Free From London Far by Michael Innes Page B

bookshelves which everywhere reached to the ceiling. ‘I believe I could dig you out something by Salzwedel–’
    ‘Which of us’, asked Jean Halliwell, ‘shall tell the first tale?’
     
    And Meredith explained himself – with quite as much lucidity as if it were the Epigrammata of Martial that were in question. Miss Halliwell appeared to find it not at all odd that one should say ‘London, a Poem’ out aloud in a tobacco shop. ‘London, a Poem,’ she repeated appreciatively. ‘London’s goin’. Your tobacconist must have expected a visitor from the very highest circles. Not even the boldest and baddest baronets talk of huntin’ and shootin’ nowadays. The dropped g is confined to a few decrepit peers of the realm. I’m afraid he thought you were a duke – just another duke come to pawn a Gainsborough or Velasquez in a quiet way.’
    ‘Do dukes pawn things to those people?’
    ‘I doubt it. Anything like honest business would be abhorrent to the spirit of the firm. London, a Poem. How foolish of them to have a fellow with so defective an ear. And how foolish of the next lot of people to jump to the conclusion that you were Vogelsang.’
    ‘Or Birdsong.’ Meredith frowned. ‘I’m afraid there is no doubt at all that I killed him. The – the appearances were conclusive.’ (Brains, thought Meredith; brains as well as blood on that Aubusson carpet. He took a good pull at his pipe and discerned in the eddying smoke that his conscience was clear, after all.) ‘It is not a thing one would willingly have done.’
    ‘But, being done, it’s all to the good. It gives us a line.’ Jean Halliwell threw the butt of her cigarette into the fire. ‘And now let me tell you about me. The story has points of similarity with your own. That is to say, I passed for a time under false colours too. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t know half so much as I do. Not that what I do know is enough. I think you’ll find that we have lots to discover still.’ She glanced fleetingly at Meredith. ‘When we really get going on the job.’
    Meredith looked startled. ‘Do I understand that you propose–’
    ‘But my introduction to the affair was not like yours. You pushed in without suspecting what it was all about. Although I suppose you must have suspected something .’
    Meredith recalled his speculations when his eye had first fallen on the dimly lit Horton Venus . ‘Well,’ he said cautiously, ‘my mind did turn over a few commonplace explanations. The reality at least had the charm of being out of the way. But do not let me interrupt you any more.’
    ‘You pushed in without suspecting. I pushed in because I did suspect. And then, when it would have been healthy and possible to push out again, I gave a second obstinate shove, Lord knows why. And that was what I meant by saying that I had asked for it.’
    Jean Halliwell paused as if to collect her thoughts and Meredith eyed her speculatively through his tobacco smoke. The horrible death of the creature Vogelsang, she had declared, was all to the good . Was so tough an assertion not disconcerting – even, perhaps (and Meredith picked a word from one of his obsolete vocabularies), a shade unmaidenly ? Or was it merely clear-headed? Certainly the girl was that, and courageous as well. ‘Go on,’ he said softly.
    ‘It began with my getting ten days’ holiday and starting to help some people with a dig. You remember the fun some twenty years ago when all the Viking stuff was dug up at Traprain? Well, these friends of mine were on the trail of something similar in the Pentlands; and off and on they were digging away on some plan I didn’t at all understand. You may guess I know nothing whatever about Danish and Norse antiquities. But I love a dig and I went up to help when I could. It was all pretty quiet; we had let out that all those hearty pits and trenches were an obscure sort of geological survey – and if the folk round about didn’t believe that one they took it