"We were all agog."
"Well you can de-gog then. I'm better."
"Oh." Her disappointment should have been a bright moral glow of relief at salvation from dastardly sin.
"Sometimes I wonder about you women."
She beamed roguishly. "Only sometimes?"
"I mean, you're all interested when you think I'm going to go ape and axe some poor unsuspecting innocent"—the word nearly choked me—"yet when I'm going straight again you're all let down."
"You must admit, Lovejoy," she was reprimanding, so help me, "it's more, well, thrilling."
"You read too many books for your own good. Or letters."
She accepted the jibe unabashed. "No need to read letters, the way some people carry on. You found quick consolation, Lovejoy."
"What do you mean?"
"I nearly saw her the other night, and her natty little blue pop-pop." She poked her tongue out at me.
I gave a special sheepish grin but shook my head. "I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, no," she mocked. "Just good friends, I suppose."
"It must have been the district nurse."
"Like heck it was. Nurse Patmore doesn't go shoving her bike in the hedge. It's been here twice. I saw it."
"One of the forestry men," I suggested easily.
"On a woman's bike?" She fell about laughing. "You're either kidding or you've some funny friends, Lovejoy. It's an old-fashioned bike, no crossbar."
"You're mistaken." Keeping up my smile was getting very hard.
"Can't she afford a car, Lovejoy? Or is it just that it's quieter in the dark and easier to hide?" She snorted in derision. "You must think we're dim around here."
I surrendered, grinning with her. "A little of what you fancy," I absolved myself.
"They run a book on you down at the pub."
"In what race?"
"The Marriage Stakes."
"Out!" I said threateningly, and she went giggling. "You're probably being raped, according to that nosy lot of Nosy Parkers."
"That an offer?"
"Don't be cheeky to your elders!"
"Any particular cheeks in mind?"
I waved her off, both of us laughing. She pedaled down the path and was gone. I went in to clear up.
Now, Rose starts her work about five, but her actual round only begins once the sorting is ended. That could take up to an hour. So she was around my place no later than six-fifteen in the morning. Her afternoon round was much more variable on account of the number of chats she had to have between the sorting shed and our lane. She must have glimpsed the woman's —if it was a woman—bike at the "ungodly hour" of six A.M. or so. How much light was there at that time? I couldn't remember whether the clocks had been put ahead an hour or whether we still had that to do.
Rose would be out of our lane by now. I locked up, chucked the robin some bread and cheese, and walked down to the lane. It's a curving road no more than twelve feet across, with high hedges of hawthorn and sloe on either side. My own length of it is two hundred feet, dipping slightly to the right as you look at it from the cottage. A house is opposite, set a fair way back from the lane like mine. I hardly ever see him, an ascetic chap interested in boats and lawn mowers, while she's a devotee of amateur opera. As I said, it takes all sorts. They have two grownup children who periodically arrive with their respective families.
Down the lane is a copse, if that's the right word, a little wood joining my garden. For some reason old people once built a gate into the copse, perhaps to let pigs in to rummage for berries or acorns. Now it's derelict and failing apart. Up the lane but beyond another strip of hazels and birch is a cluster of a dozen houses centered on a well, then the lane gradually widens and levels off to join the main road at the chapel.
Since the lane leads down to a splash ford going to Fordleigh, the next village, not much traffic comes along it except for the milk float, sometimes a car risking the ford in exchange for rural scenic delights, and genuine visitors or people out for a walk or cycling. You can get to the village road again that way, but only with a bike or on foot. There's no way through for cars except by continuing on over the river.
Which sets you thinking.
The lane was empty as usual. You can hear cars approaching a couple of miles away. Nothing was coming, and with it being schooltime still, the children weren't yet out to raise hubbub at the chapel crossroads. Whoever intended to watch the cottage from a hidden position would have been wise to either come through the Fordleigh splash and appear in the lane at the copse, or pretend to be out for a quiet country stroll and walk down from the chapel toward the river. Whichever way they —she?—came, she could always duck into the copse and work her way near to the cottage among the trees. There was little likelihood of being seen so early anyway.
