Sweet Danger (10 page)

‘That would make the date of the inscription about eighteen-twenty, I suppose?' ventured the young man, glancing up from the envelope on which he had been scribbling. ‘I say, this'll help Wright tremendously in his book. There's nothing like a secret inscription or two to give an author's work the authentic touch. Then the publishers can say: “Mr Wright, who is, of course . . .” Well, well, he will be pleased.'

‘Isn't it about time,' said Amanda, regarding him steadily, ‘that you dropped all this holiday business? We know who you are. That's why we were so keen on your coming to stay with us. That's why I've shown you this. Does it interest you, or doesn't it?'

For some moments Mr Campion was silent. Amanda looked slightly uncomfortable.

‘Look here,' she said with one of her sudden bursts of confidence, ‘perhaps I'd better tell you all about it now. You see, about a week ago a most unpleasant person, pretending to be a professor of some sort, presented himself at the front door and put Mary and me through a thorough cross-questioning about inscriptions; had we got any? had we heard of any in the wood? and all that sort of thing. Naturally we shut up like oysters and I had the oak moved up here for safety.'

‘I see,' said Mr Campion soberly. ‘This professing person, was there anything odd about him?'

‘He hadn't a widow's peak, if that's what you mean,' said Amanda. ‘He was just an ordinary, scrubby little soul. Not bad enough to throw in the race, you know; but we didn't like him.'

‘Quite,' agreed Mr Campion. ‘Tell me, was it the honest manliness of my appearance which made you confide in me with such touching spontaneity?'

‘No,' said Amanda. ‘I told you, we knew about you. Aunt Hatt used to be a great friend of Mrs Lobbett and her husband, down in the South somewhere, and she heard all about you from them. D'you remember them? She used to be Biddy Pagett.'

Mr Campion gazed thoughtfully out of the window. ‘Oh yes,' he said. ‘I remember Biddy. I remember Biddy very well.'

Amanda shot a shrewd, quick glance in his direction and changed the subject.

‘When old Honesty Bull sent down to us this morning to tell us some people wanted to stay, he also told us your names. We had a council of war and decided that you were just the man to get into the house. It doesn't really matter, does it?'

Mr Campion turned to her and there was unexpected gravity in the eyes behind the spectacles.

‘Amanda,' he said, ‘this has got to be kept quiet.'

She nodded. ‘I know.' She put back her head and passed a finger across her throat. ‘Not a word,' she said. ‘Only, if there's anything we can do, let us in on it, won't you?'

He seated himself upon the window-ledge. ‘How much of my illustrious life have you been able to mug up?'

‘Not a lot,' said Amanda, crestfallen. ‘Aunt Hatt didn't know much. She only knew your name and that you were in the adventure over at Mystery Mile. And we know you live in Bottle Street, and have a man-servant who's an ex-convict.'

‘An ex-burglar,' said Mr Campion. ‘Forget the convict. Lugg doesn't like his college education mentioned. It's a tradition with old Borstalians, I believe. Anything else?'

‘That's all,' said Amanda. ‘It isn't really an acquaintanceship, is it? Only when you arrived I did hope something was
going to happen. And now we're on the subject I should like to point out that I would make a very good aide-de-camp.'

‘Or lieut,' said Campion. ‘I often think that's what the poet meant when he said Orpheus and his lieut.'

‘Very likely,' said Amanda. ‘They made trees, didn't they? That reminds me, let's put this thing back.'

When the oak was once more hoisted into position and Mr Campion had resumed his coat, they went down into the mill again. Just before they came out into the yard he laid a hand upon her arm.

‘What happened on the heath last night?' he enquired.

The girl started and glanced behind her involuntarily, as though she feared some intangible audience. When she turned to him again her small face was very grave.

‘That doesn't come into it,' she said. ‘I can't explain it, but that's got to be forgotten.'

Mr Campion followed her out into the sunshine.

‘
IT'S THE FRIENDLINESS
of the village I like,' said Eager-Wright as the three paying guests of the mill walked across the heath that evening after dinner.

‘That's right,' said Guffy expansively. ‘You don't get this curious clubbable atmosphere in many country places. What do you say, Campion?'

