“If you’re so determined to have a bad time then I don’t know why you’re going,” Dennis’ mother said, frowning slightly. “And at Christmas, too. Still, you clearly seem to think it will be more fun than being stuck here with us.”

Dennis Frew looked away. He saw now that, by feigning to describe his trip away as a terrible bore and a favour owed to a friend and thus excusable, he had contrived to make the traditional family event he was avoiding seem even worse.

He’d accepted the invitation from his friend Mark Dovey back in September when the leaves were still out and Christmas seemed an impossibly long time away. Now with the day almost upon him, he felt the familiar pull of divided loyalties. Christmas at home, with his mother, his sister and various tedious and barely-known aunts and cousins was always an excruciating experience. Abandoning them would, he now saw, be even more so.

“It’s only for two nights,” he said for about the fifteenth time.

His sister Lucy came into the living room at that moment; looked at Dennis; sniffed sadly and left again. Really, he thought, it was almost as if there had been a bereavement. It wasn’t even as if he believed in Christmas: the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, the guiding star; the whole fabulous rigmarole. He didn’t greatly care for turkey and, being tone deaf, took no delight in carols.

“You’ll have to go to church,” his mother added, as if reading his thoughts. “And sing hymns. The Doveys are frightfully religious, or at least Stephen was. I don’t know what those two sons of his believe in, if anything.” Mrs Frew had always particularly disliked Mark Dovey for some reason, and always honed in on his perceived lack of faith, even though this was something that, except for largely ornamental and social reasons, she shared. “We never make you go to church,” she added. She started to sniff like Lucy.

“Mark shows all the outward observances” Dennis said ambiguously and, he thought, cleverly. Then he realised he had again made matters worse by portraying his friend as both a humbug and a hypocrite. “But no one could say that Howard isn’t religious,” he added quickly, feeling himself stiffen slightly at the thought of spending any time with Mark’s insufferable prig of a younger brother. Mark didn’t care for his brother’s company either and this was, Dennis suspected, the main reason he’d been invited. “However, church attendance won’t be compulsory.”

“Will you be going?

“No,” Dennis said.

“It will make you frightfully unpopular,” she said presciently.

Dennis was rapidly tiring of his mother’s conversation which was, in familiar fashion, managing to trap him in a series of unwelcome or false positions. “Well,” he said, standing up, “times change. It’s nineteen fifty-six, after all.”

His mother raised her eyebrows in that way she had but said no more.

         *         *         *

Half an hour later he stood awkwardly half in and half out of the living room, gripping his bag in one hand. “I’ll be back on Boxing Day,” he said, little knowing that he wouldn’t. “Everyone will still be here.”

“Winnie won’t be,” Lucy said tragically. “She’s only here for the day. So is Maurice. They were both so looking forward to seeing you.” Lucy shot a slightly red-eyed glance at her mother but Mrs Frew had no desire to re-open the discussion. She had said all she needed to. Any more would be to make her seem shrewish and embittered which would, in turn, make her son feel better about leaving them. The guilt she had so successfully sown in his mind would blossom all the better through not being over-watered.

She tried to still Lucy’s preposterous and increasingly tearful assurances of the affection in which their cousins Winnie and Maurice held Dennis, something both Mrs Frew and Dennis knew to be completely baseless. In fact, she thought to herself, these two rather boring relations would probably be relieved that Dennis was not there to barb them, out of sheer boredom, about their Anglican faith or expose their lack of knowledge of contemporary film and literature.

She could see that the same justification was taking shape in her son’s mind: so, just as Lucy had just launched into “and as for poor Aunt Maud…”, Mrs Frew stood up.

“Well, if he’s going, he’s going,” she said and gave her son a cold peck on the cheek.

Snubbed by her mother and abandoned by her brother, Lucy turned angrily away. She was unable either to understand or control her feelings. Once again, she had somehow managed to say all the wrong things at the wrong times. Her mother would without doubt use the hours before the others arrived to point these out to her. Lucy didn’t really like Dennis in confined family occasions but liked the idea of his not being there for one even less. What a muddle. She started to sniff again. Dennis took his leave.

         *         *         *

“I’m afraid Linda Bastable’s here,” Mark Dovey said as he greeted Dennis on the steps of his crenelated eighteenth-century house in Sussex some two hours later. “She pretty much invited herself.” Mark’s father Stephen had died in the spring. It was clear that his heir had yet to become master in his own home. “So far, she’s only mentioned ‘my brother, the Archdeacon’ twice. But it’s early days.”

Dennis pulled his suitcase out of the back of the Wolseley and looked about him.

It had been several years since he had been to Tarbury House. It presented a total contrast to his mother’s home in Cheyne Walk, which at that season was generally cast in dank mists from the nearby river and the sulphurous smog from the power stations at Battersea and Lots Road. Here, in the rapidly fading daylight, the air was clear and still. The space and silence was particularly striking.

He’d forgotten how isolated the place was. Nearby was the tiny village of Balmer, the nearest building of which was the church, a couple of hundred yards away down a path which ran alongside a copse. In the other direction, a mile or so away, was the larger village of South Meston. There were a few lights twinkling and what looked like the flares of a large bonfire. The inhabitants of these parts were, Mark claimed, given to almost pagan practices at propitious times of the year, whether or not these co-incided with the Christian calendar. The village elders were probably preparing a human sacrifice on the village green to propitiate god-knows-what ancient winter deities. He rather admired them for it.

The snow, which had started falling almost as soon as he left London, was now heavier and settling. Already the landscape was sinking into that strange monochrome of bleached, frosty steel and encroaching off-black shadows which only heavy snow at dusk can produce.

Really, Dennis thought, casting a final look at the winter land before stepping into the bright lights of the house, it was almost too perfect.

As the screenwriter which he had recently become – hence the almost new Wolsley – he framed the moment in his mind. It was a tableau; the setting for a deceptively warm and hospitable scene within while, outside, the encroaching weather played havoc with the emotions and ambitions of the ill-assorted cast of characters. He had been toying with the plot for just such a country-house story though this currently owed too much to Agatha Christie and not enough, through a less thorough knowledge of his work, to Aldous Huxley. Dark and yet familiar: brittle and yet profound. These were the strands he was aiming to twine. And here the setting was. What could he make of it?

Among all these fine plans for creative stimulation, and the act of friendship which was ostensibly the reason for his being here, he found himself at every point encountering the far less honourable motive which was the real purpose of his visit.

He picked up his case and followed Mark into the house. What would the next two days provide? He felt briefly like Lear on the heath or Prospero on his island, summoning forth cataracts, marvels and remarkable events. He was not to be disappointed.

         *         *         *

“…the Archdeacon…” Lady Linda Bastable was saying as Mark and Dennis came into the well-lit and over-heated drawing room a few minutes later. She prattled on for half a minute or so, completely ignoring her host and his guest, every few sentences refreshing herself from an enormous goblet of wine.

Dennis cast his eyes around the other guests, of whom there were seven. He smiled at Selina Wales, Mark’s on-off paramour; nodded at Howard, Mark’s irritating younger brother; made a half bow at Mary Graham-Peel, Lady Bastable’s companion and bonne à tout faire; and raised his eyebrows at the discreditable Philip Carmichael, Mark and Howard’s cousin who, like Dennis, was paying no attention whatsoever to Lady Bastable’s babbling but, like her, drinking heavily from a different-shaped glass which appeared to contain several fingers of neat whisky.

The other three guests were unknown to him. One was a very old man half asleep in the corner who was probably Mark’s fabled Uncle Colin. There was a plain middle-aged woman, perhaps ten years older than himself, who was looking down at her shoes. The third was a stiff, awkward-looking man of about thirty whom Dennis immediately suspected of being either a priest, a doctor or a policeman. To none of these was it necessary to offer any greeting as none of them looked at him for more than a fleeting moment.

Mark politely waited until Linda Bastable’s monologue reached some kind of natural pause before stepping forward and announcing Dennis. The greetings he received ranged from gushing welcomes (from Philip) to almost total indifference (from Uncle Colin and the shoe-staring woman, who was vaguely referred to as ‘Cousin Maud’). Selina gave him an ambiguous smile. Lady Bastable and Howard Dovey fixed him with glances of frank disapproval.

“Well, well,” Lady Bastable said, “if it isn’t lovely Peter Frew.” This was a wonderful opening sally, a deliberate confusion with Dennis’ adored elder brother who’d been killed in the last week of the war. “Silly me,” she added, with a coquettish smile that ill-became her, “it’s young…” she clicked her jewelled fingers. “…Desmond.”

“The atheist,” Howard added in his grumpy but surprisingly high-pitched voice.

Dennis nodded slowly. He made no attempt to deal with either remark. Part of him was unsurprised, part of him raged and part of him noted it all down in what he hoped would be permanent ink.

The gong struck from the hall.

“Saved by the bell,” Mark said smoothly. “Shall we go in?”

