Touch and Go

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Darling Ran, you never were in, so he couldn’t cut you out. And he won’t like it a bit if he hears you calling him an old gentleman. You’re not telling me any of those thousand things, you know.”

  “I come to them, and the first one it is a question. How do you find yourself here?”

  “Very comfy, thanks.”

  “They are amiable to you?”

  I If you like to put it that way.”

  “What is wrong with how I put it?”

  “Well, I should say they were very nice to me.”

  Mr. Darnac rolled the word about his tongue as though it were a sweet whose flavour he disliked.

  “Nice—nice! Oh, mon dieu, what a word! A nice cup of tea—a nice day—a nice girl—a nice dance—a nice dinner! Oh la la! But now, Sarah, tell me—that Mr. Brown over there who makes his court to the old lady, who is he? Is he a friend of the family?”

  “He’s a client of Mr. Hildred’s. He has come down here to sketch.”

  “Does one sketch in the middle of the night?” said Bertrand.

  “What do you mean, Ran?”

  They were sitting in the broad window-seat, half turned towards the sunny garden. Their heads were close together and their voices low. Sarah’s breath came a little more quickly.

  “Ran, what do you mean?”

  “Well, he intrigues me, that one. But you have not answered what I asked you—is he the old friend of the family?”

  “No, I told you he wasn’t. Mr. Hildred is a solicitor, and he’s just one of his clients.”

  Bertrand nodded.

  “Very well then, he intrigues me very much. He also has a room at my Cow and Bush, you understand.”

  Sarah raised her eyebrows.

  “Your Cow and Bush?”

  “Ma foi, yes—since I am living there. If you had not a heart of stone, you would be touched by my devotion. It is not everyone that would stay at a Cow and Bush for you, my angel. Well, j’y suis et j’y reste. And in the next room to mine there is this Mr. Brown. Do you know this Cow and Bush? See—the stair goes up from the hall, and at the top of the stair on the left-hand side there is my room, and on the right-hand side there is his room. The landlord he shuts his door at half-past ten and we all go to bed. We have drunk beer and we sleep. But me, I do not like beer, and so I do not drink it and I do not go to sleep. I read a book, I sit at my window, I put out my light and look at the moon and think about all sorts of things—perhaps I think about you.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” said Sarah.

  Bertrand looked hurt.

  “I find your disposition very hard and unfeminine. I tell you that I think of you alone at midnight, and you say ‘Fiddlesticks!’”

  Sarah laughed again.

  “Get along with your story, my child! You’ve nut in the local colour very nicely. Now let’s get down to what happened. I suppose something really did happen?”

  He nodded.

  “I sat there, and I thought how much I hated beer and how much I adored you, and the moon went behind a cloud, and perhaps I got a little sleepy. And then all at once I heard something.”

  “What?”

  “I did not know. I looked out of the window. There was a little light, but not very much. I saw someone get out of Mr. Brown’s window and climb down the wall. There is a pear-tree fastened against it, so it is quite easy for anyone to climb up and down. Well, he went down into the garden, and he went away round the house walking like a cat without any sound at all. I do not know what that first sound was—perhaps he knocks something over. But there were no more sounds. I think to myself, perhaps it is a burglar and he has been stealing Mr. Brown’s money, so I go to his room and I knock upon the door. There is no answer. Then I take a candle and I go in, and there is no one there. And then I wonder about this Mr. Brown, and I go to bed and I go to sleep, and I do not know at what time Mr. Brown comes back. That was the first night that I was here. I have been here three nights, and every night this Mr. Brown has climbed out of his window. I find it irregular, even a little—what do you say?—fishy.”

  It was at this moment that Geoffrey Hildred came back into the room.

  “A call from my office,” he explained. “I am on holiday, but unfortunately they know where I am. You can’t really get a holiday unless you can get away from the telephone. Marina, my dear, I’m thinking of cutting the wires.”

