Your Secret Friend (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Yes, that fat idiot Wanda Kerr in the Fifth. As though I’m going to be a catspaw for her!”

  “You didn’t tell her that?”

  “No, of course not. I said, ‘Honoured, I’m sure,’ but that doesn’t commit me to anything. Anyway, she knew it was cheek because she said she jolly well hoped I’d burn my fingers getting the chestnuts for somebody else, and she only asked me because she thought, with my amount of nerve, I’d probably scrounge her more than her share. I can just see myself! But, Veronica, you’ve jolly well got to come. You said you would, and you’ve got to stick to it.”

  “Sandra, how can I? You know what Sally’s like. She’s frightfully nosy and tough. She’d find out where I’d been, that’s for certain sure, and then where should we be?”

  “We may be back in time for supper. I don’t know quite how long we’ll be. If we’re not back, well, I suppose anybody can make a white-livered goody-goody, like you, confess to anything! All right, don’t come, then, but look out for my vengeance if you’re going to let me down!”

  “Oh, Sandra, I would come if I could, but I simply can’t risk it. Supper’s at nine, you know.”

  “You’ll be sorry, and don’t you forget it!” Five minutes later she had slipped out by the front door, noticed by nobody but Gillian and Caroline, who were only waiting for their cue to follow her. She trotted along on the grass to the big gates, although it was unlikely that, with the noise and the laughter coming from the Hallowe’en party, anybody would hear her footsteps on the gravel, and then turned on to the high road, keeping well in the shadow of the hedge, for there was moonlight. Before supper ended she was back, and was squeezing into the place left beside the fat and spectacled Wanda.

  “I—we were playing ghosts and I got shut in one of the built-in cupboards,” she explained, when Wanda wanted to know why she had come to supper so late.

  “You seem to have had a scare,” said Wanda, when, with visibly shaking hands, Sandra pulled out the chestnuts later on.

  “Yes, well, it was horrid being shut in like that,” said Sandra. “I wondered if I’d suffocate. Do you mind if I eat the next chestnut myself? I’m going to, anyway.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Witches’ Curse

  “Well, tell us about it,” said Gillian. “I bet you didn’t go to the churchyard.”

  “Why didn’t you come with me, to make sure?”

  “We planned to follow you up,” confessed Caroline, “and see if you really went there.”

  “You filthy sneaks!”

  “Only Marchmont came in, just as we were going out.”

  “She was pretty decent about it,” admitted Gillian. “We told her we were just coming out for a breath of air, but I think she spotted our outdoor shoes. Anyway, come on. Tell us all about it, and we’ll believe as much as we can.”

  “You’ll believe it all,” said Sandra fiercely. “Because it will all be jolly well true. I got as far as the churchyard, but I didn’t go inside the gate. I didn’t have to.”

  “You didn’t dare to, you mean.”

  “I don’t mean anything of the kind. I’m going to be absolutely truthful, cross my heart, so I’m not sure whether I really would have gone into the churchyard or not. I think I would, but I can’t be sure.”

  “Thinking isn’t doing.”

  “Who said it was? Otherwise beastly old April Fool would be in her grave by now, with a stake of holly driven through her heart.”

  “That’s vampires.”

  “Well, she is a vampire. She battens. She battens on us!”

  “She hasn’t been nearly so bad this term,” said Mavis. “Almost decent, in fact. And she hasn’t called you Cuckoo Egg once.”

  “Be quiet! That’s not funny. It never was funny and it never will be funny, so stop your silly sniggers or I’ll pull your silly hair!”

  “All right, no offence, and, anyway, your freckles don’t show so much in the winter.”

  “Be quiet about my freckles! And if you want to hear what I’ve got to tell you, you’d better stop interrupting, because my parents are coming at twelve to take me out to lunch in Peterminster.”

  “Jolly well wish mine were! What’s the use of half-term if . . .?”