Dennis was seated between Uncle Colin and Cousin Maud and opposite the awkward man who revealed himself, first, to be called Charles Murdoch and, second, to be a policeman: a Sergeant in the Metropolitan Police, based in Shoreditch. Dennis was less curious about his rank, which didn’t sound very senior, than why he was there at all. Gentle probing revealed Murdoch’s story that Stephen Dovey had been his Godfather and that, having no immediate family, he occasionally spent Christmas here. He had, he confided unnecessarily, a cousin in Lewes about five miles away whom he was visiting on Boxing Day.

This seemed like too much information. Clearly some other motive had brought Murdoch here. Dennis’s creative mind started whirring.

At the other end of the table, Linda Bastable was holding court. “Of course,” she was saying, “Christmas is a time for Dickens.” She paused, as if daring anyone to disagree. No one did. “It’s also about the holy church. Its traditions are under attack every day. I blame the war,” she added sorrowfully, before gulping at her wine. “Things were different before then…” Her voice straggled on.

Throughout all of this, Howard was nodding and saying “mmm, mmm” as if he were a backbencher at Commons debate. He wouldn’t have been much more than fourteen when the war started and so couldn’t really have any idea of what Lady Bastable was talking about.

To his left, Uncle Colin required little more than agreement with his occasional confused Anglo-Catholic opinions, to which Dennis had politely nodded. His conversation with Maud, to his right, seemed to have been exhausted during the soup by her almost whispered remarks about the weather. It seemed, she told him, that by tomorrow they were all going to be snowed in. The thought seemed to give her a peculiar delight.

Lady Bastable was still listing the evils that the post-war world had visited upon them. “and of course, the Labour Party, and that awful Mr Atlee…”

Maud sprung into life. “The devil who had deceived,” she informed them, “was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Then,” she added in the same monotonous tone, “he will say to those on his left, ‘depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”.

No one could immediately think of anything to say to all that, though most looked to the left of her, where Dennis sat.

For the second time, Dennis was saved from the awkward silence by Simpson the butler, who arrived with a prodigious trifle. After her outburst, Maud settled back into her previous torpor.

“…and of course, as my brother, the Archdeacon said, you can always tell a person by the Christmases they keep. ‘Goodwill to all men, aid the poor, help those in need’ – well, that’s all well and good – we all do that as we can, of course – but what really counts is the observance, the celebration of our Lord’s birth. The moment of connection with the infinite in a carol or a prayer on this most sacred of days.” She paused while Simpson refilled her glass of claret. “I’m sure we will all be going across the fields tomorrow morning to celebrate this.” She shot a glance up the table.

“Mmm, mmm,” Howard added.

Lady Bastable briefly sat back in her chair as she gulped her wine, which seemed to put her in a more reflective mood. “Of course, Bobo always said that beauty was important too. My second husband,” she explained, “when he put the Veroni diamonds around my neck and told me that I was like Aphrodite. Of course, I’ve never been parted from them since. Tomorrow, I think, will be a good time to…”

Dennis was aware of a quickening of interest from around the table. Selina’s expression changed from one of boredom to sudden attention and Howard’s from pompous agreement to disapproval. Philip Carmichael, who previously had been trying, without any evident success, to interest Selina in a series of racy anecdotes, sat foward in his chair and almost goggled at Lady Bastable. Sergeant Murdoch looked surprised, Mark embarrassed and Mary Graham-Peel, who had spent most of the meal picking at her food, slightly shocked. Uncle Colin, for no reason Dennis could see, nudged him heavily in the chest.

Somewhere in this carnival of reactions, Dennis decided, was something of interest. He was unable to say from whom this had come.

“…of course, each day I put them in a separate place…” Lady Bastable was saying.

As before, Mark picked the perfect moment to interrupt this flow. “Who’s for church tomorrow?” he asked. “Ten o’clock.” He cocked an eye at the window. It was still snowing heavily. “The path should be clear and it’s only a five-minute walk.”

“I think we can count us all in, if that’s our host’s, and our Lord’s, wish,” Lady Bastable said.

“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” Maud suggested.

“Not for me, thanks,” Dennis said.

“Well, that’s a shame,” Lady Bastable said, echoing Maud’s earlier mournful intonation of the word. “Your host – never mind a higher power – has proposed and yet…well, the youth of today.” Dennis, who was thirty-five, did his best to smile indulgently. “What do you know? You shut out the truth. What will you do? Good deeds according to your secular” – she pronounced the word with great contempt – “compass, mmm? Where, exactly? If that is your intention, of course. Which…”

“Mmm, mmm,” Howard said.

Dennis lost patience. “Howard,” he said, ignoring Lady Bastable altogether, “what would you do to help a stranger in trouble?” He knew from a casual remark by Mark that Howard had come awfully close to a jail sentence some years ago from running someone over in his motor car while full of wine, and not stopping. It had taken all of Stephen’s pull to get his younger son acquitted on a technicality.

Howard seemed to have missed the point of this thrust and muttered for some time about the Good Samaritan and some minor act of benevolence he’d been involved with near his offices in Cheapside. Dennis was appalled that he’d appeared to have to forgotten the awful incident so completely. Howard rambled on about charity, the time of the year and the need to celebrate the saviour: all of which linked back into Lady Bastable’s drone.

“…of our saviour,” she said, and got up. “I shall certainly be there. Let those who follow as may.” She drained her glass and moved towards the door. “And a happy Christmas to you all.”

From across the table, Philip Carmichael offered Dennis an outrageous wink. Selina gave him another ambiguous smile. Howard glowered. Mark shrugged. Charles Murdoch seemed, as Dennis had been, though perhaps for different reasons, to be surveying all the reactions. Maud appeared to be in a trance and Uncle Colin to be asleep.

The evening was over. Dennis drained his own glass, bid everyone a general goodnight, and retreated upstairs to his elegant but cold bedroom.

As he got undressed, he pulled back the curtains. The snow was still falling, tapping against the window pane and settling in silver shadows across what he could see of the landscape from the few lights that still opened onto the rear of the house. Across the empty fields, he glimpsed the last flames of South Meston’s pagan bonfire flickering against the falling shards of darkness.

         *         *         *

Breakfast was a fairly grim meal, as breakfasts at house parties often are. It had been agreed the night before that the Christmas Day would be regarded as starting on the return from church, so leaving the first part of the morning free of any obligations of bonhomie: a period of recovery from the excesses of the previous evening, before the even greater excesses of the one to come. Snow had fallen during the night and was still falling now. Dennis could make out the path to the church as this was mainly sheltered by the trees but, aside from that, the immediate landscape was flat, white and largely featureless.

Rather to Dennis’ surprise, Philip Carmichael was down early, tucking into a large plate of eggs, kidneys and bacon and showing no after-effects of the enormous quantity of wine and whisky he’d put away the evening before. He was telling a story to Selina, who was nodding vaguely but not paying him much attention. Her pretty, cat-like face was drawn and tired, her eyes slightly red. She looked displeased and frustrated. Dennis wondered if she and Mark had had another row.

Dennis considered Philip over his coffee. He was about forty, a few years older than Dennis and Mark but already betraying all the outward signs of advancing middle age. Undeniably handsome in a rather louche way and with dark, slightly hooded eyes, he was, Dennis reflected, a good example of someone for whom it was possible to find the mind’s construction in the face.

Three times married and three times divorced, he had run through at least two fortunes – one acquired in a dubious mining enterprise in South Africa just after the war which had all been riotously spent; and another, almost as large, which had been won and lost over a single weekend of gambling. There had also been other less spectacular schemes, some of which – like the vanishing Bentley and the poker game on the Venice Simplon Express – were in their own ways equally dramatic.  Philip now was, Mark had warned Dennis, at one of his low ebbs.

Dennis thoughtfully buttered some toast. This probably explained his presence here. Mark was now rich, as was Howard, and Philip was doubtless hoping to make a seasonal touch. He didn’t care what Howard did with his money but hoped Mark would be able to resist the lure of whatever elaborate project Philip was working on. The thought now struck Dennis that he was opening his campaign with an attempt to soften up Selina.

Dennis’ attention was now taken up with Charles Murdoch who had slid into a chair at the far end of the table as if his sole aim in arriving was to do so without being noticed. Perhaps he was in training for surveillance work and hoping, by acquiring the technique of being almost invisible, to rise further in his profession. Dennis couldn’t decide if his occasional glances around the room were diffident or furtive. Gradually, it became clear that he was observing Philip quite closely. Dennis wondered why this might be.

Lady Bastable’s voice could now be heard in the corridor, interspersed with placating whimpers from Mary. Both Charles and Dennis switched their attention to that. They were talking about jewels, Lady Bastable querulously asking Mary if she’d put them “where I’d told you” and reminding her of a previous occasion when this hadn’t happened, with almost disastrous consequences; Mary assuring her that she had.

While appearing to be doing little more than stirring his tea, Charles seemed to be listening to both conversations with equal attention. Dennis tried to do the same thing himself and found it impossible.

At that moment, Mark and Howard appeared. If Mark and Selina had argued during the night, it was equally clear that he and Howard had done so more recently. Intrigued, Dennis shifted his attention to this third conversation and discovered this was about little more than the business of getting Uncle Colin to church; or not.

