“You said that you refused to employ him and that you persuaded others to follow your example. But if there was no alternative . . .?”
“Phlox evolved a system and ran a rota.”
“Oh, I see. The house-boat people took it in turns to guard the rowing boats.”
“Yes, except for Mrs. Counter-Lee. She ran a crusade.”
“Really? To what end? In defence of the ferryman?”
“Yes, of course. She would! She did things to be difficult; to be non-co-operative; to be in the local paper; to be out of step. You know the type, I daresay. She has the next boat but one to ours.”
“What, exactly, did she do?”
“She cut mooring-ropes.”
“Good gracious!”
“Oh, yes, she did. I caught her at it myself. I accused her to her face.”
“Did she deny the accusation?—and at what time of day was this?”
“She not only admitted it, but threatened me with the knife she was using and shouted at me in the most abusive and alarming way. I pushed her hard and picked up the knife as she dropped it. I said I should go to the police with it if she ever cut mooring-ropes again. This was just at sunset.”
“On your own side of the river, I think you mean? In other words, she cut the mooring-ropes of your house-boat?”
“Well, I must admit that she did not get as far as cutting them. I felt that something was going on, and went ashore to investigate. I was very glad that I had done so. Although I think I frightened her, we took precautions after that, and exchanged our ropes for chains.”
“Did the crusade, as you term it, take no more ethical form than the one you have mentioned? Was there, so to speak, nothing constructive about it?”
“She bombarded the local paper, as I said. I wonder they printed the letters. I suppose her son has a controlling interest.”
“She is widowed, then?”
“Oh, yes. A husband would keep her under better control, one would say.”
“As Mr. Carmichael keeps you?”
“Phlox——? Oh, but——Oh, well, yes, I suppose so. I mean, I wouldn’t do anything that Phlox felt was unsuitable or silly.”
“Interesting. How old is the son?”
“A man of thirty or so.”
“Perhaps, far from wishing to put an end to, or a damper on, his mother’s crusading zeal, he agrees with the stand she has taken.”
“He may do,” said Marigold, with indifference. “The whole thing is quite ridiculous, anyway, and so I told her.”
“I see. So you think that you have enemies? You believe that there are people who would harm you if they could?”
“Oh, yes, they would, but there are only petty ways in which they could do it.”
“Are you sure of that? Is not that an example of wishful thinking?”
Marigold met the sharp black eyes of the questioner. She flushed, and then the colour left her face. Suddenly, she looked uneasy.
“I’m quite, quite sure of it,” she said. “And now . . .”
“I’m afraid I’ve kept you a long time,” said Dame Beatrice. “Shall we ask Mr. Carmichael to join us in a glass of sherry?”
“He doesn’t—we don’t drink,” said Marigold. “And we really must go, thank you.”
“What did you make of them?” asked Laura, when the very strange séances were over and the pair had departed.
“I am confirmed in my view that they are an extraordinary, a deceptive, a guilty, and a devoted couple. There is less in Phlox and, I somehow feel, more in Marigold, than meets the uninstructed eye. We are now justified in regarding them with disfavour and I shall proceed on the assumption that they are attempting to hoodwink us.”
“About the skeleton?”
“It is too soon to say that, but it is clear that they have something to hide. Phlox’s hallucinations are balderdash. He wanted to . . .”
“Size you up? What cheek!”
“Oh, I don’t blame him. He chose an unintelligent method of doing it, perhaps, and yet he may have had a reason for that.”
“And Marigold? A dark horse, you think?”
“One would be wrong to underestimate her. But that, of course, can be said of anybody.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Phlox Disclaims
“I condemn not all things in the Council of Trent, nor approve all in the Synod of Dort.”
Ibid (Section 5)
* * *
IT was without surprise but with the liveliest anticipation that Dame Beatrice awaited the coming of a visitor on the following morning. Her maid had brought a note to the breakfast table. It was from Phlox Carmichael requesting the pleasure of a further interview and promising to present himself at the Stone House at eleven o’clock that same morning in the hope of finding Dame Beatrice at liberty.
She received him in the morning-room, a sunny, pleasant place, and invited him to be seated. Phlox, however, seemed restless. He went to the window and stared out, walked to the fireplace and gazed at himself in an overmantel mirror, straightened his tie, turned to Dame Beatrice as though about to speak, then went to the window again.
“About those hallucinations of mine,” he said. Dame Beatrice, seated by the hearth and looking, in her jade-green dress, remarkably like a Chinese carving, waited in silence. “I don’t have them. I—that is—it seemed a good way of getting to know you.”
Dame Beatrice, whose nearest relatives, including her late husbands Mr. Lestrange and Mr. Bradley, would have assured Phlox that to get to know her was outside ordinary human scope, said mildly:
“Oh, yes?”
“It is essential,” Phlox continued, “for me to elucidate a little. My wife yesterday gave you some rather distorted facts. Facts they were, of course, up to a point, but distorted, yes.”
“Mrs. Carmichael, at my request, told me of various small matters over which she had been at variance with her neighbours, that is all.”
