Cheyne Walk, London, August 1922
Joe Sandilands had grown out of the habit of packing. In India, his many journeys had been eased by the silent and efficient attentions of a bearer. And now, six weeks after his return, he was ashamed to find he’d almost lost the knack.
In irritation, he left his suitcase in the middle of the living-room floor, gaping open in readiness for the inevitable afterthoughts. These swiftly followed as he cruised about his room, his eye lighting on things without which he couldn’t possibly survive a long weekend in the country. As he passed his bookshelves he tweaked from the ranks the Wodehouse he hadn’t had time to read since his return. He threw it in. A packet of Fribourg amp; Treyer cigarettes followed. There would be boxes full of Turkish or Virginian available to guests on every gleaming table at the great house he was about to visit but he never liked to be seen helping himself. He paused and considered. Could it be interpreted as an insult to one’s host — taking one’s own supplies?
The ludicrous question betrayed the level of his anxiety concerning this jaunt. He defiantly chucked in another packet. He followed it with a bag of mint humbugs.
Glad to be distracted by a peremptory hoot from the river, he went to stand at the window, looking down on the restless surface of the Thames and listened while the bells of Chelsea Old Church struck the hour. Six o’clock. Cocktail time. His sister Lydia, a stickler for punctuality, would be getting back from her shopping expedition at any moment. Time to go down and help her with her bags. There would be bags! And the hand-operated mechanism of the lift he knew terrified her, though, independent girl that she was, she would never summon help. Joe started guiltily as he heard her upstairs already and letting herself into the flat.
She called out a greeting and dropped a cascade of packages and hat boxes on to the sofa. Responding to Joe’s raised eyebrows, she said, ‘Just a few things. The rest are being delivered to Surrey.’ She kicked off her shoes and, cursing gently about the traffic in Sloane Street, came to join him at the window. Joe poured out a gin and tonic and handed it to her. They listened for a moment in companionable silence to the swash and rustle of a tugboat towing a flotilla of barges upstream into the glare of the westering sun.
‘I love this time of day,’ Joe said, sipping his dry sherry.
His sister looked at him in disbelief. ‘Isn’t it time you found somewhere better than this? Tiny rooms you can only get up to in a dangerous, wheezing old lift? An attack of vertigo every time you look through the window? Lots Road power station on one side, smoky tugs going up and down the river all day — and night too, as far as I can see … Joe, you’re living in a coal hole!’
‘It suits me,’ Joe said defensively. ‘I like the river from this distance. Nobody knows where I am. I can get a bit of peace and quiet. And anyway, this place seems to suit you well enough too — handy for Harrods and always a spare room to be had when the sales are on. What more could a girl want?’
‘A little less of the bachelor austerity, is what.’ Lydia put down her glass and moved around the room switching on lamps and plumping up cushions. ‘Your Mrs Jago only cleans this place for you — you can’t expect her to add any decorative touches. Why don’t you let me … Ah! Getting ahead with your packing, I see?’ She made for the open suitcase. ‘I’ll help you.’
Always a mistake to let an older sister help you with your packing.
Joe reckoned that the damage had been done, the precedent set, when he was a boy and going off to school for the first time. At that moment of uncertainty he’d been grateful for a bossy girl counting handkerchiefs, refolding his shirts and confiscating his cache of marbles. Today the twenty-nine-year-old, six-foot commander at Scotland Yard that he had become resented the attention. He decided to do a bit of commanding.
‘Do leave off, Lydia. I’m only going away for a weekend in the country.’
Lydia wasn’t listening. Up to the elbows stirring about amongst his things, she’d pounced on an alien element. ‘A Cerebos Salt tin? What’s this doing hiding amongst your dress shirts, Joe?’ She held it away from her and shook it. It rattled. Lydia stared at the familiar blue and white container with distaste. ‘What have you got in this rusty old thing? Not still smuggling marbles, are you? Or is this your stash of spare bullets for your big bad Browning?’
Joe snatched it from her and twisted off the lid, revealing the innocent contents. ‘Toothbrush, paste, shaving things. Happy with that?’
‘No. Not a bit. Think, Joe! You’re off to stay at the country seat of an earl, trying to make a good impression on your elders and betters … what’s his lordship going to think? More to the point, what’s his footman going to think when he unpacks for you? You’ll be a laughing stock below stairs. I’ll pop out to Bond Street tomorrow, first thing, and get you a decent wash bag.’
‘You’ll do no such thing! I’ve always used a Cerebos Salt tin and I see no reason to stop.’
‘But it’s disgusting — it’s rusting away.’
