Murder Abroad (4 page)

“I gather you are no great lover of the Church,” Bobby observed.

“It is,” said the schoolmaster firmly, “the eternal enemy of the people. Remember Voltaire. Wipe out the Infamy! How wise. How true. How necessary. Yet the task has not yet been accomplished. Why? Because,” said Eudes, still more firmly and without giving Bobby any chance to answer, “because we have been too high-minded, too scrupulous, too honest to fight the Church with her own weapon.”

“What is that?”

“Money,” declared Eudes, and for once he forgot to hide those fierce and eager eyes of his and let them blaze with fanatic fervour from behind their heavy, slightly swollen lids, “and it is money we need—money wherewith to establish a journal of liberty and enlightenment. Oh, I know there are those published in Paris, but here in the Auvergne we do not think so much of the Paris gentlemen, we have our own ideas. Let me have money to establish here a journal of the Auvergne for the Auvergnats and very soon you will see the Church upon the run.” He paused and apparently recollected himself, looking at Bobby a little uneasily. He went on: “But I am taking it for granted that you do not believe? You are English. You are an artist. In England the Church has not such power as here. And artists—artists are at least free. We others—no.” He came to a standstill before the gate of a small and pleasant cottage in a well-kept little garden. It contained an arbour with a table and bench, shaded by a freely-growing vine. With a gesture towards it, Eudes said: “You will enter? You will drink a glass of wine with me?”

The invitation was given with a touch of hesitation and Bobby guessed that Eudes was feeling a little nervous at having spoken so freely to a stranger. On the excuse that he would like to continue his walk before returning to the hotel for bed, Bobby declined the invitation. He bade his new friend good night and then asked, pointing in front and a little to the right:

“Isn't that an old mill over there? I suppose it isn't used now?”

“Oh, the Pépin mill,” Eudes answered. “No, it is long since it was used as a mill. Now it is used for summer visitors. The Père Pépin to whom it belongs had it restored and fitted up, and every year he lets it in the holiday season. At present there are two of your compatriots there—a Monsieur and Madame Williams. Very often our little village has had the privilege of welcoming English visitors. Even up there—” Eudes pointed upwards to the bare, desolate expanse of hill and scrub that lay to the north towards Clermont, and, as he did so, a light shone out suddenly, high up on the slope of the hill. There, he said, “the beacon. When our good peasants see it, they cross themselves. Amusing?”

“Why? what is it?”

“Another of the black army, another of the flock of crows,” Eudes explained darkly. “But that one up there, he has perhaps some glimmering of enlightenment growing in him. Possibly it comes from his English blood.” Seeing that Bobby looked puzzled, Eudes went on: “It is a priest who lives there, the Abbé Taylour. For a year, nearly a year, he came late in the autumn, he has been there, by himself, in a hut he has rented. It is said that he is under excommunication. That, one does not know, but it is seldom he comes to the village and never to mass. It is true his hut is more than three miles from the church. One says, too, that he is an Englishman, but it seems he has his papers, for our good David went up to investigate.” Eudes smiled gently. “It is an experience he does not talk of. But since a boy of the village was lost on the hill—he was dying when they found him, he had been lost three days, and to be lost up there, it is as dangerous as to be lost in the desert or on a raft at sea—the Abbé Taylour hangs out always that lamp at night we see from here.” Eudes bade Bobby good night again and entered the cottage, and Bobby walked slowly on, his eyes lifted towards the lamp upon the distant, bare hillside that shone out so plainly now the evening shadows had fallen and night had come.

