Silence Observed by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page B

the pleasure of seeing you” – a genuine flash of memory about Mary Wildsmith had seemed to come to him amid all this nonsense – “was as the Countess of Rousillon in All’s Well . It must have been at the Old Vic.”
    “We’re a theatrical family,” Miss Wildsmith said. “And that was my aunt.” She held out her empty glass. “But your sherry, Sir John, makes up for a great deal.”
    It was at this moment – and rather to Appleby’s relief – that the Bendixsons arrived. He did at least know Carl Bendixson and his wife Gretta, and they were entirely estimable people. Bendixson was an auctioneer – but an auctioneer of the exalted sort who banged his hammer over the heads of Maillol bronzes and Renoir nudes. His wife was a painter of dazzling technique and – as far as Appleby knew – very little else. The Bendixsons lived in a much grander way than the Applebys did. Hammer-banging, after all, had been booming for years. But Judith was ahead of Gretta Bendixson as an artist favoured by the well-informed. And that no doubt evened things up. As Appleby handed the Bendixsons the sherry of which Mary Wildsmith approved, he was quite clear in his mind that they wouldn’t approve of it. Or not, that was to say, as an offering that could appropriately be commented on. But they were a reasonable couple, all the same.
    And, fortunately, the Bendixsons proved to be thoroughly well clued up on this Mary Wildsmith. It seemed that Miss Wildsmith did a good deal of resting nowadays, but that she had quite a name for precisely what Appleby had conjectured: versatility in small character parts. At the same time, Appleby got the impression that there had been some sort of hitch in the lady’s career. Perhaps, he thought, Miss Wildsmith had been a little too intelligent to fit quite comfortably into all those imbecile plays. Yes – that might very well be it.
    He became aware of Judith moving a candlestick on the chimney piece. She was doing this in order to look at the clock without appearing to do so. There could be no doubt that somebody had failed to turn up. The missing guest must be a male. And probably he was a male hitherto unknown to his host. That would be Judith’s way of balancing up her party.
    And the clock, it seemed, had ticked its way past some deadline. Appleby saw his wife press a bell. In fact he saw her rapidly press it twice. So at least they would now get something to eat. The Appleby domestic staff was not extensive. Apart from a person so ephemeral that it was hard not to refer to her simply as the foreign girl, it consisted of two persons almost so answeringly ephemeral that Appleby was accustomed to think of them as the decayed couple. But it was undeniable that Judith always had these impermanent appearances on their toes. Those two rings had assured that the round dinner table would presently proclaim its expectation not of six diners but of five. The missing guest had been obliterated. No reference would be made to him. If he did now turn up, he would be received with cordiality and mild surprise. Judith’s art, Appleby reflected, remained notably avant-garde . But her social assumptions approximated more and more closely to those of her great-grandparents. Appleby, who didn’t regard himself as possessing great-grandparents, found this very amusing. But he certainly wouldn’t venture, later in this evening’s proceedings, to enquire baldly as to who hadn’t turned up. That would have to keep until bedtime.
    “But what a heavenly thing!” Gretta Bendixson cried with amiable enthusiasm as she sat down. She was pointing at a somewhat battered object in the centre of the table. “It must be frightfully old.”
    “Fourteen thirty-four,” Judith said briskly. “It came from a manor house in Kent, and I traced it in Earliest English Wills . ‘A feir salt saler of peautre with a feyre knoppe’. I don’t think there’s much doubt about it. Do you like the feyre knoppe?”
    “Perfectly