“I shall be away for a day or two—probably until after the weekend—but I’m sure my wife will be consoled by the excellence of your cuisine.”
Mrs Cartwright bobbed and shuffled with pleasure. She looked more than ever like a parrot on a perch.
“As soon as we saw her,” said Mrs Cartwright, her head a little on one side as if inviting a scratch, “my husband and I thought what a nice lady. Mrs Rothermere, I mean.”
Mr Rothermere gave another small bow.
“Do you know who she puts me in mind of?” Mrs Cartwright leaned forward a little.
“I have no idea.”
The beak came nearer. Softly: “Princess Anne.”
There was a long pause. Then Mr Rothermere clapped upon his head the curly brimmed hat and with one tug set it at a jaunty rake.
“I am confident,” he said, “that among all the excellent attributes of this establishment, discretion is not the least noteworthy.”
My God, thought Mrs Cartwright, I’ve put my finger on something there. Her thoughts raced ahead. The Sandringham Room—no, the Royal Suite—well, why not?—thirty per cent surcharge...
Mr Rothermere drove south at a gentle pace, enjoying the softly undulating Norfolk countryside, mistily gilded by weak September sunshine. But when he reached Norwich, instead of taking the western road that would have led him to Wisbech and thence across the fenlands on the way to Flaxborough, he chose the south-bound A11 and was soon being sluiced along in the traffic for London.
Just north of Woodford, he turned off the main road and penetrated a maze of suburban avenues. The Fiat finally drew up at the gate of a three-bedroomed semi-detached villa with a loggy name board above its door proclaiming the dwelling to be “MAYSTEAD” (cleverly commemorative of its inmates, Maisie and Ted Robinson, art dealers).
Mrs Robinson only was at home, her husband having gone to Walthamstow to replenish their stocks of plain paper wrappers. She greeted Mr Rothermere with the utmost affability and said goodness me, wasn’t it a long time but, my, he was looking a hundred per cent.
Mr Rothermere made suitable response, helped himself eagerly to Mrs Robinson’s offering of home-made scones and raspberry jam, and announced that he had brought a little commission—a somewhat delicate montage job upon which much depended.
Declaring that she liked nothing better than a challenge, Mrs Robinson accepted the camera her visitor had brought, together with an envelope containing a photograph of the late Robert Digby Tring, motor-cyclist, and retired to the rustic garden shed that housed, unsuspected by neighbours, a splendidly equipped darkroom and photographic laboratory.
Mr Rothermere took a turn in the garden. Ted’s dahlias were at their best and were rivalled only by a double row of huge shaggy chrysanthemums, white, yellow and bronze, each lashed to a neat but sturdy stake, a sort of floral Andromeda. He admired the Nymphs’ Grotto and the Merry Fisher Lad and the big model windmill, painted bright blue and red, with sails that really went round whenever the wind blew from Wanstead, and he recognised Maisie’s handiwork in the Lord’s Prayer done in musselshell mosaic round the concrete base of the bird table.
“Hey, these are pretty dinky, Mortimer.”
The door of the darkroom had opened, presumably after whatever period of segregation had been necessary for the development of Mr Rothermere’s film roll.
He peered in. Mrs Robinson was rocking something in a flat white dish. “Anything come out?” he asked carelessly.
“Nice as ninepence, all of them but one. Who’s your modelling lady?”
“Just someone I happened to meet at this ridiculous grouse shoot.”
He explained his requirements. Mrs Robinson, who wore a housewifely apron, tested solution temperatures with the tip of her little finger and timed immersions by counting “dickory one, dickory two, dickory three...” seemed to find nothing difficult or exceptionable in the task. Mr Rothermere left her humming happily over her tanks and enlargers and went back into the house, where he poured himself a glass of port and relaxed on the big green sofa in the bay window.
In less than half an hour, Mrs Robinson entered the room and handed him three small prints. Mr Rothermere gave them long and admiring examination. He looked up.
“You know something?—these are quite incredibly good—I mean, incredibly.”
“You old soft soaper,” said Mrs Robinson, pushing him in playful reproof. “You’re as bad as Lucy Teatime when it comes to laying it on.”
“Which reminds me,” said Mr Rothermere, raising one finger, “I must give Lucy a call before I leave her neighbourhood.” He put the prints into their envelope and slipped it in his pocket.
“Give her our love,” said Maisie.
Mr Rothermere stood before the mirror and preened his beard and moustache with the curled forefinger of his right hand.
Mrs Robinson regarded him thoughtfully. “You’ve not married again, then, Mortimer?”
“Not recently.”
“Are you sure you cannot stay to lunch? Ted will be very sorry to have missed you.”
Protesting equal regret, he took his leave. At the gate he turned, waved to the little pinafored figure in the doorway of “Maystead”, and blew her a kiss as gallantly as a recalled hussar. He left the gate open for the postman who had just arrived at that moment with the Robinsons’ not inconsiderable pile of mid-day mail.
Mr Rothermere drove back towards the main road until he saw a public telephone box. He pulled up beside it, made a brief call, and resumed his journey. At Ware he bought petrol and made for Stevenage and the A1. He reached Newark a little after four o’clock and by half-past five he was exploring the interior of a pie in the parlour of the Waggon and Horses public house in Pennick village. Discovering nothing overtly dangerous in the pie, he anaesthetised it with mustard and quickly devoured it. He was still hungry, so he ordered another pie. He had almost consumed this one when someone entered the bar and sat on the trestle opposite. It was David Harton.
Mr Rothermere leaned towards him, indicated the remains of the pie with his fork, and said very earnestly: “Look, you must try one of these; they are quite remarkably good. Why don’t you let me order you one?”
By his framing of the question, by his manner, by the confidential pitch of his voice—somehow Mr Rothermere contrived to convey the impression that not only was he the sole agent for the dispensing of pies in Pennick but in all probability the patentee of the process of their manufacture.
Harton declined. “Let me get you a drink,” he offered in compensation.
Mr Rothermere considered solemnly, then nodded. “Half a pint of ordinary bitter beer. Thank you.” He popped the last bit of pie-crust into his mouth and dabbed his lips with a handkerchief.