Текст книги "Ragtime in Simla"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Alice Sharpe looked pleased and amused and buried her nose in the flowers, inhaling the fresh scents. ‘Mmm,’ she said, ‘delicious but heartbreaking too! The spring flowers always remind me of Home.’

‘Of home?’

‘England, I mean.’

‘Ah! You “get one of those mysterious fairy calls from out the void”, do you?’

With a sharp glance and a smile Alice picked up the reference to The Wind In The Willows at once.

‘Yes, just like Moley! But, unfortunately I have no Ratty to jolly me along and there is always the fear that, like Mole, I would be very disappointed if I ever did go back.’

She turned to put the flowers on a table. The formal gestures gave Joe time to take in the atmosphere of this the centre of activity of one of the world’s largest trading concerns. A surprising atmosphere. Here was no heavy Edwardian mahogany-furnished, book-lined office of the kind he was familiar with in London. It was a spacious room efficiently equipped with desks and cabinets and racks of files but it was unmistakably a room in which a happy as well as busy life was lived. The white walls were decorated with paintings which seemed to Joe to be French and of the Impressionist school. The floor was covered in deep carpets in dark blues and reds, colours echoed in the three Tiffany lamps which glowed, jewel-like, in corners of the room. And Joe had never seen an office in which pride of place was held by a Decca gramophone. The latest model, he noticed, with walnut case and elegant trumpet. By the side of it was stacked a pile of records bearing the mark of a New York music publisher.

‘Please, don’t interrupt your music for me,’ said Joe. ‘ “Tiger Rag”, wasn’t it? I saw The Original Dixieland Jazz Band play that at the Hammersmith Palais a couple of years ago. I like jazz!’

A delighted smile rewarded his confidence. ‘Have you ever been to America, Mr Sandilands?’ Joe shook his head. ‘I should love to go! It’s my dream to visit New York and New Orleans. Perhaps one day I’ll listen to a live jazz band on Basin Street! But here in Simla I’m considered rather odd in my taste for this “devil’s music” as they call it. Oh, most people in Simla will dare to tap their foot to a Scott Joplin rag and they’ll tell each other that the cakewalk is harmless and a jolly good romp, eh? what? but if the old fuddy-duddies in London on the board of ICTC knew that their profits were gained to a background of jazz they’d have a heart attack.’

The Indian returned with a tray of coffee and sweetmeats and placed it on a low table. With a searching and hostile look at Joe he bowed and went out.

‘My assistant, Rheza Khan,’ said Alice. ’Don’t misunderstand – he’s not my bearer – he brought in the coffee himself because he’s in part my bodyguard and he’s checking up on you. He’s invaluable to me. He’s my secretary and knows as much about the business as I do.’

‘More than your husband?’ asked Joe.

Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ve been listening to gossip already? Have you spent the morning loitering on Scandal Point, Mr Sandilands? As well as finding time to pay a visit to Madame Flora?’

Her tone was light but Joe was in no doubt that her innuendo betrayed a knowledge deeper than that of Meg Carter of the behind-the-scenes flower business. To his irritation he found himself blushing but replied mildly, ‘It’s one of the aspects of policing, Mrs Sharpe, that you find yourself mixing with all sorts and conditions of men – and women. Courtesan one minute, businesswoman the next.’

She gave him a searching look before picking up his original question. ‘Yes, you’re right. Reggie takes little interest in the day-to-day running of the business. He’s happy for me to go on increasing profits on a yearly basis and he contents himself with offering expert advice on the brands of whisky we import.’ She gave Joe a conspiratorial look followed by a disarming smile and handed him a cup of coffee, inviting him to take a seat on a divan.

Joe decided he was going to resist the beauty, the charm, the intelligence and obvious good nature of Alice Conyers-Sharpe. He sighed. She was standing before him, a vision of English neatness, fresh-faced, hair coiled tidily on top of her head and wearing a dark blue cotton dress with a demure white collar having all the simplicity of a girls’ school uniform. And yet, there was something which pricked his suspicions. A deliberate underlining of innocence? A false note? Something she was hiding? Certainly something she had unwittingly said had made him wary and he had been so forcibly struck the evening before by the grief expressed in her song that he could not easily put aside the idea that she had known Korsovsky.

