Adders on the Heath (21 page)

'Because,' said the gipsy, 'he could
buy
them only in August, September, October, and then he would need to buy too many. Also, they would still have to run in the Forest until he needed them, because he has nowhere to keep them. That is all I can say, and I do not know the man's name. ' Her fingers closed over the five-pound note. 'You will know more when the danger threatens, so-beware!'

'I see. Well, thanks very much, Mrs Lee.'

'The stallions roam. Nobody can name the father of a Forest foal. When the mares are in labour, the sires are far afield. They roam. If it was not for their markings, nobody would know whence they come. The gentlemen know their own, but only because of the markings.'

'Tell me one thing,' said Laura. 'Is anything involved besides the ponies?'

The old woman stood up, claimed the rocking-chair by a gesture to her daughter-in-law, sat down in it and stowed away the five-pound note. Her daughter-in-law stood by the table beside Laura and then picked up the pound note. Laura nodded. The young woman opened the back door and the two gipsy children rushed in and immediately fell upon one another like a couple of warring fox-cubs. At the same moment the front door opened and Lee came straight through into the room where the others were assembled. He said, straightway, to Laura,

'Did you get what you wanted, my miss?'

'I'm not sure,' Laura replied.

'How much did you pay?'

'Six pounds, altogether.'

'Foolish, very foolish,' he said softly. 'And what is there in it for me?'

'You'll have to ask your women-folk. I'm cleaned right out, I'm afraid.'

'Good enough. Good night to you, then.' Politely he escorted her to the front door. Laura was surprised to find that it was half-past six by the time she got back to the hotel. She went into the bar, expecting to find the others at their favourite table in the window, but they were not to be seen. She went up to Dame Beatrice's room and found her employer playing a complicated game of Patience on the little writing table.

'What-ho, Mrs Croc, dear!' she said. Dame Beatrice looked up.

'I hope your mission was more successful than mine,' she said.

'Your mission?'

'Yes, I went to visit Mr and Mrs Campden-Towne, but the servants reported that they had gone away, leaving no address and giving no indication of a possible date for their return.'

'Guilty conscience, do you think?'

'It is not possible to say. How did your session go?'

Laura described the séance.

'I can't say it seems to have been much good, and I did rather feel I'd paid through the nose,' she said, 'but I suppose it was rather interesting. The old lady isn't entirely phoney, but I wish she could have been a little more explicit. Still, we mustn't grumble. What do you make of it all?'

'I think we must see the Superintendent again and suggest that he interview your young policeman, and, in view of the gipsy's warning, my dear Laura, I am in mind to deport you to London, and Hamish too.'

'Over my dead body!' said Laura stoutly. Dame Beatrice cackled.

'But your dead body is the one thing I wish to avoid,' she said. 'Perhaps we will
all
go home.'

'Leaving the case in the air?'

'The case is not in the air. The gipsy has supplied the last clue. One thing I did while you were gone. I advised the Superintendent of Clive's disappearance and got him to check the Maidstons' story. It would never do for harm to come to the child. Once they know the police are suspicious, the boy should be safe enough. The Superintendent has promised, in your favourite phrase, to leave no stone unturned in looking for the child, so I think we may set our minds at rest concerning Clive.'

SECOND INTERLUDE

'Discourse of the Unnatural and Vile Conspiracie.

King James VI of Scotland

'Cor, look!' said Judy, as she and Syl plodded around a rather ill-equipped indoor arena. 'Marlene done five foot four.'

'Them bars sags,' said her friend. 'Don't suppose it was a bit more than five two and a half, actually. What did you make of that Mrs Gavin?'

'Her? Might make the half-mile if she trained.'

'No, but her herself, I mean.'

'No idea. All I got was that she was no sort of a square. She's got what it takes, whatever that is. Sticking her neck out, though.'

'What makes you think so?'

'Look,' said Judy, changing stride as three of the other women athletes challenged their possession of the track, 'what I mean is, she's got on to something. You can't get away from the fact that them two boys was done to death.'

'Nothing to do with Mrs Gavin. Couldn't have been.'

'It's none too healthy for amachers to go about digging into cases of murder. Much better leave it to the police. It's their job, anyway.'

'Let's shove up a couple of hurdles and have a bash. I'm sick of jogging. My heels is getting sore. What do the club have to pay for the honour and privilege of being allowed to use this ruddy old dump?'

