Here Comes a Chopper (6 page)

‘I think they’re twins.’

‘I thought they might be. I rather liked the look of him. Did you?’

‘Clandon? Oh, yes, he looked all right. So you don’t know who the woman was on your left? She was certainly an odd-looking wench. Repressed or something, I should say. Perpetual spinster, or family breadwinner, perhaps. Under the weather, anyhow.’

‘Perhaps she is Lady Catherine’s companion. I should think that might be rather wearing.’

‘Lord, yes! Although I think I preferred Lady Catherine to that female I got stuck with. Not Mrs Bradley. I liked her very much. I mean the other one. You know, the digger-up of unconsidered trifles—the archaeologist woman.’

‘Oh, was she? I’m not sure whether Captain Ranmore mentioned her or not. The tutor seemed nice, I thought.’

‘Yes, quite a good chap. Who was the heavyweight next to Ranmore on his right?’

‘Miss Pigdon, Lady Catherine’s secretary.’

‘Would she have a secretary
and
a companion? I thought they were jobs for one person.’

‘They ought to be, anyway. Perhaps the other girl, the queer one, is some sort of poor relation.’

‘Yes, I should think she must be. That would account for her, wouldn’t it? The monumental depression, and that sort of thing. And, talking of depression, is this bally train going to stop at every station?’

It was a tiresome, crawling journey. Dorothy, who had taken a corner seat, leaned back and closed her eyes. Roger crossed over and sat beside her. He looked at her brown, small, childish hands, and, as he was speculating upon them, the train, like a tired horse approaching its stable, gave a sudden snort, gathered speed, and, as suddenly, jerked on its brakes with a hideous, involuntary squeal and pulled up sharply.

‘Now, what?’ said Roger. ‘I suppose we’ve lost a couple of wheels or something, or left a coach behind.’

Dorothy sat up, now wide awake, and looked out of the window.

‘We’re not at a station,’ she said.

‘That’s nothing to occasion surprise on this line,’ Roger remarked. ‘I should think we must
have stopped half a dozen times already outside stations.’

‘You really ought to have let me come back alone. It would have been ever so much better,’ said Dorothy, trying to see into the gloom.

‘I could never have faced old Bob,’ said Roger, grinning. ‘I say, what are those fellows playing at?’ He got up, let down the window and stuck his head out. ‘They’re going up and down the train with a lantern. I hope we’re not going to miss our connection through this!’

He withdrew his head as, apart from the movements of the guard and the fireman with the lanterns, there was nothing to see. In about five minutes, however, the guard came past the window which Roger had left open wide, and asked, but not very hopefully, whether there was a doctor on the train.

‘I can do a bit of binding-up, but no diagnosis,’ said Roger. ‘Anything wrong?’

‘We don’t quite know, sir. Would you come and have a look at the driver? Had a shock, he has, and his wife expecting tonight. Bad luck he should be on duty, but the influenza’s that bad he couldn’t be spared.’

‘Do you mind?’ asked Roger. Dorothy said that she did not mind at all. He opened the door and dropped on to the line—a surprising distance—aided by the light of the lantern. He returned in about ten minutes.

‘Fellow appears to have had a shock all right,’ he said, when he resumed his seat beside Dorothy.
‘Comfort he doesn’t have to steer, for I don’t think he’s capable of it.’

‘What’s the matter with him, then?’

‘Oh, his wife’s going to have a baby, and it seems to have got on his nerves.’

‘In what way?’

The train, with a good deal of noise, steamed on again.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Signs and wonders, and all that. Anyhow, he’s prepared to carry on. Personally, I shall be glad when we get to our station. I don’t much care to be behind a driver who sees headless corpses where no headless corpses should be.’

‘Oh, heavens! Is that what he said?’

‘It is. However, we’ve soothed him. Funny thing, though. I smelt his breath. He’s dead sober. Ah, here’s our station! Now I wonder how long we’ve got to wait?’

The train was already slowing down. The lights of the station came into view. Roger hauled down his rucksack and slung the straps over his arm. He picked up his ashplant, opened the carriage door, got out, and helped Dorothy out. There was an empty seat on the platform under a lamp. He guided her to it, slung down his luggage beside her, and went off to find a porter.

‘This platform, but we’ve got an hour and a half to wait,’ he said, with a groan, on his return. ‘We’ve missed the connection. I’m really terribly sorry. Old Bob will have my blood! I say, are you hungry again, as well as sleepy?’

