Confessions from a Haunted House. Timothy Lea
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aggravation?’
I followed Harper and Sid into the room. Inside what was an outer office were a high writing desk with a ledger on it and a number of tables littered with dust-covered legal documents tied up with ribbons.
Harper was clearly puzzled by her first exposure to the British legal system. ‘I’m Harper Deneuve,’ she said. ‘Mr Wittering wanted to see me.’
The old buzzard scratched his head with a quill pen. ‘Wittering? Wittering? It rings a bell.’ Before anybody could say anything he started shifting through the piles of paper on one of the tables. Dust rose in clouds. ‘Wittering, Wittering. Ah, yes! Witterham and Muffles versus Acton Borough Council. Refusal to licence nude bingo parlour. Appeal against same. Wait a minute. Witterham. No, that’s not Wittering, is it?’ I was all for agreeing with him but the inner door opened and a commanding looking man of about forty swept in. He had the sort of upper-class look of disdain mixed with effortless authority that would make you immediately sign over your grandma’s pension fund monies to any annuity he cared to mention. He looked from us with distaste to the old geezer with contempt. ‘What is it, Sculp?’
Sculp was galvanized as if he had been plugged into electricity. ‘Ah, Mr Wittering—’ the name obviously rang a bell and suddenly it all came flooding back. ‘Mr Wittering! You are Mr Wittering!’
I was glad for Sculp’s sake that Wittering did not have a riding crop in his hand. As it was, the words cut with the force of a lash. ‘Get back to your ledger, Sculp!’
Sculp hopped back to his seat at the high desk like a budgie to its perch. Wittering turned to us and his face split into a smile of transparent insincerity. ‘Forgive him. He’s been with the firm, man and cretin, for more years than any of us care to remember. Now, what can I do for you?’
The last six words were delivered with a hard edge that really meant ‘don’t waste my time, peasants’.
Harper swallowed hard. ‘My name is Harper Deneuve.’
I have seen some quick change acts in my time but Wittering’s switch from haughty disinterest to ultra-grovel was really something. ‘Deneuve?’ He might have been reacting to a new perfume. ‘My dear young lady. No words can adequately express my delight in making your acquaintance. Pray step inside my inner sanctum.’ He was practically bowing as he swept an arm towards the door from which he had emerged.
Harper took half a step forward and then hesitated. She turned towards us. ‘I guess you don’t know these gentlemen. They’re sort of distant cousins a few times removed. They very kindly met me at the airport.’
‘How delightful.’ Wittering’s smile bathed us in grease before he extended his arm again. ‘Enter, all of you. There can never be too many ears to hear good news.’ I glanced at Sid and saw his nose give a familiar quiver. It was like a rabbit walking into a field of carrots. Wittering waved us towards some chairs and swung round to face a mullioned window. His hands strayed beneath the tail of his jacket as if he was speaking in court. Eager once again to show Harper that I cared, I snatched up a chair by its arms so that I could place it smoothly behind her. Regrettably, the arms moved but the chair stayed behind. Sid picked up the chair by its back and placed it behind Harper. She sat down and smiled gratefully at Sid. I was stuck with two chair arms. Looking round carefully to make sure that no one was watching, I dropped them discreetly into a wastepaper basket and leaned against a wall. You can usually trust an old wall.
Wittering spun round like we were playing Grandma’s Footsteps and he wanted to catch us all out. His eyes blazed. ‘Fortunate lady and gentlemen,’ said he. ‘Let there be no beating about the bush. Let the bugle call sound. Let the muezzin call the glad tiding to the multitude from the highest tower. Let there be no impediment to the delivery of the glorious news. Let there be no shilly-shallying or dilly-dallying. Let there be no wasting of time in coming to the point—’
He went on in this vein for what felt like hours until, just when I thought I was going to scream, the telephone rang and he kicked it onto the floor. That seemed to buck him up a bit. ‘Yes, my dear,’ he warbled, giving Harper the full benefit of his beautifully capped gnashers. ‘You are a very fortunate young lady. No doubt your much lamented father told you how he became estranged from his English forbears and went to seek his fortune in the New World?’
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