by Cyril Hare
Pettigrew required nothing else except some further information to satisfy his curiosity about the Gorman family, and this was denied him. Doreen had gone some way to clear up the question of Gilbert’s identity, and he knew from Eleanor that Jack was identical with the Daddy who was expected to allow his daughters to leave the electric light on—a sidelight on Jack’s character which he had not expected. But this still left a number of questions unanswered. Pettigrew postponed their consideration until he had disposed of his tea. Eating clotted cream and honey in bed may be among the highest of human pleasures, but it demands from its votaries undivided attention if it is to be accomplished without disaster to the bed-clothes. The tray removed (by a subdued and silent Mrs. Gorman), he pondered at length the various problems raised by the evidence, and amused himself by fabricating a number of theories to account for them. Then Eleanor came in, and with her assistance the theories became progressively more and more fantastic. It was merely idle curiosity on his part. The affairs of the Gormans and their congeners could be of no conceivable interest to him. But it served to pass the time—served, too, as an excuse for shelving once more the question which, at the back of his mind, he knew would have to be faced sooner or later.
He slept badly again that night.
CHAPTER VIII
An Old Friend
On Monday morning Eleanor found it necessary to go into Whitsea to shop, and after the usual business with the thermometer decreed that her husband was to stay in bed until the afternoon, when he might get up. Once more Pettigrew was left to his own devices. He demanded nothing better. It was just the opportunity he needed for some serious reading….
Despite the heroine’s initial absurdity, the thriller really turned out very well. Pettigrew laid it down at last with a satisfied smile. He had guessed the criminal correctly, though admittedly for the wrong reasons. He leaned back on his pillow and stared out of the window at the familiar shapes of Tucker’s Barrows, dark on the horizon. He had not the energy to start another, heavier book. He was not in the least sleepy. There was still some time to go before lunch. He had nothing now to divert his mind from the problem which more or less unconsciously he had been shirking ever since his wife had rescued him by the road side. Was he to go to the police with the story of what he had seen on Bolter’s Tussock, and if so, what was that story to be?
The mood of fantasy in which he had been living two days before had deserted him entirely. In his sober senses he was quite certain that he had seen what he took to be the body of a man at a particular spot, and that it had not been there on his return, perhaps three quarters of an hour later. His duty as a citizen was perfectly plain. But even as he made the resolution, he realized what it would be like endeavouring to explain to a polite but sceptical police sergeant exactly what he had done on that occasion, and why; he heard, as though he were present, the comments of Messrs. Olding and Percy when called upon—as assuredly they would be called upon—to make their statements to the officer charged with the enquiry; he saw himself labelled as a half-witted busybody sent by providence to plague a hard-worked police force; and he wondered whether his duty as a citizen really involved him in all this. After all, he had seen whatever it was that he had seen for a very short time. He was in a highly suggestible state just then. Without admitting any truth to the man Tom’s ridiculous theory, there was always the possibility that he might have been mistaken. And if it turned out that he had been, then he would simply have exposed himself to ridicule to no purpose. The temptation to save himself from all this by simply doing nothing was almost irresistible; but some stubborn element in him resisted none the less.
The conflict was still unresolved when Eleanor returned.
“You’re looking much better,” she assured him.
“I am much better.”
“Well enough to eat lunch?”
“Quite well enough to eat lunch.”
“Well enough to receive a visitor?”
“That depends on the visitor,” said Pettigrew warily. “If it is the girl friend at Minster Tracy——”
“No, it’s not the girl friend,” Eleanor called over her shoulder down the stairs, “Do come up!” Then she said, “I’m leaving you together,” and disappeared.
Pettigrew began to say something, but his protest died on his lips as the open doorway was blocked by the appearance of a broad, bulky figure—a figure, once agreeably familiar, that he had not seen for more than ten years, and which now seemed broader, bulkier and more agreeable than ever.
“Inspector Mallett!” Pettigrew exclaimed. “This is a pleasure!”
