‘What time did she come in last night?’ asked the maid.
‘I neither know, nor care,’ snapped the cook, irritably. ‘I was in bed an’ asleep by ten, an’ I slep’ sound an’ never ’eard nuthink until the alarm woke me at seven.’
‘So did I,’ said Rose. ‘I was that tired.’
‘We ’ave ter work for our livin’,’ remarked Mrs. Bossom. ‘We can’t get up at noon and paint our faces to make ourselves look younger’n what we are an’ then lay about all day in silk pyjamas, smokin’ cigarettes an’ readin’ books that didn’t oughter be allowed . . .’
‘’Ow old do you think Miss Bennett is?’ asked Rose, curiously.
‘Nearer forty than thirty,’ said Mrs. Bossom, unkindly. ‘An old ’en tryin’ ter make itself look like a chicken, if you ask me.’
‘She’s very smart, though, ain’t she?’ said the maid. ‘An’ ’er hair’s lovely . . .’
Mrs. Bossom sniffed. It was an expressive sniff. It destroyed the loveliness of Miss Bennett’s hair more effectively than a hundred words could have done.
‘You’d best be gettin’ about your work, my gel,’ she said, ‘or you’ll be all behind, an’ then there’ll be ructions.’
Rose sighed, collected her brushes, brooms, and dusters, and departed, leaving Mrs. Bossom in possession of the kitchen and her tea.
At half-past twelve when there was still no summons from her mistress’s bedroom, Mrs. Bossom called Rose.
‘You’d better take this tea up to ’er now,’ she said, crossly. ‘I can’t wait about all day. If she’s cross, you’d best say you thought she rang.’
Rose took the tray rather reluctantly. In a few minutes she was back again with it, her small face puckered up in an expression that was both worried and astonished.
‘She ain’t in ’er room,’ she announced, breathlessly.
‘Oh, well, I expect she’s in the lavatory,’ said Mrs. Bossom, unconcernedly. ‘Why didn’t you leave the tea . . .’
‘But . . . but she ’asn’t been to bed at all,’ cried Rose, excitedly. ‘It ain’t been touched. It’s just as I made it yesterday . . .’
‘Ho!’ said Mrs. Bossom, tossing her head. ‘Been ’avin’ a night out, I s’pose. Well, if she thinks she’s goin’ ter walk in ’ere an’ find lunch all ready for ’er, she’s goin’ to be unlucky, that’s all . . .’ But Fay Bennett did not ‘walk in’ at lunchtime, or any other time, and late in the evening of that day Mrs. Bossom learned why . . .
Chapter Twelve
Peter Chard woke feeling depressed and out of sorts. The horrid fantasies which had disturbed his sleep had left him very tired, almost as though he had had no sleep at all. He felt better after his morning tea, a bath, and breakfast, but the vague memory of those distorted visions stayed with him, though he couldn’t have described one single incident in detail. There was no detail. Only a tremendous sense of something terrible and evil — an atmosphere that came from hell. He said nothing about it to Ann or Aunt Helen. Miss Wymondham had recovered something of her normal spirits and volubility. She chattered inconsequently about anything and everything; anecdotes and descriptions of the people living in Fendyke St. Mary that made Ann laugh. From thence she drifted to places of interest in the vicinity. The church of Fendyke St. Mary, they learned, was exceptionally fine. It had an open timber roof with carved corbels, and on the ends of the hammer-beams small figures of angels. It was generally acknowledged to be one of the finest churches in the county. The screen contained panels with paintings of the twelve Apostles and an elaborate cornice.
‘. . . And then of course, my dear,’ went on Miss Wymondham, ‘there’s Lucifer’s stone about half a mile outside the village. This place was a hot-bed of witchcraft in the Middle Ages, you know, and the witches used to hold their sabbaths, and all kind of horrible orgies, at which the Devil was supposed to appear. The stone was used for his throne — at least that’s the story, and it looks very like one. You’d be surprised how many of the villagers still believe in witchcraft. Oh, and then there’s Mrs. Knap’s cottage. She was a poor old woman who was accused of being a witch by Matthew Hopkins and burned to death in 1644. Her place is still known as Witch’s House. It’s empty now, of course, and has been empty for a good many years because nobody can stay there very long. They say that something still lives there, though of course that’s all superstitious nonsense. You must have passed the cottage last night, on your way here . . .’
