by Heron Carvic
The telephone agreed.
Mr. Trefold Morton pushed it away and sank back in his chair. He mopped his face again, then stuffed the handkerchief back into his breast-pocket where it hung, a limp symbol of its owner, crumpled, soiled and wet.
“It is very good of you to have taken such a forbearing attitude at my having interrupted your evening in this manner. Very good of you. It was remiss of me to have overlooked the need for your signature on that particular document. Most remiss. A little hold up of that kind, as you doubtless know, could delay the whole of probate. Or, maybe, you yourself are but a probationer in these matters.” Miss Seeton winced in anticipation of the inevitable laugh. It came, but the boom was a little hollow. “However,” Mr. Trefold Morton continued, “all’s well that ends . . .”—he faltered, recovered—“that is to say, that we should now catch the first post in the morning. Now you’re sure—quite sure—that you don’t mind walking home from the crossroads, if I drop you off there?”
“Not at all,” murmured Miss Seeton.
“It is unfortunate that the friends with whom I should have been dining and whom I shall now have to join for coffee should live in exactly the opposite direction. Most unfortunate. But naturally I will take you right to your door, if you insist. Naturally. However late it makes me. Or, if absolutely necessary, I could telephone my friends and say that I won’t be able to get there.”
“Please,” protested Miss Seeton, “I wouldn’t hear of it. You say it’s no distance to walk—less than a mile. And, in any case, I have a torch with me. It’s very kind of you to have brought me so far.”
“The least I could do. The very least. Besides, by using this route to the village, as far as this is on my way. It’s only here that our paths diverge.”
He slowed as he approached the Plummergen-Ashford road, pulled in to the side and stopped the car. Miss Seeton got out. Mr. Trefold Morton called through the window:
“Now, you know your direction? This part is called Plummergen Common. You turn to the right and the road leads straight down into the village. And you’re sure you’ll be all right? Quite sure? Because if so, I’ll be on my way. I feel dreadful—leaving you here like this. Quite dreadful. But needs must when the—er . . . Yes, indeed. Needs must.”
Without giving her time to reply, the car jolted forward, clashed into second gear, turned left and sped down the road.
How that man talked. Really, she was positively tired from listening to him. Of course it was very thoughtful of him to have sent a car to fetch her to Brettenden. But, to be honest, had she realised, when he offered to give her a lift back, that he meant to drop her off here, she would have asked the driver to wait and take her home. Oh! Miss Seeton jumped as a noise like a shot sounded from a nearby field. Bird scarers? When it was dark? Ah, yes, she remembered now. Stan had said something about farmers using them at night to frighten rabbits and things. Surely it would have saved time if Mr. Trefold Morton had brought the papers for her to sign over to Plummergen in the first place and then gone on to his friends from there? However, she hadn’t liked to suggest it on the telephone, when he’d told her that a car would be calling for her and was already on its way. No doubt it was just habit to attend to all business matters in his office. But he’d literally never stopped talking from the moment she’d arrived there. It was ridiculous, of course, but one might almost have said that he was nervous. Surely he couldn’t have supposed that she might view a call to his office after hours, in the light of an assignation. Miss Seeton smiled at the thought, took her torch from her handbag and switched it on.
Now, did one walk on the right side of the road, or on the left? Cars drove on their—left, didn’t they? And pedestrians? There was some rule about it. Either you did the same as cars—or exactly the opposite. Going down into a tube station there was a notice telling you to keep to the . . . She tried to visualise such a notice. Ah, yes. KEEP TO THE RIGHT. So probably the same applied. She shone her torch across the road. Well, that settled it. A hedge and a ditch on that side. One might easily miss one’s footing and stumble into the ditch if a car came by. So awkward when there were no pavements—no, footpaths, she believed, was the correct term in the country. Whereas over here it was comparatively flat. Of course. This would be the Common.
The headlights of a car flared up suddenly some way in front of her. Miss Seeton stepped well off the road and turned aside to keep the dazzle from her eyes.
