Peter Lovesey - Mad Hatter

‘Oh yes! Don’t move it any more, darling. Perfect!’ she said. ‘I can see Bridget as clear as you like, wretched girl. Ah! There is Jason with his feet in the water. What a powerful instrument, Mr. Moscrop!’ She handed it back to him.

‘It’s built for longer distances, actually. If there were a steam-boat in sight. . I’d better put it away, however. My hobby, you know. Optical instruments. My profession, in fact. I have a shop in Oxford Street.’

‘In London? How exciting! Now I know why you cannot bear to be away for more than three weeks at a time. Darling, you must meet my husband. Gregory would be fascinated with your hobby. He has two microscopes himself which I polish for him sometimes. You and he would have so much in common.’

Moscrop got to his feet, picking up his bag. ‘I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mrs. Prothero. It’s been a rare pleasure talking with you. One never knows what will happen on a beach, does one? It would be an honour to meet Dr. Prothero, and I’m sure he would make me most welcome, but I feel that this afternoon began on the beach with young Jason-and ought to end there. It was a small thing I did, Ma’am. Isn’t it best in the circumstances not to mention it to the doctor? A thing like that’s sure to discommode a man, somewhat. Might lead to the devil of a scene with your servant. I wouldn’t want that to spoil your holiday. Besides, he might be so worried about Jason’s safety that he stopped you from coming to the beach. Then, forgive me, I shouldn’t have the possibility of passing the time of day with you if I came for a walk along the seashore.’

She smiled. It had been a lengthy explanation. ‘Very well, my dear. You are too persuasive. I shall instruct Guy to say nothing. He likes Bridget, I suspect, and will cooperate. But I shall not forget your kindness.’

There was a disturbance on the surface of the water in Brill’s Gentlemen’s Swimming Bath-the First Class Bath- in East Street. A head bobbed above water-level, fairish hair flattened to it, revealing unmistakable signs of baldness at the crown: Albert Moscrop’s. He trod water for a few seconds, rearranging his moustache. Behind him two other swimmers performed stately breast-strokes across different diameters of the circular pool. It was sixty-five feet across, the largest of its kind in Europe. Visitors cognisant of the health-giving effects of manly exercises patronised Brill’s First Class Bath as devotedly in the season as the philharmonic concerts at the Pavilion.

Inhaling deeply to inflate his lungs, he inclined his head backwards and allowed body and legs to swing from the vertical to the horizontal so that two sets of white toes broke the surface ahead of him. First-rate water for floating: sea- water obtained, as the management were at pains to point out in a notice in the foyer (in view of recent disclosures in The Lancet ), from Cliftonville. He relaxed in this supine position, exercising his mind on the meaning of the Latin inscription around the walls; giving that up and looking at the gallery, empty today, but with seating for 400 spectators; finally putting his head right back in the water and enjoying the beauty of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s domed ceiling. All so congenial that he wished he could credit himself with the idea of coming here.

The proper cause of his visit was seated on the tiled perimeter of the pool with feet dangling in the water, testing its temperature and trying to appear casual about it-Gregory Prothero, M.D., in stripes worthy of a Hokey Pokey cart.

Moscrop’s conversation with Mrs. Prothero on the beach the previous afternoon had been a revelation. His first reaction had been one of shock, she was so unlike the personality he had assigned to her when he watched her through the binoculars. He had automatically classed her with the numerous sweet, shy and submissive young women catalogued in his memory from hours of observation of seaside promenades and beaches. Yet there she was, as exquisite as any of them, in a single breath invoking the Deity, castigating a domestic and addressing a total stranger in terms of intimate endearment. If his legs had not lost all mobility he would certainly have turned and fled. How could a vision of such elegance and refinement come to possess a turn of phrase like that?

The devil of it was that as the first shock receded he had found himself increasingly fascinated by the gravelly voice assaulting his sensibilities. The perfect consonants and immaculate vowel-sounds gently teased him into a state of acceptance. Before the conversation ended he was snatching up the familiarities like dropped coins. The character he had given her in his imagination was quite displaced and so, if he admitted it, were the characters of all the winsome subjects of his observations. If she was so different on acquaintance, why not they? There was nothing else for it but to renounce the achromatic lens for ever.

For all the strength of her invective she was disturbingly vulnerable. Jason’s adventure, by her own admission, had driven her to the brink of despair. Guy appeared to hold her in total contempt. As for her husband. . One did not want to jump to conclusions. Perhaps she was justified in accepting Prothero’s word that when he left her to spend the day alone it was because he was visiting former patients. Perhaps the red-headed young woman riding beside him in the King’s Road parade was known to her only in a medical capacity. Tea-rose complexion and flashing eyes notwithstanding, she might well be recuperating from some debility discernible only to a medical man. It was also conceivable that the lady harpist in the Aquarium Orchestra was a convalescent whose condition was a matter of professional concern to Dr. Prothero. In matters as delicate as this one was well-advised to preserve an open mind for as long as practicable. Nevertheless, the possibility existed that an innocent and trusting woman was being deceived. Without committing himself any further, Moscrop had resolved to watch Dr. Prothero very closely indeed.

For all that, it was a matter for self-congratulation that he was watching him from his present position. A lesser man might have baulked at the door of Brill’s, particularly when arriving there without a costume. It took considerable savoir-faire in such circumstances to arrange with the attendant for the hire of the requisite garment. He had followed Prothero there from the forecourt of the Albemarle Hotel, which he had now taken in as part of his morning constitutional-the major part, in fact, for he had passed three-quarters of an hour patrolling it, before the doctor’s appearance soon after eleven. He had then discreetly pursued his quarry along the front, in some anticipation of witnessing an assignation.

But at East Street Prothero had turned in to Brill’s. And although the sign Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s First and Second-Class Swimming Baths caused Moscrop a flutter of expectation, it was subdued at once by the discovery that there were separate entrances for the sexes. Mixed bathing was strictly confined to the more remote stretches of the beach. Brill’s Gentlemen’s section, he soon discovered, was not unlike a club, with its uniformed staff, lounges, reading- and billiards-rooms. There were also the two main pools, a vapour bath, a medical douche and a barber’s shop. If anything untoward happened here, it was not a clandestine meeting between a gentleman and a lady.

So he had paid his one shilling and sixpence, picked up his borrowed costume-‘every one freshly laundered after each hiring, sir,’ he was assured-and followed the doctor’s top hat through the steam to the First Class pool. There, with a touch of brilliance, he had let himself unnoticed into a cubicle on the side opposite, stripped as if his life depended on it, put on the costume and jumped into the water before the doctor unbolted his door. Even as he surfaced, a pair of still-stockinged feet were visible through the gap under Prothero’s door. Who would suspect as he entered a swimming bath that a bather already immersed had followed him there?