Mad Hatter sc-4 Page 7

  Prothero re-passed the shop, heading towards the King’s Road again. The benevolent look in his eye struck deep into Moscrop’s conscience. Dammit, the man was taking chocolates to his wife. To connect that laudable action with the sordid circumstances of a murder case was unforgivable. Outrageous.

  When Prothero reached the front he crossed the road and approached one of the penny-a-peep men at the promenade railing. What could he want with a telescope? The Brighton was not due to sail for another hour and there was not a decent-sized vessel in sight. He seemed to know what he was about, though; swung the thing straight round and focused it along the water’s edge in a westerly direction. Was it the water he was watching, or the beach itself? Yes, by Jove, he had it trained on a stretch of shingle somewhere in front of the Grand. The very spot where Zena liked to sit. But of course! He was planning to surprise his young wife with the chocolates. He was making quite sure that she was there.

  Moscrop looked away, his whole impression of Dr. Prothero thrown in doubt. What more touching testimony to conjugal love was there than the spectacle of this middle-aged man clutching his chocolates and seeking out his wife?

  It was as well that he looked again, for when Prothero had taken his pennyworth at the telescope he turned about and set off at a stroll in precisely the opposite direction from where Zena was. The bounder made off along Junction Parade as if he had no ties at all. At the clocktower over the Aquariam entrance, he checked his watch again. It was not the automatic gesture a man on a walk might make; he actually stopped, produced a pair of pince-nez from one pocket and the watch from another, stared hard at the clock, waiting, and, when the large hand made its small movement to the twentieth minute, he lifted his own time-piece in front of his face, like a chemist studying events in a test-tube. Then, without making any adjustment, he pocketed watch and glasses and moved on. Either he was in possession of a suspect watch or there was some rendezvous he was most conscientious about keeping.

  Moscrop followed at a strategic distance, hands clasped behind his back, eyes ranging convincingly to left and right, professing strong interest in a goat-chaise or pleasure-yacht or whatever came within his purview. There was small chance yet of the doctor spotting him if he turned round, but he was using this more populated stretch to practise a convincing afternoon stroll. The esplanades beyond the Chain Pier were disturbingly less frequented.

  Sensibly, he refused to countenance feelings of guilt about what he was doing. It was his privilege to spend his holiday in whatever way he chose. If other people preferred to wander aimlessly along the promenades or sit bemused on the beach they were perfectly entitled so to do. He had always maintained that his optical experiments were merely a more purposeful way of enjoying the bounties of the seashore, the intelligent man’s style of vacation. And his innovations this year were a logical extension of those experiments. The previous holidays, whether at Eastbourne or Folkestone or Worthing, had all, on reflection, been somewhat sedentary in character. This year he was getting exercise as well as ozone.

  The afternoon was splendid for walking: a bright, clear sky; the sea full of interest, flecked with white; the tamarisk on the slopes below the Madeira Drive stirred by a soft sea-breeze. Dr. Prothero walked with the air of a man intent on savouring the balmy atmosphere to the full, rakishly raising his hat to ladies reclining on hotel balconies or in the backs of phaetons, ruffling the hair of a child who came within range and stopping to take a long proprietorial look at the Royal Crescent. For his pursuer, this uneven progress was more than a little trying, particularly when the last of the shops was passed and there were so few pedestrians that everyone took an interest in everyone else. He kept some fifty yards behind, taking the sea-wall side of the Marine Parade, although it afforded less cover, simply because it would have been conspicuous to have taken the other. After the fashion of apartment-letting localities, the street-doors were left open as if to invite inspection, so unless you were seeking accommodation you used the sea-wall side. Although this saved him from the serious scrutiny of landladies, it made him the cynosure of the bow window and balcony set, so it was essential to present the appearance of a casual stroller.

  After more than a mile, the broad lawns fronting on Lewes Crescent interrupted the line of terraces. Here Prothero paused, as he had at the Royal Crescent and Marine Square, and took stock of the architecture. Moscrop, alive to every shift of the chase, descended some convenient steps and seated himself on the sloping lawn between Marine Parade and the lower esplanade. It was an inspired manoeuvre, for Prothero, fifty yards ahead, found a similar row of steps and began to move purposefully down the slope towards one of the several alcoves built into the sloping cliff wall. It was set out with a table and seats. He stood beside the table and examined his watch. Moscrop did the same. Two minutes to three.