  “Shut up and listen. Well, I sneaked out to the big gates and turned towards the village. I hadn’t gone far when, under the lamp outside the mill house, I saw a woman. Her back was towards me, and she was walking very fast, and I was glad of that, because I didn’t want to pass her.”

  “Why not?” demanded Gillian.

  “Because I was wearing my school overcoat and hat, of course, silly.”

  “Well, how was she to know you ought not to be out?”

  “I thought it was Marchmont—you know, tall and thin—and then I recognised her walk—this woman’s walk, I mean—and it was different.”

  “It couldn’t have been Marchmont. Oh, well, yes, I suppose it could. She must have been out, because she was coming in when she met us at the front door,” said Caroline.

  “It wasn’t Marchmont, it was a ghost,” said Sandra impressively.

  “Tell us another bedtime story!” jeered Gillian.

  “This isn’t a story; it’s the truth. When she got to the last lamp in the village—you know, where that side road meets the Dorchester road just this side of the church—she stopped and looked round as though she thought she was being followed, and I saw who it was—only it wasn’t her—not a living, breathing, human being. I mean to say, it couldn’t have been!” Sandra had dropped her voice. “Then, the next minute, she had disappeared.”

  “Well, she would,” said Connie Moosedeer. “She was lost to sight in the darkness. You said it was the last lamp in the village. Once she’d got beyond that, of course she disappeared.”

  “It was moonlight. Well, she disappeared into the churchyard, and when I looked over the wall I couldn’t see her, and there wasn’t a sound, except the wind in the trees. It was so beastly that I turned and ran back to school.”

  “But who was it? It could have been Marchmont,” argued Mavis. “You said you thought it was. I expect she went out to meet Simple Simon. I know she’s sweet on him, because I went back to her form-room one afternoon to get a book I needed for history prep, and—well—”

  “Oh, everybody knows about Marchmont and Simple Simon,” said Gillian contemptuously. “I expect Marchmont’s too old to get anybody decent, so she has to make do with him. Get on with the fairy-tale, Sandra.”

  “It isn’t a fairy-tale! If you don’t believe me, you can jolly well go away while I tell the others. It wasn’t Marchmont. It was Vere!”

  “But it couldn’t be Vere!” cried Stephanie. “She’s hundreds of miles away, right up in Northumberland.”

  “It was Vere, I tell you. That’s to say, it was Vere’s ghost. It disappeared into the churchyard, like I told you. And you know what that means! She must be dead!”

  “I expect her school has half-term, same as us,” said Veronica timidly, “and she’s come down here to see Marchmont.”

  “Then why didn’t she call at the school, as she was so close?” demanded Sandra. “And why the churchyard?”

  “I never liked Vere,” said Caroline. “I bet she was up to n.b.g. and when she thought you were following her she dodged into the churchyard to let you go by.”

  “She disappeared, I tell you!”

  “Of course,” said Gillian loftily, “it’s a good enough story to explain why you daren’t go into the churchyard yourself. Personally, I wouldn’t talk so big about churchyards and things another time, if I were you.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” pursued Caroline. “I mean, I wouldn’t like to sleep in a haunted room, or anything like that, but that’s because you imagine things, and that’s beastly, but do you know what I think?”

  “No, and don’t want to,” retorted Sandra. “And you’ve jolly well got to believe in ghosts, because I saw one, I tell you, and it was Vere Pallis.”

/>   “What I think,” said Caroline, unimpressed by her leader’s logic, “is that you saw the real Vere Pallis, like Veronica said. I bet she was sacked from our school. She was a nasty, slimy worm, and I bet Miss Pomfret-Brown and Miss Salter found her out in something and sacked her, and now she’s come sneaking back to get her revenge. We ought to keep our eyes open, that’s what I think, and save the school from its dreadful fate.”

  “You need to have your head looked at,” said Gillian. “What dreadful fate? What do you think you’re talking about?”

