Winking at the Brim (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  There was something more. On rising ground behind the dun-coloured beach was what seemed to be an empty house, a hunting-lodge of sorts, Sally assumed. There were no signs of life in the dwelling, and its windows returned to her gaze a blank, impersonal stare. To the right of it, but higher up and some distance away—a distance Sally found hard to judge—were the ruins of a crofter’s cottage.

  She stepped back to the van, locked it—a reflex action performed merely from urban habit—and walked into the wood of pines. There was a path of sorts which led down to the water’s edge. Pulled up on the sandy shore of what might be called a tiny creek, there was a boat. It was roomy and heavy, the kind of craft which fishermen might use on inland waters. The oars were there, and the planking seemed sound enough. Sally wondered whether Sir Humphrey had hired it to transport his watchers to the opposite shore, since that could be reached, it seemed, in no other way from that end of the loch. She gave the boat a shove, but it was too heavy for her to launch and it remained firmly fixed in the soft damp sand brought down at some time by the river.

  There was something else to see, apart from the boat. This was a wooded island. At first, Sally thought she could see a ruined castle on it. Closer inspection, however, corrected this impression. The oddments of tumbled stone walls, now overgrown and uninterpretable, could be, she thought, the remains of early monastic buildings.

  Sally returned to the hotel and, as she changed her shoes, suddenly realised that, in exploring the loch’s silent shores, she had given no thought whatever to the monster.

  “Still, I’d have noticed it soon enough if it had surfaced,” she thought. It occurred to her that if Sir Humphrey’s young relative and his companion had had a sighting, there must be others in the neighbourhood who had had the same experience. That was, if the boys had been telling the truth. She decided there and then to make what attempt she could to get their story confirmed before the rest of her party arrived.

  She began her attempt after lunch that day, realising, too late, that if she had come to Tannasgan directly, instead of visiting Inverness, she might have had a longer time for questioning the villagers. She began with the innkeeper’s wife and was greeted with peals of laughter.

  “Monsters in the loch! Mere havering!”

  “Sir Humphrey doesn’t think so.”

  “Does he no? Och, weel, ilka mon to his taste.”

  “But there have been sightings on Loch na Tannasg, haven’t there?”

  “No tae my knowledge, but, then, I’m frae Glesca, ye ken, and we’re too lacking in imagination in Glesca, I’ll be thinking, tae be fashin’ oorselves aboot monsters.”

  “But, Mrs. McLauchlin, you must have heard rumours. I mean, living in the hotel as you do, you must have had people here who mentioned seeing the monster, or of knowing somebody who said he had seen it.”

  “Och, some of them wad say anything when they’ve had a dram or two. Monsters, pink elephants, giant spiders climbing doun the wa’, or whatever ither sic daft ferlies wad come intae their fou heids.”

  “But you don’t remember anybody who said definitely—somebody who wasn’t drunk, but who was, perhaps, only frightened or awestricken…?”

  “Awa wi’ ye!” exclaimed Mrs. McLauchlin. “Naebody wha wisna drunk wad be seeing monsters in Loch na Tannasg! Monsters, indeed!” She retired, still laughing.

  Somewhat deflated, Sally thought she would try her luck in the village. The difficulty was to know how and where to begin. She had a fair share of nerve, but it took more than she could muster to begin knocking on doors at random to ask whether the inmates had seen or heard of a monster. She wandered around for a bit and then made her way to the sea-shore. It might be easier to ask somebody down there in the open than to go knocking on doors, she thought.

  There was a solitary figure standing near some flattish, seaweed-covered rocks. Sally walked towards him. His back was towards her as she began to approach, but as soon as he heard her above the sound of the waves he turned round and she saw to her great surprise that it was Jeremy Tamworth.

  “Oh, dear!” she said. “It’s no good asking you!”

  “Asking me what? And what are you doing here? The party doesn’t start until tomorrow.”

  “Come to that, what are you doing here before it starts?” demanded Sally.

