The Shell Seekers Read online

  At the turn of the stairs an archway gave onto a passage that led towards the back of the house. There was a scarlet carpet on the floor, sporting prints adorned the walls, and Noel noticed the pleasant smell inherent in well-kept country houses, compounded of freshly ironed linen, polish, and lavender.

  “Now this is your room, dear.” She opened a door and stood aside for Amabel to go through. “And you, Mr. Keeling, are along here … and there’s the bathroom in between. I think you’ve got everything, but if you do need something, just let us know.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “And I’ll tell Mrs. Early you’ll be down about a quarter to eight.”

  With a delightful smile she went, closing the door behind her. Noel, left alone, set down his suitcase and stood looking around him. His years of weekending in strange houses had sharpened his perceptions to such a degree that he was able, almost from the moment he walked through a new front door, to gauge the possibilities of the days that lay ahead and accord them his own private system of grading.

  One Star was the bottom, usually a dank country cottage complete with draughts, lumpy beds, unappetizing food, and nothing but beer offered to slake a man’s thirst. Fellow guests were inclined to be unengaging relations with badly behaved children. If caught in such a situation, Noel very often remembered a sudden and pressing engagement and took himself back to London first thing on the Sunday morning. Two Star applied in the main to houses in the Army belt of Surrey, with a party consisting of a lot of athletic girls and young cadets from Sandhurst. Tennis was normally the accepted entertainment, played on a mossy court and topped off by an evening visit to the local pub. Three Star were rambling, unpretentious country estates, with lots of dogs around, and horses in the stables, smouldering log fires, lavish nursery food, and, almost always, splendid wine. Four Star was the top, the homes of the immensely rich. A butler, your unpacking done for you, and a fire in your bedroom. The raison d’etre for Four Star weekends was usually some coming-out dance, taking place in the neighbourhood. There would be a vast chandelier-lit marquee, set up in the garden; a band, imported at hideous expense from London to play the night away, and champagne still flowing at six o’clock in the morning.

  Charbourne, he had instantly decided, was Three Star, and he was well content. He had, obviously, not been given the best guest-room, but this was, nevertheless, totally adequate. Old-fashioned, comforting, with solid Victorian furniture and heavy chintz curtains, and containing everything an overnight visitor could possibly need. He took off his coat and slung it across the bed, and went to open a second door that led into a spacious carpeted bathroom with an enormous bath encased in mahogany. There was another door on the other side of this room, and he crossed the floor and tried the handle, half expecting to find it locked; but it opened, and he was in Amabel’s room. He found her, still draped in the fur-lined coat, taking random garments from her tote bag, which she dropped, like fallen leaves, on the floor at her feet.

  She looked up and saw the grin on his face.

  “What’s that for?” she asked him.

  “Our hostess is obviously a woman of good sense and broad-mindedness.”

  “How do you mean?” She could be very obtuse.

  “I mean that under no circumstances would she ever put us in a double room, but what we choose to do with ourselves in the privacy of the night is absolutely none of her business.”

  “Oh well,” said Amabel, “I expect she’s had plenty of practice.” She rummaged deep in the tote bag and pulled out a long black stringy garment.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s what I’m going to wear tonight.”

  “Isn’t it a bit crumpled?”

  She gave it a shake. “It’s jersey. It’s not meant to crumple. Do you think the water’s hot?”

  “Bound to be.”

  “Oh, goody. I’m going to have a bath. Run it for me, would you?”

  He returned to the bathroom, put in the plug, and turned on the taps. Then he went back to his own room and unpacked, hanging his suits in the spacious wardrobe and laying his clean shirts in the drawers. At the bottom of his suitcase was a silver hunting flask. By now he could hear Amabel splashing about in the water, and scented steam wreathed, like smoke, through the open door. With the flask in his hand he went through to the bathroom, collected two tooth-tumblers, half filled them with whisky and then topped them up with water from the cold tap. Amabel had decided to wash her hair. She was always washing her hair, but it never looked any different. He gave her one of the tumblers, putting it on a stool by the bath where she could reach it when she’d got the soap out of her eyes. Then he went into her room, collected his grandfather’s coat off the floor and took it back to the bathroom, where he settled himself on the lid of the lavatory, placed his own drink carefully on the soap tray of the wash-basin, and began to investigate.

  The steam was clearing. Amabel sat up, pushed her long sodden locks away from her face and opened her eyes. She saw the drink and reached for it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Looking for the five-pound note.”

  Feeling through the heavy material, he located the crackling, deep in the hem. He put his hand in the relevant pocket and found the hole, but it was too small for his hand to get through, so he tore it a bit more and tried again. Groping down between the tweed and the dry backs of rabbit skins, his fingertips encountered fluff and scraps of fur. He set his teeth, imagining a dead mouse or something unspeakably disgusting, but quashed such horrors and persevered. At last, in the very corner of the hem, his fingers encountered what they were looking for. Cautiously he withdrew and freed his hand. The coat slipped from his knee and onto the floor and he was left holding a piece of flimsy folded paper, old and browned as some precious parchment.

  “What is it?” Amabel wanted to know.

