Adders on the Heath (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

BUCKLER'S HARD

'When will the steam be aweary of flowing

Under my eye?

When will the wind be aweary of blowing

Over the sky?

When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?

When will the heart be aweary of beating?

And nature die?'

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Once the party had left the two cars, Dame Beatrice annexed Laura, leaving the two young men free to wander together down the rough, steep road to the quay. The boys strolled on beside the water, but Dame Beatrice and Laura loitered. The sunshine, for that time of year, was particularly brilliant and there was more blue than cloud in the sky.

Although it was fairly late in the season, a great many craft were still in commission and the scene was gay and pleasing. The Beaulieu River at this point was a quarter of a mile wide, with a deepish channel at the quay. The river here made a magnificent bend, and there were shallows by the opposite bank.

Two catamarans, the double hulls referred to by Dame Beatrice, were drawn well up on the quay-side and she and Laura stopped to examine them.

'I do not think I care about them, so far as looks are concerned,' commented Dame Beatrice. 'What are their particular assets, that you favour them so highly?'

'To quote the book of words, they tack very fast, they're a safe, manoeuvrable sort of craft-you can even lift one hull completely out of the water and still keep going-and they are particularly sensitive to the helmsman. I rather agree with you about their looks, but I suppose they stem from the outrigger canoes that South Sea Islanders use.'

'Yes, I see.'

'They take sail, of course-quite a tall spread if you want to go really fast-and the masts are mostly of metal, the International type if you want a flyer. But, look here, Mrs. Croc, you didn't segregate me from the opposite sex just to talk about catamarans. Did you get anything interesting or important from young Tom Richardson during the car ride?'

'I obtained a detailed account of how he spent his time down here before Denis joined him.'

'Any good?'

'I have not made up my mind. It appears to me that there was a good deal of time, when he was absent from his tent, in which ill-disposed persons could have...'

'Wished the bodies on him?'

'Exactly.'

'But who would want to?'

'By that, I infer that you are asking whether Mr Richardson has enemies.'

'Well, yes, there's that, because I can't quite see the point of putting the bodies, one after the other, in his tent, unless there was some ill-feeling towards him. It would have been much simpler to have dumped them in the woods, the way Richardson and Denis found the second body, which was really, I suppose, the first body-or would you put it third?'

'Let us call it the first body, as Mr Richardson found it first.'

'Less confusing that way, I agree. Incidentally, am I wrong, or did I go to sleep or something at the inquest?'

'To the best of my knowledge and belief, you did
not
go to sleep at the inquest. And now, to what do we refer?'

'I'll give you three guesses,' said Laura, grinning. 'I say, this is a jolly sort of place, isn't it? Look at that cruiser!'

Dame Beatrice looked at it. Then she said that from what she had gathered of Laura's previous remarks, she would hazard a first guess that her secretary might have noted that there had been nothing in the medical evidence to indicate which of the victims had died first.

'Well!' exclaimed Laura. 'You are, in good sooth, a mind-reader, Mrs Croc, dear!'

'It is part of my profession, of course,' Dame Beatrice modestly pointed out.

'Think there is anything significant about the times of the deaths not being disclosed?'

'It is more than possible, but do you not think that both men may have died at approximately the same time?'

'It seemed to me that the Superintendent was wriggling his toes inside his boots, all the same.'

'You postulate?'

'Like the dickens I do. He was on pins in case anything, however trivial, was going to be given away. After all, doctors (present company excepted, of course!) are a stiff-necked gaggle and don't appreciate having their tails docked. Pun deliberate, intentional and, I thought, rather good. What do
you
think?'

'That the use of the word "gaggle" did not sustain your metaphor, suggesting, as it does, the presence of geese and not of dogs-or
do
they dock the tails of
Anser Aibifrons, Anser Brachyrhynchus
and others of their ilk?'

'You win,' said Laura. 'Glad I didn't bet on my chances. Honestly, though, don't you see that it makes a difference whether one of them
was
killed first? Of course it does! Gang warfare!'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Simple enough. Gang A do in Citizen B, so Gang B take it out on Citizen A.'

'Gang warfare is seldom so tidy or so restrained.'

'We've never had a gang warfare case,' said Laura, keeping to her point.

'For which we may be devoutly thankful. Gang warfare, as I understand it, is nasty, brutish and without even the advantage of being short, the last being unlike life, which is said to wear the tarnished halo of extreme brevity. We seem to have lost sight of our escorts, by the way.'

'They're round the bend-literally, I mean, not figuratively. Do you want us to step it out and catch them up?'

'No, no. I am finding our
tête-à-tête
both interesting and profitable. There is one commission over which I shall need assistance of a specialised kind, if we are indeed to undertake this enquiry. What do you really feel about our entangling ourselves?'

'We can't back out
now
! Young Tom would die of fright. After all, he
may
be in a dangerous position. We don't
really
know what the police think about his connection with these deaths and, even if they don't hold him responsible, they'll keep badgering him with questions to see whether he alters his story, and if they do badger him, and if he can't count on our support and sympathy, the highly-strung lad is apt to go up the wall.'

'Yes,' agreed Dame Beatrice, 'but you must not allow your maternal instincts to cloud your judgment, you know.'

Laura almost choked. Dame Beatrice cackled and called her attention to a yacht which was passing.

'Sloop, Bermuda rigged,' said Laura, stopping to watch and appraise it. 'Saw one rather like it at the Boat Show. Coasts and estuaries. Cost about five hundred and fifty. The sails come about fifty pounds extra.'