How effective. A lake. No—probably not big enough for that. But a very large pond. She would wait by this tree till the car had passed. Curious the falsifying effect of artificial light. The leaves of the trees and shrubs overhanging the water, even the branches, looked as though they were cut out of cardboard. Yet, even as she watched, the light changed, the third dimension was added, forms grew solid. Miss Seeton glanced behind her. A car coming from the opposite direction. Distances were extraordinarily deceptive at night. The first car appeared no nearer. Seemed not to have moved. Perhaps a couple . . . No, because then, surely, they would have driven off the road. And then again, they wouldn’t have their lights on. The lights of the second car were brilliant now. Brilliant? They were coming straight towards her. Oh dear, oh dear, there’d be an accident. What was the driver thinking of?
She waved her umbrella to attract attention, then turned to run. Blinded, she bumped into the tree, knocking her hat off, staggered round the trunk and blundered forward. There was a splintering crash as the car hit the tree against which she’d been standing.
There. She knew it.
Horrified, she turned to go to their assistance, trod on nothing, lost her balance and fell backwards with a splash.
chapter
~10~
THE VILLAGE GRAPE-VINE IN ACTION: something observed here; something overheard there; a meeting or two, a few discussions, some telephone calls—and the picture was coming into focus.
Miss Treeves had observed Miss Seeton’s departure. Going out to supper? That was unusual. And why hire a car from Pratt’s in Brettenden instead of using Crabbe’s from the village? She discussed this with Martha Bloomer when they met in the church to top up the water in the flower-vases for the night and replace any dead blooms.
Doris, the waitress at The George and Dragon, had overheard the conference at table as the superintendent and his sergeant were finishing their dinner. Doris had discussed with the barmaid the facts that: Miss Seeton had gone missing again; the police were ringing up all over the shop and that the young one, the big one, was bringing the car round.
The barmaid passed the facts on to Stan Bloomer as he was finishing his evening pint. Stan told Martha on his return home and Martha went straight over to Miss Seeton’s cottage where she telephoned Lady Colveden on the chance that Miss Seeton might have called there on her way back.
Lady Colveden, a late starter through not living on The Street itself, soon caught up with, then passed her competitors by the adroit use of her title and her telephone. She rang old Mr. Pratt’s private number, learned that Mr. Trefold Morton had hired him, that it was he himself who had fetched Miss Seeton and taken her to the solicitor’s office where he had been told not to wait as Mr. Trefold Morton would give her a lift home. Undeterred by the fact that Mr. Trefold Morton’s housekeeper said that he was dining out and she didn’t know where, Lady Colveden demanded a list of possible names and addresses. She struck lucky at her third attempt, insisted on speaking to the solicitor himself and when informed that he had dropped Miss Seeton off at Plummergen Common, leaving her to walk home, commented on his behaviour in terms that would have raised blisters on the hide of a rhinoceros.
Sir George was out at a meeting. Nigel, once he had grasped the purport of his mother’s telephone progression, jumped up and headed for the door. Lady Colveden called after him.
“If you take the M.G. without me, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
Threats failing her, she had to depend on tone of voice and expression. A short call to Martha to bring her up to
date, she downed receiver, snatched coat and head scarf from the hall and ran out to join her son.
Martha relayed the latest information to the police so that as the Colvedens swept round into The Street, Delphick and Bob Ranger were already pulling away from The George and Dragon opposite. The two cars stormed away, Nigel fractionally in the lead.
Arms flailing, groping hands clutched, held. Miss Seeton struggled to gain a foothold—found one—and discovered that by clinging on above and by standing on tiptoe below she could keep her chin above water.
Entirely her own fault. So very careless—not to look where she was going. Of course she had been dazzled by the lights, but she should have remembered how near she was to the pond’s edge. So very fortunate, too, to find something to . . . She looked up. Her immediate surroundings were silhouetted against the light which shone across the water in front of her. Why—it was her own umbrella, hooked on a branch above her, that she was grasping. Some of the younger mistresses might laugh at her for carrying an umbrella in all weathers, but you never really knew. And, after all, it was practical. Now—could she, by pulling on it, get herself out? She must try to see if she could help whoever had been in that car—they might be injured, perhaps badly hurt. She heard the sound of movement and peered through the twigs and leaves. Yes. There was the car; one side crumpled against the tree, the remaining headlight still on. The car door opened and a figure got out. A young man. Well, probably. The young dressed so alike these days; very sensible but a little muddling sometimes. Miss Seeton opened her mouth to call. The figure moved forward into the light, examining the ground ahead. Long fair hair glittered.
