Cat Among the Pigeons

‘Well,’ O’Connor left it vague. ‘Revolutions are tricky things. There are a lot of ramifications. Are you staying in London long?’

‘We’re going down to the country tomorrow. My husband will be driving us down.’

‘That’s all right then. But—don’t take any chances. If anything in the least out of the ordinary happens, ring 999 straight away.’

‘Ooh!’ said Jennifer, in high delight. ‘Dial 999. I’ve always wanted to.’

‘Don’t be silly, Jennifer,’ said her mother.

III

Extract from account in a local paper.

A man appeared before the Magistrate’s court yesterday charged with breaking into the residence of Mr Henry Sutcliffe with intent to steal. Mrs Sutcliffe’s bedroom was ransacked and left in wild confusion whilst the members of the family were at Church on Sunday morning. The kitchen staff who were preparing the mid-day meal, heard nothing. Police arrested the man as he was making his escape from the house. Something had evidently alarmed him and he had fled without taking anything.

Giving his name as Andrew Ball of no fixed abode, he pleaded guilty. He said he had been out of work and was looking for money. Mrs Sutcliffe’s jewellery, apart from a few pieces which she was wearing, is kept at her bank.

‘I told you to have the lock of that drawing-room french window seen to,’ had been the comment of Mr Sutcliffe in the family circle.

‘My dear Henry,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe, ‘you don’t seem to realize that I have been abroad for the last three months. And anyway, I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that if burglars want to get in they always can.’

She added wistfully, as she glanced again at the local paper:

‘How beautifully grand “kitchen staff” sounds. So different from what it really is, old Mrs Ellis who is quite deaf and can hardly stand up and that half-witted daughter of the Bardwells who comes in to help on Sunday mornings.’

‘What I don’t see,’ said Jennifer, ‘is how the police found out the house was being burgled and got here in time to catch him?’

‘It seems extraordinary that he didn’t take anything,’ commented her mother.

‘Are you quite sure about that, Joan?’ demanded her husband. ‘You were a little doubtful at first.’

Mrs Sutcliffe gave an exasperated sigh.

‘It’s impossible to tell about a thing like that straight away. The mess in my bedroom—things thrown about everywhere, drawers pulled out and overturned. I had to look through everything before I could be sure—though now I come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing my best Jacqmar scarf.’

‘I’m sorry, Mummy. That was me. It blew overboard in the Mediterranean. I’d borrowed it. I meant to tell you but I forgot.’

‘Really, Jennifer, how often have I asked you not to borrow things without telling me first?’

‘Can I have some more pudding?’ said Jennifer, creating a diversion.

‘I suppose so. Really, Mrs Ellis has a wonderfully light hand. It makes it worth while having to shout at her so much. I do hope, though, that they won’t think you too greedy at school. Meadowbank isn’t quite an ordinary school, remember.’

‘I don’t know that I really want to go to Meadowbank,’ said Jennifer. ‘I knew a girl whose cousin had been there, and she said it was awful. They spent all their time telling you how to get in and out of Rolls-Royces, and how to behave if you went to lunch with the Queen.’

‘That will do, Jennifer,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe. ‘You don’t appreciate how extremely fortunate you are in being admitted to Meadowbank. Miss Bulstrode doesn’t take every girl, I can tell you. It’s entirely owing to your father’s important position and the influence of your Aunt Rosamond. You are exceedingly lucky. And if,’ added Mrs Sutcliffe, ‘you are ever asked to lunch with the Queen, it will be a good thing for you to know how to behave.’

‘Oh well,’ said Jennifer. ‘I expect the Queen often has to have people to lunch who don’t know how to behave—African chiefs and jockeys and sheikhs.’

‘African chiefs have the most polished manners,’ said her father, who had recently returned from a short business trip to Ghana.

‘So do Arab sheikhs,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe. ‘Really courtly.’

‘D’you remember that sheikh’s feast we went to,’ said Jennifer. ‘And how he picked out the sheep’s eye and gave it to you, and Uncle Bob nudged you not to make a fuss and to eat it? I mean, if a sheikh did that with roast lamb at Buckingham Palace, it would give the Queen a bit of a jolt, wouldn’t it?’

‘That will do, Jennifer,’ said her mother and closed the subject.

IV

When Andrew Ball of no fixed abode had been sentenced to three months for breaking and entering, Derek O’Connor, who had been occupying a modest position at the back of the Magistrate’s Court, put through a call to a Museum number.

‘Not a thing on the fellow when we picked him up,’ he said. ‘We gave him plenty of time too.’

‘Who was he? Anyone we know?’

‘One of the Gecko lot, I think. Small time. They hire him out for this sort of thing. Not much brain but he’s said to be thorough.’

‘And he took his sentence like a lamb?’ At the other end of the line Colonel Pikeaway grinned as he spoke.

‘Yes. Perfect picture of a stupid fellow lapsed from the straight and narrow path. You’d never connect him with any big time stuff. That’s his value, of course.’

‘And he didn’t find anything,’ mused Colonel Pikeaway. ‘And you didn’t find anything. It rather looks, doesn’t it, as though there isn’t anything to find? Our idea that Rawlinson planted these things on his sister seems to have been wrong.’

‘Other people appear to have the same idea.’

‘It’s a bit obvious really…Maybe we are meant to take the bait.’

‘Could be. Any other possibilities?’

‘Plenty of them. The stuff may still be in Ramat. Hidden somewhere in the Ritz Savoy Hotel, maybe. Or Rawlinson passed it to someone on his way to the airstrip. Or there may be something in that hint of Mr Robinson’s. A woman may have got hold of it. Or it could be that Mrs Sutcliffe had it all the time unbeknownst to herself, and flung it overboard in the Red Sea with something she had no further use for.

‘And that,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘might be all for the best.’

‘Oh, come now, it’s worth a lot of money, sir.’

‘Human life is worth a lot, too,’ said Colonel Pikeaway.

Chapter 5 (#ulink_c1de46cb-ba44-596b-8656-14ba18234f88)

Letters from Meadowbank School (#ulink_c1de46cb-ba44-596b-8656-14ba18234f88)

Letter from Julia Upjohn to her mother:

Dear Mummy,

I’ve settled in now and am liking it very much. There’s a girl who is new this term too called Jennifer and she and I rather do things together. We’re both awfully keen on tennis. She’s rather good. She has a really smashing serve when it comes off, but it doesn’t usually. She says her racquet’s got warped from being out in the Persian Gulf. It’s very hot out there. She was in all that Revolution that happened. I said wasn’t it very exciting, but she said no, they didn’t see anything at all. They were taken away to the Embassy or something and missed it.

Miss Bulstrode is rather a lamb, but she’s pretty frightening too—or can be. She goes easy on you when you’re new. Behind her back everyone calls her The Bull or Bully. We’re taught English literature by Miss Rich, who’s terrific. When she gets in a real state her hair comes down. She’s got a queer but rather exciting face and when she reads bits of Shakespeare it all seems different and real. She went on at us the other day about Iago, and what he felt—and a lot about jealousy and how it ate into you and you suffered until you went quite mad wanting to hurt the person you loved. It gave us all the shivers—except Jennifer, because nothing upsets her. Miss Rich teaches us Geography, too. I always thought it was such a dull subject, but it isn’t with Miss Rich. This morning she told us all about the spice trade and why they had to have spices because of things going bad so easily.