Let Sleeping Dogs Die (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 5

‘It takes time to prepare a portrait,’ she said. ‘There have to be a great many sittings.’

  ‘Even for a dog?’

  The Duchess, who had gone over to refill their glasses, drew herself up to her full height, which Bognor estimated at no more than five feet.

  ‘I am not referring to dogs, Mr Bognor,’ she said, grandly. ‘I am talking about myself.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Coriander is painting a portrait of me.’

  ‘I thought she only painted dogs.’

  ‘There is no need to be impertinent, young man.’

  Bognor blushed. ‘I wasn’t. I mean I honestly didn’t …’

  The Duchess returned to the sofa with their drinks.

  Bognor continued: ‘Is she with you today?’ He could think of no other way of explaining the Outspan box.

  The Duchess shook her head. ‘Not possible; I am expecting her, of course. We have a sitting arranged for tomorrow morning, and I expect her for dinner tonight.’ A thought appeared to come to her unexpectedly. ‘Perhaps you’d care to dine? Though I hardly think …’ She degenerated into a mutter but Bognor thought he heard her say something about there being no accounting for taste.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I have to get back to London.’

  Even as he said it he realized that he couldn’t return to London without establishing the contents of the orange box. He hesitated.

  ‘It’s late to be driving all that way,’ said the Duchess. ‘I really think you’d do better to stay. The Dorset Arms are bound to have a room.’

  ‘Well, perhaps …’

  The Duchess clapped her hands in an anachronistically girlish gesture.

  ‘That’s settled then. You’ll have to take pot luck, I’m afraid. I’m staffless now that even poor Louise has gone home to her mother, but I shall be able to rustle something up.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s late already. Shall we say half-past seven for eight? And there’s no need to dress. We’re very informal in the country.’

  Bognor accepted as gracefully as he could manage. The dogs were still worrying him, but he realized that duty called; and at least he didn’t have to spend the night in this derelict old house. On the way out he noticed that the damp in the hall was so bad that it stood out in beads of moisture like condensation on a champagne bottle.

  3

  THE DORSET ARMS WAS as much of a caricature as the rest of the village. A long, low, pink building with a hat of thatch, its air of implausibility was strengthened by the fact that it advertised American Express and Diners Club in its window. Outside on the forecourt a white Morgan sports car was parked and when Bognor signed the register he noticed that the name above his own was ‘Ms C. Cordingley’ of Bicester Mews, W.11. He had been right.

  The hotel had obviously been taken over by an enterprising and wealthy management in the recent past for Bognor’s room had its own bath and telephone—not the luxuries he normally associated with country pubs. He had half an hour before his appointment at the manor and he would have to tell Monica that he wasn’t coming home. Better not tell her he was sharing a hotel with Coriander Cordingley.

  ‘Oh, hell,’ she said, ‘I wanted to go out this evening. I felt like a curry.’

  ‘Well, go and have a curry.’

  ‘I might. I’ll get Hugo to take me.’ She sounded petulant. Hugo was a constant unsuccessful suitor, who despite five years of hot pursuit had continued to try. Both Bognor and Monica had decided long ago that it was her unattainability which made her so attractive to him. If she’d accepted one of his clumsy advances he would have been scared rigid.

  ‘Any messages?’

  ‘The office just rang. They said to hurry with the cake tin, whatever that means, and a man called Watherspoon rang from the Kennel Club. Apparently he’s got what you wanted.’

  ‘Has he just?’ Bognor hoped it would help him. ‘Did he leave a home number?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a Reigate one. Hang on …’ He scribbled the number down and thanked her. ‘Don’t mention it,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve got to stay the night,’ he said. ‘It’s not my idea of fun.’

  ‘Nor mine,’ she said, curtly. Then she relented. ‘You will be all right, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll try. Must go now. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘O.K.’

  He sat on the end of the bed and hoped she’d go out for the curry. It would make him feel less guilty, though why he should feel guilty he couldn’t think. The call to Reigate took a long time, but eventually the operator rang from downstairs and put him through. A woman’s voice answered and he asked to speak to the voice’s husband. Almost immediately Watherspoon came on.

