Watcher in the Shadows

by Geoffrey Household

It was the word tent which triggered my instant and clear reaction.

  ‘I think I will take Nur Jehan over to Buckinghamshire and back,’ I said, ‘before Matthew Gillon starts to sleep in the stable. Do you suppose you could get his permission?’

  ‘No, Charles. But Benita might.’

  ‘Shall I tackle her or will you?’

  My aunt observed me with unnecessary exasperation.

  ‘Benita should return to London,’ she said. ‘Incompetence makes her very nervous.’

  ‘She ought to be used to her father by now.’

  ‘You can take it that I was referring to Nur Jehan’s peculiarities, Charles.’

  I should have left it at that in former days, and said nothing. But I could no longer fence with Georgina now that I knew with what silent devotion she had endured me.

  ‘I am forty-three,’ I said, ‘and that’s twenty years older than she is.’

  ‘A difference,’ replied my aunt, ‘which ensures a long widowhood for Benita, but could make her marriage extremely happy. With my own husband I had only thirteen and a half months and one leave. I may be romantic, but I have always considered it was worth the forty years which followed.’

  I kissed her and tried to explain that I only wanted similar happiness for Benita, and that a man of twice her age with an unfortunate past and an adopted country could hardly be expected to give it.

  I found Benita in the orchard. The inhabitants of the vicarage all seemed to have gone their own way after so agitated an evening. She listened to my proposal and agreed that it would do Nur Jehan a world of good. She gave a very strong impression of resenting his existence. The stallion was certainly taking up too much of her father’s time and hers.

  Together we visited Matthew Gillon in his study to obtain his consent. He agreed, but very gravely doubted whether his late parishioner’s pet could conscientiously be treated as a hack. I had to promise that I would cover no more than twenty miles a day till Nur Jehan was in condition.

  I was fortunate in being able to settle all this on the top of a wave of general disgust with poor Nur Jehan. But when I said good night to Georgina, she had had time to think. It occurred to her that I might be off to play the private detective again. I didn’t deny it, but assured her that I only wanted to confirm a theory and that it was impossible for the patron of Bath and West to find out about my camping holiday in time to take advantage of it.

  I slept on the plan. I believed it would succeed. In any case the risk was no worse than if I returned to town. I could not go on indefinitely with real or pretended holidays. I had to carry on my daily London life, pressed in crowds, moving by predictable routes, standing on Underground platforms, taking extreme precautions with my food. This journey with Nur Jehan was safer – tempting to my assassin, yet so natural as to be above suspicion.

  Admiral Cunobel, when I tackled him after breakfast, agreed. My story of the French squirrels led him to underrate my opponent. The lovely simplicity of the tiger’s plan, which frankly terrified me, did not impress him so much as the insignificant mistakes. It was the legal aspects of my counter-attack which bothered him most.

  ‘There’s my evidence,’ he said, ‘and Colonel Parrow’s. Worth a lot, of course, but all hearsay! We have it from you, and you only. Look at it this way, boy! He’s a bloody murderer, but we know he is a person ordinarily above suspicion. Suppose you kill him. Suppose there is nothing at all to connect him with the Gestapo executions and not quite enough to convict him of blowing up the postman, where are you then?’

  I promised Cunobel that I did not intend to kill him if I could possibly avoid it. All I wanted was identity and motive. I foresaw that I might have to get them at the point of a pistol. But the police could do the rest.

  ‘That pop-gun of yours – I don’t like it. Won’t knock a man down,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you into a secret. Very wrong. Against the Law. But I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of my souvenirs. I keep ’em well locked up, of course, and I’ve got a fire-arms certificate, but it doesn’t cover all the lot.’

  He took me into his bedroom, and with the air of a small boy exhibiting his treasures unlocked a cupboard at the back of his built-in wardrobe. There were a German dirk, a broken lance-head, a Japanese sword and a collection of fire-arms – some amateur and suggesting far-off encounters with Arab slave-traders and Malay pirates, some so modern and professional that he was certainly liable to that heavy fine of which Ian had warned me.