“Not Inspector,” said Mallett. “Plain Mister. I retired after the war, with the rank of Superintendent. I thought you knew,” he added reproachfully.
He walked across the room with the almost silent tread that always seemed so remarkable in a man of his enormous size and sat down by the bedside. Pettigrew looked into his wide, honest, intelligent face with something approaching affection.
“Do you know,” he said, “I haven’t thought of you for years, but now you are here I believe you’re the very man I’ve been waiting to see.”
“That,” said Mallett, “seemed to be the opinion of your good lady when I met her in Whitsea this morning.”
Pettigrew could find nothing better to say than, “Oh.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that,” Mallett observed. “I’m sorry, but one loses one’s finesse, living in the country.”
“Don’t apologize,” murmured Pettigrew. “I was just wondering how my good lady knew, that was all.”
“I’m never surprised at anything ladies know and by very few things ladies do,” was the reply. “Do you remember, Mr. Pettigrew——?”
They remembered in good earnest for some time. Then Pettigrew said:
“And what made you retire to this part of the world, Mr. Mallett?”
“It was my good lady’s wish, sir. She came from Exmoor. And now that I’m unhappily a widower, I stay on from force of habit. It’s quiet, but I don’t complain. My hobby keeps me busy.”
“Your hobby? What is that? Bee-keeping or rose-growing?”
“Neither, sir, thank you for the compliment. I leave bee-keeping to Sherlock Holmes. And rose-growing—let me see—that was Sergeant Cuff, wasn’t it?”
“You study the detective classics, I see.”
“Not the classics only, Mr. Pettigrew. Detective fiction of all sorts. This is the hobby I was talking about. I’m writing a book about it. What you might call a treatise—from the professional point of view. Coming to the subject fresh, as I did, I found it full of surprises.”
“I suppose surprise is what the authors are after.”
“Not that sort of surprise only, sir. It’s the way that some of their characters behave that surprises me. Take that book on your bed now, for example. What would you think of anyone in real life finding a corpse in their dustbin and not saying a word about it to the police? Surprising isn’t the word for it. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Quite,” said Pettigrew. “Quite, I was thinking the same thing myself. All the same, there may be circumstances when—— Look here, Mallett, I’d rather like your advice about this …”
And as Mallett leant forward to hear what he had to say, he had the strongest possible impression that this was precisely what his visitor had come for.
*
“Yes,” Mallett was saying thoughtfully, “Yes.” He tugged at the ends of his grizzled moustache in a well-remembered gesture. “And this body—appearance—ghost—whatever you like to call it—looked like what, exactly?”
“That was what Tom asked me.”
“And you couldn’t tell him, because your head was too full of what happened when you were a nipper. I know. But your head’s clear now. What do you say it looked like, now?”
“I’ve only a very vague recollection, you know. I didn’t see it for more than a second or two. It’s difficult to say.”
“Tr
y.”
Under the influence of that calm, compelling tone, Pettigrew tried.
“Flannel trousers and a bluey-grey coat,” he said at last. “Open-necked shirt—white or pale yellow.”
“Hat?”
“No hat.”
“Hair, then.”
“Lightish brown—there might have been a bit of a curl in it.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else. I couldn’t see the face. I’m afraid this is all too indefinite to be much use.”
“On the contrary, it’s very definite, and very useful. It proves one thing, that whatever you saw on Bolter’s Tussock yesterday, it wasn’t the ghost of the man you saw there fifty years ago. I don’t know how he was dressed, but I bet he wasn’t wearing flannel trousers and an open-necked shirt. Breeches and stockings and a collar and tie, more likely.”
“Of course,” said Pettigrew. He began to laugh. “How ridiculously obvious! Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“Well,” said Mallett tolerantly, “you had other things to think of, no doubt. That’s one possibility out of the way, anyhow.”
“Did you ever consider it a serious possibility?”
Mallett shrugged his great shoulders.
