Ngaio Marsh: Hand in Glove

“Joy-riding as usual, I suppose, Mr. Bantling,” said the man at the gates.

Nicola gave up her ticket and they passed into the lane. Birds were fussing in the hedgerows, and the air ran freshly. A dilapidated car waited outside, with a mild-looking driver standing beside it.

“Hullo,” the young man said. “There’s the Bloodbath. It must be for you.”

“Do you think so? And why ‘Bloodbath’?”

“Well, they won’t have sent it for me. Good morning, Mr. Copper.”

“Good morning, sir. Would it be Miss Maitland-Mayne?” asked the driver, touching his cap.

Nicola said it would, and he opened the door.

“You’ll take a lift too, sir, I daresay. Mr. Cartell asked me to look out for you.”

“What!” the young man exclaimed, staring at Nicola. “Are you , too, bound for Ye Olde Bachelor’s Lay-by?”

“I’m going to Mr. Pyke Period’s house. Could there be some mistake?”

“Not a bit of it. In we get.”

“Well, if you say so,” Nicola said and they got into the back of the car. It was started up with a good deal of commotion and they set off down the lane. “What did you mean by ‘Bloodbath’?” Nicola repeated.

“You’ll see. I’m going,” the young man shouted, “to visit my stepfather, who is called Mr. Harold Cartell. He shares Mr. Pyke Period’s house.”

“I’m going to type for Mr. Pyke Period.”

“You cast a ray of hope over an otherwise unpropitious venture. Hold very nice and tight, please,” said the young man, imitating a bus conductor. They swung out of the lane, brought up short under the bonnet of a gigantic truck loaded with a crane and drainpipes, and lost their engine. The truck driver blasted his horn. His mate leaned out of the cab. “You got the death-wish, Jack?” he asked the driver.

The driver looked straight ahead of him and restarted his engine. Nicola saw that they had turned into the main street of a village and were headed for the Green.

“Trembling in every limb, are you?” the young man asked her. “Never mind; now you see what I meant by ‘Bloodbath.’ ” He leant towards her. “There is another rather grand taxi in the village,” he confided, “but Pyke Period likes to stick to Mr. Copper, because he’s come down in the world.”

He raised his voice. “That was a damn’ close-run thing, Mr. Copper,” he shouted.

“Think they own the place, those chaps,” the driver rejoined. “Putting the sewer up the side lane by Mr. Period’s house, and what for? Nobody wants it.”

He turned left at the Green, pulled in at a short drive and stopped in front of a smallish Georgian house.

“Here we are,” said the young man.

He got out, extricated Nicola’s typewriter and his own umbrella, and felt in his pocket. Although largish and exceptionally tall, he was expeditious and quick in all his movements.

“Nothing to pay, Mr. Bantling,” said the driver. “Mr. Period gave the order.”

“Oh, well…One for the road, anyway.”

“Very kind of you, but no need, I’m sure. All right, Miss Maitland-Mayne?”

“Quite, thank you,” said Nicola, who had alighted. The car lurched off uproariously. Looking to her right, Nicola could see the crane and the top of its truck over a quickset hedge. She heard the sound of male voices.

The front door had opened and a small dark man in an alpaca coat appeared.

“Good morning, Alfred,” her companion said. “As you see, I’ve brought Miss Maitland-Mayne with me.”

“The gentlemen,” Alfred said, “are expecting you both, sir.”

Pixie shot out of the house in a paroxysm of barking.

“Quiet,” said Alfred, menacing her.

She whined, crouched and then precipitated herself upon Nicola. She stood on her hind legs, slavering and grimacing, and scraped at Nicola with her forepaws.

“Here, you!” said the young man indignantly. “Paws off!”

He cuffed Pixie away and she made loud ambiguous noises.

“I’m sure I’m very sorry, Miss,” said Alfred. “It’s said to be only its fun. This way, if you please, Miss.”

Nicola found herself in a modest but elegantly proportioned hall. It looked like an advertisement from a glossy magazine: Small Georgian residence of character — and, apart from being Georgian, had no other character to speak of.

Alfred opened a door on the right. “In the library, if you please, Miss,” he said. “Mr. Period will be down immediately.”

Nicola walked in. The young man followed and put her typewriter on a table by a window.

“I can’t help wondering,” he said, “what you’re going to do for P.P. After all, he’d never type his letters of condolence, would he?”

“What can you mean?”

“You’ll see. Well, I suppose I’d better launch myself on my ill-fated mission. You might wish me luck.”

Something in his voice caught her attention. She looked up at him. His mouth was screwed dubiously sideways.

“It never does,” he said, “to set one’s heart on something, does it? Furiously, I mean.”

“Good heavens, what a thing to say! Of course, one must. Continuously… Expectation,” said Nicola grandly, “is the springboard of achievement.”

“Rather a phony slogan, I’m afraid.”

“I thought it neat.”

“I should like to confide in you. What a pity we won’t meet over your nice curry. I’m lunching with my mama, who lives in the offing with her third husband.”

“How do you know it’s going to be curry?”

“It often is.”

“Well,” Nicola said, “I wish you luck.”

“Thank you very much.” He smiled at her. “Good typing!”

“Good hunting! If you are hunting.”

He laid his finger against his nose, pulled a mysterious grimace and left her.

Nicola opened up her typewriter and a box of quarto paper and surveyed the library.

It looked out on the drive and the rose garden and it was like the hall in that it had distinction without personality.

Over the fireplace hung a dismal little water colour. Elsewhere on the walls were two sporting prints, a painting of a bewhiskered ensign in the Brigade of Guards pointing his sword at some lightning, and a faded photograph of several Edwardian minor royalties grouped in baleful conviviality about a picnic luncheon. In the darkest corner was a framed genealogical tree, sprouting labels, arms and mantling. There were bookcases with uniform editions, novels, and a copy of Handley Cross. Standing apart from the others, a corps d’élite , were Debrett, Burke, Kelly’s and Who’s Who. The desk itself was rich with photographs, framed in silver. Each bore witness to the conservative technique of the studio and the well-bred restraint of the sitter.

Through the side window, Nicola looked across Mr. Period’s rose garden to a quickset hedge and an iron gate leading into a lane. Beyond this gate was a trench, with planks laid across it, a heap of earth and her old friend the truck — from which, with the aid of its crane, the workmen were unloading drainpipes.

Distantly and overhead, she heard male voices. Her acquaintance of the train (what had the driver called him?) and his stepfather, Nicola supposed.

She was thinking of him with amusement when the door opened and Mr. Pyke Period came in.

He was a tall, elderly man with a marked stoop, silver hair, large brown eyes and a small mouth. He was beautifully dressed, with exactly the correct suggestion of well-worn, scrupulously tended tweed.

He advanced upon Nicola with curved arm held rather high and bent at the wrist. The Foreign Office, or at the very least Commonwealth Relations, were invoked.

“This is really kind of you,” said Mr. Pyke Period, “and awfully lucky for me.”