It was not possible to see much of the building on account of the screening trees, but it was somehow not what he had expected to find. He had pictured something invested with gloom and set amidst a grim desolation; instead he found himself looking upon a very pleasant scene, with the house perched upon its rocky eminence with a happy picturesqueness, the greenery with which it was surrounded contrasting with the blue sea beyond. It was easy to understand the appeal the place had made to Adrian Carthallow. It seemed to have been created for an artist.
The island was much larger than he had imagined. It was a long headland that had been cut off at its base where the sea had worn a steep channel from either side as it had come swirling in for century after century, until at last the two-pronged attack had split away the rock. The headland’s surface appeared surprisingly even, so that the house must possess quite an extensive garden.
He had come by way of the cliff path and he decided to make the return journey by striking inland and then coming into the town from behind. The map had shown him that there was a public path across the fields at the rear of Falporth: it was apparently a popular walk to go out by the cliffs and home by the fields.
He had left the last of the houses behind and had turned to go in the direction of the town again when he saw a figure ahead of him. It was that of a man, seated at an easel on one side of the path. He knew that it was Adrian Carthallow even before the sound of his approach caused the other to turn and he saw the artist’s rather flabby features.
Momentarily he felt uncomfortable. Not having seen Carthallow since the incident in London when the other had refused to acknowledge him he was dubious of the reception he might receive. However, it was too late to draw back.
Adrian Carthallow gave him a long look and then, to his relief, broke into a smile.
“It is!” he said. “The sleuth in person! What brings you to Falporth?”
“I’ve friends in the district,” said Mordecai Tremaine hesitantly. He added, with a glance at the easel at which Carthallow had been working: “Don’t let me disturb you. I see you’re busy.”
“Only having a busman’s holiday,” said Carthallow. He began to put away his tubes and fold the easel. “I was about to pack up, anyway. As a matter of fact, when I heard you coming along the path I thought you might be Helen. That’s why I turned. If you’re staying down this way you must come along and see us. Why not come back with me to lunch?”
“I’m afraid I can’t manage that,” returned Tremaine.
“All right then, make it dinner tonight,” said Carthallow. He seemed to take it for granted that his invitation would be accepted. “About seven. You know the place, of course. Paradise—on the headland back there.” He gestured awkwardly with the hand in which he carried the easel. “The door to the bridge is always open.”
Mordecai Tremaine pushed his pince-nez into their orthodox position on the bridge of his nose and tried to think of an excuse. He was not at all keen on the idea of going to dinner at Paradise. It would mean meeting Helen Carthallow and he shrank from that ordeal.
But the excuse would not come and before he could exercise any control over the situation he found himself continuing on his way whilst Adrian Carthallow, paint box tucked under his arm and easel draped over his shoulder, was striding in the opposite direction.
9
ON HIS RETURN Mordecai Tremaine discovered that Jonathan Boyce had also renewed an old acquaintance. Charles Penross had learned that he was in the neighbourhood and had called to see him. Penross was Inspector Penross, of the local constabulary.
“I’ve told Charles all about you, Mordecai,” Boyce said. “You should get on together.”
“As an amateur,” said Mordecai Tremaine, “I’m always delighted to meet a working professional. Is there anything interesting in the way of crime in Falporth, Inspector?”
Penross smiled. He was a small man for a policeman, thinoffeatures. But there was an air of alertness and vitality about him that revealed that he was a man who knew his job.
“If you mean have there been any good murders lately,” he observed, “I’m happy to say there haven’t. Falporth must be one of the most law-abiding spots in the country. I dare say,” he added, slyly, “that it’s because we can all make as much money as we need out of the city visitors who come here during the season!”
It was a surprise to hear him speak. His voice was gruff and resonant. It was the kind of voice that should properly have belonged to a big, hearty man with a round red face and the shoulders of an ox.
He proved an entertaining companion. At the end of an hour or two Mordecai Tremaine felt that he was an old friend. He had a rich fund of stories acquired during twenty years of police experience and there seemed nothing he did not know concerning the district.
