Basil Copper: The Great White Space

He had a small clipped Van Dyke beard, very clear blue eyes that seemed to look right through a man and his neat blue bow tie above his well-tailored grey suit re-echoed the eyes. Despite his height and bulk his figure was trim and athletic and I sensed that here was a man not only a scholar and deeply read in strange, out of the way subjects, but one well able to take care of himself in a tight corner. I felt somehow in my heart, even before he sat down, depositing a brown shooting-hat with game-birds feathers in the brim on the settle beside him, that I had already committed myself to his affairs, before he even broached the subject of our meeting.

We were on our third cup of tea and the last of the toasted scones before we engaged in general conversation. He had been sizing me up between the comings and goings of the waitress and I sensed also that I had met with his approval. He was an American, of course, but one of that type who seemed to belong to no special country or time; he lived nomadically, wherever he happened to have affairs that interested him. He was immensely wealthy and thus able to indulge his tastes and as he was unmarried and likely to remain so through choice, it did not matter where he made his abode.

As he spoke now his accent seemed to re-echo faintly the European rather than the American and then I remembered that despite his name — it had been Anglicised in his father’s time — he came of old Central European stock. He touched at first on the general technicalities of the work I had been doing and I was astonished how much he knew about me and my career. He had even seen TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, the motion picture I had shot on the Luttrell Earth-Bores, and I gathered he had a print run for him at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York. It is pleasant to be praised, particularly by so eminent a man in his field as Clark Ashton Scarsdale. Not that he was effusive; but his few clipped words of approbation amounted to the same thing in a person of his reticent character.

I said little; it was not my place to enlarge on my talents, small as they were, but I must confess his words warmed me; I wanted to draw him out as I felt sure there must be more to come.

He waited until we had finished the last of the pastries — I am particularly fond of those which have liberal quantities of Cornish clotted cream in their make-up — and then gave me a tight smile, which showed strong, even yellow teeth beneath the light beard.

‘You must have thought this an incongruous place for a meeting,’ he ventured at length.

‘On the contrary, this is just what I should have done in your place,’ I said.

‘Oh.’ He folded his arms on the edge of the table and looked at me keenly.

‘Neutral ground,’ I said.‘If I hadn’t fitted your requirements, you would merely have concluded the interview in a non-committal way and I should never have heard from you again.’

I fancied I saw a faint flush start out on his cheeks but he merely observed coolly, ‘You have an admirable grasp of the situation, Mr Plowright. You are the man for me. I had already come to that conclusion and I propose to offer you the adventure of a lifetime.’

My face must have looked as startled as the thoughts that were already chasing themselves through my mind, for he burst out laughing, causing a serious dent in the facade of the two old ladies at the next table. From the look on their faces they suspected an anarchist plot at the least.

‘We cannot talk here,’ said the Professor, laying his hand on my arm. ‘I have some business at the Museum and then I will be in a position to put a proposition before you. One I think which will present some points of interest to a man of your character. I would suggest another meeting this day week at my home in Surrey, if the time and place suit you. You could then meet some of my colleagues and be able to make up your mind.’

He scribbled some details on a card he took from an inside pocket; he slid it over and I glanced at the address. I had already made up my mind to go but put on a show of hesitation, though I don’t really think it deceived him for a moment.

‘An expedition,’ he said hesitantly, a half-smile at the corner of his mouth. ‘You will come?’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said at length.

He drew his breath in with a long gasp as though my going was important to him.

His hand crushed mine in a gesture of farewell and then he was gone, his enormous form stooping to dodge the irregularities in the beamed ceiling of the tea-shop.

I went home to sort out some of my photographic equipment and then sat up late smoking and pondering the nature of the Professor’s next venture. It was nearly two a.m. before I gave it up and sought my bed. I would not have slept very soundly had I known exactly what the next few months were to bring.

It was a wet, miserable afternoon, with a misty rain drifting across the countryside when I drove down to Surrey the following week. I had taken lunch at Guildford and it still wanted a few minutes of two when I arrived at the Professor’s residence. The Pines had not been imaginatively named but as I drove up a gravel drive between those trees, the white facade of a large Georgian house began to form itself in the drizzle beyond my windscreen. I had no intention of staying the night and I hoped, due to the weather conditions, that our conference would not take long. With the week’s interim, the impact made by the Professor’s personality had faded and I had partly forgotten the excitement generated by our conversation.

However, it rapidly revived when Scarsdale himself came out on to the great tiled porch to greet me; he dismissed the manservant who had come to open the door of my car, gave my hand a bone-shaking clasp and quelled the savage-looking dog that barked round my heels, all, it seemed, in one smooth movement.

‘I hope you’ve come with an open mind,’ he said. ‘People I invite to become my collaborators always begin by raising so many sceptical objections. It does waste so much time, which is why I’ve been able to mount only two major enquiries in the past ten years.’

‘You’ll find me a fairly amiable subject,’ I said placatingly. ‘I find it best merely to take the films or photographs and leave the theorising to those best qualified.’

Scarsdale slammed the door of my car with a crash that set the dog barking again and his great eyes seemed to glow with enthusiasm.

‘Admirable,’ he said. ‘Admirable. I’m hardly ever wrong in my analysis of character. We’ll get along fine.’

He led the way over towards the front door, the dog slinking at his heels. I followed him into a large tiled hallway, whose pastel-coloured walls were lined with sombre oil-paintings.

‘Miserable brute,’ said Scarsdale as the man shut the door behind us. ‘He goes with the house.’

His face creased with amusement as he looked at the expression on my face.

‘The dog, man, the dog,’ he exclaimed and added, sotto voce, ‘Not Collins.’

He flung open the door of a vast room containing thousands of multi-coloured books that marched down three sides. A generous fire blazed cheerfully on the hearth but most of the heat came from radiators set against alcoves in the walls.

‘You’ve eaten, I expect,’ said Scarsdale. ‘Well, I guess you’ll not say no to coffee and a brandy after your drive.’

I assented gratefully and sat on the arm of a leather chair before the fire while I absorbed the details of the room. One or two things about it struck me as decidedly curious for a library. There was a large buffet with silver chafing dishes set on it, against the long wall unoccupied by books. A bay window at one end commanded a fine view of misty countryside; a dining table was set in it. There were four places laid and the remains of a meal.