Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [49]
As I turned to go, my eye travelled up from a massive wooden chest big enough to act as coffin for half a dozen Long Tims to a third sunburst, this of curving Saracen sabres alternating with smaller knives. Ironic, I thought—and then I noticed the smaller blade that marked the centre of the radiating steel. I looked more closely, then glanced at Marsh and Alistair. Their faces were just a bit too expressionless, which instantly confirmed my suspicion: I had last seen that particular knife decorating the belt of Mahmoud Hazr.
I wondered if the children’s dressing-up costume box held the remainder of the costume.
The chapel was located in a quiet niche of the kitchen block. Perhaps if I were a Christian, I might have found the small, melancholy little church more compelling. Since I am not, it just seemed to me unnecessarily crowded, as if the builder had laboured to distract the worshipper from the chill solitude of the ornate memorials set into the walls and standing out in the floor. Certainly between the angels, the saints, and the flocks of pelicans inserting their ungainly beaks into everything, one would think the afterlife a busy time indeed. Prominently displayed was the effigy of a young boy, its alabaster purity gleaming with innocence, the naked feet beneath its stone drapes pathetic in their vulnerability. However, I had no opportunity to peruse it or any of the myriad statues, busts, plaques, or inscriptions at leisure; the cousins had other things on their minds.
We passed the butler’s pantry, its outer door standing open to reveal a comfortable chair before a fireplace, a locked safe door the height of a man, and a desk with neatly folded newspapers on one corner and a telephone in its precise centre. The long row of old-fashioned bells stretched along the wall outside Ogilby’s sanctum, and then a wide door whose much-bashed sides testified to long years of fast-moving food trolleys.
I will admit that I dragged my feet somewhat as we approached the clatter and tumult of a kitchen coming around to luncheon. The sound of chopping and a billow of steam, a crash of pans and the crackle of an open fire, a strange, rhythmic clanking sound that called to mind a Mediaeval instrument of torture, and above it all a woman’s loud voice raised, in command and chastisement and question. I put my head cautiously around the door.
The tiny woman with her back to us could only have been the Justice housekeeper, Mrs Butter. There was a cook as well, a cowed-looking Frenchman in a white toque, who might normally have expected to reign supreme in this his rightful kingdom; but here the woman ruled. One of the under-cooks saw us and straightened abruptly. Mrs Butter whirled about to see what had so distracted her assistant, a terrible fury gathering in her pink face until she saw who the intruders were. Pleasure flashed briefly across her face before the scowl descended again, but although she struggled to maintain her disapproval of any invasion of her realm, it was a losing battle. Marsh and Alistair stood meekly studying their toes, two schoolboys acknowledging their wrongdoing without a word being said; the sight was so ridiculous, after a moment her mouth twitched, and the rigid, apprehensive workers who filled the kitchen relaxed as one and returned to their sauces, their roasting spit, and their scullery duties.
Mrs Butter folded her arms. “I suppose you’ve come down to tell me nobody served you breakfast and you’d like some bread and dripping, please Mrs Butter.”
“No, mum,” said Lord Marsh the schoolboy. “My cousin wanted to pay his respects.”
She eyed Alistair, a foot taller than she and a generation younger. “Good day to you, young man. By the looks of you, you’ve been feeding better now that you’ve left those foreign parts.”
Alistair stepped forward and kissed her firmly on the cheek, which astonished her