It couldn’t be—it—it was. That dreadful boy who had killed that girl in London. Miss Seeton realised she was very cold. The water of course. She shut her mouth.
The dreadful boy returned to the car, leaned in, then backed out, dragging another figure. A girl. He hefted the body, swung it above his head and . . . Oh, no, he couldn’t—no, please—he mustn’t—oh no, how truly shocking—
. . . smashed the head against the door jamb.
A frantic effort to get out. To stop him. Her feet slipped, her hand slipped; she slipped under water.
“Glp!” screamed Miss Seeton.
He ran to the bank and threw the body down so that it lay on the brink with the head under water. He moved forward. Looked about, around, down. A report cracked as another cartridge from the bird scarer exploded. He sprang round, crouched, pistol in hand. Lights in the distance approaching. He straightened, hesitated, then sprinted for the road. The car which Miss Seeton had first seen stationary was approaching slowly, the passenger door open. He reached it. Jumped in. The door slammed. The car accelerated.
“It’s no good, Mr. Colveden, apart from the head injury, the neck’s broken. She was dead before she hit the water.” Reluctantly, Nigel laid the body of Angela Venning back on the grass and stood up. “We’ll know more when we get the doctor’s report,” Delphick went on, “and when we can examine the ground by daylight. But it looks as if she lost control, tried to jump out, crashed the tree before she could make it and hit her head on the door as she was thrown out. If you’ll stay here, sergeant, till the ambulance arrives, I’d better get back on the road and try to find Miss Seeton.”
“Would you take my son with you, Superintendent, I’ll . . .” Lady Colveden took a deep breath. “I feel that I should go and break the news to Mrs. Venning.”
“Would you? I should be grateful, it would be kinder, I think. We’d better get on then, Mr. Colveden. Other mobile units should be along soon but we can’t afford to waste time.” Delphick returned to his car. As a sleepwalker, Nigel followed him.
Lady Colveden turned for a last look at the girl’s body, at the wrecked car. Looked again. Ran forward and knelt.
“Sergeant.” Her voice was sharp.
Bob Ranger joined her. His torch shone on the remains of Miss Seeton’s hat crushed under a front wheel. Without a word, he started circling, like an enormous hound casting for a scent. His second cast brought him to the bank.
“Hold the torch.”
Lady Colveden hurried to him, took the torch, held it steady. There, from a branch above the water, as it were an arrow to mark the spot, hung an umbrella. The sergeant stripped to his undershorts, stepped to the edge. The torch beam wobbled. In his clothes he was big. Out of them he looked like a colossus. If he jumped there’d be a tidal wave. And he might land on—crush . . . Lady Colveden relaxed as Bob Ranger lowered himself gently into the water. The torch aimed down, probing. The sergeant, chest deep, then deeper, knelt and vanished under water, to reappear a moment later holding a sodden bundle. He put the bundle over one shoulder and clambered out.
Tragedy immanent; the night cut by a swath of light. Danger imminent; the night a festering shadow. A primeval monster rises dripping from the swamp, his capture in his arms. A horror film in action. It was too much. Lady Colveden fought to repress incipient hysteria.
The sergeant loosened the clothes, laid the little figure face downwards on the grass in the light of the remaining headlamp, knelt astride it and turned the head. He placed his hands low down on the back and began to exert pressure. After a moment or two, Miss Seeton yielded a quantity of pond.
Lady Colveden, reaching precariously, retrieved the umbrella, collected the sergeant’s clothes, took them over to her M.G. and put them in the boot. She reversed the car and left it, engine running, facing towards Plummergen.
After this moment of normal activity, the improbable reality of the scene struck her the more. One body lay half-shadowed, the other full-lit and crouched over it the bared body of a man. Emotion outrunning her capacity, Lady Colveden bit back a giggle of fright. The Monster snarls over his prey.
