Travels with my aunt / Путешествие с тетушкой. Книга для чтения на английском языке

I had a sense of fear and exhilaration too, as the music pounded from the Pier and the phosphorescence rolled up the beach.

Chapter 7

The affair of my mother’s ashes was not settled so easily as I had anticipated (I call her my mother still, because at this period I had no real evidence that my aunt was telling me the truth). No urn was awaiting me in the house when I returned from Brighton, and so I rang up Scotland Yard and asked for Detective-Sergeant Sparrow. I was put on without delay to a voice which was distinctly not Sparrow’s.

It sounded very similar to that of a rear-admiral whom I had once had as a client. (I was very glad when he changed his account to the National Provincial Bank, for he treated my clerks like ordinary seamen and myself like a sub-lieutenant who had been court-marchialled for keeping the mess books improperly.)

“Can I speak to Detective-Sergeant Sparrow?” I asked.

“On what business?” whoever it was rapped back.

“I have not yet received my mother’s ashes,” I said.

“This is Scotland Yard, Assistant Commissioner’s Office, and not a crematorium,” the voice replied and rang off.

It took me a long while (because of engaged lines) to get the same gritty voice on the line again.

“I want Detective-Sergeant Sparrow,” I said.

“On what business?”

I was ready this time and prepared to be ruder than the voice could be.

“Police business of course,” I said. “What other business do you deal in?” It was almost as though my aunt were speaking through me.

“Detective-Sergeant Sparrow is out. You had better leave a message.”

“Ask him to ring Mr. Pulling, Mr. Henry Pulling.”

“What address? What telephone number?” he snapped as though he suspected me to be some unsavoury police informer.

“He knows them both. I am not going to repeat them unnecessarily. Tell him I am disappointed at his failure to keep a solemn promise.” I rang off before the other had time for a word in reply.

Going out to the dahlias, I gave myself the rare award of a satisfied smile. I had never spoken to the rear-admiral like that.

My new cactus dahlias were doing well, and after my trip to Brighton their names gave me some of the pleasure of travel: Rotterdam, a deeper red than a pillar-box, and Dentelle de Venise, with spikes sparkling like hoar-frost. I thought that next year I would plant some Pride of Berlin to make a trio of cities.