While they waited for their ring to be answered, they had ample leisure to look around them. Some derelict outbuildings were the only survival of the old Yarnold Farm that they could see. The new house, built of brick and roofed with green tiles, would have graced a high-class, residential suburb: in this desolate spot, however, it looked not so much pretentious as absurd—like a poster advertising a luxury hotel in some remote country station. The surburban illusion stretched as far as the front lawn, which was plotted out primly with flower-beds and concrete paths: beyond these it faded out into a wilderness of unkempt hedges and rank pasture. The house stood, like a wealthy urban parvenu in plus fours, staring both patronisingly and ignorantly at the combe that rolled away to the south, turning its back on the wooded slopes protecting it to the east and north.
“Do you think he’s out?” asked Nigel.
“Ring again. I say, where d’you suppose the well is—the one the poor maid fell into, heh-heh?”
“Round at the back somewhere, I expect.”
At this moment, the door was opened by a tall, bleak-faced woman, formidable enough—Georgia thought—to be a reincarnation of the farmer’s wife who had sharpened a stake and given that pretty dairymaid one in the eye. Surveying them for a moment, with a faintly puzzled expression, she said:
“You’re wanting Major Keston? Step this way. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
Involuntarily Georgia glanced down at her trim, green Harris-tweed suit. What was wrong with it? Why should the woman be eyeing it so curiously? And “you’re new here” was surely a peculiar conversational gambit? She had no time to speculate on these questions, for they were shown into an unexpectedly attractive room, cheerful with brick fireplace, log fire and bright linen curtains. A strangely feminine room, thought Georgia, which it was difficult to connect with the major or his ramrod-backed housekeeper. Nigel was already on the prowl, poking his nose into the shelf of novels, the mantelpiece ornaments, the pile of Victorian ballads on the upright piano. “This,” he muttered to himself, “is a remarkably non-committal room. Not so much rus in urbe as suburbia in rure.”
“Hallo, hallo!” Major Keston entered, briskly rubbing his hands. “Come to see my little grey home in the west? Had tea? No? Good, I’ll see what Mrs. Raikes can rake up, what?”
Georgia and Nigel glanced at each other, stunned by this explosion of affability. What’s come over the man? Georgia asked herself, as he popped up and down, pressing cakes on her, poking the fire, rearranging the screen at her back. Have I made a hit? Or are these the preliminary moves in the blackmail game? No, that’s just Nigel’s professional suspiciousness. But there is something weaselly about Major Keston—and a weasel seeking to ingratiate itself is certainly a bit weird.
Nigel was saying, “You’ve been out East, haven’t you, Major?”
“Oh, yes. Rather. Then I got a legacy, sent in my papers, came back to England. My family used to live here, at the Manor, y’know.”
Did it all come a little too pat? Georgia wondered. The major’s reply had been on the surface quite open, yet it had given remarkably little away. Nigel threw her a significant glance: he wanted her to return his lead.
“Whereabouts were you stationed?” she asked. “I’ve knocked about in the East myself quite a bit.”
Had she imagined it, or did a certain wariness come into his face—a suggestion of the weasel, nose quivering, snuffing danger? He said:
“India. I was in the police, actually. Well, what about having a look round my little place?”
“Oh, yes, I’d love to. You’ve made it awfully comfortable.” Georgia smiled at him charmingly. Nothing in her attentive, brown face, betrayed the fact that she had just remembered what it was she had heard about Major Keston.
He showed them round with the rather perfunctory air of a house-agent conducting a pair of unpromising clients. Dining-room, kitchen, study: four or five bedrooms upstairs. Major Keston flung open doors, switched on lights, allowed them a glance and then hustled them on to the next room. It was a large house for so small a household. When they were down in the hall again, Major Keston paused meaningly. He evidently was hinting that it was time for them to go, but Nigel somehow failed to take the hint.
“I hear you’ve a wonderful workshop,” he said. “Harry Luce told us.”
“Not so bad. Need it, y’know, living in a place like this. The locals are a pretty lazy, inefficient lot. Show you over some time, if you’re interested. Bit dark now.”