  ‘Most extraordinary,’ he said. He sounded very excited. ‘I’ve found two in the last three weeks.’

  ‘Two what?’

  ‘Dandie Dinmonts. One at the Great Mid-Western Dog Show in Cairo, Illinois, and the other at the Club Canino Colombiano’s Show in Bogota. Best of Show in both cases. The Great Mid-Western was exactly two weeks ago and Bogota was five days before that.’

  Bognor whistled down the receiver.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Watherspoon. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I just whistled. I’m amazed.’

  ‘So was I. No one here has ever heard of a Dinmont doing anything outside Britain. They’re not popular abroad.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Bognor. ‘Two different dogs? There’d be plenty of time to get from Bogota to Cairo.’

  ‘Same dog. Well, same name. Rob Roy of Lost Horizons. The owner is Edgar J. Eagerly.’

  ‘Eagerly?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Watherspoon. ‘Have you come across him?’

  ‘I may have done,’ said Bognor, mind beginning to race. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘He’s very well known in the States. Highly eccentric. His father made a fortune out of soda fountains in the thirties and Edgar J. has this incredible place in the Appalachians called the Dog Centre. Have you heard of that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He does everything there. All sorts of research projects on dogs. Genetics, nutrition, psychology. You name it; but I’d never heard of him showing anywhere. Let alone Dandie Dinmonts. Most of his work is consultancy.’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘That’s not the only thing which is a bit funny. Both those shows had the same judge for Best of Show and for terrier class, which is what the Dinmont would have to have won to be nominated for Best of Show. And that was Percy Pocklington.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him too.’ Watherspoon had paused for effect. Obviously a great many people had heard of Percy Pocklington. ‘What’s he like?’

  Watherspoon lowered his voice. ‘I shouldn’t say this really and I wouldn’t if I were in the office but between you and me he’s an absolute scheister. He’s the man who started the Dog-lovers’ League. It gets little old ladies to leave it money, does no good for anyone, least of all dogs, and pays what Percy likes to call “an honorarium”. Some honorarium. I believe it’s almost ten thousand a year.’

  Bognor grunted and looked at his watch.

  ‘I must go now, Mr Watherspoon. You’ve been enormously helpful. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. I expect to be in touch again. Goodbye.’

  He would have to hurry. Only ten minutes before dinner at the Duchess’s. No time even for a quick shave. Instead he put a handkerchief in his breast pocket, dabbed on some Old Spice Burley and hurried downstairs. Outside he noticed that the white Morgan had vanished. That meant he would be the last to arrive. He drove up the village street at fifty, crashing the gears in his excitement, and wondering if he’d been over-lavish with the aftershave.

  The dusk was almost turning to darkness as he arrived at the house. Not only was Miss Cordingley there already, she was standing at the corner of what had once been a flowerbed, watching as the tiny Duchess of Dorset did some digging. By the time he’d parked they had finished the gardening and were walking towards him. The Duchess was at le
ast six inches shorter than Coriander and was having to take twice as many steps to keep up.

  Bognor went to meet them.

  ‘Good evening,’ said the Duchess, still wearing the hearthrug she’d worn earlier. The spade was over her shoulder. ‘Sometimes I attempt to revitalize the garden, but as you can see it’s too much for an old woman and it’s absolutely impossible to get help these days. You two have met, I believe.’

  He and Coriander shook hands. Again she held his hand gently and a little long. She also looked straight at him as she did. Bognor found this disconcerting and allowed his own eyes to drift downwards to the breastline. With a gratifying shock of pleasure he realized that the portraitist was wearing a diaphanous blouse with no bra underneath. He wondered if she’d known he was coming to dinner.

  ‘How amusing to find you here of all places,’ she said. ‘Have you made any progress?’

  ‘I think perhaps I have,’ he said. ‘It’s too early to be quite certain.’

  The Duchess shivered slightly. ‘Getting cold,’ she said, ‘and the midges are biting. Let’s see if there’s some of that gin left.’ Since she’d opened the bottle little more than an hour before, Bognor very much hoped there would be. There was.