The pale young man in the horn-rimmed spectacles who was wandering along beside the others, his habitual expression of affable idiocy very much in evidence, glanced up.

‘Oh, it's all very nice,' he said cheerfully. ‘All very nice indeed. Let's hope it doesn't lead to membership of the oldest club in the world.'

‘What's that?' said Guffy.

‘Club on the head,' said Campion promptly.

‘In my present mood I should enjoy it,' said Eager-Wright. ‘She's rather an amzing girl, don't you think?'

‘Charming,' agreed Guffy with unexpected warmth. ‘Charming. None of this modern nonsense about her. Sweet, and, you know, well –' he coughed – ‘womanly. Gentle, discreet, and all that sort of thing.'

‘Eh?' said Eager-Wright. ‘If you think working a mill, with dynamos, sluices, and general sack-heaving is a womanly occupation, I don't know what you expect of your hoydens.'

‘Oh, Lord, I wasn't talking about the brat!' said Guffy with dignity. ‘I meant the elder sister. You aren't baby snatching, I hope, Wright?'

‘You only saw her in her “working clothes”, as she calls them,' said Eager-Wright. ‘She looks a bit young in that get-up, I admit.'

‘She looks about ten,' said Guffy coldly. ‘How old is she? Fourteen? But they're nice people. It seemed a pity that the bar-sinister crept in in the fifties.'

The three young men were paying a call. Earlier in the day a note had arrived from the white house opposite the church, in which Dr Edmund Galley, after describing himself as a ‘lonely old scholar remote from modern enlightened conversation,' had begged the three ‘visitors to our little sanctuary' to drink a glass of port with him after dinner.

Campion had the note in his pocket, and he took it out to re-read it. It was an odd document, written in such appalling script that Amanda alone had been able to decipher it at first. The paper was yellowed with age but of an expensive variety, and the address, oddly enough was ‘The Rectory'.

This peculiarity had been explained away by Amanda. The village of Pontisbright no longer possessed a parson. A visiting curate bicycled over from Sweethearting every other Sunday to take a service in the little Norman church.

Guffy glanced at the paper in Campion's hand.

‘He's a rum old boy, isn't he?' he said. ‘He stitched up my arm quite satisfactorily this morning, though. Looks like a gnome, by the way.'

‘Did it occur to you,' remarked Eager-Wright, ‘that the people up at the mill seemed rather dubious about our coming along here to-night?'

Guffy turned to him. ‘I thought that,' he said. ‘Why were you so keen on going, Campion?'

‘Educational reasons mostly,' said the young man in the spectacles. ‘There is no pastime more calculated to instil into the young gentleman a Thorough Knowledge of Life and a Dignity of Manner than the exercise of polite conversation with his elders. That's on the first page of my etiquette book.'

‘By the way,' said Guffy, ignoring this outburst. ‘I'd forgotten. There's rather a sweet story about this old doctor. Apparently he inherited the house, furniture, library, everything, from his great-uncle, the last incumbent of the living. The uncle's rectory had been inadequate, so he built himself that white house. He lived to ninety-five or so, and died leaving the whole thing and a small income to this man Edmund Galley, who was a penniless medical student at the time, on condition that he lived there. Galley accepted the legacy and simply set up as a doctor. It must have been about forty years ago. There was no other medical man in the place, or for a radius of ten miles for that matter, and so he's done very well for himself.'

Mr Campion remained thoughtful. ‘If the uncle was ninety-odd and our present friend, the hospitable doctor, whose port I trust is inherited with the house, has been here forty years, the probable date of his uncle's appointment as Rector of Pontisbright would seem to be about 1820. In which case he may very well have been the foolish cleric who was under the thumb of the wicked Countess Josephine.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' said Guffy with dignity. ‘Do you?'

‘In the main, yes,' said Mr Campion judicially. ‘Well, since we've arrived, let us walk up the garden path looking as though we might be able to dispense modern enlightened conversation, and let the bravest of us pull the bell.'

The white house, which had looked so modern compared with the thatched cottages of Pontisbright proper, proved, upon nearer inspection, to be much more old-fashioned than they had at first supposed. The garden was well kept without being trim, and the flower borders were filled with herbs whose pungent scents hung heavy on the evening air.