  ‘That’s what you want,’ he said, handing me a .45 revolver.

  But it wasn’t. I saw the familiar wooden holster of a German Mauser. It was a weapon which I had carried in early days as a forester, for I could afford nothing better. When I was accustomed to it, I wanted nothing better. The holster formed a butt for the long-barrelled automatic, and using the weapon as a rifle – as I always did – it was dead accurate at a hundred yards.

  I took it down and inspected it. Like everything else which belonged to Cunobel, the Mauser was in bright, naval condition.

  ‘It can jam,’ I said, caressing it, ‘and it drills instead of knocking down, but I have a feeling I am more confident over sights than he is.’

  I sounded to myself unreal, as I were diffidently recommending some favourite bar which I had known in youth.

  ‘What? That one?’ the admiral asked surprised. ‘I got it off a submarine commander in the first war. Don’t suppose it’s ever been used!’

  ‘But have you any ammo? I’ll want at least twenty rounds before I can be sure how she throws.’

  ‘Well, they can’t trace the number,’ he grumbled with some satisfaction, ‘if – er – well, if it was found lying about. I think I might risk it. It would be useful on rabbits, eh? I can’t afford a good .22 rifle with my pension, eh? I’ll go up to London tomorrow and get you a couple of boxes from old friends at the Admiralty. When will you start?’

  ‘Pammellor’s letter should be in Paris tomorrow. I don’t think our friend will be content with the usual speed of French official communications. He will know the answer – probably verbally – in three or four days more. His next move is to close in boldly. You may find him calling on you to propose a prize for the best French essay in the Grammar School.’

  ‘Damn his impudence!’ the admiral exclaimed. ‘But he doesn’t need to. We know the fellow is well up in the horsy world. He can find out that Mr Dennim is exercising the Arab stallion without coming nearer than a Bath hotel. He’ll be after you at once.’

  I did not think so. It would take him time to choose and prepare a base, though he must have one or two possibles lined up already.

  ‘I hope he chooses Gorble again,’ I said, ‘because then I’ve got him. I reckon that if I start at the beginning of next week I should be in close contact by the end of it.’

  4

  The Long Night

  The arab stallion and his rider showed themselves again and again on the bare skyline above the plain of the Severn. The villages where I bought forage and supplies could give news of us, and the farmers from whom I asked permission to camp. Yet all was peace and sun and waving grass. Fear dwindled to a reasonable caution and could not nag me with an image of those dedicated feet pacing behind. No other horseman was glimpsed for an instant across the long ridges of the Cotswolds.

  This was Benita’s England: the line of uplands which formed a pathway from the Atlantic beaches into the heart of the land. Its naked gentleness saddened me, for beauty which is foreign to the spirit and unattainable creates a loneliness. With the Saxons, creeping up their muddy estuaries into the forest, I had easy sympathy. My heredity was theirs; what they thought a site for a settlement would also be my choice. But here was a glory of my adopted land which did not belong to me. My roots searched over the surface of the rock, unable for the moment to penetrate more deeply.

  It was perfect country, however, for my purpose – w
hich was to call up the tiger on to ground of my own choosing. I did not expect him in full daylight. An attack would be most difficult to carry through with the clean certainty of success which he preferred. But dusk and a lonely man should tempt him.

  Georgina had supplied me with a list of inns and farms where a horse would be welcome for the night. I did not use them. My evening routine was to camp early in woodland by one of the hidden Cotswold streams and then, having picketed Nur Jehan, to watch the approaches from a tree or high ground. If I saw any doubtful traveller, I stalked and investigated him. When I knew that my position had not been reconnoitred before nightfall I could sleep in peace.

