Lonely Road (12 page)

We passed through Dartmouth and up the shoulder of the hill. At the top I swung the car in through the gates and up the drive, and we came to rest on the gravel sweep before the house, three hundred miles from Leeds. I switched off the engine, and the silence closed down on us, infinite, complete. We sat there for a moment silent in the dark; then I stirred, and we got out of the car.

The front door opened and Rogers was there with one of the maids; he came forward and busied himself with our luggage. I spoke a word or two to him; from the open door a stream of light poured out into the darkness where we stood. Then I turned to where the girl was standing by the car.

She came up to me: “Is this where you live?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Let’s go indoors.”

She hung back a little by the car. “It’s awfully big,” she breathed. “It’s like the pictures.…” And then she said: “Whatever is that noise?”

I listened for a moment. I could hear nothing beyond the usual small noises of the night, the rustling of branches in the breeze, the low murmur from the beach. I laughed. “That’s the sea you hear,” I said. “On the rocks, just down below that lawn. You’ll see it from your window in the morning when you wake.”

For a little time we stood there listening, sniffing the sea air. “That’s it,” I said. “It’s when the wind’s in the south-east that it makes that noise. Blows straight in.”

“Oh——” she said. “It’s going to be lovely here.”

We went into the house. Mrs. Rogers, my housekeeper, was in the hall; I noticed that she looked at her a little bit askance. I spoke a word or two to Mrs. Rogers on the subject of spare rooms and light refreshments, and by the time I’d finished she had clearly understood that her position would be vacant if she gave me any nonsense of that sort. She went away then, and I had no further trouble with her in that way.

Both Sixpence and I were tired from the drive; there was a fire in the library, and we went in there. She was shy and very quiet, very observant of the house. She refused a drink, but jumped at the proposal of a cup of tea and a piece of cake before the fire; I poured myself out a whisky and put on a few records on the gramophone to allow her to keep quiet. Then we were ready for bed.

I took her up and showed her to her room. There was a bright fire burning in the grate and the room looked very comfortable; her things were all laid out. She hadn’t very much. I looked round and made sure that she had everything she wanted for the night—soap and towels and all the rest of it. I crossed with her to the window and drew back the curtain; two hundred feet below the moon cast dappled shadows on the water at the harbour mouth. “There’s the sea,” I said. “You’ll see it all when you wake up.”

We turned back into the room.

“What’s that door?” she asked.

I crossed the room and opened it, smiling a little; the light shone brightly on white tiles and silver pipes. “That’s your bathroom,” I replied. “Not my bedroom, as you might suppose.”

She rippled into laughter. “Oh, you are funny. I mean, I didn’t mean that when I asked you what the door was.” She sighed. “It’s all so lovely here I don’t know what to say.”

“Better say good-night,” I remarked. “That’s a safe one, anyway.”

She came up to me. “Good-night,” she said simply. “And thank you so much for the lovely day I’ve had.”

“Good-night,” I said, and went down to the library again.
There were one or two letters to be opened, and one or two instructions to be given to Rogers about matters of the house. And then I sat smoking for a long time, irresolute, staring into the fire. At last I reached out for the telephone and rang up Fedden at his house.

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got the girl down here. What do you want done with her?”

There was a moment’s pause. “One moment. Where is she? Where are you speaking from?”

“Speaking from my house,” I said. “You don’t want her to-night, do you? I’ve sent her up to bed.”

“I can’t do anything with her to-night,” he replied. “We’ll examine her in the morning. You know Norman’s down here? He came down this afternoon. About this girl—has she made any statement to you?”

“None at all. I haven’t tried for one. I brought her down here because I thought she could identify the lorry.”

He paused. “I don’t understand. How did you get her to come down here, then?”

“Personal charm,” I said laconically.

“Oh.…” There was a little silence then, because Fedden
is
a better sort than I am. “Then she doesn’t know anything at all about this matter—why you’ve brought her down?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” I replied. “Still, I’ve got her here. What do you want me to do with her?”

