Hobby of Murder (3 page)

‘No, but I used to know a girl called Waldron when I
was teaching,’ Eleanor replied, ‘though I don’t think her name was Anna. Perhaps a relation, though come to think of it, she’d have been a relation of Mr Waldron’s, wouldn’t she, not his wife’s? My mind’s wandering. Well, I’m glad they’re back home. That great house of theirs has seemed so empty-looking while they’ve been away, though I suppose the servants were there. Imagine having servants living in these days! They must be awfully rich.’

‘We’re going to a dinner-party there on Saturday evening,’ Mollie said. ‘And Andrew, of course you’re invited. And when they meet you here, Eleanor, they’ll probably invite you too, because when they give that kind of party they like to get as many people to it as possible. It’ll be a rather peculiar kind of party.’

‘Peculiar?’ Eleanor asked, while Andrew began to wonder if coming to Lower Milfrey had been a grave mistake.

‘You’ll probably find it very interesting,’ Ian said. ‘You see, Sam has made a kind of hobby of a certain eighteenth-century parson, Parson Woodforde, who wrote a voluminous diary, and one of his characteristics was that almost every day he wrote down what he had to eat, and Sam wants to lay on a dinner as close as possible to one the old boy described in his diary. He’ll cook it himself, he and Anna together. He’s a splendid cook.’

‘A hobby, you said?’ Andrew asked. ‘You say your friend’s made a hobby of this parson?’

‘Well, more or less,’ Ian said. ‘It’s something quite difficult to get him to talk of anything else.’

‘I’m beginning to feel I shall have to find a hobby for myself,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m beginning to feel it’s eccentric not to have one.’

But that brought them back to Eleanor Clancy’s hobby, photography. She was still gazing at Andrew as if she were
taking him in inch by inch, so that she could draw a diagram of him.

‘Of course you are going to let me photograph you, aren’t you?’ she said.

‘If you really want to …’ he began.

‘Oh, grand,’ she broke in, ‘and I’ve got some photographs to show you that I’m sure will interest you. You see, my great-grandfather was one of the early photographers and I’ve not only got some volumes of his work, but some of his negatives too. All glass, of course, quarter-plates, but they’re as good as new. He spent most of his life in Burma, where he was a forest officer, and most of his pictures are of local scenes. They’re history now, of course, and I’ve been thinking of making up a volume of them, with some commentary taken from some of his letters that I’ve got. Do you think that’s a good idea?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Andrew said, thinking that the old photographs might really be interesting, and that if he could keep her occupied with showing them to him he might escape the ordeal of being photographed himself.

‘I’m so glad you think so,’ she said, then turned to Ian. ‘And about Mr and Mrs Waldron, Ian, do you think they’d make good subjects? And would they let me arrange to photograph them, especially Mr Waldron, because on the whole I’m more successful with men than with women, I don’t know why. I can manage a woman if she’s got a very intelligent face and doesn’t want to smile too much, but the kind whom I’m told are perfectly beautiful and would make splendid subjects never seem to come out successfully.’

‘I expect Sam will leap at the chance of being photographed,’ Ian replied. ‘And he’s a handsome chap in his way, the aquiline type, very distinguished-looking. But I tell you whom you ought to try to get hold of while he’s staying here—Luke Singleton. His brother, Brian, told me
yesterday he’s coming to him on a visit in a day or two.’

‘Luke Singleton!’ Eleanor exclaimed in a tone of excitement. ‘And he’s Brian Singleton’s brother! I never knew that. Oh, I must get hold of him somehow. I’ll telephone Brian this evening. I must fix something up.’

‘Luke Singleton?’ Andrew said on a questioning note. ‘Is that the writer? There is a writer called Luke Singleton, isn’t there?’

‘Of course there is!’ Eleanor cried. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t read anything of his. Why, he’s simply marvellous. He’s managed to turn the thriller into literature. Real literature, I do assure you. And he’s enormously successful. Oh, he’s absolutely my favourite novelist. Haven’t you seen any of his films? Not that they do justice to the books, but that’s because they aren’t really written by him. They just state beforehand that they’re based on a book by him with a main character he’s created. I do think that’s a shame and I wonder he allows it.’

‘As long as it keeps the money rolling in, I don’t suppose it worries him,’ Ian said.