‘Good heavens, no! I couldn’t eat a thing! And, anyway, I’m not sleepy now.’

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘Please do.’

‘Cigarette?’

‘Thank you.’

Scarcely had they lighted the cigarettes when the chauffeur Sim came through a side gate on to the platform.

‘I thought I might find you here, sir,’ he observed. ‘I’ve got the car outside. I’m very sorry, sir, but I did not have orders to take you further than the station. However, I’ve come now, sir, to drive you home.’

‘Well, thanks very much,’ said Roger, getting up. ‘Anything’s better than waiting an hour and a half on this beastly station.’

Sim seemed to know the route well, and drove very fast through the darkness. He had not even asked for an address. This was all explained when, two hours after they had left it, they found themselves at the mysterious house again.

‘Here, what the devil!’ said Roger, as soon as he stepped out of the car.

‘I’m very sorry I had to deceive you, sir,’ said the chauffeur. ‘But my orders were at all costs to get you back here.’

The guests were still at table. Conversation was general, but there was an air of strain about the party. Lady Catherine greeted the arrivals very cordially, and asked them to sit down at once as the party was thirteen at table. Roger, who had
halted in the doorway with Dorothy just behind him and looking over his shoulder by standing on tip-toe, merely glowered at the party.

‘Do you mean to say,’ he said, when, sweetly but peremptorily, she had repeated her request, ‘that you’ve all had to sit and sit because nobody had the sense to get up and break the spell?’

‘Lady Catherine was so much distressed at the idea that somebody should bring death upon himself within the year by rising first from the board, that we felt we had to give in,’ Mrs Bradley responded. ‘And, further, dear child, in ten minutes more we are promised a violin solo to reward us for our exemplary behaviour. Won’t you stay and listen? It is so very late for you now, that another half hour won’t signify anything particular, and, after that, I myself will drive you home.’

‘I certainly should like to hear Mrs Denbies play,’ said Dorothy, over Roger’s shoulder. ‘Go on, silly! Sit down,’ she added into her fuming protector’s left ear.

So they seated themselves, and, at a motion of Lady Catherine’s hand, the whole company rose. George, who had fallen asleep, was lifted up by Bugle and carried away, and the others went into a large chamber on the ground floor in which there was a grand piano on a low platform.

Claudia Denbies tuned her violin, played Bach’s
Partita in E Minor
on it, and then, on the ’cello, Andrea Caporale’s
Sonata in D Minor
and Fauré’s
Elégie
.

‘I’ve strained my back, I think,’ she said, in response to a demand from Captain Ranmore for another piece on the violin, ‘and find the ’cello a bit easier to manage tonight because I can sit down to it. I hate sitting to play the fiddle.’

‘I knew you shouldn’t have gone out riding this afternoon,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘I said at the time it was ridiculous.’

‘Oh, I don’t think I did it out riding,’ replied Claudia Denbies, ‘But I must get it right before my London recital. Besides, I’ve promised Captain Ranmore to shoot at the butts with him tomorrow.’

‘And now,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘these children must go, Lady Catherine, or they’ll get no sleep tonight.’

‘Sim is quite ready,’ said Lady Catherine, graciously. ‘Will you see to them, Eunice?’

‘Of course,’ said Eunice Pigdon. She took them out to the car which was at the front door. ‘I do hope you weren’t annoyed at being asked to come back,’ she added, as the three of them walked on to the gravel. ‘Lady Catherine is very peculiar over the number thirteen.’

‘But, surely,’ said Roger, voicing the thought which had been in his mind for the last hour, ‘it wouldn’t have mattered who got up first after we left, as we hadn’t sat down thirteen? Besides, we didn’t leave thirteen at table. I don’t see any sense in it. The first one of the house-party who got up after we left would have been the third of fourteen people, not the first of thirteen. Where’s
Lady Catherine’s logic? You would have been thirteen
with
Mr Lingfield, not without him. The whole business makes no sense.’

‘I know,’ Eunice Pigdon agreed. ‘Oh, well, it’s a good thing you were kind enough to come back, or I’m sure we’d have been sitting there still. Lady Catherine is never gainsaid. It doesn’t do. Poor Mary Leith and I have trouble enough as it is. Oh, you won’t want this car. Sim, take it back.’

‘You could all have got up together,’ suggested Dorothy. Eunice Pigdon agreed, but with more politeness than heartiness. She made way for Mrs Bradley and walked slowly back into the house. The chauffeur brought Mrs Bradley’s car.

