“The laird’s wife likes a drink,” said Priscilla. “She drinks half what’s in the prize bottles and then fills them up with water.”
She and Hamish burst out laughing.
“I am sure we are keeping you from your duties, Officer,” said Henry in what – he sincerely hoped – was his most patronizing tone of voice.
Hamish looked thoughtfully down at the playwright, his eyes, which a moment before had been full of laughter, suddenly blank and stupid.
“Aye, I’ve got to feed the hens,” he said. He touched his cap and turned away.
“Wait a minute, Hamish,” cried Priscilla, ignoring Henry’s fulminating glare. “Mummy’s having a party tomorrow night in Henry’s honour. Do come as well. It’s drinks and buffet. Come at seven. Mummy doesn’t like late affairs.”
“That’s verra kind of you,” said Hamish.
“It’s…it’s black tie,” said Priscilla.
“I hae one o’ those,” said Hamish equably.
“I mean dinner jacket and…”
“I’ll find something.”
“See you then,” said Priscilla brightly.
Hamish loped off down the road. Priscilla turned slowly to face an outraged fiancé. “Have you gone right out of your tiny mind?” demanded Henry.
“Hamish is an old friend,” said Priscilla, climbing back into the car.
Henry got in beside her and slammed the door shut with unnecessary force.
“Was that copper at any time anything more than an old friend?”
“Of course not, silly,” said Priscilla. “You must remember, I know everyone in Lochdubh.”
“And are all the local yokels coming to this party?”
“No, Mummy’s a bit of a snob and Daddy’s worse and…”
Priscilla’s voice trailed away.
She cringed inside as she thought of what her mother would say when she learned Hamish Macbeth had been invited.
Hamish – of all people!
∨ Death of a Cad ∧
2
cad. Since 1900, a man devoid of fine instincts or delicate feelings.
—The Penguin Dictionary of Historical Slang
Jeremy Pomfret decided to have a bath before dinner. He shared a bathroom with Peter Bartlett and it was situated between their two bedrooms.
He threw off his clothes and wrapped his dressing gown around him. He pushed open the bathroom door and stood transfixed. Peter Bartlett was standing with one foot up on the washbasin, scrubbing his toenails. He was a very handsome man, dark and lean, with one of those saturnine faces portrayed on the covers of romances. He had a hard tanned face and a hard tanned body of which Jeremy was able to see quite a lot because the captain had only a small towel tied about his waist.
“I say,” bleated the horrified Jeremy. “That’s my toothbrush you’re using.”
“Oh, is it?” said Peter indifferently. “Give it a good rinse. It’s not as if I’ve got AIDS.”
“Don’t you realize the enormity of what you are doing?” demanded Jeremy in a voice squeaky with outrage. “You’re always pinching a chap’s stuff. Yesterday it was my shaving brush. Now you’re scrubbing your filthy toes with my toothbrush. Haven’t you anything of your own?”
“It’s all somewhere around,” said Peter vaguely. “Met the playwright yet?”
“No, I fell asleep,” said Jeremy crossly, “but I must say – ”
“I know him.”
“How?”
“Met him in London before I rejoined the army. Awful little Commie he was then.”
“I’m sure it was just a pose,” said Jeremy, darting forward and snatching his toothbrush. He looked at it hopelessly and then threw it in the trash bucket.
“In fact,” went on Peter, easing his foot down from the handbasin, “this damned cold dump is crawling with skeletons out of my closet. The only person going to be at this party tomorrow night who I don’t know is the village bobby.”
“What’s he coming for? To guard the silver?”
“No, Priscilla asked him as an honoured guest. Henry told her parents about it before the rapturous welcomes were over, and Halburton-Smythe hit the roof. He sent one of the maids down to the village with a note to the bobby to tell him not to come. Priscilla ups on her hind legs and calls him a snob, Mother joins in, and they were all at it hammer and tongs when I last saw them. But if I know Priscilla, she’ll get her way in the end.”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever stayed here,” said Jeremy. He was still smarting over the loss of his toothbrush, but he never had the courage to assert himself over anything. “It’ll be the last. I’ve never stayed anywhere quite so cold before. As soon as I bag my birds, I’ll be off.”
“You might not win,” said Peter, leaning his broad shoulders against the bathroom wall.
Jeremy shrugged. “Clear off, if you’ve finished, old man, and let me have a bath.”
“Righto,” said the captain, opening the door out of the bathroom that led to his room.
Jeremy sighed with relief and advanced on the bath. A grey ring marred its white porcelain sides.
“Dirty sod!” muttered Jeremy in a fury. “Absolute dirty rotter. Complete and utter cad!”
Priscilla put down her hairbrush as she heard a knock at her bedroom door and went to answer it. Henry stood there, smiling apologetically.
“I am sorry, darling,” he said, taking her in his arms, and noticing again with irritation that she was several inches taller than he.
Priscilla extricated herself gently and went and sat down again at the dressing table. “It was a bit thick,” she said. “Did you have to tell them I’d invited Hamish as soon as we got in the door? I told you they wouldn’t like it.”
“Yes, but you haven’t yet told me why you were so bloody damned anxious to ask the bobby in the first place.”
“I like him, that’s all,” said Priscilla crossly. “He’s a human being and that’s more than you can say for most of the guests here. Jessica Villiers and Diana Bryce have never liked me. The Helmsdales are crashing bores. Jeremy’s a twit. I don’t know much about the gallant captain, but it reminds me of that rhyme about knowing two things about the horse, one of them is rather coarse. Prunella and Sir Humphrey are innocent sweeties but hardly strong enough to counteract the rest. Oh, let’s not quarrel about Hamish. He’s not coming and that’s that. Don’t dress for dinner. It’s informal this evening.”
“Kiss me if you don’t want to quarrel.”
Priscilla smiled and turned up her face. He kissed her warmly, and although she seemed rather to enjoy it, her reaction could hardly be called passionate. But it was not sexual desire that had prompted Henry to propose. Priscilla was, to him, all that a future bride should be. He loved his new fame, he loved the money that came with it, and he loved his press image of being the darling of the upper set. The first moment he had set eyes on Priscilla, he had immediately seen her standing on the church steps beside him dressed in white satin and being photographed by every society magazine. She enhanced his image.
“Did you want to ask me something?” asked Priscilla when he had stopped kissing her.
“Yes, there doesn’t seem to be a bath plug, and Mrs Halburton-Smythe told me not to ring for the servants because they don’t have very many and the ones that she has might give notice if they had to run up and down the stairs too much.”
“Where is your room?”
“In the west turret, the one at the front.”
“Oh, that room. The plug in that bathroom was lost ages ago and we keep meaning to get another. But it’s quite simple. It’s a very small plug hole. You just stick your heel in it.”
“Not exactly gracious living.”