Within ten seconds the sound came again, a little nearer, more distinguishable. Still no one spoke in the warm peaceful room, but the atmosphere of security had vanished for one of the party at least. Again the whistle sounded, still far away, but appreciably nearer.
Suddenly Isopel looked up. ‘An owl,’ she said. ‘Did you hear it?’
Giles listened. ‘Yes, there it is again,’ he said. ‘It’s flying this way,’ he added, as the sound was repeated, this time no farther away than the park.
Mr Campion rose and walked over to the window, and it did not escape Biddy that he stood at the side of the sash, so that he could not be seen easily from without. For the sixth time the unearthly sound was repeated.
And then, while they were all listening, a curious sense of apprehension stealing over every one of them, a sudden blood-curdling wail was uttered somewhere within the garden, long-drawn-out like the others, but with a definite quaver in the middle.
‘God bless my soul!’ said Swithin Cush, sitting up suddenly. ‘What was that?’
Mr Campion turned from the window. ‘That, if I am not very much mistaken,’ said he, ‘is a visitor.’
Hardly had the words passed from his lips than a loose wire creaked uneasily somewhere over their heads and the next moment a bell pealed hollowly, echoing noisily over the house.
No one moved or spoke. In the hall outside they heard the sound of feet and the click of the lock as someone opened the door. Then there was a murmur of voices, a soft insidious tone mingled with the strident Suffolk accent. Then the door of the room in which they sat opened and old Cuddy, flustered and excited, appeared on the threshold.
She was a spare, scrupulously tidy old lady, with a round red face and a lot of combs in her scant hair. She wore a black apron over a particularly vivid magenta woollen frock.
She came in, and striding across the room handed Biddy a card on a small brass platter. The girl took it in astonishment, Mr Campion coming up behind her.
She read it aloud:
‘MR ANTHONY DATCHETT, PALMIST’
6 The Man in Dress Clothes
‘ANTHONY DATCHETT?’ SAID Mr Campion, reading over Biddy’s shoulder. ‘Not a gate-crasher, I hope. I personally superintended all the invitations. He can’t come palming at this time of night.’
Giles looked relieved. ‘Oh, that’s the palmist?’ he said. ‘He must be rather a character. I met Guffy Randall at the Dog Trials last week; he was telling me about him then.’
‘A fortune teller?’ said Judge Lobbett, joining in. ‘That’s interesting. A gipsy?’
‘Oh no, sir!’ Old Cuddy was startled out of her silence. ‘He’s a gentleman, with a car as big as yours, sir.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Giles. ‘He’s an extraordinary chap. Apparently he turns up after dinner at country houses and shells out the past and present for five bob a time. Anyway, that sort of thing. Rather funny: he told Guffy Randall that a beautiful creature was going to throw him over and he was going to be pretty seriously hurt by it. Guffy was quite rattled. He didn’t ride to hounds for a fortnight, and it wasn’t until Rosemary Waterhouse broke off their engagement that he realized what the chap meant. He was awfully relieved.’
Marlow Lobbett laughed. ‘Let’s have him in,’ he said, and glanced at Campion questioningly.
The young man in horn-rimmed spectacles was lounging against the back of the settee where the two girls were sitting.
‘Since Owl Friday falls on a Wednesday this year,’ he said, ‘and that, I understand, means trouble anyhow, we may as well see him and hear the worst.’
Cuddy bustled off. Then the door with its faded tapestry portière swept open, making a quiet rustling sound. Everyone sat forward instinctively, and a sudden cold draught from the open hall door passed through the room.
On the threshold a man stood smiling at them. As they looked at him the vague feeling of apprehension which had descended upon them when they heard the warning cry over the marshes now grew into a reality, and yet there was nothing in the stranger’s appearance that was obviously alarming.
Small, slight, immaculately dressed in well-cut tails, he might have been any age. His face was covered with a reddish-brown curling beard; sparse and silky, it formed two small goat curls at the point of his chin, and above it his lips appeared, narrow and shapely, disclosing even teeth.