“More things in heaven and earth, you know,” he said. “But I shouldn’t have expected it from you, Mr. Pettigrew.”
“I don’t know whether that is a compliment or not. Let’s think about other possibilities.”
“Well, sir, the next possibility is that the man you saw was simply a hiker asleep on the grass, and that while you were gone he just got up and walked away. What do you think of that?”
“Not very much. It’s difficult to say why, exactly, but——”
“I know. Nothing so stiff as a stiff.”
“It’s more likely, if I was mistaken, that what I saw wasn’t a man at all, but just a chance combination of stones and grasses and so on that gave the impression of someone lying there. All the same, I don’t believe it. The question is, would the police believe it?”
Mallett did not answer the question. Instead, he asked another. “Has it occurred to you, Mr. Pettigrew,” he said, “that a body doesn’t get to and from a place like this without someone putting it there and taking it away again, and that anyone carting corpses about is apt to leave traces?”
“Of course,” said Pettigrew. “But the day before yesterday I had hardly the chance——”
“Nobody’s blaming you, sir. What I was getting at is this: supposing there is something here to go to the police about, there ought to be some proof of it on the spot. Wouldn’t it be as well for you to go there again first thing to-morrow with someone—someone with a bit of experience, shall we say?—to check up first? If there’s nothing there, the police aren’t going to believe your yarn. If there is, then you can go straight off to the station and leave it to them to find the clues all over again for themselves.”
“You mean, you’ll come with me and look at the place yourself?”
“That was my idea.”
“I am enormously obliged to you.” Pettigrew felt relieved at thus disposing of his problem, and at the same time ashamed at shifting a burden that was properly his on to another’s shoulders.
“It’s I’m obliged to you, sir, I shall enjoy it. It will be quite like old times. Besides, if anything comes of this, I shan’t be at all sorry to score off Master Percy. Calling you a thief, Mr. Pettigrew! It’s like his impudence. He’s a proper pain in the neck, that fellow is.”
“So you know him?”
“Naturally, I know him. And Mr. Olding too. I reckon to know everyone in these parts. Barring the visitors, there aren’t so many of them.”
“Then you can tell me—is Percy his Christian name or his surname?”
“Both. Percy Percy. It’s dreadful what some parents will do to their children, isn’t it? Enough to give any boy a what-you-call-it complex.”
“What about the man who owned the pony? I never found out his proper name. Is it Tom Tom, by any chance?”
“From your account that will be Tom Gorman. He has the farm at Highbarn. He has been acting as harbourer for the hunt this season, I believe.”
“Harbourer—let me see if I can remember. He’s the man whose job is to locate the whereabouts of a stag, of the proper size—a—what’s the phrase?—a warrantable deer. So that they won’t waste their time on females and small fry. He has to go out first thing in the morning, ‘before the dawn is grey’. Does anyone read Whyte Melville’s poetry nowadays, I wonder?”
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
“I remember wondering what he was when he told me that he needed an obedient horse for his job. Obviously he must have something that will stand still while he spies out the land. Well, that’s Tom Gorman—an important functionary. I’d have treated him with more respect if I’d known. What connection is he to Mr. Joliffe’s daughter?”
“When I said I knew these people, sir, I didn’t mean I knew all about them. You’d have to be born and bred among them to do that. There’s a lot of intermarriage, naturally, and frankly, all their relationships are beyond me. All I do know is that there’s not much love lost between the families.”
“That explains it. This man Tom was perfectly friendly until I mentioned that I was staying here, and then he shut up like a clam, and a very ugly clam at that. What was the trouble about?”
Mallett shook his head.
“It goes back a long way, I fancy,” he said. “I believe it began with a dispute over a will. There’s supposed to be money somewhere in the Gorman family, though Tom hasn’t anything, and there’s not much this end either. Have you met Jack Gorman, by the way?”
“Jack?”
“Your Mrs. Gorman’s husband—Joliffe’s son-in-law.”
