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Authors: Michael Innes
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uncommonly well.’
‘I don’t doubt it, and I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting her. So you consulted Mr Chitfield and asked him whether he thought it would be a good idea if you turned up as a sheik or emir or person of that sort?’
‘Well, no, Mr Appleby. That wasn’t the way of it at all. Chitfield brought the idea forward, and was really quite pressing about it.’
‘I see. Do you happen to know whether he made similar specific suggestions to any other of his – um – colleagues and associates?’
‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure.’ Mr Pring was a little surprised by this question. ‘He’s often very fertile with his suggestions, Chitfield is. But in the business way, I mean. Throws out this and that, like he was Napoleon giving tips to his generals.’
‘He sounds most impressive. A dominating character, no doubt. Would you say that he was fond of his joke, Mr Pring?’
‘He can tell the right sort of story in the right place, Chitfield can. Never before the ladies, you know, and not even to a barmaid. It’s a touchstone, that, Mr Appleby, I think you’ll agree. Never a dirty word to the girl drawing the beer, and you can tell yourself you’re a perfect gentleman.’
‘It’s something we ought all to remember, Mr Pring. So Mr Chitfield likes a laugh in the right place. Would you say he was any sort of practical joker? It’s not quite the same thing.’
‘Definitely not.’ Mr Pring was again surprised. ‘He just wouldn’t give time to such a notion. Always plenty on his plate. A true man of affairs is Richard Chitfield.’
6
But were they, Appleby asked himself as he walked away, conceivably shady affairs? Tommy Pride had referred to Richard Chitfield as ‘just the ordinary City scum’, but that had been a matter of the routine and more or less harmless intolerance of a man contemptuous of all money-making other than that of earning an honest day’s pay. Nothing whatever could be founded on it. Mark Chitfield made a joke – also with a touch of routine to it – to the effect that one day the entire Chitfield family was bound to end up in jail. Of such a freakish pleasantry there was nothing to be made either. Cherry’s quarrel with her father might be so much petulant nonsense, blown up out of some passing irritation on his part. Chitfield’s telling his humble associate Pring to dress up as an Arab might hitch on to this in some obscure and trivial way. What really needed chewing over was the extraordinary circumstance of Pride’s having been asked (and with what looked like typical Secret Service hush-hush flummery) to place this overblown garden fête under surveillance – something he had in fact done in a singularly sparing way. But the fête was Chitfield’s creation. It was Chitfield who deserved a long straight look-over. Appleby decided he was hunting for the elusive host of the afternoon.
So he moved on to the theatre, and presently found that a good many people were doing the same thing. It occurred to him to glance a little more attentively than he had done so far at the programme which the elder Miss Chitfield had given him on his arrival. It seemed that the theatrical part of the entertainment was due to start in ten minutes – which probably meant that it would start in half an hour. It didn’t sound too promising in terms of powerful dramatic experience. Various local groups, societies and coteries, it seemed, had undertaken to present a series of scenes or sketches linked together on the grand theme of English History. There were to be some Ancient Britons hunting bears and other equally Ancient Britons putting up a tough fight against Julius Caesar and his legions. There was to be (what ought to interest Appleby) a scene of outlawry in Sherwood Forest, with appropriate speeches from As You Like It thrown in. Several troops of Boy Scouts were combining to enact the relief of Mafeking, in which the part of Colonel R S S Baden Powell was to be
‘I don’t doubt it, and I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting her. So you consulted Mr Chitfield and asked him whether he thought it would be a good idea if you turned up as a sheik or emir or person of that sort?’
‘Well, no, Mr Appleby. That wasn’t the way of it at all. Chitfield brought the idea forward, and was really quite pressing about it.’
‘I see. Do you happen to know whether he made similar specific suggestions to any other of his – um – colleagues and associates?’
‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure.’ Mr Pring was a little surprised by this question. ‘He’s often very fertile with his suggestions, Chitfield is. But in the business way, I mean. Throws out this and that, like he was Napoleon giving tips to his generals.’
‘He sounds most impressive. A dominating character, no doubt. Would you say that he was fond of his joke, Mr Pring?’
‘He can tell the right sort of story in the right place, Chitfield can. Never before the ladies, you know, and not even to a barmaid. It’s a touchstone, that, Mr Appleby, I think you’ll agree. Never a dirty word to the girl drawing the beer, and you can tell yourself you’re a perfect gentleman.’
‘It’s something we ought all to remember, Mr Pring. So Mr Chitfield likes a laugh in the right place. Would you say he was any sort of practical joker? It’s not quite the same thing.’
‘Definitely not.’ Mr Pring was again surprised. ‘He just wouldn’t give time to such a notion. Always plenty on his plate. A true man of affairs is Richard Chitfield.’
6
But were they, Appleby asked himself as he walked away, conceivably shady affairs? Tommy Pride had referred to Richard Chitfield as ‘just the ordinary City scum’, but that had been a matter of the routine and more or less harmless intolerance of a man contemptuous of all money-making other than that of earning an honest day’s pay. Nothing whatever could be founded on it. Mark Chitfield made a joke – also with a touch of routine to it – to the effect that one day the entire Chitfield family was bound to end up in jail. Of such a freakish pleasantry there was nothing to be made either. Cherry’s quarrel with her father might be so much petulant nonsense, blown up out of some passing irritation on his part. Chitfield’s telling his humble associate Pring to dress up as an Arab might hitch on to this in some obscure and trivial way. What really needed chewing over was the extraordinary circumstance of Pride’s having been asked (and with what looked like typical Secret Service hush-hush flummery) to place this overblown garden fête under surveillance – something he had in fact done in a singularly sparing way. But the fête was Chitfield’s creation. It was Chitfield who deserved a long straight look-over. Appleby decided he was hunting for the elusive host of the afternoon.
So he moved on to the theatre, and presently found that a good many people were doing the same thing. It occurred to him to glance a little more attentively than he had done so far at the programme which the elder Miss Chitfield had given him on his arrival. It seemed that the theatrical part of the entertainment was due to start in ten minutes – which probably meant that it would start in half an hour. It didn’t sound too promising in terms of powerful dramatic experience. Various local groups, societies and coteries, it seemed, had undertaken to present a series of scenes or sketches linked together on the grand theme of English History. There were to be some Ancient Britons hunting bears and other equally Ancient Britons putting up a tough fight against Julius Caesar and his legions. There was to be (what ought to interest Appleby) a scene of outlawry in Sherwood Forest, with appropriate speeches from As You Like It thrown in. Several troops of Boy Scouts were combining to enact the relief of Mafeking, in which the part of Colonel R S S Baden Powell was to be
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