‘But he must be an enormously rich man already,’ Eleanor said. ‘You wouldn’t think he’d have to stoop to agreeing to it. The funny thing is, I used to know him a little before he became so successful. We both belonged to the same tennis club and I never dreamt he had a literary talent. But he was very good-looking in a rather fierce, intimidating sort of way. I wonder if he’ll remember me. We used to go out together occasionally, but of course it’s years ago. And to think he’s Brian Singleton’s brother. I wonder why Brian’s never mentioned him. Could it be jealousy, d’you think?’

‘I suppose it isn’t impossible,’ Ian said, ‘though it might be a kind of modesty. I think that’s more likely. Brian isn’t the kind who goes in for name-dropping.’

‘This Brian Singleton,’ Andrew said, ‘he’s a friend of yours, is he?’

‘Yes, and quite a near neighbour,’ Ian replied. ‘He lives in a bungalow a little way down the road. But he works in Rockford. He’s a biochemist with a post of some sort in the Rockford Agricultural Institute. You’ll meet him at our party tomorrow. You’ll probably find him interesting.’

‘Will Luke Singleton be coming too?’ Eleanor asked eagerly.

‘No, he won’t have come down to Lower Milfrey by tomorrow. But I’m sure he’ll be at the Parson Woodforde dinner. In fact, I think Brian told me he would be.’

‘Oh, I do hope the Waldrons invite me to it,’ Eleanor said. ‘If they don’t think of it themselves, perhaps you or Mollie could drop them a gentle hint that they should. Of course it’s very ill-bred of me to suggest it, but I should so love to meet Luke again, and perhaps get him to let me do a portrait of him. Which reminds me, Professor, we haven’t actually fixed the time you’re coming along to me. How about tomorrow morning, say about eleven o’clock?’

‘If you really think it’s worth your while,’ Andrew said reluctantly. He had not really been aware that he had committed himself so definitely.

‘Thank you, thank you! Now I must be going.’ She sprang up from her chair. ‘I hope you enjoy the chutney, Mollie, and I’ll bring you some of my raspberry jam.’

She strode from the room.

As Ian went after her to see her out, Mollie said, ‘That was very nice of you, Andrew, to agree to go; I know you’ll hate it, though some of those old photographs she’s got are really very interesting. The truth about her is, of course, that she’s really pretty lonely, so she makes a rather heavy-handed grab at anyone she meets. And the real reason why Brian hasn’t mentioned his famous brother to her is simply that he himself can’t stand her and doesn’t want her trying
to use him to renew the acquaintance—if there ever was an acquaintance. You can’t be absolutely sure with Eleanor that everything she tells you is true.’

‘Yet you seem to be good friends with her,’ Andrew said.

‘Well, when you live in a place like this you’ve got to put up with what you find,’ Mollie said. ‘Of course, Lower Milfrey isn’t a village any more, with a real life of its own. It’s a suburb of Rockford. Nearly everyone we know either lives in Rockford, or works there, like Brian. There’s a very nice doctor we know. Felicity Mace—you’ll meet her tomorrow evening—who lives here, but who belongs to a group practice in Rockford and only runs a surgery twice a week in the village. And we’ve another friend, Ernest Audley, who’s a solicitor in Rockford. And so on. The Waldrons, of course, really belong here, and I think he’d like to think of himself as the squire, but they bought the old manor house only about six years ago and they spend a good deal of their time travelling about. As I said, they’re just back from Scotland. All the same, I love it here. I feel it’s the first real home I’ve had. That flat in Holland Park always had a temporary sort of feeling about it, but I can almost persuade myself sometimes that I’ve lived here all my life.’

Ian had come back into the room and wanted more tea. Mollie refilled their three cups and Andrew asked whether the Waldrons’ dinner-party would involve dressing, because it had not occurred to him to bring a dinner-jacket.

‘No, though perhaps a wig and an embroidered waistcoat might have helped,’ Ian said. ‘Sam would love to achieve a true eighteenth-century atmosphere, though actually it’ll be quite informal—rather amusing, probably, and you can be sure the food will be excellent.

‘Now, would you like to see your room, Andrew?’ Mollie asked. ‘Come along. Ian will bring your suitcase.’

