The small saloon bar of the country pub has an inglenook fireplace, oak beams, horse brasses and hunting prints on the walls. It’s about half past two on a Saturday afternoon and the clientele include the local Master of Foxhounds, a middle-aged woman in a black coat, who’s currently putting away a pint of beer at the bar. Sitting by the fire are two muddy and exhausted women in hunting clothes, accompanied by their male escorts. At the window is the only man not in hunting gear – John Fordyce. From the yard outside comes the noise of hounds baying, horses whinnying, cars starting up, and the shouts of grooms as they try to get horses into horseboxes. Over this, the Master of Foxhounds converses with the landlord about her reason for ending today’s hunt early. “Had no choice, Smithers,” she explains. “Fog came down like a blanket and we couldn’t even see each other, much less the hounds. Damn shame.”
A boisterous male voice booms from the yard outside. “Come on,” he cries. “Get in, you great brute!” Recognising the voice, Fordyce turns and looks out of the window. The Master watches, too, as the voice continues: “Give her a shove, Charlie. There she goes!” Some mild cheering and the slam of a horsebox door are heard. Fordyce smiles, a little sardonically, and turns back from the window.
“Mr Lawford,” the Master informs the barman. “That’s a spirited mount he had today, my word.”
Harry Lawford, the owner of the boisterous voice, walks in, in full hunting gear, including very muddy boots and a riding whip. He turns to the Master of Foxhounds, chortling. “Did you see that, Master? Three of us trying to get that mare of mine into her box!” Then he sees Fordyce. “Hello, John,” he booms. “What an animal! A hard morning’s hunting and she’s scarcely stretched!” He turns back to the Master and offers to buy her a drink. She declines, saying it’s time she hoofed off home. Harry won’t hear of it. “Oh, come! First hunt of the season and you call it off over a spot of mist. The least you can do to atone is –”
“Spot of mist!” scoffs the Master. “I didn’t want any broken legs and shot horses, even if you did.” She moves away from the bar and waves to the assembled hunters on her way to the door. “Cheerio, all. Damn shame about today. Still, better luck next time.” She goes out.
Fordyce turns to Harry. “I take it you didn’t catch a fox.”
Harry enthusiastically begs to differ. “Didn’t we just? We caught one of the blighters first thing. Gave us a good run, too. Blackstone Wood, then right along the old railway embankment to the Downs. That sorted out the men from the boys. It ended up in the quarry at Melton.”
Fordyce isn’t impressed. “Where the hounds tore it to pieces satisfactorily?”
Harry looks at him, smiling. “What wouldn’t I give to get you on a hunt, John!”
“It would have to be quite a lot.”
“Set you up on that mare I had, and then give her a crack across the rump with this?” Harry indicates his whip. “What wouldn’t I give to see that!” He turns to the landlord and orders two beers. Fordyce doesn’t want one, but Harry insists. “If you won’t hunt with me, at least you can drink with me.” He turns back to the landlord. “Set ’em up, Bill. And I’ll have a couple of these, too – I’m starving.” He grabs a couple of large Cornish pasties from under a glass dome on the counter, and takes an enormous bite out of one of them as his wife, Jean, enters, together with Fordyce’s wife, Sonia. They’re not dressed for the hunt – they were merely spectators. “So there you are,” proclaims Harry, munching away, coarsely. “What happened? Lost in the fog or did Jean foul up the car?” Jean, irritated, begins to protest, but Harry ploughs on, turning to Sonia as he eats. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Jean could scrape a wing driving round an empty car park. And in that mist on Furzehill –”
Fordyce addresses Jean, determined to steer the subject away from her driving skills and distract from Harry’s lack of table manners. “Did you see anything of the hunt?”
“Before the fog closed in, the fox almost ran under our wheels at one point,” Jean reports.
“But after that, the only four-footed beasts we came across at all were some vicious-looking bulls that came shambling up to the car when we got fogbound in the middle of a farmyard,” adds Sonia.
Jean corrects her. “They were only cows, Sonia.”
Sonia disagrees. “I’m sure they were bulls, darling. They had the most wicked-looking horns you’ve ever seen.”
The landlord brings Harry the beers he ordered. Harry asks for two more, for the ladies. Jean would rather have a shandy. “What about you, Sonia?” asks Harry. She says beer’s all right with her. Harry tells the landlord, “Two beers.” Jean protests, but Harry ignores her, turning back to Sonia. “When are you going to come hunting with me, Sonia? I can’t expect Jean to. She’d be too afraid of getting her hair mussed up.”
“For goodness’ sake,” mutters Jean.
Sonia smiles, coyly. “You don’t expect me to sit on a great mountain of horse flesh, do you? Like that monster you were riding?”
“You wouldn’t have to jump in at the deep end to start with,” Harry smiles back. “I’d look after you.”
“What happened to that fox we saw?” asks Sonia.
“You see?” says Harry to Fordyce. “She’s itching for blood already.” He turns to pay the landlord as he brings the other beers.
“Well,” says Sonia, “you must admit, there is a certain ghastly fascination about it.”
“If you’d been with us, we could have blooded you,” says Harry, before adding, “Not that they do it any more on this hunt.”
“I should hope not,” says Fordyce. “The thing’s barbaric enough as it is.”
Sonia’s ghastly fascination shows no sign of abating. “Is that when they smear the fox’s blood on your face and give you his tail as a trophy?” she asks.
Harry nods. “How would you like that?”
“Is it warm?”
“What?”
“The blood.”
Harry looks at her for a moment, not sure how to react. Then he picks up his glass. “Don’t ask me. They only do it to women.” He downs the rest of his pint in one gulp and turns towards the door. “Right, let’s go.” He heads briskly for the door, then turns back to address his wife. “Well, come on, woman. I want a bath and a good rub down.”
“You sound just like a horse yourself, Harry,” says Fordyce.
Jean laughs as she joins her husband. “He certainly smells of one.”
“Can I look in about six, Jean,” asks Sonia, “for that recipe you promised me?”