'Dunno. Got to pay our own bus fares to get here, anyway.'

'Oh, well, it's only one night in the week. The men gets two.'

'That's three nights out of seven for me and Sid. I don't see why they boys and we girls can't train together.'

'The boys would hog the whole track and all the fixings. We wouldn't get a look in.' They put up three low hurdles and conversation died as they took turns at going over them. Members of the city club which owned the indoor track began drifting in, dancing on their toes and giving obvious signs to the visitors from the Scylla and District that time was up and that they required their premises to themselves.

'I bet the showers are cold,' said Judy, as they stacked the hurdles and then went off to change.

'I'm not going to bother. Have a bath when I get home,' said Syl. 'I haven't done enough to get really sweated. An hour's not much at a time. The bus ride takes longer than that, counting here and back, not to speak of that walk up the lane.'

They left the premises at a quarter-past eight and had three-quarters of a mile to walk to the bus stop, back in the town. They traversed a narrow, lonely, tree-lined road which had no pavement, and were about half-way along it when they heard the sound of a car. They had been walking side by side, but, as there was scarcely room for two cars to pass, Syl slipped in behind her friend as they approached a bend in the road.

Suddenly brilliant headlamps glared into the girls' eyes. Completely dazzled, Judy fell into the ditch. The car tore at her. Syl screamed and jumped into the hedge. The car swerved, the brakes squealed, the driver pulled up. The girls picked themselves out of hedge and ditch. A man got out of the car and came up to them.

'You're lucky,' he said shortly. 'Keep your eyes skinned another...why, hullo! It's Miss Gammon and Miss Crimble, isn't it? Sorry, girls, but you
were
rather all over the road, you know. Any damage done?'

'I'm wet and muddy, Mr Towne,' said Judy. 'Lucky no more damage.'

'I'm all over scratches and I'll bet my nylons have had it,' said Syl. 'And we
wasn't
all across the road, Mr Towne.'

'Oh, well, I'll take your word for it. Thought any more about what I asked you? The pay's not bad, you know.'

'Still thinking,' said Judy. 'Well, we'd better be getting along. Catch my death in these wet things.'

'I'll give you a lift in my car.'

'No, thanks all the same. We better keep moving. Anyhow, you ain't going our way.'

'Oh, there's certain to be a gate where I can turn the car. You carry on, and I'll pick you up and drive you home, if you tell me where you live.'

Thanks a lot, but nothing doing. Good night, Mr Towne. We'll keep on thinking about your other offer. We might accept if it wasn't for what happened to you know who.'

'But, my dear girl, that was nothing to do with me, or with the job they were doing for me. What on earth silly ideas have you got in your heads? Whatever they are, you'd better get rid of 'em pretty damn' quick! Think it over.'

'Didn't mean anything personal, Mr Towne. You know that. Well, good night again. If you want to turn the car, you'll have to go near enough up to the sports club place, I reckon.'

'O.K.' He walked back to his car.

'Come on,' said Syl, beginning to step out.

'Prepared to sell your honour dearly, dearie?' asked Judy, falling in behind her.

'Don't know what you mean. Old Towne ain't
that
sort.'

'I'll tell you what sort he is. He's a stinking murderer. I reckon he was out to get us. That swerve was no accident; no, nor it wasn't careless driving, neither.
And
he isn't sozzled. I got a very keen nose for that sort of thing, and there wasn't no smell to his breath.'

'You're cuckoo! Why would he want to get
us
? We ain't done nothing!'

'We've turned down that offer to watch out for them roaming ponies, haven't we?'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'I don't exactly know. What say we crash the hedge? I don't want him having another go at us. He might be lucky the next time.'

'You got the jitters? Well, all right then, if you want to. One thing, I'm in such a perishing mess already, I can't look much worse than I do. Hope it's not that fresh conductor-boy on the bus. If it is, he's bound to pass remarks. He always do, give 'im half a chance!'

'Half a mo! There's a gate a little way ahead. Let's trot. He'll be back any minute.'

They trotted, found the gate and tumbled over it. They walked uncertainly on the rough ground but were immediately screened from the road by a high hedge of hawthorns.

'Duck down, and let him go by,' said Syl, as they caught the sound of a car. It passed them at less than twenty miles an hour as they crouched in the shadow of the hedge.

'Looking for us,' said Judy. 'We can get on now.' They hurried on as fast as they could. 'Don't suppose he'll turn the car again. Let's get back on to the road. It's quicker that way. Cor! These thorns!'

