Closed Circle (3 page)

"Nor I you, Mr. Faraday."

"Oh, I rendered the elder Miss Charnwood some small service while she was in Quebec."

"What manner of service?"

He tapped the side of his nose and smiled more broadly. "You're enjoying the party?"

"Of course. And you?"

"Why, yes. I find it most.. . instructive."

"Mr. Horton?" Suddenly, Diana was standing next to us, smiling straight at me. She had broken free of her retinue, who were straggling the length of the balcony, uncertain at what pace it was seemly to follow.

"Er .. . yes." I shook her hand, noticing the sinuousness of her fingers. "Delighted to meet you."

"I recognized you from my aunt's description." At closer quarters, the remoteness in her bearing seemed to vanish, the warmth of her gaze to become irresistible. "And from your friend's." She glanced back at Max, whose grin was for my benefit: a mixture of the sheepish and the superior. "You know Mr. Faraday?"

"Only very slightly."

"Then you know him as well as anyone can." She glanced at him as she said it, but if the remark was intended to be provocative, it did not succeed. His only response was a faint twitch of the eyebrows. "I'm so grateful to you for coming to Aunt Vita's aid yesterday," she added, looking back at me.

"It was nothing, really. Do you share her preference for this route?"

"Yes. But not for the same reason." Growing suddenly solemn, she said, "Excuse me," and moved swiftly away into the cabin.

Seeing me frown at her abruptness, Faraday sidled closer and said: "An ill-chosen question, I'm afraid, Mr. Horton."

"It seemed harmless enough."

"Her mother died on the Lusitania. Didn't you know?"

"No," I snapped. "I did not. Obviously." Then, deciding to glean as much as I could, I added more moderately: "You seem remarkably well-informed about the family."

"Not really. Merely better informed than you."

Refusing to be riled, I smiled and asked as casually as I could contrive, "Was Miss Charnwood rescued from the Lusitanial Or was she not aboard?"

"The latter. Her mother had travelled alone to visit her family in Pittsburgh. She was a McGowan, you know." Diana's connection with the famous Pennsylvania steel dynasty made her an even more desirable catch. I sensed Faraday judging my reaction to this revelation and endeavoured to ensure there was none for him to judge. "Well," he said after a pause, "I really must circulate." And, with a condescending little bow, he was gone,

"What do you make of him?" asked Max, who had remained on the balcony and now stepped across to join me by the rail.

"Even more treacherous than you, I'd say."

He smirked. "No good blaming me for your poor tactics, old man."

"A word to the wise. Her mother went down on the Lusitania. And she was a McGowan."

"I know."

"You do?"

"Gossip columns. Remember?" His smirk began to verge on the intolerable. "You'll be glad to know I'm doing rather well."

"Really?"

"I think she may have her eye on me."

"If you say so."

"I do. Perhaps I'm the type she's always been wanting to meet." My expression must have made my incredulity obvious. His smirk evaporated. "You've always thought me a dull dog when it comes to the fairer sex, haven't you, Guy? Well, maybe you're about to discover that not all women want their men to look like hand-me-down Valentinos."

"Oh, for God's sake." I slapped the rail in irritation. "She is beautiful. I agree. Memorably so. Desirable from every point of view. But she's also very much the mistress of her own destiny. I don't think you or I have the slightest chance of winning her heart."

Max's gaze narrowed. "We'll have to see about that, won't we?" And, turning on his heel, he left me to my champagne and dented pride.

Max turned out to be a good judge of his own success. When the party fizzled out, he was near the centre of the favoured group that accompanied Diana and her aunt to dinner. So, to my horror, was Faraday, although his attentions, in so far as one could tell, seemed to be focused on Vita. Perhaps he knew his limitations even if Max did not know his.

I had certainly been given a salutary lesson in mine and consoled myself by buttering up the Atkinson-Whites, an innocent Home Counties couple eager for advice on what to do with a recent and substantial inheritance. This struck me as a problem which it would have been churlish of me not to assist them in solving and they seemed grateful to know that I would be in touch soon after we reached England.

