Silver Guilt (20 page)

I didn't argue. I was trying to phone Lord Elham to tell him to let us in, and nearly swallowed the mobile. Don't ask. And then the phone rang and I nearly swallowed it again.

‘Lina, is that you? There's some funny business going on here. You might want to bring that Morris chappie.'

‘I'm on my way. In fact, I'll be with you in two minutes.' If I lived that long. ‘You will be there to let us in, won't you?'

He was actually standing on his front step, but held a long polished baton in his hand, ready for use. That must be the swagger stick he'd mentioned. Apart from that he was wearing a dressing gown so filthy it wasn't possible to tell what colour it might have been. I made a mental note to pop in to M and S men's department next time I was near. Some new slippers wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

‘My burglar thingy on the door went off in the night,' he said, running across the gravel to me. He turned to Morris, whose presence he didn't question. ‘The door to the other side. Couldn't stop it. Tried the usual number – didn't make any difference.'

I caught Morris's eye – had we got round to telling him we'd changed the code? He pulled a face. Perhaps we hadn't.

Morris obviously thought it was better not to look guilty, so pulled himself up so tall and alert you'd have thought he was back in uniform. ‘So someone from the Hall side has been trying to access your wing.'

‘Exactly. Just what I said. And then your lot come round here at the crack of dawn, saying I'd been trying to get into the hall. Why should I want to do that?'

I could think of several million pounds' worth of reasons, but said nothing. I just hoped he wouldn't add anything that might make him sound a lot less innocent.

‘Quite,' I said quickly. ‘Now, it's blowing a gale and any moment now it's going to pee with rain, so you go in and get dressed. You might want to shower and shave too. Morris can have a look at your door. And I'll make us all some tea.'

‘I could kill him within two minutes of starting a conversation, but you don't even sound exasperated when you talk to him,' Morris remarked, as we stood at the open door to the main part of the hall. He closed it again and tapped in the code. Then he opened it again. ‘It likes the new number. But I bet it doesn't like the old one.'

It didn't.

‘I'm going to see what happens if I go through and try,' he said. ‘If I don't manage on either code, you will let me back in, won't you?'

I shut the door firmly on him and waited. Yes, an almighty racket. He silenced it; after a few moments, he reappeared.

‘So that's one thing we got right. Tell me,' he said, closing it and keying in the code, ‘why did he let Darrenarris in after we'd made sure the place was well-nigh impregnable?'

He stared while I looked for something to write the word down on. Since my vocab book was in my father's bureau, I could only find an old envelope. When it dawned on him what I was up to he said it again, very slowly.

‘Means no one can get in – right?'

‘Right. So why did Lord Elham let him in?'

‘Think champagne. My guess is he'd already sunk a lot and Darrenarris came with some more. He'd drink it even if Darren's sort does make him feel odd.' I frowned. ‘He's drunk fizz all his life, Morris – why should it suddenly make him forgetful?'

He snorted. ‘Suddenly?'

‘OK, point taken, but why should it also make him sleepy and incontinent?' I insisted.

‘Because he's really going down hill.'

‘He was sharp enough to notice what's happening. And to want to wash the things he'd peed on. OK, he's not got round to washing his dressing gown, but if I get him a new one he'll take care of it.'

‘And what does he give you in return?'

I wouldn't let him see how much that hurt. ‘I don't pay,' I said, trying to sound like a teacher with a dim pupil. ‘He pays, with the money I make for him. Where are you going?'

‘The kitchen. I want to see if there are any unwashed glasses that might have the dregs of Darrenarris's champagne in them.'

We were in luck. Lord Elham had tidied the kitchen itself, but got no further than putting the glasses in the sink, where he knew I'd deal with them. While I made us all tea in pretty nasty 60s mugs, Morris put several unwashed glasses in evidence bags. I insisted on wrapping them very carefully in some of the bubble wrap I kept on the premises, bearing in mind the return journey down the track. They weren't just any glasses, after all, but pretty Victorian flutes, some just tat, but three or four worth a hundred or so each.