‘What do you expect? It’s travelled across oceans and halfway round India. It made an appearance at a far grander establishment than Gratton Court.’
‘India? Oh, no! You’re telling me you took this insanitary object with you when you stayed with the Maharajah What’s his name?’
‘I did. A humble salt tin stood on a marble bathroom shelf in the Palace of Ranipur, batting for England amongst the crystal, the jade and the gold accessories, placed there — without comment — by the bearer who unpacked my things.’
‘I’m surprised someone didn’t remove it.’
‘Someone did. When I unpacked on my return to Simla I noted that my faithful old receptacle had been taken away and replaced … with a brand new Cerebos Salt tin! This very one.’
Lydia chuckled. ‘Now that’s style.’
‘That’s Indian good manners — and humour,’ Joe agreed quietly. ‘Can’t tell you how glad I am to be home, but … I miss the laughter, Lyd. And the colour. In sober old London.’ He saw dismay dawning in her eyes and hurried to add: ‘But I’ve done with serious travelling for now. Got a career to relaunch!’
A sudden understanding of the tin’s significance silenced her. Schoolboys, soldiers and now, apparently, strapping great police commanders — they all needed a reminder of home in strange or threatening situations. Lydia put it back in the suitcase. ‘You can always claim then that it was a gift from a maharajah — should anyone ask,’ she said comfortably. ‘But I suppose they must be used to eccentricities at Gratton Court — the old Prince of Wales was a constant guest there in the good old days.’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘Now I shouldn’t have liked to view the contents of his salt tin!’
Joe responded to his sister’s unexpressed anxiety. ‘I’ll be fine, Lyd. Don’t worry about me. Big boy these days. And it’s not as though it’s an interview I’ve been called up for. There’s nothing much riding on this, you know. I’ve already got the job — had it for two years now. They just want to check I can drink my soup without slurping and get through dinner with a selection of rabid old fire-eaters without poking one in the eye with a fish knife. I shall keep smiling, tell a few tall stories, sing baritone in the after-dinner choruses round the grand piano and shoot a commendable but not showy number of birds.’
‘What are you using for guns?’
‘Pa’s old pair. I’ve sent them ahead. Respectable but nothing flashy. Now if we were going for real game, I could have impressed them with the Holland amp; Holland Royal I used in India. Sir George insisted on giving it to me. Not many charging buffalo offering themselves as targets on Exmoor, though.’
‘You used it in India? Joe, you don’t like shooting animals.’
‘True. But the animals in question were tiger. Man-eaters both. With hundreds of deaths on their rap sheets!’
‘Both?’
‘I shot two of them, in as many minutes. One male, one female. They were hunting as a pair.’
Lydia laughed. ‘You’re having me on. Sounds like the beginning of a good yarn, though, for when the port starts to circulate.’
‘Oh, if I were vandal enough, I could carve two grooves on the glossy French walnut stock of the Royal. It saved my life. But I prefer to carry my grooves concealed.’ With a sister-baiting grin of mischief, Joe pushed up his right sleeve to show her two raking claw marks, well healed by now. He enjoyed her squeal of horror. ‘I had the luck to be treated by an English doctor who’d studied ancient Indian medicine. Lord only knows what he poured into the wound but it worked a treat. Wounds can go rotten faster in India than they did in Flanders.’
Lydia shuddered. ‘Well, watch your back, little brother. I’ve sneaked a look at the guest list you’ve popped behind the clock on the mantelpiece. Impressive and surprising. Something’s brewing. And I think I can guess what — I read the papers! And I get Marcus to repeat the political gossip he comes by at his club. He can’t always make sense of it but he’s worth hearing. England’s not been standing still while you’ve been living it up in India, you know — it’s started rolling downhill. Joe, the men you’re meeting are not only running the country — they’re a ruthless, manipulative bunch.’
‘Oo, er … I shall think of them as the Gratton Gang.’
Lydia was not to be diverted. ‘These men aren’t going to be the slightest bit interested in your table manners and your small talk. In fact, I do rather wonder what exactly they might be wanting from a minnow like you.’
She squashed the suggestions he was about to make. ‘Well, you’re getting a reputation for defusing a crisis, Marcus says. “Defusing” — in my dictionary that spells danger. Don’t let these grandees use you for a cat’s paw while they skulk in safety behind the barricades, Joe. You know what you’re like for leading the charge.’
Sensing a sisterly assessment of his character about to be fired in his direction, Joe employed a diversionary tactic. ‘Lyd, why don’t you open up one of those boxes — you know you’re dying to. Pop on one of your new hats and I’ll take you out to dinner.’