Mark pointed out of the window. “I really don’t think he can make it,” he said. Howard merely deepened his Jesuitical expression, as if to say that God will find a way. From across the field, the church bells started to peal.

At quarter to ten, everyone was gathered in the hall. Supported on the one side by Cousin Maud and on the other by Simpson the butler, Uncle Colin seemed bowed down by a huge greatcoat at least three sizes too large for him. Philip had produced a dark purple cloak that made him look like a wicked magician. Howard had changed into a dark suit and bowler hat and reminded Dennis of an undertaker. Lady Bastable was sporting a flamboyant leopard-skin coat and an elaborate and completely inappropriate fascinator. Mary was in tweeds with a hideously clashing coat in Santa Claus red. Maud was in dark green, Mark in grey with a pale macintosh, the servants in traditional domestic sub-fusc. The last to come back downstairs was Selina, attired in a black and white striped woollen dress and a black Tudor bonnet with white lace which made her resemble a rather glamorous zebra crossing.

Dennis was the only person staying behind. He stood on the bottom step of the staircase, feeling slightly like the captain of a ship bidding formal farewells to passengers after an unhappy voyage. Lady Bastable, Mary, Howard and Cousin Maud shot him various glances of displeasure. Philip beamed at him. Mark smiled nervously. Charles Murdoch avoided looking at him altogether, perhaps being more concerned with practising his eavesdropping. Uncle Colin appeared to have no clear idea of what was happening, except that he was being made to go outside. He had managed to take off the coat: getting him back into it and manoeuvring him through the doorway was like watching several people trying to put an unwilling and unexpectedly powerful cat into a travelling basket.

Eventually they were off and the house was still. Dennis went back into the dining room, poured himself another cup of coffee and lit his pipe.

After a few moments, the party appeared from round the front and made their way onto the path, Mark in front and Howard bringing up the rear. Still superintended by Cousin Maud and Simpson, Uncle Colin was making surprisingly good progress. The snow continued to fall, from time to time billowing upwards or chasing itself in spirals across the fields.

The procession retreated into the silvery light. Before they had gone fifty paces all the colour, even Philip’s magician’s cape and Mary’s red coat, seemed to become bleached into so many shades of grey. They then vanished from sight. A few moments later, the joyous melody of the bells was reduced to just one which rang on for about half a minute as if striking the hour. The last peal faded and, unmusical as he was, Dennis fancied he heard strange harmonics carried on the wind. Then these died away and he was left in complete silence.

He had been expecting to feel relief at being alone but instead felt distracted and preoccupied. He wandered restlessly from room to room as if looking for something he had put down and now urgently needed. Then he found himself upstairs and turning the handle of what he thought was Philip’s room. Quite what he was expecting to find there he couldn’t have said but the man was, he was certain, up to no good. It seemed almost foolish to do nothing about this. He opened the door.

The room wasn’t Philip’s but Lady Bastable’s. The wardrobe door was open and he could see the mauve dress she’d worn at dinner. Three elegant pigskin suitcases were on the floor in the corner, all with the monogram “LB”.  He wondered how long she was proposing to stay. There was a silver hairbrush on the dressing table as well as four perfume atomisers and three jars of face cream. There were four pairs of shoes neatly laid out on the opposite side of the wardrobe to the suitcases. One of the drawers was partly open. He saw a red box, a blue dress, a green scarf. A tea cup, plate and knife on the side table showed she had breakfasted in bed. There were also other drawers, some partly open and some not. One was locked.

What was he doing here? What was he looking for? Why was he counting everything? All he could say for sure was that something was about to happen, though he had no idea what it was. He stood in the centre of the carpet, briefly unable to move. The window looked out in the same direction as did the dining room. The snow was getting heavier. Even from his higher vantage point it was now impossible to make out the path, while even the church seemed to have vanished in the blizzard. Still he felt unable to move. Time seemed to hang in suspension.

At that moment, he heard a thunderous knocking on the front door.

         *         *         *

The plan had been for the domestic staff to leave the church immediately after the service and return to complete the preparations for the prodigious lunch while Mark and his guests dallied for a while in the sacristy, drinking sherry and exchanging platitudes with the vicar and the dozen or so other communicants.

In the event, it was decided everyone would leave straight after the service. The snow was heavier than ever, the wind was rising and the temperature falling. Looking out of the church door, Mark estimated with dismay the chances of getting Uncle Colin back to the house. The path was now completely hidden. Simpson, Mrs Saxonby the cook and the three other domestics had already left, bowed against the elements. Uncharitably, Mark watched them recede into the distance, wondering if their passage would in any way help clear the path. It appeared not.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Charles Murdoch had come up beside him and was following Mark’s gaze. For a moment neither said anything. The wind dropped. Mark took comfort from this brief moment of calm. Then the wind picked up again, twisting a wave of snow in the air and hurling it back at the doorway of the church as if defying them to leave. Both men instinctively took a step backwards.

They heard footsteps behind them and turned round, moving slightly apart. “I was thinking of a sledge,” the Vicar said.

He was a short and chubby man with a disconcertingly long and rather pointed skull which seemed to belong to someone else. Laid flat on the ground, he might himself have served as a sledge, his sharp head cutting through the snowdrifts like the prow of an icebreaker. However, something more practical was called for.

“Do you have a sledge?” Mark asked with a light smile.

The Vicar rubbed his chin. “Well, as a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “It’s for the children” he added, though didn’t specify what aspect of the church’s activities required such a thing in this flat countryside.

“Does it have a rope?” Charles asked.

The Vicar rubbed his chin again. “Well, yes, I rather think it does.”

Getting Uncle Colin onto the sledge proved even harder than getting him out of the house an hour and a half before. “I can walk, let me do that at least” he grumbled fretfully when they were all outside and the proposal explained to him. He backed away from the sledge like a horse, then slipped and crashed into Howard, who crashed into Lady Bastable, who let out an eldritch shriek. Cousin Maud eventually took control, declaring that Colin would be the passenger for the first half of the trip and she for the second.

This placated the old man and he was finally positioned on the sledge with his legs stuck out at either side. After a few paces pulled by Philip and Howard it became clear that these were acting as brakes: Selina took his left foot and Charles his right and held these up in the air, as if he were about to give birth. With Mark offering ineffectual moral and physical support and the leopard-skinned Lady Bastable bringing up the rear, the strange procession eventually set off. Progress was slow. Howard fell over twice and Philip once.

About half-way back, Uncle Colin commanded the convoy to stop. An even longer delay then followed while he was got to his feet and Maud took his place. Soon afterwards the sledge hit a bump and Maud slid off; whereupon Howard, surprised by the sudden lack of resistance, fell over again, cursing freely. Colin had consented to be more or less carried by Mark and Charles. It was a cold, tired, wet and dispirited party that arrived back at the house.

The others were in the hall, pointing at a broken window by the front door. Simpson then gestured at an empty space nearby where an unremarkable rug had previously lain. Ruth, the fair-haired and rather fragile-looking maid was crying and the more self-possessed Sarah was trying to comfort her. Mark realised something had happened but couldn’t work out what.

An inventory conducted with Simpson of the immediate area of the porch showed that two spades and pair of wellington boots also appeared to be missing. A similar brief survey in the living room revealed the disappearance of the poker.

At that moment, there was a desperate howl from the kitchen. “The saw, the saw,” Mrs Saxonby was shouting. She rushed down the corridor and into the hall, her hair slightly awry. “It’s gone. It was on the table and it’s gone!” Ruth started crying again.

“Why was there a saw in the kitchen?” Philip asked, seeming genuinely to want to know.

“What?” Mrs Saxonby asked wildly. “What? The saw!”

“Yes,” Phil replied. “But why in the kitchen?”

“Why? Well, the joint was too big for the oven pan so I had to cut it in two. With the saw. I left it there. And it’s gone!” She wrung her hands in misery.

“Where’s Dennis?” Howard asked. “Surely he should be able to explain what’s happened.” Simpson said he had already tried to find him. His name was shouted by everyone and a brief search conducted but of Dennis there was no sign. His car was still outside, not that it would have been possible to drive it anywhere.

“What’s this?” Howard said sharply, indicating some wet clothes that seemed to have been hastily hung on the rack in the corner of the boot room – a pair of trousers, a shirt and a jumper, No one recognised them.

Simpson then reported that the bottle of malt whisky he had left on the sideboard for the pre-prandial drinks had also vanished, though the gin and the vodka were untouched.

Then a fresh commotion began. “Oh, oh no…ah…!” Lady Bastable howled and rushed up the stairs, followed by an anxious looking Mary. A few moments later, the air was riven with a truly animal wail from the first floor. Mark and Charles took the stairs two at a time and at the top collided with an ashen-faced Mary who had shot out of Lady Bastable’s bedroom like a champagne cork. In the room, Lady Bastable was staring hopelessly around her. Several of the drawers had been pulled out, the wardrobe doors were open and articles of clothing were scattered over the floor.

“The diamonds!” she wailed. “They’ve gone! They’ve gone! Call the Police!”

