He got up from his chair.
“Well, I must be getting back,” he said. “By the way, I don’t suppose you’ve seen any suspicious characters or craft about here?”
Hazeldean shook his head.
“And you’ve nothing else to tell me?”
“Afraid not,” said Hazeldean. “I expect your next informant will be Miss Fenner herself?”
“I’m hoping so. Only she’s vanished again. She may be on the Paris train, but in that case, most likely she’d have booked right through. She’s probably in Boulogne. The Fenners go there sometimes. Funny thing, though, nobody can tell me where they stay.”
He held out his hand. As Hazeldean took it he inquired casually:
“What’s this description that’s being circulated?”
“Of the girl?” responded Kendall. “Only for official use, of course. Height about five foot five. Rather pale complexion. Very little make-up. Good figure. Pretty. Demure. Brown hair. Brown eyes. When last seen, wearing black coat and skirt, black shoes, white silk blouse and small black hat, and little green brooch at neck of blouse.”
“The little girl in the picture had brown hair and eyes,” commented Hazeldean.
“Same girl,” said Kendall.
“But—from this description—with a different spirit.”
Kendall nodded thoughtfully.
“Queer,” he observed, “how life sometimes knocks the joy out of you.”
Chapter VI
Trailers in Boulogne
After Hazeldean had rowed the inspector back to the landing-stage, he remained in the dinghy till his guest had climbed the precipitous path and vanished over the top towards the little wood leading to Haven House. It seemed impossible, in the peace and silence immediately around him, that a grimmer peace and silence lay only a little way off, concealing a tragedy of hidden origin. It seemed even more impossible that the tragedy could be linked with the child who had smiled out of the picture.
“No, no, not with that child,” came the contending thought. “With the girl that child has grown into!”
Height about five foot five. Rather pale complexion. Very little make-up. Good figure. Pretty. Demure. Brown hair. Brown eyes. When last seen, wearing black coat and skirt, black shoes, white silk blouse and small black hat. Little green brooch at neck of blouse…
A fish jumped. He turned to watch the widening circle on the disturbed surface of the water, and as the rim touched and faded out against the landing-stage, an odd comparison entered his mind. The impulse of an unseen fish had caused this little disturbance. Emotion of a different kind, yet responding to the same basic principles, had occurred in the silent house beyond the wood, and its invisible circle had widened to the shores of Boulogne—and faded out.
He lit a cigarette. He visualised Inspector Kendall walking through the wood, his keen brain busy, his sharp eyes skinned for clues. Then he tried to visualise Dora Fenner and the spot in Boulogne that contained her at that moment—if she were still in Boulogne. The inspector believed that she was, and Hazeldean agreed with this belief. Was she near the wide bridge spanning the river? Was she climbing one of the narrow streets of steps in the fishermen’s quarters? Was she walking, unconscious of trouble, in the green, flowered gardens beyond the Casino? Was she ascending the steep, wide road at the back of the town towards the ramparts?
“Ramparts,” murmured Hazeldean. “Ramparts. Something about ramparts. What about ramparts?”
For a few seconds his thoughts puzzled him. Why had the ramparts entered them so vividly? He knew Boulogne well, but he had only once been on the ramparts which encircled the old town, hiding it from the new behind thirteenth-century walls. Why on earth…?
Then, in a sudden flash, the solution came to him.
The mind takes many photographs, but all are not immediately developed, and some, failing to meet the right circumstances, are never developed at all. Now, on the surface of the muddy water at which Hazeldean was moodily gazing, came the vision of a little mantelpiece, and on the mantelpiece a picture postcard. The picture was of La Porte des Dunes, showing a portion of the ramparts, and the mantelpiece was Dora Fenner’s. He had noticed it subconsciously during his few moments in the bedroom with Inspector Kendall. The knowledge that its owner was in Boulogne now developed the latent memory and gave it significance.