'I do not understand why sails should be listed as an extra if the craft cannot get under weigh without them,' observed Dame Beatrice.

'Well, you see-Now, there's a nice job!' A four-berth motor-cum-sailing boat was approaching them round the long, handsome sweep of the broad river. 'Draws about three and a half feet of water. Over three hundred feet of sail and, if you're in a hurry, or the wind's wrong, there's an eighteen-horsepower motor to get you out of trouble,' said Laura. 'A lazy owner's delight, in fact, I call her, but a sweet little craft, all the same. You can go to sea in
her
!'

'Delightful. How well can Hamish swim now?'

'Oh, he's the usual modern water-baby-perfectly safe under any circumstances except extreme cold or a bevy of hungry sharks.'

'Then we had better purchase a handy boat and spend time on the water next summer. It would be convenient enough to come here from the Stone House and I find this place attractive. Then, of course, there is the Hamble River...'

'Both very crowded in the summer. Why don't we go up to Plockton on Loch Carron in Wester Ross? Scenery marvellous, harbour good, and free from strong tides, artists' paradise and yachtsman's dream. (I quote). It's on the railway, if you don't want to take the car, and we could get to Skye or into Loch Torridon or up to Gairloch...'

'I like the sound of that, too. Go ahead, my dear Laura, and make your plans.'

'We could always come here again at this time of year, or even a bit later. But I must point out, Mrs Croc, dear, that we're now losing sight of our
raison d'être
.'

'I do not feel that Mr Richardson and his mirages are my
raison d'être
, child.'

'Good Lord! You don't mean you think Tom was
seeing things
, and the corpses weren't in his tent at all? Oh, but we know that
one
of them was, because the Superintendent saw it there. So-why mirages?'

'Say, then, the figments of a guilty mind, child.'

'You don't really think Tom Richardson has a guilty mind?'

'We all have guilty minds, my dear Laura.'

'You don't fob me off like that! Jolly well come clean!'

'I think there is more behind Mr Richardson's present reactions than we know.'

'You mean he's mixed up in something fishy?'

'I think he knows more about the late Mr Colnbrook than he has admitted.'

This part of the conversation was on similar lines to that which was being carried on between the two young men. These, taking but the most cursory interest in the yachts, cruisers, launches, catamarans, dinghies and boatmen's supply boats which were out on the river, were strolling towards Beaulieu, deep in conversation punctuated by pauses for earnest thought.

Just as Laura was asking whether Dame Beatrice believed that Richardson was mixed up with something illegal, Denis, with the disconcerting directness of the artist, suddenly said to his friend,

'You'll have to come clean with Aunt Adela, you know, if you want her in your team. I told you so before.'

Richardson did not attempt to side-step the significance of this piece of advice. He said, with sober fatality:

'I know. I talked to her quite a lot coming down here in her car, but it was a question of giving her the information she asked for, rather than putting my oar in and volunteering possibly unnecessary facts, you see.'

'What facts?'

'Such as that I actually met Colnbrook-to speak to him, I mean-more than once. I do know a bit more about him than I've ever told anybody. I could have had a motive for killing him, now that I'm engaged to be married.'

'Good Lord! You don't mean he was in a position to blackmail you? What
have
you been a-doing of?'

'Look here, I don't want it to get to the police that I know more about him than I've told them. All the same, (and keep this under your hat until I've decided what to do) except that I admitted I'd met him and had run against him in the cross-country challenge, you may as well face it that I've told them damn-all, and that's how it's going to stay.'

'Leave out the damn, man, and tell Aunt Adela the all. She won't let you down. I can vouch for her. You'd better seek her out in the drawing-room lounge tonight. You're pretty certain to get it to yourselves after dinner because everybody either looks in on the television or props up the bar. Talk to her like an erring but favourite grandson. Lay bare your youthful bosom. You
must
give her something to go on, you know. She can't be expected to start from scratch and
still
steer your colours past the winning post.'

'Do jockeys start from scratch?' asked Richardson, looking more cheerful. 'I thought they were handicapped by weights.'

'All right, all right! She can't be expected to carry unfair and extra weight because she lacks the salient facts of your case. Be reasonable.'

'Yes, of course. Yes, I agree. All right, then. You
do
think I'm in a bit of a jam, though, don't you?'

'I still think you exaggerate the dangers, but I also still think it's better to be safe than sorry, therefore Aunt Adela is the answer, and I think you ought to tell her everything you know. Let's halt here awhile and let her and Laura catch up with us.'

'Who
is
this Mrs Gavin?'

'She's by way of being my great-aunt's secretary, but she is also a person in her own right.'

'Meaning?'

'A grand girl, our Laura. Anyway, you come clean and you'll never look back with either of them.'

'All right, then, let's stop and look at boats.'

'I suppose you
didn't
know the party of the second part?'

'The how-much?'

'The specimen who was in your tent when you went back there with the police. That there Bunt.'

'Never seen him in my life before and that's the gospel truth. I suppose he was the second runner on the heath, that's all.'

'Then what the devil are you worrying about? Suppose you
do
know something more about Colnbrook! What's it matter?'

'I've been framed. Somebody must have it in for me. That's the conclusion I've come to.'

'Well, think! Who's likely to frame you? When you've settled that to your satisfaction, just give Aunt Adela his name and address and, unless I'm vastly mistaken, Bob's your uncle.'

'Do you really think so?'

'Of course I do, you idiot! Put your faith in the Bradleys. They
can't
fail!'