoken to this police chap. Civil enough, but not a gentleman, of course. Bound to have working class ideas. Wouldn’t have servants in his own house, beyond a woman for the heavy stuff-” he stopped, not sure if Freddie was following him.
“Damage?” Freddie looked puzzled. “You mean if they said something stupid to this fellow, lied, and so forth?”
“That,” Reggie agreed, “or-oh come on, Freddie! Most of us have pinched a few bottoms now and then, kissed a good-looking maid, spot of fun, what?”
Recollection flashed in Freddie’s face.
“Oh, of course. You’re worried about Dolly? That was her name, wasn’t it?”
Reggie felt acutely uncomfortable. He had hoped Freddie might have forgotten that. Dolly was dead and the whole thing was in the past now. Of course it had been very sad. The poor girl should never have gone to a back-street abortionist. He would have provided for her, found her some place in the country where no one would have known her; a long way from Callander Square, naturally. There was no call for her to have panicked in that way. It could hardly be said to be his fault! Still, he could have wished Freddie had forgotten it. He had had to call Freddie at the time. The girl had died in Reggie’s house, and there was no time to call a regular doctor; Freddie had been nearest. Freddie had been alone with her for a while before she died. He had no idea what she might have babbled to him then. Please heaven he had not believed any of it.
“Yes,” he said, recalling himself. Freddie was still waiting for his reply. “Yes, Dolly. But that couldn’t have anything to do with this. It was over years ago, poor girl. She’s been dead four years by now. But you know servants, they romanticize. If that fellow gets to question them some silly girl could be indiscreet. Might say I had a fancy for her. Police could read more into it than there was.”
“Oh quite,” Freddie agreed. “Can’t expect chaps like that to understand.”
“Wouldn’t do any of us any good,” Reggie went on. “Scandal, and so on. Give the square a bad name: we’d all suffer. Rubs off. Mud sticks, you know?”
“Oh quite,” Freddie’s face clouded as he realized precisely what Reggie meant, and the disadvantages to all of them. “Yes.”
Reggie wondered whether Freddie had thought of the harm to his burgeoning professional career, which depended so much on a reputation for uprightness and discretion. Would it be necessary to put it in words for him? He prodded delicately.
“Trouble is, everybody that matters knows everybody else. Damn women, spend all afternoon talking-”
“Yes,” Freddie’s pleasant face screwed up. “Yes. Better to prevent it happening in the first place. Little care, save a lot of talk and they’ll be without a position. Perhaps it would be a good idea to prime the butler, and see that he is with any female servant questioned by this Pitt fellow in the future.”
Relief flooded through Reggie.
“What a damned good idea, Freddie old chap. That’s the answer. I’ll have a word with Dobson, see that none of the women is-” he smiled a little, “harassed, what? Thanks Freddie, you’re a decent fellow.”
“Not at all,” Freddie smiled up at him from the back of his chair. “Have some more port?”
Reggie settled down and filled his glass.
The following evening he thought it would be a good idea to further consolidate the position by having a discreet word with Garson Campbell as well. After all, Campbell was a man of the world, man of affairs, knew how to conduct things. It was a bitter night, sleeting hard, and several times he looked out of the window at the turbulent darkness, the wet, thrashing leaves, and pavement glistening in the gaslight, then back at the fire and thought that tomorrow would do well enough. Then he remembered that tomorrow that wretched policeman might come sneaking round the servants’ halls again, and goodness knows what could be said, and too late to do anything about it by then.
With a last reluctant look at the comfort of his chair, he drank two fingers of brandy, collected his coat from the footman, and set out. It was less than two hundred yards, but by the time he reached the shelter of Campbell’s doorway he was already shivering, perhaps more from the expectation in his mind of cold than from the actuality.
The Campbells’ footman opened the door and Reggie stepped in smartly, easing his coat off his shoulders almost before the man could get to it to take it from him.
“Mr. Campbell in?” Reggie asked.
“I’ll inquire, sir.” It was a stock answer. Of course the man would know whether Campbell was in or out, it was whether he wished to see Reggie that he had to discover. He was shown into the morning room where there were still the embers of a fire, and he stood with his back to it, warming his legs, until the footman returned and told him Campbell would see him.
He was received in the main withdrawing room. Campbell was standing by a blaze that burned halfway up the chimney; he was a heavy-chested man with rather a long nose, not ill-looking, but yet certainly not handsome. Such charm as he had lay in a dignity of bearing and a fastidiousness both of manner and of person.
“Evening, Reggie,” he said cordially. “Must be urgent to get you away from your fireside on a night like this. What is it, run out of port?”
“Sack a butler who’d let me do that,” Reggie replied, joining him over by the fire. “Filthy night. Hate winter in London, ’cept it’s a damn sight worse in the country. Civilized men should go to France, or somewhere. ’Cept the French are a lot of barbarians, what? Don’t know how to behave. Paris the weather’s as bad as here, and the south there’s nothing to do!”
“Ever thought of hibernating?” Campbell raised his eyebrows sardonically.
Reggie wondered vaguely if he were being laughed at; but it did not worry him. Campbell had a habit of jeering slightly at most things. It was part of his manner. Who knew why? People cultivated manners for a variety of reasons, and Reggie was hard to offend.
“Frequently,” he said with a smile. “Unfortunately things tend to need prodding and probing every so often, y’know. Like this wretched business of the bodies in the square; filthy mess.”
“Quite,” Campbell agreed. “But hardly our concern. Nothing we can do about it, except be more careful about servants in the future. Always give the girl some sort of help, I suppose, if it turns out the child was born dead. Find her a place in the country, where no one would know about it. That what you want? I’ve loads of relatives who could be prevailed upon.”
“Not quite,” Reggie sidled closer to the fire. Why on earth couldn’t the miserable fellow offer him a drink? He glanced at Campbell’s wry face, and found the blue eyes on him. Damn fellow knew he wanted a drink, and was deliberately not offering one. Nasty sense of humor, the honorable Garson Campbell.
“Oh?” Campbell was waiting.