She poured her own cup of coffee and came to sit down next to him. He caught a trace of perfume, oriental and inviting – sandalwood perhaps – which surprised him. He would have expected nothing more alluring than eau de Cologne from the angelic Mrs Sharpe.

‘But our unfortunate baritone, Mr Sandilands? Are you any nearer to a formal identification? Have you located his family?’

‘Carter has this in hand. He is in communication with his agent and I suppose it will eventually be resolved.’

Joe spoke stiffly. He was uneasy in her presence. She was sitting too close to him for professional comfort. Her shoulder brushed his as she leaned forward to place her cup on a table and he had an irrational fear that at any moment she might put her hand on his knee. He got to his feet, walked to the window and looked out, then affected to study the scatter of records by the gramophone. She watched him, apparently stifling a smile, saying nothing. He decided to shatter her composure.

‘A question, Mrs Sharpe. Where were you at 7 p.m. on Wednesday the 4th of March in 1914?’

She looked at him in astonishment. She tilted her head and closed her eyes for a moment as one giving deep thought to a vital question. Then she looked up at Joe with an easy and friendly smile. ‘You did say 1914? I was sitting at the back of a classroom yearning for the bell to ring to signal the end of prep. I was at school at Wycombe Abbey. I was fifteen years old. My best friend Joyce Carstairs would have been sitting on my right but you may have difficulty in getting her to confirm this – if you can track her down – because she invariably slept through prep.’

Alice leaned forward and said, ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about? Did someone murder the headmistress? Well, heavens! We all suspected that Miss Murchison died and was mummified before the Boer War but this is the first official confirmation of our suspicions!’

Feeling foolish and a little angry, Joe produced the wine-stained programme and handed it to her, watching her closely. She was silent for a long time, absorbing the meaning of the document. Finally, she took a lawn handkerchief from a pocket and dabbed at her eyes which were welling with tears. She looked at him directly.

‘This is heartbreaking! Don’t you think so?’

‘Certainly it must have had a very special meaning for Korsovsky. It was just about the only personal item in his luggage. Tell me what you make of it.’

‘It’s very touching. To have kept it for so long I think he must have been very fond of this little English girl.’

‘Why do you say “English”? Why not Italian? Why not French?’

‘It’s obvious. Look at the writing. That is regulation girls’ public school writing. It’s quite different from Continental writing. Look!’ She took up a pen and a sheet of paper from the desk and copied out the first two lines of verse. ‘There, do you see it? Straight from Maria Plunkett’s Writing Primer For Girls, published 1905. Green with gold lettering. I can see it now! Ugh! Allowing for differences in character and experience of course, you can still see the similarity I think?’

Joe could.

‘You were quite convinced that I was hiding some connection with our baritone! Come on, confess! The fifteen-year-old I was in 1914 would have been very flattered and excited at the idea but I don’t think he would have considered a little girl in gymslip and plaits worthy of much attention. And he didn’t meet this girl in the Home Counties – they were having a happy time in a French opera house, apparently.’

Joe was not easy under her gentle scorn.

‘Can we turn to your brother’s death, Mrs Sharpe? Tell me – when and how did you discover that he had survived the war?’

‘He sent me a telegram as soon as he got back to England. It reached me in Bombay in November 1919. He was still very weak and spent the next year gathering his strength, leaving family and business matters ticking over as they were. We wrote to each other, of course, and I kept him fully informed of the steps I was taking. Then, in the April of 1921, he wired again to say he was well enough to travel out to arrange his affairs in India. He’d come to some decisions. He approved of my plans and schemes.’ Her face hardened for a moment. ‘And why would he not? I was always much cleverer than Lionel, Mr Sandilands. Truthfully, I fear he would have undone all the good I had done, had he assumed full responsibility for the company.’

‘What were his plans for you?’

‘He was prepared to let me continue in an executive position, though with forty-nine per cent of control to his fifty-one per cent. He had no intention of settling here, his health was too fragile. So, in effect, I would have continued to work eighteen hours a day in the heat of India for the good of the firm though lacking the ultimate authority to steer the company in the direction I wished.’ Her tone was bitter and Joe could appreciate the strength and justice of her grievance.

‘And Mr Sharpe, your husband by this time…?’

‘Would have been totally dispossessed. No, he was not happy about that and was preparing to fight the case through the courts.’ She shuddered. ‘It would have been a very distressing and unprofitable time for everyone. What a jolly scandal! Nothing like a family row to blossom into a cause célèbre! It doesn’t bear thinking of!’