Nigel glanced at his wife again. The sympathy between them was so perfect that she understood at once what he wanted. She drifted into the drawing-room, on the pretext of fetching her gloves, and began to chatter again. Their host became visibly more fidgety. At last he said:
“Well, don’t want to speed the parting guest and all that. But I’m going out to dinner to-night. Black tie affair. Got to change.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Look, Nigel, it’s nearly six o’clock.” Georgia indicated the clock on the mantelpiece with every appearance of horror and contrition. “How thoughtless of us. The time has gone so quickly. Now we really must be off. A charming house, Major Keston.”
When they were out of earshot of the charming house, Nigel took her arm. “Your delaying tactics were magnificent, my sweet. I thought he was itching to be rid of us, and I wanted to make quite sure. Now why?”
“Perhaps he’s really got a dinner date. I say, I remembered—when he said he was in the Indian Police. There was some scandal: hushed up for reasons of policy, I believe. He ordered his men to fire on a crowd and several women were killed. They whitewashed him officially, but he was told privately that he’d better resign.”
“That accounts for the permanent grievance stamped on his unlovely features.”
There was a lot more Georgia wanted to ask. But at this moment they reached Yarnold Cross and were about to turn left when they heard footsteps approaching along the road opposite. Nigel drew her quickly into the shadow of the deep hedge. Presently two men appeared, shuffled over the cross-roads and went down the lane leading to Yarnold Farm. There was still enough light in the sky to see that they were tramps.
“I always thought tramps kept to the main roads,” whispered Georgia.
“So they do. Unless—— Let’s wait a few minutes.”
They waited quarter of an hour. The tramps had not returned. “They can’t have gone further on. That lane peters out at Major Keston’s house, doesn’t it?” said Nigel. “And I shouldn’t have thought the major was exactly a person who keeps open house for tramps. Look here, do you mind a bit of a walk?”
He took her arm again, and they went down the eastward lane along which the two men had come. Georgia knew better than to ask Nigel what he had in mind. There was a strain of secretiveness about him, which made him keep a theory to himself till he had proved it; and there was also his boyish love of springing a surprise on you.
A mile further on the lane joined the main road. “I stopped, and I looked, and I listened,” quoted Nigel. “Hear any one coming? No? Then lend me your torch.”
The round of light glanced about like a dancing jellyfish as Nigel moved up and down the road-junction. At last it came to rest on a gate in the hedge. “Look at this,” he said.
There was a chalk sign on the gate-post. “That’s a tramp’s sign,” Nigel said. “They leave them about—information as to what houses keep fierce dogs, or can be relied on for a square meal, and so on.”
“Well, that explains why those two men turned off the main road here. Major Keston must have a soft spot in him for tramps.”
“Oh dear me, no. You see, I happen to know this particular sign means ‘Don’t come this way. Nothing for you.’ So what?”
Georgia gasped. Her quick mind flashed the implications. Major Keston’s was the only house along that road, so the sign must refer to it. But the tramps would never have left the main road unless they were sure of hospitality in that direction. And the sign told them plainly they wo
uld not get it. Therefore they were not bona-fide tramps. Then why on earth should——?
Nigel broke into her thoughts with, “You see what it means. It’s possible even that they chalked that sign themselves, to stop any real tramps coming up this way. It looks as if the major and his misguided friends wanted to be alone.”
“Possibly the boys are celebrating a Black Mass to-night. But why go to all this trouble? Why not roll up in expensive cars?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. What about another walk after dinner?”. . .
Night keeps her old mysteries in the country. There are dark hints in the air: a chilling breath rises from the ancient earth and lifts the hair on your neck: owls shriek and flit as if the furtive darkness itself had grown wings and found its voice. The lighted window beckons you to hurry home, and once you are inside the night draws back baffled. Glancing at Nigel across the dinner-table, Georgia could no longer believe in the little shudder of premonition that had passed over her spirit, like a catspaw, when he suggested they should go up to Yarnold Farm to-night. How many nights have I slept out in the jungle, in deserts, in friendless and unchancy places, she reminded herself, and yet the idea of a starlit walk in the heart of England made me uneasy. It’s absurd. The whole thing’s fantastic.