“Yes, yes, but the emphasis was all wrong. I know the point of view she takes. She has always indicated that we were the aggressors. You formed the opinion, no doubt, that we are at loggerheads with various people through our own fault and because of our own misguided enthusiasms. It is not so. In every case, as I shall seek to show you, we are the victims, not the oppressors.”
Dame Beatrice said, in her most persuasive tones and in her beautiful voice:
“Come and sit down, Mr. Carmichael, and tell me all about it. In the first place, if your hallucinations are of no interest, as such, because they do not exist, I doubt whether you invented them for the reason you gave me. In a word, let us put it like this: what do you fear?”
“Fear?” He looked startled.
“Yes, Mr. Carmichael.”
Phlox pulled himself together.
“I’m not happy about Marigold,” he said. “That is why I wanted to get to know you. I have heard of your reputation, of course, and I wanted you to see and hear Marigold before I actually asked you to take her on as a patient. I guessed that if I invented those hallucinations of mine and you saw me as a patient, you would want to talk to my wife about me, both of you entirely unsuspicious as to my motives. In this way, Marigold would talk to you without any of the distrust which, it is my belief, must exist for a time between the psychiatrist and the patient, and you, with no previous knowledge of her mental state, would talk to her with an open mind unclouded by having come to any premature conclusions.”
“I see. It did not occur to you that her having a husband who suffered from the kind of hallucinations unknown to morbid psychology might prejudice me, in the case of Mrs. Carmichael, from the outset?”
Phlox blinked.
“Such a point of view would never have occurred to me,” he said. Dame Beatrice regarded him benignly. “You mean that you were—well, watching Marigold all the time she was with you yesterday?”
“Watching is not quite the right word, Mr. Carmichael. The truth is that I was convinced that there was
more interest in dealing with Mrs. Carmichael, in certain respects, than there was with you.”
“Did our word-associations tell you anything?”
“That is a clinical secret for the present. You shall have the case-notes later. Now, you wish to have some information about my interview with your wife.”
“No, no. I have all the information I need. Marigold is notably open and truthful and she has an excellent memory. I am sure she has told me all that was said. All I want to do is to reorient the facts which she gave you.”
“Most interesting. I have my notes and can check what you say from those.”
“Your own memory is not very good?”
“It serves me faithfully, but I prefer to be exact. Memory, you see, can play tricks because it is highly selective. Shorthand notes, taken verbatim, are open to no such undesirable sub-editing.”
Phlox bowed.
“Admirable,” he said. “Now, I have no doubt that Marigold mentioned our neighbours, the Exes?”
“She mentioned neighbours but did not so name them.”
“Really? Usually she says they must be anonymous—that Exe could not be anybody’s name.”
“It is the name given to an unknown quantity, is it not?”
Phlox giggled—a strange, unattractive sound as coming from a person of his age and sex.
“An unknown quantity is right,” he said. “A dozen squalling, stone-throwing, vicious brats and another (so Marigold tells me) on the way.”
“She says you pushed one of them into the river.”
“Oh, nonsense! Of course I did not. I wish to goodness she’d get these details right if she’s determined to broadcast them!”
“She thought there were extenuating circumstances.”
“Such as?”
“That you intended to capture the boy, not to push him into the river.”
“I prodded him with a boat-hook. I meant to teach him a lesson. He dived into the river to escape me. He could swim like a fish. He swore at me from his vantage-point in the Thames.”
“Did you wait for him to come out?”
“No. His mother came along with a quant-pole. I measured it, with my eye, against my boat-hook and decided to withdraw. She pursued me with threats.”
“She took you to court, I understand.”
“Me?”
“And you were discharged, as there was no case to be answered.”
“I have never been taken to court. My poor Marigold! Whatever rigmarole did she compel you to listen to?”
“The rigmarole was unfolded in the manner which I indicate. She then went on to mention that you had been instrumental in obtaining the eviction of an old man from his cottage.”
“I hope she mentioned the rats.”
“She did, indeed.”
“I don’t see that I had any alternative but to complain. Shall we let it go at that, please? I am aware that there was an unfortunate aftermath, but that is scarcely my fault.”
“Then there was the episode of the ferryman and his loss of employment.”
“There was no loss of employment. I objected to his obvious cupidity and took steps to deal with it, that’s all.”
“How do you account for the actions of Mrs. Counter-Lee?”
“Drat the woman, say I! She’s just a busy-body.”
“She certainly seems to have been busy with a knife and your mooring-ropes.”
“How do you mean?” He flung out the question like a challenge, but his eyes had narrowed.
“You had to replace your mooring-ropes by chains because Mrs. Counter-Lee tried to saw through the ropes with a knife.”
“But I’ve always moored with chains! After all, our boat is permanently moored.”
“Is there a Mrs. Counter-Lee?”
“Oh, yes, there is a woman of that name. She paints, I think. We’ve had her on board for cocktails a couple of times.”
“But have never quarrelled with her?”
“Good heavens, no! I hardly know the woman. She came along with some people called Jones.”
