‘I detest dogs. What about that nonsense about my second boyfriend working at Stonehenge Madagascar? I don’t believe such a place exists. And I never had a second boyfriend.’
‘I said that to impress my aunt,’ Payne admitted.
‘Hughie!’ Lady Grylls cried in an outraged manner.
‘And I suppose it was your aunt who told you about my childhood phobias?’
‘I did.’ Lady Grylls nodded. ‘Your mama was terribly worried, you know. Thank God you grew out of it.’
Felicity turned to Payne. ‘Do you have any idea at all in which story Sherlock Holmes makes the following deduction: “You have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband.” I assume you know the “canon” inside out?’
‘I believe I do,’ Payne said, ‘but that’s not Sherlock Holmes. It is Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman.’
‘I must say, Nellie, your nephew is quite something.’
‘He is my favourite nephew,’ Lady Grylls said as though that explained it all.
‘I have the feeling of having passed a test,’ Payne said.
‘Perhaps you have. Would you like some coffee? You are not in too terrible a hurry, I hope?’
‘We’d love some coffee. I hope it is not decaffeinated? At my time of life, I can’t tolerate any manner of dietary deprivation. Are you all right, my dear?’ Lady Grylls peered at Felicity Remnant. ‘You are not ill, are you? You strike me as a bit preoccupied.’
‘Something awfully peculiar happened this morning. And how curious that you should be here now. I have an idea Hugh might be able to help me.’ Felicity’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Major Payne. ‘But let’s have coffee first. No, it is not decaffeinated. It is Davidoff Supreme Reserve.’
‘It isn’t a well-known fact but American police have their own coffee brand,’ Payne said. ‘Gun Barrel. I read about it in the Telegraph.’
‘I won’t be a jiffy. Do take a look at the Damascus chest, Hugh. It’s over there.’ Felicity pointed. ‘I hope it comes up to your expectations.’
7
It was a chest of drawers of exceptional workmanship. Standing beside it, Major Payne ran his hand across its surface. ‘Mid-nineteenth century. Made in Damascus. Typical of the region. Outstanding quality. Inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory and silver wire.’
‘It actually changes colour in the light. Can you see it? Or is it my eyes?’ Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose.
‘It does change colour in the light, you are absolutely right, darling. It would look marvellous against a salmon-coloured background.’
‘It gives the impression of exuding light. It’s got a fairyland quality about it.’
‘They usually have secret drawers, chests like this… One needs to press one of these small marquetry insets – comme ça.’ Payne demonstrated and imagined he heard an old spring being triggered somewhere. A little panel shot out.
‘Goodness – there is a secret drawer! Are you ever wrong, Hughie?’
‘No, not often.’ He opened the secret drawer.
‘What’s that piece of paper? A secret message! What does it say, quick!’
Payne unfolded it. ‘Doesn’t seem to be much. Um. Headed paper. The Grand Jewel Hotel, Marrakesh – I accept. You are right. All I need to do is shave off my whiskers and go bald! But we need to meet, so I can get the details right. Q.’
‘Who is Q?’
‘Not Quiller-Couch, for sure. And I can’t imagine the Queen writing cryptic notes. Besides, she signs herself ER. It may be James Bond’s Q. Marrakesh suggests foreign intrigue.’
‘Extraordinary. Why does Q want to go bald? What’s this all about?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest, darling. I don’t suppose we are meant to be reading this. Terrible manners.’
‘Felicity need never know,’ Lady Grylls said as she watched her nephew fold up the note and return it to the tiny drawer.
Their hostess reappeared, accompanied by the maid Goda, a languid-looking girl with pale straw-like hair and wide-set mournful eyes of lymphatic blue. She was pushing a trolley with a large coffee pot, three Meissen porcelain cups, a cake and a stand with sandwiches.
‘That will be all, Goda. Thank you very much.’
Lady Grylls exclaimed, ‘My dear – a feast! Romantic passion, overweening ambition and fabulous wealth all pale into insignificance beside such mouth-watering elevenses… That was a clean, nice-looking gel,’ she said after the maid had left the room.
‘Goda is Lithuanian, as Hugh correctly guessed. We try to move with the times. She came staggeringly cheap. I got her on the black market, not through an agency. I seem to have contacts in the most unlikely places. There is always some risk involved, but I like taking risks.’
‘You’re not afraid she may skedaddle with the spoons?’ Lady Grylls raised her cup of coffee to her lips.
‘No, not really. I don’t believe she will. She has turned out to be the best maid I’ve ever had. Pure gold.’
‘Entrap the alien at the proper time,’ murmured Payne. ‘That was old Kipling’s shockingly non-PC advice to our island race.’
‘The gel is very quiet,’ Lady Grylls observed. ‘She’s not one of those unfortunate semi-mutes, is she?’
‘No. She’s shy. She doesn’t speak English terribly well,’ Felicity said. ‘Her accent is marked but not particularly tiresome. I give her English lessons. One hour every evening.’
‘I suppose you take it out of her salary?’ Lady Grylls bit into an egg-and-cress sandwich. ‘No? Jolly generous of you, my dear. Well, I taught my butler the rules of vingt-et-un. I also did it for free.’
‘Does Goda ever keep you waiting?’ Payne asked.
‘No, never. Why? She is most punctual. Oh. Is that a joke?’
‘Yes. A somewhat feeble one, I fear.’ The two ladies continued to look puzzled. ‘Waiting for Goda.’
The conversation then turned to the Damascus chest. Felicity explained that it had been the property of her late brother-in-law, but Clarissa had asked Felicity to take it off her hands. ‘Clarissa believed the chest was haunted. She warned me there was a noise coming from inside. She described it as a crump, crump, crump kind of noise. She kept hearing it, she said. A ghostly kind of munching.’
‘Did you hear it?’
‘Oh yes. Crump, crump, crump. Exactly as she’d described it. It was particularly bad at night. Gerard said he couldn’t bear it. It really got on our nerves, so I took the chest to a shop in Kensington Gore. I explained about the noise.’
‘I bet they thought you were prey to aural illusions,’ Lady Grylls said.
‘Well, they heard it too, so they agreed to investigate and to reline the drawers, as they seemed to have been gnawed by some sort of creature. A couple of days later they called me and showed me a jar containing what looked like a cross between a worm and a slug. The thing was large, white, obese and obscene beyond belief!’
‘How perfectly ghastly.’ Lady Grylls took a sip of coffee.
‘They found it inside the chest wall, they said. Heaven knows how long it had been there, but it had managed to eat all the surrounding wood of the drawers. To cut a long story short, the creature was handed over to the Natural History Museum where it now stands, pickled for posterity, while the chest was repaired and returned to me. It is perfectly all right now. No more monsters.’
‘It’s definitely got a presence about it,’ Lady Grylls said.
‘I’ve had the chest back for six months now and it’s as quiet as the grave,’ Felicity said.