Stone's Fall

'Food arrived yet?' Macintyre said after we had sat in uncomfortable silence for a while. He snapped his fingers at the waiter to call for wine and downed two glasses, one after the other, in swift succession. 'What is it this evening?'

'Fish,' Cort said.

Macintyre laughed. 'Of course it's fish. It's fish every bloody night. What sort of fish?'

Cort shrugged. 'Does it matter?'

'I suppose not. It all tastes the same to me anyway.' He scowled ferociously at Cort as he pulled a roll of paper from under his coat.

'There you are. I had my draughtsman do it up properly. Did the costings myself. As I said, Sottini has the proper lengths in stock; good Sheffield bars, won't let you down. I've set him up to give you a fair price. Get in touch with him quickly, though, otherwise he'll forget. Don't give him more than twenty-seven shillings a length. But I think you will have a problem with the foundations. I looked again; the central pillar is buried deep down and must be taken out, if this is to work. It will be expensive.'

'How expensive?'

'Very. You will have to support the entire building, then remove it, to give space to put in the new structure. Best thing to do, frankly, would be to blow it out.'

'What? Are you mad?'

'No, no. It's a very simple. Not dangerous at all, if you know what you're doing. A very small charge placed low down, just to knock a few of the bigger stones out of place. Then the entire pillar will come down, leaving the rest of the building standing – if you have buttressed it properly.'

'I'll think about it,' Cort said uncertainly.

'It's the only way of doing it. I've got the explosives in my workshop. When you see that I'm right, let me know.' Then Macintyre turned to me, a refilled glass in his hand. 'And you. What are you doing here?'

Certainly, no one could accuse Macintyre of an excessive courtesy. His flat, northern accent – I placed him as a native of Lancashire, despite the Scottish name – added to the general impression of rudeness, something which, as Longman noted, northerners deliberately accentuate.

'Merely a traveller, from London, where I have lived much of my life,' I replied.

'And your profession? If you have one.'

There was a hint of hostility in his tone. I looked like a gentleman, I suppose, and it appeared Mr Macintyre did not like gentlemen.

'I suppose you might call me a man of business. If you wish to know whether I live off the money of my family, and idle my days away on the labour of others then the answer is that I do not. Although, I freely admit, I would do so happily if the opportunity came my way.'

'You don't look English.'

'My mother is of Spanish origin,' I said evenly. 'My father, on the other hand, is a vicar of impeccable Englishness.'

'So you're a mongrel.'

'I suppose you could say that.'

'Hmm.'

'Now, now, Macintyre,' said Longman jovially. 'None of your bluntness, if you please. Not until Mr Stone is used to you. I was just recommending the Marchesa to him as a potential landlady. What do you think?'

Macintyre's reaction was peculiar. It was a remark of no importance, so I thought, designed merely to divert the conversation into safer waters. But it accomplished the exact opposite. Macintyre snorted. 'Bloody madwoman,' he said. 'And you'd be mad to go anywhere near her.'

'What was that about?' I asked Drennan later, once Macintyre had wolfed down his food, tossed his napkin on the table and left again. All in all, he was there for less than fifteen minutes; he was not a man to waste time on inessentials.

'I have no idea,' he replied. 'It seems Macintyre does not like the lady.'

'He tried to get rooms there once. She wouldn't have him and he was offended,' Cort said.

'That explains it,' Longman said cheerfully. 'I wondered how he might have come across her. Not through me, at any rate. I didn't think he took enough time off to sleep. He works on that machine of his from dawn to dusk.'

'Machine?' I asked. 'What machine is this?'

'Nobody knows,' said Drennan with a smile. 'It is Macintyre's secret obsession. He has, so he says, been working on it for years, and has poured his entire fortune into it.'

'He has a fortune?'

'Not any more. He is – or was, until he settled here a few years back – a travelling engineer. Hiring himself to the highest bidder. A shipyard in France, railway project in Turin, a bridge in Switzerland. A very skilled man.'

'Personally, I prefer the life of the mind, of study and reflection. And, as you may have noticed, he is not best suited for getting on with others. He never stays anywhere long,' Longman commented.

'Is he married?'

'His wife died in childbirth, poor man. So he is left with a daughter, who is about eight. A most unfeminine creature,' Longman continued, even though I had asked for no elaboration. 'Utterly uneducated, with the looks of her father. He can just about get away with it, but what is almost tolerable in a man . . .'