  “Oh, I’ve been here a week or more. My old man sent me on ahead to find out whether there’s anything in this yarn about the monster or whether we’ll be wasting our holiday. I’m staying at one of the cottages. It’s empty, so I rented it.”

  “And is there anything in the story? Up at the hotel they say there isn’t.”

  “They’re wrong, then. I’ve sent my old man a wire. There have been lots of sightings; three this summer already. So cheer up and get your camera-finger clicking.”

  “Are you pulling my leg?” demanded Sally.

  “No, no, honest I’m not! Ask anybody you like. Your people up at the hotel must be deaf or daft. Who did you speak to about it?”

  “Mrs. McLauchlin, the landlord’s wife.”

  “And she hadn’t heard the stories?”

  “Well, she said the people who told them must have been drunk.”

  “Oh, well,” said Jeremy, “she might be right, at that. Come on back there with me. I’ve met her. She’s a genial, matey soul. I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll sort her, as they say in her home town. Incidentally, have they told you that the fair Phyllis won’t be joining us for a day or two?”

  “It won’t affect me, as it happens,” said Sally. “I’m playing lone wolf on this trip.”

  “Oh, really? How do you mean?”

  Sally explained about her motorised van.

  “Lucky old you!” said Jeremy. “Well, come on. Let’s pull Mrs. McLauchlin’s ample leg.”

  The subsequent conversation, however, convinced Sally that if there was a monster in Loch na Tannasg, the landlord’s wife was not admitting to any knowledge of it.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Gathering

  “Looked at each other with a wild surmise…”

  John Keats.

  (1)

  Sally strolled down to the beach on the following morning, but there was no sign of Jeremy, neither did she meet him when she wandered through the village. She no longer had any desire to waylay people and ask questions about the monster. It seemed strange, she thought, that Jeremy should have received assurances of sightings, whereas Mrs. McLauchlin had denied that there had ever been anything of the kind.

  Moreover, given the choice, Sally felt that she would place more confidence in the denials than in the assertions. Mrs. McLauchlin carried conviction; Jeremy, who struck Sally as an unreliable young man, did not. She was not of an age to be too serious-minded herself, but her father was Sir Ferdinand Lestrange, Q.C., and she had inherited, or perhaps had learned from him, the ability to assess character as well as to sift evidence.

  Her thoughts carried her farther. Major Tamworth must have committed himself, his wife, and his son to the expedition long since. Why, therefore, wondered Sally, had he sent his son on a last-minute excursion all the way from Hampshire up to Tannasgan to make sure that the holiday would be worth while? For that amount of trouble and expense to be of value, Jeremy ought to have been sent to Tannasgan long before the final arrangements were concluded.

  Sally was cogitating along these lines when the first of the large caravans arrived, towed by a jeep. The other two caravans followed close behind it. They were preceded and led by Sir Humphrey, who was driving a roomy Ford and the rear was brought up by an estate car. With Sir Humphrey were his wife and Angela Barton. Phyllis, of course, was not with them. In the estate car were Nigel Parris with his wife Marjorie beside him, and on the back seat was Hubert Pring.

  Sally’s heart sank. With three cars, including her van, at the disposal of the party, she began to wonder whether her promised role of free-lance and liaison officer was in jeopardy. She had been standing at the door of the hot
el when the jeeps, the caravans, and their escorts arrived, but, as soon as she saw the whole of the cortège beginning to draw up, she retreated upstairs to her room. She was not anxious to be swept up by Lady Calshott sooner than was absolutely inevitable.

  From her vantage point she surveyed the scene. Sir Humphrey decanted his passengers at the door of the inn and then drove off, followed by the jeeps and their caravans, in the direction of the loch. The other party drove into the inn yard and when they reappeared they were joined by Jeremy, who had been refreshing himself, Sally supposed, at the bar, where it seemed likely that the others, judging by their smiles and gesticulations, were also likely to put in time before they had their lunch.