  “Not a five-pound note. A letter, I think.”

  “Gosh, how disappointing.”

  Delicately, so as not to tear it, he opened it out. Saw the sloping, old-fashioned writing, the letters beautifully formed with a finely nibbed pen.

  Dufton Hall.

  Lincolnshire.

  8th May, 1898.

  Dear Stern,

  I thank you for your letter from Rapallo and note that by now you will have returned to Paris. I hope to be able to travel to France next month when, D.V., I will call upon you at your studio and inspect the oil sketch for The Terrazzo Garden. When the necessary travel arrangements have been made, I shall send you a telegram informing you of the date and time of my visit.

  Yours truly,

  Ernest Wollaston.

  He read this in silence. When he had finished, he sat for a moment deep in thought, and then raised his head and looked at Amabel.

  He said, “Amazing.”

  “What does it say?”

  “What an amazing thing to find.”

  “Oh, Noel, for God’s sake, read it to me.”

  He did so. When he had finished, Amabel was none the wiser. “What’s so amazing about that?”

  “It’s a letter to my grandfather.”

  “So what?”

  “Have you never heard of Lawrence Stern?”

  “No.”

  “He was a painter. A very successful Victorian painter.”

  “I never knew that. No wonder he had such a super coat.”

  Noel ignored this irrelevance. “A letter from Ernest Wollaston.”

  “Was he a painter, too?”

  “No, you ignoramus, he was not a painter. He was a Victorian industrialist. A self-made millionaire. He was eventually elevated to the peerage and called himself Lord Dufton.”

  “And what about the picture … what’s it called?”

  “The Terrazzo Garden, It was a commission. He commissioned Lawrence Stern to paint it for him.”

  “Never heard of that, either.”

  “You should have done. It’s very famous. For the last ten years it’s b
een hanging in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.”

  “What does it look like?”

  Noel was silent for a moment, frowning with the effort of recalling a painting that he had only seen reproduced in the pages of some esoteric periodical. “A terrace. Italy, obviously, that was why he’d been in Rapallo. A group of women, leaning on a balustrade; roses growing all over the place. Cypress trees and blue sea, and a boy playing a harp. It’s very beautiful, of its kind.” He looked at the letter again, and it all fell into place and he knew exactly how it had happened. “Ernest Wollaston had made a packet and moved up in society, probably built himself this impressive great house in Lincolnshire. And he would buy furniture for it, and have carpets specially woven in France, and because he had no inherited portraits or Gainsboroughs or Zoffanys to hang on his walls, he would commission the most prestigious artist of the day to paint a picture for him. In those days, it was a little like asking some guy to make a film. Locations, costumes, models would all have to be considered. Then, when this had been decided and researched, the artist would make a rough oil sketch for his client to see. He had months of work ahead of him, and he had to be pretty sure that at the end of the day it was going to be exactly what the man wanted and that he got paid his money for it.”

  “I see.” She lay back in the water, with her hair floating around her, like Ophelia, and considered all this. “But I still don’t see why you’re looking so excited.”

  “It’s just that … I’d never thought about those first oil sketches. Or if I had, I’d forgotten about them.”

  “Are they that important?”

  “I don’t know. They might be.”

  “Clever little me, then, finding the letter crackling away in the coat.”

  “Yes. Clever little you.”

  After a bit, he folded the letter, put it in his pocket, finished his drink and stood up. He looked at his watch. “It’s half past seven,” he told her, “You’d better get your skates on.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To change.”

  He left her, still wallowing, and went back into his room, closing the door behind him. Then, very quietly, he opened the other door and stepped out into the passage, and made his way back to the staircase and down into the hall. On the thick carpeting his footsteps made no sound. At the bottom of the stairs he paused, hesitating. There was nobody around, although voices and pleasant domestic clatterings came from the direction of the back quarters of the house, along with fragrant smells of delicious cooking. These, however, did not divert him, because for the moment he had no thoughts for anything except where there might be a telephone.

  He found one almost at once, right there in the hall, in a glassed-in cubby-hole beneath the stairs. He went in and closed the door, lifted the receiver and dialled a London number. Almost immediately the call was answered.

  “Edwin Mundy here.”

  “Edwin, it’s Noel Keeling.”

  “Noel. Long time no see.” His voice was husky and expensive, with faint undertones of the cockney accent that he had never succeeded in losing. “How are things with you?”

  “Fine, but look, I haven’t much time. I’m down in the country. I just wanted to ask you something.”

  “Anything, old boy.”

  “I’m talking about Lawrence Stern. Are you with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you know if ever any of his rough oil sketches for major paintings have come on the market?”

  There was a pause. Then Edwin said cagily, “That’s an interesting question. Why? Have you got any?”

  “No. And I don’t know if any exist. That’s why I’m calling you.”

  “I’ve never heard of any coming up in any of the important salerooms. But, of course, there are small dealers all over the country.”

  “What would…” Noel cleared his throat and tried again. “At the present state of the market, what would such a thing fetch?”

  “Depends on the painting. If it was one of his important works, I suppose about four or five thousand … but don’t take my word for it, old boy, that’s just a rough guess. I can’t say for sure until I’ve seen it.”