  “My dear Geoffrey!” And then, “Mr. Brown was just asking me whether we hadn’t any photographs of the boys—of Henry and Jack. He thinks he may have met Henry some years ago. But I was telling him that we haven’t any photographs at all—not here. Poor Henry never would be photographed, and the others were so young when they—when Jack was killed. Poor little Lucilla’s father, you know. He was only twenty. I have some snapshots taken when they were children, but I haven’t got them here. But of course there would probably be copies up at Holme Fallow—wouldn’t there, Geoffrey?”

  “I don’t know of any,” said Geoffrey Hildred, “unless—” He turned to Mr. Brown. “Now that’s a very funny thing, Brown, we had a burglary up at Holme Fallow the other day—the house broken into, a man’s muddy foot-marks all over the place—and the only thing interfered with was an old desk which held papers and photographs. The lock had been forced. I don’t really know why it was kept locked, because there was nothing of value in it, but I suppose the fellow hoped to find something worth having, and then perhaps he was disturbed or something alarmed him. Anyhow nothing of any value was taken. Everything in the desk had been turned over, but it is quite impossible to say whether anything is missing.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Brown in his quiet way.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Mr. Brown and Mr. Darnac stayed to tea.

  Sarah was not quite sure afterwards who first started the idea of a picnic. She had been a good deal taken up with her own thoughts, and when she emerged from them it seemed to be a settled thing that there was to be a picnic, and the sooner the better, because no one could expect such wonderful weather to go on for ever. It would have to be a lunch picnic, because the evenings had begun to close in. The only point which hadn’t been decided was where they should go. The question was being debated by the Hildred family, with the three outsiders as audience. The choice seemed to lie between the Roman camp on Burdon Hill, Trant Woods, and Burnt Heath. Lucilla fancied the woods. There was a stream, and there would be scarlet toadstools in a clearing.

  Miss Marina instantly vetoed woods—“Far, far too damp, my dear.” Whereupon Lucilla made a face and joined Ricky in voting for the Roman camp—“And two of us can bicycle, and Sarah can take two more in The Bomb.”

  Miss Marina looked shocked.

  “But, my dear, you can have Giles and the Daimler.”

  Lucilla blew her a kiss across the table.

  “Darling, we don’t want him. It would be exactly like a personally conducted tour, and if you won’t let me go in The Bomb—”

  “Oh, my dear child—no!”

  Lucilla sighed.

  “Well, I’d rather bicycle than be conducted by Giles. That’s two on the bikes and three in The Bomb.”

  “But what about Miss Hildred?” said Sarah.

  Miss Marina explained in tones of horror that she never went for picnics—Mercer wouldn’t hear of it for a moment—Mercer didn’t really think she ought even to sit out in the garden as late in the year as this—only this morning Mercer had said quite sharply, “After all, ma’am, we’re in October, and you oughtn’t to forget it.”

  Sarah turned to Uncle Geoffrey.

  “But you’re coming—aren’t you?”

  “Well, I’m afraid not. That call I had just now obliges me to go up to town. I shall have to leave you to get into mischief without me.”

  “I hope no one will get into mischief at all,” said Miss Marina firmly.

  Sarah retired into her thoughts again. There was something she wanted to say, but she didn’t quite know the best way of getting it said. Bertrand’s story
about Mr. Brown and his midnight wanderings had given her a lot to think about. She wondered if it was he who had frightened Lucilla. She could imagine no reason why he should have done so. The fact remained that Lucilla was convinced that someone had played a trick to frighten her, and if Mr. Brown was given to mysterious wanderings at night, it might have been he. The mysterious something which had dashed itself against the window might have been an owl, but Sarah wasn’t able to feel as certain of this as she would have liked. Lucilla obviously did not believe that it was an owl. She believed that someone was trying to frighten her, and that this someone, having discovered that it was Sarah who was now occupying the blue room, would run no further risks. But if this someone—who might be Mr. Brown—could be induced to believe that Lucilla had returned to the blue room, he might make another attempt. Sarah thought she would dearly like to catch him at it. She hadn’t forgotten the horrid moment between sleeping and waking when she had heard that clawing on the window-pane.

