Unexpected Night (10 page)

“If we like the look of it, we can lunch there.”

Sanderson was at the lobby desk, sorting mail. He said he would be very glad to go up to the Cove with them, if Mrs. Cowden could spare him. “She says she can? Then I'll send these up, and get the car.”

“Mine is at the door,” said Gamadge, “if one of you doesn't object to the rumble. It isn't bad.”

“I don't object to it in the least. Here, Waldo.”

“Tell him not to get mad at the sentry. Little Hoskins, the deputy, is on guard up there.”

“He is? What for?”

“We don't want the ladies annoyed by anybody. You don't get much protection in a little place like this, with no floor clerks or elevators,” explained Mitchell.

“That's true. What a good idea!”

Mitchell accepted the compliment with dignity, ignoring Gamadge's wink and the reproachful comment of Wilks, the day clerk: “We wouldn't let anybody up, Mr. Mitchell.”

“There's the fire escape, Wilks,” Gamadge reminded him.

“We could lock it, and take away the key.”

“Don't tell Mitchell that, or he'll tell the fire chief.”

Waldo was dispatched upstairs with the letters, and the three went out on the veranda. Gamadge paused before a poster tacked up on the bulletin board outside the door:

Monday, June 26, to Saturday, July 1
at 8.45
P.M
.

THE OLD PIER PLAYERS
of
Seal Cove, Maine
in
THREE CELEBRATED PLAYS

“Well,” he said, “perhaps they're right to work up the suspense. I can think of one or two celebrated plays I wouldn't go to see; not if you paid me.”

Mitchell grumbled, “I don't know what possessed those people to pick on the Cove! I shouldn't think even summer folks would want to slosh up there, 'specially on a bad night.”

“Was it always a theatre?” asked Sanderson.

“No; it was a fish-house. Then some carnival people fixed it up, but they quit after a season or two. It's been pretty much of a ruin these last few years, till this Callaghan came along. I'll be surprised if he finds his troupe can eat off it.”

“Don't forget that Callaghan expected a backer,” Sanderson reminded him, grimly.

“I guess Callaghan didn't know how much of a gamble it was.”

Gamadge's coupé had been parked near the front steps. He opened the rumble, and folded back the convertible top; the others meanwhile tossing for seats. It ended by Mitchell clambering cheerfully up into the rear, while the others slid into the front of the car.

“And you're lucky not to be taking anything bigger than this up there,” Mitchell assured them, gloomily. “That lane from Tucon to the Cove, you couldn't pass a breakdown in it; or turn, either. You'd have to wait for the wreckers. Turn down to the cliff, first, if you don't mind, Mr. Gamadge. I want to speak to the man I left there.”

Gamadge drove to the end of the Ocean House drive, and then obeyed instructions. He stopped twenty yards farther on, where a sandy track led upwards between rocks. A state policeman's head rose above the sky line.

“What's he doing there?” asked Gamadge.

“He was keeping the road clear; there was quite a jam this morning.” Mitchell climbed down. “You coming up?”

Gamadge said he was, and slid from beneath the wheel; Sanderson shook his head.

“I was there this morning. I'll wait here, thanks.” He lighted a cigarette, while Mitchell went up the path, and Gamadge stood glancing about him.

Across the road lay the hotel precincts, which comprised two or three acres of rough land, thickly overgrown and practically in a state of nature. The roofs of several shingled cottages barely showed through the jungle. On the seaward side, the cliffs ended abruptly not far beyond the “Lookout”; they formed one boundary of the bathing beach, which was separated from the highway by a sea wall. The road here broadened into a wide loop, and disappeared around a sharp bend. There was a lamp post at the loop, and another at the entrance to the Ocean House. Gamadge said: “Pretty dark here, last night. I remember what it was like. He must have had a torch even to see the track.”

“The white sand shows up, almost like snow.” Sanderson glanced at the track to the “Lookout.” “Still, it seems incredible that he should have gone up there…alone.”

“I suppose that bench up there is a good place to watch for a car. Nobody wants to stand in the road on a foggy night, with that hairpin kind of bend on one side of him, and cars shooting over the crest of a hill on the other. And this pedestrian couldn't jump for it.”

“He had a little flashlight—very nice one; all his things were the last word. Perhaps he had it with him, but I didn't see it.”

Gamadge climbed the short, easy ascent to a small plateau. It was wide for its length—about eight feet by ten—and carpeted deeply with trampled sand. The bench, a sturdy wooden affair, had long since lost all its paint, and was carved from back to legs with initials and romantic symbols. Mitchell and the young officer stepped aside, and Gamadge went to the brink of the cliff and looked down.

It was a sheer drop of thirty feet, with waterworn reddish stone below. Sharper rocks, enclosing shallow pools, went down in rough terraces to the narrow strip of beach, which diminished with every incoming wave. A small crowd stood on the sand, retreating from the lines of surf, but still gazing obstinately upward.

“Tide's driven most of 'em off,” said the trooper.

“The body lay just there.” Mitchell pointed to the smooth rock above the pool. “It was wet through.”

“I'm going down.” Gamadge followed the cliff for a few yards, and then descended by a narrow crevasse, damp and, finally, barnacled. He circled the foot of the rocks, and climbed up to the spot above the pool. Here he stood, hands in pockets, shoulders a little hunched, and viewed the scene; glanced at the bathing beach to his right, which was blooming with brightly-coloured umbrellas; studied the pool at his feet, the sand below, and the towering walls above. At last he returned to the beach, and came back to the road in a leisurely fashion, via the boardwalk.

Mitchell and the state policeman met him at the car.

“You go and get your dinner, Pottle,” said the former. “No reason for you to stay up there any longer. I'm going to Seal Cove, and I don't know how long I'll be, but I want to get back here by four, to meet the fingerprint man from Portland. You hang around up at the Ocean House and hang on to him for me.”

