in this response. It was a moment from which, although neither man was aware of it, momentous consequences were to proceed.
One of these, indeed, arose before the night was out. It didn’t seem possible to sleep in the studio. There was that uncomfortably gaping hole, for one thing; and for another, the whole place (which consisted only of one big room and two little ones) appeared to have been pretty well taken over by the police. In this matter Honeybath simply didn’t know what his rights were. The assumption seemed to be that, as a law-abiding citizen and loyal subject, it was up to him to put up with whatever came along. But at least the police couldn’t camp in his flat, which clearly had nothing to do with the case, and he allowed himself, gratefully enough, to be transported there in the same car that had brought him back to London.
It was in the last half-minute of this short drive that he recalled a curious fact. He had given Keybird a very full account of his adventures and misadventures over the past fortnight, and without the slightest consciousness of holding anything back. But he had held something back. When he had said to Keybird ‘You can track down that house, I suppose’, he had failed to add just how Keybird could start in on the job. This, he now saw, had been because Keybird had immediately suggested a certain lack of interest in that aspect of his case, or at least a sense that it was less pressing than other matters.
But wasn’t it almost certain that, if Keybird had been told about the train saying Swansea and the clock that habitually went wrong on the ninth stroke of an hour, vigorous investigation would be set going at once? And Keybird had given a very positive impression that in affairs of this sort time was a factor of enormous importance: you got somewhere before the trail went cold, or perhaps you didn’t get anywhere at all.
He ought to ask that the car be turned round, so that he could make his way back to Detective Superintendent Keybird at once. Or at least he ought to communicate this significant recollection of his to the subordinate officer who was now acting as a sort of escort.
But Charles Honeybath did neither of these things. Quite unaccountably, he sat tight and kept his mouth shut. Yet even so, and at one o’clock in the morning, his bedside telephone reproached him. He could pick it up and dial 999. He had always owned a childish ambition to have some legitimate occasion to do that. He could dial 999, explain himself, and then – no doubt by some complex piece of radio technology – speak to Keybird direct.
It is conceivable that Honeybath was about to stretch out his hand and fulfil this intention when, instead, he fell fast asleep.
10
Two letters arrived for Honeybath by the first post on the following morning. They had been directed not to his studio (which was the address he provided in Who’s Who ) but to the flat because both were from familiar acquaintances. But both were about professional matters. They conveyed requests, most agreeably expressed, for the arranging of portrait commissions. The Governors of a famous public school wanted him to paint the retiring Warden, and an equally famous City livery company, the Honourable Guild of Higglers and Tranters, besought him to perform the same service for their Master. It was at once evident to Honeybath that the recent hiccup in the pipeline which had panicked him into accepting the proposal of the wretched Peach had constituted an entirely false alarm. He was still in the swim, after all.
But he ought to fix up the preliminaries for both these jobs right away. It was a well-known point of etiquette that one did this. Like a top consultant physician approached on behalf of an adequately affluent sufferer, you offered to get things moving within the next couple of days.
Yet just what was his position studio-wise? There was that great hole in the floor, and the whole place was in the mess one
One of these, indeed, arose before the night was out. It didn’t seem possible to sleep in the studio. There was that uncomfortably gaping hole, for one thing; and for another, the whole place (which consisted only of one big room and two little ones) appeared to have been pretty well taken over by the police. In this matter Honeybath simply didn’t know what his rights were. The assumption seemed to be that, as a law-abiding citizen and loyal subject, it was up to him to put up with whatever came along. But at least the police couldn’t camp in his flat, which clearly had nothing to do with the case, and he allowed himself, gratefully enough, to be transported there in the same car that had brought him back to London.
It was in the last half-minute of this short drive that he recalled a curious fact. He had given Keybird a very full account of his adventures and misadventures over the past fortnight, and without the slightest consciousness of holding anything back. But he had held something back. When he had said to Keybird ‘You can track down that house, I suppose’, he had failed to add just how Keybird could start in on the job. This, he now saw, had been because Keybird had immediately suggested a certain lack of interest in that aspect of his case, or at least a sense that it was less pressing than other matters.
But wasn’t it almost certain that, if Keybird had been told about the train saying Swansea and the clock that habitually went wrong on the ninth stroke of an hour, vigorous investigation would be set going at once? And Keybird had given a very positive impression that in affairs of this sort time was a factor of enormous importance: you got somewhere before the trail went cold, or perhaps you didn’t get anywhere at all.
He ought to ask that the car be turned round, so that he could make his way back to Detective Superintendent Keybird at once. Or at least he ought to communicate this significant recollection of his to the subordinate officer who was now acting as a sort of escort.
But Charles Honeybath did neither of these things. Quite unaccountably, he sat tight and kept his mouth shut. Yet even so, and at one o’clock in the morning, his bedside telephone reproached him. He could pick it up and dial 999. He had always owned a childish ambition to have some legitimate occasion to do that. He could dial 999, explain himself, and then – no doubt by some complex piece of radio technology – speak to Keybird direct.
It is conceivable that Honeybath was about to stretch out his hand and fulfil this intention when, instead, he fell fast asleep.
10
Two letters arrived for Honeybath by the first post on the following morning. They had been directed not to his studio (which was the address he provided in Who’s Who ) but to the flat because both were from familiar acquaintances. But both were about professional matters. They conveyed requests, most agreeably expressed, for the arranging of portrait commissions. The Governors of a famous public school wanted him to paint the retiring Warden, and an equally famous City livery company, the Honourable Guild of Higglers and Tranters, besought him to perform the same service for their Master. It was at once evident to Honeybath that the recent hiccup in the pipeline which had panicked him into accepting the proposal of the wretched Peach had constituted an entirely false alarm. He was still in the swim, after all.
But he ought to fix up the preliminaries for both these jobs right away. It was a well-known point of etiquette that one did this. Like a top consultant physician approached on behalf of an adequately affluent sufferer, you offered to get things moving within the next couple of days.
Yet just what was his position studio-wise? There was that great hole in the floor, and the whole place was in the mess one
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