Countess.
âNot to mention us,â said Trevor.
âI do think,â said Joan, with the infuriating primness she had learned at an evangelically-inclined teachersâ college, âthat Dixieâs got a cheek. I mean, this is something that only concerns the family.â
âWhat the bloody hell do you think I am, then?â
âNot family,â said Joan, firmly.
âHere, thatâs enough of that,â said the Earl. âLetâs all have a drink. This is a birthday party.â
And much though some of the family would have enjoyed bringing thething out into the open, they all looked at each other, swallowed, and trooped towards the bottles. After all, it was his party.
Against all the odds, the rapidly diminishing contents of the old Earlâs cocktail bar did wonders for the family party. The present Earl played his part, for he was temperamentally sunny, and a born smoother over of awkwardnesses. Dixie slowly put her claws back in, pleased that she had put the question of Philâs rights on the agenda, if no more. Joan and Trevor, though still in suspense, had been reassured by their fatherâs obvious sense of the fairness of things: they would not, if he had his way, be crushed under the chariot wheels of the elder sonâs rights.
So before very long things became quite jolly. Clutching their glasses, and talking at the tops of their voices, it became possible to ignore the fact that some were not talking to others. Sam, it was discovered, could play the piano, and play he didâblues numbers first, then some popular songs of the âthirties.
â That brings it all back,â said the Countess when Sam launched into âDonât Get Around Much Any Moreâ, throwing the whole of the upper half of his body into the song, wooing the ill-humour out of his audience. What it was that the tune brought back for the Countess nobody liked to ask (the Earl said it had no particular message for him), but before long she was smiling benignly at the figures of Trevor and Michele, dancing at the far end of the Drawing-Room. And not long after that she was deep in conversation on the green satin sofa with her old antagonist Chokey.
âI well remember,â she reminisced, âwhen you and Phil were planning your first jobâwhat was it, seven years ago?â
âEight,â said Chokey.
âPlans all over the table, stopwatches everywhere, everything timed down to the last second.â
âYou never quite recapture the thrill of your first job,â said Chokey, his eyes more watery than ever.
âI thought it was all a big joke,â said the Countess disingenuously.
âGo on.â
âI did. Like boys, planning the raid of the century, all on paper. I never thought you meant to do it.â
âDidnât think we had it in us, eh?â said Chokey, getting up the courage to look her straight in the eye.
âI wish to God you hadnât had it in you.â
âCanât keep a good partnership down.â
âOnly pity was, you got caught.â
âYes, wellââ
âSeems getting caught was all you ever were good at.â
âWe werenât always caught. Not on theânot on several of the jobs. Otherwise we wouldnât have stayed in business.â
âHmmm. What are you doing now?â
âMe? Iâm going straight.â
âWhat are you going straight at?â
âOh, a bit of this and a bit of that.â
Chokey did not mention that one of the bits of this and that had been a house not twenty miles from Chetton, which he and a new partner had tried to relieve of its collection of eighteenth-century china. In any case, the Countessâs attention was distracted. Digby and Joan had decorously taken the floor, but Trevor and Michele had got tired of dancing and were slipping out of the far door. The Countessâs good mood seemed in danger of evaporating.
âLook