Kendall had mentioned two of Hazeldean’s qualities—frankness and independence—but this rather unusual young man possessed two more of which the inspector also had some inkling. One was a romantic disposition which he was apt to conceal beneath a mask of levity. He dreamed in secret, and the beckoning horizons of the sea fed his imagination. The second quality was impulsiveness. He was not impulsive in small matters; the lesser details of his life were dictated, as a rule, by a practical, well-ordered common sense; but periodically some compelling impulse caused him to throw the common sense overboard and to indulge in adventurous madness. His friends had called him mad when he had given up an excellent and lucrative position in a journalistic office. They had called him mad when he had spent most of an unexpected inheritance in an auxiliary ten-ton cruiser. They would certainly have called him mad now had they been aware of the impulse that caused him suddenly to toss away his half-smoked cigarette, swing the dinghy round and make for the Spray with rapid strokes.
“Full steam ahead, Bob!” he shouted before he reached the side.
“Ay, ay, sir,” came the senior member of the crew’s voice. “Where for? Mersea?”
“Boulogne,” answered Hazeldean. “And we’re going to do it in record time.”
“There ain’t much wind,” commented Bob Blythe.
“Wind, be blowed,” retorted Hazeldean. “We’re using petrol.”
Bob grimaced, then accepted the situation philosophically. He never liked petrol. It could get you about, true, but it was an insult to the sea, which had been designed under wind and should therefore have stuck to it. To the average map-reader, the land is full of interest and the sea is just a flat blue space, but to those who lived in boats—Bob had lived in boats all his seventy years, and he hoped his grandson would do the like—this flat blue space is a storehouse of interest; and Bob knew, for instance, that between Haven Creek and Margate Road he would be concerned with such places and locations as Maplin Sands, Oaze Deep, Shivering Sand, Kentish Flats, Shingles, Tongues, Girdlers, Horses and Spits. All these had to be reckoned with, and petrol had a nasty habit of diminishing their importance. Still, there you were! Times moved, and boats with them; and Bob had to admit that, when choice existed, his captain preferred to move under seven hundred square feet of canvas.
By two o’clock Essex was receding into the haze, and the north Kent coast was becoming clearer. The morning mist had curled away, and conditions were perfect. By three the boat had curved round North Foreland and was heading south for the Channel, keeping inside the Goodwins. “She’s goin’!” grinned Joe, the junior member of the crew.
“She’s meant to,” retorted the captain.
He kept her going till she reached Boulogne.
“More waitin’?” inquired Bob, as the Spray entered the harbour.
“Afraid so,” answered Hazeldean. “But be ready to start off again the moment I return, if necessary.”
“Ay, ay, sir. Where will it be next time? South Pole?”
The chance jest reverted to Hazeldean’s mind later.
The late afternoon sun was burning on the cobbles when he found himself free to begin the next stage of his strange adventure. He stood for a few moments on the wide bridge over the River Liane, raising his eyes towards the hill that formed his objective. On that hill was the Haute-Ville, the original Boulogne, nestling within high walls like a bit of sunken history. Ghosts lurked there for those with vision to see such things: the ghosts of Godfrey de Bouillon and his crusaders; of English soldiers storming and capturing th
e terrified town; of Napoleon and his vast army, waiting for the moment that never came to invade England’s shore; of an Unknown Warrior, who rested for one night before returning home to English soil. But Hazeldean saw none of these ghosts in his mind’s eye. His ghosts were seven more recent spectres, disturbing a quiet spot to which they seemed to have no right…
“Shilling. Very pretty. Only one shilling.”
He turned. A dark-skinned man was smiling at him, showing very white teeth. Over the man’s arm were silks of many colours.
“No, thank you,” answered Hazeldean.
“Very pretty,” urged the man. “Take back to your lady.”
“I haven’t got a lady,” replied Hazeldean.
“Domage!” smiled the man.