'Don't try it. We'll get torn to pieces. There's sure to be another gate further on.'

The bus conductor proved to be not the youth they dreaded, but a cultured, quiet West Indian, who might have been surprised by their dishevelled appearance, but who was far too courteous to appear to notice it. The bus stopped at the corner of Judy's road. Syl had further to walk.

'Come in our house. Mum'll give us a hot drink. Then me and my dad'll see you home,' said Judy kindly.

'Shall you tell them about Mr Towne?'

'I better. Towne'll guess we will, anyway, and it's protection to tell. He won't dare do nothing to us if he thinks other people know.'

'You don't
really
think he done it on purpose, do you? Tried to run us down, I mean.'

'I'm not taking any chances, I know that. I shan't go to the stadium any more for a bit. I'm going to stay in the bright lights and walk on a proper pavement. What's more, I'm going to phone that Mrs Gavin in the morning. The shop steward has arranged so we girls can phone up our hair appointments in the tea-breaks, and this is a damn sight more important than a hair-do, although I shall tell Len Parker that's what I want the phone for.'

'Nothing's more important than a hair-do, but you're lucky to be able to phone from the factory. I can just see
our
old cat's face if anybody suggested it to
her
!'

There was a short silence until Judy said, 'I s'pose you noticed he cottoned on at once when I said (naming no names) about Bert Colnbrook and that there Bunt? He didn't need no telling what I meant.'

'I don't think that's much to go on. You sure your mum won't mind if I come in for half a tick? I don't want to go home alone.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HAMISH RIDES AGAIN

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?'

William Wordsworth

Laura was surprised and pleased when she took the telephone call at half-past ten on the following morning. It was only by chance that she had stayed in the hotel, for the young men had invited her to accompany them to Christchurch and she had debated with herself as to whether she should go. Dame Beatrice had urged it and this had released Laura's natural fund of obstinacy. When the post arrived, however, she felt that she had done well. A letter from her son Hamish clinched the matter and reinforced her decision.

'Coming down for the week-end,' wrote Hamish. 'I thought I was to ride a New Forest pony, but you have said no more about it, so I am going to gate-crash you. Daddy took me out on Rotten Row. It is rotten all right and I saw lots of ladies. None of them could really ride.'

Laura passed the letter over to Dame Beatrice, who chuckled over it and remarked that Hamish was a braw wee laddie. Laura winced, and proffered the dictum that braw wee laddies were the curse of the universe.

'I am awful at Latin,' Dame Beatrice read aloud, 'and the vicar says I am terrible at Greek, so I shall study Russian when I go to school next autumn, also Chinese and American, with an eye to my future, so I am sure to be all right except for an unlucky atomic bomb or two. You will be dead by then, so there is no need for you to worry. Love, Hamish. P.S. School will be good. Shall
exterminate
the masters.'

'Good Lord!' said Laura. 'Why did I have to bear and rear such a monster?'

'Hamish shows a fund of common sense well beyond his years,' said Dame Beatrice. 'The child has put the present-day problem in a nutshell. We shall survive or we shall not. It is just as simple as that. When do you expect him to arrive?'

'Goodness knows! Anyway, he's quite capable of finding his way to this hotel, whether Gavin is with him or not. What really interests me is not Hamish but these girls who've telephoned me.'

'Yes?'

They think they've been attacked. They say that Campden-Towne's car tried to run them down. It
could
be possible, I suppose. Of course, they had been got at to take the place of Colnbrook and Bunt and had turned the issue down. So much I gathered from the talk I had with them when I met them on the common. There is something beyond the actual theft of those ponies, you know.'

'I know it well, child, but, so far, we do not know what it is. Have you any ideas on the subject?'

'So far, no,' said Laura regretfully.

'Well, we await the arrival of your son. I must say that I enjoy the company of Hamish. He is a most refreshing child.'

'He gives me cold feet,' said Laura. 'I hate the sight of him.'

That this was not altogether a misjudged view of the situation was apparent when Hamish, lugging a medium-sized suitcase, appeared at the hotel on the following morning.

'I've come,' he announced at the office window, 'because my mother needs help. Have I a bedroom or something?'

'What name?' asked the office, a trifle suspicious of the youthful, would-be guest.

'Gavin, of course. You've a Mrs Gavin staying here, haven't you?'

'Yes, we have. Are you her son?'