Several times Tremaine was possessed of the urge to mention Adrian Carthallow but on each occasion he restrained himself. He did not wish to find himself in the position of being called upon to explain something for which he did not have any sort of explanation at all.
After Penross had gone he spoke of his meeting with the artist and of the dinner invitation he had received—somewhat diffidently, for he did not wish his host and hostess to think that already he was running away from them.
They did their best to set him at his ease.
“We want you to do just as you like as long as you’re here,” Kate Tyning told him. “Besides, Adrian Carthallow is a local celebrity. Think what it will do for my standing in the town when it’s known that you’re a visitor to his house!”
Mordecai Tremaine set out in a taxi just before seven that evening with feelings resembling those which normally attend the visitor to a dentist’s waiting-room who is unhappily certain that trouble is in store for him. Carefully he rehearsed a little set speech to Helen Carthallow; he hoped that he would be able to complete it without betraying himself.
The entrance to the bridge lay in a cutting in the cliff. As Carthallow had told him the iron door was unlocked. He pushed it open and stepped on to the bridge.
The tide was well out now and the sands below him had been dried firm by the afternoon’s sun. He could see the ribbed sides of the rock pools where the water had slowly drained away, and the gulls holding conference around them or aimlessly skimming the beach. A lazy line of surf was creaming the sands and licking at the end of the headland upon which the house was built.
The bridge vibrated under his step. It seemed very frail, although he knew that it could not be, otherwise it would never have withstood so many winter storms. He hurried forward and it seemed that he was cutting himself adrift from the comforting world to which the taxi belonged and was crossing into an existence that was suspended in space.
It was an illusion, of course, born of the fact that the bridge gave beneath him so that he felt that it had no contact with the solid ground, but it brought him on to the headland with quickened pulses and the sense of being face to face with a crisis.
The house was some distance from the bridge. A drive led towards it through the trees and as he walked Mordecai Tremaine applied himself to the task of bringing his imagination under proper control. By the time the maid admitted him he had managed to regain a condition approaching normal.
Helen Carthallow greeted him with a smile.
“I’m so glad you were able to come,” she said.
The dark eyes met his own calmly. There was no trace of discomfiture in them. There was, in fact, an odd flicker of something very like amusement.
‘Damn it,’ thought Mordecai Tremaine, with a sudden surge of irritation, ‘I believe she’s laughing at me!’
Strangely, it set him at his ease with her because it put him on his mettle. Instead of having to take the initiative without quite knowing the best thing to do he was able to react naturally to her own attitude towards him.
There was a further cause for relief in that it was not the private dinner party he had been fearing with himself as the only guest. Several other
people were already there. He experienced the usual breathless introductions, with Carthallow throwing names at him which he tried to catch like a juggler catching coins on a plate. It left him bewildered, nursing a grim determination to sort them out as soon as he had an opportunity of studying them at leisure.
Fortunately, there was one familiar name to serve as a starting point.
“We’ve met before, Miss Fairham,” he said, as he came face to face with Roberta Fairham’s mousiness.
She nodded.
“Of course. At the Allied Arts Ball, wasn’t it? I remember seeing you there with Adrian.” She added, hastily, as though she thought he might ask questions and was anxious to prevent him: “Are you enjoying your stay in Falporth, Mr. Tremaine? Adrian told me you have friends here.”
“I love Cornwall,” he said, “and this seems to me to be one of the most perfect parts of it.”
It was at this moment that another guest arrived.
Helen Carthallow led the newcomer towards him. At first he thought that it had been done with a deliberate emphasis, but he realized later that it was merely because he was the only stranger present.
“I don’t believe,” she said, “you’ve met Lester Imleyson. Lester, this is Mordecai Tremaine.”
There was the briefest of pauses whilst Mordecai Tremaine recovered his self-possession. It was true that he had not been introduced to the tall young man at Helen Carthallow’s side, but he had undoubtedly seen him before. At the Allied Arts Ball and at the National Gallery.