From the spot where Bobby had left the Citry-sur-l'eau schoolmaster it had seemed as if the Pépin Mill, the scene of the Polthwaite tragedy, stood not far from the road, between it and the stream that ran the length of the valley. In actual fact, as a result of bends both in the road and in the course of the stream, the mill stood on the farther bank, about a quarter of a mile from both it and the road which here nearly met each other. A rough track, little used apparently, so rough indeed as hardly to deserve the name even of path, branched off nearly at right angles from the road, crossed the little stream here only a foot or two deep by a somewhat unsteady plank bridge, and went on to the mill. As the bridge would clearly not carry wheeled traffic, Bobby supposed there must be other means of access. In this he was wrong. The mill had not been used as a mill for at least a century and had been nearly a ruin before its present owner had had the idea of fitting it up to be let to visitors in the holiday season. In former days there had probably been a more substantial bridge, or another road now ploughed up and cultivated, but to-day everything destined for delivery at the mill had to be carried across by hand.

The mill itself was surrounded by trees. A windscreen of poplars sheltered it from the current of wind that often blew down the valley through a gap in the hills to the south-west and that in times past had been the reason for the selection of this site. North of the building again were more trees, chiefly chestnuts and oaks, and to the east lay an orchard, though one that did not look as though it had ever been very fruitful. Through a gap in this sheltering circle of trees, Bobby, from where he stood, had a clear view of the mill. He could see there was a light, so the tenants were evidently at home.

A little strange, he thought, that the mill had been occupied so soon and by English people. Generally there is a tendency to avoid the scene of a recent tragedy. It put an end anyhow to the idea Lady Markham had suggested that he should rent the mill himself. Unless, of course, Mr. and Mrs. Williams were only making a very brief stay. He found himself wondering who they might be as he walked slowly across the rickety little plank bridge. Nearer the mill he halted in the shadow of some trees. He wondered if some time he might venture to call. They were English and visitors, like himself, and he could make the excuse that he wished to sketch the mill. All the time the thought was running in his mind as he stood there watching this aloof and solitary building, half hidden in its encircling trees, where an old woman had met a death still unexplained, that there was something strange in this prompt appearance on the scene of other English people.

Something doubtful, too, and menacing in the long, heavy shadows that lay all around, in the silence and the solitude, as though the mill stood there in the circle of its trees withdrawn and apart from the common healthy intercourse of everyday life, as though it lurked and crouched there in the night for purposes hidden from the day.

He was growing fanciful, he told himself, and then he heard footsteps, firm and confident steps, as of one who knew the way and his purpose and his destination. Bobby drew back into the shadows further still. He did not wish his interest in the mill to be remarked. The footsteps drew nearer. A tall and bulky form became dimly visible. Bobby made out that it was a man, walking fast and swinging a stick in his hand. He aimed blows at the shrubs and plants he passed as though to strike them down gave him a certain pleasure. He swung by at the same brisk pace without noticing Bobby and went on towards the mill. The Mr. Williams who was the new tenant, Bobby supposed, and then he became aware of another figure slipping by, stooping and silent, following the first.

So silently this second figure flitted by, so softly and so quietly, one shadow among others, that Bobby almost doubted if he had really seen it, or if his imagination had not betrayed him. Yet he knew it had not, and he wondered uneasily what this might mean, this silent pursuit through the night.

He wondered, too, whether to wait developments or to take action of some kind. He made up his mind to wait the return of the unknown watcher and then to speak to him. He would say he had strayed from the road and inquire what was the best way back to the village and his hotel.

There came the sound of a door shutting, banged to with unnecessary noise. Nothing silent about Mr. Williams, apparently. Presumably, he had reached the mill and entered and banged the door behind him. Bobby emerged from his shelter and moved cautiously forward, almost unconsciously treading as softly as he could. Abruptly a shot rang out. Bobby began to run. He heard shouting. The light in the mill went out. Someone was running towards him. He called:

“Who's that? Who fired? What's up?”

Instinctively he spoke in English. Whoever it was running towards him swerved quickly and fled away among the trees. The door of the mill opened and from a lamp apparently re-lighted a long beam shot out to illumine the darkness. No one appeared. There was only the open door and the light streaming out. Bobby began to run after the fugitive who had disappeared among the trees. But now he was invisible, swallowed up in the darkness, hidden by the trees. Bobby could hear him running and tried to follow but soon gave up the chase as hopeless. He stood still and heard a splashing that told him his quarry had crossed the stream. Bobby turned and went back towards the mill from which no one had yet emerged though the door still hung open and the beam of light from it still poured into the night. Anyhow, he now had an excuse for presenting himself. He supposed the inmates thought it safer to stay inside since they had not even yet shown themselves. There came a crash of falling glass as from a broken window. Curious, he thought. Why should a window be broken now, long after the intruder had disappeared in such haste? Was it possible that someone in panic had broken a window to escape by? Or was some-thing else happening?

