Death of a Viewer

[Dark Saint Alaick]

2. Old Nick's Folly


Roger Bennion became involved in what was to be known as the Television Murder in rather a curious manner. His father, old Sir Christopher, before and after the First World War had added to his considerable wealth by judicious speculations in house property. The ground leases of houses in fashionable Belgravia were getting very short. Built nearly a hundred years before, many of them were still in their primeval state. Noble families had houses without bathrooms, or at most with one. They lacked electric light and the servants' quarters were dark and dismal.

Sir Christopher was able to buy them for a few pounds--in some cases they paid substantial sums to be relieved of the liability to redecorate and put them in repair. On undertaking to bring them up to modern standards he secured new and longer leases. Then three or four bathrooms, central heating, up-to-date sanitation, dinner lifts, parquet floors, tasteful decorations and, where necessary, bigger windows were installed. He had a genius for such things and only asked a reasonable profit on his outlay. He found a ready market.

He felt he was doing a good work, but when the housing problem became acute and domestic help almost disappeared he turned his attention to country properties. Many an old manor house became adapted as a school, a convalescent home, or was cut up into flats. He also created what some called Old Nick's Folly.

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It was nothing of the sort. It was a deliberate attempt to offer houses to disabled soldiers, sailors or civilians at rents they could afford, regardless of the losses he thereby incurred. He saw it as a thank-offering for a long and successful life. Many people in the past had left money to endow almshouses. He thought it better in his lifetime to erect them and have the pleasure of seeing the right folk enjoy them, not as almshouses but as homes of which they could be proud. An example others might emulate.
He bought some land not far from the London docks and built between thirty and forty little dwellings of tasteful design with labour-saving comforts and conveniences. Each had a small garden and was let to a suitable tenant at a rent of six shillings a week, with the landlord paying the rates and doing the repairs. He lost heavily on them but it was his little village and became a cheery oasis amid the grime and squalor of its surroundings. He might have done more in the same way but building restrictions, higher costs and his own increasing age prevented it.
As his second name was Nicholas many laughed at him and the enterprise became known as Old Nick's Folly.
He had a reliable agent to look after the property but he liked his son Roger, who had been his partner in some of his ventures, though not in that, to visit there occasionally and report personally to him. It thus happened that on the day after Ossie Henshaw announced his financial difficulties to Sandra his wife, Roger was strolling amid the freshly painted cottages, mostly bright with gay flowers.
At one of them he stopped. As he did so the occupant, a big and certainly able-bodied man, came out.

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"Major Bennion," he boomed. "Pleasure to see you here. An unusual pleasure if I may say so."
"I came to see you," Roger said.
"I am honoured. Come inside."
Roger followed him into a pleasant room that served as sitting-room and study. Meals were generally eaten in the neat, little kitchen behind it. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a bathroom.
"Sit down, Major Bennion. What can I do for you?"
"Do you know a man named Daniel Floss?"
"Old Dan, my father's gardener?"
"I believe so."
"Of course I know him," was the hearty reply. "An excellent fellow, though I fear his gardening days are done. Crippled with arthritis. Getting on in years, too."
"So I understand. His wife is a decent woman?"
"Excellent, excellent. I believe she still helps sometimes in the house."
"They have been recommended," Roger said, "as a suitable couple for one of these cottages. They have friends here. Your father wants their present cottage for a new and younger man, and is willing to help them get something else."

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"Quite right. You could not have worthier people. Worked hard and I would like them to end their days in a nice little place like one of these."
He spoke heartily. He had a big voice and possessed a thick crop of curly, reddish-brown hair over a strongly featured face. His age was about thirty-five. "I can recommend them in every way," he added.
"I am glad of that, Mr. Jones," Roger said. "The trouble is we have nothing available for them. I was wondering if you would move out and let them come here?"
"That is not quite reasonable, is it?"
"Very reasonable, I think. You, as a Member of Parliament, are not the sort of person these places were meant for."
"Maybe, maybe not. Here I am and here I stay." Ewen grinned as one who knew his rights. "If it is a question of rents you will find me open to a fair settlement."
"As you should know," Roger replied, "it is nothing of that sort. My father intended these to be homes for the veterans of the services, or of industry generally. You got this by a sort of trick. You knew the Maxwells, a worthy old couple. When Maxwell had to go to hospital you suggested to his wife that you should come as a lodger. What you paid would help her. Lodgers, by the way, are not allowed or each house might take them, perhaps several of them, and the nature of the place would be changed. When Maxwell died you stayed on with Mrs. Maxwell as your housekeeper. When she died some months later you still stayed on. Mason, my father's agent, unfortunately accepted rent from you--"
"And so created a tenancy," the M.P. smiled. "I know the law on these things. If you wanted to live here yourself--"
"I do not. I have told you who it is for. Should you not be ashamed that a man of your position and of your means, son and heir to Lord Bethesda, should occupy a home meant for the aged and infirm and so keep your old gardener out of it?"