'What else? My key, please.' The office dangled the key, but did not hand it over. 'And another thing,' said Hamish, 'I don't want early morning tea. It vitiates the membranes. I bet you didn't know that, did you?'

'No, indeed. Thank you for the information,' said the office, inwardly amused.

'Oh, somebody has to take the mickey out of someone, so you've done it out of me,' said Hamish, tolerantly, 'but I believe in my own beliefs. Somebody has to stand up for these angry young men, you know. They can hardly be expected to stand up for themselves, can they? For one thing, you have to know how to do Judo, or, even better, to have all those Commando tactics. Personally, I always find it better to jump on a person's feet and then uppercut him, if he tries any funny business. Did you ever try that?'

'Your key,' said the office, defeated. Hamish accepted the key in an attitude of doubt, and then foiled the intention of the porter to carry his bag upstairs.

'I don't tip,' he said, 'so I can't expect you to worry.'

'Part of my duties, sir,' said Barney.

'You shouldn't have to wait on
children
, anyway.'

'I assure you it's a pleasure, sir, but just as you wish.'

'All right. I'll carry it upstairs myself. You see, I shall be an Independent when I'm an M.P.'

'The Independents are a small body, speaking numerically, sir.'

'Little snow, big snow. Big snow, little snow,' said Hamish. 'I think that's a North American Indian proverb, but, whether it is or is not, it contains a beautiful and fundamental truth.'

'Yes, sir?'

'If iddy is umpty, then what is iddy umpty iddy?' asked Hamish.

'You're too young for girls at your age,' said the porter, hitting back, 'and you need a wash and brush up, sir, before you meet your mother.' Hamish studied him.

'Do you know, I think you've won,' he said. 'All boys are dirty. I am a boy, therefore I am dirty. Any argument about that?'

'Certainly not, sir,' said the porter. 'That would make a syllogism, no doubt.'

'Yes, you
have
won,' said Hamish. 'Right. I'll take a bath. I suppose it isn't an extra?'

'We like the guests to be clean and neat about the place, sir. There is, therefore, no charge for a bath.' Hamish regarded his vanishing back with reverence. Laura regarded her son less affectionately, when sleek, clean and shining, he presented himself before her.

'Well,' she said, 'what have
you
come for?'

'To ask why I can't go to school in January. I've read all about it. Frozen wash-basins, so that you can't wash, dreadful grub, so you think you're in a foreign prison, underground form-rooms hundreds of degrees below zero, sadistic prefects...'

'They can't be sadistic enough to suit me,' said Laura.

'It sounds a most inviting prospect,' said Dame Beatrice, producing, as though out of a hat, chocolates, potato crisps and liquorice all-sorts.

'You know,' said Hamish, reaching out for the goodies, 'you're the only person who really understands me, Mrs Dame.'

'But, back to the subject of those two girls,' said Laura to her employer, 'what do you think we ought to do?'

'The one thing we cannot do is to take Mr Towne to court. The car was large, the lane is very narrow, there was a bend around which he could not possibly have seen the girls approaching, and the evidence against him rests on their word alone.'

'Well, then, what
can
we do?'

'At present, nothing. Hamish would like his lunch early, then he can have a rest before you hire a pony for him.'

'He's the complete human cormorant, certainly,' Laura agreed, looking at her son with the fascination of horror. 'All right. I'll push him into the dining-room while we have a civilised drink and then, as you say, he can sit still for a bit while we have our lunch. I'd better ring up the stables right away.'

'You do just that, and hurry up about it,' said Hamish. Laura clouted him, a gesture which he accepted with the greatest of
sang-froid.

'May I have a tomato juice, please?' he asked. 'One gave up lemonade when one was seven. With grandfather in Scotland I was allowed a dash of whisky. He said new dogs learn old tricks, whereas old dogs don't learn new tricks. Interesting, and not altogether true. Look at politicians.'

'I don't want to,' said Laura. 'Go and get yourself that tomato juice and then for goodness' sake have your lunch.'

'Will they serve me in the bar? I shouldn't wish to be embarrassed by a refusal because I'm under eighteen.'

Laura went out and returned with the tomato juice. Hamish gulped it down and then headed for the dining-room. Laura sighed. Dame Beatrice cackled.

'You will trust him to ride alone, after the gipsy's warning?' she asked. Laura looked surprised.