Hazeldean walked on. Something worried him, though it took him several seconds to discover what it was. Hadn’t he seen this man before—near the quayside where he had landed? Then he rounded on himself. Even if he had seen the fellow before—though there were dozens of street vendors like him, intent on dazzling unwary trippers with colourful bargains—what did it matter?
Still, he continued on his way with senses alert, and when he had crossed the Quai Gambetta and entered the Rue Faidherbe, he stopped again suddenly and turned. The dark-skinned silk vendor was a few paces behind him.
“Come here!” he called.
“You change your mind?” responded the man, hurrying up. “I think you would!”
“And that’s why you’ve stuck on my heels?” inquired Hazeldean.
“Stick on the heels,” mused the street merchant. “Ah! To follow! Oui, m’sieur. I stick on the heels. Once, no buy. The second time, yes. The first time, a swindle. Yes, I hear that word quite much. The second, perhaps not. Perhaps a bargain. Perhaps you remember you could not buy so pretty silk in London for one shilling? Voyez! The yellow corn colour. Shilling. For the lady you do not yet meet!” He grinned, once more displaying his excellent teeth. “Shilling.”
Hazeldean smiled back, and paid the shilling. The man whipped the corn-coloured square from his bundle, folded it deftly on a raised knee and handed it to his customer with an air of modest triumph.
“Good luck,” he said.
“Meme to you,” answered Hazeldean, pocketing the silk.
To reach the Haute-Ville he had to turn to the right, but instead he turned to the left. Wandering casually, he made his way back to the Quai Gambetta and began strolling in the direction of the Casino. Presently he took his cigarette-case from his pocket, fumbled purposely and allowed four cigarettes to escape on to the cobbles. “Curse!” he murmured as he stooped to pick the cigarettes up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the silk merchant some thirty yards behind him. Even at that distance, and in that quick glance, he recognised the man, despite his resemblance to others of his breed. He had studied him carefully during their last encounter.
An empty taxi came by. He hailed it, called, “Wimereux, si’l vous plait,” and jumped in. The taxi developed a speed as though the devil were after it; but the devil was merely a French taxi-man’s natural lust for pace.
They sped round the Casino and along the short, fashionable sea-front. Wimereux was four miles distant; but when they had gone a mile the fare changed his mind and shouted a new direction. After all, he explained, he did not want to go to Wimereux just yet. He had forgotten an appointment at La Porte des Dunes. The car swung round and made for the Haute-Ville.
A few minutes later they had re-crossed Boulogne by another route and had ascended the long gradient to the ramparts. There had been no sign of the silk merchant on the return journey. Alighting at a grey stone archway, Hazeldean quickly paid his fare, paused for a hasty, satisfactory glance around, and then slipped through the arch. He ran up the steps on the right of the arch. Reaching the quiet seclusion of the wall-top, he paused again and took a pleasant, deep breath. All around was the peace of sheltering leaves and green grass and ancient stones. He had not merely shaken off the silk merchant; he had shaken off the whole outside world.
“Why on earth was that plausible rascal following me?” he wondered. “And how the devil does he know anything about me?”
It was a small puzzle inside a big puzzle. He was convinced that to find the solution of the one would assist towards the solution of the other.
“On a sudden impulse,” his mind ran on, “I decide to cross to Boulogne. No one knows but myself and my crew. I am on my way a few moments after the decision. I do not go ashore and talk about it. If I’d crossed as an ordinary passenger—by train and boat, or aeroplane—I could have been picked up during the journey. Though, even so, I’m bothered if I can see the reason… I wonder…”
A startling idea entered his mind. Seven dead strangers had been found in Haven House. Had they missed an eighth stranger, who was still alive? It seemed impossible. But, then, as Detective Kendall had himself pointed out, everything seemed impossible. Seven dead people. The suggestion of mass suicide. The old cricket ball on top of the silver vase. The shot picture. The dead cat… “Why am I thinking of the dead cat? That can’t be important!”… And now this silk merchant…
“Oh, well,” he concluded, “sufficient for the moment is the problem thereof, and the problem of this moment is to find a pretty girl of five foot five, with a pale complexion, a good figure, and demure brown eyes. Will she still be wearing that black coat and skirt and the small black hat and the white silk blouse? There was something else. Something else. Something important I’ve forgotten. Blow! What was it?”