“Mark, Mark!” Philip’s urgent voice came from the hall. Leaving the howling Lady Bastable for Charles and Mary to deal with, the host charged back down the stairs. Everyone was gathered round Uncle Colin who was slumped on a chair. He was shivering and his lips were slightly blue. “Been taken funny,” he kept muttering.

Snow billowed in from the window. Mark instinctively put up his hand to close it, remembering too late that the pane was broken and nicking his thumb on the glass. Uncle Colin slumped a little lower in the chair. From upstairs, the piteous wailings of Lady Bastable intensified, accompanied by crashes and thumps that suggested the remaining drawers were being pulled out and their contents hurled on the floor.

Buffeted by these various catastrophes, Mark swayed for a moment in the centre of the hall, quite unsure what he ought to do next. Blood from his injured thumb dripped down onto the floor where the rug had been. More snow came in through the window. Then there was a sudden gasp from behind him.

He swung round but it was only the grandfather clock, gathering itself together to strike the hour. Aside from Lady Bastable upstairs, everyone paused while the chimes reverberated through the house. Just as the twelfth one announced the start of the afternoon, all the lights went out.

Charles had come downstairs and moved over to the telephone. Of course, Mark thought: help was needed. But where to start? A number of specialists were required, including a doctor, a nurse, a glazier, an electrician and a policeman or two. How easy any of these would be to procure on Christmas Day was uncertain. Above all, he wanted someone else to take charge of the situation. He felt completely unequal to it. And what the hell had happened to Dennis?

Charles had been jigging the buttons several times but how replaced the receiver and turned to Mark, shaking his head. “The line’s dead,” he said. Mark closed his eyes.

*         *         *

Half an hour later, some order had been restored. A large fire had been lit in the living room and, on either side of it, Uncle Colin and Lady Bastable had been installed, the former partly restored by brandy and the latter partly sedated by gin. The news that they were cut off from the world led to fresh paroxysms from both Lady Bastable and Ruth.

By common consent, lunch was postponed indefinitely and two search parties were dispatched. Charles, who appeared to have taken charge of the situation, went back with Selina down the vanished path to Balmer to see if any telephones were working there. Mark, Howard and Philip set off to look for Dennis.

The task was, as they all privately accepted but couldn’t face sharing, fairly hopeless. They had no clue as to where he might have gone as any tracks had been obliterated by the snow. With the other two heading west towards Balmer, the brothers and their cousin went south, across the main lawn in front of the house and then over a style to the first of several fields that eventually ran down to the road between Lewes and South Meston. Here they paused and scanned the empty landscape. Apart from the occasional crow, nothing was moving. It was still snowing as heavily as ever.

“We should split up,” Mark said into the wind. He was determined to re-assert himself in some way, however small.

“That’s such a cliché…” Howard began but Philip cut in.

“I agree. It’s true that if we find Dennis” – he emphasised the “if” – “we won’t be able to bring him back on our own if he’s hurt. But that’s better than missing him. As you two know the country round here better than me I suggest I go towards South…Meston, whatever it’s called.”

This was exactly what Mark had been about to say and was unreasonably cross that both his general idea and its detail had been hijacked. There was a path alongside the hedge that ran more or less straight ahead of them, down the slope towards the road about a mile and a half away.

“There’s a path down there,” Howard said, just as Mark was about to speak, “alongside the hedge. Should give some protection.” Mark now felt even more annoyed. Howard was already climbing over the stile, Philip already trudging east towards the village.

“We’ll meet back here in half an hour,” Mark added weakly but wasn’t sure if either of them had heard him. He turned right. When he turned back half a minute later both of them had disappeared.

The land sloped uphill for about a hundred yards. At the crest of this little hill he would, in normal circumstances, have been able to look down to Balmer church to his right with the village a bit beyond that. From there, the path dropped downhill and curved to the left to skirt a pond before joining the single-track road that ran from the village up to the Lewes Road.

So fierce had the snow become, however, that Mark could see nothing. Turning round a few times to get his bearings made him lose them and when he finally set off he had the nagging doubt he had come too far to the right. This was confirmed a few minutes later when, by now almost blinded with the snow, he felt the ground give way under his foot. He tried to step back, lost his balance and fell forwards. There was an interesting crack as the thin, snow-covered ice shattered: then he found himself toppling into freezing water. He’d walked into the pond.

Adrenaline kicked in and somehow got him upright, though now up to his chest in water. It also got him pointing back in the right direction and soon he was scrabbling back onto solid ground. He collapsed face down in the snow. He had no idea how long he lay there for but was stirred by the realisation that his clothes were starting to freeze. He staggered to his feet.

He had three choices: continue round the pond and then turn right to Balmer, where he could find help; head off diagonally to his left which would lead him to the path from the church and so the shortest route home; or return the way he’d come, where he might meet the others.

He chose the last option. No one can say what the other two might have produced. This one brought him to the stile where they’d separated, by which time he could no longer feel his feet, and then slowly back up the field and home, by which time he could no longer feel his hands either. He hammered on the door which was opened by Ruth the maid. He collapsed across the threshold. Ruth screamed.

Ten minutes later he was in a hot bath and feeling the agonising pleasure of returning circulation. By the time he was dressed and downstairs it was half past three. Philip had already returned. Howard came back shortly afterwards, freezing, limping and expecting sympathy which Mark’s accident completely deprived him of. Neither had found any trace of Dennis.

*         *         *

Charles had not been idle. His trip to Balmer with Selina had revealed that no telephones were working there either. They were told there was no doctor or policeman in the village and so immediately returned home. They reached the house at about the same time as Mark, Howard and Philip were having their discussion by the stile about half a mile away.

“So, how exactly do you know Mark?” Selina shouted through the snow at him.

This wasn’t an easy question to answer, particularly not to someone who had until the evening before been Mark’s fiancée. “We met in a club,” he said: which was true.

Selina said nothing for a few paces. Charles worried she was going to ask what kind of club, which wasn’t a question he felt like going into at this exact moment. “Did you know we were engaged?”

Noting the tense, Charles wondered how much he ought to admit to knowing. “Yes,” he shouted back.

“We aren’t now,” she replied.

They struggled on for a few more paces. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

Once back at the house, Charles took control. He said that as there was evidence of at least one crime, he wanted everyone to remain in the living room while he, as a police officer, would “conduct investigations” upstairs. He spoke to Mrs Saxonby and agreed that beef sandwiches would be provided. He then went to calm Ruth, who was having another hysterical fit, although it was hard to tell when one ended and the next one began. He set her to work with some cardboard and packing tape to seal up the broken window.

Returning to the living room, he then checked on Uncle Colin who seemed to have revived. At the other side of the fireplace, Lady Bastable was half-insensible and being comforted by Mary. Selina was pointedly playing patience. Cousin Maud was reading a copy of The Church Times. After asking the last two if they could let him know when the other search party returned, he went upstairs.

Lady Bastable’s room was in turmoil, every drawer having been disturbed. There was an obvious question he could have gone downstairs and asked but he didn’t. Instead, he continued his searches in the other bedrooms. Interestingly, Dennis’ was in a similar state of confusion, with drawers open and a suitcase open by the bed. It was almost as if the someone had been looking for something in both rooms. But had they found it?

He had learned precisely nothing, aside from the fact that Lady Bastable’s jewels were not in any of the places he’d looked.

He went back downstairs. He thought about the strange assortment of objects that had vanished. Picking up a piece of apparently blank paper lying on the floor of the hall, he found a pencil and listed them:

• Wellington boots
• Spade (x2)
• Rug
• Meat saw
• Poker
• Whisky

He then added:

• ? Diamonds

Then there were the wet clothes, so he added:

• Wet clothes.

Viewed like this, the list made little sense. The boots suggested a sudden need to go outside: but to do what? And how could one man use two spades? If two men, why not two pairs of boots? Perhaps someone else had arrived, with boots, who needed a spade? To do what with? To bury something, perhaps: maybe the diamonds, wrapped – and here he felt he might be getting somewhere – in the rug.

No, that was no good. This would be cumbersome and not waterproof. In any case, what of the other items? There were better things to use to break into a jewel box than a poker or a saw. Then there was the whisky. After having done whatever deed, would they then sit in a snowstorm and get drunk? This seemed even more unlikely when he reflected that, judging by the wet clothes, one of them would have been naked.

He thought for a moment. Things other than jewel cases could be wrapped in rugs. He put the piece of paper in his pocket and went to find Simpson.

“About six feet long, sir,” the Butler answered, “and perhaps two foot six wide.”

This seemed ominous and made him wonder again what had happened to Dennis and where the clothes had come from. He asked another question.

“No, not valuable at all, sir. Purely functional. Light brown. It was hessian – “burlap” as they call it in America,” he added disconcertingly. “We had an American gentleman staying a few years ago,” he went on, seeing Charles’ expression, “and he used the word. I’d never heard it before and so looked it up.”

A regular Jeeves, Charles reflected. He tried to think of another question to ask about the rug but they seem to have exhausted all there was to say on the topic. “You know I’m a police officer?” he asked instead.

