Read Original Sin for Free Online Page B

were still in full bloom and the bright pinks and reds glowed through the glass enhancing the immediate impression of welcoming domesticity. The room had obviously once been the kitchen and one wall was still fitted with the original iron grate, its bars and ovens polished now to ebony. The blackened beam above was hung with iron cooking instruments and a row of copper pans, battered but gleaming. An oak dresser ran the whole length of the opposite wall, serving as a receptacle for the display of the gifts and bequests of members which were deemed unsuitable for, or unworthy of, the library cabinet.
    Dalgliesh remembered that the Club had an unwritten law that no offering from a member, however inappropriate or bizarre, should be rejected and the dresser, like the whole room, bore witness to the idiosyncratic tastes and hobbies of the donors. Delicate Meissen plates were ranged in incongruous proximity to Victorian ribbon-decorated souvenirs bearing pictures of Brighton and Southend-on-Sea, a toby jug which looked like a fairground trophy stood between a Victorian Staffordshire flatback, obviously original, of Wesley preaching from a double-decker pulpit, and a fine Parian bust of the Duke of Wellington. An assoih-ient of coronation mugs and early Stafford-shire cups was suspended in precarious disorder from the hooks. Beside the door hung a painted glass picture of the burial of Princess Charlotte; above it a stuffed elk's head with an old Panama hat slung on its left horn gazed glassy-eyed with lugubrious disapproval at a large and lurid print of the Charge of the Light Brigade.
    The present kitchen was somewhere close; Dalgliesh could hear small agreeable tinklings and from time to time the thud of the food lift descending from the first floor dining-room. Only one of the four tables was set, the linen immaculate, and Dalgliesh and Ackroyd seated themselves beside the window.
    The menu and wine list were already to the right of Ackroyd's place. Taking them up, he said: l'he Plants have retired, but we've got the Jacksons now, and I'm not sure that Mrs Jackson's cooking isn't even better. We were lucky to get them. She and her husband used to run a private nursing home but they got tired of the country and wanted to return to London. They don't need to work but I think the job suits them. They've kept on with the policy of having only one main dish a day at luncheon and dinner. Very wise. Today, white bean and tuna fish salad followed by rack of lamb with fresh
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    vegetables and a green salad. Then lemon tart and cheese to follow. The vegetables will be fresh. We still get all the vegetables and eggs from young Plant's smallholding. Do you want to see the wine list? Have you a preference?'
    'I'll leave that to you.'
    Ackroyd cogitated aloud while Dalgliesh, who loved wine but disliked talking about it, let his gaze range appreciatively over the muddle of a room which despite, perhaps because of, its air of eccentric but organized chaos was surprisingly restful. The discordant objects, not carefully placed for effect, had through time achieved a rightness of place. After a lengthy discussion on the merits of the wine list in which Ackroyd apparently expected no contribution from his guest, he fixed on a chardonnay. Mrs Jackson, appearing as if in response to some secret signal, brought with her the smell of hot rolls and an air of bustling confidence.
    'Very nice to meet you, Commander. You've got the Snug to yourself this morning, Mr Ackroyd. Mr Jackson will be seeing to the wine.'
    After the first course had been served, Dalgliesh said: 'Why is Mrs Jackson dressed as a nurse?'
    'Because she is one, I suppose. She used to be a matron. She's a midwife too, I believe, but we've no call for that here.'
    Not surprisingly, thought Daigliesh, since the Club didn't admit women. He said: 'Isn't that goffered cap with streamers going a bit far?'
    'Oh, do you think so? I suppose we've got used to it. I doubt if the members would