Swing, Swing Together (6 page)

“What was his appearance?” Cribb asked.

“For the river on a summer afternoon, very odd, very odd indeed. Pin-stripe suit and grey bowler. He was built on slimmer lines than either of the others, round-shouldered and white-faced, with tortoise-shell spectacles and buck teeth. I'd know him again.”

“I can believe you,” said Cribb. “Did you discover by any chance where they were making for?”

“Haven't I said as much already? They're doing the book, like everyone else. They'll have spent last night on one of the Shiplake islands and today they'll be making for Streatley. They've got two days there. If you're wanting to meet 'em, that's where you'll catch 'em, for sure.”

CHAPTER

10

Dropping of the pilot—Familiarity in the ranks—How the colour came to Harriet's cheeks

A
FTER
M
ARSH
L
OCK
THE
Berkshire bank rises sheerly in a clifflike formation festooned with ivy and capped with a beech wood. So far Harriet had studied the scenery more from necessity than choice, but momentarily the prospect was so spectacular that she was able to forget Constable Hardy. Then the voice of Sergeant Cribb jolted her out of her reverie.

“You're pulling to port, Constable. I'm trying to steer an even course and you're pulling the blasted thing to port.”

Hardy was quick to apologize. “I thought we must be goin' by way of Hennerton Backwater. It saves nearly half a mile of rowin'. It's a pleasant way. Plenty of shade.”

Harriet felt obliged to add, “I seem to remember the lockkeeper mentioning a backwater. To Wargrave, wasn't it? It was the route the characters in the book were supposed to have taken.”

“I can believe that, miss,” said Hardy. “It's a charmin' little stream. Just right for a small boat, threadin' its way through the rushes and under the trees. If I was writin' a book myself, I'd have a chapter on Hennerton Backwater for sure.”

“Well, you're not,” Cribb pointed out. “You're rowing a boat and you'll take your orders from me.” He gave a tug on the right-hand rudder line to reinforce the point. “We shall follow the main course of the river for another mile and then you can put me ashore at Shiplake. I shall pick up a cab at the station and drive to Streatley, where I expect to find the men we're looking for. The rest of you will follow by way of the river, keeping a watch for the suspects in case they're slower than they should be.”

Making it clear from the measured tone of his voice that he was providing information, not criticism, Hardy said, “It's a good fifteen miles to Streatley.”

“Glory!” said Thackeray from behind him.

“Shan't expect to see you there tonight, then,” conceded Cribb. “Report to the police station as soon as you arrive tomorrow.”

“Where shall we pass the night?” Thackeray bleakly asked.

“Bottom of the boat. There are cushions to lie on and you can put up the canvas in case it rains. By the time you've rowed a few miles more, you won't mind where you sleep.”

Harriet heard this with amazement overflowing into indignation. It was alarming enough to be abandoned to the company of Thackeray and Hardy for the rest of the afternoon, but for Sergeant Cribb blandly to assume that she would spend the night with them at the bottom of a boat was insulting in the extreme. “
They
might not mind, but I most certainly do,” she informed him, dipping the parasol at the same time, so that the others could not see the colour of her cheeks. “I should like to go back to my college, if you will kindly arrange it.”

“Back to Miss Plummer?” said Cribb.

“Miss Plummer may not hold me in very high regard,” said Harriet with dignity, “but I am confident that she will offer me a bed for the night when she knows the alternative.”

“I can't let you go back to Miss Plummer, miss. You're still my principal witness and I shall want you to take a look at those men tomorrow. I was about to suggest—before you assumed what you did—that I would book you a room at the Roebuck in Tilehurst. It overlooks the river, so you'll have no trouble finding it. The constables can moor the boat nearby and you'll simply have to step ashore and join 'em again tomorrow morning after breakfast. The Roebuck serves a very good breakfast grill, I'm told. Is that acceptable?”

Cribb had either, as he claimed, planned this in the first place, or he was a very agile thinker indeed. Since the outcome was satisfactory, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “But what will the constables have for breakfast?”

“Eggs and bacon,” said Cribb.

“That'll be nice,” said Thackeray, perking up.