“Yes, sir,” Simpson replied. If the man knew what “burlap” meant, he doubtless knew a number of other things as well, including about the guests. He studied Simpson’s impassive face. Handled correctly, he could be a useful source of information. Then again, could he be trusted? He and the others had after all been the first on the scene. The thought hadn’t struck Charles before.

“As we’re cut off, I’m taking charge of the investigation.” Simpson raised his eyebrows very slightly. “Until the local police can get here, of course.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“I’d like to have a quick word with all the domestic staff,” he said. “Individually. Maybe I could start with you?”

“Well, sir, here I am.”

“Perhaps we could use the dining room.”

“Of course, sir.”

Remembering that his notebook was in his coat which was hanging in the boot room, Charles then followed the butler into the freezing room, Once they were seated, Charles pointedly opened it and, pencil poised, asked how many domestic servants there were.

“At present, sir, five. Myself, Mrs Saxonby the cook, Sarah and Ruth the maids. And Jasper.”

“What does Jasper do?”

Simpson scratched the side of face while he thought about what Jasper did. “He is…I suppose you could call him the ‘useful man’.”

“Is he?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Is he a useful man?”

Simpson offered an indulgent smile. “Well, after his own fashion,” he replied enigmatically. “That’s to say, sir, it’s his title. Or one of them. He’s also the chauffeur although, of course, Mr Mark prefers to drive himself. You might also call him the assistant gardener.”

“So, you also have a head gardener?”

“Alas, no, sir.”

Charles was as confused as ever and glanced down at his list of names. “Mrs Saxonby,” he said. “Is there a Mr Saxonby?”

Simpson raised his eyebrows again and Charles realised how this question could have been interpreted. He felt himself redden. “I ask because…” His voice trailed off. Why had he asked?

“No, sir. Mrs Saxonby has never married.” Charles thought he detected a flicker of pleasured anticipation in Simpson’s tone, so raised his own eyebrows. As the man was looking down at his hands, the gesture was wasted.

“So, why is she called ‘Mrs’?”

Simpson smiled again. Charles was becoming a bit fed up with Simpson’s smiles. “All cooks are known as ‘Mrs’ sir,” he said softly, as if explaining something to a child, “regardless of their marital status.”

Charles gave up on this line of questioning and returned to the morning’s events. He then asked for the others to come in one by one. Going through the episode, from their departure from church to the arrival of the others at the house, none of the five stories differed in the slightest degree. They had left together straight after the end of the service and arrived back to find the window broken, the rug, the spade and the boots missing, the wet clothes and no sign of Dennis. The others, Charles amongst them, had returned about ten minutes later.

More for the form of the thing, Charles fired at each of them other enquiries. Which of them, for example, had been the first to enter the house?

“That would have been me, sir,” Mrs Saxonby said. “I wanted to check on the roast beef in the oven, the Reverend having gone on for longer than usual.”

Who was it who first noticed the rug was missing?

“Me, sir,” Ruth said. “Mr Simpson had said on the way back he wanted me to shake it out but of course, with it not being there, I couldn’t.”

Who had swept up the broken glass in the hall?

“Mr Simpson asked Ruth to, sir,” Sarah said, “but she was wanted in the kitchen by Mrs Saxonby so she asked me. But there wasn’t any to sweep up.”

Did anyone search for any other objects that might have been missing?

“Not to any great extent, sir,” Simpson said. “First, Sarah and I looked for Mr Frew, without success. Mrs Saxonby and Ruth were busy in the kitchen and Jasper was fetching more wood. I paid no mind to how many boots were there, the gentleman being out in that weather. I confess I didn’t notice the spades. The other items were in the living room, it turned out. We didn’t look in, apart from seeing if Mr Frew was there. Mrs Saxonby noticed the saw was missing just after you all got back.”

Were spades normally kept in the boot room?

“Not normally, sir,” Ruth said. “However, I think Mr Mark brought two in from the garden yesterday morning when he thought there might be snow.”

Did no one see Dennis after they’d all left for church?

“No, sir,” Sarah said, “but I noticed he smoked a pipe and there was one in the dining room after we came back so suppose he must have been in there, but I didn’t see him.”

Charles, who was trying to be devious, paid more attention to delivery of these answers than to their substance, which is why he missed one fact of significance.

He was relieved that Ruth had managed to regain some level of self-possession, occasionally dabbing her eyes but resisting her earlier hysterics. Charles suspected that she thought she was being accused of stealing the jewels and went to great lengths to assure her this was not the case: though, for all he knew, she had. This relaxed her slightly but there was still some unease that he couldn’t identify.

This was, Charles felt, partly explained when he spoke to Jasper. He was an attractive but rather sly young man with a long, sinewy body that he could never quite keep still and bright blue eyes that would open wide when wanting to appear sincere: a kind of cross between Oliver Twist and Seth Starkadder. Charles found this combination dangerously beguiling and frequently lost his train of thought.

Delicate questioning revealed that he and Ruth were quite close. This led Charles to reinforce his vague theory that they might have been in cahoots about the diamonds, he being the instigator and her the instrument. Maids could, Charles supposed, pop up anywhere in a house, in the way that useful men or under-chauffeurs or whatever exactly Jasper was presumably could not.

This idea was, however, somewhat undermined by Mrs Saxonby’s assertion that she’d frequently warned Ruth and Sarah that “half the girls in the villages were sweet on that young rascal,” although she seemed not to be immune from his charms herself. Sarah had, Mrs Saxonby said, assured her that she “wasn’t fooled” by him though she admitted Ruth had seemed more upset by this news. Charles wondered if Mrs Saxonby’s interest was actually to keep control of Ruth, who seemed a competent if lachrymose servant, rather than to protect her from any emotional rejection.

Just as he had finished in the dining room, the icicled Mark had staggered back in and everything was dominated by dealing with him.

Eventually, the others having also returned, they all gathered in the living room to eat more roast beef sandwiches and cold Christmas pudding. Although it was barely four o’clock, candles were needed, the electricity still not having returned. To make matters worse, something had gone wrong with the central heating system, such as it was. Jasper had been summoned and muttered about pilot lights and electrical starter motors before disappearing into the basement.

No one had any great confidence that he could accomplish anything. In any case, as Mark wryly pointed out, the system took so long to produce any discernible heat that the season had sometimes changed by the time it did, whereupon there were similar problems with trying to turn it off. More wood was piled on the living room fire and on the one in the servants’ hall. Once these two rooms were vacated everyone, regardless of social status, would face a freezing night in their respective bedrooms, alone or otherwise.

Mark considerately took two bottles of rather good claret and a bottle of average whisky for the domestic staff’s consumption. He also had a conversation with Mrs Saxonby which revealed a worryingly low level of provisions. The plan had been to close the house up for a fortnight after Boxing Day, with Mark going to London and the domestic staff dispersing to their local families, dropping in now and then by rota to keep an eye on the house.

These arrangements, coupled with Mrs Saxonby’s horror of tinned food of all kinds, meant that there was very little food beyond that needed for Christmas and Boxing Day breakfast. It was likely they’d all be stuck there for longer. An examination of the supplies by Mark, Simpson and Mrs Saxonby revealed a general dearth of everything except raisins, oats, dark chocolate, beef dripping, red wine and whisky, ingredients which even Mark’s resourceful cook was unable to suggest a way of combining into an edible meal.

There was a tacit agreement between them that the normal below-stairs standards of on-duty sobriety and neatness and the above-stairs demands for regular meals, or any meals, and regular attendance to their every whim would be relaxed. Mark and Simpson agreed to convey this news to their respective groups.

Mark noticed, or thought he noticed, a gleam of respect in Simpson’s eye as this arrangement was concluded. This was nineteen fifty-six, after all. Both knew that the way of life into which they’d been born was dying and neither of them could easily see what the future might hold when the two parts of the house were no longer bound together by ties of convenience, reward and convention. Mark hoped that this gesture would buy another year or so of this continuing. Simpson felt exactly the same.

Lady Bastable and Philip happily accepted the news of a basically alcohol-only diet. Maud, who drank very little, sniffed in disgust: Howard, who drank quite a lot but who liked to make Mark feel in the wrong, sniffed as well. Mary – who remained concentrated on Lady Bastable – and Selina – who was now studiously avoiding anything Mark or Charles said or did – didn’t really react at all. Mark reflected that Selina had always been more interested in her figure than her food, while Mary’s motivations, if she had any that were independent of her mistress, were a mystery to him.

The immediate problem, he now saw, was Uncle Colin. From being wan and pale when he collapsed after church, he was now red and agitated, suggesting that the remedial brandy had perhaps been taken too liberally. It was too early to put the old man to bed but his room needed to be brought up to something closer to blood temperature. Jasper was still performing his pointless alchemy with the heating system so Mark gathered up some logs and kindling and went out into the hall.

He shut the door behind him. The failure of the boiler seemed to be making the house actively colder. His breath fogged. Not being expert in lighting domestic fires he thought about asking for a volunteer from the servants’ hall but was dissuaded by the sound of singing. Simpson had clearly wasted no time in putting their agreement into effect. Mark trudged upstairs, finally managed to get the fire lit, went back down for more wood, piled this on the hearth and then stripped a blanket from his own bed and added it to Colin’s.