“Ah, the ubiquitous Jones! What should we do without them? We have to keep up with them; one of their ilk, Davy, keeps a locker under the sea; Mr. Unspecified Jones went to Jesus College, Oxford; Brown, Jones, and Robinson form an indissoluble trio; Dickins and Jones have a shop; the Jones—oh, no!—the Bones—do you play Snap, Mr. Carmichael?”
“No, I don’t,” said Phlox, grimly. “And if some of our enemies are trying to plant that skeleton on our doorstep . . .”
“What an extraordinary idea! Why, what other enemies have you?”
“You are making yourself pleasant at my expense,” said Phlox, forcing a smile. “At any rate, I hope you see that it is not wise to accept everything that Marigold says as the plain, unvarnished truth.”
“I can understand that the truth may be veneered, as well as varnished, Mr. Carmichael. Sometimes it is preferable that way. Thank you very much for coming to see me. We must just keep an eye on your wife. There is no danger at the moment, but we must be vigilant.”
“What do you mean?”
“In what sense?”
“You say there is no danger at the moment. What danger do you foresee?”
“If we are to dip into the Holmes saga, my dear Mr. Carmichael, I must retort that there would not be danger if we could foresee it.”
“But you must have had something definite in mind,”
“Your wife’s welfare.”
“You are doubtful about her mental state?”
“No, no. It is her physical well-being which concerns me.”
Phlox pulled at his long, full, lower lip.
“Her physical well-being?” he said. “But Marigold is perfectly well. In fact, she is extremely fit.”
“I hope that she will remain so. How long do you propose to remain in Hampshire?”
“Well, we are promised to the vicar for a bit longer. His Roman road, you know.”
“I imagine he has given up wondering whether it begins in Skeleton Corner.”
Phlox laughed, but looked uncomfortable.
“Oh, I don’t think we shall try just there again,” he said. “The police might not like it. I wonder how soon they will be able to identify the skeleton? Not an easy task, I think. How say you?”
“I do not say. With modern methods of detection, identification must be a good deal easier and more certain than it used to be.”
“I suppose the bones were those of an elderly person.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The absence of teeth. It was noticeable that the cadaver possessed but few.”
“I wonder what happened to the dentures?”
“Dentures? Oh, don’t you think it was some poor old crone who could not afford them?”
“In these days of the National Health Service?”
“No longer a free-for-all.”
“True. Of course, she may have been a gipsy.”
“That, I think, is a most likely explanation,” said Phlox, eagerly. “Even so, how did she come to be buried on Dickon’s smallholding?”
“Quite so. And how did she come to be overlooked by the intelligent small boys and the painstaking large girls? We always come back to that.”
“I know. It’s a bit of a puzzle, isn’t it? Still, I suppose it would be easy enough to miss it if one didn’t choose just that place in which to dig. Well, I mustn’t keep you any longer from your lawful pursuits, Dame Beatrice.”
“Nor I you from your unlawful ones.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Dame Beatrice waved a yellow claw and cackled harshly.
“I could not resist making the remark,” she said, “and I see that I was justified in making it. I suppose we are all criminals at heart and it rejoices us particularly to poach on preserves which we have sold as a matter of necessity.”
“You must have a case in mind.”
“Oh, more than one; more than one. There was old Lord X in Irelan
d; young Tom Y in Yorkshire; the brigadier whose speciality was the salmon fishing he had let to Americans—I could name several more. I know of them because I had to testify in court as to their states of mind.”
“And they were all criminals?”
“Madly and merrily so.”
Phlox searched her face. She shook her head gravely.
“I had to testify in court to their states of mind,” she repeated. Phlox sighed—with relief, it seemed.
“Madly so,” he repeated. “Madly so.”
“And what was all that in aid of?” demanded Laura, when Phlox had gone.
“An attempt to kill a bird with several stones, child.”
“Is he dotty?”
“No, no. A trifle worried, perhaps, still, but feeling better than he did when he came in.”
“I suppose anybody would be worried who’s been questioned by the police. A crank, in particular, would be inclined to panic, I should think. Well, what’s today’ s schedule?”
“I want to go to Pollarded Reach, on the River Thames. Would you care to come with me?”
“Are we investigating house-boats?”
“We shall call at one house-boat and upon a ferryman.”
“Do I drive, or does George?”
It was arranged that Laura would drive and, travelling by way of Southampton and Winchester, they turned off for Oxford to reach that stretch of the river where Phlox and Marigold had their home. Dame Beatrice, having obtained the postal address from the vicar’s wife, anticipated no difficulty in getting local guidance to the actual spot, although moorings along that part of the river were numerous.
The house-boat was a flat-roofed affair with a covered sun-deck. It needed a coat of paint and the cabin curtains were grimy. Laura commented on these points.
“You wouldn’t think they had money, to look at this dump.”
“Have they money?”
“So the vicar says. Marigold, in particular, is rolling in it. A godmother died and left her a tremendous dollop.”
“Really? Fortune would seem to smile on her.”
“On both of them, I should think. Phlox—you know, Phlox has never struck me as a possible Christian name, even for a woman, let alone a man—anyway, he’s quite well off, too. Doesn’t need to work and all that sort of thing. I’m glad Gavin has a job. I’d loathe to live with a lounge lizard.”
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