He swore at himself for forgetting as he began his long walk round the sunken town. He did not usually forget things. Something else. Something else. Perhaps this wide, shaded, walled path, with its drop to reality on one side and its strange romance on the other, had an eradicating influence. Some of the buildings of the town climbed up close to the wall and had doors leading on to it. The ramparts were their garden. Something else—something else. Probably it did not matter. Hallo—the old stones have crumbled a bit at this corner… Now round into the next short, shady vista. Something else. Jolly, those trees. What a perfect seclusion, this mellow spot, for the end of one’s days! And there’s the house for it, too! If you weren’t keeping your eyes skinned, you would hardly notice the house was there at all. Bit gloomy, though. Perhaps, after all… Something else. Blow! Something else…
Ah! Suddenly he got it! “Little green brooch at neck of blouse.” Now what had made him think of that all at once?…
It was the brooch itself that had made him think of it. A thin streak of sunlight, slanting through a crack in leaves, turned it into a vivid green point, which shifted into shadow as the girl on the seat moved slightly to raise her head.
Chapter VII
On the Ramparts
The eyes that rested momentarily on Hazeldean’s face were both brown and demure, but the demureness dissolved into a tiny, vague frown as the girl lowered her head again to the book she was reading, for Hazeldean had not been able to camouflage his emotion, the intensity of which surprised him. It was the little green brooch that had primarily directed his attention to Dora Fenner, and every other detail of the official description seemed complete; yet he felt that he would have recognised her, even if there had been no description at all, as the girl into whom the child in the picture had grown. His reaction to each had the same queer, disturbing quality.
“Well—what do I do now?” he thought.
The girl, of course, gave him no assistance. If she were aware that the young man who had suddenly stopped by the parapet had not resumed his interrupted walk, but remained still looking at her, she gave no sign, saving perhaps in a slightly exaggerated absorption in what she was reading. Hazeldean’s problem was not the unsavoury one of trying to pick a girl up, but of avoiding that unpleasant appearance in order to secure her confidence.
He decided on a bold opening. Approaching her till h
e was close enough for a low voice to carry—he felt her tightening as he drew nearer—he said:
“Good-evening, Miss Fenner.”
She almost dropped her book. The brown eyes were on his again, bright with both astonishment and alarm. He discovered within himself an intense desire to dispel the latter, and dreaded the moment ahead when he would have to introduce a far greater alarm than any she could now be feeling.
“I’m quite harmless,” he smiled.
“Who are you?” she asked. “I don’t know you. Do I?”
“No.”
“Then—how do you know me?”
“I’ve seen your picture.” Her bewilderment grew. “I’ll explain that presently, if you’ll let me,” he continued quickly. “But first I’m going to find out whether you will let me.” He knew she would have to let him, but he wanted to establish an easy relationship before he spoke of serious matters, and he was banking on his own personality and the responsive spirit he had glimpsed beneath the paint of the portrait. It seemed impossible that this spirit could ever have evaporated completely into demureness, solemnity and suspicion. “My name’s Tom Hazeldean. That won’t mean anything to you. I’m a—writer”—he thought “journalist” might alarm her—“and an amateur yachtsman. As a matter of fact, I’ve just come across in my boat especially to see you. Yes, look astounded, by all means—I would, in your place—but please don’t look alarmed. I’ll tell you something at once, to get it over. If there’s any trouble, you can count on me to help you all the way through it. Does that sound any good, to begin with?”
“Yes—of course,” she answered. “Thank you very much. Only I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’ll come in a few moments. What I want to know is, are we over the first fence?”
Seven Dead Page 5