‘Oh, is that the place?’ said Ann with interest. ‘We thought it might be inhabited and knocked to see if we could get some tea, didn’t we, Peter?’
Peter, who had only been partly listening, nodded.
‘You did,’ he said.
‘I had a horribly queer feeling, too,’ said Ann, remembering. ‘As though somebody were watching me from behind the windows. It was a most unpleasant sensation . . .’
‘None of the villagers would dream of going near it,’ declared Miss Wymondham. ‘You chose a particularly bad time to visit it, didn’t you?’
‘Why?’ asked Ann.
‘Don’t you know? Last night was the Eve of All-Hallows,’ said Miss Wymondham with a smile. ‘Though, I believe, that the spells and things don’t become potent until midnight. Such a stupid lot of nonsense, my dear . . . Oh, there’s the telephone. I’d better go and answer it myself because this is Hewson’s day for cleaning the silver and he always starts very early so that he can get it done . . . Do excuse me, both of you.’ She bustled away.
‘What are you going to do today, Peter?’ asked Ann.
‘I don’t know.’ He looked out of the window. ‘It’s fairly fine. We might have a look round the village — only you don’t like walking in the snow, do you?’
‘I don’t mind if I’m suitably dressed,’ she answered. ‘Sheer silk stockings and high-heeled shoes are not my idea of suitability. I’d rather like it, Peter.’
‘All right, then we’ll go,’ he said. ‘You pop along and get suitably dressed.’
Ann looked at him with her chestnut head slightly on one side. Her eyes were quizzical and mischievous.
‘Is this excursion the beginning of the great detective’s investigation?’ she asked. Before Peter could reply, Miss Wymondham bounced back into the room bubbling over with excitement.
‘What do you think?’ she cried. ‘Laura Courtland hasn’t been home all night . . .’
‘Hasn’t been home?’ said Peter, sharply. ‘But she left here about half-past ten . . .’
‘I know, my dear, that’s what I told them,’ said Miss Wymondham, nodding several times. ‘But she didn’t go home. Her bed hasn’t been slept in and she’s nowhere in the house. Isn’t it strange? Where could the girl have gone to?’
‘She said she was going home,’ remarked Ann. ‘She said she thought she ought to go in case her father wanted her . . .’
‘I knew that was just an excuse, my dear,’ said Miss Wymondham. ‘Laura isn’t as dutiful as all that, by any means. But I thought she was bored. I suppose she went along to some friends, or something, where the party was more gay and hectic. Laura likes excitement and not always of the best kind, I’m afraid . . .’
‘H’m,’ said Peter. ‘I suppose that’s what she must have done . . .’ Something in his tone attracted Ann’s attention. She looked round. He was frowning thoughtfully.
‘But you don’t believe that’s what she did do?’ she accused.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well,’ he said, hesitantly, as though he were rather unwilling to put his thoughts into anything so concrete as words. ‘I wouldn’t definitely say that. I was only wondering if this might not be an extension . . .’
‘An extension?’ said Ann, a little puzzled.
‘Lambs first, then children, and now . . .’ He stopped, abruptly, leaving the sentence unfinished as Miss Wymondham uttered a cry of horror.
‘Oh, Peter . . . You can’t mean that . . .’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t really think . . .’
‘Somebody else round here has got some pretty horrid ideas, too,’ said Peter, gravely. ‘We know that. Why shouldn’t he have had another?’ He pulled out a packet of Players, took a cigarette and lit it. ‘Has anything further been heard of Joan Coxen?’
‘No, poor little thing,’ said Miss Wymondham, shaking her head. ‘At least not that I have heard, and I’m sure that if anything had, I should have heard. Peter, you don’t really think that the same thing can have happened to Laura Courtland . . .?’
‘I only suggested it as a possibility,’ said Peter.
‘Oh, I don’t think you can be right,’ said Miss Wymondham. ‘Laura Courtland’s rather . . . well, flighty and . . . and impulsive, you know. It would be just like her to go off somewhere on the spur of the moment . . .’
‘Has she ever done so before?’ asked Peter.
