‘Where’s John Lambert?’ I asked the Chief.
‘He’ll be joining us presently.’
‘Usher means to kill him,’ I said. ‘I’m certain of it.’
The Chief took a pull on his cigar, and made a movement of his head that was both a nod and a shake.
‘Do you know who Usher is?’ he asked, putting one eye on me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you?’
He put his cigar out just then, stamping on it with his patent shoe. He did not mean to answer the question. He meant to keep whatever he knew on important points muffled up.
I was looking the Chief’s tail-coat up and down.
‘Where did you get the suit, sir?’
‘This clobber?’ he said. ‘It belongs to the boy.’
‘Hugh Lambert? The one that’s about to swing?’
‘Twenty years of PT,’ said the Chief, looking over towards the terrace. ‘That’s the only reason I can get into it. Not bad going for a bloke of my age. Trousers are pinching a bit, mind you.’
The Chief must think it only fair that a man convicted of murder should have to forfeit his clothes as well as everything else.
‘You know Usher from the colours?’ I said. ‘He must be a decent fellow if he fought with you?’
I couldn’t let up with the questions.
‘Some of the biggest cunts I’ve ever known have been soldiers in the British Army, lad.’
Here was a flash of the Chief I knew, but his heart wasn’t in it.
‘He was in the same regiment, was he, sir?’
‘Same brigade, lad, same brigade. Usher was in the Royal Marines.’
‘Did his lot fight alongside your lot at Tamai?’
‘Tamai was a bit of a mess,’ said the Chief, ‘but that was the general idea, yes.’
He looked all-in, and I noticed that he wasn’t drinking, which was out of the usual.
I said, ‘The station master at Adenwold – chap called Hardy – he’s made a model of that battle.’
‘A model of it?’ said the Chief, still watching the terrace. ‘There were ten thousand fucking dervishes …’
‘Oh, he hasn’t included them,’ I said.
The Chief shook his head.
‘The fact that you and Usher were both at Tamai, sir – can’t you use it to get a leg in with him? Find out what’s going off as regards John Lambert? Have you seen Lambert at all yet? Seen all his timetables?’
The Chief dropped his cigar stub, and put his boot-heel on it.
‘You’re not to speak of any of it, lad,’ he said. ‘It’s a pretty delicate situation.’
It was not like the Chief to find anything delicate.
I said, ‘What can I speak of?’
‘Don’t talk,’ said the Chief. ‘Just drink.’
‘I’m half seas over as it is,’ I said.
‘I’ll put you straight about everything before long,’ he said, and the Chief was eyeing the right-hand stair to the rear of the terrace, which John Lambert was descending. Looking at him, my first thought was: Well, here’s another condemned man. In his dinner suit, he might have been dressed for his coffin. He was operating on habit alone as he came down those stone steps, to be greeted by the host and hostess, with Usher waiting behind them.
Looking on, I said, ‘Well, Usher can’t very well do for him at a party, can he, sir?’
‘’Course not, lad,’ said the Chief. ‘It’d be considered very poor form.’
And he walked slowly back towards the terrace.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I followed the Chief back onto the terrace, where I crossed the wife, who was making towards Milly Chandler.
She said, ‘Can you smell the lovely musks and damasks?’
‘Is that what they are?’
There was a beat of silence.
‘John Lambert’s here,’ I said, indicating him with a nod.
‘I see him,’ she replied.
‘He looks rather seedy.’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s going off, do you suppose?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said the wife. ‘I thought your Chief might be putting you in the picture just now.’
I could only shake my head.
I sat down on one of the stone steps to the rear of the terrace – and when I sat down, I really sat down. I found a glass of claret near my perch, and drank it off. Someone had placed an oil lamp on the steps to supplement the Chinese lanterns, and it had drawn any number of drab-coloured moths. This terrace was really a room without walls; it was very hard to credit that a man who’d had the run of it, and the house too, was now in a cell in Durham nick.
Usher was speaking in low tones to John Lambert, who would meet his gaze by some great effort, and then turn away. It was rather cheering to know that two members of the upper classes did not always see eye to eye. The Chief, not being upper class, was not privy to this exchange, and he stood on the edge of the terrace looking spare. After a few minutes, Usher broke off, sighing, from the conversation and drifted towards the white-covered table, while John Lambert went over and sat on the far steps, so that he and I balanced each other as the two gloomy onlookers at the party.