The Scent of Death. Andrew Taylor

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       Chapter Six

      The high-ceilinged room was a place of shadows. Despite the heat, the windows were shut and the curtains closed – because, old Mrs Wintour said, the smell of the great fire was become intolerable and the street below so noisy.

      Ten candles burned on brackets attached to the walls but they served mainly to accentuate the surrounding gloom. A heavy moth, drunk with desire, circled one of the flames. I could not drag my eyes away from it. The candle singed first one wing, then the other. At last, and with supernatural strength, the besotted insect reached the fatal flame again. There was a faint sizzling sound. The moth fell to the pier table immediately beneath the bracket and lay there, twitching.

      ‘More tea, sir?’ Mrs Wintour asked, pale and indistinct on a sofa.

      ‘Thank you, ma’am, but no.’

      I rubbed sweating palms on my breeches. The Judge let slip a long, rumbling snore from the recesses of his high-backed armchair. Only his legs were visible.

      Having discharged her duties as a hostess, Mrs Wintour sat back and did not speak. I could not tell whether her eyes were open or closed. From somewhere below came a clatter as though a pot had fallen on the floor. The moth gave up its unequal struggle with the world and expired. The air in the room seemed to condense into a dark, swaying liquid, trapping the humans like three curious natural specimens suspended in alcohol.

      Would it always be like this, I wondered? Would I sit in silence, night after night, in this smothering subaqueous fog? The memory of the corpse in the harbour drifted into my mind, and I saw again the decaying face of the merman. Perhaps the poor fellow now lay in just such a stifling semi-darkness at the bottom of the ocean.

      It was past ten o’clock. In a moment the grandfather clock in the hall must chime the quarter. It seemed as if days or even weeks had passed since it had last chimed the hour. A frugal supper had been served at nine by a manservant out of livery and a maid. I had been here since eight o’clock. Townley had introduced me to the Judge and had then slipped away, promising to call for me in the morning.

      The drawing-room door opened. Mrs Wintour twitched in her chair and emitted a little cry as though someone had pinched her. A lady entered.

      ‘Ah, my dear,’ the Judge said, levering himself up with the help of the tea table. ‘There you are, Bella, bless my soul. Are you quite restored?’

      I rose to my feet. The light was so poor that the woman’s face was barely visible. I was aware only that she was small and slim, and she brought with her the smell of otto of roses.

      ‘You startled me,’ Mrs Wintour said. ‘Why is everything so loud nowadays?’

      ‘Bella,’ the Judge went on, ‘allow me to name Mr Savill of the American Department. And, Mr Savill, here at last is my dear daughter, my son’s wife, Mrs Arabella.’

      I bowed over the lady’s hand.

      ‘Mr Savill,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I am happy to meet you.’

      ‘Come and sit with us, my dear,’ the Judge said, stretching out his hand to her. ‘We shall send for fresh tea.’

      ‘Would you excuse me this once, sir?’ Mrs Arabella took the Judge’s hand in both of hers. ‘My head is still splitting – it is this terrible heat, I think.’ She stroked her father-in-law’s hand as though it were a small animal in need of reassurance. ‘I came down for a moment to welcome Mr Savill. I would not want him to think us unmannerly.’

      ‘Never that, madam,’ I said. ‘You are politeness itself. But I am sorry you are indisposed.’

      ‘You must take something,’ the Judge СКАЧАТЬ