Adders on the Heath (20 page)

'I should like another meeting with Mrs Bath. I must get her to introduce me to her sister's husband.'

'The p.c? Good idea.'

'I shall also have a word with the Chief Constable.'

'What would you like me to do?'

'I know what I should like one of us to do, but I fear it would be difficult to manage.'

'Excelsior! Lead me to it!'

'I will tell you what is in my mind, but that, I think, is as far as we shall get. I wish we had some means of contacting the Forest gipsies and of gaining their confidence.'

'Nothing easier. You know that riding-stables I hire from while we're here? Well, the three girls who run it know a gipsy who owns a lorry and takes the foodstuffs and things for their horses. Lots of the Forest gipsies have settled down now, you know. They live in cottages and have cars instead of caravans, but they're gipsies all right and very proud of it. The one I'm talking about lives along the same road as your Miss Calne, and you can bet your life that anything
she's
seen
he's
seen, and he'll know a whole lot more about it than she does. It's too late to go over there tonight, but first thing in the morning I will sally forth and find out what I can. I doubt whether I'll be able to tackle the bloke direct, because they tell me he's as shy as a fawn and as cagey as an old dog-fox. I shall have to tell the girls what I want to know and why I want to know it. Will that be all right? Mind you, he may not have the information I need.'

Laura's self-imposed errand on the following morning took her to the riding-stables at just after nine o'clock. The stables were attached to a large, decrepit old house on the edge of a bit of common just beyond the water-splash and Laura reached them after a good ten minutes of rapid walking.

Mucking-out had not begun when she arrived, for the string had not yet left the stables, but two of the owners were swilling down the yard and the scent of breakfast which came from the house indicated that the third and oldest of the three was doing the cooking. Laura offered to man the pump, a welcome suggestion, it seemed, and, with two buckets going instead of one, the job was soon concluded.

'Coming in for some breakfast?' asked one of the girls.

'I'd like to come in and natter, but I've just finished breakfast, thanks.'

'Oh, well, come in for a cup of coffee, then. If you want a mount, you can have one at ten for an hour. We've got everything hired from eleven onwards, unless you'd like to make it three o'clock this afternoon.'

'All right. I'll make it three o'clock, then. When I leave here I've got to get back to the hotel to make a report to my boss.'

'She isn't doing a stint for the R.S.P.C.A., is she? If so, you can give us a clean bill. No starvation rations, no over-tiring, no unkind treatment and the vet always on the end of the telephone.'

'No, seriously. I need some information and I don't know how to get it unless you can help me.'

They went into the house and the two girls took chairs at the table in the shabby dining-room while Laura lounged on the broad, cushioned window-seat. Breakfast was brought in, coffee poured, and when the plates had been cleared by the hungry girls, cook, helping herself to marmalade, said, 'Now, Mrs Gavin, at your service.'

'Thanks,' said Laura. 'Well, you know that ancient lorry which brings your feeding-stuffs and what not from Lymington?'

'We do. It's driven by a man named Lee. Nobody but a gipsy could persuade that contraption to move. I don't know why they're such wizards with worn-out machinery, but they are.'

'Centuries of make-do and mend, I suppose. Anyway, it's the gipsy I want to talk about.'

'He doesn't tell fortunes. That's his mother, old Dosha Lee.'

'He keeps his eyes open, though, I take it,' said Laura, ignoring the lighthearted reference to fortune-telling and forcing a serious note. 'Does he take much interest in the Forest ponies, do you know?'

'He daren't-not in the way you mean.'

'I wasn't thinking of that, but you've hit the target, in a way. We have some reason to think that somebody-a syndicate, perhaps, is more likely-is knocking off some of the ponies and taking them out of the Forest for sale elsewhere. Mind you, we have very little to go on, but that's what we suspect.'

'Well, but why should
you
worry? You don't own any of the ponies, do you?'

'Look here, if I tell you a bit more, will you swear not to breathe a word to a soul unless I say you may? Dorothy? Miriam? Angela? It's serious.'

They nodded and looked impressed.

'Cross my heart.'

'Till death us do part.'

'See this wet, see this dry.'

'Right.' Laura leaned forward and in low tones told them as much of the story as they needed to know.

'But who do you suppose is at the head of this pony-snatching?' Miriam demanded. She was the cook-housekeeper and the financial genius of the undertaking.