‘So both you and your husband would have had a great deal to gain financially from your brother’s death?’

‘Of course. And there have been many to whom that thought has occurred. And many, doubtless, who must have noticed that my grief was not particularly deep.’

‘You were not fond of your brother?’

‘It was devastating to lose my only close living relative and for what seemed to be a second time. A very cruel twist, that. But Lionel and I were never close. He was a good deal older than I and hardly noticed me when we were growing up. I did not admire him. I knew I was…’ she hesitated, searching for a word, ‘more worthy than he was although I was constantly reminded by our parents that I was only a girl and that the family’s fortunes rested on Lionel. I resented the assumption that little sisters were there to be seldom seen and never heard. Then we were divided by school and the war. He was a stranger to me. But I didn’t kill him.’

‘I understand you were in the view of a hundred people when he was assassinated?’

‘Yes. But that means nothing, you’ll find. If I wanted someone to die, Mr Sandilands, I would merely mention the matter to Rheza Khan. He would mention it to someone else who would in turn make suitable arrangements. The true killer will in all likelihood have paid to have the trigger pulled. There is no lack, you’ll find, in Simla of obliging retired military types with the skill and the inclination to perform such a service for a fee. I could suggest a few names myself… Some, indeed, I know to be drinking companions of my husband… But you can be sure that the instigator of the act will almost certainly have taken the precaution of being engaged in a very public activity at the moment the shot rang out.’

Joe was silent for a moment. She was trying to tell him something without putting it into words herself. Without naming names.

‘And your husband Reginald was very much in the public eye at that time?’

She shivered. With fear?

‘Reggie. Yes. He was handing a plate of cucumber sandwiches to Her Excellency, Lady Reading. He could not have been more flamboyantly well positioned.’

Chapter Seven

« ^ »

Joe pondered this with disbelief, not able for a moment to react to her suggestion, so blandly delivered, saying at last, ‘You’re telling me that you think your husband may have procured your brother’s murder?’

Alice nodded, unwilling still, it seemed, to put her suspicions into words.

‘And that the instrument,’ Joe continued, ‘the actual assassin, could well be Edgar Troop? Is that what you’re saying?’

After a quick flash of surprise she nodded again.

‘And you’re saying that same Edgar Troop who has, shall we say, an executive position of some significant but dubious sort chez Madame Flora?’

Low-voiced, ‘Yes, that Edgar Troop!’

Joe took another turn about the room. He had imagined working tactfully and circuitously round the stark realities. He had even prepared a series of careful questions, but here was the surprising Alice firmly and unequivocally at the heart of the matter and, unlike Meg Carter, having no delusion as to the true nature of Madame Flora’s establishment and seemingly with more than a suspicion as to Reggie Sharpe’s true relationship with the as yet unseen but sinister Edgar Troop.

‘Oh, do stop pacing about!’ she said abruptly. ‘Sit down and listen to me!’

Joe took a seat opposite and waited.

‘I know all about Madame Flora’s brothel. I know it is the source of much vice and crime in Simla and I am aware that my husband is heavily involved with it – a valued and loyal customer, you could say,’ she added in a curiously flat, expressionless voice. She might have been discussing his golf handicap.

‘You must find that very distressing,’ was Joe’s inadequate reply. Brothels formed a part of his London life but he had never held such a conversation with a lady before. He had never heard a lady pronounce the word ‘brothel’ and he found that it shocked him.

‘Distressing?’ Alice laughed derisively. ‘Say rather appalling – not to be tolerated! Ours was never a happy marriage, Mr Sandilands, it was one of convenience but, initially, I did my best to pretend to the world that we had a normal married relationship. My fault, I wonder? Perhaps a bit my fault. When I arrived in India I had to fight. Fight to establish myself in a man’s world. It took a lot of careful work. It filled my days and nights. Reggie is not secure – he is easily threatened. He couldn’t keep his manhood intact with a woman who was his equal and was completely unmanned in the presence of a woman recognized by many to be his superior.

