Charters and Caldicott by Stella Bingham Page B

it?’
    â€˜Oh, they were sort of abroad a great deal. You know.’
    â€˜Foreign Service?’
    â€˜Not quite.’
    â€˜Colonial types, what?’
    â€˜You’re getting warmer. I don’t know quite what the department was called. It was a sort of overseas branch of the Civil Service where they posted well-meaning chumps to stop them making even bigger chumps of themselves at home.’
    Darrell laughed. ‘Oh, we have that. We call it the Diplomatic Service.’
    Charters and Caldicott, veterans of many a country-house weekend, had provided themselves with a hip-flask of whisky with which to launch the evening. Caldicott topped up their toothglasses and asked, ‘Well now, what’s our plan of action?’
    â€˜Keep our eyes and ears open, do some discreet pumping and evaluate Darrell’s taste in friends – for example, that fellow Sinclair, or Saint Clair, as he chooses to style himself.’
    â€˜Yes, rum customer. Mark you, he is foreign.’
    â€˜A foreigner of the worst sort, I’d say – all that heel clicking. But there’s more to him than mere foreignness, Caldicott. Look how he wiggled and shuffled when I asked him if he’d known Jock Beevers. It was as plain as the nose on your face he knew who we were talking about, yet he pretended he didn’t. Why?’
    â€˜Natural shiftiness, probably. Still, he did tell us one thing we didn’t know – that Josh Darrell had strong connections with Hong Kong.’
    â€˜I wonder if Darrell knew Jock Beevers?’
    â€˜Doubt it, or Jenny would have mentioned it. Still, we can always drop the name into the conversation and see how he reacts.’
    â€˜Casually, mind.’
    â€˜That goes without saying, Charters,’ said Caldicott with quiet dignity. ‘Shall we go down?’
    Charters picked up the empty glasses. ‘I’ll just rinse these out. It’s a poor guest who leaves his toothglass reeking of whisky.’ 
    Caldicott called him back. ‘Just tie my tie, would you, old chap?’
    The subdued roar that greeted the pair as they reached the top of the grand staircase indicated that the party was already in full swing. The great marble hall, hung with tapestries and surrounded by arched galleries, made a spectacular setting. Charters and Caldicott paused and looked down on the scene. Hell would have made a more inviting prospect. Darrell had chosen to fill his home with rich trendies and photographers, advertising executives and models, pop singers and show business personalities, chat show habitués and hairdressers. Leopardskin leotards vied with silk dungarees, punk zips and pink hair bayed at glittering ballgowns, scarlet legwarmers shrieked to purple satin shorts, technicolour jockey outfits gossiped with split leather, near-topless little black frocks crowed at camouflage-grey suits.
    At this bizarre fancy dress party, Darrell’s tartan jacket seemed on the conservative side. Charters and Caldicott, impeccable in old-fashioned dinner-jackets, might have emerged from the Ark. At the sight of them, standing rigid and goggle-eyed at the head of the stairs, the party babble died. Suddenly aware that they were being stared at, they remembered their manners as guests and began to descend, self-consciously tugging at their collars. St Clair struck up ‘Hello Dolly’ on the piano. Charters and Caldicott continued to walk down the stairs, sublimely unaware that they were doing so in time to the music.
    Darrell watched, amused. Margaret put her hands to her face to hide her giggles and fled out onto the terrace to pull herself together. At the sight of Gregory, standing in a pool of light below, smoking and staring up at her, her laughter died and she went back indoors.
    Darrell took a couple of glasses of champagne over to Charters and Caldicott. ‘Hi. Now who don’t you know?’
    â€˜Pretty well everyone, I’m afraid,’ said