He and Gamadge got into the car. Gamadge drove down to the loop, turned there, and headed back up the hill.

They passed the Ocean House and its grounds, dipped to sea level, and followed the shore for a mile and a half. The road then swerved left, and ran between pines to Oakport Village, somnolent beside the wharves where canoes and sailboats bobbed on dark waters. They left the village behind, and turned out of a stately avenue of elms to a by-road whose sign said: “Tucon, 3 miles. Seal Cove, 3½ miles.”

“You can come by the state road,” said Mitchell, “but it's a couple of miles longer. They don't seem to have got around to mending this one.”

Gamadge steered around an outcropping rock, ploughed into the ditch, and ploughed out again, blackberry vines in flower swishing against the wheels.

“No, you're right, they don't,” he agreed, wrenching at the wheel. They were already in the deep country; daisy fields and stony pastures to right and left, elms and oaks rising against a clear blue sky.

“And I suppose this was the trip Amberley was proposing to make, at night, in a fog,” muttered Sanderson. “He wouldn't have got there alive. Gamadge, have you seen Miss Cowden?”

“Yes. She came in for a minute or two, while Mitchell was talking to her aunt. I got Mrs. Cowden to see him, you know.”

“I didn't. How is she taking it, Gamadge? Is she badly knocked up?”

“About what you'd expect.”

“I don't know what I expect. I expect her to take it pretty hard.”

“She is taking it hard.”

“She and Amberley thought a lot of each other. She's a clever girl—has brains. If only I'd come along earlier, I think I might have done something about it—got her to a first-rate school; college; wangled something or other for her. Amberley didn't realise—he was too young, too much handicapped by his struggle to stay alive. Mrs. Cowden never liked to ask him for money—he did so many other things for them. He was just beginning to understand the situation. Oh, well; she'll be all right, now.”

“How'd you come to get the job?” asked Mitchell.

“I met Mrs. Cowden at a friend's country house. Her people had known mine, and she was kind enough to be interested. I was teaching at the Hillburn school. She thought he'd like me; and so he did. It's a good deal of a blow to find out how fed up he was getting with us all.”

“I still think it's funny he didn't leave you more in that will.”

Sanderson half turned, and looked up at Mitchell. “It sounds phony, I know, but I wouldn't let him. You might understand, if you knew all the circumstances.”

“Any objection to telling some of 'em?”

“No particular objection. My family had money, once; but ever since I was old enough to notice, we've been poor relations. When I was under seventeen, I swore I'd get out of that situation, or die in the attempt; and that I'd never get back into it again as long as I lived. Well, I've managed to support myself since then, and I've been independent. I don't mind living plainly. When I got into the Cowden family, I saw the whole thing over again—a bunch of people living on that boy's expectations. I made up my mind that he wouldn't be able to think of me like that; I wanted him to feel that there was one person in the world who didn't care whether he ever came into money or not. Sounds pretty sanctimonious, doesn't it?”

Gamadge glanced at his flushed face. “You're sunk,” he said. “Did you get any breakfast?”

“The Colonel and I had coffee at a hot-dog stand.”

“I'm standing the party lunch at the ‘Pottery Pig.' You'll feel better when you've had something to eat. When a thing like this happens, everybody skips their meals and their rest; they get so knocked up physically that they can't cope with the situation.”

“You're right…I suppose this must be Tucon.”

They had entered a broad village street lined with maples; on either side of it trim cottages with gardens had hung out ornamental signs, which Gamadge slowed down to read: “‘The Sunflower Studio'; ‘Books, Beads, and Baskets'; ‘The Jolly Little Shop.' All among the arts and crafts, aren't we? Here we are—‘The Pottery Pig.'”

“And there's the turning to the Cove,” said Mitchell, as the car stopped. “Right opposite. They've hung up a sign.”

The three got out and crossed the road. A large poster, with a lantern hanging above it, swung from a tree. The Gothic lettering ran as follows:

THE OLD PIER PLAYERS
in
YEATS—SYNGE—DUNSANY

To-night at
8.45

“Getting warmer,” said Gamadge.

“Will people actually come all the way up here to see this show?” Sanderson was incredulous.

“No doubt; but I'm not absolutely certain that this Callaghan has his finger on the pulse of his public.”

He led the way back to the ‘Pottery Pig,' which was nothing more than a large barn, set well back from the street, and approached over a rough expanse of half-cut grass. The barn had been allowed to retain its faded red paint, but its big doors were now closed and padlocked. A faintly beaten track led the visitors around the corner to the south side, where a narrow entrance gaped darkly between show windows. The first contained marines, and landscapes in water-colour and oil; the second, pottery.

“My gracious,” said Mitchell, staring. “Is that the Pig?”

He might well ask, since its tail alone identified it. It was a monstrous animal, pinkish, highly glazed, and covered with dark spots; it had a kind of scalloped frieze along its back, and its open jaws showed two complete rows of formidable teeth. It was surrounded by a collection of thick, greyish jugs, bowls and basins, fungoid in colour and texture. Very small china animals, pigs for the most part, were scattered among the pottery.

“That must be the Pig.” Gamadge tore himself away from contemplation of the really horrid object, and went into the barn, the others following. It was dim and empty, except for a counter to the right, sketches tacked to the walls, and some small chairs and tables grouped near the tall double doors in the rear, through which loads of hay had once been driven.

“Nobody home,” said Mitchell. As he spoke, a bead curtain behind the counter clicked, and a dour-looking young man entered. He wore a painter's smock and rope sandals, and there was a palette on his left thumb. His right grasped a large brush, with blue paint on it. Surveying the visitors with every sign of distaste, he asked: “Well? What is it?”