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by Gladys Mitchell

  “It is kind of you, George, but I think I had better depend upon my grey hairs and the chivalry of the attackers. But by all means wear the tin hat. It will add interest, if not safety, to our progress.”

  George declined to avail himself of the permission, and by half-past two the car had arrived at the gates of the Sanctuary and was winding its way decorously between the trees which bordered the drive.

  Contrary to George’s fears, they were met and welcomed by the Leader, and Mrs. Bradley was borne off to continue her psychological studies. Several of the nudists had volunteered to become the vehicles of research, and she was profitably employed for about an hour and three-quarters in trying out on them elementary intelligence tests, word-reactions, light hypnosis, auto-suggestion, and indications of amnesia.

  George remained in the car, which, at the request of the Leader, he removed to the outskirts of the Sanctuary proper, and Bassin, who also stayed with the car, was left to amuse himself as best he could.

  “I am afraid our rules do not allow you to penetrate further,” the Leader observed courteously, “unless of course—”

  “I’ll wait here, thanks. I’ve plenty of cigarettes,” said Bassin. He offered cigarettes to George, and they were halfway through the second round when they noticed the Red Indian approach of a thin but personable young man whose voice, when, treading suddenly upon a twig, he gave tongue with obvious annoyance, indicated the presence of Carey Lestrange.

  He came over to the car, climbed in, seated himself, and drew a rug towards him. Without a word he twitched Bassin’s cigarette from between his lips and smoked the rest of it. Bassin sympathetically produced his case, and Carey, having finished the half-cigarette, took another.

  “The only thing I really miss,” he said. “Nobody here seems to smoke. Where’s my Aunt Adela?”

  “Interviewing various of the maniacs,” Bassin replied. “Well, how goes the Garden of Eden?”

  “Haven’t spotted Carn yet, but half the clientele are disguised, I should say. Complete with beards and under other names. But the man himself—what did you say?”

  “Beards?”

  “Yes. Big, bushy, Bolshevik beavers. Why not?”

  “Any sign of tomato on any of ’em?”

  “Don’t know. They’re all pretty dirty feeders here, if it comes to that. I wouldn’t say that one was any worse than another. In any case, we haven’t had tomatoes today.”

  “Listen, you babbler. A bearded bloke on a motor bike took a pop at me with a gun this morning, out by Huddon’s Mouth Valley. Know the place?”

  “Yes. Probably aiming at a seagull or something, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t think so at all. George will bear me out.”

  “He certainly tried to get Mr. Bassin, sir,” said George.

  “And now you come along with all sorts of stories about beards,” said Bassin, “and it makes me think a bit.”

  “Why? Plenty of blokes have beards, besides the comparatively simple-souled denizens of this Sanctuary. Anybody could assume one for the purposes of crime. Look at the assumed beards of literature. We have Bottom, weighing the merits of various colours in beards; we have the Satyr Colman with blood on his beard where he had cut himself shaving; we have Dionysus, who, in addition to assuming the leopard skin and buskins of Heracles, undoubtedly sported a beaver to complete the change of costume; we have people off whose faces Sherlock Holmes peeled beards; we have Othello, indubitably bearded; the missionary bishop of Miss Rose Macaulay, who grew the fungus in order to show the natives that he could; young Bingo Little, disguised as one of the Sons of Liberty, completely shrouded in the shrubbery; Professor Bhaer, George Osborne—”

  “Little Lord Fauntleroy’s grandfather and W. G. Grace,” said Bassin. “Now, listen, fathead, and get this. I chucked tomatoes at this fellow on the motor bike and winged him not fewer than three times, each time bespattering the whiskers with ripe juice and a good proportion of pips.”

  “I get it,” said Carey, “although I feel compelled to point out that W. G. Grace, like Augustus John, although bearded, is a historical, as distinct from a literary, personage. I’ll go and talk to the boss. We’re quite pally. He doesn’t, of course, know who I am from Adam, doesn’t connect Auntie with the police, and I don’t want him to connect me with you. I simply had to have a cigarette, that’s all. I’ll be getting back now. We’re not expected to be out as far as this really, without our pants. Give me your case and some matches. Thanks.”

