“And one on the way,” elaborated Mr. Chucky, tucking the photographs away without apparent rancour.
“Come on, lay off the red-herring stuff,” said Tinka. “I want to know what you came to Penderyn for?”
“It’s what I told you. You were a stranger round here. You wanted to see Amista Carlyon, and I knew damn well that the lady didn’t exist. So where you went, I went. The Swansea Police Force never closes its eye.”
“How did you know that she doesn’t exist, may I ask?”
“I been in this village for nearly a week,” said Chucky, going all Welsh again. “Mari and the kids have gone off inland for a bit of a holiday from the old sea, and I come up here to stay with my Auntie Blodwen—a bit dotty she is, mind, but a dear old soul. And there’s been a good bit of talk about Mr. Carlyon in the village—spending a lot of money in the place, you know, posh car arriving, and the luggage!—you should have seen the luggage, my Auntie Blod says, trunks and cases and boxes and baskets and then of course bits of furniture and carpets and pictures and such. … But never a word about any Mrs. Carlyon has my Auntie Blod said to me; and, dotty or not dotty, you’d think she’d be interested in the lady. And nobody in the village, neither. Not a word about any Mrs. Carlyon. Dai Trouble chatting in the pubs and shops—not a word about any mistress in the house. Kids going up to ask for subscriptions to this and that—never set eyes on any lady in the house. Workmen in and out, and nobody there but the two servants and Mr. Carlyon. But you—you know there’s a lady there called Amista, you know there’s a Mrs. Carlyon. Oh ho! I thinks to myself, something a little bit fishy here. And being as Mr. Carlyon had asked for police protection…”
“For police protection?”
“He asked for a bit of protection when he came here. The village had got used to the place being empty and they’d made the path a right-of-way up the mountain. He got a bit fed up with it, and no blame to him, fair play—kids always wandering up after berries, peeping in at his windows and so on. So the Super says to me, when he hears I’m coming up to Auntie for a week or so, ‘Here, Chucky,’ he says, ‘you can keep an eye on Penderyn while you’re there… ’”
She eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t believe a word of it. I believe—I believe you’re a journalist, just like me!”
He threw back his head so that he nearly toppled back over the balcony again, and roared with laughter. “Duw, duw! A journalist! Mr. Chucky of the South Wales Evening News!” He gave her an enormous wink. “Detective Inspector Chucky, Miss Jones, that’s me; protecting Mr. Carlyon from—well, from you!”
From her, from Miss Katinka Jones who really (as it happened) was a journalist. She said, with a flash of inspiration: “You didn’t say all this to him?”
“As soon as you went back into the hall,” said Mr. Chucky, comfortably. “I presented my credentials—all in order, Miss Jones!—and told him why I was a bit suspicious. I tried to make it easy for you, mind. ‘Just one of these lady journalists, Mr. Carlyon,’ I says, ‘writing up Romantic Wales or some such nonsense. Made up this story about the lady, so as to get into the house,’ I says, ‘just because it looked a bit romantical stuck up here on the old mountain.’ ‘Oh, well,’ says Mr. Carlyon, ‘no harm done if that’s all,’ and out he goes to tell you to trot along and think no more about it. And there you are in the hall, kicking up a commotion, and then off you run like a scared rabbit, down the path. I’ll go and see her off the premises, I think,’ he says. ‘I know what these women journalists are.’”
“He found me very much on the premises, with my ankle sprained.”
“Of course he didn’t believe it was really sprained,” explained Chucky, kindly. “He said it wasn’t swollen. We thought it was another trick to get back. But he didn’t see what else he could do about it—if he’d let you go, you might have made worse trouble. And after all, he had police protection here.” He stubbed out his cigarette on the rail of the balcony and tossed it gaily overboard.
Police protection indeed! “You’re no more a policeman than I am,” said Tinka, indignantly. “You’re just another journalist, tricking your way into the house.” It was an unfortunate way to have put it, but she let it go.
“Detective Inspector Chucky, Miss Jones, Swansea Police.”
“I’ve a jolly good mind to tell Mr. Carlyon the truth.”
“Hey, hey, honour among thieves!” said Mr. Chucky, looking alarmed.