Yet there was one important proviso in all this. Does any reasonable morning stroller need a bike, and a motorized one at that? Answer: No. But my visitor did. And why? Because she was a stranger to the village, that's why. You don't go to a village miles away for a morning stroll.
Ail of which meant that my watcher was not a villager, and had come toward my place by crossing the river. She had used a motorized cycle of some sort to ride within walking distance of the copse and pushed the pop-pop into cover while slinking closer to the cottage. Then she'd watched me, presumably to nip in and steal the instrument when it was safe. She? But a forester or a farm laborer would never ride a bike without a reinforced crossbar.
I came to the copse gate. I'd not looked at it for years. You don't scrutinize what's familiar, though I must have passed it a hundred times. My hedge was only thick enough for concealment in two places and they were undisturbed. It had to be here.
My scalp prickled. The gate seemed untouched, but behind the rotting post brambles and hawthorns were crushed. A few twigs were broken and one sloe twig was quite dead, hanging by a slip of bark. Deeper inside, the ground was grooved and clods of dried mud still showed above the vegetation. Some scooters have quite wide tires. Those of the more orthodox bicycle shape have tires thicker than for ordinary bikes but thinner than the tires of, say, a mini-sized car.
I entered the copse with as much care as I could and knelt to examine the ground. It must be a motorized pedal-cycle or something very similar, I thought. The grooves were of a tire fairly thin but of a probable radius about bike size.
There's something rather nasty about being spied on. I once knew this woman friend of mine. We'd been out for an evening and on reaching her home for a light chat and a drink—her husband was abroad—found the place had been ransacked by burglars, whereupon she'd been violently sick. It seemed odd to me at the time, but now I felt nausea rise at the image of a silent watcher here among the trees near the cottage. The intrusion was literally sickening. There wasn't exactly a beaten path through the undergrowth, but the path the watcher had taken was pretty obvious if one assumed the purpose was to get near to the cottage. It took me about an hour of careful searching to find out where she'd waited.
The ground was dry and had that beaten look it gets from being shadowed by trees. One edge of my garden runs adjacent to the copse and it was about midway along it that the watcher had established herself, having a broken stump to lean on. There was adequate protection from being observed. I leaned on the stump myself. You could just about see my front door and the near half of the gravel path. The car was in full view, plus the side window looking into my kitchenette and there was an oblique view of the front two windows. They're only small, so the chance of actually watching me move about inside was practically nil, especially as I'm not a lover of too much light.
And, considering how it's my usual practice to draw the curtains as soon as I switched on, that must make it more difficult. What really displeased me was the horrid sensation—I was having it now on the back of my neck as I imitated my silent watcher— of having somebody peering in. I actually shivered.
Moving further through the copse, I found that
the nearest the ground cover approached the cottage was about a hundred feet, maybe a little more. The trouble was you could see both front and back entrances from the copse. I could neither leave nor enter without being in full view, unless she allowed her attention to lapse, which in view of the trouble she'd taken wasn't at all likely. That was the most worrying feature of the whole business.
Taking care not to displace the brambles, I stepped out of the thicket. One pace and I was on my grass in full view of the cottage window. There had been a fence in the old days, long since rotten. I couldn't help looking back, seeing the copse and hedge in a completely new way. Before, everything had been almost innocent and protective, if not exactly neat. Now, even the odd bush in my lawn was somehow too near the cottage for comfort. And as if that wasn't enough, no sooner was I indoors than I began imagining odd noises, actually hearing them, which is most unlike me. The number of creaking sounds in an old cottage is really very few, but there I was like an apprehensive child full of imagination left alone for the night.
