Down Under (5 page)

Oliver turned a haggard face on her.

“Yes—I say so too.”

“Then—she was made to go. We don't know how, and we've got to find out, and every single minute is as precious as diamonds. And oh, Oliver, won't you
please
go and see Uncle Ben at once?”

“Uncle Ben?” said Oliver. Weren't there enough relations mixed up in this already?

“Not really,” said Loveday, flushed and earnest. “I mean he isn't really an uncle—at least not mine or Rose Anne's—but Hugo's sister Susan married his nephew, and he's a Pet Lamb. No, Oliver, please listen. He's a really frightfully important person, and he got Hugo and me out of the sort of jam that it gives you nightmares to remember for the rest of your life. I can't tell you about it—at least I can't without asking Hugo, because it was all very hush-hush, and if it hadn't been for Uncle Ben—”

“Who is he?” said Oliver, frowning.

“He is Mr Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith,
^*
and he is a—a sort of—well, honestly, Oliver, I don't know what he is, but the Foreign Office ask his advice, and Colonel Garratt who is the head of the Foreign Office Intelligence goes and sits at his feet.” She gave a faint giggle. “At least I believe what really happens is that Colonel Garratt snaps and growls exactly like a quarrelsome terrier, only rather a pet too, and Uncle Ben just drifts about the room and talks to Ananias. He's got a parrot called Ananias, and they are devoted to each other, and if you listen carefully you come away with something worth having.”

“I don't think—” said Oliver in a voice which he tried to make polite.

Loveday coloured high.

“I haven't explained a bit properly—it's so difficult. But he really is the most marvellous person—Uncle Ben, I mean. There's a picture that's like him—an old Doge or something by Titian. I mean he's
immensely
impressive—he really is. He knows
everything
and everyone. I mean he can get things done—he really can. And, Oliver, if you won't go now, do just keep on thinking about it. And—and I've put his name and address on the back of one of my cards, and a message, and if you do go and see him, send it in, because he really is very fond of Susan and Hugo and me.”

Oliver took the proffered card and put it away in his pocket-book. And then Elfreda came running down the path again.

“That was Cousin Catherine, and why she didn't get herself called to the Bar instead of marrying a parson in Peckham, I can't think. She's been cross-examining my head off and not believing a single word I said, and when she'd finished, Aunt Hortensia wanted to know who was calling up, and we had it all over again. I do wish all our relations were
dead!
”

*
Fool Errant, Danger Calling, Walk with Care, Dead or Alive
.

CHAPTER VI

Claypole is quite a small village. There is a church, an inn called the Hand and Glove, and a couple of rows of cottages. There are two or three fair sized farms in the offing, and Mr Burdock at Little Clay breeds pigs, and takes prizes with them at the County shows.

Everybody in the village knew that Miss Rose Anne Carew had run away from Hillick St Agnes on the night before her wedding. Every woman knew that she had run away in a blue coat and skirt and a bright green hat, and that Inspector Robins had been over to ask George Abbott about the young lady in the green hat who had got off the 7.48 from Malling. And of course George didn't know nothing. George wouldn't—too much taken up with Ellen Wilks to so much as see what any other girl looked like, and goodness knew why, because though it was plain enough that Ellen thought the world of herself, Claypole—feminine Claypole at any rate—didn't consider her anything to write home about—“Lipstick and rouge, and heels as high as stilts! Well, the sooner she gets herself another place the better for her pore old father, and the better for Claypole, and much the better for George Abbott.”

Peter Wilks was Mr Burdock's head pig-keeper and a highly respected citizen. Pigs had no secrets from him, but he couldn't manage his daughter Ellen. It was whispered in the village that she now spelled her name Elayne, and required George to pronounce it in that manner.

