The marmoset seemed fully aware of what was at stake, and was enjoying himself hugely. There was no longer any problem about who was the centre of attention. Erasmus waved the candle flame lower and lower as his owner drew closer.
Oh dear, thought Mrs Pargeter, as an unpleasant new recollection invaded her mind. She wasn’t very knowledgeable about science, but even she knew the basic principles of the internal combustion engine. It wasn’t the petrol itself that ignited; it was the vapour. And in an enclosed space that vapour would quickly build up to become extremely flammable. Oh dear.
What a way to go, Mrs Pargeter thought with deep resentment. Killed by the combined efforts of a monkey and a criminal idiot trying to teach himself how to have a sense of humour. No, any death but that. It would be just too humiliating.
As she had the thought, Hedgeclipper Clinton suddenly launched himself forward to make a grab for Erasmus. The marmoset, anticipating his move, leapt up into the air and grabbed the handle of one of the highest cans. Hedgeclipper skidded and fell face down in the oil slick. The candle flame flickered with the movement, but quickly re-established its steady glow.
Erasmus and Mrs Pargeter both were aware of the sound at the same moment. It was a steady dripping. The feeble candlelight caught the sheen of individual droplets as they fell free from the can next to the one from which Erasmus was swinging.
There must have been some kamikaze training in the marmoset’s background. Mrs Pargeter would have sworn she saw glee in his eye as the monkey slowly changed the angle of the candlestick to bring its flame closer to the leak.
It was time for desperate measures. Mrs Pargeter let out a sudden shriek, a high-pitched imitation of a monkey’s cry. Maybe she had captured the admonitory note of Erasmus’s mother when angry; maybe the marmoset was simply distracted by the sound. For whatever reason, he turned suddenly towards her.
Mrs Pargeter leapt forward and blew the candle out.
♦
“You know,” she said to Hedgeclipper, as they climbed wearily out of the cellar after he had restored the electrical supply, “I think we may have to go out and get Fossilface O’Donahue before he does anything else.”
“Yes,” the hotel manager agreed. “If we can find him.” He turned his head round to the marmoset by his ear. “You know, Erasmus,” he said in playful reproof, “sometimes you’re a rather naughty little monkey.”
Which, in Mrs Pargeter’s view, was something of an understatement.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Twenty
The photographic studio, in a discreet Mayfair town house, had a slightly dated feel to it. The artfully scattered chaos gave the impression that its owner had never really recovered from seeing Blow Up back in the sixties (which in fact he hadn’t).
Nor was this idea dispelled by the appearance and manner of the studio’s presiding genius. Clickety Clark looked like a gnarled relic of the Summer of Love. He was in his late fifties, a fact accentuated rather than disguised by his youthful dress. The battered Levis, the denim shirt strained over prominent belly and the leather blouson had a perversely ageing effect, compounded by the ponytail into which his thinning grey hair was straggled back.
And Clickety Clark’s professional style suggested that he’d watched too many documentaries about the early David Bailey (which in fact he had). He moved continuously round the room in a gait midway between a dart and a lumber, constantly framing images in the little viewfinder he carried on a leather thong around his neck. And all the time, in a deliberately roughened street-credible voice, he kept mumbling instructions to his assistant, Abbie.
She was a pretty dark-haired girl in her early twenties. Clickety Clark’s manner to her suggested she was a necessary and appropriate accessory to his image as photographic genius. Her manner to him was tolerant and obedient, but the wry light in her eye made it clear she had no illusions at all about her employer. Abbie was the kind of girl who could recognize bullshit when she saw it, and on her first meeting with Clickety Clark had had no difficulty in identifying cartloads of the stuff.
The subject of the morning’s shoot, Mrs Pargeter – or to give the name by which she had introduced herself, Lady Entwistle – was seated on a manorial oaken throne against tastefully draped red velvet curtains. At a table by her side was a vase of bright peonies. Mrs Pargeter knew that the vivid fabrics she had so carefully selected that morning clashed hideously with this background, but she made no demur. It was in character for Lady Entwistle not to notice – or more probably to approve – such a wince-inducing concatenation of colours.
Clickety Clark crouched rather unsteadily on the floor and peered up through a camera lens at his subject. “Don’t worry, Lady Entwistle,” he said in his phoney laid-back accent. “I can really make you look wonderful.”
Lady Entwistle smiled graciously. “Oh. Very nice. Thank you so much, Mr Clark.”
He lifted a magnanimous hand towards her. “Please… call me Clix.”
Mrs Pargeter saw Abbie’s shapely brows rise heavenwards at this, and had to restrain herself from making eye contact with the girl. While to do so would be very in character for Mrs Pargeter, Lady Entwistle was definitely a person who lacked the capacity for irony.
So she just said, “Thank you… Clix then.”
The genius snapped a finger. “More light on the drapes, Abbie.” Obedient, quick and skilful, the girl made good the deficiency. “This portrait going to be a present for your husband then, is it, Lady Entwistle?” ‘Clix’ asked. Another snap of the fingers. “Higher up, Abbie.”
His sitter assumed a face of pious mourning. “Ah, no. Regrettably, Sir Godfrey is no longer with me.” In reply to Clickety Clark’s quizzical look, she amplified this, lest Sir Godfrey might mistakenly be thought to have been bimboed away. “He has gone to a better place.”
“Oh. Oh dear.”
Enjoying her fabrication perhaps a little too much, Mrs Pargeter could not resist embroidering further. “He lost his life tragically in a yachting accident off Mustique, where we were staying with some rather eminent friends… whose names I’d perhaps better not mention. The wind changed suddenly and the boom of the yacht caught him on the temple. It was touch-and-go for seven weeks.”
“I am sorry.”
“But eventually it turned out to be go.”
“How sad.” Clickety Clark waved dismissively to his assistant. “Spilling at the top a bit, Abbie.”
“This was a few years back,” Lady Entwistle went on. “I have managed, after a considerable struggle, to come to terms with my grief.”
“Oh, good.”
“And, fortunately, Clix,” the lady confided, warming to her theme, “Sir Godfrey did leave me extremely well provided for.”
This information definitely registered with Clickety Clark, but all he said was, “Well, that’s nice, isn’t it? Pull that curtain across to the right now, Abbie – want a bit more spread. Husband left you a nice house and all that, did he, Lady Entwistle?” he asked casually.
“Very nice indeed. All of the houses are. As it happens, though, the main residence is a little old-fashioned for my personal taste, so I’m having a new home built that’s more suitable – more me if you know what I mean…”
“Oh, really?”
“Trouble is, the building work is currently in a state of suspension, no progress at all.”
“Why’s that then, Lady Entwistle? Contractor gone bankrupt? That’s the usual reason these days.”