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Authors: Eric Brown
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stepped back from the door and stared up at the windows: there was not a light to be seen. We moved around the house, crunching through the thick fall of snow. I paused once to peer in through a high window; the room was in darkness, but I could just make out the shadowy shapes of what appeared to be cameras mounted upon tripods, spindly arc-lights, and other apparatus I was unable to name.
We came to the rear of the Grange and beheld the rectangle of a lighted window, and beside it the postern door.
I knocked, and a second later an old woman in a pinafore pulled open the door and ushered us inside. We stepped into a hot kitchen fragrant with the aroma of cooking meat.
“Mr Jasper’s expecting you, sirs,” said the cook. “Pleased to see he warned you not to use the front door. He often forgets to tell visitors, not that we get that many.”
Vaughan smiled at me, and refrained from mentioning Carnegie’s lapse.
The cook was saying, “If you’ll step this way.”
We followed her into a darkened corridor, where we were instructed to leave our bags, and followed her along a lighted passage towards a large room within which, I saw, blazed a fire in a hearth the size of my lounge.
“Make yourselves comfortable, sirs, and I’ll just go and fetch Mr Jasper.”
This was evidently the library, for shelf upon shelf of leather-bound volumes spanned the walls. A desk in one corner overflowed with paperwork; it was much like his London office in its appearance of organised disarray.
Vaughan planted himself with his back to the log fire, while I inspected the books ranged along the west wall. Most of them appeared to be volumes of traveller’s tales dating from the last century, along with a good number of atlases and bound maps.
“Gentlemen! Vaughan, Langham... you don’t know how delighted I am that you could make it.”
I turned. Jasper Carnegie stood framed in the doorway, a short, rubicund figure in moleskin breeches and a faded scarlet waist-coat. He was balding, with a well-fed face, and he appeared far older than his thirty-six years; indeed, it was hard to believe that he and I were almost the same age.
“Do let me get you a drink. Whisky, brandy? Something to take the chill from your bones!”
We both chose brandy and Carnegie rubbed his hands and beamed, delighted. “Brandy it is, and I think I’ll join you.”
He poured three stiff measures from a bottle on a well-stocked table in the corner. As Carnegie passed the drinks and joined us before the hearth, I was struck by the resemblance between the editor’s physique and the glass he nursed in the palm of his hand.
I also noticed, as he raised the glass to his lips, that his hand trembled, ever so slightly.
He enquired as to how our respective writing projects were faring, and for a while we traded business talk. He informed us that the latest issue of the Scribe was with the printers, and launched into a diatribe aimed at that beleaguered profession.
I wanted nothing more than to ask him why he had summoned us here, but thought it diplomatic not to interrupt.
He recharged our glasses and I admired his library.
This provided a further ten minutes of conversation. I was about to ask what, exactly, Carnegie had meant by the ‘strange goings on’ that he wished us to investigate, when he said, “I’ll show you to your rooms, and after you’ve changed we’ll dine. How’s that sound?”
My room was on the ground floor, next door to the room in which I had seen the photographic equipment. A fire blazed in the grate, and a majestic four-poster stood with its sheets drawn back; on a chest of drawers before the window was a bowl and pitcher of steaming water.
I washed and changed, then joined the others in the library, where we were to dine.
The dinner, I was somewhat surprised to find, was superb: a haunch of venison, roast vegetables, and numerous bottles of the finest wine I had sampled in ages. We ate and drank for over two hours in the
We came to the rear of the Grange and beheld the rectangle of a lighted window, and beside it the postern door.
I knocked, and a second later an old woman in a pinafore pulled open the door and ushered us inside. We stepped into a hot kitchen fragrant with the aroma of cooking meat.
“Mr Jasper’s expecting you, sirs,” said the cook. “Pleased to see he warned you not to use the front door. He often forgets to tell visitors, not that we get that many.”
Vaughan smiled at me, and refrained from mentioning Carnegie’s lapse.
The cook was saying, “If you’ll step this way.”
We followed her into a darkened corridor, where we were instructed to leave our bags, and followed her along a lighted passage towards a large room within which, I saw, blazed a fire in a hearth the size of my lounge.
“Make yourselves comfortable, sirs, and I’ll just go and fetch Mr Jasper.”
This was evidently the library, for shelf upon shelf of leather-bound volumes spanned the walls. A desk in one corner overflowed with paperwork; it was much like his London office in its appearance of organised disarray.
Vaughan planted himself with his back to the log fire, while I inspected the books ranged along the west wall. Most of them appeared to be volumes of traveller’s tales dating from the last century, along with a good number of atlases and bound maps.
“Gentlemen! Vaughan, Langham... you don’t know how delighted I am that you could make it.”
I turned. Jasper Carnegie stood framed in the doorway, a short, rubicund figure in moleskin breeches and a faded scarlet waist-coat. He was balding, with a well-fed face, and he appeared far older than his thirty-six years; indeed, it was hard to believe that he and I were almost the same age.
“Do let me get you a drink. Whisky, brandy? Something to take the chill from your bones!”
We both chose brandy and Carnegie rubbed his hands and beamed, delighted. “Brandy it is, and I think I’ll join you.”
He poured three stiff measures from a bottle on a well-stocked table in the corner. As Carnegie passed the drinks and joined us before the hearth, I was struck by the resemblance between the editor’s physique and the glass he nursed in the palm of his hand.
I also noticed, as he raised the glass to his lips, that his hand trembled, ever so slightly.
He enquired as to how our respective writing projects were faring, and for a while we traded business talk. He informed us that the latest issue of the Scribe was with the printers, and launched into a diatribe aimed at that beleaguered profession.
I wanted nothing more than to ask him why he had summoned us here, but thought it diplomatic not to interrupt.
He recharged our glasses and I admired his library.
This provided a further ten minutes of conversation. I was about to ask what, exactly, Carnegie had meant by the ‘strange goings on’ that he wished us to investigate, when he said, “I’ll show you to your rooms, and after you’ve changed we’ll dine. How’s that sound?”
My room was on the ground floor, next door to the room in which I had seen the photographic equipment. A fire blazed in the grate, and a majestic four-poster stood with its sheets drawn back; on a chest of drawers before the window was a bowl and pitcher of steaming water.
I washed and changed, then joined the others in the library, where we were to dine.
The dinner, I was somewhat surprised to find, was superb: a haunch of venison, roast vegetables, and numerous bottles of the finest wine I had sampled in ages. We ate and drank for over two hours in the
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