“I’d rather you came a bit earlier if you can,” replies Jean. “We’ve got the Gilberts for drinks at six.”
Harry contradicts her. “Six will do fine, Sonia. We’re putting the Gilberts off.” Jean looks at him in surprise, but Harry’s already on his way out. He shouts back to Fordyce. “And just because you’re too fat and lazy, John, to take up riding, don’t you dare stop your wife.” Then he adds, flirtatiously, “Not that she need do it for her figure’s sake.”
Laughing, Sonia thanks him for the compliment. Harry laughs back and bundles Jean out. As the door closes behind them, Sonia’s face suddenly turns grim. “That man disgusts me,” she declares.
“Oh?” says her husband, surprised.
“The way he treats Jean! She was telling me about it in the car. He’s like a caveman to her.”
Fordyce raises an eyebrow. “Judging by the way you were fluttering your eyelashes at him, you wouldn’t say no to a bit of rough stuff yourself at times.”
Sonia considers. “I don’t deny he has a certain… well…”
“Ghastly fascination?” suggests Fordyce. “Like the slaughter of a fox?”
Sonia laughs, sardonically. “What’s your penetrating legal mind trying to get at now?”
* * *
Harry strides into the Lawfords’ kitchen through the back door, followed by Jean. Not stopping to remove his muddy boots, he walks straight through into the sitting room, which is expensively but conventionally furnished. There’s a clock on the mantelpiece above a very modern electric fire, a telephone, French windows and a door to the bedroom, as well as the door to the kitchen and hallway. Harry tramps across the room to the bedroom, leaving dirty footprints on the carpet, which Jean, running in, looks at with consternation. “Harry!” she calls after him. “Are you mad? Just as Mrs Gunn has done the house, too.” She returns to the kitchen to fetch a wet cloth, then decides that she ought to let it dry first. “Really, Harry,” she cries, as she throws the cloth back into the kitchen, “with the Gilberts coming, too!”
Harry calls out from the bedroom. “I don’t want them to come.”
“We can’t put them off now,” argues Jean, going into the bedroom.
This is an equally well-furnished room with a telephone next to the bed, a door to the sitting room and another to the bathroom, from which can be heard the sound of a bath running. Harry comes in from the bathroom, still wearing his boots, taking off his coat and jacket. The riding whip lies on an armchair beside the bed. “You only have to ring them,” he says.
“You can’t ask people round for drinks and then call it off on the very day they’re coming.” Jean cringes as she sees more mess on the carpet here. “Oh, look at it.”
“You only have to ring,” repeats Harry.
“What do I tell them? That you just don’t happen to feel like entertaining?”
Harry smirks. “You wouldn’t have the guts to say that.”
“Or the bad manners.”
“Tell them anything you like.” Harry flings his coat on the bed and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “But put them off. Pair of crashing bores. Ring them.”
“We’ll only have to fix another day.”
“Why? We don’t even like them.”
“We owe them an invitation,” says Jean, firmly.
“Of course!” Harry takes on a mocking tone. “Your turn to come to us, dear. Don’t you remember? We came to your place last time. Like a game of shuttlecock!” He throws his shirt on the bed.
Jean picks up an address book next to the telephone. “It was your idea to live in the country, remember.”
“Country?” snorts Harry, donning a dressing gown. “Why, you don’t even go into the village shop.”
“They deliver.”
Harry accidentally knocks the whip from the armchair as he sits down to prise off his boots. “Squatting in our snazzy houses thirty miles from London, commuting up to town with one another in the same trains, cocktails on Saturdays and slumming in the village pub on Sundays! Country? Sonia Fordyce can’t even tell a bull from a cow.”
“I’m surprised you don’t chuck up the Stock Exchange and buy a farm.”
“You – a farmer’s wife?” chuckles Harry, still struggling with boots.
“If I thought it would do you any good, I wouldn’t object,” says Jean, as she dials a three-digit number. “I don’t know what’s got into you.” Her attention on the phone, she doesn’t see Harry’s face, which looks tense, unhappy, as if he’d give anything not to treat his wife this way. “You never used to be like this,” Jean continues. “What’s happened? Why do you ride me all the time? I honestly don’t know that I can take it much more.” She looks from the phone to the bathroom. “Oh, do turn that tap off, Harry. I shan’t be able to hear a thing.” He ignores her, as he manages to get his first boot off. Jean bangs down the receiver, furiously, and goes into the bathroom as Harry tries in vain to remove his other boot. The sound of the taps stops. Jean returns and stares at Harry, more bewildered than angry. “Why?” she asks. “Why do you do it?” She starts dialling again. “What do you want me to be? Some kind of slave, some kind of dog?” She bangs the receiver down again. “Engaged.”
“Pull my boot off, would you?” says Harry, leaning back in the chair.
Jean looks at him, incredulous. “What?”
“My boot.”
Jean makes no move to do so. “Why you couldn’t take them off outside, I can’t think. There’s a perfectly good door scraper out there.”
“And a perfectly good wife in here.”
“If you think I’m getting myself covered in mud just because you’re too –”
“Do as you’re told,” says Harry, firmly.
Jean stares at him, astonished. Then, icily, she replies, “Very well, my Lord.” She gets down on one knee at his feet, but hesitates at the filthy boot.
“It’s only mud,” says Harry. Jean tugs at the boot, as Harry pulls in the opposite direction. Finally it comes off, causing Jean to fall back, clutching the boot to her on the floor. “Now you can turn my bath on again,” says Harry. Jean looks up at him, contemptuously. Harry sits up in the chair, looking down on her. “My bath,” he repeats.
Jean stares at him for a moment, then gets up and goes obediently to the bathroom. Harry’s eyes follow her to the door, then drop to the riding whip that he knocked to the floor earlier. He idly picks it up, rises from the chair and looks again at the bathroom as he hears the taps being turned on. He flings the whip on to the bed, hesitates for a moment, then moves to the bathroom.
