by Jack Mann
“Is it long since he married her?”
“It’ll be—last Friday in September they coom back, but he took a extry week holiday f’r t’ honeymoon, parson did,” Nicholas said.
“Married in the church here, of course?”
“Noa, tweren’t an’ all. ’T’were in Lunnon, an’ I can tell thee exactly wheer, too, f’r t’ church got t’ same name as t’ church wheer I wur born—christened, I mean. Saint Alphege, it is—odd name f’r a saint, which is why I remember it so well.” He spelt the name out for Gees’ benefit. “I read it i’ our paaper, afore he coom back wi’ her, an’ it fair knocked me silly, him wi’ all that family a’ready. An’ his church’s name was funnier’n what mine was, because it worn’t only Saint Alphege, but Saint-Alphege-by-the-Wall, which don’t maake sense, to me!”
“Easy,” Gees said. “In the old days, the church stood against the city wall, or some wall enclosing a nobleman’s estate or something of the sort. And Mr. Perivale took another holiday in November, after—”
“Heere, who been a tellin’ thee that?” Nicholas interposed sharply. “T’ rector niver left this parish arter his honeymoon.”
“Sorry,” Gees said. “My mistake. Of course he didn’t go away again last year. It was February of this year he took a week, of course.”
Nicholas gazed at him sorrowfully, and shook his head.
“I know what ’tis,” he said. “Thee’s starvin’ thysel’, lad. Three sausages an’ two bits o’ kidney I took away on thy plaate this mornin’. Thee ain’t eeatin’ proper—an’ I towd thee about t’ ham, but tha said noa, noan on it! An’ if thee wean’t eeat, thee’ll have delusions, like this. T’ rector ain’t gone outer this parish, ’cept maybe to Loodlow an’ back i’ the day, or to Shrewsbury an’ back i’ the day in Squire’s moty-car, since he coom back hoam wi’ his new wife.”
“My mistake, then,” Gees admitted. “I don’t know how I got the impression that he’d taken the inside of a week away.”
“Mr. Perivale think moor o’ his parish ’n goin’ gaddin’,”
Nicholas said severely, “an’ if thee hears anyone say he’d go away like that, tell ’em it’s a lie right out—an’ have thy fists ready to back it.”
Gees looked at his watch, and decided that he could just make Ludlow and back for the second time before lunch—dinner, Nicholas called it. If he left it till after lunch, there was no possibility of catching Eve Madeline at the office—slender chance of catching her now, in view of her present occupation, but she might be there.
“I’ll remember, especially about the fists,” he promised, “but just for the present I think I’ll take the car and try and work up an appetite, to save me from having any more delusions.”
“That’s a reet good scheme,” Nicholas admitted, “but doan’ thee be laate, sir. Rooast beef and Yorkshire, an’ t’ missus a Yorkshire lass. They’s t’ only ones can maake it, an’, lad, ’tis gradely!”
Thence to the Feathers Hotel at Ludlow—knowing the road well, now, Gees was able to make good time—and through to London on the telephone after only a brief delay, to hear—he breathed a thanksgiving—Eve Madeline’s voice. He had caught her in the office, bless her!
“Ah, Miss Brandon! Morning. How are things at your end?”
“Very quiet, Mr. Green,” she answered. “But you’ve only just caught me. I’m glad you did, so I could ask you—did you get the report?”
“I’ll say I did!” he told her with energy.
“And was it all right?”
“All right? My dear Miss Brandon, it’s the best piece of work you have ever done for me—I’m delighted with it. And now I want you to switch over to another branch of the same enquiry. There is a church somewhere in London called Saint Alphege-by-the-Wall. Got that?”
She repeated the name back to him correctly.
“Find that church,” he bade. “Ask leave to inspect its marriage register for last August and September. Somewhere in those two months you should come across the name Perivale—Arthur
Perivale. Got it?”
Again she repeated back to him—“August and September of last year, Mr. Green—and Arthur Perivale will be the bridegroom, I take it.”
“If he were the bride, I’m Greta Garbo,” Gees told her. “Arthur Perivale. A full and accurate copy of the record of his marriage, Miss Brandon, and—yes. If you can get it at any time to-day, wire it to me in full. No comment or signature, just the record itself.”
“I understand, Mr. Green, but I may not be able to get it to-day. Saturday, you know, and there may be difficulties.”
“Then include it in your Monday’s report, and send that report, even if the extract from the register of marriages is the only thing you have to put in it. Shelve everything else till you get it.”
“It shall be done, I promise you,” she said.
“And I’m registering you a fifty pound note to put into petty cash in case I’m not back in time to pay your next week’s salary. Take out expenses for yourself on a liberal basis as well.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Green.”