“Well, I won’t if you’ll help me in this business about Amista.”
He drew in his chin with a “here, here, don’t give me that again!” gesture. “I know you don’t believe me about Amista,” said Tinka, desperately. “But… Well…” For the first time she allowed herself to remember it, to dwell upon it. The Face.
Mr. Chucky listened very still and quiet to the story of the night. He thought it all over, drawing upon a fresh cigarette. He said at last: “Hadn’t you better get away from here?”
“But if anything’s happened to that poor girl and only I know about it…”
Somewhere in the house a clock struck seven. He put his hand on her arm to still her while he counted the strokes. “We’ll have to pack this up,” he said. “They’ll be stirring any minute. Fortunately they all sleep in the other wing of the house.”
“How do you know that?”
“Nothing is concealed from the police,” he said, mockingly.
“The police!”
“There’s an old Doubting Tom she is!” said Chucky.
“You’re a ruddy journalist and you needn’t bother to deny it because I know.” She added, hurriedly: “And if you wink at me again I shall scream. It’s an odious habit.” He refrained accordingly, but he gave her a glance which was as good, or as bad, as a wink—a quizzical, teasing, conspiratorial glance. “Policeman or journalist, one thing I do think—I think you’d better clear out from here, Miss Jones.”
“And leave you a clear field. No thanks!”
“So you are after a story!”
“I’m not, but…”
There was a knock at the door of her room. They started apart. Mr. Chucky vanished silently in at the window of the adjoining room, and Tinka slipped back through the window and was standing by the dressing table when Mrs. Love, with a biscuit and a cup of tea on a tray, came into the room.
She advanced cheerily. “There now! Up already! Sleep well, dear?”
“What do you think?” said Katinka.
Mrs. Love put the tea down on the table beside her. “And how’s our poor ankle?”
“Our poor ankle’s fine,” said Katinka. “And we’re taking it back to Swansea today where people are not so inquisitive as to the contents of our handbags.”
“Drink up your tea, dear, before it gets cold,” said Mrs. Love, apparently quite oblivious to these hardy thrusts.
“What’s in this one?” said Tinka. “Arsenic?”
Mrs. Love waddled over and pulled back the curtain. In the gay morning light, her face was jolly and frank and kind. She leaned back against the window-jamb and crossed her stout ankles, while Katinka sipped at the cup of tea. “Now, look, dear—there’s no use ’edging about this, and I’m going to tell you. This is a lonely place, and Mr. Carlyon has some decent stuff here—pictures and that; well, when I say decent, what I mean, they’re valuable. You arrive here out of the blue, and you tell us some story about a girl that no one’s ever so much as heard of: you’ve just dropped in to see her. Dropped in, mind!—three miles from nowhere and one more river to cross, as you might say. You can’t be surprised if Mr. Carlyon thinks it’s fishy, and though I told him your leg was swollen up right enough, I don’t think he ever believed that you hadn’t cooked up an excuse to come back. ‘We’ll put a drop of something in her drink tonight,’ he says, ‘and have a look through her things and see if we can find out who she is.’ So we did, we put a drop of sedative in your milk, my dear, I don’t deny it; and when you’re asleep, I just comes quietly in and has a look through your bag. I admit it. I did
.”
“You needn’t bother with your admissions,” said Tinka. “I was awake.”
There was a tiny, cold silence. “You—saw me?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Tinka. “I said I was awake.”
Mrs. Love gave her a somewhat wavering smile. “I hope I didn’t frighten you, dear? Of course you’d know it was me?”
“Of course,” said Tinka. “I thought you were looking charming.”
The woman went away; gone off to tell Carlyon the latest developments, no doubt. Tinka limped about the room, dressing, made up her face as well as she could from the contents of her handbag, and went downstairs. The door of the dining-room was open and Carlyon was having breakfast there.
He stood up, holding his napkin in one hand, and she sat down opposite him and poured herself a cup of coffee. Dai Jones came in with a plate of bacon and eggs. Carlyon passed toast and butter across the table. They ate in uneasy silence. He said, at last, nervously pushing back his hair from his forehead: “You look awfully cross!”