  It was dark in the drawing room and the Duchess had only had one light on—a low wattage standard lamp in a corner which did little more than cast shadows. The dogs who had obviously not been allowed to share in the gardening, welcomed them noisily, and in the gloaming Bognor managed a satisfying little kick which caught one of them in the chest. It let out a yelp and both women looked at him suspiciously. Coriander gave the ghost of a smile. Despite the lack of light Bognor was able to see that where the orange box had been there was now nothing.

  After she’d dispensed three stiff gins the Duchess departed ‘to see what I can rustle up’, declining all offers of help in the kitchen.

  ‘I think I ought to warn you,’ said Coriander when she’d left, taking the dogs with her, ‘the food here is ghastly. I don’t believe Dora has any taste buds at all; and as you’ve probably gathered she doesn’t have much cash either.’

  ‘I thought she made a success of her dogs.’

  ‘As far as it’s possible, yes. But there isn’t a great deal to be made from Dandies. Virtually no export demand. In any case it must cost a fortune to keep this place up.’

  ‘But she doesn’t anyway.’

  Miss Cordingley had been standing by the windows, a slender silhouette in a long clinging skirt.

  ‘That’s unfair,’ she said. ‘You’re at the Dorset Arms, I hear?’

  ‘Yes. So are you.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ she said, suggesting all while saying nothing. She came and sat next to him on the sofa, where her scent eliminated all traces of dog smell as well as overpowering Bognor’s aftershave.

  ‘We could have a drink at the Dorset after dinner,’ he said, conscious that she had sat a great deal nearer to him than was absolutely necessary.

  ‘Mmmm,’ she said again. ‘It might wash away the taste.’

  She laughed a throaty, gurgly little giggle and Bognor pleasantly warmed with gin, began to relax. Perhaps the evening would be better than he’d feared. Then he suddenly felt a twinge of pain in his arm. It also seemed to have become very hot. ‘Is it hot in here?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she laughed again, but Bognor was no longer in the mood to be lulled by her sensuality. ‘It’s perishing. Dora hasn’t had any heat in this house for years.’

  ‘I feel hot,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s feel,’ she said, and put a hand on his forehead. He felt rotten.

  After holding her hand there for a few moments she said ‘Mmmm’ again. ‘You are hot,’ she said, ‘you feel ill.’

  ‘You’re right, I do feel ill,’ he said, then he remembered the early morning. He had never suffered reactions to his typhoid injections, but never before had he so far forgotten himself as to drink gin afterwards. ‘Hell,’ he said with a vehemence which made Coriander start.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Anti-typhoid jab,’ he said, ‘I had one this morning. It’s beginning to play up.’

  ‘Oh, poor man. It will. You’re not supposed to drink alcohol. Absolute unadulterated hell.’

  ‘So everyone tells me.’ He winced as another stab of pain lacerated his stomach. ‘I don’t somehow think,’ he went on, ‘that you are a bringer of good fortune. You always seem to turn up when there’s death and destruction around.’

  ‘You could say the same about you. You’re pretty much an angel of death yourself.’

  ‘It’s my job.’ The pain was getting worse every second.

  ‘Ah.’

  He decided to be more conciliatory. He had a firm impression that Miss Cordingley was a constant factor in this investigation.

  ‘I didn’t know you did human portraits,’ he said.

  ‘I prefer it,’ she said, perceptibly relaxing. ‘After all, I was at the Slade. Unfortunately it’s difficult to get established. You really need money to do it successfully. That’s why I do the dogs.’

  ‘How far have you got with Dora?’

  ‘I’ve got my sketches back at the hotel. I’ll show them to you after dinner if you like.’

  Half an hour earlier the invitation would have been irresistible. Now the pains were sweeping over him with growing regularity. It was like being raked with machine-gun fire and he could feel the sweat running down his nose. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief.

  As he did so the Duchess returned.

  ‘Grub up,’ she said. ‘Surprising what you can find when you have to. Some of the tins looked a bit rusty but it was all on the outside.’

  Coriander squeezed his thigh lightly. ‘Courage,’ she said softly, pronouncing it the French way with the last syllable accentuated as in camouflage. Bognor felt too ill to react.