  It was all very well, but how was she going to convey the necessary information to Mr. Brown, or to whoever else the owl might be? She hadn’t altogether excluded Ricky from her suspicions, and he was of the age for a practical joke of a rather clumsy kind. You can’t just burst into a conversation about plays (this was Uncle Geoffrey, who seemed to have a passion for the theatre), picnics (Ricky, Lucilla, and Ran), and the horrid prevalence of jazz (Aunt Marina)—you can’t just burst in on all these things with a bald “I slept in the blue room last night, but Lucilla’s going to sleep there to-night.”

  What made it all the more difficult was that Uncle Geoffrey and Aunt Marina were both addressing their conversation to Mr. Brown, who replied to them alternately. He seemed to be keeping his head, but it was not to be supposed that he could have much attention to spare for any observation that Sarah might make. Yet in the end it was he who gave her her chance. The three-cornered conversation languished. Uncle Geoffrey was appealed to by Lucilla, and Aunt Marina became occupied with the teapot. Whereupon Mr. Brown turned to Miss Trent and asked her if she were an early riser.

  “There was such an uncommonly fine sunrise this morning.”

  “Ah, that means rain,” said Geoffrey Hildred, striking in.

  Mr. Brown persisted gently.

  “Did you see it? The colours were really wonderful. But perhaps your windows look the wrong way?”

  Here was Sarah’s chance, but it was offered to her in such a way as to strengthen all her suspicions. She said, smiling sweetly,

  “I might have seen it if I’d been awake.”

  Geoffrey Hildred intervened again.

  “Oh, hardly, I think. Your windows—”

  “Oh, but I’ve been sleeping in Lucilla’s room, which has a window to the east. I should have seen the sunrise beautifully if I hadn’t been asleep. I’m the world’s best sleeper, you know.”

  Miss Marina looked across the table with a worried frown.

  “But, my dear, wasn’t your own room comfortable?”

  “Oh yes, lovely,” said Sarah. “We just thought we’d change for a night or two. I’m going back to my own room to-night.”

  “But, my dear—”

  “It was too, too blue,” said Lucilla plaintively. “I felt a little pinkness would do me good. I was getting the blues all over—like the mould on a cheese. You know, they always say on the lids of things, ‘Mould does not impair contents,’ but I don’t like it terribly myself.”

  Miss Marina looked completely bewildered.

  “My dear child, mould? Are you feeling ill? Would you like me to send for Doctor Drayton?”

  Ricky burst out laughing. It was rather a rude laugh. Sarah gave him a black mark for it. She didn’t find herself liking Ricky Hildred very much. He mooned about after Lucilla, gave himself possessive airs towards her, and sulked when she snubbed him. It was quite obvious that he had no love for Miss Trent, and Miss Trent, who was unaccustomed to being disliked by young men, found herself a good deal irritated. She also considered him ill-bred, ill-mannered, and a dreep. She conveyed as much of this as it was possible to convey with a pair of finely expressive eyes, and devoted her attention to soothing Aunt Marina. In this she was ably assisted by Mr. Brown. If it hadn’t been for her suspicions, she would have found herself liking him a good deal for his courteous manner and pleasant talk.

  When they went up to bed that night, Lucilla came into the pink room with her and said,

  “Are you really going to turn me out? I very nearly screamed at tea when you said we had changed rooms and were going to change back again. Why did you?”

  “I want to find out who’s trying to frighten you,” said Sarah.

  That bright, strange flush came into Lucilla’s face. She looked eagerly at Sarah, opened her mouth as if to speak, and then shut it again. After a moment she said,

  “What are you going to do?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “I didn’t say I was going to do anything. When you’re ready for bed, draw back the curtains, and stand up in the window with the light on. If anyone’s watching, they’ll know that you are there, and then we shall see whether the owl comes again or not.”

  Lucilla averted her eyes. She was pale again. She said in a small, uneven voice, “It isn’t an owl,” and ran quickly out of the room.

  Sarah sat down and read for half an hour. Then she took off the dress which she had worn for dinner and put on a soft dark brown woolly suit and dark shoes and stockings. She switched off the pink-shaded light, opened the door a little, and looked out.

  The passage was dark, but there was a thread of light under Lucilla’s door, and when she came to the corner and looked round the turn, there was another bright line under Ricky Hildred’s door.

