Landed Gently by Alan Hunter Page A

carefully.
    ‘I was,’ replied Somerhayes flatly, without the suspicion of an evasion.
    ‘Hrrmp, hrrmp!’ interrupted Sir Daynes. ‘Apart from the criminal, of course, apart from the criminal. Suppose the young feller did go up to his room, Somerhayes? Bed wasn’t slept in, y’know.’
    ‘I cannot be positive, Sir Daynes. He expressed the intention, and I last saw him ascending the stairs.’
    ‘Didn’t you hear him moving about when you went up? Room only one away from yours, eh? Passed your door when he was on his way out of the wing?’
    Somerhayes did not reply immediately. His expression a blank, he seemed to be running over in his mind every minute detail of the night before.
    ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I can be of no help to you on that point. I heard nothing from his room when I went up, nor later when I was in bed. Being tired, I went to sleep quickly, and I remembered nothing more until I was wakened by Thomas at ten minutes past seven.’
    ‘Feller might never have gone to his room, then?’
    ‘As you say, Daynes, he might not.’
    There was a small commotion by the hearth asGently searched the pocket of his ulster and produced a crumpled pamphlet. It was a visitor’s guide to the Place, of which a small pile still lay on a side-table in the great hall.
    ‘If you don’t mind … I’d like to get these premises clear in my brain.’
    He opened the guide on the table and turned the pages with clumsy fingers. On the verso of the cover was printed a plan of the state apartments, in shape a large rectangle, its width two-thirds its length. At each corner were four smaller rectangles representing the wings. They were connected to the central block by narrow anterooms or galleries. In the centre of the state apartments, facing east, was the great hall, with galleries running round its three inner walls. From the inner end of the hall, at almost the exact centre of the block, the flight of marble stairs descended from the gallery-level.
    ‘All this isn’t used at all … it just connects the four wings?’
    Gently poked at the enormous central block, which dwarfed its four appendages.
    Somerhayes smiled bleakly. ‘It was not built for utility, Mr Gently. The state apartments were designed to house visiting royalty and the first baron’s collection of pictures and antiques. In a more spacious age they were certainly in frequent use, but I believe there is no record of the family having inhabited other than the wings. Today, I’m afraid, the state apartments are no more than a museum which in summer we open to thepublic. At other times they are merely an insuperable inconvenience to the poor inhabitants.’
    ‘Going round the clock … who lives where?’
    ‘Going round the clock, we have first the south-east wing, in which the tapissiers and the outdoor staff have their quarters – it has entry, you see, into the coach-houses and stabling, part of which has been turned into the tapestry workshop. Next at that end is the south-west wing where Mr Brass has rooms, and above him the indoor staff. In that wing are also the kitchens. Coming to this end, we have, first, the north-west wing, which is my cousin’s sacred domain, and second the north-east wing, in which we are now, and which Thomas and myself inhabit. In the usual way all meals are taken in the kitchen wing, but it was decided that over Christmas my own suite would be used, and so the yellow drawing room here was the scene of last night’s party. I trust you can find your way about now, Mr Gently?’
    Gently nodded broodingly. He placed a stubby finger on the top of the great stairs.
    ‘That’s about equidistant from each of the four wings.’
    ‘The landing of the marble stairs is, I believe, the geometric centre of the house.’
    ‘In fact it’s the logical place for a rendezvous … don’t you think?’
    Somerhayes said nothing, but his eyes never left Gently’s face.
    ‘We’ve got to ask ourselves why he went there – atthat