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Not a bit. Look here, Major Bennion, you talk of my means. I know most of the people here are old-age pensioners and thanks to you or your father they are very comfortably off but round the corner there are scores of houses, hundreds perhaps, with three or four wage-earners in the family who bring in twice as much in their pay packets as I get. I like living near my constituents and they like me to be here. It is handy for the House, just an easy run on the Underground."
"If you refuse to go," Roger said, "we might apply for an eviction order. That would test the validity of the tenancy."
"No doubt of its validity. But as I said, if anything more is due to you I am willing to pay it."
"Even the new Rent Act would not protect you and there may be other grounds for action."
"Such as?"
"Some of your neighbours suggest that the lady who is living with you is not your wife."
Ewen Jones laughed. "Because she writes and speaks as Gwennie Wren? That is just what they would suggest."
"Are they wrong? The question would of course be put to you when the case is heard. You can easily dispose of it by showing when and where you were married."
The M.P. still regarded him good-humouredly.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Would it surprise you, Major Bennion, if two people, a man and a woman, having mutual interests and engaged in the same sort of work agreed to share a home? Would there be anything wrong in it?"
"I do not know what conclusion a Court would draw. My father designed these places, as I said, for the old and partially disabled. For two young and very able people, each earning a considerable income, to get possession of one of them would appear wrong to most people. It does to me."
"Assuming you were right, Gwennie Wren might not wish to marry me. We do not agree about everything. But we do agree that to have our incomes lumped together and so get lower allowances and a higher rate of tax would not be to our advantage."
"The law in that respect may be bad," Roger said. "If it is you are more responsible for it than we are. Do you think it would be good for you or your father if this came out in court?"
"I see your point," Ewen replied more seriously, "but do you see mine? It suits me to live here and I could not get alternative accommodation at anything like the same figure. Would it alter your views if Gwen left me?"
"That is your affair," Roger said. "We want the accommodation for Daniel Floss."
Ewen pondered for some moments.
"Look here, Bennion, suppose you spent a weekend at Welton Priory, my father's place--or rather, his wife's. You could see Floss and you could also see my father. You could put the case to him and you might suggest he should buy me a house or enable me to take a flat handy for Westminster."

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"He makes you no allowance?"
"Not a farthing. His wife is a wealthy woman. She is not very fond of me and they think I ought to be able to manage. I can, living here, but not otherwise. If you, as an independent party, supported me it might help, especially as it would rid them of old Dan."
"How am I to be invited to Welton Priory?"
Ewen's smile returned. "Nothing easier, and it will give you a peep behind the scenes. In my view our party, call it Labour or Socialist as you like, wants pep. My father has agreed to my getting together in a fortnight's time at the Priory a Ginger Group to work out a plan of campaign. You could come then."
"Politics are not in my line," Roger said.
"So much the better. An independent view might be helpful. I am quite serious about it and I hope it will do my father good. He was once called the Welsh Lion. He led two successful strikes. He was in the Cabinet but since he married this wealthy woman he has lost his fire. I would like to re-kindle it. If you are not interested in our talk, the grounds run down to the river and you might get some trout."
That, as it happened, was artful bait. Roger was a keen angler but Ruth, his wife, was not. It seemed selfish to indulge in the sport alone, especially as he was trying to interest her in golf. But she was shortly to take their infant, Penelope Ann, to visit her grandparents, the Dean and his wife, at Fenchester, and he was not going with them. It was a chance worth considering.
"Who will be in your party?" he asked.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"It is left to me. There will be a moderate houseful on Friday and on Sunday several more come over for the day. It is very hush-hush at present. It would not do for our party bosses to get wind of it. I would like to include a few non-politicians so that it shall not look suspicious. Do you know Captain and Mrs. Henshaw?"
"I think I have met them."
"They may come the day before. Of course Gwen will be there in her own right. Not a word to anybody, please of what we were saying just now. A few Trade Union M.P.s are bringing their wives and I hope to get Jeremiah along."
"Who is Jeremiah?" Roger asked.
"Don't you know him--old Tom Dayton? He always says Woe, woe and Doom. On Sunday there will be some of our heavy-weights."
"Sounds amusing. The Press?"
"Certainly not. Top-drawer secret. If anything leaked out you and the Henshaws would make it look like an ordinary house party. You could get a bit of fishing and you will see Floss and my father."
"Should not the invitation come from Lady Bethesda?"
"No. I just let them know who to expect and they fix it up. Good food and all the latest mod. con. You are not likely to see much of my worthy step-mother. She does not approve and she does not know who is coming, but she will not let us down. Too proud for that. She may spend most of her time with her son."
"She has a son--by your father?"
"Not a doubt of it! The precious Ambrose. A decent kid really; spoilt of course; about five years old. You will come?"
"I think I might manage it. But it makes no difference to my wanting this place."
"Good. I hope we shall arrange that you get it. Don't forget your rod."