“What came ye out for to see?”—a retired major of Indian Police, a respectable, commonplace citizen, whom—on the strength of a locket and a couple of tramps—we are suspecting of some nameless villainy. Serve us right if we catch nothing but a chill.
The more she thought of it, the less rational their conduct appeared. Nigel was buried in a book, the image of a placid householder taking his ease. The electric light shone mildly down through its parchment shade on a scene of domesticity—on two harmless-looking people, she said to herself, who harbour the most verminous, noisome and unneighbourly thoughts. Nigel looked at his wrist-watch. “Ten-thirty,” he said. “We’d better be trotting along. I should wrap up well, if I were you.”
“And bring my sub-machine-gun?” she replied.
“I’m afraid you’re not taking this seriously.” Nigel was smiling quizzically at her; but at last she realised, with mingled excitement and exasperation, that he himself was taking it very seriously indeed.
The sky, when they trudged up the lane once more, was pricked out with frosty stars. A sliver of new moon hung over their shoulders, and the earth gleamed faintly like an old mirror. Every now and then a breath of wind stirred the bare boughs, as though the earth, turning over in her sleep, had sighed. Their feet on the lane’s rough surface seemed to shatter and grind the silence into a thousand harsh fragments. Now they had reached the summit. They moved quicker, more silently now. Beyond the next curve lay Yarnold Cross—and a thing that, though Georgia might have expected it, took her utterly by surprise. Rounding the bend, they saw, a bare fifty yards in front, the ghost of Yarnold Cross. It stood where the four roads met, a tall figure, light playing over the arms that moved in a weary effort, up and down, up and down. A sound came out of its mouth—a kind of howling shudder, which was answered at once by Georgia’s screams and the panic padding of their feet as they raced back along the lane.
At a safe distance they stopped. “Blast!” panted Nigel, “I should have thought of that. It’s a perfect place for them to post a sentry—and that legend to back it up. Well, it shows they’ve got some fun and games going on. You showed great presence of mind screaming like that. Let’s hope they think we’re a pair of village swains and they’ve scared us off for good.”
“Sh. Just listen a moment. . . . Why aren’t Major Keston’s dogs barking? With all the shindy we kicked up——”
“They’re being silenced. Yes. It must mean that people are moving about down there to-night, and he doesn’t want any one to know it. We’d better make a detour. Could you find your way to that wood overlooking the house?”
Georgia’s wonderful eye for country, and the map she had made in her head, now came in useful. Climbing a gate, they struck off across the dark upland, the turf silent beneath their feet. It was a difficult journey, because they dared not break through the hedges that stood in their path and had to find gates or gaps through which they could pass noiselessly. At last a deeper bulk of gloom showed up in the darkness before them—the wood that sloped down to Yarnold Farm from the north. When they reached its edge, Georgia gripped Nigel’s wrist and drew him close beside her.
“I’d better go ahead by myself now,’ she whispered.
“You wouldn’t be able to see much in the dark, and it’s going to be a job getting through this wood quietly.”
It was typical, both of Nigel and the relationship between them, that he attempted no protest. He knew that she could find her way about in the dark like a cat, whereas he himself would probably resemble a squadron of tanks if he tried to penetrate this tangle of trees and bushes. “Very well. Take care of yourself,” he said. “I’ll expect you when I see you. I’ll just sit here and think.”
The next moment Georgia was gone, slipping like a shadow into the wood. A faint swishing of boughs was all that marked her progress, and soon that noise too faded out. Nigel set his mind to work on the strange problem which had brought them here. It was like trying to reconstruct the anatomy of some prehistoric monster, with only a few scattered bones to guide him. The original theory of blackmail could surely be counted out. Drawing upon his phenomenally accurate memory, Nigel set out the pieces of the puzzle. (i) The locket, (ii) Major Keston’s inquisitiveness, (iii) the position of Yarnold Farm, its remoteness from other dwellings, its proximity to the coastal road and the sea, (iv) what Harry had told him about the major, and the scandal that had compelled him to resign from the Indian Police, (v) Major Keston’s eagerness to get them out of the house this evening, taken in conjunction with the arrival of the bogus tramps. How many more “tramps” might have been making their anonymous way to Yarnold Farm to-day? (vi) the “ghost” at the cross, which had begun to appear again after the major’s arrival in Folyton.