“Yes, there's a couple of hard-boiled eggs in the hamper and a slice of porkpie you can divide between you.”

If Cribb was expecting a chorus of outrage at this, he did not get it. He got a silence that lasted until they reached Shiplake, as though Thackeray and Hardy had agreed to let the remark stand in isolation, parading its meanness. Even at Shiplake they said not a word, and there was a hint of contrition in Cribb's, “Streatley as soon as you can tomorrow, then,” as he stepped ashore and marched away to look for a cab. Hardy stood in the boat, keeping it against the landing stage with an oar until Cribb's footsteps had receded. Then he doffed his boater ironically in the same direction and pushed powerfully against the oar. The skiff cruised back into the deeper water.

They had not been rowing long when it occurred to Hardy that in Cribb's absence they need not be encumbered with rank. “My name's Roger,” he announced.

“Ted,” said Thackeray.

“And Miss Shaw's, I learned not long ago, is Harriet,” Hardy volunteered for her.

She blushed, remembering the circumstances.

“That's nice,” said Thackeray. “You answered the sergeant beautiful, if I might say so, Harriet. He's not an easy man to mix words with.”

“I reckon we got the better of him, between us,” said Hardy. “By Shiplake he was lookin' a sight less corky than he was at Marsh. He was so quick to step ashore that he left his book behind, did you notice? It's on the seat beside you, Harriet.”

He used her name with a familiarity that disturbed her. The embarrassment would certainly show unless she made a determined effort to overcome it. She reminded herself that he was still a policeman and that his boating costume was just another kind of uniform. She would find it easier to accept if he conducted himself like a policeman, without staring in such a familiar way.

“You're a keen-eyed young fellow, Roger,” said Thackeray. “I'm sure I didn't notice whether he'd got the book with him. A man of your talents ought to be taking up detective work. Have you never thought of coming to London? There's room at the Yard for anyone who can exercise his optics to good effect.”

“I've no ambition to work for the likes of Sergeant Cribb,” said Hardy.

“Cribb isn't quite so obnoxious when you know him,” Thackeray said for his superior. “I dare say there's one or two that would run him close here in the Thames Valley. If you're thinking of going into plain clothes I wouldn't let a liverish cove like him put you off.”

“Truth of the matter is that I'm quite content being a country copper,” said Hardy. “Watchin' out for poachers doesn't have the glamour of stalkin' Jack the Ripper, I know, but it suits me well. I'd rather walk to work through a river mist than a London peasouper, because I know that when that mist clears, Buckinghamshire is the grandest place to pound a beat in the world.”

“Hold on a bit,” said Thackeray. “You'll have me asking for a transfer.”

“Ah, but it's true. Close your eyes for a moment, Ted. Listen to the bird song and the water lappin' at the side of the boat and the breeze rustlin' through the beeches. What have you got within five miles of Scotland Yard to compare with it? And that's just the sounds. The sights along the river are a study in themselves, wouldn't you agree, Harriet?”

If it was not calculated to offend, it was an ill-chosen remark, but Harriet took the view that it was blatant provocation. Instead of blushing as she had before, she blanched with fury at the boorishness of this man determined to extract the last ounce of advantage from an incident any gentleman would have banished from his conversation, even if it lingered in his thoughts.

She snapped her parasol shut. “I may be your prisoner in this rowing boat, Constable, but that does not give you the right to address me in familiar terms and taunt me with innuendoes. Kindly address me as Miss Shaw if you speak to me again and make certain if you do that you have something civilized to say.” It sounded very like Miss Plummer speaking. Harriet had never reprimanded anyone before, nor realized she could find the words to do it, but Constable Roger Hardy needed to be left in no doubt that he had overstepped the mark. To say that she was disappointed in him was less than the truth. The gallant officer who had lent her his coat on Tuesday night and this buffoon in boating costume were different men. Different men.

The colour had risen to Hardy's cheeks this time. “I don't see the offence in what I said, Miss Shaw, though I'm sorry if it was there. I was simply invitin' you to confirm that our stretch of the Thames offers finer natural sights than any other. Oh, my Lord!”—Hardy's oars plunged deeply into the water, jerking his arms straight—“I see it all now, miss—I mean—that is to say—I do ask you to forgive me.”