Jean is standing by the taps, her back to the door. Harry enters and stands immediately behind her. She turns – and sees the lustful way he’s looking at her. As hot water gushes into the bath, clouds of steam rise up around them…
* * *
Sonia comes into the sitting room from the kitchen, calling out to Jean. She finds the sitting room as deserted as the kitchen. Shivering at the cold, she notices that the electric fire hasn’t been switched on – the room obviously hasn’t been used for hours. She goes to the window, opens it and calls out. “Jean, are you out there?” Puzzled, she closes the window and turns to go back towards the kitchen.
Just then, Jean appears, from the bedroom. She’s dressed as before, but rather dishevelled – no shoes on, her hair in a mess and her dress only partly zipped up. She’s putting this right as she enters. “Sonia!” she cries, surprised.
Sonia turns. “I wondered where on earth you’d got to.”
“Oh, I… I was only changing,” replies Jean, embarrassed.
Sonia frowns. “Changing? But you were wearing that –”
Jean hastily changes the subject. “It’s freezing in here.” She switches on the fire and then sees the clock on the mantelpiece. Again, she’s surprised. “Is that the time? Quarter past five?”
“What time did you think it was?”
“What? Oh, I don’t know, I –”
“Darling, I do apologise,” says Sonia. “Barging in without even knocking. But the back door was open and… well, I’d no idea I was –”
“I was only changing,” Jean insists.
“Yes, of course, dear,” says Sonia, doubtfully.
Harry enters, having changed into slacks and a pullover. Sonia looks at him, somewhat intrigued. “Sonia?” says Harry, as he sees her. He smiles, warmly. “That’s nice. What brings you here?”
“I just dropped by for that recipe Jean promised me,” replies Sonia. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Of course not,” says Harry. “Have a drink.”
Jean addresses her husband. “You realise the Gilberts will be getting ready to leave now, don’t you? Do you still want me to put them off?”
Harry shakes his head. “No, it’s too late now. Perhaps Sonia would stay and help us out with them?”
Sonia raises a satirical eyebrow. “You do think I’ve a charitable nature, don’t you?”
Harry laughs. He’s relaxed, cheerful, almost a different person. Meanwhile, Jean is cold, subdued, hurt. “Very well, then,” she says, bitterly. “We’d better get ready for them, I suppose.”
Harry begins to speak. “If you’d rather they didn’t come, Jean, I –”
Jean cuts him off. “Me! I like that!”
“Whatever you want, darling,” says Harry, gently.
Sensing friction, Sonia retreats to the kitchen. “I’ll get that recipe if I may, Jean. I know just where it is.”
Jean’s about to go with her, but Harry speaks her name. She turns, frostily. “The master calls?”
“Oh, cut it out,” says Harry, lightly.
“It’s you who –”
“All right, all right. Forget it, can’t you?”
“No.”
Harry grins. “Hell, it was worth it, wasn’t it?” His wife just looks at him, contemptuously. “Jean,” he says, serious now, “I love you.”
“You might show it.”
“I did.”
“You don’t have to behave like a gorilla first, do you? For a moment, I really thought you were going to use that whip on me.”
“What do you think I am? Some kind of sadist?”
“Only you know what you are,” says Jean. “I certainly don’t.” Her husband turns away, looking lost and unhappy. She goes to him. “Oh, Harry! You never used to be this way. Remember when we were engaged, when we first got married? What’s happened to that, Harry?” He puts his arms around her, quickly, pressing her to him so that her head nestles against his chest. His face, which she can’t see, is tense with unhappiness. “Just a child really, aren’t you?” continues Jean, in a rather maternal way. “I know you get a bit cheesed going up to London every day with the bowler hat brigade, but they are going to make you a partner in that firm, aren’t they? We can’t turn down chances like that. Of course, if you really and truly want to do something else, I –”
“It’s not that,” says Harry.
Jean looks up at him. “What is it, Harry? You can tell me, surely.” He kisses her, affectionately, tenderly. She nestles her head against his shoulder again, contentedly. “Promise me something, Harry.”
“What?”
“That you won’t ever be… like you were this afternoon… again. Will you? Please.”
Harry replies, just as falteringly. “I won’t… ever be like I was this afternoon… again.”
Jean lifts her head and beams at him, joyfully. “That’s my Harry.” She hugs him, happily, as Sonia returns, clutching a piece of paper.
“Oh, no!” declares Sonia. “I can’t put a foot right in here today.”
Jean laughs, now fully recovered. “Don’t be so idiotic, Sonia. Did you find it?” Sonia shows her the recipe. “Yes, that’s the one,” says Jean. “We got it from a perfectly villainous-looking chef in Brittany last year. Now, it’s the brandy that matters most. Whatever else you do, don’t stint on that.”
Sonia smirks. “Gerald Crowthorne ought to go for that, then, the amount he puts away.”
Jean looks shocked. “Don’t tell me you’re giving this to the Crowthornes!”
“That’s the whole point. Sheila gave us something so exotic when we went to them last week and –”
Jean bursts out laughing and turns to her husband. “Do you hear that, Harry? Sonia’s going to give the Crowthornes exactly the same sweet that we gave them on Thursday!”
“Oh, Jean,” cries Sonia, “you might have –”
Jean’s still laughing, waiting for a reaction from Harry. “Can you beat that, Harry? The very same sweet!”
“Really?” snaps Harry. “Big deal!” He strides past them, straight out into the hallway.
“What’s the matter?” asks Jean, puzzled. She turns back to Sonia, quickly. “I’m awfully sorry, darling, but I’d no idea it was the Crowthornes you wanted to –” From the hallway, the front door is heard slamming. “Harry?” says Jean. “Where on earth’s he –?” She goes out to the hallway as Sonia peers out of the window, puzzled. Sonia hears Jean’s voice yelling, “Harry, where are you going?” There’s the roar of an engine as Harry’s car starts up. “Harry!” cries Jean. Heedless, the car drives away.
Sonia turns from the window as Jean returns to the room. “Where’s he off to?” asks Sonia. “Going out like that without even saying?”