‘Well, no. Not in quite the same way,’ admitted Aunt Helen. ‘She’s always going off for weekends and things. But they’ve always known that she was going . . .’
‘Exactly,’ said Peter. ‘So does it seem likely to you that she would leave this house at half-past ten and, dressed as she was, suddenly decide not to go home but to drive somewhere else and stay the night . . .’
‘Perhaps she didn’t suddenly make up her mind,’ said Ann. ‘Perhaps she’d arranged to go on somewhere before she came here . . .’
‘In that case,’ said Peter, ‘surely she would have told them at her home not to expect her back?’
‘She may not have had any intention of staying the night,’ argued his wife. ‘Something may have happened, after, to make her decide to do that . . .’
‘And then she would have telephoned,’ said Peter.
‘Oh, no, my dear,’ chimed in Miss Wymondham, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think she would. If you knew Laura as well as I do, you wouldn’t expect her to do anything as sensible as that. It would never occur to her that anyone might be worried or anxious. I think Ann is most likely right and that she had it all arranged before she came here to dinner. It was probably the reason she left early. I can’t believe that anything can have happened to her . . .’
‘Peter always prefers the dramatic explanation to the simple one,’ said Ann. ‘Don’t you, darling?’ She got up with a swift, graceful movement. ‘I’ll go and put my things on, if we’re going out,’ she said.
Miss Wymondham demanded to know where they were going and when she was told, beamed.
‘I think it’s a splendid idea,’ she declared. ‘Do wrap up well, though, both of you, because it’s very cold. And don’t be late for lunch. Cook gets so very irritable and bad-tempered if she’s kept waiting and the whole household suffers for it. So try and get back by half-past one. I’m sure you’ll both be very hungry by then, anyway . . .’
It was quite a nice morning, they found, when they got out; still freezing hard, but bracing and invigorating. The cutting wind of the previous evening had gone completely and with it the heavy, lowering clouds. A pale sun, without being warm enough to melt the snow, provided a touch of brightness and cheerfulness. The church of Fendyke St. Mary was open and they went in. Miss Wymondham had not exaggerated its beauty. The screen and the roof were really lovely, and so was a canopied font. The cover was richly carved and rested on six pillars, delicately representing twisted foliage. The font itself was six-sided and panelled with tracery. A lovely piece of workmanship, made in the days when men were craftsmen and took pride in superb craftsmanship for its own sake and not for the amount they were going to make out of it. As they left the church they met a short, stoutish man whose clerical collar proclaimed his profession. He was accompanied by a younger clergyman, a dark, handsome, olive-skinned man who had a slightly foreign appearance. The elder man was blowing his nose violently, but he removed the handkerchief to eye them speculatively and, after a moment, stopped.
‘It’s Mr. and Mrs. Chard, isn’t it?’ he said in a voice that was rendered nasal and husky from a severe cold in the head. ‘I thought it must be. Your Aunt, Miss Wymondham, said you were coming to stay with her and strangers are not — ah — very prolific in Fendyke St. Mary. My name is Benskill. I am the vicar of this parish. This is the Reverend Gilbert Ray, my curate.’ Peter and Ann acknowledged the introduction suitably, and the Reverend Amos Benskill went on: ‘You have been admiring the church? It is truly beautiful, don’t you think? One of the finest in Norfolk . . .’ He expatiated at considerable length on the beauties of his church, while the xanthomelanous curate stood by in silence. ‘But I mustn’t keep you,’ ended the vicar, suddenly recollecting that they were standing in the snow and that it was cold. ‘I apologize for being so inconsiderate. You are staying here for a month, I understand. Good, good! I trust that you and your wife will call and see us at the vicarage? It is only a step from here — just along the road — you can see the gate. A bachelor establishment, I’m afraid, but we shall be happy to offer what hospitality we can at any time . . .’
‘What a dear old gentleman,’ said Ann, when the vicar and his assistant had said goodbye and disappeared inside the church.
Peter nodded.
‘Very charming,’ he answered. ‘I don’t much like the curate though, do you?’
‘He didn’t strike me as being entirely English,’ said Ann. ‘He’s very good-looking in a Latin way . . .’
