‘Oh, Hector, do pay attention when we have guests,’ said his wife impatiently. ‘And don’t you dare refill that gin glass. You’ve had quite enough already.’
I rather suspected that Sir Hector might well have found a surreptitious way to defy his wife’s injunction, but the decision was taken from both of them by the arrival of Jenkins, who announced, in solemn tones, that dinner was served.
The dining room was as comfortingly shabby and unfashionable as the rest of the house. It was clean and mostly tidy, but the furniture and decoration had all seen better days. We were just four for dinner, and we sat together at one end of a large, highly-polished dining table that could seat at least sixteen, or twenty if they were all good chums.
Whatever one might say about Mrs Brown’s personality and the way she ran her kitchen and treated her subordinates, she was a fine cook. She had clearly been instructed to push the boat out for this evening’s meal, and Jenkins, with the help of Dewi, the footman, brought in course after course of some of the most delicious food I had tasted outside the restaurants of Paris. Well, perhaps that’s a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but Mrs Brown certainly treated food with a great deal more respect than she treated her underlings.
The conversation, assisted by copious quantities of very passable wine, was convivial to the point of jollity, and the Farley-Strouds each made a great effort to include me and make me feel welcome. By the time the pudding (an extravagant construction of meringue, liqueur-soaked fruit, and whipped cream) had been demolished, and Jenkins had left us with the cheese and port, I felt thoroughly at ease.
‘Now then, Hector,’ said Lady Hardcastle, helping herself to a generous slice of Double Gloucester and an even more generous glug of port, ‘just what exactly is this mysterious mystery you’ve brought us here to discuss? I do hope it’s enough of a puzzle for us to be able to repay you for this wonderful meal.’
I had been slightly surprised by the apparent extravagance of the meal myself, knowing as I did that the local landowners weren’t nearly so wealthy as the rest of the village believed. I shared Lady Hardcastle’s desire to do something to repay them for their generosity.
Sir Hector chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about the meal, m’dear. Just sharin’ me ill-gotten gains.’
Lady Hardcastle and I both looked enquiringly at Lady Farley-Stroud, hoping that she might elucidate.
She tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘Hector has been gambling. He and his old pal Jimmy Amersham – lives in a lovely old place over near Woodworthy – he and Jimmy will wager on almost anything that can race: horses, homing pigeons, bicycles, motor cars, runners . . . On one particularly desperate occasion, even ants crawling across the verandah rail. They went to a race meeting at Cheltenham last week and Hector actually managed to make a profit for once. So I have a new frock and we all had a special meal.’
‘No point in hangin’ on to it, eh? Might as well spend it while you’ve got it, what?’ said Sir Hector gleefully.
‘Quite right, too,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘It’s not like the progeny will put it to any better use once we’ve pegged out, eh?’
‘Be that as it may,’ persisted Lady Hardcastle, attempting to get the conversation back on course, ‘we do need to repay your generosity in some way, and you did mention a mystery on the telephone.’
‘Quite right, dear, I did,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘But bear in mind that this has nothing to do with me, and that I think it the very apogee of silliness.’
We turned to Sir Hector.
He looked slightly abashed, but after a few moments spent composing his thoughts, he began. ‘Feelin’ a bit foolish about it all, now that Gertie puts it like that. It’s Jimmy, y’see. Gertie’s right, we do love to wager; been doin’ it since we were youngsters. He’d bet me he could run to the oak tree faster than I, then I’d bet him I could swim across the river faster than he. As we grew up, we’d bet on anything – horses, athletes, you name it. The favourite wagers were always the ones where we were doin’ the racin’. Our runnin’ and swimmin’ days are far behind us now, though, so we have to find our pleasures where we may. A few years ago, we saw a few young lads racing in some little go-carts they’d made. They’d found some wheels from somewhere, put them on old boxes, steerin’ the front wheels with a length of rope. They took ’em up to the top of a hill and raced each other to the bottom. And that got us thinkin’, d’y’see?’
Lady Hardcastle laughed. ‘Don’t tell me, you and Jimmy started building go-carts,’ she said. ‘How absolutely wonderful.’
‘Got it in one,’ said Sir Hector. ‘Build ’em and race ’em. Annual event. Invite some old pals down, make a weekend of it.’
‘And what’s the mystery?’ asked Lady Hardcastle, still doggedly trying to get him to get to the point.
‘Comin’ to that, m’dear. Comin’ to that. Old Jimmy, y’see, can’t bear to be beaten. Hates it. Me, I can take m’losses, but Jimmy gets in an awful black mood if he doesn’t win. Sometimes think he’d do anythin’ to avoid it. Startin’ to think he might be doing just that now, d’y’see? Doing anything to win. A couple of years ago, I had Bert help me with some special developments, some little enhancements to the cart, make it more streamlined, help it round the bends and whatnot. He’s quite the mechanic, our Bert – he doesn’t just drive the motor, knows it like his own child.
‘Anyway, we made all these tweaks and changes, and knew for certain we were going to win by miles, but blow me if Jimmy didn’t turn up on the day with almost exactly the same tweaks and changes to his cart. Last year, same thing: we tried some cunnin’ new changes Bert had read about from the motor racing world, and when old Jimmy wheels his go-cart to the startin’ line, there’s everything we’re trying, right there on his own wretched cart. Only one conclusion, isn’t there? The blighter’s spyin’ on us.’
Sir Hector looked genuinely aggrieved at this terrible turn of events, and I could see that Lady Hardcastle was trying hard not to laugh. Lady Farley-Stroud, too, was looking down at her empty cheese plate in a bid not to catch anyone’s eye, and I decided it was up to me to say something.
‘Are you sure, Sir Hector?’ I said. ‘Perhaps he’s just reading the same periodicals as Bert?’
‘Thought of that, m’dear,’ he said. ‘But what are the odds he’d do exactly the same things? All sorts of wild whatnots goin’ on in the motor racin’ world, and he just happens to try the same ones as us. No, he must be spyin’.’
‘Might he have an informer in your own household?’ I suggested.
‘Thought of that, too. Wouldn’t put it past young Dewi, I must admit, but he doesn’t know one end of a spanner from the other. He’d never be able to tell Jimmy anythin’ useful.’
‘Are you overlooked?’ I ventured. ‘Is there some way your work could be observed?’