‘But then, at the end of our first season in Simla, I discovered that my husband had contracted – was in the first stages of – a venereal disease. At first I was stunned. I thought this was the sort of thing that only happened to other people – servants – soldiers’ wives – but I made him tell me who he’d got it from and where. Perhaps I was heavy-handed? Certainly I made it difficult for him. I insisted that he go and see a doctor. The MO here is very good; very co-operative and on my side. Between us we arranged for inspections – of the girls, I mean. Madame Flora didn’t like it, I’m told, but she jolly well knew if she wanted to stay open she’d have to do it my way. I kept it in the background but everybody knew that I’d caused the fuss and brought about the clean-up.’

‘And was the reaction favourable?’ Joe wanted to know.

‘Mixed,’ she replied candidly. ’You know Simla… well, you don’t yet, but you soon will. Plenty of Mrs Hawksbees around still to tittle tattle and remind one of a woman’s place. You know there are still many women who would totally deny the existence of brothels. They would not recognize a sexually transmitted disease if their husband’s tackle crumbled before their eyes. If you don’t notice it – it’s not really happening and a lady would never make reference to such matters. And then there are those who are truly women of the twentieth century. They may have been suffragettes, they may have driven an ambulance in the war… they know what goes on in the real world and they are with me all the way. A surprising number of them, Commander, roll their sleeves up and do a very messy job brilliantly and for no reward other than the satisfaction of knowing that they have improved things for their sisters. No matter what their colour or religion.’

‘I can believe it,’ said Joe simply. ‘I have known such a woman.’

Alice looked at him silently for a moment with speculation.

Before she could question him he asked, ‘And Reggie? How did he react to the strictures you imposed?’

‘Badly. It was very embarrassing for him on two counts – bossy wife who didn’t know her place and then, you know, naughty boy caught with his hand up a housemaid’s skirt!’ She laughed shortly and went on, ‘Don’t think he’s ever forgiven me. Showed him up in front of his gang! I don’t care! I made him use his influence with the madam and with Troop to have the girls medically examined and those suffering were to be sent to the hospital immediately for treatment. From then on regular checks were to be made and reports made to the hospital on a monthly basis.’ She gave a tight smile and added, ‘They think I’m a meddling nuisance but – too bad!’

Joe was stunned by what he was hearing. ‘Did you confront this Madame Flora?’

Joe would have been entertained to witness such an interview. Alice put an end to his speculation by saying, ‘I have never met the woman. She never appears in society, as my mother would have said. Her world and mine would never coincide were it not for the unfortunate Reggie. And I would never seek her out.’

‘I understand you have some personal contact with the hospital?’

‘I work there one day a week on the women’s ward. I interest myself in the women whose bodies have been ravaged by poor care – or no care – in childbirth, in the child brides who, after years of abuse by their husbands, are sent as a last resort to us for repair. And I raise money and I fund the care of the unfortunate creatures who risk their lives working for people such as Troop and Flora. I talk to the patients and I have managed to learn something of the way Troop operates though the girls are generally too frightened to speak to anyone outside the establishment.’

Her blue eyes blazed with indignation and rage. Joe was fast forming the opinion that Alice Sharpe was a formidable woman, a woman who must have made some implacable enemies in Simla and not least, perhaps, her own husband.

‘And Reggie accepts all this?’

‘He has no choice in the matter. I control the finances of ICTC. I effectively pay him a salary and I have threatened to cut it drastically if he steps out of line. To show him that I was in earnest I cut two months of his pay and gave it directly to the women’s hospital. He was angry but there was little he could do about it. But I may have pushed him too far. He’s a weak man and I despise him but even weak men may seek help from stronger men. I fear Reggie may have used the services of Edgar Troop to shoot my brother in order to protect his share of the company.’

And Alice Conyers’ share also, incidentally, Joe thought.

Alice glared at him, resenting his silence. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

‘Why do you say so?’ said Joe in surprise.

‘You were looking at me with the supercilious, suspicious, sceptical, cynical air that men assume so easily. Even nice men,’ she added with an irritation she did not quite disguise with a spurt of humour.

‘You are deceived,’ said Joe. ‘Many are deceived by this badly stitched eyebrow.’ He raised his hand to his left eyebrow which hasty and belated surgery on the battlefield had left permanently tilted. ‘In the interview room, I can tell you it has its uses but it can work against me when I’m trying to charm and impress.’

‘Were you trying to charm and impress? But a wound! Of course, I see it now.’ She raised a hand and for a heart-stopping moment Joe thought she was about to touch with gentle fingers the scar on his face but she hesitated, looked away and turned her hand to her own cheek. ‘I too…’ She traced the silvery scar trail down her face. ‘But I was fortunate. I had the services of the best surgeon in the south of France.’

