The Norfolk Mystery by Ian Sansom

Author:Ian Sansom
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-04-03T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘HIDEOUS STATUARY,’ he said, as we pulled up a driveway flanked by three carved female figures. ‘What do you think: Pandora, Eve, Aphrodite? Difficult to tell. Could be the Furies. Could be the Graces. Could be the Gorgons. What do you think, Sefton?’ My mind was elsewhere; statues were not my concern. ‘Hideous anyway. And a house that seems to have been designed for a maharajah by a Chinaman. Make a note, Sefton.’ I did not make a note; I was driving; the two tasks were incompatible, though this mattered not to Morley. ‘Sefton?’ he repeated. ‘Sefton?’ When answer came there none he simply continued. ‘Why do the English love to dress their buildings in other people’s clothes?’ I was thinking of Hannah’s clothes going up in flames. ‘The Gothic and Grecian country house, our Romanesque gaols. Our Italianate villas. Or – as here – our eccentric Indian country houses? Is it the imperial impulse, Sefton, do you think? Or simply our love of narrative, of telling stories about ourselves and other cultures?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Morley.’

‘Cool, dark and mysterious,’ he said, referring to what it was not clear. ‘Come on, Sefton, concentrate, please. Eyes open. Mind alert. Mouth shut. We do have work to do.’

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