[Dark Saint Alaick]

3. Welton Priory

It is sometimes impossible to fix the precise impulses that govern our actions. We think we are free agents yet those actions may have results we were far from foreseeing. Is it possible that Fate--or Providence--spins a web much wider than we imagine and our choice is part of it?

Roger Bennion might have found it difficult to say exactly why he had accepted the rather odd invitation to visit Welton Priory. Ewen Jones had been fairly honest with him. He felt some liking for the fellow, though he was still determined to get him out of the house to which he should never have been admitted. The fact that Ruth and their infant were to be away for a time and the prospect of some fishing carried weight. It might be amusing to see a political plot in the making and he was always interested in genuine old buildings. All these things influenced him but it may be that Fate--or Providence--wanted him there for the part he was to play in the early but unexpected future. Whether or not fore-knowledge would have deterred him it is impossible to say. Those who know him best may think it would have whetted his appetite for the startling and sensational.

Having seen Ruth and Penelope Ann well on the way to Penchester he turned his car towards the Priory which was in that charming part of the country where Sussex joins Hampshire. The residence--which he had been told had been built earlier than Hampton Court Palace--appeared smaller than he had expected. The elevation was of mellowed red brick and had tall gables and lofty twisted chimneys. As he approached it through a long and well-kept drive, with glimpses of pretty flower garden on either side, it certainly looked attractive. He was to learn later it was larger than he had thought, though smaller than it once had been. Most mansions that have lasted for centuries have undergone changes. Many have been added to by succeeding owners, often with architectural crime and conglomerate hideousness.

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The Priory, though reduced in size, retained much of its original charm. Shaped somewhat like the letter U it formed three sides of a quadrangle. The frontage was not great but the two wings continued for some depth, enclosing another, well kept flower garden. It would be expensive to maintain and what, had induced the millionaire brewer to acquire it and bequeath it to his daughter could only be surmised. But it was certainly a wonderful home for the former coal-miner, the one-time Lion of Wales.
It was about tea-time when Roger arrived, apparently a little earlier than he was expected. Contrary to Ewen's prediction he speedily made the acquaintance of Lady Bethesda. He was shown into a small room on the ground floor that was generally referred to as her ladyship's room. It could hardly be described as a model of good taste. The curtains and chair covers were of bright colours that would have offended a sensitive eye, and a few pieces of undoubtedly period furniture were alongside chairs of the metal tube design, comfortable but hardly in character.
He was interested rather than critical, and after a few moments his hostess entered leading a little boy by the hand.
"I am so pleased to meet you, Major Bennion," she said. "Ewen has gone to fetch some of his friends. He should be back soon. I am sorry my husband is not down yet. He has not been very well and has to reserve himself for what may be a late night. This is my son, Ambrose."
Roger bowed over the extended hand. Lady Bethesda was tall and thin. Not beautiful, but with dark eyes and straight black eyebrows. It was rather a hard face but he had the impression she could be pleasant when she tried--and she was trying.
As to Master Ambrose, he was a solemn-looking boy with dark eyes like his mother's. He was wearing black velvet knickers with a white silk shirt, something in the Fauntleroy style of a bygone age.