He said, levelly:
“How do you do, Mr. Imleyson. Are you in Falporth on holiday like myself?”
“I’m one of the local fittings,” Imleyson told him.
He had a pleasant voice, firm and friendly. It suited his fresh, open countenance.
Rather to his annoyance Mordecai Tremaine found himself liking him. Imleyson possessed a charm of manner that wasneither forced nor feminine. He was good-looking and he had the build of a man who would be good at games. It was impossible to dismiss him purely as a gigolo or a philanderer.
Helen Carthallow was regarding them both quizzically. Her dark eyes held a challenge. Mordecai Tremaine saw that her lips had been heavily crimsoned and that she possessed traces of that over-bright air he had noticed at their first meeting at Anita Lane’s flat. He had the sudden impression that she was waiting for him to throw down the gauntlet and was tensed to fling it back in his face as if she did not care.
For an instant or two an air of crisis hung over them. And then Adrian Carthallow’s hand had come down boisterously upon Imleyson’s shoulder and his jovial voice was saying:
“Hullo, Lester! You’ve heard of our friend Tremaine, of course. He’s the Mordecai Tremaine who’s always getting himself in the news for solving murder cases.”
A shadow darkened Imleyson’s face. He said, slowly:
“I hadn’t realized that.”
“We’ll have to watch ourselves as long as he’s here, eh?” Carthallow boomed. “Don’t want to find all our secrets uncovered!” He turned towards his wife. “Will you excuse me a moment, my dear? I want to take Lewis up to the studio. There’s just time before dinner and I’m sure you’ll be able to look after Lester and the others.”
“Of course, Adrian,” she said.
Tremaine watched him cross the room and go out with Lewis Haldean. He had already been introduced to the big, blond man with the Viking beard and the face of a sea rover. Carthallow had made no mention of the fact that he must have seen Haldean that night at the gambling house in London.
Haldean, too, had been silent on the subject, and Mordecai Tremaine, always an apostle of tact, had suffered himself to be introduced as a stranger to a stranger.
He wondered just why Adrian Carthallow had been so reticent about the incident. He wondered, too, whether he was aware of what was going on beneath his nose. From his attitude towards Lester Imleyson it did not seem that he had any suspicions of that young man. Was he being cuckolded under his own roof?
He was relieved to see Hilda Eveland’s plump figure coming towards him, so that he was saved from the necessity of trying to make conversation with Helen Carthallow and Imleyson. He had decided that he was going to like happily-rounded, jolly-looking Hilda, with her unashamed middle-aged spread and her rich, good-tempered chuckle.
“Hullo, Lester,” she said. “Why haven’t you been along for the last two or three days? Matilda’s been asking about you.”
“I’m sorry, Hilda,” he returned contritely. “I’ve been pretty busy and I haven’t been able to get over. But tell her I’ll be along tomorrow whatever happens.”
The conversation became general then. Both Roberta Fairham and Elton Steele joined them. Steele was a quietly-spoken man, grave-faced but with amusement in the depths of his grey eyes. Like Haldean he was a big man, but he did not have Haldean’s dramatic air and quickness of movement. He looked the solid, dependable type. He was the kind of man you could imagine unperturbed amidst the earthquake, refusing to be impressed by the wildest tremors.
Adrian Carthallow and Haldean came back from the studio just as dinner was announced. The meal was a pleasant one. Everybody seemed to be on the friendliest of terms. Mordecai Tremaine’s sentimental soul expanded happily. He beamed over his pince-nez.
Several times he glanced at Helen Carthallow, wondering yet again whether he had seen what was not there. It was only the occasional still amused look he fancied she bestowed upon himself that kept his suspicions alive. Carthallow, as always, was specially attentive towards her; he seemed, in fact, to be that rare thing the perfect husband.
After dinner the artist took him by the arm.