Oliver found George Abbott digging pig-manure into the garden which he fondly hoped he would one day persuade Ellen to share with him. The trouble was that he had his mother to keep and he was a good son, and Ellen was set against sharing a house with any mother-in-law in the world. Quite enough matter here to make a young man inattentive to passing females whose tickets it was his duty to collect. He had his troubles had George, what with his mother bursting into tears two or three times a day, and offering to go to the institute, and Ellen stamping her foot at him no longer ago than teatime yesterday and saying if he didn't care for her enough to say her name the way she liked it said, she'd take the morning bus into Malling and put down her name at the registry office and go for a lady's maid—“And if it's foreign parts, so much the better, George Abbott, for I'm sick sore and weary of living in a village and hearing about nothing but pigs.”

George spread manure gloomily. If Ellen went off to foreign parts, he shouldn't wonder if he never saw her again. This stuff ought to do the ground good. What call had Ellen got to go off foreign when all was said and done? His mother had lived with her mother-in-law, and as happy as happy—or so she said now. What was the matter with women that two of 'em couldn't live happily in a house? And plenty of room too—three as good bedrooms as anyone could wish for. Why, she ought to be glad of the company when he was out. As for the new-fangled way of saying her name, he was hanged if he could remember it from one time to the next, for all he'd got it written down. He looked up with a jerk of his head when Oliver spoke his name.

“Good afternoon. Are you George Abbott?”

George admitted it. He was a pleasant-faced, rosy young man with big shoulders and big hands. He wanted to get on with his digging.

Oliver came through the gate and shut it after him. He had left his car some twenty yards up the street outside the Hand and Glove. He said,

“My name is Loddon—Captain Loddon. You won't know it of course.”

On the contrary, every soul in Claypole knew all about Captain Oliver Loddon whose young lady had run away from him. George Abbott looked at him with a kind of gloomy sympathy, because if Ellen went off foreign, he'd be in Captain Loddon's shoes himself, or as good as.

He said, “Yes, sir,” and then had the feeling that he hadn't said the right thing. That was Ellen, that was—always keeping on about the way he spoke, as if plain words weren't good enough for anyone. He had missed something because Captain Loddon was saying,

“I think you took her ticket.”

George got hot behind the ears. He must have missed quite a piece. Right down absent-minded that was what he was, and it was all Ellen's fault. He said in an abashed voice,

“I beg your pardon, sir—”

“I think you told the Inspector—”

George recovered himself. The young lady with the green hat—that was what he was after. Everyone was making sure now that she must have been Miss Carew.

“Oh, yes, sir—I took her ticket.”

Oliver produced a ten shilling note.

“Look here, I'm taking up your time—”

George said, “Oh no, sir,” and, “Thank you very, I'm sure.” The ten shilling note went into his trouser pocket.

Oliver watched his rather deliberate movements with an intolerable sense of strain. Since Rose Anne disappeared he had the feeling that everything had slowed down. It was like being part of a slow motion picture—thought, speech, action, all dragging intolerably—moments lengthened into hours—time stretching, sagging—

He said, “Will you tell me exactly what happened—anything you saw—anything you noticed—every single thing you can remember.”

George scratched his head, and then remembered that this was one of the things which offended Ellen. He said hastily,

“Well, sir, I didn't notice much, that's the truth.”

“She got out of the train?”

“Well, I didn't see her get out, but she must ha' done, because she come along the platform.”

“Where were you standing?”

“By the booking-office door.”

“You mean the door between the platform and the booking office?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you could see along the platform?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How far away was she when you saw her?”

George put up his hand to scratch again, but desisted in time.

“Well, sir, I couldn't say. I wasn't taking notice, and that's the truth.”

“Was she the only passenger who got off?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, when did you notice her?” said Oliver. “You told the Inspector you noticed the green hat.”

George leaned on his fork.

“Well, sir, it was this way. First of all I didn't think there was anyone getting off, and I began thinking about something else. And then there was the young lady as if she was going to push past without giving up her ticket, so I said, ‘Ticket please,' and she turned round to get the light and started rummaging in her bag.”

