Sweet Danger (6 page)

‘If we could find a “public”,' said Mr Lugg, on whom the phenomenon had made little or no impression, ‘we could ask our way. Then we should feel we were getting somewhere, and we wouldn't be wasting our time any'ow.'

There was no gainsaying the wisdom of this remark, and they trooped back to the car thoughtfully. The green countryside looked very peaceful and lovely in the late afternoon sun, but there was no telling what cloud might hang over this gentle unspoiled area, what secret might be hidden in its lush meadows or behind the branches of its leafy overhanging trees.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when Lugg, who seemed to have developed a beer-divining gift, steered the ancient Bentley slowly down the hill into the wide valley in which the village of Pontisbright lay. The main bulk of the place was built round two sides of a square heath comprising some twenty acres of gorse and heather, interspersed with short wiry grass. The principal road, down which they came, skirted one side of the heath and dipped suddenly, to swerve at right angles at the base of the valley and struggle off northward, leaving upon its left a small winding river by the side of which was an old white mill with a largish house attached.

The occupants of the car made a note of the mill. This, then, was the home of the Fittons, the children of a pretender to the Pontisbright title.

On the opposite side of the road from the mill was a considerable
strip of woodland, and they guessed that the site of the original Pontisbright Hall must have been somewhere here.

They caught a glimpse of another house set squarely in the far corner of the wood, a structure whose white walls and slate roof looked curiously out of place in comparison with the antiquity around.

Lugg turned at right angles to the main road and brought the Bentley up with great pride before the entrance of one of the most delightful inns in a county famous for its hostelries.

The ‘Gauntlett' was shaped like an E without the centre stroke, and in the recess screened by its yellow walls was a cobbled yard, very fresh and clean. A row of benches bordered the yard and a large sign hung from a post planted in the cobbles. The ruddy painted board was much faded, but the outline of a great mailed fist was just discernible on a blue ground.

The building was thatched, and its latticed windows were set crazily in the walls among the clematis which covered them.

The bar door was open, and two old men sat drinking beer in the last rays of the sun. They looked up with interest in their little watery eyes as the big car appeared. It was evident that the arrival of visitors was doomed to cause a certain amount of commotion. Startled faces appeared at the lower windows and the chatter from within died down.

Mr Lugg sniffed as he clambered out and held the door open for his passengers to alight.

‘Pretty as a picture, isn't it?' he said. ‘Look lovely covered with snow. Let us 'ope,' he added solemnly, ‘that the quality of the beer don't make it all a mockery.'

Mr Campion ignored this pious wish and led the way into the bar, where they interviewed the landlord. This worthy turned out to be a stocky, rather startled little man in shirtsleeves
and a cloth cap. He seemed very dubious about providing them with accommodation, and they got the impression that he was genuinely put out by their unexpected arrival. Finally, however, he fell a victim to Guffy's powers of persuasion, and his wife, a large, red-faced woman, who shared her husband's faintly scared expression, conducted them upstairs to big unspoiled Tudor bedrooms.

As it was too late to go visiting, the personnel of the Court of Averna contented themselves with an evening devoted to deliberately casual enquiry. Eager-Wright and Guffy joined the dart players in the bar, while Mr Campion engaged Mr Bull, the landlord, at shove-ha'penny on the taproom table, polished to glass by long years of eager play.

The landlord was a past master with the five coins, and at sixpence a game was quite content to beat the harmless-looking young man from London until closing time and after.

Shove-ha'penny is a great leveller, and as the evening wore on, Mr Bull and Mr Campion reached a state of amity which might have been achieved only by years of different fostering. Mellowed, Mr Bull revealed a streak of conscious virtue which his acquaintances somewhat naturally discredited instantly from his very insistence upon it.

‘I wouldn't cheat you,' he said to Mr Campion, fixing the young man with a softening eye. ‘I wouldn't cheat you, because that wouldn't be right. When I pick up my glass I might flip a coin into the bed with my sleeve.' He illustrated the point with remarkable dexterity. ‘But I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it because that'd be cheating and that wouldn't be right.'

‘I wouldn't do it either,' said Mr Campion, feeling that he was called upon to make some sort of echo to this important statement.

The landlord depressed his chin until it disappeared into the folds of his neck.

