Free Not to Disturb by Muriel Spark

no cause for alarm —
    But at my back I always hear
    Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near
—’
    A tall skinny chinless girl with bright black eyes has
come into the servants’ room meanwhile.
    Lister puts down the phone and says to her,
    â€˜And yonder all before us lie
    Deserts of vast eternity.—
    Where have you been all night, Irene?’
    â€˜It was my evening off,’ says Irene, removing her
leather, lambskin-lined driving gloves.
    â€˜Evening off,’ says Lister. ‘What kind of an hour is this
to return to the Château Klopstock?’
    â€˜I got caught in the storm,’ she says. ‘Good evening,
Reverend. What a pleasure!’
    The Reverend opens his eyes, sits up, lets his eyes
wander round the room, then, seeing his drink he takes it up and sips it.
    â€˜Too strong,’ he says. ‘I’d like a cup of tea before I
go.’
    â€˜Listen to the storm, Reverend. You can’t go all that way
back to Geneva on your motor-bike tonight,’ says Lister.
    â€˜Out of the question,’ says Irene.
    The outside telephone rings, piercing the warm room.
    Lister says to Clovis, ‘Answer it. If it’s a cousin
wanting to talk to the Baron Klopstocks they are not to be disturbed. Who else
could it be at this hour except a cousin?’
    Clovis is at the switchboard of the outside telephone, in
the pantry office. The Geneva exchange is speaking audibly in French. Mr Samuel
and Mr McGuire stand behind Clovis.
    Clovis responds, then putting his hand over the speaker
he says to them. ‘It’s for me, from the United States.’
    â€˜It’s no doubt about the film,’ Lister says. ‘They should
have telephoned yesterday. But it’s still yesterday over there. They always ring
in the middle of the night from the United States of America. They think that
because they are five hours back we also are five hours back. Irene, go up and
fetch Heloise and the boys. Bring them down here, we have things to
discuss.’
    Irene goes and Lister once more takes up the house-phone,
presses a button and waits for the hum. ‘Eleanor, are you coming?’ he says. The
house-phone gives vent as before, while thunder smacks at the windows and Clovis
can be heard from the pantry office chatting joyfully to the United States.
Lister says at length into the house-phone speaker, ‘Good, it’s just what we
need. Bring it down, love, bring it down at once. Put back the originals, and
leave unlocked what you found unlocked and locked what was locked.’
    Clovis has come to the room again, followed by Messrs
McGuire and Samuel. The Reverend sleeps. Clovis smiles. ‘It’s all tied up,’ he
says, ‘and Pablo’s getting the part of Hadrian, too.’

IV
    â€˜At a quarter past seven, while the sky whitens,’ says
Lister, ‘we all, with the exception of Mr Samuel and Mr McGuire, shall go up to
our rooms, change into our smart working-day uniforms, and at eight or
thereabouts we blunder downstairs to call the police and interview the
journalists who will already have arrived, or be arriving. Mr Samuel and Mr
McGuire will be in bed, but in the course of the breaking open of the library
door by the police, they too will float down the staircase, surprised, and
wearing their bath-robes or something seemly. We will by then have put the
Reverend to bed and he can sleep on through the fuss until, and if, wakened by
the police. He in the attic and Sister Barton will be back in their quarters.
They —’
    â€˜Why should they be out of their quarters during the
night?’ Heloise says.
    â€˜Let me prophesy,’ Lister says. ‘My forecasts are only
approximate, as are Heloise’s intuitions.’
    â€˜Let Lister speak,’ says Eleanor.
    The storm has moved away from the vicinity and can be
heard in the distance batting among the mountain-tops like African drums.
    Clovis says, ‘We’ve got