He went back down the stairs for the second time, marvelling at how domestic staff managed to keep this pitch of work up all day long. He’d merely lit one fire and was completely exhausted. He then reminded himself that in the last twenty-four hours he’d also welcomed nine guests, broken his engagement, fallen in love, hardly slept, made two journeys in a blizzard, experienced a mysterious burglary or abduction involving the disappearance of his oldest friend, fallen into an icy pond and concluded an almost revolutionary social compact with his butler; all on Christmas Day. And the sun hadn’t even set

Looking out of the unbroken window in the hall, he wasn’t so sure about this. The clock showed quarter to five but it surely shouldn’t be as dark as this. He opened the front door and was almost knocked off his feel by an icy gust of wind and snow that made him realise that, cold as the hall was, it wasn’t nearly as cold as it was outside.

This made him think of Dennis. Since returning from church five hours ago he had barely given his friend any real consideration. Even the farcical rescue mission had been more concerned with ancient rivalries with his brother and cousin and his own self-preservation. Where the hell was the man? Was he all right? What was going on here, anyway?

He wondered if Charles had managed to elicit any information while Mark and the others had been out: Mark correctly guessed that Charles woud have stepped forward and started to play policeman. No, he corrected himself, he was a policeman, the only person with anything remotely like professional experience relevant to the situation they were in. Until they were once again connected to the outside world, much depended on him: in this and so many other ways.

But where was Dennis?

For a while Mark stood in the hall, one hand on the front-door handle, wondering if he should make another attempt to find his friend, perhaps at least do a circuit of the house. Then he heard a commotion from the living room. He rushed back in.

The commotion emanated, as he had expected, from Lady Bastable. Through bad luck or bad judgment, it appeared that Charles had chosen exactly the moment to reveal bad news when her two cycles of loss and inebriation were at their most inauspicious conjunctions. The news was, Mark quickly gathered, that Charles had not found her diamonds, despite a search of various rooms. Nor, he was admitting as Mark closed the door behind him, had the search parties found any trace of either Dennis or the intruder, if there had been one. He confirmed that the phone lines were still down.

Lady Bastable leaped to her feet, looking like a rather unsteady Fury from a Greek tragedy. Charles was, she said, incompetent. Mark was, she added, complicit. A godless viper had been invited into the gathering who had made off with her heirlooms while the rest of them were about their Christian devotions. Meanwhile they had been compelled to remain here by a woefully inexperienced police officer.

““You serpents, you brood of vipers,” Maud interjected. “How will you escape the sentence of the Lord?”

“Well, quite,” Lady Bastable said dryly. “How indeed?” Mark realised that her eyes, and everyone else’s, were fixed on him and Charles, who had taken up a position next to him. The gazes of Mary, Howard, Selina and – somewhat to his dismay – Philip were to both of them as condemning as were Lady Bastable’s. Uncle Colin smiled vaguely but, Mark thought, he didn’t really count, bless him. He found himself worrying about whether the fire in his bedroom was still going upstairs.

Rather unwisely, Mark felt, Charles took this moment to re-assert his professional manner. “Lady Bastable,” he said, stepping forward, his notebook poised. “Are you aware that either of the maids, Sarah and…Ruth have been into your room? Or Jasper, the…er…under-chauffeur?”

At this exact moment, the door swung open and Ruth herself appeared, looking as dishevelled and distracted as Lady Bastable. Charles wondered if Jasper the useful man, had grown bored with his attempts to master the heating system and had decided to resume his attempts to master her.

“Begging your pardons, madams and sirs,” she said, “but Mr Simpson asked if you had a screw-cork we could lend for the wines, the only one we have was broken on the first bottle and the other one is…also broken. Thanking you sir,” she added vaguely in Mark’s direction, “for the refreshments, most kindly, and wishing you all a happy Christmas and if we could just borrow the screw-cork just for minute, Mr Simpson’s compliments, thank you sir.” A glass or two of claret had, Mark observed, done wonders for her self-confidence, though rather less for her diction.

If Lady Bastable heard any of this surprising speech, or even really registered Ruth’s arrival, she gave no indication of it. “So, Mister Policemen, you’re asking if I let any of Mr Dovey’s sly, thieving maids into my room? The answer, young man, is ‘no’. Whether they sneaked in while I wasn’t there I couldn’t say. That is a matter for their employer and his policeman friend to establish. However, I have my own servant and protector…”

As she said this, she put her arm out towards Mary. Mark noticed that Mary immediately pulled away and moved towards Philip, who patted her hand, then quickly withdraw it when he saw they were being observed. He offered Mark his lupine grin which Mark tried to return with an ironically raised eyebrow; noticed by Philip or not, he couldn’t say.

Ruth may have been drunk but she perfectly took in the exact import of Her Ladyship’s reply. All of Charles’ careful presumptions of her innocence and Mark’s delicate below-stairs discussions were destroyed. Here was, to Ruth, clear and present proof of life as it always was and always would be, with the rich able to come up with fancy phrases to make the poor take the blame for everything. Despite everything she’d been promised in the last ten years by Mr Atlee and the rest, nothing had changed, or ever would. She started to cry loudly. Lady Bastable was still wailing about her lost diamonds, Mary, Mark and Charles making unsuccessful attempts to calm her.

All of this startled Mrs Saxonby, who had appeared in the doorway with a huge tray of sliced beef and pickles. “We haven’t much bread no more,” she said above the racket, “but I thought you might like this, just in case you’re still peckish, not having had your Christmas meal, on account of the troubles.” She handed this to Charles, the nearest person, and turned to Ruth. “What’s the matter, love? Come here, you poor thing…” Ruth’s cries became muffled as she was enfolded in Mrs Saxonby’s breast. Both of them staggered backwards into the hall, pushing the door wide open. An icy gust of air rushed into the living room.

Charles, still holding the tray, stepped forward, and closed the door. Ruth’s screams and Mrs Saxonby’s reassurances could still be heard receding into the distance. After a few moments there was a crash, suggesting that one or both of them had fallen over. Once again, Mark shut his eyes. All this wasn’t happening.

Mark poured himself a large drink – everyone else seemed to be doing it – and went over to talk to Charles, now seemingly his only ally in the house. Charles had just got to explaining about the questions he’d asked the staff, and Mark was about to point out what Charles seemed to have missed, when there was a knock on the door. Mark opened it.

It was Sarah this time, who looked far more in control of herself than had her colleague, even though a dark lock of her hair had come down in a rather fetching way. Mark realised that he’d not lent Ruth the corkscrew after the last debacle and assumed that, unable to face them all a second time, had asked Sarah to go back for it. Whatever had passed between the two maids, it was clear that an account of Lady Bastable’s outburst had been part of it: for Sarah was giving the old lady a series of venomously animated glances.

This confirmed Sarah in Mark’s eyes as being a sensible person. He noticed that Howard was even more struck by all this and was staring at Sarah – whose supressed rage had contrived to turn her from being merely pretty into strikingly beautiful – with an expression almost of adoration.

Mark picked a corkscrew up from the drinks table and handed it to her. She accepted the object with surprise and turned it over in her had several times, still glaring at Lady Bastable. For a moment, Charles wondered if she was going to attack her with it. It then became clear to Mark that the corkscrew hadn’t been on Sarah’s agenda at all and that she’d come on some completely different mission. Mark wondered if should take the object back from her and try to re-start the conversation from the beginning. Then he realised that nothing had so far actually been said.

He was reminded of Humpty Dumpty’s surreal poem in Alice Through the Looking Glass: ‘I took a corkscrew from the shelf, I went to wake them up myself. And when I found the door was locked, I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked. And when I found the door was shut, I tried to turn the handle, but –’. Everything here was making about as much sense.

Sarah took control of the situation. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “”But there’s something else…”

“Yes?” Mark said. From the other side of the room, something had set Lady Bastable off again.

“There’s something outside, sir. On the lawn, creeping towards the window. Mr Simpson asked if you could come and see,” she added, making it clear that she herself thought this request unnecessary and that they could easily have dealt with the creeping thing themselves.

Gesturing to Charles, Mark hurried out into the hall. Simpson and Mrs Saxonby were already there, looking for an electric torch. Mark wondered if this too had been one of the vanishing objects. Surprisingly, they found one: even more surprisingly, it worked. Simpson solemnly handed it to Mark. Just as solemnly, Mark handed Simpson and Charles some stout walking sticks. It was if they were distributing ceremonial objects before a coronation. There was nothing more to be done. Mark opened the door.

It was now dark and bitterly cold but the snow was easing. Simpson pointed to the west side of the house over which the servant’s hall looked, As they turned the corner, Mark played the beam across the lawn. It certainly seemed as if something had crawled, or been dragged, through the snow towards the house. Increasingly apprehensive, they walked on and came to where the light shone out from the almost full-length window of the servants’ hall.

On the ground, half on path and half in the flower bed, was a slumped body, face down. Simpson and Charles gently turned it over. It was Dennis.

*         *         *

Between them, they carried him back to the house. He was wet, freezing and barely conscious. As they got inside, Mark noticed that something had happened to his right foot, which was at a very alarming angle. Both his hands were caked in blood. God knows what had happened to him but explanations would have to wait.