The face would have been attractive had it not been for the eyes. They were small, slightly oblique, and of a pale indeterminate colour with extremely small pupils.
The stranger came forward. ‘I am so glad that you decided to see me,’ he said, and for the first time they heard clearly the voice that had been a murmur outside. It was low and soft, peculiarly insinuating, and yet not altogether unpleasing.
Mr Campion regarded him speculatively.
‘Perhaps I had better introduce myself more fully,’ the stranger went on. ‘My name is Anthony Datchett. I am an itinerant palmist. It is my custom to tell fortunes for a small fee –’ He paused and glanced round the room, his curious eyes resting at last upon Giles. ‘I should be delighted if one or two of you would consent to let me give a reading. If I do, I can promise you one thing. The truth.’
He was still looking at Giles as he finished speaking, and the others were surprised to see the boy get up immediately and cross over to him. He was not mesmerized; there was no suggestion of any trance or coma, yet he seemed completely subjected to the stranger.
Giles held out his hands. ‘Tell me,’ he said.
The stranger glanced towards the deep window-seat at the far end of the room. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Shall we go over there? I don’t like an audience for my readings,’ he explained, smiling at the others. ‘It prevents one from being frank, I feel.’
‘The only man who ever told my fortune,’ said Mr Campion, ‘was an income-tax collector.’
The stranger turned. ‘Did he tell you about the Seven Whistlers?’ he said.
No flicker of surprise appeared upon Mr Campion’s rather foolish face, and the stranger glanced round swiftly, but nowhere had the thrust gone home. He walked over to the window-seat with Giles beside him, and was presently engrossed in the boy’s hand.
Mr Campion perched himself beside Biddy on the arm of the settee in a direct line between the fortune teller and Judge Lobbett.
‘The time has come,’ he began, the fatuous expression returning to his face, ‘when I think our distinguished visitors ought to hear my prize collection of old saws, rustic wisecracks, and gleanings from the soil. After years of research I am able to lay before you, ladies and gentlemen, one or two little gems. Firstly:
When owd Parson wears two coats
It be a powerful year for oats.
Consider the simplicity of that!’ he continued with complete seriousness. ‘The little moral neatly put, the rustic spirit of prophecy epitomized in a single phrase. And then of course:
Owl hoots once up in the rafter,
’Nother hoot be comin’ after.
That needs no comment from me.’
They laughed, eager to escape the tension of the last few minutes. At the far end of the room the murmur of the fortune teller went on steadily.
Mr Campion continued. He chattered without effort, apparently completely lost to the rest of the world.
‘I knew a man once,’ he said, ‘who managed by stealth to attend a Weevil Sabbath at Mould. He went prepared to witness fearful rites, but when he got there he found it wasn’t the genuine thing at all, but the yearly outing of the Latter Day Nebuchadnezzars, the famous grass-eating society. He didn’t see a single weevil.’
He would have gone on had not Giles suddenly returned to the group. His expression was one of incredulous amazement.
‘This is astounding,’ he said. ‘The chap seems to know all about me – things I hadn’t told to anybody. Biddy, you must get him to tell your fortune.’
Some of the uneasiness the occupants of the room had felt at the arrival of their stra
nge visitor began to disappear, but all the same there was no great eagerness on anyone’s part to hurry over to the strange slight figure in the window-seat whose eyes seemed to be gazing at them all impartially.
It was at this moment that the attention of the party focused upon the rector. He had not moved nor spoken, but a change had taken place in his appearance. Biddy, glancing at him casually, was appalled by a look of great age which she had never noticed before. His jaw seemed to have sunk, his eyelids became grey and webby.
To their surprise he rose to his feet and walked a little unsteadily across the room to the fortune teller, who appeared to be waiting for him.
As the soft murmur began again Giles began to talk enthusiastically about his experience. ‘He’s an amazing chap,’ he said quietly.
‘What did he tell you?’ said Campion.
