Down Under

by Patricia Wentworth

  Oliver received a second impression of power and sureness. It is the man who is sure of himself who disregards the opinion of the world. To be sure is to have power. Mr Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith was quite obviously content to let the world go by. Its belief or disbelief was nothing to him. But if he could help he would. He cared about that.

  Oliver said, “That’s very kind of you, sir. I’d like to know what you believe.” He leaned forward. “Why should Amos Rennard kidnap Rose Anne?”

  Ananias burst suddenly into the silence which followed the question:

  “So fare you well, my pretty young gel,

  For we’re bound for the Rio Grande.”

  He was not very severely rebuked, and he continued to murmur, “Rio—Rio—Rio—” under his breath.

  Mr Smith looked into the fire. The new log was burning now, the old log was dust. He said,

  “I have not been able to—er—discover that any of the people whose disappearances I connect with Amos Rennard had red hair. I should not—er—have expected it. You will remember that I expressed this opinion when you asked if the dancer Violette de Parme had red hair. In my view of his character Amos Rennard would not desire to see his—er—family colour made—er—common. I have a great deal of—er—evidence to show his—er—pride in his red hair and his strong desire that it should be hereditary. He married a red-haired woman himself, and I think we may assume that he would bring considerable pressure to bear on his sons to do the same.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” said Oliver, “you haven’t attempted to answer it. What in heaven’s name has all this to do with Rose Anne? Why should he kidnap Rose Anne?”

  Mr Smith looked at him with compassion.

  “How can I answer you, Captain Loddon?”

  Oliver sprang up.

  “I want a plain answer. What are you suggesting?”

  “This,” said Mr Smith in a tired voice. “If one of the Rennard sons had met Miss Carew and—er—fallen in love with her, it would seem from your own account that there is sufficient red in her hair to warrant the supposition that she might be an acceptable bride.”

  “Sir!”

  “It is only a theory. There may be some other reason. But if my theory is correct, I do not think that you need give up hope of being in time to rescue Miss Carew. I really mean this, Captain Loddon. From every account which I have had of him, Amos Rennard has an extreme partiality for—er—ceremony. It was, I believe, a—er—passion with him. If there was to be a wedding in the family, he would make it an affair of state. His sense of family was, even in the old days, an inflated one. In what I believe to be his present circumstances it may very easily have become a monomania.”

  Oliver walked to the end of the room and back. He felt as if his head would burst. He passed the parrot’s perch, and caught a murmur of “Way down Rio.” Then, standing directly in front of Mr Benbow Smith, he said,

  “What is it you believe about him? You say, ‘his present circumstances.’ What are they?”

  Mr Smith looked past him.

  “I believe that he has made himself a State. I believe that he rules over it, an absolute dictator. I believe that he recruits for it with the utmost ability and lack of scruple. I believe that he has made himself a king.”

  “Where?” said Oliver Loddon. There was sarcasm in his voice, but there was horror too. The thing was unbelievable—but what if it forced itself upon his belief? He said “Where?” again, and Mr Smith answered his question with another.

  “Amos Rennard was not called the Old Fox for nothing. Where does the fox go when the—er—hounds press him too hard?”

  The fox goes to earth. The words said themselves somewhere in Oliver’s mind. He could not say them aloud. He had no power to say anything at all.

  CHAPTER X

  Oliver went back to Hillick St Agnes. He took a late train which landed him at Malling just before eight in the morning. In the interval he had slept, his first real sleep for a week. His interview with Mr Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith had done something to him, he did not quite know what. His dull hopelessness was gone and his conviction that he had lost Rose Anne for ever. He did not accept Mr Smith’s amazing theories, but they had opened possibilities of action. They had in some inexplicable way broken the tension of his mind and eased its strain. He was stimulated to argument, scepticism, protest, but he was going back to Hillick St Agnes, and in the morning he would go up to Hillick St Anne’s. If there was anything there for John Smith to find, why shouldn’t Oliver Loddon find it too?