The journey by car seemed short. Nevertheless, it was well after midnight before they drew up at the gates of Dorothy’s home. Mrs Bradley would not come in, and favoured them with a leer as she said good night. She drove away immediately, and Roger, taking the key from Dorothy as soon as they reached the front door, opened up for her and was invited in.

It was the first time he had ever seen Bob’s home. It seemed spacious after his lodgings. Dorothy took him into the dining-room.

‘Thank goodness it’s fairly warm in here,’ she said. The drive had proved cold, and would have been colder but for the comfort of Roger’s breast and arm. The fire, although low, was not out. ‘Oh, there’s some hot milk,’ she added. ‘Would you like it?’

‘No, really, thanks.’

‘Oh, well, there’s some whisky in the sideboard. Help yourself. I won’t be very long.’

She took off her coat in the hall and went upstairs. Bob was reading in bed. He put down his book when she came in, and regarded her sternly.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ he demanded. ‘Jerry’s been here, and he kicked up no end of a stink when he heard you were out and I had to tell him I didn’t know where.’

‘How’s the ankle?’ asked Dorothy tactfully, seating herself on the bed.

‘None the better for having you sit on it,’ retorted her brother, who seemed to be greatly moved. ‘Look here, where the devil
have
you been? Do you know what time it is, and what time you left the house this morning?’

‘Oh, don’t be a heavy father,’ retorted Dorothy. ‘If you want to know, I’ve been having a thrilling time, a glorious walk, a marvellous dinner, and quite a lot of adventures.’

‘Who with?’

Dorothy checked the names on her fingers. With her long, thick hair, grey eyes, broad brow and confident chin she looked altogether so young that her brother’s heart was softened. He loved his young sister, and was secretly proud of her beauty. Her lissome body was in contrast to his own strong, sturdy frame, thick shoulders, and long, strong arms, and people who did not know the family were usually very much surprised to learn that they were related. Bob had protected and fought for Dorothy from the time when they both very
young. He had experienced secret, deep, substantial pleasure when she came to his school on sports days, although he had regarded her then, and he regarded her still, as a child. He spoilt and bullied her, kept her out of trouble with their parents, acted as her chaperon, banker, swimming coach and watch-dog, and, generally speaking, obtained much satisfaction out of managing her and being managed by her, teasing her, taking care of her, and showing her off to his friends.

‘Heavy father be damned!’ he said, before she could begin her list of names. ‘Although you probably ought to be tanned. I’ll subscribe to that, if that’s being a heavy father.’

‘There were Lady Catherine, Captain Ranmore, John Hackhurst (the poet, you know), Mr Bookham, Mr Clandon,’ began Dorothy hastily, ‘and—and—Miss Clandon, Mrs Dunley (the archaeologist), Mrs Denbies (the violinist), George, Bugle——’

‘What
have
you been doing?’ asked Bob. He scowled at her dangerously. ‘Don’t you dare to try pulling my leg!’

‘I’ve been walking, I tell you, and having a birthday dinner with George and Lady Catherine and——’

‘Cut it out! Did you meet Hoskyn?’

‘Yes, of course I did. He was quite easy to recognize from your description, darling, and——’

‘Did you explain about my confounded ankle?’

‘Yes. How is it, by the way? You didn’t tell me.’

‘Rotten. What did Hoskyn do when he heard?
Went off in a huff, I suppose. I knew he would. He can’t bear to have things upset when he’s got them planned. Did he say where he was going?’

‘He came with me; or, rather, I suppose I went with him. We got lost, and then we came to this house and they made us have dinner, because it was George’s birthday, and then the chauffeur drove us to the station, and we began coming home. But they made us go back because they couldn’t get up from table. Then Claudia Denbies played to us all, and we came home in Mrs Bradley’s car. Bob, it’s all been most peculiar and exciting. You might take an interest, you pig!’

‘Where’s Hoskyn?’

‘In the dining-room, downstairs. I told him to help himself to whisky.’

‘What!’

‘Oh, do you mind? I thought there was plenty in the decanter. I’d better go down and stop him. I told him I’d only be a minute. Can he sleep in here if I fix him up a camp bed?’

‘No, he can’t! And I didn’t mean the whisky! You knew that perfectly well. I meant about your bringing him home. And, anyway, if he’s going to stay the night, what’s the matter with the spare room?’