CHAPTER

11

An extra passenger—Interlude on an island—Pious Jim

T
HERE
WAS
NO
NEED
, as it turned out, for Harriet to consider whether she would forgive Constable Hardy, because they had reached Shiplake Lock and the gates were being held open for them. Four or five other small craft were inside and it required total concentration on everyone's part to steer the skiff among them without the rending of wood. Standing up like a gondolier, Hardy paddled them expertly towards the left-hand wall, reached up and fastened the line to a chain. The lockkeeper was already thrusting his back against the beam of the gate behind them to close it. A young man in a yellow blazer was doing the same on the right. When the gates were closed, each man moved to the opposite end and began turning the handles to raise the paddles and fill the lock. Spouts of silver water gushed in, gurgling under the boats as they steadily ascended the gleaming walls.

“How much, Lockkeeper?” Thackeray called when the moment came to pay the toll.

“Threepence, sir, but I'll not charge you anything if you'll do me a good turn.”

“What's that?”

“Take my young friend aboard and put him off at Phillimore's Island half a mile upstream.”

Thackeray scrutinized the young man in the yellow blazer. “Would you mind, Miss Shaw? He'll have to share your seat.”

“I have no objection,” Harriet answered. He looked a clean young man, for all his work on the lock gates. He had a neat little beard the shape of Tasmania at the base of his chin.

“I'll hop in, then,” he said. “Much obliged to you, young lady. Bustard's the name, spelt with a ‘u,' like the bird. Just as far as Phillimore's, if you'd be so kind, gentlemen. I'm in camp there for the night with a friend of mine, Jim Hackett.”

Harriet drew her skirt across to make room for Mr. Bustard and introduced her companions, taking care to prefix “Mr.” to their names.

“Going far?” he inquired.

“We're hoping to reach Reading by this evening,” answered Thackeray. Hardy had lapsed into silence now.

“Not a pretty place to stop,” said Mr. Bustard. “Gasworks and factories. You'd be better off on an island, like us.”

“We intend to pull up as far as Tilehurst,” Thackeray explained. “Miss Shaw has a room at the Roebuck.”

“You'll be in clover there, my dear,” said Mr. Bustard. “Better than a night under canvas, what? Somebody has a care for your comfort, I can see. If you bear to the right of the island, gentlemen, you'll find I'm moored under a willow. Jim Hackett should be boiling a kettle for tea. That's what I went to Shiplake for.” He tapped his blazer pocket. “Can't survive without my Indian brew. I cadged a lift on a steam launch that had taken a mooring on the island. Filthy way to travel—I'm not in favour of steam at all—but beggars can't be choosers, what?” He turned to smile at Harriet and displayed an immaculate set of white teeth. “This is my ideal—a seat beside a pretty girl and two strapping fellows to do the rowing for us.”

The ends of Hardy's mouth had turned down in a perfect miniature of the central arch of Henley Bridge. And the ends of his moustache curled in precisely the opposite direction. Harriet could not suppress a smile. To avoid embarrassment, she turned it on Mr. Bustard. “How long have you been on the island?” she asked.

“Since yesterday. We're doing the Thames by easy stages. Don't know how far we'll get in a fortnight, but the exercise does you good, what?”

Thackeray said, “I can think of better ways of getting it. I've got a blister the size of half a crown on each hand.”

“Then it's ten to one you're not one of the labouring class,” said Mr. Bustard. “Delicate skin, unused to manual work. Don't tell me. I'll guess. Stockbroker's clerk. No, I don't see you at a desk. Behind a counter, possibly. Grocer. Yes, I'd buy a dozen eggs from you. I'll go for grocer. Am I right?”

“How did you guess?” said Thackeray, with the resource born of long experience.

“Training,” said Mr. Bustard proudly. “I'm a tallyman myself. You need to be quick on the uptake in my profession.”

“I'm sure,” Thackeray agreed. “I don't suppose you miss a thing. Come to mention it, I was wondering if you might have noticed a party on the river a few hours ahead of us. Some people we were hoping to come across. Three men in a skiff like this, with a dog.”