  Apart from my careful selection of camp sites too secluded to be easily approached in darkness, I did nothing unexpected. My intentions would be plain to any interested person pricking out my north-easterly route upon the inch ordnance map. I was keeping off the metalled roads as far as possible and obviously aiming for the short turf and empty fields around the sources of Churn and Windrush. After that I might turn back to Chipping Marton or go on – as I intended – through Banbury and Brackley to the Long Down and the patch of Midland country already familiar to the tiger.

  I sent a postcard every day to comfort Matthew Gillon, who was still uneasy at the thought that Nur Jehan was being treated as a real horse. The stallion was amenable to any plan. He considered me, I think, a fellow male and playmate – a better one than the vicar’s pigs which could never get out of their sty or the village children who ran away or women whose proper place was in the kitchen tent. If I also wished to sit on his back, that was a matter which could easily be arranged to the satisfaction of two gentlemen. Obedience, he had none; good will, plenty. He was accustomed to single rein and unjointed snaffle, and neither his former owner nor the vicar had ever ridden him up to that.

  Too many memories of youth crowded in for my safety. Half of me joyously dropped twenty years and concentrated on schooling this sensitive and lovely aristocrat who was anxious as a boy on a football field to do the right thing if only someone would explain the game. The other half – the old goat which had no use for memories but wanted to live – found Nur Jehan an embarrassment. It was difficult to give enough attention to my own security while trying to make chocolate-and-cream playfulness understand the language of the legs.

  He had to carry a light sleeping bag and ground sheet as well as his own blanket, and until he was in condition I seldom gave him my own weight as well. We mostly marched in the morning and devoted an hour in the afternoon to education. As a pack-horse he was reliable. He followed to heel like a well-trained dog, occasionally amusing himself by butting me from behind when I least expected it.

  On my way I answered questions freely, saying that I was going through Banbury to Hernsholt where I had a cottage and would stay a few nights. So it was simple to pick up my trail. I was covering only some twenty miles a day; anyone could keep close contact with me by taking an innocent evening’s run in a car and stopping for a drink in villages which I had passed. I reckoned that if the dark rider was again going to make use of Fred Gorble he should already have made his arrangements and left his pugmark in the neighbourhood.

  On the sixth night I camped between Brackley and Buckingham, and next day rode across country to call on Jim Melton, making a wide circuit round Hernsholt for I did not wish Ian Parrow to hear of my presence. My respectful affection for him was unchanged, and arguments were to be avoided. I no longer felt the false affinity to Jim as one outcast to another – my lonely sense of being eternally dirtied was much less after the warmth of Chipping Marton and the revelation that Georgina had always known my secret – but as a discreet ally Jim was a man after my own heart.

  Mrs Melton was at home. So were her two daughters who ought to have been at school. I gathered that they were under convenient suspicion of developing mumps. Jim had a magnificent crop of early new potatoes and needed the family labour for a couple of days.

  Half an hour after my arrival he drove up in the hearse with a load of cut-price sacks and boxes. He was amazed to find Nur Jehan in his kitchen and on excellent terms with everyone – except the jackdaw who was outside and cursing. Mrs Melton had considered it natural that the stallion should try to follow me into the house, again confirming my suspicion that she was half or altogether a gipsy.

  The dark gentleman had not been seen and had made no approach to Fred Gorble. Mrs Melton was sure of that. Ever since the evening when she had called on Gorble and muddled him with messages from a fictitious and mysterious lady whom the gentleman was supposed to be secretly visiting, she had been accepted as Gorble’s adviser in the whole tricky and possibly profitable business.

  The tiger had put through his telephone call at the appointed time, and had been informed by two simple No’s that there had been no inquiries about his movements and that I had left the Warren. Encouraged by these replies, he had asked two more questions and again given a date and time when he would telephone for the answers. Meanwhile Gorble had received through the post an envelope with twenty much-used pound notes in it. Damned if Mrs Melton hadn’t managed to get hold of five of them!

  The two new questions were: what had I been doing at Hernsholt and who was my companion? The first was easy to answer. Everyone knew that I had been watching badgers. The second question was harder, for at the cottage I had been alone. Gorble asked Mrs Melton to get the required information.