“You needn’t bother to be polite,” said Tinka. “I’m going as soon as I possibly can—don’t worry.”
He sat looking down at his toast and marmalade. “I know,” he said. “And now—well, I wish you weren’t.”
“Your hospitality hasn’t been exactly encouraging so far.”
He looked slightly shamefaced. “I’m afraid I allowed myself to be panicked a bit. You—surely you can understand the reasons. But we could remedy all that, now that…”
Now that I’ve seen The Face, thought Tinka. I mustn’t be allowed to go away, now that I’ve seen The Face. The woman has told him and they’ve arranged it between the three of them that he’s to exert his charm and try to get me to stay. There was a tinny clanking and the little milk-woman appeared round the corner of the house and passed the dining-room window carrying her two full cans. Katinka jumped up and ran to it, stumbling over her own feet in her eagerness. “Well, indeed, Miss Jones,” said Miss Evans, her pointed face and blue eyes framed in the narrow window. “I wondered whatever had become of you!”
“Good morning, Miss Evans. …”
“I kept a look out for you last night, but I didn’t see no handkerchief waving by the ford, so I hope it was all right?” said Miss Evans anxiously. “And the gentleman…?”
Carlyon must not know that Tinka had seen Mr. Chucky that morning: that there were now two outsiders who knew about The Face. She raised her voice a little. “I don’t know anything about him. Didn’t he go back? But, Miss Evans, what I wanted was this—would you take me back with you in your boat this morning?”
Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Carlyon’s shoulders sag a little. He put his knife and fork together on his plate and abruptly got to his feet. He said: “I beg your pardon—of course if you want to go…” He gave an infinitesimal shrug and went out of the room.
She was free to go. There was no compulsion on her to stay, no serious effort was to be made to keep her; there was no guilty mystery about the house, and she was free to go. It was all nonsense about Amista, as Mr. Chucky had said, some foolish mix-up that might or might not one day unravel itself. Mr. Chucky had denied Amista, and afterwards satisfactorily accounted for the seeming consistency of his denial—might not the whole mystery be equally easy of explanation? I’ll put it to the test, she thought. This little woman comes up here every day; if there is any young girl about the place, she’s bound to know of it. She leaned forward out of the window and lowered her voice. “Miss Evans—have you ever seen Amista?”
“Seen who?” said the little woman, looking puzzled.
“The young girl who lives here or used to live here. When you’ve been bringing the milk—surely you’ve seen her?”
“There’s no young girl here,” said the milk-woman. “Never such a thing. Just Mr. Carlyon and Mrs. Love and Dai Jones. Nobody else.”
“But there is—there is a girl here,” said Tinka. “I saw her last night. She came into my room. I couldn’t see her face properly; I thought it was somehow deformed, but I may have been mistaken, it may have been the distortion from the light and the shadows of the window curtain. I was a bit highly strung and imagining things. I saw her red nail varnish and I thought it was blood; I realize now that it must have been varnish. Only you see, that means that there is someone here. Mrs. Love hasn’t got any varnish on her nails, because I’ve looked to see. There is a young girl here. She wears red varnish on her nails—that I definitely saw.”
The blue, blue eyes looked doubtful. “If you saw her—why didn’t you speak to her?”
“I—well, I was sleepy, I was dopey, and I was all muddled up. But I know she’s here. She’s been writing to me from this house, for months. You say, everyone says, that she’s never been here. Well, then, how could she describe this house? How could she describe the things in it, the people in it and the Siamese cat, and everyday things that have recently happened in the house. Of course she’s been here, she’s been here all the time. And what I want to know is—where is she now? It’s weeks since I’ve heard from her.”
“Perhaps she’s gone away,” said the little woman, reasonably.
“But why does everyone say she was never here at all? I believe she’s here now.” (Held there, perhaps, against her will, a young girl, frightened and at bay—the young girl to whom Carlyon had said that birth, age, fortune must not count against their marrying. … I can’t go and leave her here, she thought; and yet… How did she know that these people did not live by just such traps as this—lonely women, aging women, with a little bit of money put by in a nylon stocking…? Any minute now, Carlyon would whip out a marriage licence and a form for insuring her life!)
