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stood, the drive looked remarkably like a ball of yarn stretched taut,
awaiting the great feline s attention and amusement.
Too symmetrical and unadorned to be called Baroque, too richly varied for a
Palladian label, its stone some indeterminate shade between warm gold and cool
pewter, with crenellations and domes and a wealth of windows that hovered just
on the safe edge of excessive, Justice Hall was unlike any building I had ever
seen. Rather, I corrected myself, it resembled other grand houses of the
nobility, but in the way that a woman of strikingly original beauty resembles
her inevitable crowd of imitators the similarity is in one direction only. I
felt I had never truly seen a country house before. It was almost improper to
think of it as a mere building ; this was an entity whose signal
characteristic was its unearthly perfection.
The sun did not shine on Justice Hall so much as Justice Hall called forth
the sun s rays to fall at such and such an angle. We did not look upon it;
rather, it invited our eyes to admire. It sat in its exquisitely shaped bowl
and smiled gently on the careful arrangement of dappled deer on its slopes,
the fall of shadows from its trees, the play of the breeze on the water at its
base. In the summer it would glow; in the rain, its face would appear pensive;
under a blanket of snow it would be a fairy-tale castle; in the moonlight,
this would be the dwelling place of the gods.
Justice Hall was the most self-centred house I had ever seen. My heart went
out to the man at my side: If Justice Hall wanted Mahmoud, I did not believe
Ali had a chance.
As if he had read the thought on the side of my face, Alistair made a small
sound, a grunt of disgust, or perhaps of despair.
You see? he said.
I do not know why it took me so long to consider that Alistair s motives in
seeking us out might not be purely philanthropic, but it was only at that
moment that I perceived the stain of jealousy beneath his philadelphic goals.
Maybe, I thought, just maybe we will find that Marsh Hughenfort actually
wanted to come home. Perhaps his eyes viewed the panorama before us with all
the love and devotion of his Norman ancestors. His blood and bones, after all,
were bred here; more than eight centuries of his people had devoted their
lives to holding the land against all comers. Mahmoud must be nearing fifty,
the time when a man s eyes might well begin to tire of the dry, grey,
comfortless, and infinitely treacherous desert and to seek the relief of green
hills and childhood shapes. Perhaps Justice Hall s seventh Duke had chosen to
come home from the wars, to die as an old man in the bed where he had been
born.
With that, I was no longer so sure of the coming discussion with the man I
had called Mahmoud Hazr. I was bound by loyalty, without question; but there
were two of my brothers here, and what suited the one might not, I now saw,
suit the other.
Silent and thoughtful, I followed Holmes into the back of the motorcar, to
continue our short journey into the glittering heart of perfection.
CHAPTER FIVE
The drive up from the main road had been perfectly straight, but once the
summit was reached, its path began to curve with the contour of the hillside,
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less from necessity, since the descent was a gradual one, than to present a
more dramatic approach. The track curved at the base of the hill, then dropped
a fraction, so that for the last half mile one not only faced the house
straight on, but felt as if the house lay above. I could not help speculating
on the quantity of soil Humphry Repton had caused to be moved in order to
create that subtly humbling approach.
As it was, Justice Hall waited foursquare at the head of her drive, occupying
her terraces with the patient air of a queen awaiting obeisance. A wide bridge
crossed the artificial lake that separated the house from the world outside
the gates; as we drove over it, I happened to glance up at the roof line. A
flag flew above the front portico, and below its gently undulating colours
stood a figure, nearly hidden by the crenellations. A man, I thought, briefly
glimpsed, and then we were circling around and coming to a halt before the
house.
One clear indicator of an establishment s degree of affluence, in 1923 as in
1723, was the number of unnecessary individuals it maintained. Messengers and
footmen, rendered all but superfluous by modern methods of communication and
transport, were nonetheless kept on by the grandest houses, for show more than
any actual convenience they might provide. So I was curious to see how many
persons would be required to recognise our arrival.
Two, it seemed (in addition to young Tom at the entrance gates). Before I
could make a move towards the car door, it opened, held for me by a
rigid-spined young man who stared off with proper fixity at the distant
hillside. On the other side of the car an older man in a formal cutaway coat
was aiding Alistair and Holmes. Alistair greeted him as Ogilby; this would be
the butler.
When I was safely freed from the motorcar, I half expected the discreet young
man to climb into the motor and direct Algernon in an entire circuit of the
house in order to off-load our bags at the service entrance, but instead
Algernon merely handed them over, and the footman disappeared promptly in the
direction of the house.
While Alistair was telling Algernon that he d ring to Badger Old Place when
he wanted to go home, I looked over the top of the motorcar at the ornate
fountain that formed the centre of the circle. It had not yet been drained for
the winter, and the low sun collected in a million diamonds, the water playing
and dripping off the bronze figures. Pelicans, I saw, and nearly laughed aloud
at the unlikely frieze of beaks and outstretched wings that intertwined and
emitted jets of water into the bronze sea-cliffs at their base. I did not
think I had ever seen such an ornate fountain incorporating such whimsy.
Certainly it did not have much in common with the immense dignity of the house
itself.
A throat cleared, and I tore my eyes away from the Baroque splendour to join
Holmes. We made our scrupulously escorted way up the seven wide steps of a
brief but psychologically distancing terrace. A vestigial portico sheltered
us; an ornate door swung wide of its carven stone surrounds; Justice Hall
permitted us entrance.
Just inside the door, some surprisingly indulgent past master had built a
small vestibule for the guardian of the door. The butler even had some heat
source, the brush of warmth on my face informed me, and I could see a chair
and foot-stool accompanying the more usual front-door implements of waiting
umbrellas, a house telephone, and the all-essential silver salver for
accepting the cards of callers. Once past this private oasis of comfort, the
interior hall was freezing cold, but as unremittingly impressive as any duke
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could have asked or many kings, for that matter. A hundred visitors might
collect beneath that frescoed dome, under those arched colonnades, among those
acres of echoing marble both real and faux; the grandeur would still dwarf
them all. Three guests, a butler, and the house-maid receiving our outer
garments made for a human element that was insignificant indeed.
I told the maid that I would keep my coat, thank you. She bobbed her response
and went away with the garments of Alistair and Holmes over her arm. The
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