Jean stands in the doorway, quite shattered. “I just can’t take any more of it.”
“Jean, what’s up with you two? What’s going on?”
“I just can’t,” is all Jean can say, “I just can’t.”
Sonia goes to her. “You know what you ought to do, don’t you? You can’t go on letting him treat you like this. Now, listen, Jean…”
* * *
Much later, the clock on the mantelpiece strikes eleven. The room is in darkness, with moonlight streaming in through the window. Then the light of the moon is joined by approaching headlights, as a car drives up to the house.
In the bedroom, Jean is at the window, peering around the edge of the curtain as the car stops outside, and the driver-side door opens and closes. In a carefully planned manoeuvre, she goes to the bed, puts on her coat, then moves to a half-packed suitcase on the bed, which she continues to fill. Harry comes in and stares at her, astonished. He asks her what’s going on. Jean replies calmly with a question of her own. “Have you had a nice time?”
“What are you doing?” says Harry. “Coat on, suitcase? Where are you going?”
“Tonight I’m just going round to Sonia’s,” replies Jean. “Tomorrow I’m going to my sister’s in London.”
“Are you trying to tell me that… that you’re –”
Jean struggles to maintain her composure. “Where have you been?” she demands. “You’re always doing this, Harry. Going off in the car, coming back hours later without giving any idea where you’ve… What do you do on these jaunts of yours?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” says Jean, coldly. She slams the case shut and looks around for her handbag. “When Mrs Gunn comes on Monday, you’d better tell her my sister’s ill and that’s why I’ve gone to her. Sonia will be backing the story up with everyone else – it’s what we arranged.”
Harry appears unmoved. “I see.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
Harry shrugs. “What can I say? If you’ve made up your mind that this is best… well, I can’t stop you.”
Jean’s resolve begins to crack. Sonia’s plan hasn’t worked at all. “Oh, God!” she cries. “You don’t care a damn, do you?”
Harry looks at her, astounded. Then he realises. “Wait a minute. Is this just to get me on my knees to you? Beg you to stay? Is that all it’s for?” He smiles and nods. “Yes, of course. You don’t really mean to leave me at all.”
Jean breaks down in tears.
* * *
“The stupidity, Mr Marker,” says John Fordyce, “the fantastic stupidity!” Marker and Fordyce are in the latter’s office in London the following Monday. “Heaven knows women are vain,” continues Fordyce, wearily. “There are plenty of wives who actually believe it when their husbands tell them they’re the most beautiful woman in the world. But to be so rash as to act on the assumption! If all married couples started calling their partners’ bluff as Jean did, I don’t suppose anyone would stay married very long.”
“You’re a cynic, Mr Fordyce,” Marker observes.
“Just a lawyer, Mr Marker – specialising in divorce.”
“That explains it, I suppose.”
“The truth of the matter is, the whole thing embarrasses me,” explains Fordyce. “In the first place, it was my wife who talked Mrs Lawford into acting so idiotically. And secondly, I’m as much a friend of Harry’s as I am of hers. We go up to town every day on the same train.”
“Are they still together at the moment?” asks Marker.
“Yes,” replies Fordyce. “Fortunately, there’s been no irreparable break, though according to my wife – who gets the gossip daily – they’re not on speaking terms.”
“Why have I been called in?”
Fordyce makes no bones about the fact that he didn’t want to involve Marker. “I’ve done all I can to get Jean to patch things up. I’m certain there can’t be anything really seriously wrong.” Marker looks quizzical, wondering why he’s here if the threat of divorce has been staved off. The solicitor explains. “But Jean wants her pound of flesh. She’s discovered that Harry doesn’t seem to mind if she leaves him or not, and she can’t take a blow like that to her vanity.” She’s come to the conclusion there must be someone else in her husband’s life. “Nothing less will serve.”
“Could she be right?” asks Marker.
Fordyce considers. “Harry with a mistress? He’s certainly got his secrets, more than most. He’s a stockbroker – and he spends his weekends compensating for it madly. Not that he’s browned off in the City,” Fordyce hastens to add. “They’re about to make him a partner. Harry wants that – he’s anxious for it. No, Harry’s secrets lie very deep.”
“And what worries you,” Marker perceives, “is that I’ll uncover them.”
“Possibly,” admits Fordyce. “At the moment of truth in a striptease act, the lights very wisely go out. But in real life there aren’t any switches.” The phone rings on his desk. He picks it up. “Yes?” he says. “Yes, show her in.” He rings off and moves to the door. “Here she is now,” he tells Marker as he goes. “She’ll brief you herself.” He opens the door and lets in Jean. She looks hard, cold, bitter. Fordyce makes the introductions. “This is Mr Marker.”
“The detective?” asks Jean, looking at Marker.
“I expect he’d rather be known as an inquiry agent,” says Fordyce.
Marker shrugs. “I’m not choosy.”
“Nor am I,” says Jean, “as long as he finds out who my husband’s mistress is.”
“Are you sure there is one?” asks Marker.
“Somebody’s got hold of him, all right,” replies Jean. “He’s so weak, any attractive woman could do just what she liked with him – and there are plenty of them around.”
“Mr Marker will need more than that to work on, Jean,” suggests Fordyce.
Jean turns to the lawyer. “He’s only got to follow him.” She turns back to Marker. “He spends eight hours a day in London, Mr Marker. Find out what he does there.”
“He buys and sells shares,” explains Fordyce, attempting to allay her fears, “interviews clients –”
Jean interrupts. “Dictates to his secretary?” She opens her handbag and takes out a piece of newspaper. “I was turning out some things in the kitchen last night, and I found an old evening paper lining the drawer. Have a look at that photo.” She hands the cutting to Fordyce. “Deirdre Wallis, Miss City.”
Marker frowns. “Miss City?”
“A beauty competition for the most glamorous office girls in the City of London,” Jean explains. “Won by Harry’s secretary.”
Marker starts to form a question. “What makes you think it’s her that –?”