The little milk-woman clanked her tinny cans. “Well, sorry I am, bach, but I can’t help you at all. Proper old muddle, I’m sure. Better you leave it alone, my girl, and come back across the river with me in my boat.” How patient country people are, thought Katinka. All this oddness and mystery—but don’t worry about it, it’s nothing to do with you, just leave it alone. … And she looked at the little woman and thought, In years she is not so very much older than me—yet here I am dithering and blathering over my half real, half imagined tuppenny mystery, and she so incurious and wise. Aloud, anxiously seeking, she said: “You really think I should give it up and go? You honestly think I ought not to stay here and try to help this girl?”
“I never saw no girl, Miss Jones,” said the woman, and swinging her milk cans, hurried away round to the kitchen door.
And Tinka remembered a phrase from one of Amista’s innumerable letters. “Nobody to speak to, ever, but the two servants and now and again the woman who brings the milk. …” The mountains outside the low window-sill were boundless in their offer of liberty. She turned away from them as wistfully as any prisoner from the blue tent of the sky.
Carlyon was standing speaking to Mr. Chucky in the hall. Chucky, in his character as policeman, bowed stiffly to Miss Jones, and his eye consulted Carlyon’s as to how he should conduct himself. Tinka was thankful that he should be on the spot when she made her announcement. She had ricked her bad ankle again in her stumbling run across the dining-room, and was able to put on a very good semblance of agonizing pain as she limped across the hall. “Mr. Carlyon, I’m sorry if I seemed ungracious. …”
Carlyon politely disclaimed. “And the trouble is,” said Tinka, casting a covert glance at her fellow conspirator to see how he would take it, “that I’ve hurt my ankle again, whizzing across the room just now to speak to Miss Evans.”
Carlyon said quickly: “You’re going to stay?” and she felt, to her astonishment, that her heart gave a little bound at the unconcealed pleasure in his voice. He tried immediately to cover it, saying stiffly that he was sorry the cause should be a fresh injury to her ankle. Mr. Chucky, watching them both in some doubt, asked respectfully if Mr. Carlyon would prefer him, after all, to stay on. In view of… H’m, h’m… He flicked an explanatory glanc
e at Katinka.
“No, no,” said Carlyon. “That’ll be all right. There’s been some muddle somewhere, but it’ll clear itself up. You can go back now, with the milk-woman.” He added: “I’ll give you a note to your superiors.”
“I did right to come, sir?” said Chucky, evidently playing for time while he thought up reasons for prolonging his stay.
“Yes, yes, perfectly right,” said Carlyon. Tinka could see that he was growing weary of the attentions of Inspector Chucky. He said to her: “Would you like this man to take a note into Swansea for you? You might have a few things sent up from your hotel; you oughtn’t to risk that ankle going down the mountain-path at least till tomorrow.”
If she had known that Chucky was going, leaving her there all alone, she might have funked staying on. But it was too late now. Anyway, she thought, they shall know that if anything happens to me there’ll be enquiries. She could not address Mr. Chucky outright in his role as policeman, but she, also, would give him a note to his “superiors,” would give him, quite openly, a letter addressed to the police. She went back to the dining-room table and was provided with writing paper. A few lines to the manageress of her gloomy hotel explaining her plight and requesting a few things from her room; and then the letter to the police. She was suspicious of the people at Penderyn, she wrote, rapidly scribbling. There had been a girl there who seemed to have disappeared. Would they please listen to Mr. Chucky’s story and confirm details at the offices of Girls Together. She was remaining there to find out more—if she did not communicate with them within three days they would know that something had happened to her. Her fingers shook as she licked down the envelope. Letters in hand, she limped out into the hall.
Carlyon was sitting at his desk in the other room, writing, the lovely cat posed like a statue beside him, only now and again putting out a plush paw to dab at the moving pen. She held out the letters to him, the one to the police on top. “I’ll give them to Chucky,” he said. “He and Miss Evans are having a cup of tea before they go off.” He went out with the letters. The Siamese cat dabbed softly again at the bright green fountain pen.
Cat and Mouse Page 5