‘Very likely not,' he said. ‘Very likely you wouldn't. And
very likely you couldn't, either. Takes a bit of practising, that does. There's some people in this house now' – he nodded to an innocent-looking old man swigging beer in a corner – ‘who've been trying to do it for fifty years and never have, not without being caught. But I tell you what,' he went on, breathing hops and confidence into Mr Campion's ear, ‘there's one man you want to be careful of at shove-ha'penny, and that's Scatty Williams. Scatty Williams is a clever one.'

Mr Campion appeared to be momentarily off his game. ‘Sounds an attractive bird,' he ventured.

‘Bird?' said the landlord, and spat. ‘He's just an ordinary old man. Looks a bit like a bird, now you come to say so. Bit like a duck. Bald head and a long yeller nose. Not bright yeller, mind you; about the colour of these walls.'

Mr Campion glanced at the mellowed plaster and his mental picture of Scatty Williams grew from the merely interesting to the fantastic.

‘He works up at the mill,' continued the landlord. ‘Him and Miss Amanda practically run the business.'

Mr Campion's expression became vacant almost to the point of imbecility and he watched the landlord carefully as he stepped back and screwed up his eyes preparatory to taking a shot into the top bed.

‘She's a one with the wireless,' Mr Bull remarked without further explanation. ‘That's what the mill's mostly used for nowadays. They've got electric light down there.'

It had not occurred to Mr Campion before that the mill might be a running concern, and his interest in the Fitton family grew.

‘I shouldn't have thought there was enough grain around here to support a mill,' he said stupidly.

‘Oh no,' said Mr Bull. ‘No, there's very little corn. I don't suppose Miss Amanda mills twenty sacks in a year. She runs a dynamo. Charges up wireless batteries. She told me she could put me up a light outside the house here. Said she'd
write my name in lights if I liked. Seems funny, and that's a fact. So it is now.'

His opponent refrained from pointing out that as apparently the entire population of Pontisbright gathered at the ‘Gauntlett' already, not much purpose would be served by any such ambitious scheme, but his interest in Miss Amanda Fitton increased.

‘She's clever for her age,' was Mr Bull's next remark, ‘and I'm not trying to deceive you. Even if there was any reason for it I wouldn't do that. But I reckon she must bring in quite thirty pounds a year, and her only seventeen. Of course they work hard for it, her and Scatty, but they get it.'

‘Seventeen?' said Mr Campion, who was getting a remarkable mental picture of the two millers of Pontisbright. ‘Does this astonishing young woman live alone at the mill?'

‘No, no. There's three on 'em. Three Fittons. There's Miss Mary, the eldest; she's twenty-three. Then comes Miss Amanda. Then there's young Mr Hal. He's only sixteen. He'd be a lord of the land if the law was what it ought to be. He's a Pontisbright all right. You wait till you see him. Looks like the burning bush coming along; yes, yes, so he does now.'

Mr Campion had not time to enquire into this startling simile, for the landlord was still talking.

‘They've got a foreigner staying with them, a fine upstanding old lady. Miss Huntingforest, her name is. Got knocked down by a burglar yesterday.' He became thoughtful for a moment and then turned to Campion with the expression of one who has had a vision. ‘Now I
hev
thought of something,' he said. ‘If you gentlemen want to stay here you'd better get took on at the mill as paying guests. I reckon they'd be glad to have you. Scatty was talking to me about borrowing the paper to see if there was anybody advertising for a place.'

‘That wouldn't be a bad idea at all,' said Mr Campion.
‘In fact, that'd be a very good idea. But I thought we'd fixed up here?'

‘That'll be all right,' said Mr Bull vehemently. ‘Don't you worry about that. Some people'd complain and make a fuss about being put out, but I wouldn't. I ain't and I shan't. I don't feel it and I shan't say it. I'm honest, though I do say it myself.'

‘Quite,' said Mr Campion foolishly. ‘Quite. You're not very keen on visitors here at all, are you? I thought it was rather strange when we came in.'

‘Ah,' said Mr Bull, ‘strange it is, and I shouldn't be an honest man if I didn't admit that.'