‘Well.’ Giles was childlike in his mystification. ‘What really got me was when he said I was thinking of entering a horse for the Monewdon Show next month. I know, of course, that’s fairly obvious. But he told me I wouldn’t send my favourite mare as I’d intended, but I’d send a hunter. That’s really most extraordinary, because I went down to look at Lilac Lady just before dinner and I made up my mind that I couldn’t get her into really decent condition in the time. I was wondering if I wouldn’t enter St Chris, or let it go this year. I hadn’t mentioned that to a soul.’ He laughed. ‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? He also told me the usual bunk – to beware of wagging tongues, and so on. He hinted at some sort of scandal, I thought. I didn’t quite get it. I wonder what he’s telling old St Swithin.’
He glanced over his shoulder to where the fortune teller sat upright in the window-seat, the candlelight making fantastic shadows on his unusual face. He was speaking in the same subdued monotone, which they could hear quite plainly without being able to distinguish the words.
They could not see the rector’s face. He was bending forward, his hands cupped before the stranger.
‘He seems interested all right,’ said Marlowe.
Biddy laughed. ‘Doesn’t he?’ she said. ‘I do hope he’s promising him plenty of adventures. He has led such a good quiet life.’
‘I doubt if he’d like it,’ said Giles. ‘Tranquillity has always been St Swithin’s note.’
‘That seems to be the note of the whole place,’ said Judge Lobbett, and sighed.
‘Hullo, they’ve finished,’ Marlowe said, as the rector and the stranger came down the room together. The fortune teller was smiling, suave and completely at ease. Swithin Cush looked thoughtful.
Biddy turned to him smiling. ‘What sort of luck did you have, St Swithin?’ she said.
The old man put a hand on her shoulder. ‘My dear, I’m too old to have any fortune at all,’ he said. He pulled out his old turnip watch. ‘I must go to bed,’ he remarked. ‘I know you won’t mind.’ He turned to Judge Lobbett. ‘We keep early hours in the country.’
He spoke the words absently as if he did not expect any reply, and while the others gathered round the fortune teller he returned once more to the girl. ‘Good night, my dear,’ he said. ‘Give my love to Giles.’
She looked up at him without surprise. He often said unexpected things; but as she did so she caught his eyes before he had time to lower them, and for an instant she was afraid.
The old man departed, taking his storm lantern from Cuddy in the hall, although the night was fine and moonlit.
The fortune teller still dominated the room, and the old man’s going made very little impression. The stranger’s quiet, even voice was raised a little in surprise.
‘I did not realize that it was so late,’ he said. ‘It was a longer drive here than I expected. I can tell only one more fortune. I will read the hand aloud so that you can all hear. Let it be someone to whom I can promise nothing but happiness.’ He turned to Isopel. ‘Will you permit me to tell yours?’
The girl looked at him dubiously, but with Giles at her side and Marlowe and Mr Campion leaning over the settee behind her, it seemed ridiculous to be afraid.
The stranger took her hand in his own, and when he turned his palm uppermost they saw with a little surprise that the natural fold of his hand made no permanent crease. The skin was smooth and unlined.
‘I was right,’ he said, holding the girl’s small hand out for inspection. ‘You have had troubles; they will end, though not perhaps as you expect. You will love, you will be loved. I see you in strange company at least twice in your life. The thing you remember most clearly,’ he went on with sudden intensity, ‘is lying on a bed of thick fur with the head of an animal looking down at you. Isn’t that so?’
Judge Lobbett and his daughter exchanged astonished glances, and a smothered exclamation escaped Marlowe. Giles and Biddy glanced at their visitor inquiringly, and after some hesitation Isopel explained. ‘When I was a child,’ she said, ‘we were on holiday in the Rockies. I got lost. A trapper found me and I stayed in his cabin for a few hours until father found me. The trapper told me to lie down, and I rested on a heap of skins by the fire. There was a bear skin on the wall with a roughly stuffed head. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was terrible, grotesque, and out of shape. It’s one of my most usual nightmares. I don’t know how you knew,’ she finished, staring at the fortune teller, her dark eyes widening as she realized the wonder.