  It was such a short distance to the bridge over the little river which flowed out at the sea end of the loch, that Sally seated herself at her window to await the return of Sir Humphrey. Lady Calshott and Angela Barton, she supposed, had been shown to their rooms and were tidying up after their journey. She wondered, idly and without any real interest in the matter, how many nights they had spent on the road and where they had stayed on the way. She also wondered what had happened to the Benson twins and the Tamworth couple.

  Sir Humphrey did not return and so Sally remained where she was until a gong reminded her that it was lunch-time. She washed her hands, tidied her hair, and went down. There was no escape. Lady Calshott and Angela were seated at a table which she would have to pass in order to reach her own. There was nothing for it but to greet them.

  “Sally, my dear!” exclaimed Lady Calshott. “How very nice! Sit down, won’t you?”

  “Well, I’ve got a table reserved for myself,” said Sally. “I’ve been here a couple of days already, you see.”

  “Really! Good gracious me! You are an enthusiast! Humphrey will be pleased!”

  “I can’t claim any virtue, I’m afraid,” said Sally. “I came up early to visit friends in Inverness.”

  “I see. Well, perhaps you’re right not to join us at table for this particular meal. We shall have to wait for Humphrey and goodness knows how long it will take him to have those caravans planted exactly where he wants them.”

  “From what I saw yesterday when I was over on the loch-side, there isn’t much choice,” said Sally. “You can only get part of the way along.”

  “Oh, my goodness! Then Humphrey will be ages sorting things out!” said Angela resentfully. “I’m hungry.”

  “Oh, well, why don’t you join Sally at her table, then?” said Lady Calshott impatiently. “I feel I must wait for Humphrey, but I’m sure Sally won’t mind accommodating you if you’re so anxious for your food. We can’t expect the waitress to serve one lunch and not the other at the same table. You don’t mind, Sally, do you, if Angela joins you? Anything rather than she should starve to death!”

  Seeing nothing for it but to give in gracefully, Sally agreed that she did not mind. She went further, and said that she would be pleased. This was true, in a sense. Lady Calshott had made it impossible for her to lunch alone, so she was obliged to choose between sitting down with the other two and sharing their agony of starvation, or of having lunch with a woman she did not like. She made her choice, and led the way to her table.

  “What’s it like at this place?” Angela enquired, looking superciliously around.

  “Quite good. There’s not much variety, though.”

  “Of food, you mean? That won’t bother me, so long as there’s enough of it.”

  “No trouble about that. It’s plain, wholesome, and lavish.” They ordered, and then said Sally, making conversation, “What do you think? I met Jeremy Tamworth down on the beach here yesterday.”

  “Jeremy? I knew he wasn’t at home, but I thought he was in London.”

  “Well, he wasn’t in London yesterday afternoon. He said his father had sent him on ahead to report on the situation and decide whether the expedition was going to be worth while.”

  “What a strange idea! They can’t begin backing out now! All the arrangements are made. Humphrey will be livid if the Tamworths let him down. Personally, I think Master Jeremy had other and less excusable fish to fry.”

  “I don’t think they want to back out. Jeremy has been staying in the village. He said he’s heard lots of reports of people who’ve seen the monster.”

  “Have you heard anything?”

  “Quite the reverse,” said Sally. “The people here at the hotel are sure there’s nothing in the loch but fish.”

  (2)

  It turned out that, although the inn could feed the visitors, it could not accommodate them all with beds. That night Angela, the Calshotts, Major and Mrs. Tamworth, and the twin sisters were to sleep in the house, Sally in her motorised van, and the rest of the party were to be found beds in the village and were to return to the inn for breakfast. Jeremy retained his former lodging and Sir Humphrey, who had come back to join his wife for a very late lunch, found that the Bensons, the major, and his wife were seated with her at table, having flown to Abbotsinch airport and come on to Tannasgan in a hired car paid for (as Angela explained spitefully to Sally later) by Sir Humphrey, although he could ill afford the extra money.

  At half-past seven there was a gathering at the inn for dinner and a final briefing. Jeremy, challenged thereto by Angela, gave an account of the reports he had had of the monster and a delighted Sir Humphrey drew parallels between the sightings Jeremy reported and the very similar stories told by watchers at Loch Ness.