They went on playing until long after closing time, legal and actual. Eager-Wright and Guffy retired, and Campion remained with the landlord alone in the big empty taproom. An oil lamp had been lighted, and the uncertain shadows it cast over the table gave the landlord such an advantage over his opponent that it evidently seemed to him a waste of good money to suggest finishing the play.

Mr Campion remained vague and foolish-looking, but the scared expression which had lingered in his host's eyes earlier in the evening returned as the shadows deepened, and towards eleven o'clock, while they were still playing, Mrs Bull appeared in the doorway, a coat thrown over her nightgown. Her face was very pale, and when her husband stepped over to speak to her the indolent figure by the table caught a stifled sentence. The words were ordinary, but there was a thrill in the whisper in which they were uttered.

‘It's out there again!'

Campion stepped over to the window, not wishing to eavesdrop, and, pulling back the short red curtain, looked out into one of the most perfect moonlit nights he had ever seen. The moon was nearly full and it streamed into the room like a flood-lamp. Outside it was so bright that colours were almost distinguishable.

Campion was standing there surveying the prospect when
a quick step sounded behind him, and the next moment the curtain was jerked from his hand and thrust back into position across the window. He turned in polite surprise and caught sight of the landlord.

The man was very pale, his small eyes were starting and his lips quivering.

‘Don't let that in here,' he said huskily. ‘Don't let that in here, whatever you do.'

He went into the bar and was pouring himself out a drink when Campion came in. The young man paused in the doorway, looking slight and ineffectual as ever.

‘Something funny going on?' he enquired affably.

Mr Bull swallowed his drink before replying. Then he lowered his voice and said unsteadily: ‘The powers of darkness, sir, God help us!'

As he spoke he traced something with his forefinger in the dregs on the bar, hastily wiping it off with a cloth immediately afterwards. Campion had just time to catch sight of a cross surmounted by a little hooked sign before it vanished beneath the duster.

The young man went slowly upstairs to bed. He did not undress, but stood for a long time at the window of his bedroom, looking over the moonlit garden of the inn. Since his room was at the back of the house he could not see the heath. The garden ran some way up the hill down which they had come into the village. Everything looked very peaceful in the brilliant light, and the air was warm and flower-scented. It seemed incredible that anything should be seriously amiss in such a lovely valley, or that any terror could walk abroad to alarm such guileless souls as the good people of the inn.

Mr Campion was still standing motionless, his pale eyes thoughtful behind his spectacles, when the latch of his door clicked softly and he turned round just in time to see Lugg's enormous bulk and great white face looming into the room.

Mr Campion surveyed him coldly. ‘Come for a night-light?' he enquired at length.

‘'Ush,' said Mr Lugg, holding up a warning hand. ‘'Ush. Something's up. I 'aven't 'alf seen something. My legs is shaking so I can 'ardly speak.'

Mr Campion went over to his side, treading softly on the creaking oak boards.

‘You're getting a bit eccentric, Lugg,' he murmured. ‘Heard any voices?'

Mr Lugg plumped himself squarely on the bed.

‘I've been out for a walk,' he said. ‘I 'ad a touch of indigestion and I thought I'd walk it off. It seemed a nice night.' He wiped his forehead and looked up at his master knowingly. ‘Thought I might get 'old of a bit of information about the place, and I 'ave. There's something very queer going on around 'ere. I found a corpse to start with.'

‘A what?' said Mr Campion, momentarily taken aback.

‘Corpse,' said Lugg complacently. ‘I thought that'd make yer sit up. There it was lying out in the moonlight all wrapped up in a sheet. It give me a turn when I saw it. I emptied me flask at one go.'

‘Yes, well, what you want is a good rest,' said Campion soothingly.

‘It's lying out on the 'eath,' Mr Lugg persisted. ‘Come and 'ave a look at it. Just the thing to make yer sleep. I was walking along, just as you might be, 'ands in me pockets, and whistling soft to meself, when I come to a great patch of gorse. I was going round it when I see a gleam of white in a clearing in the middle of it. The moon was very strong and it picked out everything nearly as clear as day. I worked round the gorse till I come to a little path, and then I saw the corpse. It was all wrapped up in a shroud, just the face showing. There was pennies on the eyes and the jaw was dropped. It was a man – old man by the look of 'im –
and stiff as you like. I just 'ad one look at 'im and came back 'ere like bingo.'