“Closeted eight hours a day with her?” snaps Jean. “Look at her. I can’t compete with that.” Fordyce regards Jean, narrowly, seeing her in a new light, as he hands the clipping to Marker. “I’ve always known the limits of my attractions,” Jean continues, more despairing than bitter. “Obviously she’s his mistress.”
Marker looks at the photograph in the newspaper. It shows a very glamorous, coolly beautiful woman of about twenty.
A boisterous male voice booms from the yard outside. “Come on,” he cries. “Get in, you great brute!” Recognising the voice, Fordyce turns and looks out of the window. The Master watches, too, as the voice continues: “Give her a shove, Charlie. There she goes!” Some mild cheering and the slam of a horsebox door are heard. Fordyce smiles, a little sardonically, and turns back from the window.
“Mr Lawford,” the Master informs the barman. “That’s a spirited mount he had today, my word.”
Harry Lawford, the owner of the boisterous voice, walks in, in full hunting gear, including very muddy boots and a riding whip. He turns to the Master of Foxhounds, chortling. “Did you see that, Master? Three of us trying to get that mare of mine into her box!” Then he sees Fordyce. “Hello, John,” he booms. “What an animal! A hard morning’s hunting and she’s scarcely stretched!” He turns back to the Master and offers to buy her a drink. She declines, saying it’s time she hoofed off home. Harry won’t hear of it. “Oh, come! First hunt of the season and you call it off over a spot of mist. The least you can do to atone is –”
“Spot of mist!” scoffs the Master. “I didn’t want any broken legs and shot horses, even if you did.” She moves away from the bar and waves to the assembled hunters on her way to the door. “Cheerio, all. Damn shame about today. Still, better luck next time.” She goes out.
Fordyce turns to Harry. “I take it you didn’t catch a fox.”
Harry enthusiastically begs to differ. “Didn’t we just? We caught one of the blighters first thing. Gave us a good run, too. Blackstone Wood, then right along the old railway embankment to the Downs. That sorted out the men from the boys. It ended up in the quarry at Melton.”
Fordyce isn’t impressed. “Where the hounds tore it to pieces satisfactorily?”
Harry looks at him, smiling. “What wouldn’t I give to get you on a hunt, John!”
“It would have to be quite a lot.”
“Set you up on that mare I had, and then give her a crack across the rump with this?” Harry indicates his whip. “What wouldn’t I give to see that!” He turns to the landlord and orders two beers. Fordyce doesn’t want one, but Harry insists. “If you won’t hunt with me, at least you can drink with me.” He turns back to the landlord. “Set ’em up, Bill. And I’ll have a couple of these, too – I’m starving.” He grabs a couple of large Cornish pasties from under a glass dome on the counter, and takes an enormous bite out of one of them as his wife, Jean, enters, together with Fordyce’s wife, Sonia. They’re not dressed for the hunt – they were merely spectators. “So there you are,” proclaims Harry, munching away, coarsely. “What happened? Lost in the fog or did Jean foul up the car?” Jean, irritated, begins to protest, but Harry ploughs on, turning to Sonia as he eats. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Jean could scrape a wing driving round an empty car park. And in that mist on Furzehill –”
Fordyce addresses Jean, determined to steer the subject away from her driving skills and distract from Harry’s lack of table manners. “Did you see anything of the hunt?”
“Before the fog closed in, the fox almost ran under our wheels at one point,” Jean reports.
“But after that, the only four-footed beasts we came across at all were some vicious-looking bulls that came shambling up to the car when we got fogbound in the middle of a farmyard,” adds Sonia.
Jean corrects her. “They were only cows, Sonia.”
Sonia disagrees. “I’m sure they were bulls, darling. They had the most wicked-looking horns you’ve ever seen.”
The landlord brings Harry the beers he ordered. Harry asks for two more, for the ladies. Jean would rather have a shandy. “What about you, Sonia?” asks Harry. She says beer’s all right with her. Harry tells the landlord, “Two beers.” Jean protests, but Harry ignores her, turning back to Sonia. “When are you going to come hunting with me, Sonia? I can’t expect Jean to. She’d be too afraid of getting her hair mussed up.”
“For goodness’ sake,” mutters Jean.
Sonia smiles, coyly. “You don’t expect me to sit on a great mountain of horse flesh, do you? Like that monster you were riding?”
“You wouldn’t have to jump in at the deep end to start with,” Harry smiles back. “I’d look after you.”
“What happened to that fox we saw?” asks Sonia.
“You see?” says Harry to Fordyce. “She’s itching for blood already.” He turns to pay the landlord as he brings the other beers.
“Well,” says Sonia, “you must admit, there is a certain ghastly fascination about it.”
“If you’d been with us, we could have blooded you,” says Harry, before adding, “Not that they do it any more on this hunt.”
“I should hope not,” says Fordyce. “The thing’s barbaric enough as it is.”
Sonia’s ghastly fascination shows no sign of abating. “Is that when they smear the fox’s blood on your face and give you his tail as a trophy?” she asks.
Harry nods. “How would you like that?”
“Is it warm?”
“What?”
“The blood.”
Harry looks at her for a moment, not sure how to react. Then he picks up his glass. “Don’t ask me. They only do it to women.” He downs the rest of his pint in one gulp and turns towards the door. “Right, let’s go.” He heads briskly for the door, then turns back to address his wife. “Well, come on, woman. I want a bath and a good rub down.”
“You sound just like a horse yourself, Harry,” says Fordyce.
Jean laughs as she joins her husband. “He certainly smells of one.”
“Can I look in about six, Jean,” asks Sonia, “for that recipe you promised me?”
“I’d rather you came a bit earlier if you can,” replies Jean. “We’ve got the Gilberts for drinks at six.”
Harry contradicts her. “Six will do fine, Sonia. We’re putting the Gilberts off.” Jean looks at him in surprise, but Harry’s already on his way out. He shouts back to Fordyce. “And just because you’re too fat and lazy, John, to take up riding, don’t you dare stop your wife.” Then he adds, flirtatiously, “Not that she need do it for her figure’s sake.”