  Sally contributed nothing to the discussion which followed. She was now beginning to wonder, in view of what Jeremy appeared to have heard in the village, whether Mrs. McLauchlin might have her own reasons for denying any knowledge of the monster. To change the subject, although she scarcely knew why she wanted to do so, she made civil enquiry of Lady Calshott concerning the whereabouts of Phyllis and was told that she had received a last-minute invitation to visit a college friend who had married and gone to Australia, but who was now in England for six weeks.

  “Phyllis will be with us in a few days’ time,” added Lady Calshott, “so it won’t be long before you get your companion. We expect her on Sunday or Monday—she wasn’t quite sure which it would be. In the meantime we shall ask you to share a tent with Angela.”

  “Share a tent?”

  “Only during the hours people are on watch, of course. You will still be able to sleep in your van,” said Sir Humphrey. “I found that we could not keep watch on the whole of the loch from the caravans, so I have arranged to have a couple of tents at the points which the caravans can’t cover, two people to each tent. They will return to their caravan for meals and to spend the night, of course. We shall also use the empty hunting-lodge as a base, because it can be reached by boat, otherwise we should need a third tent.”

  “And you want me to take on one of the tents?”

  “With Angela, until Phyllis turns up. I don’t think I ought to expect people to remain on their own at a watch-point all day long. Apart from considering their own feelings—and this kind of watching can be a boring sort of business—we really need confirmation of any evidence of a sighting. You don’t mind, I hope?”

  Sally saw nothing for it but to smile in an acquiescent manner, but her heart sank again when Lady Calshott said,

  “Angela, of course, will only be with us for a fortnight, so you and Phyllis will be able to enjoy one another’s company as tent-watchers when she goes.”

  “Before she goes,” said Angela, “actually.”

  “Angela has taken a post as housekeeper to our vicar,” explained Sir Humphrey. “He is on holiday at present, but a fortnight is all he allows himself. Angela naturally cannot expect him to cope on his own when he gets back. His old housekeeper died recently and he really must have somebody to look after the domestic side of things.”

  “So Angela goes and Phyllis comes and I shall still be immobile,” said Sally. “I shall still be helping to man a tent.”

  “That’s it,” said Lady Calshott, cheerfully. “You wi
ll have heaps to talk about, you and Phyllis. I know what gossips girls are when they get together.”

  “Don’t forget to keep on the look-out for the monster, though,” said Sir Humphrey. “Well, now, to finish off the briefing so that we all know what we shall be doing and where we shall be doing it: I think my own caravan had better remain nearest to the village so that I keep in touch with the hotel, the post-office, and the shops. The major’s party will take the south shore opposite the islands and Nigel’s group will also be on the south side of the loch, but further up, and will be responsible for handling the boat, as, of the four of them, three are strong young men. Sally and Angela will be on the north side and their tent is pitched about a mile along it. The boat, Nigel, must be rowed across every day to where you will see the deserted hunting-lodge. This will shelter you in case of rain. I have the key and permission to make use of the building. Altogether we shall have six cameras in operation and in this way we can cover most of the loch, I hope.

  “As for Sally, I did want her to act as liaison officer to keep us all in touch with one another and to report back to me if there is anything I ought to be told, including, of course, any sightings, but she has agreed to team up with Angela until Phyllis arrives. The people manning the tents will have breakfast and the evening meal in their caravans with the others of their party and will take turns in going back to the caravan for lunch and tea. The tents, I thought, could be manned on a rota system, so that everybody gets a change.”

  “As leader of my party, I declare no use for a rota,” said the major. “Catherine and I will stick to the caravan and Miss Godiva and Miss Winfrith will take the tent.”

  “In turn with you and Mrs. Tamworth,” said Godiva Benson, “surely?”

  “No reason why. You won’t have to sleep in the tent. It’s only during the day,” returned the major testily. Godiva stood her ground.