‘Whereas my face was held together with a clothes peg,’ said Joe, feeling, for the first time, that he was in tune with Alice Conyers. Wishing to hold on to this fragile rapport he said, ‘It must have felt like surviving on a battlefield, surviving the rail crash.’

‘Perhaps worse,’ she said, ‘because we were so totally unprepared for it and we were not young fighting men prepared to make a sacrifice of our lives. We were ordinary people looking forward to the south of France, to spring, to sunshine, to the rest of our lives.

‘But you’re right – it was like a battlefield. The blood, the severed limbs, the bodies lying like rag dolls. I was unconscious at first. I don’t know for how long. When I came to and looked around all I could see was destruction and death. I’d never seen a dead body before and suddenly there I was surrounded by dozens of them. The smoke and stench of burning flesh was thick about me but even worse was the silence. And suddenly I heard a child crying. It went on and on. I tried to get up but I couldn’t get my limbs to work. That was an awful moment. Mr Sandilands, I thought I was dead! I thought I was a ghost in some sort of dreadful limbo. My spirit was still there at this scene of desolation, anchored by a thread of consciousness. I’ve always believed in the survival of the soul and I had no doubt that I had died and was caught up between two worlds. Blackness descended again and when I woke up the child had stopped crying. I don’t know how long I was lying there unconscious and bleeding… they say it was over an hour before the rescue train arrived.

‘I was unaware of it because the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital in Beaune with the kindly face of Marie-Jeanne Pitiot smiling at me.’

Joe sensed that she had said enough about the past but felt flattered that she had entrusted him with her sad story.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really wasn’t trying to put you off your questioning. We’re both trying to discover the truth. I need to know who killed my brother. I desperately need to know. Do go on with your questions.’

‘It might be important to know how the company stands at the moment. I mean, did Lionel leave a will? Or have the lawyers reverted to the situation as it was before he died? Who really owns the company?’

‘I wish I knew! The matter is still under consideration by the firm’s lawyers in London. One opinion is that as he died intestate and without progeniture all reverts to his only living relation – me. Others maintain that grandfather’s wishes and provisions come into play and that the status quo obtains. I think that Reggie would remain quite content with the latter scenario but…’

‘Should you be declared the sole heir, then…?’

She looked at him seriously for a moment. ‘Then I would think I was at risk. Don’t you think so too, Mr Sandilands?’

Soft-footed, Rheza Khan re-entered the room and stood by the door, appointment book in hand, formally signalling that the interview was at an end. Joe rose to his feet and thanked Alice Sharpe for her co-operation, the professional courtesies rolling easily from his tongue. She held out a hand and took his, looking earnestly into his face.

‘I’m so glad you’re here in Simla, Commander. And please let me know if there is anything at all I can do to further your enquiries into this wretched business.’

The Indian stood his ground by the door post watching Joe with eyes as dark and unyielding as obsidian. As Joe passed him he caught again the fragrance of sandalwood but much stronger than the delicate ghost of a scent that he had breathed from Alice Sharpe.

‘Hmm,’ thought Joe. ‘So that’s how it is between them!’

Joe decided to start out on foot to walk down the Mall looking out for the dress shop run by the nurse and companion Marie-Jeanne Pitiot. He was half-way along the Mall when an uncomfortable thought struck him. He patted his pockets. No, he was not mistaken. Alice Sharpe had failed to hand back Korsovsky’s programme. And he hadn’t even noticed the sleight of hand by which she had concealed it. He hesitated, wondering whether to go back for it. He decided to leave it for the moment. It might come in useful later on if he needed an excuse to interview Alice again.

As he stood uncertainly weighing his thoughts, a baby carriage as splendid as a Rolls Royce went by pushed by an ayah. The baby at that moment woke up and started to yell. The ayah hurried to pick up the red-faced scrap and talk to it tenderly. It gathered its strength and released another ear-splitting scream, Joe flinched.

‘My God!’ he exclaimed to himself. ‘Of course! The baby! Little Henri!’

He summoned a rickshaw and directed the runners to take him to the Governor’s Residence.