Laughing, Sonia thanks him for the compliment. Harry laughs back and bundles Jean out. As the door closes behind them, Sonia’s face suddenly turns grim. “That man disgusts me,” she declares.
“Oh?” says her husband, surprised.
“The way he treats Jean! She was telling me about it in the car. He’s like a caveman to her.”
Fordyce raises an eyebrow. “Judging by the way you were fluttering your eyelashes at him, you wouldn’t say no to a bit of rough stuff yourself at times.”
Sonia considers. “I don’t deny he has a certain… well…”
“Ghastly fascination?” suggests Fordyce. “Like the slaughter of a fox?”
Sonia laughs, sardonically. “What’s your penetrating legal mind trying to get at now?”
* * *
Harry strides into the Lawfords’ kitchen through the back door, followed by Jean. Not stopping to remove his muddy boots, he walks straight through into the sitting room, which is expensively but conventionally furnished. There’s a clock on the mantelpiece above a very modern electric fire, a telephone, French windows and a door to the bedroom, as well as the door to the kitchen and hallway. Harry tramps across the room to the bedroom, leaving dirty footprints on the carpet, which Jean, running in, looks at with consternation. “Harry!” she calls after him. “Are you mad? Just as Mrs Gunn has done the house, too.” She returns to the kitchen to fetch a wet cloth, then decides that she ought to let it dry first. “Really, Harry,” she cries, as she throws the cloth back into the kitchen, “with the Gilberts coming, too!”
Harry calls out from the bedroom. “I don’t want them to come.”
“We can’t put them off now,” argues Jean, going into the bedroom.
This is an equally well-furnished room with a telephone next to the bed, a door to the sitting room and another to the bathroom, from which can be heard the sound of a bath running. Harry comes in from the bathroom, still wearing his boots, taking off his coat and jacket. The riding whip lies on an armchair beside the bed. “You only have to ring them,” he says.
“You can’t ask people round for drinks and then call it off on the very day they’re coming.” Jean cringes as she sees more mess on the carpet here. “Oh, look at it.”
“You only have to ring,” repeats Harry.
“What do I tell them? That you just don’t happen to feel like entertaining?”
Harry smirks. “You wouldn’t have the guts to say that.”
“Or the bad manners.”
“Tell them anything you like.” Harry flings his coat on the bed and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “But put them off. Pair of crashing bores. Ring them.”
“We’ll only have to fix another day.”
“Why? We don’t even like them.”
“We owe them an invitation,” says Jean, firmly.
“Of course!” Harry takes on a mocking tone. “Your turn to come to us, dear. Don’t you remember? We came to your place last time. Like a game of shuttlecock!” He throws his shirt on the bed.
Jean picks up an address book next to the telephone. “It was your idea to live in the country, remember.”
“Country?” snorts Harry, donning a dressing gown. “Why, you don’t even go into the village shop.”
“They deliver.”
Harry accidentally knocks the whip from the armchair as he sits down to prise off his boots. “Squatting in our snazzy houses thirty miles from London, commuting up to town with one another in the same trains, cocktails on Saturdays and slumming in the village pub on Sundays! Country? Sonia Fordyce can’t even tell a bull from a cow.”
“I’m surprised you don’t chuck up the Stock Exchange and buy a farm.”
“You – a farmer’s wife?” chuckles Harry, still struggling with boots.
“If I thought it would do you any good, I wouldn’t object,” says Jean, as she dials a three-digit number. “I don’t know what’s got into you.” Her attention on the phone, she doesn’t see Harry’s face, which looks tense, unhappy, as if he’d give anything not to treat his wife this way. “You never used to be like this,” Jean continues. “What’s happened? Why do you ride me all the time? I honestly don’t know that I can take it much more.” She looks from the phone to the bathroom. “Oh, do turn that tap off, Harry. I shan’t be able to hear a thing.” He ignores her, as he manages to get his first boot off. Jean bangs down the receiver, furiously, and goes into the bathroom as Harry tries in vain to remove his other boot. The sound of the taps stops. Jean returns and stares at Harry, more bewildered than angry. “Why?” she asks. “Why do you do it?” She starts dialling again. “What do you want me to be? Some kind of slave, some kind of dog?” She bangs the receiver down again. “Engaged.”
“Pull my boot off, would you?” says Harry, leaning back in the chair.
Jean looks at him, incredulous. “What?”
“My boot.”
Jean makes no move to do so. “Why you couldn’t take them off outside, I can’t think. There’s a perfectly good door scraper out there.”
“And a perfectly good wife in here.”
“If you think I’m getting myself covered in mud just because you’re too –”
“Do as you’re told,” says Harry, firmly.
Jean stares at him, astonished. Then, icily, she replies, “Very well, my Lord.” She gets down on one knee at his feet, but hesitates at the filthy boot.
“It’s only mud,” says Harry. Jean tugs at the boot, as Harry pulls in the opposite direction. Finally it comes off, causing Jean to fall back, clutching the boot to her on the floor. “Now you can turn my bath on again,” says Harry. Jean looks up at him, contemptuously. Harry sits up in the chair, looking down on her. “My bath,” he repeats.
Jean stares at him for a moment, then gets up and goes obediently to the bathroom. Harry’s eyes follow her to the door, then drop to the riding whip that he knocked to the floor earlier. He idly picks it up, rises from the chair and looks again at the bathroom as he hears the taps being turned on. He flings the whip on to the bed, hesitates for a moment, then moves to the bathroom.
Jean is standing by the taps, her back to the door. Harry enters and stands immediately behind her. She turns – and sees the lustful way he’s looking at her. As hot water gushes into the bath, clouds of steam rise up around them…
* * *
Sonia comes into the sitting room from the kitchen, calling out to Jean. She finds the sitting room as deserted as the kitchen. Shivering at the cold, she notices that the electric fire hasn’t been switched on – the room obviously hasn’t been used for hours. She goes to the window, opens it and calls out. “Jean, are you out there?” Puzzled, she closes the window and turns to go back towards the kitchen.