The room, as Mollie had said, was small, but pleasantly
simple, with pale grey walls, a divan bed under an Indian bedspread, a modern dressing-table and wardrobe, and another framed embroidery, similar to those in the sitting-room downstairs, hanging beside the sash window which overlooked the road and the common beyond it. A small bathroom opened out of the room.

Ian and Mollie left Andrew to settle in, telling him to come down when he felt like having some sherry, and went downstairs themselves. A few minutes later, going to one of the windows to take a look at the common and a reedy lake that he could see at the further side of it, Andrew saw Ian leave the house and set off across the common towards the lake. He was carrying a pair of binoculars. It meant, Andrew supposed, that he was going to have a last look before dusk at the birds that would be feeding and that now meant so much to him.

But what interested, and in a way curiously puzzled Andrew, was the embroidery on the bedroom wall.

Embroidery must have become Mollie’s hobby, he guessed, and plainly she was very skilled at it. The design was abstract, the colours mainly various soft shades of orange and cream. But where, he wondered, had the design come from? Was it her own, or if not, what was its origin? For a curious thing was that, as he had had with those like it in the sitting-room, Andrew had a feeling that he had seen it before. Had it been in the Holland Park flat? He could not remember it there, and he thought that if it or any of the others had hung on a wall there, he would certainly have noticed it. It was also a little strange that the longer he looked at it, the more the sense of familiarity faded. It seemed to have been only a matter of a first impression. By the time that he had looked at it thoughtfully for only a moment or two, he was sure that he had been mistaken.

He unpacked his suitcase, had a wash, then went back
to the window, leant his elbows on the sill and gazed out at the common. The dusk was deepening now and the lake in the distance was almost invisible. But he could see Eleanor Clancy’s cottage and thought with some irritation of what he had committed himself to doing next day. Mollie might have saved him from it, he thought. He had not taken a liking to Eleanor, and being photographed he thought a bore. However, he could hardly get out of it now.

He rather wished that Mollie did not insist with quite as much determination as she did that this home that she and Ian had made for themselves was so completely perfect. Her very insistence made him doubt its sincerity. If it was really so exactly what she wanted, would she have proclaimed it so vehemently? Would she not be taking it more as a matter of course, letting her obvious contentment there speak for itself?

But that feeling he had might be only because he himself would have let it speak for itself. There was no reason to assume that Mollie’s mind worked like his. All the same, he was haunted by a curious sense of disquiet which amounted almost to a wish that he had not come, as presently he went downstairs for his sherry.

It was a misfortune of Andrew’s that when his mind was not otherwise occupied, it tended to fill itself with scraps of verse or songs that he supposed he must once have admired, but which he had long outgrown. And unfortunately once one of these usually puerile fragments had taken possession of him, it would repeat itself until it was replaced by something equally inane. It gave him no pleasure and had sometimes made him wonder if it was a symptom of a mild form of insanity.

When he woke up next morning and was waiting for his breakfast to arrive, he found himself almost immediately repeating to himself:

The seed of it had of course been sown in his mind the evening before, when Ian had talked with enthusiasm of the birds that he had watched in the neighbourhood. He had also talked of a trip that he hoped to make in the winter with a few other members of the Rockford branch of the RSPB to Kenya, a place to which people went for really serious bird-watching, though there was a possibility that they might decide to go to the Gambia, as it would be cheaper. But the result of this was that Gilbert and Sullivan was almost sure to pursue Andrew for at least the next few hours, perhaps even the next few days. He remembered that long ago, when he was about twelve years old, he had been taken to the theatre, in itself a great adventure, had seen
The Mikado
and the song had charmed him. But now
he found it intensely irritating to be compelled to repeat it over and over again until his breakfast arrived.

Mollie brought it to him soon after eight o’clock. There was coffee, some orange juice, toast and marmalade and a small square of Cheshire cheese.

‘Oh, really, Mollie, you shouldn’t have bothered,’ Andrew said when he saw this. ‘I mean to grow out of the habit.’

‘But why should you?’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s a habit that’s very little trouble to other people. Did you sleep well?’

She was again in her black jeans and scarlet shirt with the look of having slept well herself.

‘Excellently,’ Andrew replied, and as she placed the tray on his knees, went on, ‘Mollie, there’s something I must ask you. I’m so struck by it. That embroidery there, did you design it?’