Sir George had not yet returned, to Joe’s relief, so he was able to go straight back to the guest house without having to give an account of himself. As he hurried across the garden he was struck by the thought that the trunks might have been dealt with in the efficient Indian way in his absence. He’d forgotten to leave instructions to say that they should not be touched. Entering his room he found that all had been cleaned and tidied but the trunks were still as he’d left them in the middle of the room, the piles of clothes a reprimand in the centre of such orderliness.

Ignoring the clothes, Joe picked up the French newspaper which had lain at the bottom of one of the trunks. The date was 5th April, three years ago. A fortnight after the Beaune railway disaster. By the time this edition of the paper came out, he calculated that Alice would have been at sea for a day on the next leg of her voyage to India in the care of Mademoiselle Pitiot. She would not have seen it.

The headline which had been nagging at the back of his mind since his conversation with Alice now screamed at him and he remembered similar headlines carried in the English press. ‘Miracle baby, little orphan Henri safe in his grandmother’s arms.’ He had even seen little orphan Henri looking with unfocused eyes at the camera on a Pathé News report in the cinema in Leicester Square. Yes, the article referred to the same baby. A second class passenger in the Beaune railway disaster, Henri had survived cradled tightly in his dead mother’s arms and had been cared for by nurses in Beaune until he could be identified and returned to his grieving grandparents.

This article was not a fresh news item and, cynically, Joe saw it as an effort to keep the story alive but also an attempt to sum up and to bring a ray of hope however faint from the whole bleak disaster. The official list of the dead and the three survivors was given on page two. Three survivors? He turned hurriedly to page two. The passengers were listed by class – first, second and third – and classified again by nationality, the main lists by far being French and English with a sprinkling of other Europeans. Joe ran his finger down the page. No third class passenger had survived the crash and only one second class passenger – baby Henri. In the first class two names were listed: Alice Conyers and Captain Colin Simpson.

Alice Conyers! Joe looked again at the message scrawled by Korsovsky’s agent across the top of the paper. ‘As requested.’ So Korsovsky had asked him to supply a copy of this paper. Why? He had assumed it was connected with the bookings listed for that summer. But his agent would have found a more efficient way of telling him his itinerary, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have trusted to the vagaries of the press to announce his bookings. No, Korsovsky must have had some other reason for wanting this paper. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ he had added. Why sorry? There was something in the contents that he knew would distress Korsovsky. Joe checked the lists again. No Russian names. The name of Alice Conyers was the only link he could see. Surely this was no coincidence? And yet common sense (and Alice herself) told him that there could never have been any link in the past between the singer and the little English schoolgirl leading her sheltered life in the Hertfordshire countryside. And, anyway, the girl had survived against all odds. A cause for jubilation not sorrow for anyone who knew her, surely?

‘I need someone to talk to!’ Joe thought. He tucked the paper away in his pocket and strode off to the front of the Governor’s house where he knew a rickshaw would be waiting. He climbed aboard. ‘Police headquarters,’ he said.

It was five o’clock and the sun was beginning to slide towards the western mountain range when Joe was dropped off at the police station. He was shown at once into Carter’s office. Carter, who had been poring over a thick file, flung it down with relief.

‘You want to know who is the biggest criminal in Simla? He is!’ he said tapping the file. ‘Big Red! Two or three thefts a week reported and now he’s branching out into physical attacks on children. Very nasty incident yesterday up at the temple on Jakko Hill. Little Lettice Murray, daughter of Colonel Murray, is said to be in a hysterical state after her awful encounter. Brave girl though! Stuck her lollipop in his eye and escaped.’

Joe looked at him in puzzlement.

‘Bloody monkey! Gang leader of that pack of vermin who infest the monkey temple. Sacred to Hanuman the monkey god and I can’t touch them! Mind you,’ he added confidentially, ‘that’s not to say some of them don’t disappear at dead of night sometimes! Especially when my Sikh chaps are on duty!’

‘You don’t…?’

‘Of course not! No, we round them up and take them for a little excursion into the country. There’s a sort of monkey paradise about ten miles from here. When they’ve gone whooping and hollering up the trees we sneak off and leave them there.’ He laughed. ‘First time we tried this we made the mistake of hanging about to make sure they were all right, having a happy time, enough food to eat and so on, and as they seemed to like the place we got on to the cart and started off back for town. Well! We’d only gone a few yards when the warning was sounded. They all came piling down from the trees and climbed back on the cart ready to go home! Just like a bunch of kids at the end of a Sunday School outing! Ah, but now – we’re as clever as they are!