Sheiks and Adders by Michael Innes

he’ll keep an eye on the Boucher and all that Chitfield family plate. Particularly on the Boucher.’ Having delivered himself – quite inoffensively – of this impudent sally, Tibby dived into the mob and disappeared.
    ‘How do you do?’ Mrs Chitfield said. Unlike her husband as glimpsed in his library, she was in fancy dress – although it wasn’t of a very readily identifiable sort. Appleby wondered whether she was Cleopatra, that serpent of old Nile: this on the strength of the fact that she had a stuffed serpent of inordinate length coiled round her person. Perhaps, like Rupert and Cynthia Plenderleith (that conjugal Bottom and Titania), she was an ardent Shakespearian. ‘You mustn’t mind what that Tibby says,’ she went on. ‘He’s a college boy, you know, and they’re all like that.’
    ‘Ah, yes. And your son Mark – whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting – is a college boy too, of course.’ Mrs Chitfield, Appleby concluded at once, had been acquired by Mr Chitfield at an early and modest stage in his social career. ‘I’ve gathered that Mark was a pupil of a new neighbour of mine a couple of parishes away: Professor McIlwraith. And I take it that your elder daughter is a college girl. She talked a little like that.’
    ‘Yes, that’s so.’ Mrs Chitfield was clearly gratified that Scotland Yard had tumbled to this fact. ‘Patience was at Lady Margaret Hall college in Oxford. I found it very confusing at first. There being nobody called Lady Margaret Hall involved at all, I mean.’
    ‘It must be a common misapprehension. May I congratulate you, Mrs Chitfield, on your very becoming dress? I take it you are sustaining the character of–’
    ‘The Cumaean Sibyl,’ Mrs Chitfield said (just in time). ‘She uttered prophecies, Sir John. Prophecies have always interested me very much. They put us in touch with the Infinite – which is so important, is it not? It’s why I have invited the Basingstoke Druids.’
    ‘The Basingstoke Druids?’ Appleby repeated, perplexed.
    ‘Yes, the Basingstoke ones. I expect you will have heard of them.’
    ‘Well, no – I can’t say that I have. And one would scarcely associate druids with that part of the world.’
    ‘I hadn’t heard of them myself until quite lately. But when I invited them to the fête they were delighted to come. There are rather more of them than I expected.’
    ‘They are certainly numerous, Mrs Chitfield. I saw them arrive, as a matter of fact. In a markedly processional manner.’
    ‘Druids are always very processional, Sir John. It’s quite a thing with them. And in about half an hour, over in my husband’s theatre, they are going to celebrate the Mystery of the Golden Dawn.’
    ‘It sounds most impressive.’ Appleby fleetingly wondered what faint bell this information rang in his head. ‘But I’m afraid I haven’t heard of it either.’
    ‘No doubt it’s their special thing. At Basingstoke, you know.’
    ‘No doubt.’ Appleby accepted a cup of tea from a passing waitress, and turned back to study the Cumaean Sibyl with some curiosity. He wondered who had told Mrs Chitfield about this celebrated mythological personage. It seemed improbable that the mistress of Drool was acquainted with Virgil and other prime authorities. He wondered, too, about the relationship of this ingenuous lady to three clever children and a husband who must possess at least a first-rate financial intelligence.
    ‘And later on, at the end of the fête, there is to be a perlustration. I hope you can stay for that. They call it the Perlustration of the House. I’m not quite clear about it, I’m afraid. But I expect it will be very solemn. Perhaps you know what it means?’
    ‘It means another procession, I imagine. All over a territory, or through a building, in a very thorough fashion.’
    ‘That will be it. And with the Asperges. The Asperges are a little extra, it seems, on the bill. But I don’t mind the expense at all – not if it