'I can't tell you that at present. It wouldn't be fair. We have our suspicions, but proof is hard to get. That's why I wondered whether your gipsy can help us.'

'It doesn't seem to me that you're on very safe ground in thinking that ponies
have
been stolen out of the Forest,' said Dorothy bluntly. 'It would be a frightfully difficult thing to do if you're thinking in big numbers, as I suppose you are. They're under all sorts of protection. There are the Commoners who own them, the Verderers, the Agisters-I don't see how anybody could get away with wholesale stealing. Look here, Mrs Gavin, Angela's got a book all about the Forest and the rights of the Commoners and so forth, so we do know what we're talking about. We're Commoners ourselves, actually, although we don't bother much about it.'

'Let me lend the book to you, Mrs Gavin,' suggested Angela. 'When you've studied it, you'll see how next to impossible your idea is. The only person who could get away with it, so far as I can see, would be one of the Agisters, or a very close friend for whom he'd wink the other eye, but, even then, only for a limited time, I'm sure.'

Laura's enthusiasm was dimmed.

'Then you don't think it's much good trying to find out whether Lee has spotted anything suspicious?' she asked. 'Anyway, I'd like to borrow the book. I'll be back for my ride at three.'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LIBERTY LEE

'There are plenty of traditional gypsy names in the Forest families; men's names such as Liberty, Eli, Nelson, Job, Goliath, Freedom, Samson, and the surprising "Dido." Women's names often show their Indian origin: Vashti, Dosha and Genti, and they show a preference for the more old-fashioned Britannia, Ambrozina, Lavinia, Urania, Eliza, Harriet and Caroline.'

Juanita Berlin

Laura took the book back to the hotel, made her report (such as it was) to Dame Beatrice and then took the book into the garden and sat in a wicker chair, in the kindly September sunshine, with the intention of putting in a period of intensive study. Dame Beatrice left her to it and made up the dossier of an interesting but not difficult patient from case notes supplied by her London clinic.

At twelve noon the young men, who had been playing golf again, returned to the hotel and lugged Laura into the bar.

'What were you so absorbed in?' Denis demanded. Laura showed him the book. He examined the list of contributors, looked at the illustrations, read the foreword and handed it back. 'Made anything of it?' he asked. Laura nodded.

'I
think
I've got a clue from it,' she said. 'Mine's a whisky and splash, please.'

At lunch Dame Beatrice asked no questions and Laura volunteered no information except to state that she had hired a mount from the riding-stables for a three o'clock jaunt and would be back for tea. At two-forty, booted but not spurred, she set off. Her mount was ready for her and she rode at walking pace towards Beaulieu. Then she turned off, still thinking deeply, in the direction of what Miss Calne designated as the Lawn.

Liberty Lee's cottage was on the way to the Lyndhurst-Bournemouth road. He was at home, as his wife, herself a gipsy, admitted at once.

'Liberty, you're wanted,' she said. Liberty came in with the careful, carefree tread of the gipsy. He was dark-haired and of a brown countenance which might have been derived from his racial ancestors or merely from an open-air life. He had the high cheek-bones and the air of independence of the true gipsy, took a stance slightly impudent, and asked Laura what she wanted. 'Co-operation,' said Laura.

'Yes, miss?'

'Look, how would you get ponies off the moor unless you were their owner or some other accredited person?'

'Get ponies off the moor? You mean the Lawn or else the common.'

'All right. I
know you
don't do it, but how could it be done?'

The gipsy studied her. Suddenly and unexpectedly he smiled.

'That's telling,' he said.

'Two men have been murdered for taking ponies.'

'Not they. Only for talking in their cups about it, maybe.'

'Quite likely. But
how is it done
? I had an idea it might be connected in some way with people who can handle the stallions. What's the answer, Mr Lee?'

'There's no answer I can give ee,' said Liberty Lee. 'Best you go and ask my mam.'

'I'm asking
you
. But, if you don't want to answer it doesn't matter. I thought you might be able to help, that's all.'

The gipsy stared at his shoes and Laura realised that, so far as he was concerned, her errand was over. She remounted and rode over the Lawn and beside a narrow path which led to the enclosure in which Richardson and Denis had come upon the body of Colnbrook. She did not open the gate, but took a broad path over a wooden bridge and rode on, giving the horse a loose rein, into the open forest. Giant beeches, interspersed with age-old oaks, made the path a wandering one. The horse took his own way while Laura bent her brains to the task in hand, that of convincing the obviously knowledgeable gipsy that he ought to help her.