  Next he witnessed a spectacle that made him inclined to believe, even in that brilliant afternoon sunshine, that he was watching some psychic manifestation. Below him and to his left, but above the alcove, were two humble cottages, gardeners’ dwellings, he would guess. From between these, as if at a signal, there emerged a procession of five women in black dresses. They wore aprons and white hats and carried trays of silver tea-pots and cups and saucers and plates, which they presently arranged on the table. Then they withdrew without a word and disappeared between the hovels as uncannily as they had arrived.

  The apparitions were not finished yet. From the same spot glided a young woman in a gown of some exquisitely fine material, percale or camlet, in peacock blue, and carrying a matching parasol. Prothero rose to meet her and kissed her hand. Then he presented her with the chocolates. As she looked down to examine them, part of her hair was momentarily freed from the parasol’s shadow. It glowed a copper colour. She was Prothero’s riding-companion of the King’s Road parade.

  He watched them for more than an hour. Impossible to hear what they were saying, but their expressions, their gestures told everything. When they got up to leave, she took his arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They walked up the slope linked, as brazenly as that. He was so absorbed in this monstrous infidelity that he quite failed to realise the way they were taking. Only when they had passed between the cottages and disappeared did he descend the slope to examine the place for himself. As he got there, the line of servant-women passed him on their way to retrieve the tea-things, stone-faced as only the best-trained domestics are. But if they revealed nothing, at least the secret of their miraculous appearances was laid bare: the arched entrance to a subterranean tunnel, through which Prothero and his companion had undoubtedly passed. A passage under the Marine Parade to the private gardens of Lewes Crescent.

  CHAPTER 7

  From North street, where the next day’s observations had led him, Moscrop heard the boom of the mid-day cannon. He kept his hands stubbornly away from his watch-chain. The curious thing about an annual summer holiday was that one spent the rest of the year looking forward to the escape it would provide from the daily round of breakfast, cab, business, lunch, business, cab, dinner, bed-and promptly surrendered to a routine just as rigid, reinforced by a pier cannon and a landlady’s gong. By the end of the first week one was telling the days by the menu. Quite innocent events, the first chord of the lunch-hour concert, or the hoot of the steamship Brighton, took on an awful, inexorable sameness. It was impossible not to count the days already gone and, with increasing agitation, the few left. Harassed visitors in their second week could be observed wading out determinedly into the unfriendliest of seas. The ultimate defeat was the visit to the promenade photographer to set the holiday on record; by then one was mentally already back in London.

  His own case was not quite like that. The pressures he felt were not to be resolved in some shabby photographic studio. It seemed to him that a situation of tragic proportions was being revealed to him. There was nothing he could do to intervene. He had to submit to its inevitability, watch it progress in its own time, like the tide. Each cont
act with the Protheros laid bare a fresh layer of deceit, the deceit being practised on an innocent woman by everyone around her, husband, son, servant. If anything could be depended upon, it was that Zena Prothero’s pathetically misplaced trust would soon be shattered. The prospect was hideous, unspeakable, too awful to contemplate, and he could do nothing but watch and wait.

  At this moment she was admiring North Street’s window-show with her two sons, Guy and Jason, and the maid, Bridget, the four of them idling along the pavements towards East Street, stopping frequently and remarking on things that caught their attention, the very image of family harmony. In a lemon-coloured gown, sealskin jacket and black bonnet, she looked particularly frail this morning. Oh for the reassurance of her robust style of conversation!

  Obviously they would turn into East Street and make their way down to the front, so with a touch of brilliance he got ahead of them on the other side of the street, turned the corner, walked some fifty yards and stepped out of sight into a shop entrance. Not by chance had he chosen the finest toy-shop in Brighton for cover. He was fast learning the tactics of the chase.

  They came with suspenseful slowness, stopping at several other shop-fronts before they reached the toy-shop. It was double-fronted. In the first window a topical set-piece had been mounted, hundreds of toy soldiers engaged in battle. ‘The 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards on the Field of Tel-el-Kebir,’ announced a card. ‘We salute our Heroes on their Return to Brighton.’ Jason left his mother and pressed face and hands against the glass.