I examined the entire place minutely. The walls were wattle-and-daub, a common construction in East Anglia. These dwellings have been standing hundreds of years. In this ancient method you put sticks in wattle fashion as your main wall structure and slap mud between, adding more and more until it's a wall. Then a bit of plaster and you're home, providing you've a few beams and thatch for a roof. It's cool in summer, dry in winter, and offers the best environment for the preservation of antiques known. Not all the best preservation happens in museums and centrally heated splendor. In fact that environment's a hell of a sight worse for the really good stuff.
Like a fool I found myself peering at the copse from every conceivable angle. What I'd seen of the cottage from the murderer's stump told me it would be impossible, without the help of artificial light, for him/her to see much of me unless I was actually close to the window. The trouble was, whoever stood inside the cottage was equally blinded, because the copse formed a dark opaque barrier at the edge of the grass. Worse, there were two sides of the cottage I couldn't look out from.
I couldn't grumble, though I felt peeved at the mess I was in. I'd told Geoffrey the constable to get lost, alienated all my acquaintances, found myself discredited and scorned and regarded as a mentally sick buffoon without sense or judgment. To undo this would be the work of a lifetime. And it was no good grumbling that the cottage was an awkward shape, remote and rather vulnerable, because what I now regarded as its defects I'd always thought of as marvelous attributes, exactly the sort I needed for my antiques. And my hidden priest hole—now seeming so useless because it could have been made into a lovely airy cellar with a cellar door I could get out of—had seemed in my palmy days a perfect boon. It was private, hidden, and ventilated. Whoever had built the cottage had been wise in the way of country crafts. Two small ventilation shafts each about six inches wide ran from the priest hole to a point about a foot from the outside of the wall, ending in an earthenware grid set in the grass and partly overgrown. I kept the grids clear of too many weeds so the air could circulate. That way there was no risk of undue humidity, the great destroyer of antiques of all kinds.
The chiming clock struck four-thirty, which meant the village shop was still open. Suddenly in a hurry, I collected some money and rushed out to the car, remembering and cursing the locks and alarms for holding me up. I made it with about five minutes to spare. Mrs. Weddell judged me with an expert eye to list any grim details about me suggesting further decadence, but I wasn't having any. Knowing the dour insistence of the Essex villager upon gossip of the most doom-ridden kind, I gave her a ten-watt beam of exuberance and demanded information about her health. That put her off her stride. She was rather sad I wasn't at death's door and became quite miserable when I kept smiling. Added to that I bought enough provisions to feed a battalion and managed to find the right change with many a quip and merry jest, which was one more in her eye. "I've decided that a plump man's a happy one, Mrs. Weddell," I told her. "I'm going to put some pounds on." Exit laughing.
One of the hardest things I've ever done was to drive up to the cottage and not search the copse for the intruder. Whistling flat and nonchalantly, I unloaded the three carrier bags, making myself do it one bag at a time and deliberately controlling the urge to sneak a glance.
The night fell quicker than I'd realized that evening. I couldn't help leaving the curtains alone just to get a good look in the direction of the thicket without risk to myself, but finally had to draw them to keep things seeming normal. I sat with the telly and radio silent all evening, listening, and made a supper by the quietest possible means, though I'd usually have a noisy fry-up. A million times I heard somebody outside. Worse, a million times I didn't hear anything at all. It reminded me of the story about the students' hostel where a studious lad had complained of his neighbor who entertained a girl friend in the next room: "It's not the noise, it's the silences I can't stand!"
The distance across the grass grew shorter in my imagination. You could shoot somebody with fair ease from the cover provided by the bushes, especially if killing was getting to be a habit and you had the unique advantage of possessing a priceless flintlock that could kill without leaving the slightest trace of evidence. Still, no matter what else he tried I was fairly secure. I had enough food, milk, and water to last well over a week, and there was always the phone.
And the loaded Mortimers, waiting patiently and still motionless beneath the flagstone floor.
