Free Saturn Over the Water by J. B. Priestley, J.B. Priestley Page A

Tengleton herself was about a mile farther on, inside a building that looked as if it was trying to be the Château de Chambord. She was alone except for about a hundred other people, guests and retainers. Her seventy-five million dollars seemed to be weighing her down – she was a grey and drooping woman, with a voice filled with deep melancholy – but she had among other things a socking great helping of French painting, perhaps keeping up with the Chambords – Claude Lorrain, Chardin, an Ingres, and two huge compositions by Delacroix, to name no more. She was also refusing to preside over – just waving vaguely towards – a Sunday buffet lunch, both hot and cold, of astounding variety and size.
    It was open house on the widest scale, and, like most other people, we were there for hours and hours. I tried a walk, just to get some air, with a handsome girl called Marina Nateby, who did sculpture somewhere down in Greenwich Village, and we ended up at the back of the château where there was an enormous hothouse, about the size of the palm house at Kew. We went in and sat down, and very soon a weight of sleep dropped on me, and the last thing I remembered for half-an-hour or so was Marina Nateby telling me to go ahead and not mind her because she knew I was still feeling the effect of the flight from London the day before. When I woke up we seemed to be surrounded by Central Europeans, and a portable bar had arrived. Marina Nateby, who had a strong maternal streak that I’ve found in other girls who sculpted, brought me a Scotch on the rocks and then introduced me to the Central Europeans. The only one whose name I remembered afterwards, for a reason that will soon be obvious, was a man very different in his carriage and looks from most of the middle-aged American men around the place. His face might have been carved out of old brown wood; he had a cold military eye; and though he wasn’t wearing a monocle he gave the impression that he’d only just started doing without it. He was formally polite but said little himself and seemed to regard with contempt anybody who did say anything. After observing him for some time, I led Marina Nateby out of sight and hearing of the group, into a kind of Tahiti corner, rich with blossom and the scent of frangipani or something.
    ‘Don’t tell me it’s gorgeous, I know it,’ she said. ‘But don’t make a pass at me. It’s too early. Besides, you’re not really thinking about me.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘That’s something we girls do know, dumb as we are about other things. Your mind’s elsewhere, Mr Bedford – your heart too.’
    ‘My heart isn’t anywhere,’ I said, ‘but you’re right about my mind. It’s that chap who looks as if he led an armoured division as far as the Crimea and then burnt two hundred Russian villages on the way back. Did I get his name right – von Emmerick? And if so, who is he?’
    ‘He’s a friend of my friend Inge, who lives near me in the Village. He doesn’t live in New York but he turns up every six months or so – stays at the Plaza – knows a lot of people and goes to parties – sleeps around a bit, Inge says, though I can’t imagine how he leads up to the first suggestion – and then disappears again. He’s one of those aristocratic Continental mystery men who always turn out in the end to be selling oil pumps or printing machines. Why do you care?’
    ‘I don’t. But the name interests me,’ I said, for of course I’d remembered there was a von Emmerick on Joe’s list. ‘Though there might be a dozen of them around, all looking as if they were still on the barrack square.’
    ‘He wasn’t a Nazi, if that’s what is eating you. I know because Inge told me – and you ought to hear her on the Nazis – boy!’
    ‘She didn’t happen to tell you where von Emmerick lives these days, did she?’
    ‘Not Western Germany, not Europe at all.’ She frowned at the nearest sprig of blossom. ‘I think – no, I