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Very.
Seeing her husband foundering on the rock of Holmes avocation, Lady Phillida
decided to give me a try.
And you, Miss Russell. Do you also keep bees?
I read theology. At Oxford.
Oh. Well. That s rather& interesting as well, she replied dubiously, her
mind, no doubt, filled with furious speculation concerning the private dinner
conversations that took place between the spectacularly mismatched married
couple which her brother had inflicted on her for the week-end.
Alistair gave a small choking sound and reached to retrieve a hastily dropped
table napkin. For the rest of the meal, we spoke about gardens.
CHAPTER SIX
Six people escaped with gratitude from the lunch table, scattering in all
directions to marshal thoughts, and energies, before the dinner hour would
bring us inexorably back together. Holmes and I went up to the rooms we had
been given, which were in the oldest, western wing of the house but which had
been made comfortable by efficient fires and an actual modern bath-room
between them. My own room was a festivity of blue and gold, with a froth of
silken drapes on its four posters, a counterpane of delicately embroidered
silk, and terrifyingly pale carpets on the floor. Mahmoud would have given it
me as a joke; of Marsh, or his sister, I could not be sure. Holmes was given
the King s room, all heavy red velvet and massive carved bed; the king had
been George I, whose visit had no doubt precipitated a large part of the grand
rebuilding and propelled the Hughenforts to the brink of penury.
Marsh s suite was down the corridor in the same wing, we had been informed by
Ogilby, although I thought it had pained him to admit that the new duke was
sleeping down here rather than taking up rooms in the grander central block. I
thought Marsh had probably kept rooms he d occupied as a schoolboy, and
decided to interpret that as an encouraging sign: Making a large space over to
his taste would have been a declaration of permanence.
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When we had boots on our feet and coats over our arms, we descended the noble
stairway into the Great Hall, beneath the dome where the waters of Justice
were poised to spill. A young house-maid broke off polishing a spotless
display cabinet to accompany us to the so-called library. It was empty, but we
followed the crack of billiards to the next room.
The library might be neutral ground for the family, but this was a male
enclave, heavily masculine with dim Victorian colours, a smattering of animal
heads, and the patina of ten thousand cigars over the velvet drapes and
leather sofas. And dark: Other than the lamp-lit table itself, the brightest
spots in the room were the areas of pink female flesh in the paintings
decorating the walls and the unusually luminous ceiling, where light seemed to
shift and play. Over the elephantine fringed table I glimpsed the waters of
Justice Pond, the low, wintry sunlight sparkling off its fountain-stirred
surface onto the plaster and beams above us.
How, I wondered, could I ever have mistaken Alistair for an Englishman?
Dressed in plus-fours and boots he might be, with a Norwich jacket belted
around his stocky frame and a soft cap on the sofa waiting to go onto his
head; nonetheless, everything about him shouted foreigner. His stance, his
scowl, the way his fingers tugged at his lower lip in the absence of
moustaches he looked like Feisal in fancy-dress.
His cousin, on the other hand, presented the very essence of English Lord. He
was bent over the green table, studying the lay of the balls, and ignored our
entrance as assiduously as he was ignoring his fidgeting companion. The
birch-and-ivory cue rocked three times over the prop of his fingers, then with
a sharp crack his ball flew over the green felt and into its pocket. Two more
followed, one of those a complicated ricochet shot, and then the table was
clear. He replaced the cue in its rack, picked up a smouldering cigar from its
rest on a small table and took a last draw before circling the burning end off
in the bowl, then picked up a squat glass with half an inch of amber liquid in
it and swallowed it down. He caught up a heavy tweed jacket tossed over the
back of a leather armchair and strode towards the French doors, giving a short
whistle between his teeth. A pair of retrievers scrambled out from under the
billiards table and shot out in front of us. Marsh held the door for us; as I
went past him, I smelt whisky.
He set a brisk pace through the formal terraces and around the western wing.
The perfect lawns stretched away in all directions, nestling around the Pond
and gardens, speckled with deer and broken by enormous oaks and beeches, set
here and there with buildings a Gothic-style boat-house on the lake, a
Palladian music house surrounded by trim gravel nearby, and a picturesque ruin
atop a distant hilltop. As we marched up the grassy slopes, I kept an eye on
Alistair, but he was not about to admit to weakness by being left behind. Past
the layered centuries of stonework we went, along the path that followed the
northern bank of the stream, and up the parkland until the house and lake had
disappeared and we were in the park proper.
There, Marsh s pace slowed. He glanced over his shoulder at the lagging
Alistair, and for the first time noticed his cousin s infirmity. However, he
did not then exclaim, as the Algernons had, What happened to you? Instead,
he watched Alistair approach, then stepped forward to tug the injured man s
shoulder down and squint at the plaster. One brief look, and he stood away.
Alistair met his eyes, and shrugged. An accident. In London.
Marsh s gaze lingered on the other man s; emotion moved not so much across
the duke s face as in the muscle beneath it, an emotion composed of apology
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and bewilderment, that he d spent hours in his cousin s company without taking
notice. I saw Marsh s hand come up to trace the scar on his face, a thing
Mahmoud had done when deeply troubled. Marsh was no more aware of his gesture
than Mahmoud had been, and I clasped to myself this sign of Mahmoud s presence
beneath the unknown exterior. Then Marsh turned away, and we were walking
again across the manicured landscape as if nothing had happened although this
time at a slow stroll.
You two have been busy? Marsh asked us.
Reasonably so, Holmes replied. We have just returned from Dartmoor, a
somewhat interesting case involving land fraud and family inheritance. Why do
you ask?
No reason. You look tired, is all.
Nonsense. You, on the other hand, look distinctly unwell.
I have put on nearly a stone and taught myself to sleep in a feather bed
again. How could I be unwell?
Mahmoud, we
Do not use that name here.
Holmes caught his arm and forced him to stand still. Deliberately, he said
again, Mahmoud, and followed it with an Arabic quotation: A man feels shame
at the mistreatment of his brother.
He might have been speaking Mandarin Chinese; Marsh reacted not at all to the
guttural syllables. He merely said, In Palestine, you may have known a man of
that name. You may even have considered yourself to be his brother. Here,
there is no such man.
Whatever the trouble, it would be best if you were to permit us to help.
Trouble? What trouble can I possibly have? I own more land than a man can
walk in a day, possess more works of timeless art than many museums, occupy a
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