“See you’ve settled in all right,” he remarked, glancing round the room with a curiosity that contrived to be both furtive and faintly impudent. “Snug little billet, this. How does the Mem like country life?”
Nigel gathered he was referring to Georgia. “Oh, very well, thanks. She’ll be down in a minute. Will you have a drink?”
“Thanks, no. Don’t touch it.”
It must be a grievance, then, thought Nigel, not a bad liver. Major Keston went on hurriedly, as if apologetic for his curtness:
“Ought to have called before. Tell you the truth I was a bit scared. Your Mem’s a celebrated woman, I mean. Wouldn’t expect her to have much time for simple folk like us.”
So that’s it, thought Nigel: he resents our coming to his village—he’s afraid the limelight will be diverted from himself to Georgia.
“I don’t think you’ll find her very terrifying,” he said equably.
They discussed the weather for a little. Then Major Keston intimated that one object of his visit was to touch them for a subscription to the village bell-ringers’ fund. Nigel went over to his desk, switching on the light above it to look for the Treasury notes that were generally kept loose in a pigeon-hole there. The pigeon-hole, however, was empty this evening, and Nigel started to go upstairs for the notecase he had left on his chest-of-drawers.
On the wall under the staircase hung a convex mirror. As he neared it, Nigel noticed the major’s reflection. Major Keston was certainly a quick mover: already he was standing, though Nigel had not heard a sound behind him, close to the desk. The manikin in the mirror, as Nigel passed, half-raised its miniature, brilliant hand; then, as if thinking better of it, turned away and flashed silently back to the fireplace.
He might at least wait till I’m out of the room before he starts rifling my desk, thought Nigel, who was very, very seldom surprised by the vagaries of human nature. And I don’t see why I should give him another opportunity.
Instead of going upstairs, he called out to Georgia to bring the notecase down with her. Presently she appeared, and Nigel introduced Major Keston. It always amused him to see her greeting strangers. She possessed an instinct, sharpened by her experience in strange places among strange peoples, for instantly reacting to the real nature of those she was meeting for the first time. It was not often that she took an immediate dislike to someone; but, when she did, it was always proved to be justified in the long run. On such occasions her physical sense of distaste, of repulsion, was so strong that she felt it must be written up in neon lights all over her face, and to conceal this she would assume a gushing, hostessy manner entirely foreign to her.
She was gushing now, as Nigel observed with secret amusement. And the leathery little man seemed to like it.
“I’m so glad you looked in, Major Keston. We’ve both been wanting to meet you properly, get to know you. We’ve heard so much about you in the village.”
Georgia chattered away. The major visibly thawed. Presently he said:
“Hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, Strangeways. I noticed you went to that desk over there for money. If I may say so, I shouldn’t keep money there, not just at present. Desk too easily opened. Been a lot of burglaries around here lately—amateurish affairs, rather. That desk just the sort of thing the fella would make for.”
“Thanks for the tip. I don’t think it would pay any burglar to have a stab at us, though. My wife’s a very light sleeper, and a first-class revolver-shot.”
Georgia giggled nervously. “Yes, I have shot one or two people. In self-defence, of course.” Which was in fact quite true.
Major Keston’s pebbly little eyes flickered. He seemed momentarily at a loss. Then he said:
“I suppose you’re quite handy with a gun, too, Strangeways? Have to be, in your job.”
“My job?” Nigel stared at him blankly: he did not like it to be common property that he was a private detective; his name never appeared in the papers in connection with any case he undertook, and he did not see how the major could have got on to it.
“Well, dash it, arresting murderers and so forth.”
“Oh, I don’t do any of that. I leave arrests to the police. I’m terrified of firearms,” replied Nigel in his mimsiest voice.
Major Keston’s glance was eloquent of contempt. The subject, however, seemed to have given him his cue. He proceeded to question them, with an effrontery that Nigel found unpleasantly dictatorial, as to why they had come to live in such a remote part of the country. Georgia chattered away enthusiastically about the beauties of Devonshire, the rewards of the simple life, her desire to get away from their rackety existence in London, and the rest of it. After a while, their visitor appeared to be satisfied, though Nigel could scarcely restrain himself from asking why they should need a permit before settling down in the major’s village.
At last Major Keston rose to take his leave. As he did so, his eye lighted upon the desk. He exclaimed:
“God bless my soul! What’s that there? I believe it’s my locket. Yes, it is. Wherever did you find it? It’s been missing since last spring.”
Georgia explained. “I’m afraid we opened it. We thought it might give some clue to the owner. But there was nothing inside except an old photograph.”
“Yes,” said the major. His voice sounded subtly different to Nigel. “My mother, as a matter of fact.”
Georgia’s eyes opened wide. She paused a moment, then said quickly:
“Your mother? What a beautiful woman! We were immensely taken with her—weren’t we, Nigel? I suppose she was quite young when this was done?”
“Yes. I believe so.” The major went on gruffly, “Must’ve been. Remember her looking like that when I was a boy, coming to say good-night to me before she went out to parties. All togged up. Y’know. Hrr’m. Poor soul, she died when I was quite young. Consumption.”