  “I told you. I have nothing.”

  “Then why the call?”

  “I’ve just realized that such sketches might still be around, without any of us knowing about them.”

  “You mean, in your mother’s house?”

  “Well, they’d have to be somewhere.”

  “If you could find them,” Edwin continued, at his most urbane, “I imagine you’ll let me handle them for you.”

  But Noel was not going to commit himself as easily as that. “I’d have to get my hands on them first.” And then, before Edwin could say any more, “I’ve got to go, Edwin. Dinner’s in five minutes and I haven’t even changed. Thanks for your help, and sorry to trouble you.”

  “No trouble, dear boy. Glad to be of help. An interesting possibility. Good hunting.”

  He rang off. Slowly, Noel replaced the receiver. Four to five thousand pounds. More than he had dared to imagine. He took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped out into the hall. There was still nobody about, and as no person had witnessed his action, there was no necessity to leave any money to pay for the call.

  5

  HANK

  At the very last moment, when all was ready and waiting for her dinner-à-deux with Hank Spotswood, Olivia remembered that she had not called her mother with the suggestion that she drive to Gloucestershire the following day and spend a leisurely Saturday with her. The white telephone stood by the sofa, and she was actually sitting there, and dialling the number, when she heard a taxi come crawling down the street. She knew instinctively that it was Hank. She hesitated. Her mother, once on the telephone, liked to talk, giving and being given news, and there would be no question of simply making the arrangement and hanging up. She heard the taxi halt at her gate, stopped dialling and replaced the receiver. She would call later on. Her mother never went to bed until midnight.

  She got to her feet, straightened the dented cushion, and glanced around, checking that all was perfection. It was. Low lights, drinks waiting, ice in the ice bucket, soft music, scarcely audible, on the stereo. She turned to the looking-glass over the mantelpiece and touched her hair, rearranged the collar of her cream satin Chanel shirt. There were pearls in her ear-lobes and her make-up was pearly too, soft and very feminine, unlike the startling maquillage she affected during the day. Waiting, she heard the gate open and shut. Footsteps. The doorbell rang.

  She went, without hurry, to let him in.

  “Good evening.”

  He stood on the doorstep in the rain. A rugged, handsome man in his late forties, bearing, predictably, a sheaf of long-stemmed red roses.

  “Hi.”

  “Come along in. What a horrible evening. But you found the way.”

  “Sure. No problem.” He stepped indoors and she closed the door, and he handed her the flowers.

  “A small offering,” he told her and smiled, and she had forgotten his attractive smile and his even, very white American teeth.

  “Oh, they’re lovely.” She took them and automatically bent her head to smell them, but they had been cruelly forced in some hothouse, and so had no scent. “How very kind of you. Take off your coat and help yourself to a drink, and I’ll go and put them in water right away.”

  She bore them off to her little kitchen, found a jug, filled it with water, and put the roses in just as they were, without taking time to arrange them in any way. They fell, as roses do, gracefully into shape. Carrying the jug, she returned to the sitting room, and put it, with some ceremony, in the place of honour on top of her walnut bureau. The red of the flowers against the white walls was bright as drops of blood.

  She turned to him. “That was very thoughtful. Now, have you got a drink?”

  He had. “I took a Scotch. I hope that’s in order.” He set down his glass. “Now what can I fix for you?”


  “The same. With water and ice.”

  She sank down in the corner of the sofa, curled her feet up beside her, and watched him as he dealt with bottles and glasses. When he brought the drink over to her, she put up her hand to take it, and then he collected his own and let himself down in the armchair that stood across the hearth. He raised his glass. “Cheers.”

  “Good health,” said Olivia.

  They drank. They began to talk. It was all very easy and relaxed. He admired her house, was interested in her pictures, asked about her job, wanted to know how she had become acquainted with the Ridgeways, at whose party, a couple of nights a go, they had met. And then, tactfully prompted, he began to tell her about himself. He was in the carpet business, and over in this country for the International Textile Conference. He was staying at the Ritz. He was a New Yorker, but had moved south to work in Dalton, Georgia.

  “That must be quite a change of life-style. New York to Georgia.”

  “Yes.” He looked down, turning his glass in his hands. “But the move came at an opportune time. My wife and I had recently separated, and it made the domestic arrangements a good deal easier.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. Just one of those things.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “Yes. Two teen-agers. A boy and a girl.”

  “Do you get to see them?”

  “Sure. They spend their summer vacation with me. The South is great for kids. They can play tennis all the year round, ride, swim. We belong to the local country club, and they met up with a lot of youngsters their own age.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  There came a pause, during which Olivia tactfully waited, giving him the chance to produce a wallet of photographs of his children, which, blessedly, he did not. She began to like him more and more. She said, “Your glass is empty. Would you like another drink?”

  They talked on. The conversation switched to more serious subjects: American politics, the economic balance between their two countries. His opinions were both liberal and practical, and though he told her that he voted Republican, he seemed deeply concerned with the problems of the Third World. After a little, she glanced at her watch and realized, with some surprise, that it was already nine o’clock.