A nagging thought, not for the first time, assailed her. Were the missing ponies really worth the deaths of two men? Was there not a piece of the jigsaw missing?

She ambled on, or, rather, the nag did, until they reached an open, grassy stretch bordered by two shallow, natural ditches. Here the horse stopped to graze. Laura slid off his back, looped the reins over her arm and surveyed the scene at leisure, moving as the horse moved, but never checking his enjoyment, until she decided that he had had his share of the herbage and that it was getting on for her own tea-time.

She remounted, stirred him into action and they had retraced about three hundred yards of their outward route when she had to pull up to allow a lorry to turn out of the gates of another enclosure on to a broad path which led across a bridge on to the common. Before she got going again, she saw the gipsy. He was riding one of the Forest ponies, whether his own property or not Laura was in no way able to determine.

Laura challenged him.

'Hey, where do I find mushrooms?'

The gipsy smiled.

'Anywhere you like, lady, once you get on to the common. The Forest mushrooms be all about there.' He rode on. Laura knew better than to follow him and attempt to resume conversation. She returned her horse to the stables, satisfied that, whatever was in the wind and whatever he knew or guessed, the gipsy was not prepared to talk.

'How did you get on?' asked the girl to whom she handed over the horse.

'Only so-so,' Laura replied. 'I came away nearly as wise as I went. No comment. I thought we were going to get somewhere, but we didn't.'

'Too bad. Didn't he say anything at all?-not that I really thought he would. Although he's no longer a traveller-very few of the Forest gipsies are-he's a true Romany still, and they don't give away anything to strangers.'

'So I believe. He did say one thing, but I couldn't tell whether he was serious or merely pulling my leg.'

'If there was likely to be any money involved, you can bet he was serious. The gipsies don't beg, but you can count them in if there's any chance of making any sort of a sale.'

'Well, I suppose you could reckon it as such. He advised me to go and see his old mother. I suppose he wanted me to have my fortune told, and that would mean crossing her palm with silver, if nothing more.'

'I should go, if I were you, Mrs Gavin.'

'You would?'

'Certainly I would. It's the only way to get any information out of the gipsies, unless they really get to know you and trust you. Start with two bob, and see how you get on. She's sure to want more, if she's really got anything to tell you.'

'I met Lee again while I was out riding.'

'Was he on foot? I'll bet not!'

'No, he was on a Forest pony.'

'He's a genius at catching them. He's got the knack of talking to them. He can do anything with
our
horses, too. Never known him have the slightest difficulty with any of them. We had to get rid of a biter last year, but he'd literally eat out of Lee's hand. It was quite fantastic, if you knew the horse as we did.'

'Where do I find this old lady?'

'Oh, she lives with her son and his wife. Go back there, when you've got time, and ask Mrs Lee about her, if Lee is not back home.'

'Would it be all right to go there after I've had my tea? I'm absolutely starving.'

'Sure it will be all right. His wife's name is Eliza. She isn't out of the Forest. She comes from Dorset and he says she misses the travelling, especially when her family comes roving over this way. His mother, old Mrs Lee, is named Dosha.'

'I see. Well, thanks very much. I shall certainly seek her out.'

She returned to the hotel to find Dame Beatrice and the two young men in the television lounge, where most of the guests took tea. It was a large, pleasant room, partly formed by having had an extension built on to the original house. This extension had an enormous window overlooking the garden and it acted as a sun-lounge during the day and could be heavily blacked out when the television set was turned on during the evening.

As soon as Laura had washed and changed, Denis rang for tea. Richardson asked her how she had enjoyed her ride. The fact that he was still at liberty, and was also free of the Superintendent for a while, had restored his spirits, and he listened attentively while Laura described her afternoon. He shook his head, though, when she said that she had hopes of obtaining information from a gipsy fortune-teller.

'They just make the stuff up,' he said. 'My mother went to one once and paid the usual two bob and was told she had the usual "lucky hand," and then the gipsy said that if my mother would fork out another five shillings there was plenty more she could tell her, all of it very important indeed. Well, of course, Ma didn't fall for that one, so I'm blessed if the gipsy didn't pick up her hand again and tell her that she had a mean, cheese-paring nature and no sympathy or kindness in her heart.'

