Free Lord Mullion's Secret by Michael Innes Page A

with His Holiness bang in front of that Last Judgement.’
    â€˜You must ask her.’
    â€˜Would it not be injudicious to advance upon religious topics when conversing with her?’
    â€˜My dear Charles, it is impossible to be either judicious or injudicious with Camilla Wyndowe. Because you never know what will take her how.’ Lady Mullion paused upon this brisk locution. ‘She’s mysterious,’ she suddenly added.
    â€˜You fill me with curiosity. But mysterious in what sense?’
    â€˜I haven’t expressed myself too well. There’s no mystery-mongering to her. It’s simply that I’ve always felt that some mystery attaches to her. She has a secret. Or she is somebody’s secret. Something like that.’
    â€˜I’d like to see some of this remarkable lady’s paintings.’
    â€˜She might be persuaded to produce a portfolio of them. We have two or three of them framed and hung up, for that matter. I imagine they don’t quite rank with the Hilliards. They may be in one of the service corridors, along with people’s favourite horses and dogs, and things of that kind. You will find, by the way, that the castle is simply jam-packed with junk. When Cyprian makes that silly joke about the pawned family diamonds he often adds that our fortunes will be retrieved by the discovery of some enormously valuable Chinese vases in a potting shed. Hasten the day – although I don’t really believe it.’ Lady Mullion glanced at her watch. ‘It’s time for tea, Charles. If tea doesn’t – as it does Henry – bore you.’
    â€˜By no means. I look forward to it all day, and now it will recruit me for a little stroll outside afterwards. The rain seems over and gone.’ Honeybath was not unused to being a solitary guest in country houses, and knew the various approved ways of making oneself scarce at appropriate times. One announced the need to attend to one’s correspondence, or an urge to take a turn in the park or explore the village.
    â€˜They ring a bell at half past seven,’ Lady Mullion said comprehendingly. ‘To give time for that black tie. And at eight o’clock Camilla, if she feels like it, comes down in her lift. A kind of dea ex machina .’
    â€˜To reveal the truth of things and generally clear matters up?’
    â€˜Possibly, I suppose. But it hasn’t happened yet.’

 
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8
    Honeybath’s stroll through the park by which Mullion Castle was now surrounded prolonged itself beyond his first intention, but he felt that his time was his own until the moment came to think of that black tie. After the rain it was a flawless late afternoon to which the earlier downpour had lent the enchantment of a sparkle of moisture scattered like Constable’s snow over the scene. Francis Kilvert, he felt, that superb landscape painter manqué , might have done justice to it in his incomparable diary. Many of Kilvert’s favourite effects were on view: in the distance bluish hills; nearer at hand the shadows of great trees elongating themselves on the grass; numerous contented kine; here and there less numerous rustics making their unassuming way home after the labours of the day; the glint and murmur of a half-hidden stream. Presently would come still Evening on, and Twilight gray would in her sober livery all things clothe. All in all, it was a peaceful scene, admirably adapted to mild literary musings of this sort.
    Honeybath paused to admire a noble barn. It stood on a spot, some hundred yards ahead, on the verge of arable land into which the park here merged without any notable boundary. It was an antique barn, speaking perhaps of monastic opulence long ago. Now, no doubt, it was Lord Mullion’s property. Honeybath advanced again, resolved to take a closer view of this venerable pile in its spacious and tranquil setting. Then, abruptly, he came once more to a halt, for the general