“No. My wife only heard of his existence on Saturday. Indeed, we’d taken it for granted till then that Mrs. Gorman was a widow.”
“Oh, she’s married, all right. They say she—but look here, Mr. Pettigrew, I mustn’t waste any more time gossiping. I shall be late for lunch as it is, and my housekeeper won’t be pleased. I’ll be round to-morrow morning. Good-bye till then.”
“Did you have an interesting talk with Mr. Mallett about old times?” asked Eleanor, when she appeared with the tray for lunch.
“You didn’t bring Mallett here to talk about old times,” Pettigrew replied. “Now perhaps you’ll tell me how he knew what I wanted to talk about.”
“Well, dear,” Eleanor said gently, “you had two rather disturbed nights, and you have taken lately to talking in your sleep …”
So it was as simple as that! Pettigrew reflected as he attacked his lunch.
CHAPTER IX
The Gathering of the Eagles
When he was small, Pettigrew used invariably to wake up early on hunting mornings. He would open his eyes to the early light of day with the consciousness that something extremely exciting and rather alarming was going to happen; and it would usually be some time before he was sufficiently wide awake to remember exactly what it was. On the morning succeeding Malleft’s visit, he found himself experiencing much the same symptoms. This time, however, he beguiled his waking moments by reflections that would not have occurred to him then. In particular, he found himself listening for what had roused him three days before—the sound of feet scraping on a lead roof. Presently he heard, not what he was waiting for, but the footfalls of someone walking quietly across the farmyard. Pettigrew told himself firmly that he had no business to spy on the private affairs of other people, but none the less found himself a moment later peering out of window. He was rewarded by the sight of nothing more inspiring than Mr. Joliffe walking from his own back door to his own garage.
Feeling rather ashamed of his vulgar curiosity, Pettigrew was about to get back into bed when as ill luck would have it, Mr. Joliffe looked up and saw him. If he was surprised at the sight he did not allow it to shew on his serious features.
“Good morning, Mr. Petti
grew,” he said politely.
“Good morning,” answered Pettigrew, sincerely hoping that he would not wake Eleanor up. Then feeling that something more was demanded of him, he added rather pointlessly, “You’re up early, I see.”
Very gravely, Mr. Joliffe consulted his wrist-watch.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “A little before my usual time perhaps, but not much. There’s a lot to do before a shop opens, Tuesday mornings especially, we being closed on Mondays. But I dare say it’s early for you, Mr. Pettigrew. Were you looking for anything in particular?”
As Mr. Joliffe looked up at him with his expression of solemn enquiry, Pettigrew felt an insane desire to try the effect of saying, “I was looking to see whether a man would climb out of your daughter’s window.” But even as the thought passed through his mind, he wondered whether the remark would be such a shock to him after all. The eyes turned up in his direction were narrowed against the morning sun striking over the farmhouse roof. Perhaps it was this that gave an effect of slyness to the whole face which he had not seen there before. Whatever the reason, Pettigrew had the sudden feeling that there was some unacknowledged complicity between them.
“Don’t catch cold, Mr. Pettigrew,” said Mr. Joliffe quietly. “It’s a fine morning, but sharp—sharp.”
When Mallett drove up to the door of Sallowcombe, Eleanor surprised her husband by saying with unusual humility, “Would you mind very much if I came with you this morning?”
“Of course not,” Pettigrew murmured, in a tone that any experienced wife could interpret as meaning that he would. He had taken it for granted that this expedition was to be a strictly masculine affair, though he would have been hard put to it to find any logical reason for the assumption. Perhaps it was that so far as Eleanor was concerned he felt, if not ashamed, at least extremely sensitive about the whole business. It had put him in an embarrassing and undignified situation, which as between husband and wife was better passed over in silence. It was far easier to discuss it with an outsider like Mallett, who would look at it in the cold light of the professional observer. But how to convey all this in the presence of a third party at the very moment of departure?