Laura laughed. She did not linger over her tea, excused herself to the others, went upstairs for a coat and then strode off to the gipsy's cottage. Lee was not at home, but Eliza, a dark-skinned girl in a red satin blouse and wearing enormous earrings, asked her to come in when she heard her errand. The cottage was clean and smelt of stew, and old Mrs Lee was in the room in which the family lived and ate. There was a well-scrubbed kitchen table in the room, supporting a bird-cage containing two budgerigars. Two little boys, bright-eyed and dirty-faced, were having a wrestling match on a brilliant hearthrug made from 'pieces' and an elderly woman in a rocking-chair stirred them occasionally with her elastic-sided boot while her brown fingers were busy weaving a basket.

The girl spoke to her in a mixture of English and Romany, and the old lady, who was dressed in a dark-grey skirt and a black blouse with an orange-coloured scarf at the throat, looked Laura over and, shaking her head, made an assertion in the Romany tongue and, getting up out of the rocking-chair, motioned Laura to take a seat at the table.

'I'm sorry, lady,' said the girl. 'I want she should take you into the front room, but she says there's no fire in there, and no more there isn't. Nelson, and you, Goliath, out of the way.' The boys took not the slightest notice of this command, so she picked one up in each arm, bundled them into the garden and bolted the back door. That way you will have some peace,' she said.

Laura took the seat indicated, a wooden chair, the old gipsy sat at right-angles to her in a similar one and the girl settled herself in the rocking-chair. The fortune-teller extended an earth-coloured palm, Laura laid on it a two-shilling piece, the gipsy bit the money and put it aside and then reached out for Laura's hand.

'Right-handed, keck-handed?' she asked. Laura admitted that she was right-handed by nature, but was ambidextrous in everything except writing. It was her right hand which the gipsy had grasped. She put it down and took Laura's left hand instead. For a full minute she stared at it, then she reached out for the other hand and silently compared the two. 'Yes,' she said at last. 'You have a lovely nature. You are faithful and true. You have a good husband. His work often takes him away from home. You have no home of your own, but you share two homes with another woman, a woman much older than yourself. She loves you very much, but she never speaks of loving, either to you or anyone else. You have a beautiful child.'

Laura, who would have thought this the last adjective to employ in describing her son, laughed loudly.

'You wouldn't think so, if you knew him,' she said, 'but the rest of what you've told me is quite right.'

'Yes. Why have you come?'

'You know as well as I do. Two men have been murdered in the Forest and an innocent man has been under suspicion-still is, so far as I know. I want the real culprits brought to book, and you must help me.'

'Must? I don't take orders.'

'It wasn't an order. It was a cry from the heart. Won't you help me?'

'Yes. You have a hold over me.'

'Indeed, Mrs Lee? In what way?'

'You come from the north. I see mist and mountains. I see islands and lakes and the sea. I see an old woman, much like me, who can foretell the future. I see life and death in her eyes.'

'My grandmother had the Gift. We call it that in the Highlands. What else can you see?'

The old woman looked at her and held out her hand, dropping Laura's in order to do so. Laura, who considered that she had received very good value for her two-shilling piece, produced a pound note. The gipsy shook her head. Laura returned the money to the handbag she had laid upon the table and took out a five-pound note. The old woman drew it towards her.

'I see you are serious. I knew you were,' she said. 'Put the twenty shillings beside it.' Laura obeyed, although she felt that she was being mulcted of more money than the seance was probably worth, but the gipsy's next words reassured her. 'When I have finished, you will give me one or the other. You have a generous heart.'

'I must have, mustn't I?' said Laura, grinning. 'Can't I tell you what it is I want to know?'

'My son has told me what you want to know. You want to know why two men died because of the ponies. If I tell you, you will be in great danger, although it may be not yourself, but your beautiful son.'

'That will be a change, at any rate.'

'You still wish to know?'

'Of course. My second name is Tammas Yownie. Nothing will be allowed to fickle me.'

The gipsy smiled politely, but did not ask to have the reference explained. She said,

'You should ask the policeman to explain himself. The ponies are not destroyed on the roads.'

'So he was
right
! He said that more were missing than had ever been destroyed on the roads. But why would a rich man need to steal ponies?'