Chapter Twenty-Five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

‘S o it is no longer singing loudly into a big trumpet?’ Nikolai asked. The denizens of Lassiter Court were scattered around the drawing room in the sort of comfortable haze which comes from a busy day followed by a large meal, and the gramophone had been moved into position by the piano for Dixon’s demonstration. He had brought one of his microphones with him, along with his record, and it had been passed round the room with the sherry and mince pies. Stella was currently studying it, curled up in the corner of the settee like a cat, her head on one side.

‘No, Your Excellency. These microphones turn the sound waves into an electrical signal, so performers can sing more softly, and you can hear all the individual instruments. It sounds much richer and sharper.’

Nikolai leant back in the leather armchair and crossed his long legs.

‘Do call me Nikolai.’

Jack glanced at him. His face was sore from all the polite smiling he’d been doing since Lillian had announced their engagement. Lillian had every right to be happy – that was what Grace had said to him, quite firmly, between spells singing carols to invalids that morning – but the self-assurance of the man, his optimism, set Jack’s teeth on edge.

‘So then what happens, Dixon?’

‘The vibrations are engraved onto a master disc. They are made on beeswax. Then that is used to make a metal master, and that presses all the rest. It’s quite straightforward. And also terribly difficult.’

‘Perhaps we could hear the recording, Dixon?’ Jack said, getting up from the sofa and putting his hands in his pockets.

‘Ah, yes. Of course.’ He lifted up a velvet bag, from which he produced a record about eight inches in diameter, and set it on the turntable. ‘I created the master with my microphones and my equipment at home, then had half a dozen copies pressed.’ He began winding the gramophone handle with gusto. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t have access to any great musicians in my village. Just my family. My sister plays the violin, you see, and my mother the piano, and our gardener has a nice voice, so we got him in to sing. He leans a bit close to the microphone at times.’

‘Do you play an instrument, Mr Wells?’ Stella asked kindly. Dixon blinked rapidly at her. ‘No. Well, I did have a banjo once, but Mother took it away, because I learnt the one tune I liked and kept playing it.’

He faltered into silence.

‘My friend . . .’ Nikolai began. Something about his accent, Jack thought, made him sound as if he was about to say something rousing and meaningful every time he opened his mouth. He remembered the fake French chef whom he had hired to run the defunct restaurant and wondered, bitterly, if Nikolai was actually from Grantham. ‘My friend, we are not here to judge the musicians, but the recording. Please, let us listen.’

Dixon nodded, released the brake on the turntable, then lowered the stylus onto the disc. He hadn’t really needed to speak at all. The music did all the talking for him.

‘Goodness!’ Stella swung her feet to the ground and leant forward. ‘It’s as if they’re in the room!’

The musicians were attempting ‘A Wand’ring Minstrel I,’ from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado . The singer began bravely, but was rarely absolutely in pitch or in time, cleared his throat occasionally and had a tendency to over-breathe. The violinist tried to play quietly when her fingers were unsure of the notes, and the piano was played with great confidence, but without any perceptible sense of rhythm. Not for want of trying, the pianist was whispering ‘ one , two three, four , five six,’ to herself throughout – all of which the astonished group in the drawing room could hear.

The recording ended. Dixon looked around them and fingered his collar nervously. ‘It has to be done all in one take, of course. This was the fourth attempt. And I couldn’t persuade Mother to count in her head, or Tonbridge to stop panting, and they were getting tired, so I hope . . .’

‘Remarkable,’ Tom said. ‘I mean, it’s an awful arrangement, and not well played, but the recording is incredible.’

Jack polished off the last of his sherry as Grace, Lillian, Stella and Nikolai crowded round Dixon, shaking his hand, which made him flinch, and asking to see the miraculous microphone again.

Grace turned towards him.

‘Jack, darling! It’s a marvel, but what on earth are you and Tom planning to do with it?’

‘It’s a secret, dear heart. Dixon, Tom and I are plotting, but we’re all sworn to secrecy until after the opening of the pantomime. Give us a few days to get our ducks in a row.’

He noticed Grace frowning, and turned to see Hewitt handing Nikolai what appeared to be another Christmas present – a long flat cardboard box tied with a white ribbon.

‘What on earth is that, Nikolai?’ Lillian asked.

‘I do not know,’ he said, pulling at the thick white ribbon. ‘Hewitt tells me it was delivered from town.’ The ribbon gave way, and he lifted the lid. Jack caught a glimpse of newsprint and Nikolai went still, scanning the page without lifting it from the box, then setting the box down on the table.

‘Nikolai?’ Lillian asked, a note of concern in her voice.

He shook his head. ‘It is nothing . . . Please excuse me.’ He got up abruptly and left the room.

Dixon leant forward, his head on one side, and peered at the page.

‘Oh, that’s not very nice,’ he said.

‘Dixon, what on earth is it?’ Jack asked.

‘The Daily Bulletin,’ Dixon said. ‘The largest newspaper in Marakovia.’

‘Dixon,’ Stella said, with a half-laugh in her voice, ‘can you read Marakovian?’

‘A little,’ he said shyly. ‘My father was stationed there for a while.’

Lillian stood up and rested her hand on the mantelpiece. ‘Can you tell me, Dixon, what it says?’

Dixon blushed. ‘Not exactly, but “Grand Duke worsens disgrace” I think would be accurate. He leant over the paper, avoiding touching it, as if it might be poisonous. ‘Claims to like – support, perhaps – workers . . . Consorts with actors and drug addicts.’ He glanced, unfortunately, at Stella. ‘Oh, there’s a picture of you all at the Metropole.’

Grace stepped over to the box, replaced the lid and rang the bell for Hewitt. When he glided into the room, she handed it to him.

‘More kindling, Hewitt,’ she said firmly, and he bowed over the box with the merest suggestion of a raised eyebrow.

‘It is to be expected, of course, that the newspapers in Marakovia would write nonsense about Nikolai,’ Lillian said. ‘But how on earth did they get the picture? Do you remember it being taken?’

‘They were taking pictures of Mabel Mills,’ Jack said slowly, ‘when we were there the other week. And I thought I saw some in the Highbridge Illustrated , in their social diary section.’

‘But who on earth would send a copy of a Marakovian paper here?’ Stella said with a shudder. ‘And on Christmas Day?’

‘They didn’t just send it,’ Dixon said cheerfully. ‘Somebody hand-delivered it when they knew you were all out.’

The thought was not comforting.