Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark Page B

likely be away. He was in any case hardly ever there. It would be all the more convenient perhaps to question the housekeeper and the two old housemen whom Joe knew lived there in perpetuity. If someone like Lucan had been to see Benny, those people would know. Of course they wouldn’t talk. Not really talk. But there were ways of talking and talking, and something somehow might trickle through. “Of course we mustn’t ask direct questions,” said Joe.
    “Oh, it would be fatal, I agree.”
    The great lovely steep hills were all around them. The feeling of northern nature, a whole geography minding very much its own business, cautious, alien, cold and haughty, began here. The sky rolled darkly amid patches of white light. On they drove, north, north. Yes, there was a light high up there in the turret. The bell, which was an old fashioned pull-bell which pealed hysterically throughout the house, brought no response for the first ten minutes of their wait in the drive, in the dark. Joe fetched a flashlight from his car and started prowling around, while Lacey stood hugging her coat around her, staring up at the light in the Gothic tower. Suddenly she heard a shuffle, and all of a sudden the door opened to a flood of light.
    Joe reappeared very quickly.
    “Yes?” said a man’s voice.
    “This is the residence of Mr. Benny Rolfe, isn’t it?” “This is Adanbrae Keep. It was you that rang up?” the speaker said. He was a middle-aged, red-haired and bearded man wearing a handyman’s apron. “I thought you’d come early, gave you up. Well, you know Benny isn’t here. Come in, if you will. Come in and sit yourselves down.”
    The hall of Adanbrae Keep was welcoming enough, with new-looking chintzes. The man put a click-light to the fire, which started to blaze up obediently. “Benny’s in France,” he said. “Sit yourselves down.
    Would you like a cup of tea? My name’s Gordon.”
    “Yes,” said Joe.
    “Oh, please,” said Lacey.
    “Are you all alone here?” said Joe.
    “No, no. There’s the stable man, Pat Reilly, there’s my garden boy, Jimmie-he’s gone off to lend a hand at the golf tavern and make himself a bit extra, there’s Mrs. Kerr, she is in her room, but she won’t be in bed yet, if you’d like to meet her I could get her. I’ll just put on the kettle.”
    “I’d like to see Mrs. Kerr,” said Lacey when he had left the hall.
    Joe said, “We’ve no right to trouble them. Benny wouldn’t like it. He’d think us awfully rude. It’s all right just to call in, but we mustn’t seem to snoop, or probe, or anything like that.”
    “I’d like to probe,” said Lacey.
    Just then, down the main staircase came a short dark woman of about forty with a wide lipsticked smile. “I’m Betty Kerr,” she said. “I heard you arrive. We just about gave you up. Are you staying anywhere around here?”
    She had a pink roller, probably overlooked, still in her hair. She sat down on one of the chintz chairs. Joe told her the hotel they had booked for the night, of which she expressed approval.
    “We thought we would just look in,” said Lacey, “as Mr. Rolfe isn’t available, we tried everywhere, but we only wanted to sort of trace someone who might have been here recently. An old friend of Dr. Murray’s-that’s my companion here-that we want to get in touch with.” “What name?” said Betty Kerr.
    In came Gordon the Red bearing a tray of teacups with the pot and jug.
    “Lucan,” said Joe.
    “No, I don’t know of a Lucan,” said Betty Kerr. She poured out the tea and handed it out to the couple. This was an event, plainly, and she liked it. “Did he play golf? There was a gentleman here playing golf. But no, he wasn’t a Lucan. A wee man with a bag of old clubs like forty years ago. Gordon had to clean his mashie with emery paper.”
    “No, the old university friend I’m trying to contact is tall.”
    Gordon was hovering around. “That could be the gentleman who was to dinner about