He became aware of a faint movement in the night behind him. He stopped and looked back. He saw nothing, he heard nothing. Yet once again when he moved forward he was aware of that same faint and cautious rustling behind. He stood still and even walked back a step or two. It was all very quiet and still, and stare and peer as he might he could see nothing. A rabbit, perhaps, he thought, if, that is, there were rabbits in the Auvergne, a point on which he was by no means certain. Or it might be the harmless and domestic cat. Only he did not think so. Without quite knowing why he felt there had been something menacing, something hostile, in that stealthy whispering sound he thought that he had heard behind him. It was as though he knew intuitively there was an evil presence lurking there, waiting chance and opportunity to do ill. Almost against his will, he called out:

“Who is there? Who is it?” and then, remembering, he repeated the words in French.

No answer came. Again he walked back a few steps in the direction whence that small and secret rustling had seemed to come. Only a few bushes grew there, hardly enough to give cover to a man. To a boy perhaps but scarcely to a man. He stumbled over one of the bushes in the darkness and then gave it up. Search at night is little use. He walked on briskly towards the mill, trying to throw off the impression he was still aware of that there was something small and secret and evil that followed him. He reached the mill and knocked.

No one came. He could see plainly into the interior. The door admitted directly into a large room, occupying about two-thirds of the ground floor. It was sparsely and not too comfortably furnished. There was a second door, admitting, apparently, to premises behind and to the stairs. Of the two windows one was broken, presumably by a stone thrown from outside, since pieces of glass together with a small jagged pebble, lay on the floor. Why, Bobby wondered, had the stone been thrown after the shot and who had thrown it? Evidently not the fugitive he had attempted to pursue, since whoever that might be was in full flight in the opposite direction when the tinkle of the falling glass had become audible. A little odd, he thought.

He knocked again. The door at the back opened. He had a brief glimpse of a kitchen as a tall, heavily-built man came through. Bobby decided at the first glance that he did not much like the appearance of this new-comer. His features were coarse and heavy, his eyes small and closely set under heavy brows meeting above the squat insensitive nose in a thick straight line that looked as if it had been ruled beneath the low, sloping forehead. The mouth was large and hung a little open, showing broken and discoloured teeth. Although he was clean shaven, except for a heavy straggling moustache, his beard showed already dark beneath his skin, giving an unfair impression that he did not wash very carefully. He did not speak but looked scowlingly at Bobby, and he still held in his hand a heavy stick, the one, Bobby supposed, with which he had amused himself by striking at the plants and flowers he passed. Bobby said:

“Is anything the matter? I heard a shot?”

He spoke in English and the other answered in the same language:

“Shot? What shot? There's been no shot here.”

“I heard one,” Bobby said, wondering what might be the meaning of this denial. “I heard it plainly.”

“Well, we didn't,” the other repeated. He turned to the door he had just come through and opened it and shouted: “Ma, did you hear any shooting?” He turned back and saw Bobby looking at the broken window. “Someone's just chucked a stone through there,” he said. “That'll be what you heard. One of the village boys. I caught some of them prowling round the other night and chased them off and I expect they're getting their own back.”

A small elderly woman sidled nervously into the room.

“What is it, Joe?” she asked. “Supper will be spoilt. Is it those boys again?”

“Gentleman here says he heard a shot. You didn't hear anything, did you? I mean, except the window smashing.”

“Oh, no, Joe,” she answered, blinking first at him and then at Bobby. She produced spectacles and put them on as if to see Bobby more clearly. “What sort of shot does the gentleman mean?” she asked.