A Murder of Quality by John le Carré Read Free Book Online Page B

uneasy about something – either something he hasn’t told me, or something he just feels in his bones. I think he was sincere when he asked me to tell him anything I found out about the School end – the Rodes themselves, the way they fitted in, and so on. Carne’s monastery walls are still pretty high, he feels …
So I’ll just sniff around a bit, I think, and see what goes on. I rang Fielding when I got back from the police station and he’s asked me to supper tonight. I’ll write again as soon as I have anything to tell you .
George
    Having carefully sealed the envelope, pressing down the corners with his thumbs, Smiley locked his door and made his way down the wide marble staircase, treading carefully on the meagre coconut matting that ran down the centre. There was a red wooden letter box in the hall for the use of residents, but Smiley, being a cautious man, avoided it. He walked to the pillar-box at the corner of the road, posted his letter and wondered what to do about lunch. There were, of course, the sandwiches and coffee provided by Miss Brimley. Reluctantly he returned to the hotel. It was full of journalists, and Smiley hated journalists. It was also cold, and he hated the cold. And there was something very familiar about sandwiches in a hotel bedroom.

5 Cat and Dog
    It was just after seven o’clock that evening when George Smiley climbed the steps which led up to the front door of Mr Terence Fielding’s house. He rang, and was admitted to the hall by a little plump woman in her middle fifties. To his right a log fire burned warmly on a pile of wood ash and above him he was vaguely aware of a minstrel gallery and a mahogany staircase, which rose in a spiral to the top of the house. Most of the light seemed to come from the fire, and Smiley could see that the walls around him were hung with a great number of paintings of various styles and periods, and the chimney-piece was laden with all manner of objets d’art. With an involuntary shudder, he noticed that neither the fire nor the pictures quite succeeded in banishing the faint smell of school – of polish bought wholesale, of cocoa and community cooking. Corridors led from the hall, and Smiley observed that the lower part of each wall was painted a dark brown or green according to the inflexible rule of school decorators. From one of these corridors the enormous figure of Mr Terence Fielding emerged.
    He advanced on Smiley, massive and genial, with his splendid mane of grey hair falling anyhow across his forehead, and his gown billowing behind him.
    ‘Smiley? Ah! You’ve met True, have you – Miss Truebody, my housekeeper? Marvellous this snow, isn’t it? Pure Bruegel! Seen the boys skating by the Eyot? Marvellous sight! Black suits, coloured scarves, pale sun; all there, isn’t it, all there! Bruegel to the life. Marvellous!’ He took Smiley’s coat and flung it on to a decrepit deal chair with a rush seat which stood in the corner of the hall.
    ‘You like that chair – you recognise it?’
    ‘I don’t think I do,’ Smiley replied in some confusion.
    ‘Ah, you should, you know, you should! Had it made in Provence before the war. Little carpenter I knew. Place it now? Facsimile of Van Gogh’s yellow chair; some people recognise it.’ He led the way down a corridor and into a large comfortable study adorned with Dutch tiles, small pieces of Renaissance sculpture, mysterious bronzes, china dogs and unglazed vases; and Fielding himself towering magnificent among them.
    As senior housemaster of Carne, Fielding wore, in place of the customary academic dress, a wonderful confection of heavy black skirts and legal bib, like a monk in evening dress. All this imparted a suggestion of clerical austerity in noted contrast to the studied flamboyance of his personality. Evidently conscious of this, he sought to punctuate the solemnity of his uniform and give to it a little of his own temperament, by adorning it with flowers carefully chosen from