“Wait a minute,” said Oliver. “You say she turned round to get the light. What light was that, and where was it?”

“The lamp out on the platform, sir.”

“Show me how you were standing, and where the lamp would be.”

George showed him, sticking his fork upright in the ground and retreating half a dozen yards.

“That'd be the lamp, and this 'ud be me, and she turned around like that.” He described a curve with his arm.

“So when she turned round she would be between you and the lamp? Is that it?”

“That's right, sir. It's not a very strong light, sir—lots of complaints about it one way and another.”

“So you didn't see her face?”

“No, sir—I told the Inspector I didn't.”

“Did you see the colour of her hair?”

George took time to think about that. Then he said,

“I didn't notice it, sir.”

“You say she was rummaging in her bag. What happened then?”

“She found her ticket, and pushed it at me, and went on quick.”

“Where did she go?”

“Right across and out at the other door, and got into the car that was waiting there and drove off.”

“Do you mean she drove the car herself?”

“Oh, no, sir—there was a gentleman in the car.”

“Did you see him?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Then how—?”

“I didn't see him no more than just to know there was someone opened the door of the car, and the young lady got in and slammed it and they went off. That's all I saw.”

“Then what's all this about a green hat? Where did you see it?”

George was on perfectly firm ground. The hat had struck him all of a heap. He liked a good bright bit of colour. Perhaps that was why he liked Ellen.

“Oh, that was when she was going out, sir—the brightest green hat I ever seen—right under the booking-office light and no mistake about it. I didn't see her face, because she was going away from me, but I see her hat all right.”

There was a pause. George's hand went down into his trouser pocket. The ten shilling note felt pleasantly crisp. His fingers slid past it, touched a piece of paper folded over on itself. Ellen—Elayne—E-l-a-y-n-e. A lot of damned tomfoolery, but if she fancied her name that way, he supposed he'd got to humour her—E-l-a.… He pulled out the piece of paper all ready to take a look at it when Captain Loddon should be gone. And Captain Loddon was saying,

“Isn't there anything else at all, Abbott?”

George turned the paper in his hand, and suddenly there it was, staring up at him, a name on a piece of paper—a name on a torn envelope. Not “Ellen,” nor “Elayne,” but “Miss Rose Anne Carew.” He held it out to Oliver, and said in a dazed voice,

“She dropped it, sir.”

Oliver said,
“What?”

“She dropped it when she was looking for her ticket.”

Oliver stared at the name. The writing was his own—“Miss Rose Anne Carew.” There was just the name, on a torn piece of an envelope. The address was gone and the flaps. There was just a straight torn piece with Rose Anne's name on it. He turned it over mechanically, and saw on the back what George Abbott had written there laboriously with a smudgy pencil—“E-l-a-y-n-e.”

“But, Abbott—”

George was all hot and bothered.

“I didn't know there was any writing on it. I wanted a bit of paper and I picked it up. My young lady's got a fancy to spell her name different, and I can't get used to it, not anyhow.”

Oliver said nothing. He turned the paper again and stood looking down at the name he had written three days ago.—Or was it four.… Time had stopped. He had written the name, and thought when he wrote it that it was the last time. “Next time I write I shall be writing to my wife.” It was the last time, there wasn't going to be any next time. He stared at the torn envelope, and at the name on it:

“Miss Rose Anne Carew.”

CHAPTER VII

Mr Smith was in his library. He was, in fact, searching the top shelf for an interesting pamphlet on the
Art of Malediction as Practised in the Near East
. The pamphlet was fifty years old and extremely rare, and as Mr Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith never mislaid anything, he was beginning to entertain a regretful suspicion about the learned Roumanian professor to whom he had shown it some six months previously. He turned, looked over his shoulder, and addressed the grey and rose coloured parrot who occupied a handsome perch at the far end of the room.

“Not always a very honest world, Ananias?”