“That’s all, Miss Brandon. Good-bye.” He frowned fiercely as he went out to his car. Another letter to write, and no secretary to take it in dictation! But at the post office he saved the situation by getting a registered envelope, putting one of the fifty pound notes he had got in exchange for Hunter’s cheque inside, addressing the envelope to Miss Brandon at his office, and posting it. She would understand—there was no need to write.
When he reached the inn, he found another letter headed from Denlandham House on the die-stamped notepaper. It was quite short.
G. G. G. Green, Esq.
Dear Sir,
I understand you found my cheque in order at my bank. Will you be so good as to make time to call at the House some time this afternoon. An explanation is due to you, and I do not wish you to leave the village without hearing it.
Yours faithfully, ANGUS d’ARCY HUNTER.
Yes, Gees decided, he would go and hear the explanation. Was Hunter prepared to climb down from his high horse—or, now that the cheque was cashed and the proceeds irrecoverable, did he determine to get his money’s worth? If so, the theory on which Gees was now acting went up in the air, a wrong guess to balance his recent right one.
“I’m not sure if ’e’s in the house, sir. If you’ll take a seat—”
The smart parlourmaid did not end the sentence, but went off to look for Hunter. She had only just missed that aspirate, but that and her accent were enough to declare her Cockney, not local produce. There were plenty of seats, though Gees remained standing. This entrance hall of Denlandham House was in truth a hall, occupying probably more than half the depth of the house and a good twenty-five feet from side wall to side wall. It was panelled in old oak for about ten feet from the floor, and lighted only by the glazed roof—it was the full height of the house, with a fine staircase at one side and galleries giving access to the rooms of the two upper floors. The furniture was all Jacobean or replicas of the period, and, set on the top of the panelling except on the staircase side, were paintings in oil, all portraits, the styles of dress of the sitters covering two centuries. Gees recognised this present Hunter as a young man, a handsome, debonair figure in riding kit. But for that corporation of his he would be a good-looking man still, Gees decided generously. He moved to his right—the staircase was on the left—to make closer inspection of the portrait in the centre of the row on that wall. A sea-faring Hunter, this, by his attire, with a couple of pistols in his sash and a cutlass belted at his side. His features markedly resembled those of the other males pictured here, but it was his beard that attracted Gees’ attention. Others were clean-shaven, merely moustached, or with average beards or whiskers for their periods, but this man had a black beard that hid his collar—black, except for a line of vivid white pendent from the left side of his chin. If it were a faithful reproduction, it must have made him a
n arresting being in his lifetime, and possibly was responsible for the decidedly sinister look of him, to some extent. The artist had not flattered him, and, though a fine-featured man, he did not look attractive.
“Are you waiting to see Mr. Hunter?”
Gees literally jumped as he faced from the picture to the speaker, a white-haired, almost ethereal-looking woman in a self-propelling invalid chair. Either its pneumatic tyres rendered it absolutely noiseless, or else he had been too absorbed in his scrutiny of the portrait to hear such slight sounds as it had made in approaching.
“I’m so sorry if I startled you,” she added as he faced her.
“Not at all, madam,” he answered, rather confusedly. “The—er—the maid has gone to look for him. I am in no hurry.”
Her gaze appraised him, even approved him, he thought. He had never heard a sweeter voice, nor seen in a woman of her age—though her condition probably made her appear older than her years—a face of more delicate beauty. And her hands, finely-moulded, lay on the arms of her chair, models that any artist might covet.
“And so you admire Robert’s beard,” she said. “While you wait for his descendant, that is. I think he went to look at our electric lighting set. It’s refusing to charge the battery for my wireless.”
“I think, if it had been my beard, I’d have shaved,” Gees remarked. She laughed, as musically as she spoke. “Oh, no!” she protested.
“See how distinguished it makes him! Think of him swaggering about the village—not with the pistols and sword then, of course—but proud of himself as the restorer of the family fortunes!”
Hunter entered from the back of the hall in time to hear her concluding sentence, and approached them.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Green,” he observed, and to Gees’ surprise he might have been speaking to his greatest friend, by his tone. “I see you’ve already made my wife’s acquaintance.”
“And that of the great Robert,” Mrs. Hunter said. “But I suppose you came to talk business, Mr. Green. I won’t delay you.”
She wheeled herself away, and Hunter made no move to open doors or assist her. Gees saw the front of the wheeled chair strike noiselessly on a door which gave easily at the impact and revealed a drawing-room, as Gees decided by what furnishing he could see. The door swung closed again behind the chair, slowly and without sound.
