Read Not to Disturb for Free Online Page B

name?’
    â€˜Clovis, sir.’
    â€˜Oh, yes, Clovis.’
    â€˜But he will be giving up his profession, I dare
say.’
    â€˜A waste of talent.’ The prince gets into his car and is
driven away from the scene.
    Mr Samuel has taken off his leather coat and is sitting in
the large pantry office which gives off from the servants’ hall, looking through
a file of papers. He leans back in his chair, dressed in a black turtle-necked
sweater and black corduroy trousers. The door is open behind him and the large
window in front of him is black and shiny with blurs of light from the
courtyard, like a faulty television screen. A car draws up to the back door. Mr
Samuel says over his shoulder to the servants in the room beyond, ‘Here’s Mr
McGuire, let him in.’
    â€˜He has the keys,’ says Heloise.
    â€˜Show a little courtesy,’ says Mr Samuel.
    â€˜I hear Lister coming,’ says Eleanor.
    Mr Samuel then gets up and comes into the servants’
sitting-room. From the passage leading to the front of the house comes Lister,
while from the back door a key is successfully playing with the lock.
    Lister stops to listen. ‘Who is this?’
    â€˜Mr McGuire,’ says Mr Samuel. ‘I asked him to come and
join us. I might need a hand with the data. I hope that’s all right.’
    â€˜You should have mentioned it to me first,’ says Lister.
‘You should have phoned me, Mr Samuel. However, I have no objection. As it
happens I need Mr McGuire’s services.’
    A man now appears from the back door. He seems slightly
older than Mr Samuel, with a weathered and freckled face. ‘How’s everything?
How’s everybody?’ he says.
    â€˜Good evening, Mr McGuire,’ says Lister.
    â€˜Make yourself at home,’ says Clovis.
    â€˜Good evening, thanks. I’m a bit hungry,’ says Mr
McGuire.
    â€˜Secretaries get their own meals,’ says Clovis.
    â€˜I’ve come flat out direct from Paris.’
    â€˜Heat him up something, Clovis,’ Lister says.
    â€˜Leave it to me,’ says Eleanor, rising from her chair
with ostentatious meekness.
    â€˜Mr Samuel, Mr McGuire,’ says Lister, ‘are you here for a
limited time, or do you intend to wait?’
    Mr McGuire says, ‘I’d like to see the Baron,
actually.’
    â€˜Out of the question,’ says Mr Samuel.
    â€˜Not to be disturbed,’ says Lister.
    â€˜Then what have I come all this way for?’ says Mr
McGuire, pulling off his sheepskin coat in a resigned way.
    â€˜To hold Mr Samuel’s hand,’ says Pablo.
    â€˜I’ll see the Baron in the morning. I have to talk to
him,’ says Mr McGuire.
    â€˜Too late,’ says Lister. ‘The Baron is no more.’
    â€˜I can hear his voice. What d’you mean?’
    â€˜Let us not strain after vulgar chronology,’ says Lister.
‘I have work for you.’
    â€˜There’s veal stew,’ Eleanor calls out from the
kitchen.
    â€˜Blanquette,’ says Clovis, ‘de veau.’ He puts a hand to
his head and closes his eyes as one tormented by a long and fruitless effort to
instruct.
    â€˜Do you have a cigarette handy?’ says Heloise.
    â€˜There’s a lot of noise,’ says Mr McGuire, jerking his
head to indicate the front part of the house. ‘It fairly penetrates. Who’s the
company tonight?’
    â€˜Hadrian,’ says Lister, taking a chair, ‘give a hand to
Eleanor. Tell her I’d be obliged for a cup of coffee.’
    â€˜When I was a boy of fourteen,’ says Lister, ‘I decided to
leave England.’
    Mr McGuire reaches down and stops the tape-recorder.
‘Start again,’ he says. ‘Make it more colloquial, Lister. Don’t say “a boy of
fourteen”, say “a boy, fourteen”, like that, Lister.’
    They sit alone in Lister’s large bedroom. They each
occupy an armchair of deep,