The phone suddenly rang, making me jump a mile. It was Margaret. She'd heard I was on the mend and chatted a full minute about antiques real and imaginary. It was kind of her and I urged her to ring again when finally we'd run out of things to say.
"I miss you around the arcade," she said. "Are you really better, Lovejoy?"
"Yes, love," I said. "Thanks. I appreciate the phone call."
"Pop around here whenever you want." She lives at Fordleigh. I promised I would, but I wanted friends checking up on me to make sure I was in the pink, not invitations to go visiting. I invented a couple of false promises to entice Adrian, Tinker, and Harry to phone in, knowing Margaret would pass the messages on.
The rest of the night was quite uneventful.
I only wish I'd rested and harbored my strength.
Chapter 14
I didn't sleep a wink. Long before dawn I was up being brave. Today was going to be my round of people. Today the old debonair impeccable Lovejoy would hit the road as politicians do to show how young and thrusting they actually are behind that comfortable rotund shape. It was really something of a confidence trick, but I was going through with it anyway. The night had taught me how alone I was.
Further reflection had increased my nervousness. Despite having the phone and living so near other people, there was one major problem. Whereas I didn't know who'd killed Sheila, the murderer certainly knew who I was. Collecting's a small world. Sooner or later I would come across him, and whether I recognized him or not was irrelevant. The risk I represented was still there.
I drove to George Field's house and collected the replies to his advertisement, some twenty replies, with one catalogue from an overseas dealer casting bread hopefully on distant waters. The ones Field thought most likely turned out dud. Disappointed, I promised to read them with enthusiasm and left.
Muriel Field was next. I enjoyed the drive, but exactly how many times I caught myself looking carefully into the rearview mirror I'll never know. The one blue scooter I did see turned out to be ridden by a district nurse. She's probably wondering yet why a complete stranger gave her a glare for nothing when she was in the opposite lane. I didn't recover for miles.
Muriel was glad to see me. I honestly mean that, really pleased. That whole morning was brilliant; every cloud seemed effervescent and the sky a deeper blue than it had ever been. She was radiant, dressed maybe somewhat younger than her age, and looked as though the party was soon to begin. The difference between the anxious, hesitant woman she'd be
en some weeks before and the scintillating beauty I now saw was remarkable. I was coerced into drinking coffee.
"If that heron keeps its distance," I warned.
She laughed. "I promise I'll protect you."
We sat on the patio and made small talk while a crone fetched coffee, Sheffield plate of some distinction, and Spode. The sugar bowl's fluted design didn't quite match but could be passed off as the right thing with luck in a nooky antique shop. My pleasure made me careless.
"I'll remember you above everything else for elegance," I said playfully, and saw her face change.
"Don't talk like that."
"It was a compliment."
"It sounded… so final."
"A joke," I said.
She wouldn't be appeased and set about pouring for us both. "Everything needn't be bad or sad." I felt out of my depth and said so. "I just don't like it when people talk about going away or changing things," she said. "It happens too often without anyone wanting it."
"I was only admiring your coffee set. It would have been terrible if you'd spoiled the effect with a spoon made out of Georgian silver coins." I took my cup and stirred. "Have I put my foot in it?"
"No." She shook her hair, head back and face toward the air as they do.
"I'll be careful in future." That was better. She raised her cup to toast me.
I asked about her upbringing. As she talked I absorbed security and ease all around. No chance of being spied on here, with the two loyal gardeners busy interrupting plants and keeping an eye on the mistress. Inside the house stalwart ancient ladies —infinitely more formidable than any gardeners—creaked and bustled vigilantly. So many things came down to money. Wealth is safety. Muriel chatted on about her father, her many aunts, her mother's concern with spiritualism ("But, then, it was all the fashion in her day, wasn't it?"), and her inherited wealth. Husband Eric had been as wealthy as she, it appeared, when they met.
"Will you stay on here, Muriel?" I asked.
She glanced away. "It depends."
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