Dreaming Spies (38 page)

“I’d just have to take off cross-country. That, after all, is what this animal is for.”

He cast a dubious eye at the fields. “Rather tall hedges.”

They did look a lot higher than the low shrubbery I had urged the mare over on the ride up, and there were three, four—five of them between yard and road. “I’ll just have to hang on,” I replied, and whipped out the final piece of my disguise: a tube of scarlet lipstick.

Holmes corrected a slip with his pocket-handkerchief (horseback not
being an ideal place for the application of makeup). I buttoned my spectacles into a pocket, then reined my mare around in the direction we had come in, kicking the beast into a trot. Holmes continued leading his horse along the road, since it was better to claim incipient lameness than to park one’s horse in the middle of a lane for all the world to wonder at.

I jogged along, slowing to a walk as we turned into the drive. Weeds sprouted through half a mile of gravel. Fields turned to lawn near the house, and my mount’s ears went forward, confirming that there were others of her kind in the stables ahead of us. Opposite the front door, the stables came more clearly into view, one wing of it given over to a more modern form of transport: motorcars. One of the three spaces was empty. I hoped devoutly that both residents were inside it, until evening at least.

The house was quiet, without the endless strains of Tommy’s gramophone, but a glance in the sitting-room windows showed furniture, not dust-covers. The Darleys were either in residence, or not away for long. The mare tossed her head, and I made my grip on the reins go loose.

“Not yet,” I murmured at her ears. “If I want you to make a break for it, you’ll know.”

No head leant from a window; no surprised voice called a greeting to an old shipboard acquaintance. I made it to the yard between house and stables, where I paused, wondering whether housemaid or groom would be a more likely conversationalist.

My choice was made for me when the man I had seen earlier came out of a stall, pulling off his soft cap to reveal a tonsure of greying hair.

“ ’Elp you, miss?”

I donned a full-blown upper-class drawl and tried not to squint myopically at him from beneath the brim of my helmet. “Yaiss, I was out for a ride when I saw this place and it occurred to me that I’d seen a photo of it, in a friend’s rooms—in college, you know? This is the Darley place, isn’t it?”

“That it be, miss.”

“Oh, jolly good! I shall enquire at the house.”

“Sorry, miss, but the Darleys baint ’ere. They be gone, visitin’ friends. Leicester, I b’lieve t’was.” I drank in the creamy Oxfordshire accent, so
rich in rhotics and lacking in initial H’s and final G’s. My smile seemed to make him nervous; his hat began to revolve in his hands.

I came to myself and raised my chin again, that I might look down my nose at the rustic. My smile merely polite now, I asked him more about the Darleys, leading the man in a casual conversation about their friends, their horseflesh, their habits, the household staff. When I had as much information as I thought I could extract without rousing his suspicions, I made one last query concerning their expected return, and put on a look of disappointment at the news that they were not expected until the week-end.

“That’s too, too bad. Oh well, another time. Thanks so, and cheeri-o!” I yanked the horse around and urged her forward before he could venture any questions in turn.

But I was not quite quick enough. “Miss? Miss, who shall I tell ’em was by?”

“Susan,” I called over my shoulder, and drove my heels into the mare’s ribs. She was startled into a canter, nearly dumping me to the gravel, but we cleared the drive without Tommy’s sports car (Surely he would drive a sports car?) flying at me down the lane. I posted briskly along until I had caught Holmes up, then let the mare slow to an amble.

“Why has this country never adopted Western saddles?” I complained.

“Because English women prefer their backsides muscular?”

I laughed aloud. “There is that. The Darleys appear to be staying here,” I told him, “but they’re away until the week-end. As the butler told Billy, in Leicestershire.”

“I was relieved when you did not come flying across the fields.”

“Not as relieved as I. I also think the poor fellow was well distracted by the lipstick. When he tells Tommy—sorry, I just can’t think of him as ‘Lord Darley’—when he tells them there was a visitor, all he’ll be able to say is that there was a young woman named Susan who had bright lipstick.”

He handed up the handkerchief that he had applied to my mouth earlier. When I returned it, the linen looked as if it had been used to mop
a severed artery. He folded it cautiously into a pocket, then worked his left boot into its stirrup.

“He did not recognise the horse?” he asked, gathering the reins.

“He looked, but his gaze did not sharpen.”

“Good.”

“Something else.” I frowned, trying to pull together vague impressions. “I think—his country accent was a bit distracting, but I
think
he doesn’t like the Darleys much.”

“Doesn’t respect them, you mean?”

“That’s it. A certain … laconic flatness to some of his remarks. And although the place appears to be fully staffed, there were weeds growing in the drive and the windows wanted a scrub.”

“Interesting.” He shook his horse into a walk.

Servants don’t need to like their employers—in some ways, it’s easier if they don’t—but a lack of respect undermines the entire machinery. For a gardener to let the weeds grow and the housekeeper to lose her pride—and for a grey-haired stableman to allow his disdain to leak out before a self-proclaimed friend of the family—their feelings had to be pretty close to contempt.

Interesting, indeed.

We disembarked from the saddles that afternoon with all the enthusiasm of geriatrics. I leant on the mare, trying to straighten my spine (I wish I could say that I was more successful at this than Holmes, twice my age) while making casual and appreciative conversation with the sisters. Helping to groom the beasts restored a degree of flexibility, but still, we walked away with the uncertain gait of a newly-landed Atlantic passenger. Both of us stifled groans as we folded into my motor.

“Oh, for a Japanese bath!” I said.

“Capital idea,” he said.

Unfortunately, my own bath-tub was not big enough for two. More through self-interest than a concern for my husband’s spine, I made a
suggestion. “Holmes, what about if I drop you at the Turkish baths on Merton Street? A long steam and a good pummel will set you up nicely for an evening of burglary.”