  Meanwhile, with the help of Miss Salter, when that busy and oppressed chief of staff could spare the time, Alison was furnishing Little Monkshood, and a fortnight before the school was due to break up for the Christmas vacation she had given out invitations for a Saturday evening party.

  “And you’ve got to come along on Saturday morning and help me get things ready,” she said to Simon, at the end of Friday morning school. “I can’t send girls to order gin and so forth, and I can’t get away to do the ordering myself. I’ve promised to help Hildegarde Salter with the Christmas play rehearsals. And could you get to the house some time on Saturday morning to take the stuff in?”

  “Not Saturday morning. I’ve got private pupils until twelve. I’ll tell you what, though. I could get there soon after one, and take a picnic lunch along. Could you join me there? I’ll tell the off-licence people and the caterers to leave the goods outside the front door, and then, if you let me have a key . . .”

  “Oh, Simon, what a good idea! There are drinks left from the last time we were there, so we need not open the party bottles.”

  “It would give us a chance to be together for an hour or two before the others come. Nobody will think anything of it, if there’s the party to follow. Who are coming, by the way?”

  “The senior staff and Miss Pomfret-Brown, of course, and I’ve asked the architect, Mr. Parsons, and his wife, and, of course, Mr. Herring.”

  “Herring? Do you have to ask him?”

  “Well, considering that, but for him, Little Monkshood would never have been renovated and restored, I could hardly have avoided inviting him to the official opening, could I?”

  “I hope you haven’t asked Vere.”

  “No, I haven’t. I don’t suppose she would want to make the journey, anyway.”

  “I’m still afraid of Vere, Alison.”

  “Afraid of her?”

  “She could do us a great deal of harm.”

  “She can do no more than she has tried to do already, and you know that she did not succeed. She went to Miss Pomfret-Brown, and you know what came of that—nothing. Constance cannot hurt us, Simon.”

  “I’m not so sure. She is evil, bad-hearted through and through.”

  “Yes, she takes after her mother, I suppose.”

  “You never knew her mother, did you?”

  “No, of course I did not. How could I? Vere was six years old when my father—her father, too—married my mother, and I was born two years later.”

  “Did she—did she persecute you when you were a child?”

  “She did not get the chance. I was well looked after when I was very young, and by the time I was old enough to be sent away to school, Constance had left and was studying in America. I did not see her again until my mother died, and Constance came home again. By that time I was well able to take care of myself, although I admit it was rather a shock when I found that we were both on Miss Pomfret-Brown’s staff. I had no idea that Constance was applying for the science post at the same time as I was applying for the history.”

  “I wonder what she thought about it?”

  “She affected to be very pleased, and it was not until you came into my life that I realised she was the same person whom I had so much disliked when first she came back from America.”

  “Yes. Alison, you haven’t grown to dislike me, have you?”

  “Oh, Simon, of course not! Whatever makes you ask such a thing?”

  “Only that you seem such a long way off these days. Is it because I won’t come and stay at that house?”

  “No, of course it isn’t. I was crazy to think of such a thing.”

  “At all events, the fact you thought of it meant that, at the time, you did want me, but now you seem to hold yourself aloof. I suppose—I suppose you do still care?”

  “Of course,” she said perfunctorily, her eyes, which had been looking into the past, returning to his.

  “Corfu wasn’t very satisfactory, was it? Not to either of us, I’m afraid.”

  “I suppose we’ve arrived at the stage of taking one another for granted. People do, you know.”

  “All passion spent, I suppose. You seem unapproachable. It isn’t because I’m not enthusiastic about Little Monkshood, is it?”

  “I’m not as enthusiastic myself as I was at first.”

  “And you think it’s my fault, but you don’t see my point of view. You can afford to throw your cap over the windmill. I can’t. My salary is a good one, considering that I’m only a visiting teacher, and I don’t want to risk losing it. If I had to depend only upon my private pupils, I could hardly live. You know how heavily I have to pay for the nursing home.”