The sergeant thought that he detected the first faint signs of breathing. He continued the rhythmic pressure until he was certain, then turned Miss Seeton over and began to pat her face.
Some . . . where. Somehow. Some thing. Must tell the Grey Day. And the Footballer. Some . . . Bob Ranger bent low to catch the murmur. “Grey Day . . . Football . . . must . . .”
He began to pat her face again. Wearily her eyes flickered open to strain through shifting mist: focused. Black against the light, a naked man squatted over her, one hand upraised to strike; descending.
Oh, no. No, please. Miss Seeton fainted.
Grateful for practical action which helped to dispel the nightmare quality of events that was threatening to overwhelm her, Lady Colveden fetched a rug from the car and as the sergeant wrapped Miss Seeton’s unconscious form:
“Dr. Knight’s. That’s the quickest,” she told him. “We turn right before the village and it’s almost opposite the lane to the Vennings’. I’ll drop you there and then go on to The Meadows to tell them of the accident.”
As they were starting, the ambulance arrived. She stopped. The sergeant left a message for Delphick, gave brief instructions to the men to await the superintendent’s return and they were off.
Drawing up outside what had once been the old Cottage Hospital, Sergeant Ranger got out, rang the bell, went in, still carrying Miss Seeton and the door of the little nursing-home swung to behind him.
Lady Colveden’s M.G. pulled away and took the turning opposite, to The Meadows. She drove slowly down the lane, dreading the coming interview. It proved to be worse that she had feared. Sonia Venning flatly refused to believe her; refused to discuss Angela; refused to go upstairs and check that the girl was, as she maintained, in her room and stated that the car was in the garage which was locked, producing the key to the padlock from her bag as proof. Helpless in the face of this rejection, Lady Colveden began to feel desperate. Mrs. Venning turned abusive, shouting that the village, the police, that everybody was against them, persecuting them. That Angela had been a little thoughtless and wild, but that she was completely able to deal with her. And had. Disturbed by the noise, Mrs. Fratters came from the kitchen to see what was the matter. Lady Colveden appealed
to her.
Mrs. Fratters beamed. “Miss Angie? Oh no, m’lady. She’s upstairs in her bed, she’s not been well these last few days, you see. She had her supper in bed, I took it up to her myself.”
But the police would come, questioning. And find them unprepared. Lady Colveden struggled to free them, to free herself, from this fantasy, this engulfing miasma of disbelief.
“She’s not in bed. She’s dead, I tell you, dead. Oh, God, how can I make you understand? She’s dead. She’s by the pond on the Common, lying there, dead. Her car hit a tree. She nearly killed Miss Seeton. She’s . . .” Catching the note of hysteria in her voice, she set her teeth hard on her lower lip.
Mrs. Fratters had left the room. The two women remained frozen. A sobbing wail and the housekeeper was back.
“It’s true, ma’am. She’s gone. The window’s open. And there’s a ladder. She’s gone. Oh, ma’am, m’lady, what are we to do?”
“Liar!” shrieked Mrs. Venning. “You’re all lying.” She swung round, plunged blindly out.
Lady Colveden grabbed the telephone and dialled. “Dr. Knight? Meg Colveden, at Mrs. Venning’s. Can you come over at once? She needs help.”
Sonia Venning stood in the doorway, wild-eyed, in her hand a padlock, hasp and staple, splinters of wood still clinging to it. “You were lying. An accident, you said. What accident put a ladder to her window?” Her voice rose. “What accident did this?” She shook the padlock. “Angela never forced that, she hasn’t the strength. Who did it? Who phoned her? Answer me. Who telephoned this evening? Who was with her?”
“Why nobody,” stammered Lady Colveden. But something glimmered in her mind “She—she was alone.”
“She wasn’t,” snarled the other. “The Seeton woman was there. You said so. Who else? Go on, tell me, who else? Who did it?”
“There was nobody.” Again the glimmer. Yet surely, there must . . .
“There was. There was.” The voice cracked higher. “There must have been. You killed her. And you call it an ‘accident’.”