Selina appeared to know what to do with someone in Dennis’ condition. Twenty minutes later he was in dry clothes in front of the fire, being fed warm sweet tea with a drop of medicinal brandy. There were two hot water bottles on his chest and his stomach. Mark and Selina were each warming his hands between theirs: Maud was allocated his left foot. By common consent, the injured right one was left well alone.

Mixed with everybody’s solicitude was an overwhelming desire for an explanation. Lady Bastable hovered uselessly and at one point was discovered going through Dennis’ wet clothes, doubtless in search of her jewels. Only Uncle Colin seemed pleased by this turn of events, perhaps glad that someone other than him was experiencing a medical emergency. Howard had disappeared.

Throughout all of this, Dennis babbled incoherently. From time to time he’d fall silent and then suddenly say something with perfect clarity that made no sense. On one occasion, he recited part of a nursery rhyme: on another, the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice.

After half an hour or so of these ministrations he became more calm and eventually fell into a deep and seemingly peaceful sleep. Selina had been taking his temperature at frequent intervals and it was now close to normal. A fire had been laid in the dining room and it was to there that the rest of party now moved, leaving Selina and Mark alone with the patient. The rest of them were now in a fever of curiosity, exchanging increasingly improbable theories which could explain Dennis’s six-hour absence, the missing items and the stolen jewels.

At one point Ruth came in with yet more cold roast beef and was quizzed by everyone as to what she’d seen. She could only describe a “creeping shape on the lawn like a…”: but could not say what the creeping was like. She looked as if she was about to faint.

At about nine o’clock, Dennis woke up, ravenously hungry. Mrs Saxonby produced a hot beef sandwich, a bowl of soup and a slice of apple pie. Dennis ate this, sat back and accepted a small glass of wine from Mark. Everyone was standing round in a semi-circle, as hypnotised by him as a group of chickens by a stoat. Every time he seemed on the point of speaking they leaned forward in anticipation.

“What a day,” he said at last. His voice was tired but perfectly lucid. Selina nodded approvingly: he was obviously tough. “I expect you’re wondering what happened to me.”

“Well, yes,” Mark said.

“What I want to know is what you’ve done with…” Lady Bastable put in. Mark held up his hand.

Dennis closed his eyes for moment. There was a general fear he was about to go back to sleep but it was only an effort at recollection. “About fifteen minutes after you went to church, a man hammered on the door. I’d never seen him before. He said his car was stuck in the snow about half a mile from Balmer with his pregnant wife and young son. He’d tried to get to the village but lost his way and ended up here. He was very worried about them.”

Dennis paused and took a sip of his wine. “He was in a hell of a state and soaking wet. Luckily he was about the same build as me so I went upstairs to get him some of my clothes. Then he got changed while I got some stuff together. I took the rug from the hall to give the tyres something to grip and a couple of spades. He had boots so I only needed a pair for myself. The whisky was a bit of an afterthought,” he added with a smile. “Probably not the best thing for exposure” – Selina, also smiling, shook her head – “but I thought a nip of it might cheer everyone up. Sorry about that, Mark. Was it particularly good stuff?”

Mark shrugged.

“What about the meat saw, sir?” said Mrs Saxonby: for now the entire household was assembled to her the tale first-hand.

“Ah, yes. He said that he thought there was a branch under the car and something else that might need cutting, so I went into the kitchen, noticed the saw and grabbed it. When I was getting the whisky I saw the poker and took that as well. Something sharp, something strong…both useful in an emergency. We rolled all this stuff into the rug and off we went, tra-la-la.”

Dennis paused, his expression clouding. “He was a bit vague about where the car was so it took a devil of a long time to find it. Thank God we got there when we did as by then it was starting to snow heavily. After about half an hour, we managed to get the car moving – and there was a branch underneath which needed cutting, so thank you for the saw,” he added to Mrs Saxonby, who blushed with pleasure. “The little boy was as cold as hell and the mother was getting fretful so I was damned glad about that.”

“Just as well you didn’t go to church,” Selina said quietly. “Their lucky day.” Lady Bastable stiffened slightly but said nothing. Mark thought about this, then nodded.

“I told them to keep all the stuff for now and they promised to bring it back in the new year, weather permitting. They’re staying the other side of Lewes,” he added, “with her parents. Mr and Mrs Something-or-other. Perhaps you know them. They seem like honest people – the couple in the car, that is; the parents too, I’m sure. Anyway, Mark, you have his clothes as hostages. The wife then gave me a big kiss and they headed up towards the Lewes road.” He stopped, seemingly overcome with worry as well as exhaustion. “I hope they made it all right.”

There was a pause while Dennis drained his wine and scooped up the last piece of apple pie with his fingers.

“That left me. I was probably less than a mile from here but somehow completely lost my bearings. It was snowing pretty heavily by then. I managed to put my foot in a rabbit hole and twisted my ankle. That slowed me down.” He glared at his foot for a moment. “Basically, I was crawling from then on. Having your head a few inches off the ground in a snowstorm isn’t ideal for working out where you’re going.” He shut his eyes again. “Mark, you probably know that there’s a pond in the field just over the hill.”

Mark said that he did.

“Well, I fell into it.”

“So did I,” Mark said.

“What, today?

“Yes.”

“Goodness me,” Dennis said, re-animated. “What were you doing? Making a snowman?”

“Looking for you.”

“I’m flattered. We might have fallen in at the same time, at opposite ends. How funny. We can compare times later. Anyway, it’s damned cold, isn’t it? The water.”

“Very.”

“So that, plus the ankle, gave me a bit of a problem. Amazing what you can do, though, when you have to do it. The rest of the journey may come back to me, or it may not. Quite happy if it doesn’t. The next thing I remember is you and Simpson shining a torch in my face. I think I passed out after that. However, I do remember the very kind attentions of a ministering angel.” Selina smiled at him and blushed. “Your fiancée, in fact. Congratulations,” he added in a slightly more wan tone. “You’re a very lucky man, Mark.”

There was a long silence.

“Purely out of interest,” Howard said, “what about the broken window?”

“Ah, yes,’ Dennis said. “The window. I’m afraid that John – that was his name, John – poked that out when we were packing up the spades and stuff.” A thought suddenly struck him. “Hang on – I put that in the note. You did see the note, didn’t you? I left it on the table in the hall. No? Obviously not. I’d forgotten about the note ’til now. Odd, that, as I wasn’t thinking about anything else while I was crawling back. ‘They’ll see the note,’ I said to myself over and over again, ‘and send out a stretcher party, or at least a big St Bernard with a keg of brandy round his neck’.”

He looked round at the blank faces. Only Charles was looking down at the floor. “Clearly you didn’t, though.” He shrugged and shifted his position slightly to ease the throbbing pain in his ankle. “Ah well. Here I am. All’s well, etcetera.” He shut his eyes again.

“Not quite,” Lady Bastable said. “There’s just leaves the matter of my jewels. How do you explain that?”

Dennis opened his eyes again and realised that Lady Bastable was glaring at him. “Me? I don’t explain it at all. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My jewels,” she repeated slowly. “Diamonds that went missing while we were in church. Perhaps your new friend helped himself.”

By his side, Dennis was aware of Selina stiffening with anger. Dennis was feeling quite angry himself but decided to select a flippant tone. “What, the stranded motorist? Well it’s a damned good cover story, isn’t it…”

“Please don’t swear at me,” Lady Bastable snapped back icily.

Dennis put up his hand. “Very well. I withdraw the remark. None the less, to leave your family stranded in a blizzard while you track across a field to a house which may or may not contain diamonds…also, he wasn’t out of my sight apart from when I went upstairs to get the clothes. He had other things on his mind, I can assure you.”

“They were in my jewel case,” Lady Bastable said, as if that clinched matters.

“Really?” Dennis said. Now he was rather glad of the woman’s barbed remarks as these were waking him up even more effectively than the soup and the warm fire. “What colour is it? Is it red?”

“Yes,” Mary said.

“A kind of pale red, verging on magenta but stopping short of outright pink? With a gold trim of some kind? Mind you,” he added, “I didn’t study it closely.”

“That’s it!” Lady Bastable cried out. “What have you done with it? Where is it?”

“I haven’t done anything with it,” Dennis said. “To answer your second question, I don’t know where it is now, but at about twenty past ten this morning it was under your pillow.”

“Under my…what…what were you doing in my room?”

Dennis had asked himself the same question when he found himself counting things in Lady Bastable’s room. He still wasn’t sure what he’d been looking for but was now glad that he had, in a round-about way, found it. Circumstances now demanded that he explain this. The last few exchanges of verbal persiflage had enabled him to concoct a ready-made explanation.

“I couldn’t find my jumper for the stranded motorist,” he said. “So, I went into what I thought was Howard’s room to see if he had one. I soon realised my mistake, but my eye was caught by what you now tell me is your jewel case, sticking out a bit. In fact, it looked as if it were partly in the pillowcase. I thought at the time – strange how quickly the mind works sometimes – that it was an odd place to keep something like this, but what struck me was the colour. My jumper was red, a bit like that, and I suddenly remembered that when I’d unpacked, I thought it seemed a bit damp and so put it on the towel rail in the bathroom. I went back and there it was. Then I went down to where poor John was standing naked and shivering in the hall and gave it to him with the other clothes.”