  She went back and sat in the dark for the most interminable time. Looking for threads of light is a game that more than one can play. If Ricky was playing tricks, he might want to be sure that she was asleep before he got going.

  After what felt like several months Sarah looked out again.

  There was no light under Lucilla’s door.

  There was no light under Ricky’s door.

  She took her shoes in her hand and went in her stocking feet to the head of the stair. It was as dark as it could be without being pitch dark. She could see the shade of the window that lighted the staircase, and she could discern the black well of the stair. She began to go down with her left hand on the baluster rail, slowly, one step at a time, until she came down into the empty hall. When she had passed the baize door which led to the kitchen premises she breathed more easily. She had planned to get out of the house by way of the servants’ sitting-room, because if anyone was playing tricks outside Lucilla’s window, she wanted to catch him at it. She only wished she had a better torch. She would have liked the one the burglar had been using at Holme Fallow—a really useful torch. She didn’t know whether there would be a moon or not, but if there was one there was, and if there wasn’t there wasn’t—she couldn’t do anything about it.

  She groped her way to the door of the servants’ room. As soon as she was inside she put on her torch. A warm flavour of cigarette smoke hung upon the air. Sarah wondered whether Mercer smoked, and what on earth Aunt Marina would say if she knew. She tried to picture Mercer with a cigarette, and failed. It simply wouldn’t fit in with her neat fussy fronts, her discreet voice, and her air of keeping herself to herself. Watson smoked of course, and probably the cook. She thought Mercer would get a good deal of quiet pleasure out of disapproving of them and telling Miss Marina how much she disapproved. She laughed a little as she opened the window and got out over the ledge.

  She drew the sash down to within about an inch of the sill, put her torch in her pocket, and began to make her way round the house.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The servants’ wing was screened off by a shrubbery. Sarah blundered into a holly bush and pricked herself. Presently she was clear of the shrubs and moving along the terraced walk between the house and the g
arden. Uncle Geoffrey’s window looked this way. Aunt Marina’s windows looked this way, her bedroom first, and then her sitting-room, with the glazed-in balcony which marked the middle of the house. These had been Mrs. Raimond’s rooms. She glanced up as she passed. The house stood black above her, and all the windows were blank and dark. A spare room came next, with its dressing-room. Then her own room. Then Lucilla’s.

  She came to the corner of the house, and hesitated. The window she wanted to watch was round the corner, looking east. There was an open gravelled space with a belt of trees and shrubs beyond. Gravel is the most abominable stuff to walk on if you want to move quietly. This particular gravel was of the malignantly crunchy kind, and she blenched at the idea of crossing it. Instead, she felt her way down the stone steps at the end of the terrace and took a narrow path which led to the back of the shrubbery.

  It was while she was standing at the corner of the house making up her mind what to do next that she realized that there was a moon. The sky over the trees showed light, with a dappled mass of cloud banked up almost to the zenith, and she was only half way down the steps, when the cloud-wrack rifted, and the moon came out. The shadow of a tall yew lay black as ink across her way, and the terrace, the upper half of the steps, and she herself were all bathed in moonlight. Sarah jumped three steps, scrambled the rest, and plunged into the shadow of the yew. There must be a wind high up to move the clouds like that. It had been quite dark when she climbed out of the window. It was all rather disconcerting, and she found herself breathing quickly. She could have been seen on the steps from any of the windows which looked this way. Well, who was there to see her? Aunt Marina wouldn’t be hanging out of her window at midnight, and Uncle Geoffrey looked as if he would be one of your strong, persevering sleepers. That rosy complexion and that bright blue eye didn’t suggest a burning of the midnight oil. The spare room was empty, and there remained only Lucilla’s windows and her own.

  She began to make her way along the shrubbery path. It was a narrow path, heavily shaded by great mounds of yew, and holly, and laurustinus, but between the shadows there were disconcertingly bright patches. Sarah had to keep reminding herself that there was nothing criminal about walking in the garden at an unorthodox hour. She would really have given anything to run back to her room—“And you’re not going to do that, Sarah my girl, so it’s not the slightest use bleating.”