  Neither she nor Jim knew anything about my attempt to trap the dark gentleman at the badger sett. So far as they were aware, I never had any companion; but, if I did, it could only be Colonel Parrow. Mrs Melton knew that there was something mysterious in my relations with Ian, so she had not answered the truth. She informed Gorble triumphantly:

  ‘Another perfesser!’

  She couldn’t have done better. That would dispel the tiger’s suspicions that the goat had been deliberately tied out.

  She gave me two other bits of information which fitted neatly into what I already knew. The first call had come from Bath. Fred Gorble heard the operator say: ‘You’re through, Bath.’ The second came from somewhere abroad through the continental exchange.

  So much for tampering with the enemy’s sources of intelligence. But all I had really gained was the certainty that he had no intention of returning to Fred Gorble and had discovered some surer base for attack.

  Now that I knew it, it stood to reason. Why go to the trouble of planting these squirrels unless he had decided where to stay and how to take advantage of them? And whatever base he had arranged for murder in the Wen Acre Plantation would serve for murder anywhere else in the central and southern Cotswolds. He might be staying under a false name at a Bath or Bristol hotel. He might be using his true name – playing his distinction and money for all they were worth and spending a magisterial week or two, completely above suspicion, under the roof of some county magnate.

  I said good-bye to this delightful and rascally family – who from me would never take a penny – and told them that neither they nor Fred Gorble were ever likely to hear any more of the dark gentleman. As I was about to mount Nur Jehan, Mrs Melton offered to read my hand assuring me that she really did have a gift. I refused. Like most people, I am thoroughly superstitious without believing a word of it. Whether I had a predictable future or not depended on myself, and any foreboding or false confidence could be deadly.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing,’ she said. ‘The same fate is on the horse and the goat in the same place.’

  This was intriguing, for she had picked the symbol of the goat out of my mind and it didn’t seem to have occurred to her – unless she was being professionally mysterious – that the symbol was myself.

  Under the circumstances I simply could not resist asking more.

  ‘What about the goat and the tiger, Mrs Melton?’

  She held my hand for that one, and suddenly turned a little pink as if in genuine ang
er.

  ‘Tormenting poor dumb animals is a thing I won’t ’ave, and I won’t look at it,’ she said.

  I rode off. I did not need Mrs Melton’s muddle of telepathy and second sight to tell me that the reckoning would be painful for one or both. I had given the tiger time to prepare his plan. I had shown him my routine. I had convinced him that I was unprotected. On my way home the attack would come.

  I felt equal to him on the bare tops and more than his equal in the wooded valleys where I hid my camp. I was uneasy, but the sanctuary of trees in the dusk is no less because the unknown may be behind or beneath them. I believe that for the animals always and for man sometimes fear is only a vivid awareness of one’s unity with nature.

  What I did not like was riding along the verge of the roads when it could not be avoided. A passing car and a burst from a tommy-gun seemed altogether too chancy, gangsterish and out of character, but it was a possibility which I had to consider.

  Once we may have been in close contact. Soon after dawn on the third day of my journey back from Brackley I was riding Nur Jehan over the uplands not far from the Rollright Stones. Coming down hill to a desolate crossroads which I had to pass I saw a grey car drawn up by the side of the road. Nothing else was in sight or likely for another hour to be in sight but the low stone walls marking out two chess-boards of grass on each side of a little river. There was no simple reason why a car should be parked at that hour commanding the only two roads by which I could come. A single man was in it, slouched down in the driving seat and apparently asleep, but the rising sun was on the windscreen and I could not see his face.

  If I hesitated and changed direction I should show prematurely that I was on my guard; if I rode straight ahead I must pass the car at a range of a couple of yards. I compromised by dismounting, unrolling my kit and making a second breakfast. It was a pleasant and natural spot to choose. After half an hour the occupant of the car reversed into the cross road and drove away. Whether he was awakened by the smell of my coffee or exasperated by my leisurely preparation of it I never knew.