  The Duchess, chattering brightly about the longevity of tinned foods, now conducted them down more corridors, heavy with oil paintings and bits of armour, cumbersome chests almost completely devoid of light. There were no carpets and their footsteps echoed eerily. He bet the doctor had used a rusty needle.

  After a long march stumbling after the dogs, they emerged into candlelight. This came from two heavy silver candlesticks, much tarnished with neglect, which stood at either end of an oak table designed to seat about sixty in comfort.

  ‘I’ve put us all up one end,’ said the Duchess. ‘When Dickie was alive and we were at the castle we used to sit at opposite ends of a table even bigger than this—just the two of us. I always said we ought to have walkie-talkie sets, but Dickie said the servants wouldn’t like it. So that was that. Half a mo’ and I’ll get the soup.’

  She bustled off. Bognor shivered, suddenly frozen with cold. It was as if the machine-gunners who had been strafing his stomach had substituted icicles for bullets.

  ‘You can’t really see it in the dark,’ said Coriander, ‘but there’s the most marvellous stained glass. This used to be the chapel.’

  Bognor looked blankly at the darkened windows and on up to the vaulted ceiling. ‘The Dorsets always stayed Catholic,’ continued Coriander. ‘They used to say Mass here all through Queen Elizabeth’s reign. And Cromwell. Jolly brave.’

  ‘Jolly,’ said Bognor. There was a bottle on the table, in a Georgian coaster. He picked it up to examine the label. ‘Good God,’ he said, ‘Lafite ’61.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ said the Duchess who’d come back with the soup. ‘I’m a champagne girl myself but I remember Dickie ordering that. It arrived after he died. Sad.’

  She brought the tray up to their end of the table and handed out the three bowls, which were elaborate two-handled blue and white china, chased with gold. Bognor had no idea what it was but it felt expensive. The soup spoons were silver with the Dorset dragon on the handle.

  ‘Mr Bognor,’ said the Duchess, ‘perhaps you’d taste the wine.’

  He thought for a moment, then decided that havin
g taken gin already Lafite could scarcely make him worse. He poured some into his crystal goblet and drank. Even with his artificially induced pains he could appreciate it.

  ‘Marvellous,’ he said, and poured it out. Then he tried the soup. It was tepid tinned tomato.

  ‘What is your christian name, Mr Bognor?’ the Duchess was asking.

  He told her.

  ‘Well then, Simon, now we’re all sitting comfortable, do please tell us exactly what it is that you suspect?’

  He told them as briefly as he could, saying nothing about Mrs Potts’ missing orange box or the astounding success of Dandie Dinmonts in Bogota and Cairo, Illinois.

  When he’d done, the Duchess clapped her hands. ‘How exciting,’ she said, ‘and Mr Sparks is dead which makes it even more mysterious. I suppose he was the man who was really on to it.’

  ‘Sparks dead?’ said Coriander sharply. ‘Nobody told me that. When did it happen? Why didn’t you tell me, Dora?’

  ‘I quite forgot,’ said the Duchess placidly. She collected the soup bowls and left them again.

  ‘Was he a friend of yours then?’ asked Bognor.

  ‘I thought he was a horrid little man,’ she said, ‘I knew him a bit. He certainly wasn’t a friend. He once made a pass at me in Warsaw when I was painting Mr Gomulka’s bloodhound. He was judging the local show. What did he die of?’

  ‘Rabies.’

  Miss Cordingley looked at him very hard.

  ‘Honestly?’ she asked after a bit.

  ‘Yes, honestly.’

  ‘Christ,’ she said.

  The next course was corned beef, processed peas and tinned boiled potatoes.

  ‘I thought of turning the beef into hash or fritters,’ said the Duchess, ‘but I don’t think I could. I used to do it in the war when I was in the ATS.’

  ‘It’s very nice as it is,’ said Coriander loyally.

  ‘Fray Bentos,’ said the Duchess. ‘Dickie bought a job lot when there was an atom bomb scare. I think it may have been something to do with the Berlin airlift.’

  Bognor didn’t enjoy it. They talked about the dog world and he tried to acquire general knowledge without appearing to pry into the particular. He did ask about Edgar J. Eagerly and Percy Pocklington but got no very useful information about either. He had a distinct impression that both women were being deliberately non-committal.