He considered for a moment. “Bring her to Newton Abbot police station at half-past ten to-morrow morning,” he said at last. “I’m meeting Norman there at ten. In all probability he’ll show her the lorry there.”

“All right. Are you any good at scenes?”

“Did you say scenes?”

“Yes, scenes. You’d better come prepared for one, because we’re pretty sure to have it.”

“Oh.…”

“One thing more,” I said. “I take it that my responsibility ends to-morrow, when I hand her over to you. I’ll arrange to have her clothes packed up and sent along to you later in the
day. The position is that I deliver her to you at Newton Abbot, and you take charge of her from then onwards.”

He hesitated. “If you like. I don’t see that we can ask you to do anything further in the matter after that.”

“That’s all I wanted to be sure about,” I said. “Good-night.”

I put up the receiver and moved the decanter over to a table by my chair. The fire was dying in the grate; I threw on more coal and beat it savagely into a blaze.

I sat there till the room grew cold and dark. Then I went up to bed.

I
CAN’T
have got much sleep that night, because I was awake at dawn. That was about four o’clock, I should suppose; it must have been about the second or third of June. I lay and watched the light growing in the room till I could see from the glow that there was sunlight out of doors, and a clear sky and an easterly wind for settled weather.

It was no good lying in bed; I gave up the attempt to sleep, got up, and had a bath. Then I went downstairs in my dressing-gown and pyjamas and wandered absently about the house a bit; my chair and glass were as I had left them in the library an hour or two before. I went through into the model room and drew the blinds. The morning sun streamed through into the room and I stood there idly for a little time, studying the hull shapes on my drawing-board. At that time I was working on the design of the small cruising yacht that I laid down last month when I came back to Dartmouth; I think she will turn out a pretty little craft, embodying all that I have ever learnt about the game.
*
I stood there studying the lines till I became absorbed, moved T-square and curves, and stood there working at the hull until I heard the servants moving round the house.

I went upstairs to shave and dress, and when I came down again Sixpence was before me. I came down into the hall treading quietly on the thick carpet of the stairs, and stood there for a moment sorting through my letters. Then I looked up and through the open door of the library I saw her standing at the entrance to the model room. She had not heard me in the hall.

I watched her for a minute. She stood there very quiet,
staring about her, taking it all in. She was dressed in the same grey costume that she had worn the previous day and had taken the same pains over her face; her thick black hair was coiled about her ears. I watched her as she moved slowly forward into the model room, treading very softly as though she was uncertain if she ought to be there at all. She passed into the sunlight by the window; deep colours showed up in the folds of her hair and warm tints on her neck below the powder line; she moved with a quiet grace that was, perhaps, in part an attribute of her profession. She stood there for a time by the window in the sun, looking about her at the models, careful not to touch the cases as she moved. Presently she slipped over to my drawing-board and paused for a long time over that, uncomprehending.

I smiled, and went up a few steps of the stairs, and came down upon the resonant woodwork at the side. I turned into the library and found her there. “Morning,” I said; “did you sleep well?”

She nodded. “Lovely,” she said. And then she said: “It is a lovely house. I think it’s just a dream.”

I smiled, and moved forward to the door. “This is the model room,” I said. “Where I do my work—some of it. What I don’t do down at the office I do here.” I stared around. “There’s not much here but ships.”

She said: “The maid told me when she came to wake me up. Oh, and I mean—I’ve been calling you all wrong. You must think me awful! But you never told me different. I’ve been calling you Mr. Stevenson all the time.”

I laughed. “That’s what I ought to be called. It’s only because I have to do with ships that they call me Commander. I was only in the Navy in the war.”

She looked up at me uncertainly. “Oh … I didn’t know.” And then she said: “She said you were up working, ever so early. Didn’t you sleep properly? I slept lovely after all that driving.”

“You don’t sleep so much as you get older,” I replied. “I often get up early in the summer.”

This was an opening she knew. “Oh, you are funny,” she replied. “You aren’t old.”

I grinned at her. “I’ve got enough grey hair, anyway,” I said.