“I had several doors altered like that for her,” Hunter observed.
“But come along, Green—I’m glad you were able to get here.”
Mystified at the utter change of front, Gees followed him, and found himself ushered into a small, comfortably-furnished room which was given quite a businesslike appearance by a desk and two shelves of files. Hunter indicated a leather-upholstered armchair.
“Now sit down while I apologise,” he bade. “Would you like a whisky-and-soda or anything, while we talk?”
“No, thank you,” Gees answered, and seated himself, still puzzled. Hunter followed suit. “I’m afraid I was in rather a bad temper when I came to see you last night,” he said. “I’m sincerely sorry for practically insulting you as I did, and hope you’ll accept my apology.”
“Why, certainly,” Gees answered without hesitation. “Quite probably I was rather irritating too, as I know I can be at times.”
“You were,” Hunter agreed, and smiled disarmingly. “Well, let’s forget it, since you’re good enough to forgive it. Now—why I asked you to come and see me. About Nightmare.”
“Yes?” Gees asked.
“The fount and centre of all this trouble, as by this time I expect you know as well as I do. The trouble itself is over, May Norris being cured, and the bailiff and his wife leave the place next week.”
“I disagree with you about the trouble being over, as you know,”
Gees told him. “But—about Nightmare, you said. It is the centre.”
“Yes. And far and away the best farm on the estate, but—it’s got to go, as a farm. I shall not let it again. I shall not even try to put another bailiff in the house, but get it managed from outside till after harvest—there is very little to be done, till then, as it’s clean land—Norris kept it well. Further to that, I shall sell off all there is in the rickyard, some valuable stacks of hay and a certain amount of good straw, and divide up the land among the surrounding farms—those adjoining Nightmare fields and pastures. My tenants will jump at the idea of getting hold of land like that.”
“And what becomes of the house and buildings?” Gees asked.
“The buildings can remain,” Hunter answered. “They can be included with part of the land when it is divided up. The house—I shall wait for the autumn rains, choose a day that will protect the buildings from catching—watch for the right wind, as well—and then set fire to the house. Burn it to the ground and clear away the remains.”
“But—” Gees began to protest, and stopped.
“Why not? It’s my own property, and I shall inform the insurance company in advance that I am doing it and will make no claim on them. It’s not illegal—no more illegal than if I burnt one of my old suits.”
“I suppose not,” Gees admitted doubtfully. “Still—” He did not end the sentence, and Hunter resumed in the pause.
“So, you see, Green, the case is closed. Everything, from Robert’s day onward, has emanated from that house—he built this place because of what was there, wouldn’t rebuild there. Oh, and those hedges—they will have to come down too. And then, the case is closed, you see.”
“But is it?” Gees asked doubtfully.
“I want you to be satisfied that it is. You were not satisfied last night, and I didn’t attempt to put it all fairly to you, as I’m doing now. Stay on here if you like, but there’s really no need, and I know your vital interests do not lie here. I want you to feel you have fully earned the sum I agreed to pay you, and that I’m more than grateful for what you have done—you and Perivale between you. That you can leave here with a far more friendly understanding between us than there usually is between our two families, and even if we never meet again you can feel that I shall remember you with real regard.”
For a brief while Gees did not answer. The appeal—it was no less than that, sounded utterly sincere, but—Oh, clever, clever Angus Hunter! Clever Isabella Perivale! He remembered her, faint with fear at sight of him, clutching at the lintel of her husband’s study door—and Hunter, having failed to force him to leave Denlandham, was now tempting him. The voice was Hunter’s—but the motive that it revealed?
“Very good indeed of you, Mr. Hunter. Now if you’d only made things clear like this last night—but that was my fault, I know. I can be the most irritating devil on earth, and I felt like that last night. Now I can pack up with an easy conscience, thanks to you, and point my radiator cap at London to-morrow afternoon.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Hunter said, and Gees knew he was really sincere in saying it. “Now stay and have tea with us, won’t you? My wife sees very few people, and she’ll be delighted if you do.”
“Thank you very much, but I must go and see Perivale. It’s my last chance, to-morrow being his busiest day.”
“Yes, of course. Well”—he stood up—“sorry you have to refuse, Green, but of course I understand. Leaving to-morrow—yes. And we shall not see you in this part of the country again, I suppose?”
“Unless a case should pull me in this direction.” In uttering the words, Gees felt himself as clever as Hunter had just been.
“Well, you have all England to choose from—all the world, I might say, so probably Denlandham will be no more than a memory to you after tomorrow. Not an unpleasant one, I hope. Good-bye, Mr. Green, and I wish you plenty of cases and as much success in them as you have had in finishing mine for me.”