While he stowed them in the foot well of his car, I explained to my father that Morris was going to go round to the main part of the house to talk about the attempted burglary.

‘But you must go with him! As my representative! I'm not having those damned Johnny-come-latelies making that sort of accusation against me. You go and tell them, Lina.'

Morris, who'd come into the living room halfway through my father's speech, blinked so hard I almost laughed. He accepted the green tea, with a bow, muttered a couple of
my lord
s, and nodded in agreement.

The administrator, Ms Pamela Fielding, hadn't met me before, of course, and Morris simply introduced me as Ms Townend, a consultant. Thinking it might not make things easier if I reminded her that I'd recently left her a note about a damaged plate, I nodded politely and took the seat I was offered – much more comfortable than those available for the other staff and in a very much more airy and well-decorated and equipped office. A thought cropped up which quite surprised me: once it was the lord who made sure he had the best; now it was a manager doing just the same. A very well-dressed manager, too, considering she was working for what was supposed to be a charity – a suit as well cut as Morris's, with spiky shoes more at home in London offices than on the fragile carpets of a place like this. Griff would have found her make-up a bit unsubtle, especially the vivid lipstick and nail polish, but if you could still get away with it when you were in your forties, why not? Her roots needed attention, but the cut itself was excellent. I touched my own hair – Griff liked me to spend as much on it as I could afford, and if I had a lean patch would sneak me a few fivers to help out.

‘I've already been through all this with your colleagues,' Ms Fielding said, ‘and I can't imagine what good it will do to repeat it.'

‘Indulge me, Ms Fielding,' Morris said, in a steely way he'd only used with me a couple of times. ‘This property holds items of national importance. It's unlikely anything stolen will end up at Ashford Market boot fair.'

‘The constable who took all the details of the missing silver said it was ten to one everything would be in France within two hours of it leaving the Hall.'

‘I don't deal in racing odds. And I am aware that while getting stolen goods across the M25 may not be as easy as taking them on a ferry or Eurostar,' he said dryly, ‘there are plenty of outlets in this country. You've already lost ivory and silver – what was taken this time?'

‘Nothing. That's the strange thing. Several cases were forced, but the contents were just disarranged.'

I thought of the locked door. Had someone thought he could get them out via my father's wing? And, finding he couldn't, shoved them back where he'd found them?

I was only there because my father had bulldozed Morris into taking me, and though Morris hadn't told me in so many words to button it, I didn't think he'd welcome an interruption. But I must remember to mention it when we were alone. To remind myself, I slipped the ring from my right hand to my engagement finger. It was much too big and slipped off immediately, rolling from my lap to the floor.

Scrabbling to retrieve it I was aware of things I hadn't been able to see from where I was sitting. There was Ms Fielding's huge fashionable handbag for a start. Real leather. It would have cost a mint. It was firmly closed. I turned my eyes to the filing cabinet I'd had my back to. It seemed that Ms Fielding liked to have her family photos where she could see them – two kids and a dog; two kids and their dad; two kids and their mum; two kids, their dad and their mum. All happy, smiling faces.

And I knew one of them. The dad.

If only I could remember where I'd seen him before. I concentrated so hard on placing him I lost the thread of the others' conversation, and came to with a great jolt as they got to their feet. Since I'd no idea where they were heading, I attached myself to Morris as tightly as if I were planning to pick his pocket, which was crazy given that I knew the hall so well. Put me in any room and I could have found my way back to my father's door. And this happened to be where we were heading, it seemed.

I touched Morris's arm. ‘Can we see the display cases she mentioned?' I asked quietly.

His eyebrows shot up, but he simply repeated my request to Ms Fielding, who shrugged and turned down the next corridor. I was a bit surprised because I knew this only led to the visitors' loos – I'd been down it enough times, carrying stuff from my father's wing to wash it in the nice hot water there, before, of course, the security had been stepped up. In any case, now I'd sorted out the kitchen and made sure the water heater worked I didn't need to.