Just then, Jean appears, from the bedroom. She’s dressed as before, but rather dishevelled – no shoes on, her hair in a mess and her dress only partly zipped up. She’s putting this right as she enters. “Sonia!” she cries, surprised.
Sonia turns. “I wondered where on earth you’d got to.”
“Oh, I… I was only changing,” replies Jean, embarrassed.
Sonia frowns. “Changing? But you were wearing that –”
Jean hastily changes the subject. “It’s freezing in here.” She switches on the fire and then sees the clock on the mantelpiece. Again, she’s surprised. “Is that the time? Quarter past five?”
“What time did you think it was?”
“What? Oh, I don’t know, I –”
“Darling, I do apologise,” says Sonia. “Barging in without even knocking. But the back door was open and… well, I’d no idea I was –”
“I was only changing,” Jean insists.
“Yes, of course, dear,” says Sonia, doubtfully.
Harry enters, having changed into slacks and a pullover. Sonia looks at him, somewhat intrigued. “Sonia?” says Harry, as he sees her. He smiles, warmly. “That’s nice. What brings you here?”
“I just dropped by for that recipe Jean promised me,” replies Sonia. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Of course not,” says Harry. “Have a drink.”
Jean addresses her husband. “You realise the Gilberts will be getting ready to leave now, don’t you? Do you still want me to put them off?”
Harry shakes his head. “No, it’s too late now. Perhaps Sonia would stay and help us out with them?”
Sonia raises a satirical eyebrow. “You do think I’ve a charitable nature, don’t you?”
Harry laughs. He’s relaxed, cheerful, almost a different person. Meanwhile, Jean is cold, subdued, hurt. “Very well, then,” she says, bitterly. “We’d better get ready for them, I suppose.”
Harry begins to speak. “If you’d rather they didn’t come, Jean, I –”
Jean cuts him off. “Me! I like that!”
“Whatever you want, darling,” says Harry, gently.
Sensing friction, Sonia retreats to the kitchen. “I’ll get that recipe if I may, Jean. I know just where it is.”
Jean’s about to go with her, but Harry speaks her name. She turns, frostily. “The master calls?”
“Oh, cut it out,” says Harry, lightly.
“It’s you who –”
“All right, all right. Forget it, can’t you?”
“No.”
Harry grins. “Hell, it was worth it, wasn’t it?” His wife just looks at him, contemptuously. “Jean,” he says, serious now, “I love you.”
“You might show it.”
“I did.”
“You don’t have to behave like a gorilla first, do you? For a moment, I really thought you were going to use that whip on me.”
“What do you think I am? Some kind of sadist?”
“Only you know what you are,” says Jean. “I certainly don’t.” Her husband turns away, looking lost and unhappy. She goes to him. “Oh, Harry! You never used to be this way. Remember when we were engaged, when we first got married? What’s happened to that, Harry?” He puts his arms around her, quickly, pressing her to him so that her head nestles against his chest. His face, which she can’t see, is tense with unhappiness. “Just a child really, aren’t you?” continues Jean, in a rather maternal way. “I know you get a bit cheesed going up to London every day with the bowler hat brigade, but they are going to make you a partner in that firm, aren’t they? We can’t turn down chances like that. Of course, if you really and truly want to do something else, I –”
“It’s not that,” says Harry.
Jean looks up at him. “What is it, Harry? You can tell me, surely.” He kisses her, affectionately, tenderly. She nestles her head against his shoulder again, contentedly. “Promise me something, Harry.”
“What?”
“That you won’t ever be… like you were this afternoon… again. Will you? Please.”
Harry replies, just as falteringly. “I won’t… ever be like I was this afternoon… again.”
Jean lifts her head and beams at him, joyfully. “That’s my Harry.” She hugs him, happily, as Sonia returns, clutching a piece of paper.
“Oh, no!” declares Sonia. “I can’t put a foot right in here today.”
Jean laughs, now fully recovered. “Don’t be so idiotic, Sonia. Did you find it?” Sonia shows her the recipe. “Yes, that’s the one,” says Jean. “We got it from a perfectly villainous-looking chef in Brittany last year. Now, it’s the brandy that matters most. Whatever else you do, don’t stint on that.”
Sonia smirks. “Gerald Crowthorne ought to go for that, then, the amount he puts away.”
Jean looks shocked. “Don’t tell me you’re giving this to the Crowthornes!”
“That’s the whole point. Sheila gave us something so exotic when we went to them last week and –”
Jean bursts out laughing and turns to her husband. “Do you hear that, Harry? Sonia’s going to give the Crowthornes exactly the same sweet that we gave them on Thursday!”
“Oh, Jean,” cries Sonia, “you might have –”
Jean’s still laughing, waiting for a reaction from Harry. “Can you beat that, Harry? The very same sweet!”
“Really?” snaps Harry. “Big deal!” He strides past them, straight out into the hallway.
“What’s the matter?” asks Jean, puzzled. She turns back to Sonia, quickly. “I’m awfully sorry, darling, but I’d no idea it was the Crowthornes you wanted to –” From the hallway, the front door is heard slamming. “Harry?” says Jean. “Where on earth’s he –?” She goes out to the hallway as Sonia peers out of the window, puzzled. Sonia hears Jean’s voice yelling, “Harry, where are you going?” There’s the roar of an engine as Harry’s car starts up. “Harry!” cries Jean. Heedless, the car drives away.
Sonia turns from the window as Jean returns to the room. “Where’s he off to?” asks Sonia. “Going out like that without even saying?”
Jean stands in the doorway, quite shattered. “I just can’t take any more of it.”
“Jean, what’s up with you two? What’s going on?”
“I just can’t,” is all Jean can say, “I just can’t.”
Sonia goes to her. “You know what you ought to do, don’t you? You can’t go on letting him treat you like this. Now, listen, Jean…”
* * *
Much later, the clock on the mantelpiece strikes eleven. The room is in darkness, with moonlight streaming in through the window. Then the light of the moon is joined by approaching headlights, as a car drives up to the house.