As to Max, the first opportunity I had of gauging his progress in a more dispassionate light came the following morning, after a game of real tennis. He had won most of our matches over the years at the Tuxedo Club in New York, but the unfamiliarity of a floating court was not the reason why I recorded a rare victory on this occasion. The truth is that jealousy makes a fine coach.

Max took defeat in his stride, as, in the circumstances, he could afford to. "The high seas agree with your game, Guy," he remarked in the changing-room afterwards. "Or perhaps something disagrees with mine."

"Smugness, you mean?" I retorted. "I've certainly never seen you lose so many points with a smile."

"I've plenty to smile about, as it happens. A chase to beat any you made out there."

"It goes well, then?"

"Uncommonly well. She likes me. Call it my good fortune or her good taste. Either way He tossed a damp towel at me to silence my guffaw. "Either way, old man, why should you complain? You'll share whatever I earn from this venture."

"You think we will earn something?"

"It's too soon to say. But I'm .. . quietly confident."

Confident? Yes, he was. But that was not all. Nor was money what he was necessarily confident of obtaining. Reluctant though I was to believe it, Max was beginning to look and sound happier than he had in years, to look and sound, indeed, like a man falling in love. After our shower, we stopped for a drink in the trellis-and-wicker cafe adjoining the tennis court. There I had the chance to study him at leisure, staring dreamily through the smoke from his cigarette, failing to finish sentences, losing track of whatever we were discussing. The signs were clear and I did not ignore them.

But there was no reason to be alarmed. Infatuation might lend conviction to his performance. I knew him too well to believe it could ever rival the governing motive of our lives.

Besides, as Max had pointed out, I had no grounds for complaint. While he went off to meet Diana for lunch, I adjourned to the ship's library and looked up her father's entry in Who's Who.

CHARNWOOD, Fabian Melville, MA; JP, Surrey; Proprietor, Charnwood Investments; b 17 May 1870; o s of Andrew Charnwood in 1901, Maud (d 1915), d of Zachary McGowan, Pittsburgh, USA; one d. Educ: Christ's Hospital; Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. BA 1892; MA 1897. Entered 1893 his father's firm, Moss Charnwood Ltd, rifle and small arms manufacturers, London; Director, 1901; Chairman, 1906. Resigned to establish Charnwood Investments, 1907. Address: Amber Court, Dorking, Surrey. T: Bookham 258. Clubs: Ambassador, Gresham, St. James'.

It was, by the standards of the publication, a brief and un-informative biography. But I found this strangely reassuring, for reticence is often the surest symptom of wealth. And wealth was our target as well as our ambition. While Max aspired to the daughter, we could both aim at the father. Fabian Melville Charnwood was in our sights.

CHAPTER

TWO

The voyage proceeded smoothly and so, somewhat against my expectations, did Max's courtship of Diana Charnwood. They lunched and dined together, usually without even Vita for company, the oceanic phase of the trip having had its predicted effect on her constitution. They waltzed by night and promenaded by day. They displayed on every occasion that exclusive delight in each other which to the cynical observer is an unmistakable sign of the psychiatric disorder commonly called love.

Like any man of reasonable intelligence, I had long since realized that love amounts to no more than physical desire draped for decency's sake in some skimpy shreds of philosophy. I had convinced a good many women over the years that they loved me, but I had never for one second believed that I loved them. And the same went for Max. Or so, until now, I had supposed.

But, as day followed day and my only glimpses of Max were in moonstruck contemplation of the beauteous Diana, I was forced to revise my opinion. Thirty-four was late in life for such foolishness, worryingly so in view of the tendency for childhood ailments to be more serious when contracted by adults. Yet I was not worried. In the unlikely event of them marrying, Max would do well by me. The contract he had signed and our long association guaranteed that. In the far more likely event of Diana's father trying to buy him off, Max could be relied upon to see reason. As for Diana, I hoped this was no mere shipboard romance. All I

could do to sustain it was to let it flourish unhindered. Accordingly, I gave the pair a wide berth. And the little I saw of them suggested I was wise to do so.

Happily, I saw even less of Faraday, whom I imagined to be busy dancing attendance upon the prostrated Vita. Certainly he was not among the night birds whose company I kept. They were generally rich insomniacs who played poker even less well than they slept. By the time the last evening of the voyage approached, I was beginning to wish we were on a round-the-world cruise. But all good things must come to an end and I had no wish for my luck to be one of them. So, on balance, I was quite pleased to be nearly home even if England did not seem very homely, either in recollection or anticipation.

