Crossing the hall one afternoon a few days later, Paul met a short man with a long red beard stumping along behind the footman towards Margot's study.
'Good Lord! he said.
'Not a word, old boy! said the bearded man as he passed on.
A few minutes later Paul was joined by Peter. 'I say, Paul, he said, 'who do you think's talking to Mamma?
'I know, said Paul. 'It's a very curious thing.
'I somehow never felt he was dead, said Peter. 'I told Clutterbuck that to try and cheer him up.
'Did it?
'Not very much, Peter admitted. 'My argument was that if he'd really gone out to sea he would have left his wooden leg behind with his clothes, but Clutterbuck said he was very sensitive about his leg. I wonder what he's come to see Mamma about?
A little later they ambushed him in the drive, and Grimes told them. 'Forgive the beaver, he said, 'but it's rather important at the moment.
'In the soup again? asked Paul.
'Well, not exactly, but things have been rather low lately. The police are after me. That suicide didn't go down well. I was afraid it wouldn't. They began to fuss a bit about nobody being found and about my game leg. And then my other wife turned up, and that set them thinking. Hence the vegetation. Clever of you two to spot me.
They led him back to the house, and Peter mixed him a formidable cocktail, the principal ingredients of which were absinthe and vodka.
'It's the old story, said Grimes. 'Grimes has fallen on his feet again. By the way, old boy, I have to congratulate you, haven't I? You've done pretty well for yourself, too. His eye travelled appreciatively over the glass floor, and the pneumatic rubber furniture, and the porcelain ceiling, and the leather‑hung walls. 'It's not everyone's taste, he said, 'but I think you'll be comfortable. Funny thing, I never expected to see you when I came down here.
'What we want to know, said Peter, 'is what brought you down to see Mamma at all.
'Just good fortune, said Grimes. 'It was like this. After I left Llanabba I was rather at a loose end. I'd borrowed a fiver from Philbrick just before he left, and that got me to London, but for a week or so things were rather thin. I was sitting in a pub one day in Shaftesbury Avenue, feeling my beard rather warm and knowing I only had about five bob left in the world, when I noticed a chap staring at me pretty hard in the other corner of the bar. He came over after a bit and said: "Captain Grimes, I think?" That rather put the wind up me. "No, no, old boy," I said, "quite wrong, rotten shot. Poor old Grimes is dead, drowned. Davy Jones' locker, old boy!" And I made to leave. Of course it wasn't a very sensible thing to say, because, if I hadn't been Grimes, it was a hundred to one against my knowing Grimes was dead, if you see what I mean. "Pity," he said, "because I heard old Grimes was down on his luck, and I had a job I thought might suit him. Have a drink, anyway." Then I realized who he was. He was an awful stout fellow called Bill, who'd been quartered with me in Ireland. "Bill," I said, "I thought you were a bobby." "That's all right, old boy," said Bill. Well, it appeared that this Bill had gone off to the Argentine after the war and had got taken on as manager of a… ‑ Grimes stopped as though suddenly reminded of something ‑ 'a place of entertainment. Sort of night club, you know. Well, he'd done rather well in that job, and had been put in charge of a whole chain of places of entertainment all along the coast. They're a syndicate owned in England. He'd come back on leave to look for a couple of chaps to go out with him and help. "The Dagos are no use at the job," he said, "not dispassionate enough." Had to be chaps who could control themselves where women were concerned. That's what made him think of me. But it was a pure act of God, our meeting.
'Well, apparently the syndicate was first founded by young Beste‑Chetwynde's grandpapa, and Mrs Beste-Chetwynde still takes an interest in it, so I was sent down to interview her and see if she agreed to the appointment. It never occurred to me it was the same Mrs Beste-Chetwynde who came down to the sports the day Prendy got so tight. Only shows how small the world is, doesn't it?
'Did Mamma give you the job? asked Peter.
'She did, and fifty pounds advance on my wages, and some jolly sound advice. It's been a good day for Grimes. Heard from the old man lately, by the way?
'Yes, said Paul, 'I got a letter this morning, and he showed it to Grimes:
Llanabba Castle,
North Wales.
My dear Pennyfeather,
Thank you for your letter and the enclosed cheque! I need hardly tell you that it is a real disappointment to me to hear that you are not returning to us next term. I had looked forward to a long and mutually profitable connexion. However my daughters and I join in wishing you every happiness in your married life. I hope you will use your new influence to keep Peter at the school. He is a boy for whom I have great hopes. I look to him as one of my prefects in the future.
The holidays so far have afforded me little rest. My daughters and I have been much worried by the insistence of a young Irish woman of most disagreeable appearance and bearing who claims to be the widow of poor Captain Grimes. She has got hold of some papers which seem to support her claim. The police, too, are continually here asking impertinent questions about the number of suits of clothes my unfortunate son‑in‑law possessed.
Besides this, I have had a letter from Mr Prendergast stating that he too wishes to resign his post. Apparently he has been reading a series of articles by a popular bishop and has discovered that there is a species of person called a 'Modern Churchman' who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief. This seems to be a comfort to him, but it adds to my own inconvenience.
Indeed, I hardly think that I have the heart to keep on at Llanabba. I have had an offer from a cinema company, the managing director of which, oddly enough, is called Sir Solomon Philbrick, who wish to buy the Castle. They say that its combination of medieval and Georgian architecture is a unique advantage. My daughter Diana is anxious to start a nursing‑home or an hotel. So you see that things are not easy.
Yours sincerely,
Augustus Fagan.
There was another surprise in store for Paul that day. Hardly had Grimes left the house when a tall young man with a black hat and thoughtful eyes presented himself at the front door and asked for Mr Pennyfeather. It was Potts.
'My dear fellow, said Paul, 'I am glad to see you.
'I saw your engagement in The Times, said Potts, 'and as I was in the neighbourhood, I wondered if you'd let me see the house.
Paul and Peter led him all over it and explained its intricacies. He admired the luminous ceiling in Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde's study and the indiarubber fungi in the recessed conservatory and the little drawing‑room, of which the floor was a large kaleidoscope, set in motion by an electric button. They took him up in the lift to the top of the great pyramidal tower, from which he could look down on the roofs and domes of glass and aluminium which glittered like Chanel diamonds in the afternoon sun. But it was not this that he had come to see. As soon as he and Paul were alone he said, as though casually: 'Who was that little man I met coming down the drive?
'I think he was something to do with the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, said Paul. 'Why?
'Are you sure? asked Potts in evident disappointment 'How maddening! I've been on a false scent again.
'Are you doing Divorce Court shadowings, Potts?
'No, no, it's all to do with the League of Nations, said Potts vaguely, and he called attention to the tank of octopuses which was so prominent a feature of the room in which they were standing.
Margot invited Potts to stay to dinner. He tried hard to make a good impression on Professor Silenus, but in this he was not successful. In fact, it was probably Potts' visit which finally drove the Professor from the house. At any rate, he left early the next morning without troubling to pack or remove his luggage. Two days later, when they were all out, he arrived in a car and took away his mathematical instruments, and some time after that again appeared to fetch two clean handkerchiefs and a change of underclothes. That was the last time he was seen at King's Thursday. When Margot and Paul went up to London they had his luggage packed and left downstairs for him, in case he should come again, but there it stayed, none of the male servants finding anything in it that he would care to wear. Long afterwards Margot saw the head gardener's son going to church in a batik tie of Professor Silenus's period. It was the last relic of a great genius, for before that King's Thursday had been again rebuilt.