The stranger smiled and went on. His voice revealed a soothing quality.
‘You will have your dark hour,’ he said, ‘but it will pass. There is serenity for you. Beware of strangers, although you will not marry one of your own people. Your domains will be wide, and you will know the peace which is the lowing of kine over small meadows. That is your fortune. It is a pity that I cannot promise as much to you all.’
He spoke the last words softly, and although his tone was unchanged, the soothing effect of Isopel’s reading was completely spoiled, and an unpleasant flavour remained.
He made his adieux immediately afterwards, and Giles and Marlowe settled with him, paying the trifling sum he demanded with some surprise.
The car disappeared down the narrow road. As it passed, the whistle that had heralded its approach sounded once more from the garden. The seven cries were repeated one after the other, each fainter and farther off than the one before. Mr Campion and Giles were standing with Marlowe.
‘Seven,’ said Giles. ‘The Seven Whistlers. That means the end of the world, so they say.’
‘That means he’s gone,’ said Mr Campion with relief. ‘My respected friends George and ’Anry, with their five sons, have performed their spot of policing with great success. No one comes over the Stroud at night in future without our knowing on the moment. These blessed lads are posted every five hundred yards along the road. The moment a stranger passes any one of them – well, it’s Owl Friday. Trespassers will be persecuted, you see.’
They went back towards the door laughing. Biddy met them on the threshold. Judge Lobbett and his daughter were behind her, and a stout perplexed old woman who had evidently entered by the back way hovered at her side.
Biddy was pale and her brown eyes spoke unnamed terrors. There was something in her hand which she held out to her brother.
‘Giles,’ she said, ‘look at this. Alice has just brought it over.’
The boy took the crumpled piece of paper and the big old-fashioned ring she gave him. It lay gleaming in his hand.
‘“Giles and Albert come over alone,”’ he read slowly.
A look of horror suddenly dawned in his face.
‘St Swithin!’ he said breathlessly. ‘His ring! He would never part with that unless –’
The words were silenced by a sound which reached them clearly through the open window, sharp and unmistakable. A gunshot on the night air.
7 By the Light of the Hurricane
THE OLD WOMAN screamed, a shrill stifled sound in her throat. They caught a fleeting impression of her face, still and horrified, as if carved out of red sandstone, her small black eyes dilated. She su
ddenly started for the door.
Mr Campion laid a hand upon her arm. He was unnaturally quiet in his movements, his face expressionless.
‘Wait, Alice,’ he said. ‘Giles and I will go first.’
‘Leave I go,’ said the old woman, wrenching her arm away. ‘Leave I go, I tell ’ee.’
Biddy came forward. ‘Stay here, Alice,’ she said gently. ‘Stay here. He said they were to go alone.’
Alice suffered herself to be led back into the room. Judge Lobbett stood between his two children, an inscrutable expression on his face. Isopel clung to him. Marlowe looked on gravely, ready to help when the occasion should arise.
Mr Campion touched Giles upon the shoulder. ‘Come along,’ he said. They hurried out of the house together.
The Rectory lay across the green, standing back from the road down a long ill-kept gravelled drive lined with heavy shrubberies and tall trees. The house appeared to be in darkness as they approached, but the front door stood open under the ivy-covered porch.
Mr Campion turned to Giles. ‘Let me go first,’ he said softly. ‘You never know.’
Giles hung back unwillingly, but he did not attempt to remonstrate. Campion went on into the dark house alone.
In front of him a door stood open through which the room beyond was faintly visible.
He went in.
A moment or so later he reappeared on the porch. Giles caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight.
‘Come in, will you, old boy?’ he said quietly, and Giles knew that the question which had been on his lips had been answered.
The two men went quietly into the house. The old rector’s study was the only room with any light in it, and that was given only by the hurricane lantern which he had brought from the Dower House such a short while ago. It stood upon the heavy writing table shedding a diffused light over parts of the sombre place. It was a big rectangular room with a fireplace at one end and a bay window at the other and bookshelves ranged all along the intervening walls.
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