Page 158 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Giles came into his bedroom looking for his pen, and found Hook there, packing his trunk – or, rather, staring with a frown at the items laid out for packing. He gave his servant a sharp glance but had no intention of engaging in conversation. But Hook first cleared his throat in a significant way, and finally, as Giles bent over a bedside drawer, said, ‘I beg your pardon, my lord.’

Giles straightened. ‘Yes?’ he said irritably. When a valet began with, ‘I beg your pardon, my lord,’ no good thing ever followed.

‘This trip, my lord, to Egypt, I presume . . . That is to say, I suppose . . .’

‘Oh, spit it out, man!’

‘Your lordship will be staying in Cairo? In a hotel?’

‘For the first night. Then it’s out to the dig. The Valley of the Kings,’ he elaborated. ‘Why?’

‘In the Valley, my lord, of the Kings, I suppose there is a hotel for all the English gentlemen?’

‘Why the devil should you suppose that? We live in tents. There are no towns nearby.’ He narrowed his eyes as Hook shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you asking stupid questions?’

Hook had not really believed what Speen had said about living in tents and eating scorpions, but from various snippets he had overheard while serving dinner to the Arthurs, he had begun to wonder. And then his lordship had vetoed so many of the things he had been intending to pack for him, saying he wouldn’t need them . . .

‘It’s just that I’m not sure I’ll be able to look after you properly, my lord,’ he blurted, ‘in a tent. The fact is, I’ve never—’ He intercepted Giles’s glare and descended into a mumble. ‘It isn’t . . . I can’t . . . Not really an outdoors person—’

Giles breathed out hard. ‘Let me understand you – do you refuse to accompany me to Egypt?’

The word ‘refuse’ silenced Hook for a moment. But the vision before him was too awful. ‘I don’t see that I would be much use to you, my lord,’ Hook said in subdued tones. ‘Not in a tent.’ He didn’t mention the scorpions, but they loomed large in his imagination.

‘Then you had certainly better not come,’ Giles said. ‘I have little enough need of a town valet on a dig – of an unwilling one, none at all.’

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Hook began.

Giles held up a hand to silence him. He was furious at the impertinence – the man’s presuming to choose when he would deign to do his duty and when he would refuse! His first impulse was to sack Hook out of hand, but a second thought suggested a punishment that would make him suffer more. ‘You are no longer my valet. You may return to your former position of footman, at a footman’s salary.’

Hook’s mouth opened and closed – for once he was lost for words.

‘Or, if you prefer,’ Giles went on with poisonous kindness, ‘you may leave my employ entirely. A month’s notice would not be appropriate, since I shan’t be here, but you may take a month’s wages in lieu and go at once.’

Hook’s nostrils flared as his temper rose. Nobody dismissed James Hook! But go back to footman? It would be humiliating. He managed to swallow the words that sprang to his tongue. A month’s wages wouldn’t go far, and what if he didn’t get another place right away? He was used to his comfort – he didn’t want to pig it in cheap lodgings while he looked for a place. And he hadn’t had time to carry out his plan of take-stuff-and-blame-Speen yet. Better to take a month or so as a footman and leave at a time of his own choosing, than have everyone say he was dismissed. He’d find some way of making it seem as if he’d been clever, getting out of going to Egypt.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ he said with an effort. ‘I’ll serve as footman, if you please.’

‘You may go, then. And ask Crooks if he’ll come and finish my packing.’

‘M-my lord?’

‘It is a job for a valet. You are no longer a valet.’

Hook swallowed, bowed, and backed out.

Giles felt a moment of satisfaction, but it quickly faded. Petty triumphs over servants did little to assuage the pain of a torn mind.

The presence of a policeman below stairs was disturbing. PC Holyoak was darkly handsome, and had a commanding presence. The maids found a surprising number of reasons to scuttle along Piccadilly and past him in the minutes he was waiting there. His head was politely bare, and his dark hair, curly as a ram’s fleece, almost brushed the low ceiling of the passage. He was altogether thrilling. Even the kitchen staff peeped out, and Brigid made so bold as to offer the young Dionysus a cup of tea – which he politely refused.

Moss was apprehensive when Holyoak was shown into his room. A visit from the police is never comfortable for a butler. It never meant good news. The last time, it had been to announce that Mr Richard had been in a motor-car smash and was close to death.

‘How can I help you, constable?’ he asked.

‘You have a footman here, name of William Sweeting?’

‘Yes – yes, we have.’