In the bedroom, Jean is at the window, peering around the edge of the curtain as the car stops outside, and the driver-side door opens and closes. In a carefully planned manoeuvre, she goes to the bed, puts on her coat, then moves to a half-packed suitcase on the bed, which she continues to fill. Harry comes in and stares at her, astonished. He asks her what’s going on. Jean replies calmly with a question of her own. “Have you had a nice time?”
“What are you doing?” says Harry. “Coat on, suitcase? Where are you going?”
“Tonight I’m just going round to Sonia’s,” replies Jean. “Tomorrow I’m going to my sister’s in London.”
“Are you trying to tell me that… that you’re –”
Jean struggles to maintain her composure. “Where have you been?” she demands. “You’re always doing this, Harry. Going off in the car, coming back hours later without giving any idea where you’ve… What do you do on these jaunts of yours?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” says Jean, coldly. She slams the case shut and looks around for her handbag. “When Mrs Gunn comes on Monday, you’d better tell her my sister’s ill and that’s why I’ve gone to her. Sonia will be backing the story up with everyone else – it’s what we arranged.”
Harry appears unmoved. “I see.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
Harry shrugs. “What can I say? If you’ve made up your mind that this is best… well, I can’t stop you.”
Jean’s resolve begins to crack. Sonia’s plan hasn’t worked at all. “Oh, God!” she cries. “You don’t care a damn, do you?”
Harry looks at her, astounded. Then he realises. “Wait a minute. Is this just to get me on my knees to you? Beg you to stay? Is that all it’s for?” He smiles and nods. “Yes, of course. You don’t really mean to leave me at all.”
Jean breaks down in tears.
* * *
“The stupidity, Mr Marker,” says John Fordyce, “the fantastic stupidity!” Marker and Fordyce are in the latter’s office in London the following Monday. “Heaven knows women are vain,” continues Fordyce, wearily. “There are plenty of wives who actually believe it when their husbands tell them they’re the most beautiful woman in the world. But to be so rash as to act on the assumption! If all married couples started calling their partners’ bluff as Jean did, I don’t suppose anyone would stay married very long.”
“You’re a cynic, Mr Fordyce,” Marker observes.
“Just a lawyer, Mr Marker – specialising in divorce.”
“That explains it, I suppose.”
“The truth of the matter is, the whole thing embarrasses me,” explains Fordyce. “In the first place, it was my wife who talked Mrs Lawford into acting so idiotically. And secondly, I’m as much a friend of Harry’s as I am of hers. We go up to town every day on the same train.”
“Are they still together at the moment?” asks Marker.
“Yes,” replies Fordyce. “Fortunately, there’s been no irreparable break, though according to my wife – who gets the gossip daily – they’re not on speaking terms.”
“Why have I been called in?”
Fordyce makes no bones about the fact that he didn’t want to involve Marker. “I’ve done all I can to get Jean to patch things up. I’m certain there can’t be anything really seriously wrong.” Marker looks quizzical, wondering why he’s here if the threat of divorce has been staved off. The solicitor explains. “But Jean wants her pound of flesh. She’s discovered that Harry doesn’t seem to mind if she leaves him or not, and she can’t take a blow like that to her vanity.” She’s come to the conclusion there must be someone else in her husband’s life. “Nothing less will serve.”
“Could she be right?” asks Marker.
Fordyce considers. “Harry with a mistress? He’s certainly got his secrets, more than most. He’s a stockbroker – and he spends his weekends compensating for it madly. Not that he’s browned off in the City,” Fordyce hastens to add. “They’re about to make him a partner. Harry wants that – he’s anxious for it. No, Harry’s secrets lie very deep.”
“And what worries you,” Marker perceives, “is that I’ll uncover them.”
“Possibly,” admits Fordyce. “At the moment of truth in a striptease act, the lights very wisely go out. But in real life there aren’t any switches.” The phone rings on his desk. He picks it up. “Yes?” he says. “Yes, show her in.” He rings off and moves to the door. “Here she is now,” he tells Marker as he goes. “She’ll brief you herself.” He opens the door and lets in Jean. She looks hard, cold, bitter. Fordyce makes the introductions. “This is Mr Marker.”
“The detective?” asks Jean, looking at Marker.
“I expect he’d rather be known as an inquiry agent,” says Fordyce.
Marker shrugs. “I’m not choosy.”
“Nor am I,” says Jean, “as long as he finds out who my husband’s mistress is.”
“Are you sure there is one?” asks Marker.
“Somebody’s got hold of him, all right,” replies Jean. “He’s so weak, any attractive woman could do just what she liked with him – and there are plenty of them around.”
“Mr Marker will need more than that to work on, Jean,” suggests Fordyce.
Jean turns to the lawyer. “He’s only got to follow him.” She turns back to Marker. “He spends eight hours a day in London, Mr Marker. Find out what he does there.”
“He buys and sells shares,” explains Fordyce, attempting to allay her fears, “interviews clients –”
Jean interrupts. “Dictates to his secretary?” She opens her handbag and takes out a piece of newspaper. “I was turning out some things in the kitchen last night, and I found an old evening paper lining the drawer. Have a look at that photo.” She hands the cutting to Fordyce. “Deirdre Wallis, Miss City.”
Marker frowns. “Miss City?”
“A beauty competition for the most glamorous office girls in the City of London,” Jean explains. “Won by Harry’s secretary.”
Marker starts to form a question. “What makes you think it’s her that –?”
“Closeted eight hours a day with her?” snaps Jean. “Look at her. I can’t compete with that.” Fordyce regards Jean, narrowly, seeing her in a new light, as he hands the clipping to Marker. “I’ve always known the limits of my attractions,” Jean continues, more despairing than bitter. “Obviously she’s his mistress.”
Marker looks at the photograph in the newspaper. It shows a very glamorous, coolly beautiful woman of about twenty.