The Sapphire

Chapter three

On the following day, Raymond and George announced that they were taking Maria into the country. They left the servants to run the house in Curzon Street with strict instructions to let no one in, not even the police, and travelled with Nurse O'Leary in attendance on Maria down to Babbacombe, where a late night phone call by George had secured a month's lease of Cliff House, a cottage where he and Leon had stayed in earlier years while Raymond was in Spain pursuing his food-growing experiments.

'We'll be back for Christmas,' he promised the anxious servants.

'Please, sir,' said Emily, 'what will we do if Mr and Mrs Lightning ask for help?'

'Send the message on to me,' said Manfred, and he gave her a card with the telephone number and address of Cliff House.

Maria herself was unwilling to go - she enjoyed having the maids reading to her and telling her the city gossip; she was flattered by the pretty bed jackets that Emily made for her and it was an unaccustomed pleasure to her to be surrounded by young women who admired her and looked up to her. She even enjoyed verbal fencing each day with the policewomen. But she agreed that it was better for George's safety to get out of London for a few weeks, and so she consented to go.

They had a leisurely journey by train, which Manfred judged would be more pleasant for Maria than travelling the long distance by road. They booked a first class compartment and Maria slept for most of the journey. From Torquay railway station they travelled by taxi to the cottage, Manfred promising to hire a car on the following day so that they could go for drives in the countryside. The owner of the cottage had sent round a housekeeper to get the cottage in order for them, and she had prepared a meal to greet them on their arrival. Nurse settled Maria in a comfortable, well-aired bed, made sure that she was comfortable and then sat quietly reading while Maria slept.

One of the attractions of this cottage was that although it was out of the way, with beautiful views of the bay, it also had a telephone. Manfred phoned Scotland Yard that evening and left a message to let Meadows know that they had arrived safely. He also sent a telegram to 233 Curzon Street to inform Mrs Dorran of the fact.

*

The travellers' journey across Italy was less straightforward than their journey across France: they had to catch trains for two short journeys before they caught up with the long-distance night train that would take them down to Florence, or Firenze, as Mirabelle now discovered the city is called in Italy. For short journeys the group had to superintend their own luggage, with the help of porters on the station platforms, who all had to be supervised and paid, but when they at last reached the night express the door to their carriage was thrown open by an immaculate man in a magnificent uniform who greeted them in a torrent of a florid foreign language, bowed to Mirabelle and kissed her hand, bowed to Leon and addressed him as Ilustrísimo, nodded in an offhand way to Lucy, Edward and Riley and hurried them all on board; and then spent five minutes shouting to the porters to bring the luggage.

Mirabelle whispered to Leon: 'Who is he?'

'One of my aunt's footmen,' answered Leon. 'He's trying to impress us. Don't giggle.'

Mirabelle was promptly overcome by a fit of the giggles and Leon pulled her quickly into their sleeping compartment so that the tender feelings of their self-appointed majordomo would not be offended.

When Felipe, as he introduced himself, had finished bullying the porters and sent them off with rather less of a tip than they had hoped for, he started to order about Lucy, Edward and Riley - at least, he opened his mouth to do so and was immediately cut off by Leon, who told him not to give himself airs and to attend to his own business 'which is surely ensuring our protection from those subversives that your mistress keeps warning me about.' Felipe's face fell at the rebuke, and he became all apologies, until Leon dismissed him with a curt, 'Go and find the guard and ensure that the doors of the carriage are locked.' As soon as Felipe had departed, he apologised to his agents: 'Felipe believes that all races are inferior to the Spanish.'