Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [22]
‘I took the liberty of informing your aunt of your arrival this afternoon, sir,’ said Baker blandly. ‘And they’ll be having their dinner up at the Manor now. It’s only a twenty-minute walk, sir. Perhaps we’ve got time for a coffee before we go? It’ll help to keep out the cold at any rate.’
‘Baker,’ I said, ‘you are wasted here.’ And as I sank back in my chair he opened a drawer in the desk and produced two mugs and a bottle of whisky. He rose to his feet and walked towards a stove in one corner, glancing at me to check my reaction. He obviously was not sure whether he had read me correctly or not. I was getting to quite like him, so I provided a helping hand.
‘I was right,’ I said. ‘You are wasted here.’
We sat drinking coffee liberally laced with Baker’s whisky (a gift, he informed me, from a local widow who had designs upon him) and chatted about the village and its inhabitants. Behind his reserve I found Baker to be a perceptive and likeable man, and I could see why he was so highly regarded in the village. I was just about to quiz him further on the Manor when the telephone rang.
‘Three Sisters police station,’ said Baker gingerly, and I guessed the apparatus was a recent addition, ‘Sir George! We were… Yes, sir… in fact… Professor Harries? Yes, sir… keep calm, please, sir, I’ll take the particulars as soon as I arrive… About a quarter of an hour, sir… Right, sir, goodbye.’
‘Sir George Wallace?’ I asked
‘Sir George Wallace,’ confirmed Baker. ‘There’s been a death up at the Manor.’
‘We’d better get up there.’ I led the way through the gap in the bench and out into the cold night air. There I waited for Baker to tell me which way to turn.
* * *
THE ACCOUNT OF JOHN HOPKINSON (4)
I closed the French windows softly behind me as I came back into the drawing room. There was someone just the other side – the room side of the curtains from me. More than one person in fact, for I could hear the immediate hum of conversation above the general social noises from further into the room. I suppose I could have just stepped back through the curtains and allowed whoever it was to draw their own conclusions if they noticed me. But instead I froze between window and curtain, listening. Well, more than listening actually. I was straining to hear as much as I could. The voice I could make out more of was Miss Seymour’s, and it was raised just higher in pitch than her companion’s in anger, helping to carry some of her words to me.
‘A choice?’ Amazement mixed with anger. ‘They didn’t expect you to come along and –’ She was interrupted, but I could not tell by whom any more than I could hear what was said to her.
‘No!’ Her voice was even closer now – either she was speaking much louder or, as the continued background buzz seemed to confirm, she had moved even closer to the curtain. I shrank back slightly, pressing against the panes of glass, feeling guilty and intrigued.
‘Of your opportunism,’ she continued, evidently contradicting her interlocutor. ‘They live their own lives, or so they thought.’
I heard the answer this time, though it was still not clear. What was now clear was with whom she was talking, although it was hardly the conversation one would expect to overhear between a couple engaged to be married. In contrast to Miss Seymour, Harries seemed almost dismissive.
‘If I thought you’d be so upset, I’d have –’
She interrupted him this time. ‘You’d have done nothing, Richard. I know you. It’s not just because of this that I have decided not to marry you.’
So the young lady had as much sense as I had unconsciously credited her with after all.
‘You know,’ she continued, brushing aside Harries’s muffled protest – for it seemed that this was as much news to him as it was to me – ‘the more I come to understand you, Richard, the less I like you.’
Harries’s reply was lost in an ironic guffaw of laughter from the other side of the room. I recognised George’s gruff good humour. As his merriment subsided, I caught Susan Seymour’s words: ‘I’m not going to discuss it here,’ she was saying. ‘Or now.’