“Sir Simon struck me as being very much all there,” said Emmy.
“Oh, I don’t mean they’re actually crazy,” Rosemary amended, hastily. “It’s just this fetish they’ve got about the family. It takes them in different ways. With Sir Simon, it’s the house. With Priscilla, it’s the family jewels. That’s what’s really the matter with her. I believe she went almost out of her mind after the robbery and she’s still distinctly odd. It’s better to keep off the subject if you can, but it’s not easy.”
“They were insured, weren’t they?” said Henry.
“Oh, yes, but it’s not jewellery as such that she cares about. Just The Jewels. I don’t believe she’s attempted to replace them. She’s convinced the originals will turn up sooner or later. Some hope... I suppose they’re all broken up and sold by now, aren’t they?”
“You never can tell,” said Henry. “Professional thieves are sometimes prepared to hide the stuff for years until the hue and cry dies down. What were the jewels worth, do you know?”
“Oh, thousands,” said Rosemary vaguely. “There were some famous pieces amongst them—the tiara in particular. They should have been kept in the bank, but Priscilla...ah, here we are.”
The station wagon turned right, and passed between a magnificent pair of wrought-iron gates flanked by stone lions. Ahead, a gravelled drive wound upwards between green fields and dripping trees.
“I’m sorry you’re seeing it on such a bad day,” said Rosemary. “The view of the house from here is rather spectacular.”
The car swung round a right-handed corner, and they saw Berry Hall—through a fine mist of rain, but still in undeniable glory. Slender, pale grey columns paced out a stately, motionless pavane across the terrace, from which a flight of shallow steps led down to a sweep of lawns. Above, a Palladian pediment reared in geometric perfection. For a great country house, Berry Hall was not large: but it had a perfectly proportioned quality of elegance and lightness that gave it the air of a filigree crown set on the head of the green hill.
“It’s beautiful,” murmured Emmy, reverently.
Sir Simon greeted them warmly, and insisted on taking them for an immediate tour of the house, with special emphasis on the newly restored portions. They saw the famous Adam Room, with its two magnificent fireplaces and delicately intricate ceiling: they admired the colonnade, the orangery and the mirrored ballroom. Sir Simon, delighted to find that Emmy shared his passion for neo-classical architecture, was an enthusiastic and enthralling guide.
The tour ended in the Blue Drawing Room—a large and exquisitely proportioned room whose long windows looked out over a vista of grass and trees to the open water of the North Sea. As they came in, a small, stout woman jumped up from one of the big armchairs by the fire, as disconcertingly as a jack-in-the-box. Her grey hair was grotesquely crimped into a mass of tight curls on her forehead, and an untidy snowdrift of very white powder gave a clownlike quality to her soft, plump face. She wore a shapeless brown tweed skirt, and a mauve jumper knitted out of a limp, silky thread. At her throat, a crumpled yellow silk scarf was held in place by a superb diamond brooch, shaped like a rose.
“My sister Priscilla,” said Sir Simon, without enthusiasm. “Mr. and Mrs. Tibbett. Mrs. Benson you know.”
“Oh, yes.” Priscilla’s stubby hands fluttered in greeting. “Dear Mrs. Benson. So kind of you to come. Nobody ever comes to see us these days, you know. Nobody. I keep telling Simon—”
“A glass of sherry, Mrs. Tibbett?” said Sir Simon loudly. Henry and Emmy expressed their willingness to take a drink.
“Of course,” Priscilla went on, mournfully, “I suppose we are very dull. Very dull indeed, for young people like you. In the old days, we used to have so many visitors. People used to come quite a long way, just to see my beautiful jewels. But since...since...”
“Prissy,” said Sir Simon sharply. Priscilla’s inane, tragic face seemed to be on the verge of breaking up into a clumsy pattern of weeping, but she pulled herself together, and said, “I’m sorry. I brood too much, that’s what it is. That’s what Simon tells me. One has a duty to be happy, don’t you think?” She added, inconsequentially, to Emmy, “A duty. One owes it to other people.”
Sir Simon, who had been busying himself with decanter and glasses, saved Emmy from the embarrassment of replying by handing round drinks. The sherry was sweet and not very good. Henry noticed that Sir Simon did not offer a glass to his sister. While the others drank, she sat, quiet and watchful, in her big armchair, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, and glancing from face to face as though trying to follow a conversation in a foreign language.
“You must take a good look at this view,” Sir Simon was saying. “Best in the house, to my way of thinking. Pity about the rain.”
He shepherded Emmy and Rosemary over to the window. Henry rose to follow them, but Priscilla stopped him. With a glance at her brother’s retreating back, she laid a hand on Henry’s arm, and said, with curious urgency, “It’s so kind of you to come here, Mr. Babbitt.”
“It’s a very great pleasure,” said Henry staunchly.
“Tide’s on the way out now.” Sir Simon’s voice was fruity and authoritative. “You can see the creek, and Steep Hill Sands, just down there.”
“Do you ever,” Priscilla asked, earnestly, “imagine things, Mr. Hackett?”
“Frequently,” said Henry, hoping that his desire to join the group at the window was not too obvious. “It’s one of my principal amusements.”
“Amusements?” Priscilla sounded bewildered. “Oh, I wouldn’t ever call it an amusement. It’s just that things happen and you know they’ve happened and then they haven’t.” She paused, and then added, “It’s a wonderful thing, imagination, isn’t it?”
“Fascinating,” Henry agreed. He could hear that Sir Simon had broached the subject of Pete Rawnsley, and it was agonizing not to be able to catch all that was said. Disjointed phrases drifted across the room. “Terrible tragedy...my greatest friend...if only I’d been here...”
“I see you’re admiring my brooch, Mr. Hibbert.” Priscilla simpered at Henry with a sort of monstrous coyness. Reluctantly, he wrenched his attention from Sir Simon’s conversation.
“All that remains of my lovely, lovely jewellery. The only piece. It was away being repaired that night. That terrible night. I lock it up in the safe every evening, you know.”
“Very wise of you.”
“...had to go into Ipswich to see my solicitor...there all morning...and then of course the fog...but Riddle tells me that Herbert...”
“I always lock my jewelry up,” said Priscilla, virtuously. “Always. Papa insisted upon it. And he was right. Dear Papa was always right. And so thoughtful.”
“I’m sure he was.”
“That’s why it’s so unfair, what people say.” There was a distinct tremble of tears in Priscilla’s voice. “So terribly unfair. But what can you do, if it’s imagination? Nobody knows the things I imagine. It’s so hard to talk to people. Of course, dear Simon was wonderfully helpful. He said everything was all right, and I wasn’t to worry. But it wasn’t all right, you see. He was just trying to comfort me. Now Mr. Rawnsley—”
The name caught Henry’s wandering attention. “Pete Rawnsley was a friend of yours, was he?” he asked with interest.
Priscilla gave him a reproachful look. “Oh, dear me, no,” she said. “Mr. Hamish Rawnsley. Such a charming young man. He comes here sometimes, and talks to me...that is, he used to, before...a really delightful young man. So
unlike many of the modern generation. Full of enterprise. Dear Papa always said a man should have enterprise.”