The steps up to the porch were green with age, and as they climbed them they found that the hall door stood open. From the darkness within an odd figure materialized, and
with a chirrup of appreciation Dr Edmund Galley came out to meet his guests.

At first sight he appeared somewhat eccentric, in costume at least, for above a pair of ordinary grey flannel trousers he had arrayed himself in a smoking jacket which must have first seen the light in those days when men hid themselves away in little morocco dens, dressed themselves up, and settled down to a pipe as to some secret and ceremonial rite, requiring fortitude and patience in its accomplishment.

Above this display of magnificence the doctor's face was round and smiling, albeit a little wizened, like an old baby.

He greeted Guffy as a friend. ‘My boy, this is very good of you to take pity on an old man. How's the arm? Mending, I hope. You want to be careful in this district!'

Guffy introduced the others, and, after the ceremony was over, they followed their host through the dark hall to a room on their left, whose long windows looked out over an expanse of flowers.

The whole house seemed to be permeated by the scent of the herb garden. The effect was extraordinary, but not at all unpleasant, though their first impression of the room they entered was that it had been undisturbed, even by the housemaid's brush, for many years.

It was a ridiculous room to house such a queer little person. In spite of its windows it contrived to be dark, and the furniture had one disconcerting peculiarity: it was almost all serpentine. Guffy judged that the original Rector of Pontisbright must have had a pretty taste and considerable means for a man of his calling.

Practically all one wall was taken up by a huge serpentine bureau which curled and curved its undulating length, a baroque monstrosity if ever there was one. Even the chairs had this engaging habit of sprawling and curling until they looked as if one saw them in a trick mirror.

The little doctor noticed Eager-Wright's startled expression and chuckled with unexpected humour.

‘What a room to get drunk in, eh, my boy?' he said. ‘When I first came down here I was about your age, and when I came into this room I thought I
was
drunk. Nowadays I'm used to it. When I feel I'm a bit under the weather I go and have a look at my surgery-table and if that appears to have legs like this cabinet, then, damme, I know I'm drunk.'

He seemed to concentrate upon Eager-Wright, and the reason for his interest was soon apparent.

‘I hear in the village you're writing a book?' he remarked, after waving them to chairs round the window. He had a curious birdlike voice and the likeness was enhanced by his habit of speaking in little staccato sentences and holding his head slightly on one side as he put a question.

‘You mustn't be surprised,' he went on as the young man looked at him blankly. ‘Strangers are an event here. Everybody talks about 'em. When I went on my rounds this morning everyone was full of your arrival. A man who writes a book is still something of a rarity here. I'm proud to meet you, sir.'

Eager-Wright cast a savage glance at Campion and smiled at his host with suitable gratitude.

Guffy, his huge frame balanced on one of the ridiculous chairs, gazed mournfully in front of him. The evening, he was convinced, was going to be wasted.

‘A glass of port?' said the doctor. ‘I think I can recommend it. It's from my uncle's cellar. I'm not a great port drinker myself, but I've come to like this. The cellar was full of it when I came.'

He opened a totally unexpected cupboard in the panelling and produced a decanter and glasses of such exquisite cut and colour that they were easily recognizable as museum pieces. The deep rich red of the wine promised well, but it was not until they tasted it that the truth came home to them. Guffy and Campion exchanged glances, and Eager-Wright held his glass even more reverently than before.

‘Did you – did you say you had much of this, sir?' he ventured.

‘A cellar full,' said the doctor cheerfully. ‘It's good, isn't it? It must be very old.'

A gloom settled over the party. That a man could live for forty years with a cellarful of priceless wine, and drink it, perhaps even – sacrilegious thought! – get drunk upon it, without realizing its value, was, to Eager-Wright and Guffy at least, a tragic and terrible discovery.

As they drank, the little doctor's affable pomposity became less noticeable. Seated in a huge arm-chair with the priceless glass in his hand and the shadows of the room enhancing the depth of colour of his jacket, he became less of a person and more of a personage; a queer little personage in his big aromatic mausoleum of a house.