The Murders of Richard III - Elizabeth Peters [78]
“I’m fine and I intend to stay that way. You haven’t come to let me out, have you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I wouldn’t come. Anyone who enters this room for any reason whatsoever is going to get crowned with a poker.”
“Are you planning to remain there indefinitely?” Thomas inquired.
“Only until time for the meeting. All hell will have broken loose by then, but I’ll have my alibi. How is Jacqueline?”
“Fine,” said Thomas stupidly.
Another chuckle. “She’ll be feeling humble and depressed when my predictions are confirmed. But I’ll console the little darling.”
Thomas’s eyes opened wide. It seemed incredible to him that anyone could think of Jacqueline in those terms.
“Oh, come along,” Frank said impatiently. “We haven’t time for games. Percy is the lad I’m concerned about.”
Percy’s incarceration was audible some distance away. Apparently he was kicking the door. The rhythmic thuds reverberated along the hall, and for some reason the noise maddened Thomas. He pounded on the door with his fist.
The thuds stopped. Percy’s voice inquired ominously, “Are you going to let me out?”
“No.”
The kicking began again.
“Listen to him,” Frank said angrily. “The way things are going he could ram the door down with a battering ram and no one would notice. There are a dozen ways of getting out of that room. The windows lock only from the inside….”
He had to raise his voice to be heard over the kicking. Thomas shouted back, “Luckily he’s too angry to be rational. Let him wear himself out kicking.”
They went back down the hall with the thuds following like drumbeats. Thomas resisted the temptation to comment on restless natives.
The restlessness extended into the drawing room. Only Weldon and Kent, the two diehards, were still arguing. The others prowled around the room. Jacqueline was pacing up and down. The rector chugged along beside her, he had to take two steps to each of Jacqueline’s strides. The purse, a shoulder bag with a long strap, swung back and forth in rhythm.
Thomas caught her eye and nodded, but her face did not lose its worried frown. She slowed her step as Thomas joined them.
“Splendid exercise,” said Ellis guilelessly. “Since we cannot be out of doors.”
Jacqueline continued to walk. She was humming drearily to herself; again, Thomas wondered why her sub-vocal performances sounded so lugubrious. It took him some time to identify the music as Gilbert and Sullivan.
“…I’d an appetite fresh and hearty,” crooned Jacqueline.
She caught the rector’s astonished eye and lowered her voice, but the look she gave Thomas was not at all abashed.
“Very appropriate,” Thomas said approvingly.
“How nice to find that others appreciate Gilbert and Sullivan,” said the rector. “They are rather underrated these days, I believe. Personally I find Mr. Gilbert’s lyrics extremely witty. Do you know that charming song,” and at the top of his voice he caroled,
“Spurn not the nobly born
With love affected,
Nor treat with virtuous scorn
The well connected….”
Thomas choked. Jacqueline had met her match. Characteristically, she was delighted to find a kindred spirit. She joined in.
“High rank involves no shame,
We boast an equal claim
With him of humble name
To be respected.”
The rector was equally delighted. The singing turned into a contest, with each of them dragging out the most obscure songs they could think of in order to stump the other. Jacqueline caught the rector on the second verse of the sentry’s song from Iolanthe; Thomas, who was accustomed to the trivia with which her brain was clogged, was not surprised that she should know all the words to a bass solo. Then it was the rector’s point, with an obscure ditty from The Sorcerer, which Jacqueline did not recognize.
As a divertissement the exercise was highly successful. Even Weldon stopped arguing about Richard, and listened with a smile. Thomas was torn between amusement and embarrassment; W. S. Gilbert had a shaft for everyone. He had carefully avoided looking at Weldon when the rector chirped out his plea for the romantic rights of the