She muttered a word Griff wouldn't have let me use before seven, turning on her high heels and rejoining the main drag. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself asking her where the cabinets were and offering simply to lead the way.

By the time we got to the library corridor I was fizzing with fury: how dare someone working in the place full time – apart from sloping off during spring-cleaning – not know her way to such a vital place? But she was right about the display cases. Someone had forced the locks, which should surely have been enough to set off a million alarms, and then apparently simply shuffled round the silverware inside. There was a dusting of powder everywhere – no doubt the scene of crime people had been busy.

I stared at the nearest case. Something was setting my nose twitching. But I'd better say nothing, not until Morris and I were on our own. In any case, Ms Fielding was on the move.

When after a couple of false starts we got back to the connecting door we found they'd been busy there too.

‘What's the code?' Morris asked idly.

‘It'll be on file in my office,' she said, quite clearly not keen to go and find it.

He waited. At last she unclipped the little two-way radio all the women carried and spoke sharply. Someone called Eileen was sent to find it – it was apparently in the back of Pamela's desk diary. Pamela cut the call, and drummed nails, which even I found a bit bright and certainly too long, on her crossed arms. At last a muffled reply came back – giving the old code, as Morris must have known it would. So what had he been up to?

‘Do you want to key it in?'

The numbers didn't work, of course. At her third attempt the alarm went off, just like a hole in the wall swallowing your card if you made three mistakes.

Whatever his plan, it was certainly noisy.

At long last he covered the keypad with one hand and tapped in the new number. Wonderful, wonderful silence.

‘Standard override number,' he lied. ‘A trick of the trade. Meanwhile, we need to ask Lord Elham if he's changed the number.'

‘That old soak? Wouldn't know how to do anything except bend his elbow, I'm told. I bet it was him who came in and had a rummage round last night – that would explain why nothing was put back in its place.'

I know Griff would have corrected her and told her to say,
I bet it was he
, but I still said nothing.

‘Very well, have you finished here, officer? Because I do have work to do, you know.'

‘I'm quite sure you do.'

If I'd been Ms Fielding, I wouldn't have been quite sure about his tone. I'm not sure she was, actually. But Morris gave me a little push, and I set off back down the corridor, trying to think of something to say so that she wouldn't notice he wasn't with us.

Griff would have coped. He'd have asked a question that made her talk about herself.

I took a deep breath. ‘What brought you into this line, Ms Fielding?' There, that should do it.

It didn't. Instead, she came to a halt and stared at me. ‘Do I know you from somewhere? Your name's familiar, anyway. What are you a consultant in?'

‘Fine art and antiques,' I said, smooth as if I were Griff. Nearly.

Thank goodness, before she could ask anything else, Morris caught us up and kindly put himself between her and me, still keeping going at a terrific rate so we had to stride out to keep up. Easy in my low heels; tricky in hers. At last we were back at her office. We made our farewells and bowed ourselves out. Via the servants' door.

A
t the bottom of the steps, Morris stopped. ‘Why did you take your ring off and drop it?'

I'd been expecting a few questions but not that one. ‘I took it off to put it on the other hand. I sometimes do that if I don't want to forget something.'

‘Which was?'

‘I just thought that someone had broken into the display cases and hoped to get the stuff out via my father's wing. And when they couldn't, they'd just put it back again. But I'm wondering . . . I don't know quite what I'm wondering. But my antennae are twitching.' I was really proud of that word, not to mention knowing it was
antennae,
not
antennas
. ‘Really hard. I think we ought to go back and look. Without Ms Fielding. And there's something else. Those photos of Ms Fielding's family – I know her husband from somewhere.' I turned to him in exce . . . ecs . . . exasperation. ‘Hell, Morris – this crap memory of mine worries me silly. Griff reckons it's something to do with not having the right food and not having had it trained at school. He plays little games to help me. Puts twenty or thirty things on a tray and then covers it up and makes me write down what was on there. That sort of thing. But it hasn't worked with that face.'