  He sat in the train and thought of these things, and quite suddenly fell asleep.

  He got to the Vicarage in time for breakfast. They had no news there. Elfreda looked as if she had not stopped crying all the week. Miss Hortensia sniffed and primmed her lips, and said she supposed it was modern to take your own way without the least consideration for other people’s feelings.

  Oliver had no temptation to linger when the meal was done. He set out on foot, and once clear of the village cut across the hillside to the track which ran up to St Anne’s. Just before he joined it he could look down and see the place where John Smith had gone over the cliff. He frowned at it, and wondered. Impossible to believe that any man with a brain in his head would have ridden a bicycle down that shaly slope and round the double bend. If the man had really been murdered, it was Oliver’s opinion that the murder had been over-staged. The place was just a bit too dangerous for the accident theory to ring true. People don’t ride bicycles down that sort of track unless they are contemplating suicide.

  He walked on to Hillick St Anne’s, and found it a sufficiently depressing spot. There must have been twenty or thirty cottages built of the local stone. Not one had a roof, and only one a wall more than three feet high. In the one exception an end wall stood entire with a window in it. The rotting frame sagged away from the stone. The glass had been gone for half a century. All the people who had ever lived here were dead and gone, their houses a heap, the gardens coarse with weed. There was nothing for John Smith to see here, and nothing for Oliver Loddon. The rusted remains of some winding gear showed him where the shaft had been, but it was all crumbled away and overgrown. He looked over the edge, and saw a tangled mass of weed and bramble. He could not see if it was quite filled in, but there was no path here for a man to climb.

  He stayed about half an hour, and having scrutinised every part of the ruin, came back again to Hillick St Agnes. Why should a man have been killed just to prevent him from seeing the things which Oliver had seen? It was blithering nonsense. John Smith hadn’t been murdered at all. He had tripped over his own feet and carried his bicycle with him down the cliff because he had been a fool to try and take a bicycle along a path like this. But most people were fools anyway. This one had paid for his folly.

  As he came into the village street, Mabel Garstnet emerged from the post office. At any other time Oliver would have lifted his cap and passed on. Mabel was one of those girls who needed no encouragement to catch your eye and giggle. Fanny, the one who was married, had been quite different, not so good looking but much nicer. He remembered her as a cheerful, friendly creature with a nice clear skin and amazing red hair. Mabel’s was darker—and all at once it came to him that it was not so very much unlike Rose Anne’s in shade. And it came to him that it might have been Mabel who had worn the green hat and travelled from Malling to Claypole. He found himself staring at her, and under his gaze Mabel coloured, giggled, and rolled a fine pair of eyes.

  “Oh, Captain Loddon—what a surprise! I’m sure we never thought we’d see you here again. Oh dear, I oughtn’t to have said that—ever so stupid of me, I’m sure, but you know what I mean. I was ever so surprised, but that’s not to say I wasn’t pleased. There’s pleasant surprises as well as the other sort, and I’m sure everyone’ll be pleased to see you back.”

  Well, he’d let himself in for it by staring at her. He said “Thank you,” and, to get away from the personal note, asked
after Florrie.

  “I hope she’s all right again.”

  Mabel turned her shoulder and looked sideways at him. She had admired this pose on the screen and practised it nightly before her looking-glass.

  “It’s ever so nice of you to take an interest, I’m sure. Mother’ll be ever so pleased when I tell her. She thinks a lot of you, Mother does.”

  “Florrie is all right then?”

  “Oh, no, Captain Loddon, indeed she isn’t, poor little thing. Mother’s had to send her away.”

  So Florrie had been sent away. What did that mean? What should it mean? It did mean something. In a bored, casual tone he said,

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Where has she gone?”

  Mabel threw him a glance which said, “Aren’t we on confidential terms!”

  “Ever so bad her nerves were, poor Florrie—kept awake crying and carrying on something dreadful, you’ve really no idea, so Father, he said ‘Give her a change and see what that’ll do.’ And I must be hurrying along, Captain Loddon, or whatever will everyone say—you and me standing talking in the street! Dreadful how people gossip in a village, isn’t it?” She giggled, wriggled, and departed. He thought her one of the silliest girls he had ever met.