  ‘It accounts for the flags all over the town,’ Guy was saying to her in that insufferably conceited voice, as they came within earshot. ‘The 4th have their barracks somewhere out along the Lewes Road, you know. Any excuse for a bit of flag-waving. I suppose we shan’t be able to move for the militia after tomorrow. It’s really too bad when one has booked for the season.’

  She did not answer. She stood behind Jason and submitted to the spell of the toy-shop window, looking past the battle-field, which was lined with soldiers of all Her Majesty’s Imperial armies, like unfavoured guests at a ball. The dolls on the shelves at the back had caught her fancy, pretty porcelain things with real hair and perfect clothes in miniature. Moscrop watched her from his position in the shop entrance, through the glass angle of the projecting shop-front. He was near enough to hear every word they said, and they would recognise him at any moment, but he wanted to prolong watching her through the glass until the last possible second.

  It was Guy who interrupted his reverie. ‘Look who is here, stepmother. Jason’s guardian angel.’ Spoken without a trace of good will, nor even the courtesy of touching his cap.

  ‘Mr. Moscrop! But darling, how absolutely charming to meet you again.’

  What a gulf there was between these two!

  ‘The pleasure is all mine, Ma’am, I assure you,’ said Moscrop. ‘I trust that your little boy suffered no aftereffects from his adventure the other day.’

  ‘Good God no. The brat’s as tough as a mountain goat. But, my dear, I shudder every time I see that dreadful groyne where you found him. You’re a hero, did I tell you? I’m dashed if I know why Brighton gets excited over battles in Egypt when acts of valour are performed by spunky little shopkeepers on its own beach.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma’am.’

  ‘But that’s what’s so ridiculous, my chuck-we haven’t thanked you. You wouldn’t let me tell Prothero.’

  ‘Quite proper, Ma’am.’

  ‘But there must be something I can do.’

  ‘Since you mention it, Ma’am, there is one small matter over which’-he coughed discreetly-‘you might indulge me.’

  ‘Of course! What is that?’

  ‘Allow me to renew my acquaintance with young Jason. We were becoming quite firm friends. I should dearly like to take him into this establishment and purchase some small memento for him.’

  ‘Memento? Darling, I couldn’t possibly allow that! We are in your debt.’

  He raised his bowler politely. ‘Then with all due respect, Ma’am, you have no choice but to let me have my way. Come, Jason.’

  The child took his hand obediently and they went inside. He hoped to find a wooden telescope, but the plan was frustrated. Almost everything else was available, hoops, tops, toy guns, model yachts, cricket bats. Even, suspended ominously over the counter, a selection of birch-rods. He allowed Jason to make his own choice from the variety of playthings the assistant produced.

  The others were waiting when they came out into the sunshine. ‘My stars, Jason, how lucky you are!’ said his mother. ‘What a beautiful thing! What is it, Mr. Moscrop?’

  ‘A wooden crocodile, Ma’am. Once it was placed in his hands he wouldn’t let go of it. The jaws open and close like nutcrackers, you see. I don’t think he can injure himself with it.’

  ‘He’s partial to crocodiles,’ said Guy, with a sly smile at Bridget. ‘Most civil of you to stand treat to my stepbrother in this way, sir. Now we must be moving on. I was planning on a swim before lunch. Good-day to you.’

  ‘Perhaps Mr. Moscrop is going our way,’ said Zena, with emphasis.

  ‘As it happens, I had it in mind to take a look at the sea, Ma’am.’

  ‘Splendid! Then we shall all go together.’

  They passed down the street without much conversation, Guy, since it suited him, demonstrating his role as protector and marching moodily between Moscrop and Zena. Bridget followed, with Jason in the push-chair repeatedly snapping the crocodile jaws. ‘Guy likes to bathe farther along, towards the West Pier,’ said Zena, when they reached the promenade.

  ‘That’s the direction I planned to take, Ma’am, if I’m not intruding, that is.’