“Let me show you round, Tremaine. The others will excuse us. They’re practically members of the family, anyway!”
Roberta Fairham said quickly:
“Do you mind if I come with you, Adrian?”
Her pale eyes blinked nervously behind her spectacles. Mordecai Tremaine felt sorry for her. She was so pathetically eager. He did not really want her to come with them but he hoped in spite of himself that Carthallow would not refuse.
“Mind?” The artist’s voice was rich with well-being. “My dear Roberta, of course I don’t mind. You know how delighted I always am to display my possessions!”
There was another of those moments that left Mordecai Tremaine wondering whether he was imagining things or whether there really were mysterious and not very pleasant undercurrents beneath the surface of tranquillity. It seemed to him that as he spoke Adrian Carthallow’s sardonic eyes met those of his wife and that Helen Carthallow’s face held an expression that was part resentment, part tragic and part dislike. It seemed, too, that the words had been intended to convey more than their apparent meaning.
And then, as though a film that had been running smoothly and had then been stilled for an instant had started up again, everybody seemed to move and Mordecai Tremaine found himself in the hall outside the door of the drawing-room.
Adrian Carthallow said:
“Let’s make a start with the gardens.”
For the first time Mordecai Tremaine saw the full extent of the grounds in which the house was set, and he was surprised at the rock terraces, lawns and flower beds, all carefully tended, that lay about it. They went through the iron gate set in the low boundary wall enclosing the lawn and walked out upon the springy turf of the headland. In a few moments they had reached the rocky edge and there was nothing in front of them but the blue water, flecked here and there with white where the evening breeze fanned over it, stretching back to the horizon.
Carthallow flung back his shoulders.
“Ah, that’s what I like! Pure air straight from the Atlantic, with no smoke and grime from belching cities!”
Mordecai Tremaine turned slowly, savouring that marvellous view. Out here between the sea and the sky it was possible to see the whole proud sweep of Falporth Bay, for owing to the outward surge of the coast the headland guarding Falporth no longe
r formed a complete barrier and beyond it the cliffs and the beaches lay visible.
His gaze passed along the great rim of sea, touched already by the first reddening lights of the setting sun, that ran from the white fingerpost of the lighthouse that marked the right-hand extremity of the bay to the far headland on the left beyond which lay St. Mawgan. There were times, he knew, when there would be only a wild darkness of tumultuous seas out of which would come an icy spray on the chill breath of a shrieking wind, but now it was restful and soothing to the senses.
He came round to face the house. Here again trees and shrubs had been skilfully placed to screen it, stunted and deformed these, shaped under the winds it was their task to defy. Only in one place, where the gate was set in the wall, could they see a gap through which part of the building was exposed.
“It’s a perfect spot for an artist. You must be very proud of it.”
“There’s no need for pills and medicines here,” Carthallow returned. “I never feel better than when we come to Paradise.”
Near the end of the headland was a small round building of whitened stone. Mordecai Tremaine stepped over the iron staple driven deep into the ground at the entrance and looked inside.
“Used to be a fisherman’s look-out hut,” Carthallow explained. “Apparently it was a good vantage point to watch for the shoals of fish that came in at certain seasons.”
As they walked back towards the house the bridge came into view; its frailty, exaggerated by the distance, emphasized their separation from the mainland. Mordecai Tremaine’s romantic imagination was stirred into activity.
“It reminds me of a mediæval castle,” he said. “If you could pull up the bridge like a drawbridge you’d be secure within your walls!”
“Except from the income-tax collector!” returned Carthallow.
He was obviously pleased by his guest’s enthusiasm. He made no secret of the fact that the house was his toy.
Although at some places the fall of the cliff was less sheer and for part of its height might be climbed by a determined man, there was no point where it could be scaled all the way from the sea. In addition, the water never receded beyond the jagged rocks that marked the limits of the headland, and when the tide was full it swept under the bridge itself so that the whole place became an island and the illusion of a moated castle was complete.
So Pretty a Problem Page 12
