“This is the moment for it, Ralph,” Edna said.
They were sitting at a table near the snooker alcove and Ralph had brought a bottle of Kressmann armagnac and glasses. He did some refilling. The club remained fairly quiet. A small group talked at the bar. Nobody played snooker.
Ember stood. “I have to get to my chores now,” he said. “I’ll leave the bottle. You chat on, by all means.”
“But we haven’t really got anywhere,” Rose said.
“I certainly would not say that,” Ralph said. “I’ve filed away in my head the very promising suggestions you’ve given me tonight. In due course, or even sooner, I will bring that file out and consider it properly in context.”
“What does that mean?” Edna said.
“What?”
“ ‘In context,’ ” Edna said.
“Yes, true, Edna. That has to be the way of it — in context,” Ember replied.
“Part of the context now, Ralph, is that we have the funds entirely available and entirely ready,” Edna said. “This might not be so ‘in due course.’ We wish to apply these legacies in forward-looking, rewarding fashion as an immediate priority, not ‘in due course.’ There are other openings for investment. We chose to put you and the Monty first on our schedule. If this does not attract an instant response, we might feel it right to turn elsewhere.”
“I’ve come to learn that in this kind of business, the context, a review of all options, is vital,” Ralph said. He left them and did an inspection of the snooker tables’ baize to make sure there were no snags or rips. He felt proud of his management of the meeting with those three. At no point had he allowed his rage at their gross cheek and clumsiness to show itself. Snarls had ganged up inside him ready for use, but he had suppressed them.
He went home to his manor house, Low Pastures, for a sleep and stroll around the paddocks, and, as was routine, returned to the club just after one A.M. to supervise closedown for the night at two o’clock, unless extra merrymaking broke out. He sat at his shelf-desk behind the bar with another glass of Kressmann’s, admiring the wild-looking William Blake pictures on the metal screen. Articulate Max, alone now, and in a fine, made-to-measure pinstripe suit and wide silver-and-yellow tie, came and took a high stool opposite him on the other side of the bar. He had a glass of what might be Kressmann’s in his right hand. Perhaps he thought this a way to acceptance and fellow-feeling from Ember. “They won’t give up, Ralph.”
“Who?”
“Great-Aunt Edna and my mother.”
“They’re real Monty fans, I’ll say that for them,” Ember replied with an admiring chuckle.
“Such out-and-out rubbish,” Articulate replied.
“What?”
“That idea — to put money into the club.”
“I appreciated their affection for the Monty,” Ember replied.
“Idiotic.”
“Oh?”
“Like throwing money down an old coal pit.”
“Oh?”
“You know, I know, and so does everyone else with any trace of a brain that the Monty is never going to change, Ralph. Not change as they meant, anyway. I suppose the police might shut it down one day because of your drugs link.”
Ember thought about hitting this jerk. He could stand and lean forward quickly and reach him across the bar. Ralph had never heard him put so many words together before, and now, when he did grow verbal, it was to insult Ralph and the Monty. “I wouldn’t say your great-aunt Edna or your mother lacked brain, Articulate,” he replied.
“The money has shoved them off-balance.”
“The legacies?”
“That’s it, the legacies. Yes, the legacies,” Articulate said. “As if they feel they have to compensate for something.”
“Compensate for what — for receiving a legacy?”
“That’s it, Ralph. For receiving a legacy.”
“A sort of guilt?”
“Yes, like guilt.”
“Guilt because they and you have profited from a death? This does happen to legatees sometimes, I know. Guilt over where the money comes from.”
“Yes, over where it comes from. So, to rid themselves of this shame, they want to find some noble project where they can put the lucre — and get a return. Some noble, mad project.”
“I don’t see it like that,” Ember replied.
“No, I shouldn’t think you do. Why I had to come tonight for a chinwag, on our own.”
Ember found the Kressmann bottle and topped both of them up.
“Look, you’re getting aggro, aren’t you, Ralph?”
“Aggro?” Ember said, giving a real, puzzled smile.
“You wouldn’t have stuck The Marriage of Heaven and Hell up there otherwise, would you?”
“Much misunderstood,” Ember replied. “That baffle board is to—”
“As I hear it, you’ve been on the end of very forceful invitations to take out a protection policy for the club, an invitation from Luke Apsley Beynon and his firm. That’s the buzz.”
And, as so often, the buzz had things wonderfully correct. The shield might help against Luke and his cohort. The H & K automatics might help against Luke and his cohort. The increased security visits by Ralph to the Monty might help against Luke and his cohort. Or none of them might help against Luke and his cohort. “Luke is getting to fancy himself a bit, I gather,” Ember said with no tremor at all.
“Obviously someone of your calibre, Ralph, is not going to cave in to protection threats from an apprentice lout like Luke.”
“Hardly. That is, if there’d been any threats.”
“You’ll turn down his invitations. And, that being so, there could be some grim events at the Monty to prove that you actually need the protection of Luke and his firm. Events such as gunfire or incendiarising or bad affrays and blood in the bar. Well, I don’t need to describe it. You know how club protection works.”
Ralph said: “It’s kind of you to look in, Max, but I don’t really think someone like Luke Beynon could—”
“Here’s the bargain, then, Ralph,” Articulate replied. “I’ll get rid of Beynon if you promise you won’t ever pick up on that offer from my mother and Great-Aunt Edna.” He became intense. “Listen, Ralph, all due respect to you and the Monty, but I’m not going to have my money squandered like that by two old dames suddenly gone ga-ga. You said you’d file their notion away for another consideration sometime. I want you to keep it filed away, or, even better, ditch it.”
“Your money? It wouldn’t all be yours, would it? I thought there were three legacies.”
“Yes, well, let’s not play about any longer, all right? My money. My earned money. Mine but… Ralph, I’ve always let my mother and Great-Aunt Edna organise the big things in my life, you know.”
“That so?”
“Look at me, Ralph.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll tell you what you see, shall I?”
“What I see is—”
“You see a bloke of thirty-two in a suit that cost over two grand, physically sound, and suddenly very successful.”
“Successful. You mean getting the legacy?”
“Right, getting the legacy.”
The description Articulate gave of himself was not bad, although it didn’t deal with the wide shoulders on a thin body and his longish, deadpan face, as if purposefully manufactured to defeat interrogation. He had a large but unmirthful mouth, skimpy fair eyebrows, and bleak blue eyes.