'Did you never read Mr P. G. Wodehouse on the subject of the page-boy Harold and the chance of his being bitten by a snake?' she demanded.

'I don't think I ever did.'

'Well, when Jeeves' views were canvassed, he contended that, in such an emergency, his anxiety would be entirely for the snake. If Hamish runs into trouble, my anxiety will be entirely for the other person.'

Laura accompanied her son to the riding-stables at half-past two, saw him mounted, and then walked back to the hotel, but not before he had asked her to tell him the number of the car which had tried to run down the two girls. They knew it, and had given it to her over the telephone. Laura, who knew that she would be plagued by Hamish for days if she did not repeat it to him, confided it hastily, fairly sure that he would forget it that his curiosity was satisfied.

Hamish owed his almost boundless selfconfidence and his overt personality to two factors. One of these was his heredity. Neither Laura nor Detective Chief-Inspector Gavin lacked personality. The other factor was that everything the child had been taught had been taught him extremely well. He was, at the age of ten, a daring and accomplished diver and swimmer, his batting and fielding were, for his age, first class, and he rode like a prince. He was a tall boy, extremely well built and yet also graceful. He had given up dancing classes (at his own urgent request) and was learning judo, which Laura much preferred to boxing, and the piano, which he intended to give up in favour of the organ, which made, he said, a great deal more noise.

His estimate of his prowess at Greek and Latin was more modest than was justified by the facts.

Like most intelligent children of his age, he learned easily and had no objection to being taught. Besides, he got on well with the scholarly, kindly vicar and showed him always his best side. Laura and Hamish themselves were in conflict only because both enjoyed the fight for power. Laura respected her son, and in her he found an opponent worthy of his steel.

'She leaves me alone. I can manage my own affairs,' he had said, at the age of seven, to his father. 'I suppose not many mothers are like that.'

'She leaves
me
alone. I am allowed to manage
my
own affairs,' Gavin had replied. 'Very few wives, and even fewer mothers, are capable of so much self-control.'

'So it ought to be thank God kneeling for a good
woman's
love. I'm not so sure that she exactly loves us, you know.'

'Well, it's probably a bit difficult,' Gavin had said, with a grin. Father and son understood one another perfectly, a fact which Laura recognised with a mixture of irritation and gratitude.

Hamish, on this occasion dismissing all thoughts of his mother, rode the pony at an easy pace on to the Lawn. There were a number of the Forest ponies about, but they took not the slightest notice of him or of his mount, but continued their quiet grazing. Hamish reined in his pony and studied them before he moved on. He was following a narrow path, without being on it, which led, between a ditch and the open grassland, straight across the Lawn towards some woods.

He skirted the woods when he came to them, and branched off to the left towards a rough, almost unmade road. Without his knowledge, he was on the track which led to Campden-Towne's house. He kept his pony on the grass, but, hoping that the road would lead to something interesting, he followed its course. The pony plodded on until Hamish decided upon a gallop. This soon ate up a couple of hundred yards of the flat but rather uneven surface of the ground and brought them on to the common, but at a point where the rough road crossed a bridge which Richardson would have recognised.

Hamish, always interested in streams, rode on to the bridge, dismounted, slung the reins over his arm and walked the pony to the parapet so that they could look at the running water. A toot on the horn of a car caused the boy to look round. A large limousine drew up and the driver leaned out.

'You're trespassing here,' he said. This is a private road.'

Hamish raised his cap.

'I'm extremely sorry,' he said. 'Do you mind if I just go on? I haven't ridden on your road until now.'

'Oh, carry on,' said the man ungraciously, 'but remember that, once you've crossed the bridge, you must take yourself off on to the heath. I don't have roads made up at my own expense for any casual strangers to make use of.'

'Quite,' agreed Hamish. 'I do see your point. That's a very good car you have there, sir. A Kent number, I believe.' He stared hard at the number plate, to the man's obvious annoyance.

'Oh, go and write down some train numbers, can't you?' he snarled. 'Now get along with you.'

Hamish mounted his pony, raised his riding crop in an ironic gesture unusual, perhaps, in so young a boy, and rode on. The car, imitating its owner's angry snarl, drove off. When it had rounded the bend, Hamish solemnly recited to himself its number and then remarked to the pony that it was the car which had attempted to run down two girls. As soon as he had crossed the bridge, he rode off on to the grass and continued upon its uneven surface until he came out on to the heath and found himself facing, albeit at some distance, an important house partly hidden among trees.