  “A moment. In your casual conversation, when and if you do meet our friend, you might find out whether he knew that his wife always mixed up the letters b and d on the typewriter.”

  “Is that your own idea, or one of Aunt Adela’s?”

  “Both. We’ve been over all the stuff, manuscript, typescript and, once again, the proofs, and it seems that Mrs. Carn always confused those letters and used to type all Carn’s stuff.”

  “All right. I’ll ask him, if I see him. Which is to say, if he’s here.”

  “Just casually.”

  “Yes. But it’s awkward, because I’m not supposed to know who he is, you see, even if I do spot him.”

  “Get on to it somehow.”

  “Yes. Well, I must be slipping. I’ll have a chance to speak to Aunt Adela when I’m within the pale once more. See you later. Thanks for the cigarettes.”

  He put aside the rug, climbed carefully out of the car and slipped in among the bushes.

  “Reminds one of the fauns of ancient mythology, sir,” observed George. “The dappled effect of the sun shining through the leaves, etcetera.”

  “Etcetera indeed,” agreed Bassin. “Speaking of which, I hear voices. I’m going to lie doggo. I don’t want to be seen by anybody who might recognise me.”

  He curled up on the floor of the car and George pushed a rug over him, and then sat immobile at the wheel, the model of a chauffeur waiting for his employer. A woman’s head was poked up from behind a rhododendron clump, and another followed it.

  “It’s all right,” said the first head. “It’s only a chauffeur.”

  “I’m certain I heard voices,” said the other. “It must have been Mr. Lestrange, and he’s eluded us again, naughty man. Let’s ask the chauffeur whether he saw him or spoke to him.”

  “Had we better?”

  “Yes. We can call from here. We need not go any nearer.”

  “Mr. Lestrange has been and has gone, madam,” said George. “He took all the cigarettes I had, and gave me two shillings.”

  “Cigarettes!” said the second woman, in a tone of ecstasy.

  “He won’t give us any,” said the first. “Besides we’ve given up smoking. It’s part of the cure.”

  “I’m going to ask him point-blank for one. He can’t very well refuse.”

  “No, but he’ll hate you for life.”

  “Well, I must have one. Come along.”

  Their heads ducked down again. After a couple of minutes Bassin emerged, dusted himself, rubbed his head where he had bumped it, and lit one of George’s cigarettes.

  “Think they’ll wind us, sir?” enquired George, at the end of the next five minutes. “The breeze, you’ll notice, blows towards the woods.”

  “I shouldn’t think they would. If they do, and I duck down again, you’d better chuck them each a couple, and pretend you’ve found a packet you didn’t know you’d got. Wonder how long Mrs. Bradley will be? I’d overlooked the fairly important point that, whereas she’d be able to wander at will among the lunatics, we should be kept outside.”

  “The remedy is in your own hands, sir,” George suggested.

  “Yes, but at a price, George.”

  “A first-class athlete, such as yourself, sir, would hardly need to fear that odious comparisons would be drawn between your personal unadorned appearance, sir, and that of the other gentlemen. Besides, I believe that you would not feel so much out of place as you fear. When in Rome, sir—”

  “Yes, I know. But don�
��t forget that in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king. I should prefer to retain my trousers.”

  “But, according to Mr. Wells, sir, if you remember—”

  “Oh, well, perhaps you’re right, but it still wouldn’t help me with Carn. He’s pretty sure to recognise me. I wish to goodness I could remember a bit more clearly what he looked like.”

  “I think you will find the nude a very effective disguise, sir. After all, it must be the most impenetrable disguise most human beings can assume. When did Mr. Carn see you last, sir?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, when I was sixteen. But, except that I’ve got bigger and so on, I don’t think I’ve changed much.”

  “You’d be surprised, sir. Personally, I would have said that it was emphatically worth the risk. You want to find out whether the gentleman with the beard could have been Mr. Carn, sir, and this is the golden opportunity to do it.”

  “You’re right,” said Bassin. “It is. Give me half a dozen of your cigarettes and some matches. I’ll stalk those two wood-nymphs, bribe them, and get them to introduce me to all the chaps with beards. It’ll be pretty tough if I can’t pick out the one I plastered with those tomatoes, if he’s here.”