After letting Atkinson-White beat me at squash a far from simple task I took a lengthy bath, then dressed early for dinner and ascended to the principal lounge, a Ritzy cavern of marble and plaster, where I thought to consume a restful Manhattan in a bay-window armchair, gazing out at the limitless blue of sea and sky. But there was nothing restful about being surprised after only a few minutes by the soft-footed arrival of Mr. Faraday.

"May I join you, Mr. Horton?" The fellow's politeness was one of his keenest weapons. "Our paths don't seem to have crossed of late."

"It's a big ship," I countered.

"But not big enough to prevent certain ... social developments .. . becoming apparent in the course of a few days." He lowered himself effortlessly into the armchair next to mine. "Wouldn't you say?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"Diana Charnwood's latest conquest, for instance. You of all people must be aware of that."

"Must I?"

"Well, you and Mr. Wingate are old friends, aren't you? School-friends, I believe." He broke off as the steward brought him a drink. It looked disgustingly like creme de menthe. The shock of realizing he knew more about me than I knew about him fused horribly with the suspicion that he might have ordered his drink while spying on me from the far side of the lounge. Then shock and suspicion grew infinitely worse. "Winchester, wasn't it?" he enquired with a grin.

"Max and I were at Winchester together, yes. But '

"And in Macedonia during the war, with the King's Royal Rifle Corps?"

I paused and lit a cigarette to compose my thoughts. "Do you mind explaining how you come to know all this, Mr. Faraday?"

"I listen and observe." He sipped at his creme de menthe. "In this case, I listen to what Diana tells her aunt about the new man in her life. And I observe the ties he wears during their promenades on deck old school and regimental."

"How perspicacious of you." I was relieved to know he had to engage in some limited form of deduction. Nevertheless, a possibility I had not previously considered was now lodged in my thoughts: the possibility that Max's tongue might grow dangerously loose under Diana's influence. "You are Miss Vita's confidant, I take it?"

"She looks to me for occasional advice. Nothing more."

"On any particular subject?"

"Her niece's welfare is naturally close to her heart. And her brother is not here to consult. In truth, I merely act as a sounding-board for her own thoughts."

"And what are her thoughts about the budding romance?"

"You think it is budding?"

"I thought you did."

He chuckled. "Perhaps we can agree they seem to be attracted to each other. I confess myself somewhat surprised. As to Mr. Charnwood's reaction .. ."

"You're acquainted with him?"

"I've had certain business dealings with him. Sufficient to make me doubt that he would wholly approve of Diana associating with .. . such a man."

"Isn't she old enough not to need his approval?"

"Her age is neither here nor there. She has always abided by her father's wishes." He glanced away for a moment, then said: "So her aunt tells me."

"Then what is Miss Vita's problem? Why not simply await her brother's verdict?"

"Because Faraday broke off to swallow some more creme de menthe. "She might be able to influence him ... in Mr. Wingate's favour. If she knew more about Mr. Wingate, that is. Winchester and the Rifle Corps take us only so far. What of the last... twelve or thirteen years, for instance?"

"They featured nothing in the least discreditable to Max."

"But what did they feature?"

I smiled, as much at his effrontery as at his evidently low estimate of my intelligence. "I think I'd better leave Max to speak for himself, don't you?"

"You could speak for yourself, though. After all, you and he have long been business associates. What applies to you applies to him."

I leaned forward to stab out my cigarette and asked quietly, "What precisely is your interest in this matter, Mr. Faraday?"

"I'm simply trying to help."

"Help whom? Vita? Diana? Fabian Charnwood? Or yourself?"

For answer he merely grinned.

"Well, whoever it is, I don't think you're making a good job of it. Now, excuse me, will you?" I rose and hurried out, overwhelmed by a powerful need of the open air.

The cards did not favour me that night. So I told myself, anyway, although it was also true that Faraday's words lingered in my mind, sapping my powers of concentration. And a distracted man makes a poor poker player. There was nothing for it but to quit early.