So absorbed was Nigel in his problem that only his subconscious mind noted, some time later, the hum of a lorry distantly carried over from the direction of the coast, approaching, stopping somewhere in the valley below. Minutes alter the lorry’s hum had ceased, Nigel remembered that he had heard it. “So that’s it,” he muttered. “No, it’s grotesquely improbable. But what else could explain it all?” With increasing anxiety now, he awaited his wife’s return.
Meanwhile Georgia had worked her way patiently through the wood, and looked down on the shadowy bulk of Yarnold Farm, where a light still burning in some downstairs room threw a patch of white, like frost, onto the front lawn. Presently a figure was standing in this patch, back turned to her, staring towards the downland that divided Yarnold Farm from the sea. The figure returned to the house, and for what seemed an age no sound or movement came. Her ear, trained to danger, could detect nothing which suggested that the alarm given by the ghost-sentry had been followed up. Excitement ebbing from her, the cold beginning to strike through the layers of thick clothes she had put on, she felt the whole thing must be a false alarm too. The ghost was some village lad playing the goat, the figure down below had been just the major taking a breath of fresh air before turning in for the night. At this moment, as if to clinch her disappointment, the light in Yarnold Farm went out.
Georgia was tenacious, though. Some unlikely event might still happen, and she was determined to wait on the off-chance. If she had known what to look for, she might have prowled down closer to the house, in spite of Nigel’s insistence that she should not run any risk of being seen. For half an hour she stayed there, leaning her back against a fir. At last something broke the quiet innocence of the night—a sound innocent enough in itself, the distant hum of a lorry. Idly, Georgia listened to it. Then she stiffened. The lorry, surely, was not passing along the main road. Its sound came from straight ahead, from the direction of the sea. But that was only the road that led to Cathole Cove, she remembered. What
was a lorry doing, travelling from the cove at this time of night?
A few minutes later Georgia slumped back disappointedly. She had expected the lorry, on reaching the main road, to cross over and attempt the corkscrew lane which led up to Yarnold Cross. Instead, she saw its lights flash out, and it had turned left along the main road, which, just beyond this point, curved in towards Major Keston’s land. “Damn! All this for nothing. It’d just lost its way or something. I suppose there was some fold of the ground that prevented me seeing its lights,” she thought. She was so annoyed with herself, Nigel, the whole set-up, it took her several seconds to realise that the whine of the lorry’s engine had stopped.
In a moment, flitting like a tawny owl, she was off down the hillside. Making a wide sweep to keep away from the house, she gradually neared the main road. Still she could see nothing but a vague glow from the lorry’s lamps. She must get nearer, she must. Here was a lofty, tangled hedge, a boundary of the major’s property, that led down to the road. Keeping in its cover, she advanced step by step. At last the road gleamed palely before her. She wriggled down silently into the ditch that ran beside the hedge. She parted the hedge-growth.
There was the lorry, drawn in at the side of the road, the driver hunched up in his cabin as if asleep. Well, he might be asleep, but there were others who most certainly were not—ragged, tramp-like men, half a dozen or more of them, who were lifting wooden cases out of the back of the lorry, and carrying them through the gate into Major Keston’s paddock. The cases seemed very heavy for their size: it took one man at each end to lift them. While she watched, the phantom glow of a car’s headlights showed up in the distance. Someone must have been on the look-out. Instantly the back-board of the lorry was fastened up, the ragged men scattered away behind the road hedge, and the belated motorist when he passed saw nothing more noteworthy than a long-distance lorry drawn up at the roadside, its driver taking a nap. The next minute the men were at it again, working with a speed and orderly discipline that, contrasted with their ragged guise, gave the scene an incongruous and nightmare quality. It could not have been much more than ten minutes before the lorry, unloaded, ground off again into the night.
The Smiler With the Knife Page 3