“An idyllic proposal, Russell. However, I fear you shall be returning to Oxford without me.”

“Why? What do you have in mind?”

“That public house on the main road, six miles from Darley Holt. If the staff of a household are displeased, they talk over their beers.”

I sighed, resigning myself to the aches in my limbs and the smell of horse in my skin. “I’ll come, too, Holmes.”

“No. We can’t have Miss Sato casting about the streets of Oxford. In any event, your presence would stifle the topics I intend to pursue.”

In the end, I did not argue too hard.

What comes in between

A man and his father’s house?

Traces of the past
.

Ironically, when I walked through my front door, Haruki was in better shape than I. My muscles seemed to have petrified on the drive back.

“You are injured! What happened?”

“Not injured, just sore. Riding horses is an activity one needs to do often in order to do at all. I’ll be fine after a bath and a drink. But I need to speak with Miss Pidgeon first. I’ll be right back.”

Miss Pidgeon’s reaction to my state was less overt than Haruki’s, but for her, the raised eyebrows were extreme. “Yes, I know,” I told her. “I won’t come in, but I wondered if you might possibly have time for a little job?”

One of the other advantages of having Miss Pidgeon so immediately to hand was her willingness to perform the odd task for me. I paid her, despite her protest, knowing that money was tight in her half of our little compound. I did try not to take advantage of her, although she claimed not to mind grocery-shopping and queue-standing. Still, her favourite tasks were those that involved the shelves of libraries.

Today’s job would be to her liking: a quick trip to the Oxford Town
Hall. When I explained what was needed, she gave a brisk nod. “That is in fact highly convenient. I was just remembering that I needed to bicycle down to the lending library this afternoon. I can easily stop by the records office while I am there.”

I gave her solemn thanks, and watched her catch up her hat and an empty book bag.

Miss Pidgeon was not a terribly accomplished liar. But her bicycle tyres were crossing the gravel before my own kitchen door shut behind me.

Haruki was no more convinced by my claims of well-being than I had been by hers. She stood at the foot of the stairs watching me pull myself up by the handrail, but it was true: heat and a large brandy loosened muscles. An hour later, I pattered down the stairs again, conscious of a howling empty pit within.

“I’m starving. Do you want anything?”

Bread, cheese, pickle, and a slab of leftover beef pie vanished from my plate, followed by a bowl of bean soup (both the latter thanks to Miss Pidgeon), some biscuits with more cheese, and a handful of dried fruit. Haruki ate a bowl of cold rice with green tea poured over it.

I piled my dishes in the sink. As I was filling the kettle, Miss Pidgeon’s homely face went past the garden window. I gestured her inside—although as was her habit, she knocked before reaching for the knob.

“That was fast,” I said—the file in her hand and the look on her face told me she’d been successful, despite the hour.

“It was just on the edges, but yes, the house was there.”

She laid the file on the table and turned to go. “Wait, do have a cup of tea, Miss Pidgeon,” I said.

But no, she had dinner to put on, or a cat to feed, or something.

What was the equivalent of “house-proud” when it came to the job of being a good neighbour?

I allowed her to slip away, then bent to see what she had brought me.

“What is that?” Haruki asked.

“Well, Holmes and I saw the Darley house from the outside, but it
occurred to me that if we could locate a valuation or survey of some kind in the local records office, it might give a description of the rooms. I would go down to Somerset House, but I don’t really have time for another trip to London, and I thought Miss Pidgeon might not mind having a quick word with her friends at the Town Hall. And look what she’s found.” I laid a page in front of my guest: a drawing of the house, both its main storeys, each room bearing a neat label.

The soft spring evening light faded over Oxford while Haruki and I pored over the house plan. Later, as the ground-floor lights in the houses around us began to shut off and the upstairs lights took their place, we chose clothing appropriate for a country house break-in. She had the basics, although she requested a coat that she could button over the sling. The result looked like a joke, but she said it was comfortable. I filled a rucksack with dark clothing for Holmes, spare torch batteries, a length of rope, and the like. While I waited for the pot of strong coffee to brew, I studied my companion’s child-sized hands.

With that arm, letting her inside the house would be risky: even someone capable of walking the Marconi wires on a ship might find it difficult to scramble from an upper-storey window without a full complement of functional limbs. Still, if she remained on the ground floor, she should be able to work a window-latch and drop out from there.

“I don’t have any gloves that will fit you,” I said.

“It is not cold.”

“I was thinking of finger-prints. I could paint your fingers with shellac, but that’s both confining and uncomfortable. Or you could take great care to wipe down anything you touch.”

“Finger-prints will not be a problem,” she said.

I opened my mouth to remind her of how she’d underestimated the University’s constables. Then I decided against it. “See that you do,” I told her. “I have no wish for Holmes to spend his waning years behind bars.”

I poured the coffee into a flask, shoved it and a packet of sandwiches
into the rucksack, and looked around my tidy scholar’s house, wondering if this would be the last time I stood here.

I tried not to think about what had happened the last time we’d gone after the Darleys.

The pub was closed. The headlamps played across its front as the wheels left the road’s metalled surface. The rear passenger door opened, and Holmes dropped inside, stinking of beer, tobacco, and stale sweat. The lingering traces of horse about him seemed almost fresh by comparison.

Wordlessly, I handed him the flask and sandwiches. With equal silence, he pushed the two counter-agents to ethanol down his throat. After a time, he capped the flask and I pointed out the pile of his clothing. His boots went away across the weed-choked gravel, then returned a few minutes later, diverting to the far back to stuff his old garments in among the tyre-irons.