  • CHAPTER 10 •

  Psychological Evidence

  “Then the queen caught the sword up fiercely in her hand, and ran into the room where Sir Tristram was yet in his bath, and, making straight to him, had run him through the body, had not his squire, Sir Hebes, got her in his arms, and pulled the sword away from her.”

  •1•

  Against the strict canons of the establishment, Bassin retained his shoes. Charging George to keep an eye on the rest of his clothing, he got out of the car and slipped in among the trees. Unable at first to rid himself of an uncomfortable feeling that he was behaving contrary to statute and in a manner likely to lead to arrest, conviction, and sentence, he sneaked from one tree-trunk to the next in deadly fear of encountering the two women who were in search of Carey.

  Fortunately, the first nudists he met were men, a small, white-haired, grandfatherly one with the body of a monkey—long-armed, short-legged and, in the attitude and act of walking, clownish and ungainly, and a man of early middle age whose bony countenance was surmounted by a panama hat, ornamented by rimless pince-nez and made unmistakable by a long scar which ran from the temple all the way down the left side to the corner of the mouth, giving him, instead of what Nature appeared to have intended for a benign, intellectual expression, a sardonic, unpleasant smile.

  The gentleman raised his panama, and both men glanced at Bassin’s shoes.

  “A new member, apparently,” said the hat-raiser.

  “Indubitably,” said the other.

  “I was looking for Mr. Lestrange. He promised to show me the ropes,” said Bassin. “I haven’t joined yet. I was told I could look round, so long as I—er—”

  “Conformed to the rules. Quite so,” said the elderly man. “Come along. My name is Child and this is my son Timothy.”

  “My name’s Aubrey,” said Bassin, telling, thus far, the truth, for it was his second baptismal name. The three then walked in single file, the older Mr. Child leading and his son bringing up the rear, until they emerged from the wood and found themselves in a meadow, at the far end of which was a kind of summerhouse with a verandah.

  “Ah, this will interest you,” said the old gentleman. “Experimental psychology. The famous psychoanalyst, Doctor Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, is conducting an exhaustive enquiry into the psychology of nudism. Mr. Call, Mr. Smith, Miss Violet, and Mr. and Mrs. Leonard have offered themselves as subjects, and Doctor Beatrice Adela is also taking a general survey. Very interesting and, I should say, instructive. Nudism, Mr. Aubrey, is more than a cult. It is a religion. We are all hot gospellers here.”

  He smiled, and (for he had halted to make the discourse) began to walk towards the summerhouse.

  “We must do no more than just peep in at the window,” he observed, suddenly bending his knees and approaching the airy little structure with exaggerated care. “Perhaps you will be fortunate enough to meet Doctor Beatrice Adela later.”

  Bassin, prodded by Mr. Timothy Child, whose fingers were long and bony, moved forward and looked in over the window-sill. His training, both legal and athletic, stood him in good stead, for directly in front of him sat two bearded men, one of them undoubtedly the motor cyclist. Beside them sat a thin, anaemic girl of about twenty-seven or eight. All three were robed, with some dignity, in dark brown blankets which they wore draped over the left arm and under the right, to leave them free to write. At the next table sat a nude young couple, ill-nourished and nervous.

  “Beaver,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Sink. Co-opt. Black. Bishop. Tone. Run. Crash. False. Apple. Round. Bent. Hair. Storm. Water. Dream. Flint. Cheshire. Cart. Paper. Woman. Cup. Bed.”

  One of the bearded men glanced up as the voice ceased. It was the motor cyclist. Bassin ducked out of sight below the window ledge.

  “That’s right,” said old Mr. Child when they had left the hut forty yards behind them. “It is not quite fair to go and watch them. I wish you could have spoken to Doctor Beatrice. A wonderful woman. Truly a wonderful woman.”

  “What’s her idea really?” enquired Bassin. “Does she want to find out why people take up nudism, or what their reactions are when once they’ve taken it up?”

  “Well, she was quite frank with us. She said that she thought we were all the slaves of a morbid exhibitionism. We, of course, were only too ready to challenge this view. A little exhibitionism, as our Leader pointed out, is healthy and normal. Besides, we come here for the sake of our health, for the sake of our principles, and—er—well, those things chiefly.”