  He went back to the Vicarage and got hold of Elfreda.

  “Look here, did you know they had sent Florrie away?”

  Elfreda stared. She had cried so much that her eyes were quite swollen up. She looked heavy and plain, and she sniffed continually.

  “Oh, yes—Mrs Garstnet couldn’t do anything with her. You know she was awfully, awfully fond of Rose Anne.”

  This had not been Oliver’s impression. Florrie had struck coldly upon his mood of grief and strain. She had seemed to care more for the loss of her green hat than for the disappearance of her dear Miss Rose Anne. He said so, but Elfreda shook her head.

  “That’s because you don’t understand children. They’re like that, but it doesn’t mean they don’t care. She just didn’t realise that Rose Anne had gone, but afterwards Mrs Garstnet told me herself that she didn’t know what to do with her.”

  Oliver frowned.

  “Would you send a delicate child away to strangers if it was really in such a state of distress?”

  “I don’t know. The Garstnets did.”

  “Where did they send her?”

  “I don’t know that either. Why do you want to know?”

  “I want to see Florrie. I want to ask her some questions.”

  “Oh, well, Mrs Garstnet would tell you.”

  “I don’t want to ask Mrs Garstnet—I don’t want her to know.”

  Elfreda’s eyes opened as wide as their swollen lids would allow.

  “Oh, well, I could find out easily enough—at the post office. Mrs Tweddell loves talking about how often everyone’s relations write to them and all that sort of thing. I could go and buy some stamps at once if you’d like me to.”

  Oliver walked up and down the garden and smoked a cigarette.

  It took Elfreda twenty minutes to buy her stamps, but she returned full of information.

  “Just fancy—Fanny Garstnet has only written home twice since she was married—isn’t it queer? They weren’t married here, you know, and Mrs Tweddell says people in the village are wondering whether she was ever properely married at all. Only two letters in a year—it does seem odd, doesn’t it? And Mrs Garstnet never writes to her, and Mrs Tweddell says—”

  “Did you find out about Florrie?”

  “Of course I did. She’s with an aunt at Oakham.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “About ten miles from here, over the hills. It sounds rather a grand address—The Place, Oakham. Mrs Garstnet has written three times already. She just worships Florrie, you know. And, Oliver, Aunt Hortensia told me to find out tactfully how long you are going to stay, because of joints and things like that. She’s had a row with Midstock, you know, so she’s getting everything from Malling, and it’s driving us all to drink. Her temper was quite bad enough before.”

  “I’m not staying,” said Oliver abruptly.

  He departed after a most uncomfortable lunch. Elfreda was visibly cheered by his presence, and was therefore singled out for such a snubbing from Miss Hortensia that she burst into tears and left the table. The rest of the meal was a monologue on the subject of modern girls, during which Oliver ate in silence and the Reverend James Carew neither ate nor uttered.

  CHAPTER XI

  Oakham has no station of its own. There is a halt at Sindleby, which is three miles away by road but only a mile by the footpath which runs steeply up to Gibbet Gap and as steeply down again on the other side.

  Oliver took the footpath. He was surprised at his own determination to see Florrie. He seemed to himself to be catching at straws and pursuing shadows, yet his determination to see Florrie remained.

  He found Oakham a pretty, tiny village standing in the circle of oaks to which it owed its name. They were very old trees, relics perhaps of the forest which had once clothed these slopes. The cottages were old too—picturesque, insanitary, and about to fall beneath the weight of years. The church had an archaic look. It stood upon rising ground with its grave-stones about it. The Place was beyond the church, an old stone house with a high stone wall, and within the wall a dense screen of trees.

  At the inn, he learned that the Place was empty. There was a caretaker there, a Mrs. Edwards. This explained the grand address. Mrs Edwards had been there a long time, “getting on eight years”—a very quiet woman, but she had a little girl staying with her just now, her niece, a poor peaked little thing. A lot of red hair she had too. Oliver took his opportunity.