‘More French, I thought,’ said Peter. ‘There’s certainly a touch of something foreign, anyway. Let’s go and see if we can find the village pub.’
‘Darling,’ said his wife, reproachfully, ‘surely you don’t want a drink yet . . .?’
‘According to Sherlock Holmes,’ replied Peter, ‘the public-house is the centre of country gossip. Hence my desire to find our own particular centre.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Ann. ‘Well, I suppose that is as good an excuse as any . . .’
The ‘village pub’, which was disappointingly called by the hackneyed name of the Red Lion, was discovered at the end of Fendyke St. Mary’s short High Street. It stood in a kind of shallow bay and was a low-built, whitewashed building of considerable age. There were very few people in the bar, which was made warm and cheerful by an enormous fire that burned in an old red-brick fireplace at one end, but the few that were ceased their conversation and stared curiously at Ann and Peter when they entered.
‘What would you like?’ asked Peter, following his wife over to the fireplace.
‘If they’ve got any Gordon’s I’d like a gin and ‘it’,’ she answered, holding out her hands to the blaze. ‘If they haven’t any Gordon’s I’ll have a sherry.’
Peter walked over to the bar and gave his order to the pleasant-faced woman behind it. The low hum of conversation broke out again, but it was more subdued, and Peter guessed that the subject was themselves. The Red Lion had got Gordon’s and he carried the gin and Italian for Ann, and a pint tankard of beer for himself, back to the fire.
‘Here’s to us, darling,’ he said. ‘H’m, whatever else may be wrong with this place, the beer is excellent.’
‘That means that the Red Lion is going to see quite a lot of us, I suppose,’ remarked Ann, sipping her drink slowly. ‘We seem to be causing a great deal of interest.’
‘We’re strangers,’ said Peter, in brief explanation. ‘We have aroused a certain amount of curiosity and quite a lot of resentment. It’s the normal reaction of the villager. By tomorrow everybody will have found out who we are and accepted us as part of the community. In the meanwhile we are regarded with suspicion.’
‘I think you’re right about the suspicion part of it,’ murmured Ann, looking at the eight or nine people in the bar. They were eyeing them both covertly, and with a vague suggestion of hostility. Even the buxom woman with the pleasant, florid face was watching them while she pretended to busy herself among her glasses and bottles.
‘We’ll have another and then we’ll get back to Aunt Helen’s,’ said Peter, as they finished th
eir drinks. They had another. As they left the bar, Ann glanced back and saw that all the customers, and the buxom woman, were staring after them . . .
‘Well,’ she said, as they walked up the High Street past the small collection of shops which served Fendyke St. Mary as a shopping centre, ‘if that is your idea of ‘the centre of country gossip’ I don’t think very much of it.’
‘You’ve got to break the ice in a village like this . . .’ began Peter.
‘I doubt if we’ve even cracked it,’ said Ann, ‘or made the tiniest dent . . .’
‘The morning is not the best time,’ he broke in. ‘There were very few people there. The place is probably packed in the evening, with a much warmer and more human atmosphere . . .’
‘Is that,’ said Ann, with a quick, sidelong glance that Peter thought was very fascinating, ‘the preliminary to suggesting a visit this evening . . .?’
‘No, no,’ said her husband, hastily. ‘Not at all. I might, of course, pop along . . .’
‘I thought so,’ she said, dryly.
‘It all depends on the circumstances,’ he went on, taking no apparent notice of her interruption.
‘What circumstances?’ she demanded.
‘I want to get the village reaction to these baby killings,’ he answered, suddenly serious. ‘I want to know if the village suspect anybody, and, if so, whom. If there is any news of Joan Coxen it will be discussed at length and I want to hear what is said.’
‘I see,’ said Ann. A sudden silence fell between them, and they were nearly at the gate of Wymondham Lodge before either spoke again, and then it was Ann.
‘Peter,’ she said, earnestly, taking his arm impulsively. ‘I do hope you’re going to be successful, darling. It’s such a horrid, beastly thing . . .’
He pressed her arm tightly against his side.
‘I’m going to do my damnedest,’ he answered.
‘I think you will be,’ said Ann. ‘I’ve a feeling, somehow, that you will be . . .’
They Walk in Darkness Page 5
