‘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!’