  “Who—Mrs Edwards?” he said, and got a shake of the head.

  Mrs Edwards’ hair had been grey when she came to the Place getting on eight years ago. A woman of fifty she’d be or thereabouts. No, it was the little girl’s hair that was red, and to be sure, it must be in the family, because Mrs Edwards’ son that come to visit her once in a way, he had red hair, and the wife he brought along the last time he came, she’d got hair like a Guy Fawkes bonfire so she had, so ’twas bound to be in the family.

  Oliver walked up past the church, and wondered about Mrs Edwards. Florrie’s aunt might be Mrs Garstnet’s sister or she might not. She might be a married Garstnet, or she might be only an aunt by marriage. He supposed that the Mrs Rennard whose son had gone overboard between Boulogne and Folkestone and of whom all trace had afterwards been lost—well he supposed this Mrs Rennard would be aunt to Florrie Garstnet in some sort of way—a very far-fetched sort of way. He couldn’t think why it should have come into his head, but there it was, and there he was bolstering it up with the thought that this remote village and this long deserted house would be an excellent hiding-place for a woman who wanted to disappear. Only why should Mrs Rennard want to disappear, and what possible reason was there for identifying her with Mrs Edwards?

  He came round the corner of the churchyard upon stone pillars green with age and heavily overshadowed by low, sweeping boughs still brown with autumn leaf. Between the pillars hung an iron gate, a rigid affair like a section of park paling, and on the other side of it, holding to the bars and peering at him through them, was little Florrie Garstnet. He was irresistibly reminded of a monkey in a cage, perhaps because he had always thought that there was something of the monkey about Florrie. She had the long hands—the long, pale hands. Her small face was pressed against the bars. Her eyes regarded him in just the kind of stare with which an animal peers from its cage world into yours.

  He said, “Hullo, Florrie!” and Florrie just went on staring.

  He came right up to the gate, tried it, and found it locked, as indeed he had expected. Florrie edged away from him sideways, still holding to the bars. When she had reached the left-hand pillar she turned a little so as to face him and said,

  “You can’t come in.”

  Oliver laughed shortly.

  “I don’t know that I want
to come in.”

  Florrie said, “Ooh!” and then “What do you want?”

  Oliver leaned on the gate. He was fond of children, and as a rule they were fond of him. What he wanted was to win this odd little creature’s confidence and get her to talk. If you could get a child started, there was as a rule no stopping it. But the very urgency of his need was a handicap. A child is as quick as an animal to sense fear or pain. As he hesitated, Florrie struck in.

  “I know why you’ve come.”

  “Do you?” He managed a friendly smile.

  Florrie nodded so vehemently that her copper curls came bobbing down across her eyes. She took a hand from the bars to push them back.

  “Yes, I do. And Mother said I wasn’t to say a word to no one, no matter how they arst me.”

  Oliver’s heart gave a jump. He said as carelessly as he could,

  “You haven’t told me why I’ve come. I don’t believe you know.”

  Florrie nodded again.

  “Yes, I do. And Mother said—”

  “All right then—you know why I’ve come. Now suppose you tell me.”

  Florrie stared at him.

  “My auntie says people did ought to mind their own business.”

  “Well, this is my business,” said Oliver. “Do you like chocolates?”

  Florrie said, “Ooh!” Her mouth opened a little way, her eyes brightened.

  Oliver produced from his coat pocket a most exciting bright blue box tied up with silver ribbon. He held it in one hand, balancing it, and looked at Florrie.

  Florrie looked at the blue and silver box.

  “Ooh! Is it for me?”

  “Perhaps. I just want you to tell me about the night Miss Rose Anne came to see you.”

  “My mother said I wasn’t to tell no one,” said Florrie.

  Oliver had a qualm. If it had been for anything except Rose Anne’s safety, Rose Anne’s life … He said quickly,