  “Must we have this all over again? It would be perfectly fair, considering what our relationship has been, for me to help with the fees, and you know how you loathe your private pupils, and the school, too. You would be better without both.”

  “What our relationship has been! That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Alison, why have you changed? You used to frighten me because you expected so much more than you discovered I could give, but now you frighten me because I think we’re growing apart from one another. Oh, Alison, don’t desert me! There is nothing in my life but you!”

  “Of course I shall not desert you. What do you think there is in my life?” She spoke with unintentional bitterness.

  “I know you’re disappointed in me. I believe you thought we could live together as man and wife at Little Monkshood, but we can’t. For me, too much is at stake.”

  “I see that. Let’s think no more about it. Half a loaf is better than no bread, they say, and I suppose that’s what we’ve got.”

  “But a woman of your temperament would rather starve than accept the half-loaf. Is that it?”

  “Nobody would rather starve, Simon.”

  Timothy, allowing himself plenty of time, for there was snow in the Cotswolds, arrived an hour early at Little Monkshood. Tom and Diana Parsons had stayed a couple of days with him and it had been arranged that they should travel with him in his car and leave their own in his garage.

  The winter darkness had set in long before the car reached Little Monkshood, and it did not surprise Timothy to see the light streaming from the splendid window of the solar.

  “Thank goodness we can get in,” he said. “I was afraid we’d have to sit in the car until somebody came.” He ran up the outside stair and pulled at the iron chain which rang the bell. He waited and then rang again. As there was still no answer, he turned the heavy, church-like handle of the door. It was not locked. The latch lifted, and he called out through the narrow aperture he had opened, “Anybody at home?” His voice boomed in the narrow passage between the stone-built screens which separated the kitchen regions from the hall, but there was no response from anybody inside the house. He returned to the car.

  “Alison must have gone back to collect her party and left the lights on,” he said. “I propose we wait inside.”

  There was a switch just inside the doorway. It lit up the screens passage and turned on the wall-lighting in the great hall. Alison was lying face-downwards on the floor of the hall. She had been dreadfully sick and, when he lifted her up, he thought at first that she was dead.

  “No, she’s still breathing,” said Diana Parsons, “but we ought to get a doctor to her. I suppose this place is not on the telephone yet? Go in your car, Tim, and make somebody come along at once. Tom, get some drinking—water. She may be glad of it
when she comes to. Wring out your handkerchief in some more, so that I can clean her up a bit before the doctor gets here. Don’t worry, Tim. I think she’ll be all right. Food poisoning, I imagine, but she’s been so sick that there can’t be much left inside her.”

  Thankful, not by any means for the first time in his life, for a woman capable of coping with an emergency, Timothy went for the doctor and brought him back to Little Monkshood. He was still in the house when Miss Pomfret-Brown and her party arrived. Timothy explained what had happened.

  “Then where,” demanded Miss Pomfret-Brown, “is Simon Bennison? He should be here by this time. I know he was invited, and, no doubt, would have arrived before the rest of us, matters between them being what they are.”

  Timothy had not given a thought to this aspect of the case. His sole concern had been for Alison. Alarmed by Miss Pomfret-Brown’s words, he went into the solar, to find Simon’s dead body on the floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Stool-Pigeon

  Timothy knelt beside the fallen man. It did not take long to make certain that Simon would never move or speak again. The doctor had gone, driven by Tom Parsons in Timothy’s car, to telephone for an ambulance to take Alison to hospital. She was still unconscious. Diana hovered over her, although there was nothing more to be done until the ambulance arrived.

  Timothy went back to Miss Pomfret-Brown and Miss Salter, who were standing near the foot of Alison’s bed, a brand-new divan which had been brought in only at the previous week-end.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Bennison is worse off than Alison.”

  “How much so? Is he dead?” Miss Pomfret-Brown asked. Timothy, relieved by the direct and pointed question, answered,

  “Yes. Do you think you could bear to come and look at him? As the doctor isn’t here . . .”