  “I see,” said Bassin. “Mr. Lestrange told me that it was all very enjoyable and carefree.”

  “I am afraid,” said Timothy Child, removing his pince-nez and so uncovering short-sighted eyes the troubled colour of stale oysters, “that Mr. Lestrange is inclined to be irresponsible.”

  “Although one hesitates to say it of Doctor Beatrice Adela’s nephew, naturally,” said his father. “He has however, introduced an unwelcome note—a very unwelcome note. As you are a friend, you will be able to point this out, perhaps, in a manner and with an authority, which would seem unsuitable in us. Come along. It grieves me to do it, but I will show you what we mean.”

  It was apparent, thought Bassin, stifling a sympathetic grin, what they meant. Once through an opening in the field-hedge, they were in a small garden beautifully and smoothly paved, and on two sides of it were hedges of dark yew, clipped and thick, and forming the background to a scene in which Carey appeared to be taking the parts of producer and chief actor. He was garlanded with blossoms which looked a thick, dead white against his brown body, his hair had grown long, but, unlike (Bassin discovered later) the great majority of the male nudists, he had shaved, and the somewhat grimy hand which he was offering to one of his players—a youngish, giggling woman—was long and beautiful.

  “Hullo, you two,” he said, catching sight of the father and son. “Just the people. Look here, sir”—he took the old man by the arm—“if you wouldn’t mind standing here and being Jupiter—oh, yes, you are, sir, really. Just the type. And you, Timothy—yes, on one leg, if you please; the other just—so. Splendid. Now then, Millie,” he continued, addressing the giggler, “once more. Take the apple—no, it’s not the size of a football, fathead!—and hold it out. Now, Kathleen and Doris, you look as much annoyed as you can. Think of a bargain sale, and that Millie has just snitched from under your very nose the hat you saw in the window and had marked for your very own. That’s marvellous. Right. Cut!”

  He turned to Bassin.

  “Just a few tableaux to present at the end of my happy holiday here. May I know your name?”

  “Aubrey,” said Bassin, as Jupiter, beaming now upon Carey, and Mercury, equally pleased, rejoined him in front of an enormous clump of lavender. “Don’t sa
y you don’t recognise me, old man! I’ve been telling Mr. Child and Mr. Timothy Child that you recommended me to come here.”

  “Oh, yes, I did, didn’t I? Didn’t imagine for a minute you’d do it, though. Good for you, old man. But I simply didn’t spot it was you at first. Ah, Nature, Nature!” said he, shaking his head at Bassin’s impressive torso and handsome, muscular flanks. “Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear!”

  He stood musing, whilst the Childs meandered off. Then, turning his head briskly, he said to the three women:

  “Same time tomorrow, my darlings. And see you at the pool at half-past ten as usual. And mind, no funking that springboard, young Kathleen, this time!”

  The women, giggling happily, ran off with conscious balletomane grace, and Carey, relaxing, fumbled at his left ear, which was hidden by his long black hair, extracted a cigarette, walked over to a statue of Diana, and extracted from the niche between her side and her quiver a box of matches.

  “Well, my bold son of a gun,” he said, leading the way back to the meadow and seating himself on the grass, “and what the devil brings you along in the disguise? I didn’t know whether I was supposed to know you or not.”

  Bassin explained about the beards.

  “Two a penny here,” said Carey. “I could show you at least two better ones—bigger and better—than either of those sported by the tough nuts that Aunt Adela has got caged up in that summerhouse. One is brilliant red, and the other is blue. One dyes it, t’other don’t.”

  “Yes, but one of those she’s got in there is my motor cyclist,” said Bassin. “Is it accident or done a-purpose, that she should happen to have hit on him, I wonder. How long has she been doing this psychology stunt?”

  “This is their fourth dose.”

  “So she’d started on them before that fellow potted at us this morning?”

  “Yes. She started yesterday, as soon as I arrived.”

  “Oh, then he was probably potting at her. I could have sworn it was at me. But I expect he objected to something she’d found out about him and decided to let her knowledge die with her, as it were. I bet these nudists, or some of them, are the original Peculiar People.”