She looked around, and sighed. “I’d sleep for ever in a lovely house like this,” she said.

We went through into the dining-room for breakfast. I saw her glance around as she sat down, a swift circular glance that seemed to take in everything from the silver on the table to the portraits of my family upon the walls. “I’ve got to go over to Newton Abbot this morning,” I remarked as we sat down. “Would you like to come too?” I paused. “I’m running over in the car.”

She looked at me doubtfully. “Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way? I mean, it’s all so lovely here I don’t want you to bother.”

I smiled, a little bitterly: “You needn’t worry about that. I’d like it if you’d come to keep me company.”

She smiled at me. “It would be lovely. I do like driving in your car. It is a nice one, isn’t it?”

“It goes all right,” I said, and so we got on with the meal. I had grown queerly callous by that time and could listen quite unmoved while she chatted to me about holidays that she had taken with her brother, years before, holidays at Colwyn Bay and Southport. I listened with a detached, critical interest while she spoke of him, trying to make out from her account what sort of man this brother of hers was. She had a great regard for him. To her he was everything that was fine and manly and courageous; it was the idolism of a child. I wondered what the man was really like.

He was three years old than her. That put him at about twenty-eight years old, I thought.

We left the house soon after breakfast; that was a rotten drive. I was silent and preoccupied, and after a little time Sixpence grew quiet and didn’t worry me. I noticed that at the time, and I remember wondering if she had smelt a rat. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it now; my business was so nearly over.

It was in that frame of mind that we drove into Newton Abbot and drew up before the police station, exactly at the time agreed upon. The town was all spattered with election posters. I remember that because it was the first time I had seen the things that year. It must have been about six weeks before the poll.

As the car came to a standstill, I said: “You’d better come inside with me. I shan’t be long.” She looked a little startled, but I turned away and she followed me in through the door and into the same room where I had been shown the gun. Norman and Fedden were waiting for us there.

I spoke first: “This is Miss Gordon, who’s come down with me,” I said. “Major Norman—Colonel Fedden.”

They bowed to her, and she murmured something that I couldn’t catch. I didn’t care to look at her.

“We have the lorry outside, in the yard,” said Norman. “I think perhaps we’d better go and see that first.” He turned to the girl. “Will you come, too, Miss Gordon?” he said pleasantly.

She smiled at him, and we went through the door and out into the yard. There was a mass of wreckage beneath a tarpaulin in a corner of the wall; two constables were uncovering it as we went out.

Norman turned to the girl, and when he spoke his voice was very grave. “Miss Gordon,” he said quietly. “I think you told Commander Stevenson that your brother was the owner of a motor-lorry—a thirty-hundredweight Dennis lorry.” He paused. “I am very sorry to say that we have had an accident down here recently—rather a bad accident. Do you think you would know your brother’s lorry again?”

She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I don’t quite understand.” And then she said quickly: “Do you mean something’s happened to Billy?”

His manner was perfect. “Please, Miss Gordon,” he said, “there’s nothing to distress yourself about at the moment. I want you just to walk round this lorry with me, and see if you can see anything on it that you can identify. That’s all.”

The wreckage was completely uncovered by this time. It
lay there on the asphalt of the yard, broken and twisted and already red with rust. I was standing with Fedden a little way apart. He looked at me awkwardly, and said in a low tone:

“Norman is very experienced in dealing with these cases. You can safely leave her in his hands, if you’d rather slip away now.”

I glanced at him sharply. “I’d rather stay,” I said. “I want to see how this is done.”

He made no answer, but stood there fidgeting a little—a decent man in an impossible position. Norman had moved closer to the lorry with the girl, and was talking to her in a very gentle tone. She had forgotten we were there, I think.

“It caught on fire in the middle of the night,” he was saying, “on the road, not very far from here. There was nobody there at the time, and when help came it was burning so fiercely that no one could get near it to do anything. Everything in it was destroyed—we don’t even know what it was loaded with. As you can see, it was completely burnt out.…” He hesitated. “And the driver.…” He stopped.