  There was a blustery wind, splendidly invigorating, but difficult for a lady to contend with. She managed her dress and hat with that elegance that was natural to her, but she was unable to walk quickly enough for Guy. ‘Let’s have my costume and towel, dammit,’ he finally called over his shoulder to Bridget. ‘I’m going ahead.’ As he went, Moscrop took his place beside Zena and the sea shimmered with a brilliance he had not been aware of before.

  ‘None of us is allowed to enjoy the day before Guy has had his swim,’ said Zena. ‘If his pa knew he was bathing from the beach I don’t know what he would do. Prothero says the water is polluted. Cholera and typhus. But hundreds of others are just as much at risk, aren’t they? I can’t stop the wretched boy from going in, so I don’t try.’

  ‘He gives the impression of being a strong-willed young man,’ ventured Moscrop.

  ‘He suffers from asthma periodically. We try not to cross him for fear of bringing on an attack. Prothero has made quite a study of the disease. Guy’s natural ma was a sufferer, too. Lord, darling, what a breeze this is! Let’s sit in the wind-shelter there for five minutes.’

  Bridget, in keeping with her status, remained standing beside the push-chair. As soon as it stopped, Jason threw his crocodile on the pavement and made noises of protest.

  ‘Push the little fiend along the promenade for a short way and come back,’ Zena ordered, adding, for Moscrop’s ears, ‘The girl has no idea how to keep a child amused. Prothero was off his head when he engaged her. She can do no wrong in his eyes. Once he’s made up his mind, he’s implacable. Guy’s the same.’

  ‘That must make life difficult for you.’

  ‘Difficult? My dear, if my lips weren’t sealed I’d tell you a tale more harrowing than you’ll find in any penny dreadful.’

  ‘A problem in the family, Ma’am?’

  ‘It’s made my marriage a continuous ordeal, darling, and I can’t disclose a word of it, not even to Jason’s gallant rescuer. That child is my one consolation, the undivided joy of my existence. A noisy little pup, I’ll grant you, but if I lost him it would be the end of everything. You may imagine how I felt the other afternoon.’

  ‘Absolutely. Tell me, is your husband visiting former patients again today?’

  There was not a trace of hesitation i
n her answer. ‘Why yes. Prothero’s the most generous-hearted man alive, darling, known through the county for his companionable ways. Everyone recognises him when we walk out in Dorking. He has a joke that if someone would invent a machine for raising hats it would be more use to him than his stethoscope. He keeps a book with the names and addresses of all his former patients and he visits them at every opportunity. He’s the world’s worst at writing letters, so he goes in person and surprises them. He’s always sure of a cup of tea and sometimes something more.’

  Moscrop blinked, thinking of Lewes Crescent. ‘It must make excessive demands on his time. Not easy for you, I should think, being alone.’

  ‘Not quite alone. I have Jason, my dear. And Guy and Bridget are never far away. You’re right, though. I miss Prothero more than he knows. Why am I telling you all this, Mr. Moscrop? You don’t want to listen to a woman’s nonsense.’

  He looked earnestly into the bright eyes. ‘Not nonsense at all, Ma’am. I count it a privilege to listen to you. I only wish there were some way in which I could help with the-er-crisis you spoke of.’

  ‘That? Foget about it, darling. An unspeakable thing. Unique to our family. We’ve faced the worst of it and made our arrangements. We all agreed not to speak of it during these weeks. Shall we walk on now? I’ve recovered my breath a little.’

  He took his place on the side of her nearest the kerb and they did battle again with the breeze as far as the Grand. A riding instructor passed, leading a cavalcade of black-habited, pink-cheeked girls, veils flapping against their hats. Today they held no more interest than the rest of the King’s Road traffic. He was far too occupied with what he had just heard. An unspeakable thing. What could she mean? A bereavement? Unlikely-the family were not in mourning. What was the other expression she had used? A tale more harrowing than you’ll find in any penny dreadful. Exaggeration? Even allowing generously for her flamboyant style of rhetoric, it was clear that something markedly unpleasant had happened in the Prothero family. His first thought-that the husband’s indiscretions were to blame had to be discounted when she spoke of Prothero with such undisguised affection. Either she suspected nothing, or the most generous-hearted man alive was lucky enough to be married to the most generous-hearted woman.