‘Is your son in England now?’
‘Yes, but busy, very busy.’
‘In his office?’
‘In his office, yes.’
‘May I have the address, please?’
‘Not until I know why you want to see him.’ Her round, fair-complexioned face spelled obstinacy.
‘Well,’ said Gavin, ‘an accusation has been levelled against him, and I want…’
‘False! My son would do nothing against the law. We have a good name. It would not pay us to cheat people.’
‘I know. It is nothing to do with your family business. I’m sorry I can’t explain.’
‘I did not know that in England we have the secret police.’
‘Come, now, Mrs Rose, you’ll have to trust me. After I’ve spoken to your son he will be at perfect liberty to tell you anything he chooses about the interview, but, if we are to refute this charge which has been made against him, I really must see him. Don’t you understand that?’
Maarte studied him with solemn, unemotional blue eyes.
‘Please to come in,’ she said. ‘I will engage Bernardo upon the telephone and find out whether he is willing to speak to you.’
‘He’ll be very unwise if he refuses to speak to me,’ said Gavin, smiling at her, but obtaining no response except the same direct and serious scrutiny. ‘But, before you telephone, perhaps you would be kind enough to answer a question.’
‘Perhaps. What is it? Please to sit down. Now?’
‘In which country did you spend the war years?’
‘In which country? Why, of course, here in England.’
‘You were in England when war broke out?’
‘Certainly! Since I was born I am living in England, so I was certainly here when war began.’
‘Thank you. And your husband?’
‘He and his family are English Jews since 1900.’
‘Was he in the Army, then, during the war?’
‘A gunner, yes.’
‘A prisoner of war?’
‘Oh, no, never a prisoner of war.’
‘And Bernardo, I take it, was too young to fight?’
‘Bernardo is a little boy of not quite two when war breaks out. He is a little boy evacuated to America, to my husband’s sister, as soon as we think things may be bad.’
‘I see. Thank you. That clears that up, then. Were any of your relatives still in Holland during the war?’
‘Oh, yes. My aunt Binnen and my cousins, her daughters. They were interned, they say, and suffered hunger and bad treatment, but not my aunt. She was of the Dutch Resistance. We are proud of her.’
‘Yes, of course you are. Now, if you wouldn’t mind ringing up your son…’
He did not hear the conversation between Bernardo and his mother, as the telephone was not in the room where he was sitting, but Maarte came back after a surprisingly short absence and told him that Bernardo would be pleased to see him over a drink at six o’clock that evening. The hostelry was named and Gavin took his leave. He treated himself later to a large, indigestible tea and lingered over it, and then went off to meet Maarte’s son. He felt interested in Bernardo.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dinner with Bernardo
‘… and your Family I thank God is very well, and I hope a little time will put an end to this troublesom Affaire…’
Samuel Pepys
« ^ »
Bernardo and Gavin met at a pub in the City, but Bernardo soon suggested that they should adjourn.
‘My mamma says you want to talk to me,’ he said, ‘and that it is police business. Why don’t I give you dinner somewhere? Then we can discuss matters.’
‘Very good of you,’ said Gavin. ‘I agree that perhaps our business might be better talked over at table, preferably in a crowded sort of place where everybody is intent on his own business. I have my car.’
‘Good,’ said Bernardo. ‘It is unfashionable, I know, but I don’t drive much in Town.’
No table had been booked, as the invitation had been issued on the spur of the moment, but Bernardo appeared to be persona grata with the head waiter and a place was found for them in a crowded grill-room which formed part of the basement of a popular hotel not far from Piccadilly Circus.
Bernardo was a smooth and excellent host and Gavin began to enjoy himself. The case, he was certain by now, was a push-over, but he was canny and careful and did not want to leave any loopholes. Over the hors-d’oeuvres (Bernardo) and his own choice (hare soup) the conversation was polite and general, but when the turbot with Hollandaise sauce had been cleared and a Burgundy substituted for the Barsac, Bernardo got down to business.
‘So the police are after me,’ he said, with his charming smile. ‘Exactly why?’
‘If the police were really after you,’ said Gavin, ‘I should not be accepting your hospitality. One of our old-fashioned but reassuring rules. There are just a few things I would like you to tell me, but that is all. First, what is your attitude towards your cousin, Florian Colwyn-Welch?’
‘My attitude? I don’t really know. I’m engaged to be married to his sister and I don’t think he likes the idea.’
‘Why is that?’
‘He’s inclined to be a sort of member of the Hitler Youth, I think — i.e. a bit anti-Semitic. Then, too, apart from the fact that it’s obvious he doesn’t want her to marry me, I don’t think he wants Binnie to marry at all. Fortunately she takes this attitude mostly as a big joke. She isn’t very intelligent, I’m afraid.’
‘And you don’t find a lack of intelligence a drawback? It doesn’t irritate you, I mean?’
Bernardo hesitated while the waiter poured a little wine into his glass. He sniffed and tasted, as a matter of form, (the wine cellar at the hotel was a noted one), and then replied:
‘There are too many intelligent women in our family. A good-natured fool will be a most pleasant change. Besides, Binnie, apart from possessing fewer brains than our average, is a restful sort of person. She doesn’t make demands on one, she is cheerful and practical and, in contrast to Florian, she’s extroverted to a most refreshing degree. Of course, she’s apt to giggle, but I don’t mind that at all.’
‘Right. Let’s go back to Colwyn-Welch. Do you know why his granduncle quarrelled with him?’
‘Oh, yes. The old man told me. After all, my grandmother, my father and I are all concerned in the marketing of diamonds. There are times when the trade takes precedence even of family affairs. To be in diamonds is to be in love. Everything else is secondary. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Florian (whose allowance from grandpapa has never been spectacularly generous, and whose prospects suffered an eclipse when I became engaged to Binnie), light-fingered some of the old man’s best diamonds — those he kept in the house — and, like the ass he is, let himself be found out. Well, you might get away with murder where a diamond-merchant is concerned, but not with half-inching his pebbles. There was the father and mother of a row and Florian was cast into outer darkness.’
‘But he has been reinstated, as I understand it. How did that come about?’
‘Well, grandpapa took me into his confidence, so my mamma and I talked turkey to him. My Dutch sense of justice took precedence, for once, over my Jewish instinct for hanging on to a good thing so long as it was honestly come by. Mamma was particularly forthright, and was heavily backed by uncles Derde and Sweyn. Florian, of course, is popular in the family.’
Gavin looked up from the roast beef and Yorkshire he had chosen.
‘With every member of it?’ he asked. Bernardo smiled and addressed himself to saddle of mutton and brussels sprouts.
‘Well, with every member except, possibly, my aunt Ruby, my papa and myself,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Because it seems fairly certain that while he was in exile in Derbyshire, somebody attempted to poison him with a piece of chocolate-cream which, the evidence indicates, was sent to him from Holland.’