He looked round the room. Everyone was now staring at Lady Bastable, who had turned a strange shade of white.

“The rest you know,” Dennis added. He closed his eyes again.

Lady Bastable had also closed her eyes. A terrible thought seemed to strike her.

“But the room was searched,” Howard put in. “Several times, by several people.”

Dennis shrugged. “Sometimes you forget where you’ve put things. Sometimes things hide in plain sight and you don’t see them. Both apply to my jumper. But I think the important thing is to see whether it’s there now, or perhaps fallen down somewhere with all your searches.”

Mary was already moving towards the door, though with less of the concerned feudal haste than she would previously have displayed. As she moved away from the group, Dennis could have sworn that he’d seen Philip squeeze her shoulder. That didn’t make any sense to him. He realised now how tired he was feeling. What he needed was bed.

There was almost total silence while everyone listened to Mary’s steps walking leisurely up the stairs. A minute later, she reappeared. In her hand was the jewel box. She flipped open the lid. In the box were the jewels.

Casually, she almost threw it into Lady Bastable’s lap. “It had fallen down behind the bed,” she said. She moved back to her previous position next to Philip. “But I’d put it in your ‘secret place’ as you asked. Someone must have moved it. During the night, probably.”

Lady Bastable’s jaws were working furiously as if she were chewing a large piece of bread.

“Perhaps,” Mary continued, her sarcasm now in plain sight, “whoever moved it didn’t trust the person who’d put it there. Shame they didn’t seem able to remember this today. Still, it’s found now. Live and learn.” This time Dennis was in no doubt that Philip was squeezing some part of her, though he couldn’t quite see which part. Things had certainly been happening while he was off on his adventure. Mary coloured and smiled. Freed now of her slavish obedience to the humbled dowager, Dennis was dispassionately aware that she was a very attractive woman.

“I don’t know about anyone else,” Mary said crisply, “But this has been one hell of a day.” If Lady Bastable was offended by the oath she gave no sign of it. “In fact, I can’t remember a Christmas Day quite like it.” Pushing past Lady Bastable’s chair, she moved over to Dennis and kissed him on the cheek. “So glad you’re back in one piece,” she said as she straightened up. “And, as Selina said, so lucky you didn’t go to church. Your good deed. In fact, two good deeds. I’ll bear that in mind next year. Anyway,” she said, turning round and looking Philip in the face, “I’m ready for bed. Happy Christmas, everyone.” She swept out of the room. A few moments later, Philip followed her.

The gathering gently deflated into a rather pleasing anti-climax; pleasing, that is, for all except Lady Bastable who was graciously allowed to slink off with her jewel case and put herself to bed on her own as best she could. The staff drained their glasses and toasted the day, then filed out. Dennis noticed that Sarah had already disappeared, as had Howard. The gathering was thinning out.

Mark came over and put his hand on Dennis’ shoulder. With Charles standing next to him, and Selina sitting next to Dennis, the situation was certainly inclusive of what Mark felt moved to say, though he couldn’t see how he could say it. He was suddenly aware of a sense of acceptance, and even love, which the strange events had helped forge. Mysteries, shocks, unexpected responsibilities and surprising revelations had brought events to a conclusion, though in a rather different key from that of twenty-four hours before. Then, Mark reflected he had been engaged and thought himself to be in love: now he was in love, but no longer engaged. It was that simple, and that complicated.

“I’d like to say…” Mark started, then stopped. He tried again. “I’m so glad that…” Again words failed him. Dennis put his own hand briefly over Mark’s.

“I understand,” he said. “At least, I think I do.” Mark nodded.

At that moment, Dennis was slightly surprised but immeasurably delighted when Selina moved forward and gave him a long kiss him on the mouth. “That’s it for you today,” she said. “You need to go to bed. Boys,” she said to Mark and Charles, “bear Odysseus to his chamber.” Mark smiled to himself and hooked his hand under Dennis’ back.

“What happened, exactly?” Uncle Colin asked Maud. They were now the only people left in the room. “There’s been a lot of kerfuffle today though I wasn’t quite sure what it was all about. I had a funny turn earlier but feel better now. Very good cognac, I thought. Do you think I should have another glass?”

“I don’t think so,” Maud said.

“No, you’re probably right. Enough is as good as a feast and so forth.” He got to his feet with surprising ease. “By the by and speaking of which, did we ever have our Christmas dinner? Did I miss it? I always rather enjoy the stuffing and the crackers but I don’t remember them. What happened?”

“Bit of a long story,” Maud said. “Matters took a different turn. ‘The angel said to them,’ she added half under her breath, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people’.”

Uncle Colin paused in his leisurely progress across the room. “I see. And was there great joy?”

“I think so, for most of us,” Maud said. “everything seems to be sorted out now, one way or another.”

“Good.” Uncle Colin thought about this for a moment. “So, quite a lot took place, and also nothing? A sort of – what’s it called – shaggy dog story?”

“In a way.”

“Ah, well, these things happen” he said philosophically. He cocked his ear towards some surprising noises coming from the room above which had been gradually building up over the last few minutes. “Goodness me,” he said. “Someone seems to be moving their furniture about. Strange time to choose.” There was a low moan followed by a stifled cry. “My word, it sounds as if they’ve dropped something on their foot. Whose room is it?”

“I think it’s Howard’s.”

“Do you think he needs a hand?”

Maud looked for a moment as if she was about to suggest going up there, perhaps armed with a suitable religious text, but then gave a light shrug. “I think he’s fine.”

“Once again, you’re probably right. It’s so easy to get mixed up in something that isn’t really your business, isn’t it? You never know how things will turn out. I bet young whats-his-name is thinking that now after rushing off into the snow like that.” Colin paused, shaking his head. “Mind you, I think he did the right thing, from what I understand. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Maud said.

“Yes, so do I, so do I. Anyway, I can find my own way, I think. What a very interesting day. That ghastly woman seemed very annoyed just now. Did I tell you I had a funny turn? All well now. Could you do the lights behind me?”

*         *         *

“I’m going to leave the Police,” Charles said. They were upstairs in Mark’s bedroom and it was a few minutes before midnight.

“Why?” Mark asked.

“Because I’m useless. I had the run of the situation for an hour and missed everything of any importance. I missed finding the jewel case because I didn’t know how to search a room. When she mentioned it last night, I assumed someone was going to try to take advanage: probably Philip.”

“But he didn’t. Well, he did, in a way: he seduced Mary. I think that was uppermost in his thoughts. He’s got plenty of years left as a confidence trickster but his time as an attractive seducer is almost at an end.”

“I missed thinking about the wet clothes and putting two and two together,” Charles continued. “I missed Dennis’ note and used it for some idiotic jottings – if only I’d turned it over, everything would have made sense. I missed Sarah’s point about there being no broken glass in the hall – where did she go to, by the way? I saw her slipping off when Dennis was finishing his story.”

“I rather think,” Mark said, “that she’s currently screwing my brother’s brains out, possibly for the second time today. Probably in his room, as Sarah shares one with Ruth.”

“I see. They both needed it,” Charles added after a moment. “He certainly did. He needed something. Whether Sarah is it, time will tell. A very attractive young lady, even I can see that. However, of women’s needs, if they aren’t the same as ours, I have no idea.”

“Me neither, as events have shown.” Mark put his hand on Charles’ head and gently massaged it.

“And Mary, the sly-boots – what a turn-up that was. Going off with Philip, of all people. The whole social order is collapsing.”

“Not that strange, perhaps. Linda’s always had a thing for our family. She ruthlessly pursued Philip’s father, my uncle Gerald, after his wife left him and then turned her attention to dad when my mother was killed. I’m pretty sure both resisted her. Quite appropriate that one of her target’s sons has now got off with her companion, or whatever Mary was.”

“Perhaps Lady Bastable had her eye on getting the house.”

“If so, she’s missed her chance. Do you like it?”

“Very much.”

“Good.” Mark kissed him.

“I’m glad that Selina seems to have found someone as well. Very glad. That was what I was most worried about. My word, it’s all happening, isn’t it?”

“She always liked Dennis and he’s always adored her. I think she thought she adored me, for a bit. Then it became a habit. One that I realised I needed to break. Christmas Eve seemed as good a time as any.”

There was a long silence.

“Did you spot that, about the glass?”

“I did, actually.”

“I went outside just now and checked,” Charles said despondently. “All the glass was in the flowerbed. Therefore it was broken from inside. Basic stuff. I missed it.”

Mark sat down and put his arm around Charles’ shoulders. “We all missed a lot today. We’ve found a lot as well. Short-term or long, I think we’re all where we need to be.”

“Even Lady B, in the doghouse.”

“Her too.”

“You’re right. It’s been a day.”

“It has indeed. Let’s end it. Come to bed.”

 

Brian Quinn
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