“Do you mind if I have just one more little look at her?” asked Georgia. Now why, Nigel wondered, has she gone all kittenish? Georgia opened the locket, took out the daguerreotype and strolled over to the fireplace to see it in a better light. The next moment she exclaimed, “Oh, how clumsy I am!” She had let the picture fall into the coal-scuttle. The major bent down politely to pick it up, but she was before him. She rescued it, and began rubbing it briskly with her handkerchief.
“I’m so sorry. There. I think she’s all right now. I’m afraid the locket’s been spoilt by lying in that ditch. Poor darling,” Georgia burbled, “covered up with leaves like the Babes in the Wood. How glad you must be to get her back!”
The major’s hand was indeed trembling with emotion as she put the locket into it. “Very grateful,” he muttered. His eyes, shamefast yet still touched with suspicion, swivelled uneasily from Georgia to Nigel. All at once he barked, “A bird! That’s what it must have been. A damned magpie.”
“Stole it, you mean?” asked Nigel.
“That’s right. A lot of the brutes up my way. Notice an old nest anywhere above the place you found it?”
Georgia shook her head. “There are a couple of trees there, though.”
“Ah, that’s it, depend upon it.” The major seemed extraordinarily relieved to have got to the root of the matter.
When the sound of his footsteps, stumping up the lane, had died away, Nigel took Georgia by her two wrists and shook her.
“Now why did you give that sickening display of ingenuousness, my sweet? And why did the helpless little woman deliberately drop the major’s mother into the coal-scuttle?”
“Oh, Nigel, didn’t you see? Whoever that beautiful lady may have been, one person she couldn’t possibly be is the major’s mother. That’s why I dropped her, I didn’t want the major to find out we’d opened her up, the paste you put on might look too fresh, that’s why I rubbed in coal-dust well round the rim. He’s an abominable creature, gave me gooseflesh, but not such a fool as he’d like us to think, so——”
“Here, one thing at a time,” Nigel interrupted his wife’s o
utburst. “Why couldn’t she be the major’s mother?”
“The corkscrew curls. That style of coiffure went out about 1850. Our mendacious major claims to have seen her like that as a child. Which would make him anything from eighty to a hundred years old to-day. It won’t add up.”
“Fancy-dress, perhaps?” Nigel suggested. “No, of course not; he gave the impression it was her normal appearance in the evening, going out to parties. Well, if she wasn’t his mother, why was he so darned keen to get the locket back? Presumably the Union Jack with E.B. on it is the important thing. Yes, and at first he didn’t want us to connect him with the locket at all. Hence the burglary scare.”
“Don’t talk in shorthand, darling.”
Nigel told her what he had seen in the convex mirror. “When he noticed the locket lying on my desk, his first impulse was to grab it. He realised at once, however, that we might connect him with its disappearance. His next move was to hand us a local burglar—‘amateurish’ was a good touch: he meant to prepare our minds for a burglary. No doubt he intended to break in himself one of these dark nights, take the locket, and a few other things to cover up its loss——”
“Goodness! Time must hang heavily on their hands here if that’s his idea of winter sports!”
“—but when I said you were a light sleeper, and you weighed in with that airy reminiscence about the people you’d bumped off—well, he thought better of it. So he invented his mother.”
Georgia stared at him, her brow wrinkled. “But, Nigel, it’s fantastic. I admit I didn’t like Major Keston, but——”
“I noticed that.” Nigel smiled absently. “You know, if it was his locket, and there’s some secret attached to it, he’d surely not have slipped up over the daguerreotype. Therefore the locket must belong to someone else, someone he knows, and the major is desperately keen to lay his hands on it. What does that suggest?”
“Search me.”
“Blackmail, my love. I really think I shall have to inquire a little further into these goings-on.”
“Oh, Nigel,” Georgia wailed. “Must you? Just when we’re settling down, and——”
“Well, it won’t affect you. Your job was over when you’d spotted the ringlets.”
But, for once, Nigel was wildly, abysmally wrong.
CHAPTER II
THE EPISODE OF THE MISGUIDED TRAMPS
“I THINK I’LL pop down to the Green Lion and tap the fountain head,” said Nigel the next evening. “If we go now, we’ll probably find Harry alone: the boys don’t start trooping in till seven o’clock generally.”
“‘We’? Last night you said I’d done my part of the job.”
“Oh, but you’re dying to find out more about the mysterious major, now aren’t you? You can just sit and wag your ears while I do the talking.”
Five minutes later they were sitting in the bar of the Green Lion, toasting their feet at a blazing fire. Georgia, who had acquired a taste for the rough, West-country cider, together with a healthy respect for its potency, held a mug of it between her hands.
“Good luck, Harry,” she said, taking a sip. The Green Lion was none of your fancy town pubs, all chromium and quick ones: here, you settled down on a hard bench for the evening, spinning out your modest pint or two to last three hours of deliberate drinking and even more deliberate conversation. Silence itself was sociable here. It reminded Georgia of a council of war she had once attended amongst the Melanesian islanders. After squatting completely mum for half an hour or so in the hut, the warriors had dispersed. Georgia had asked their chief when the council of war was to be held. “We’ve just finished it,” he replied.
Telepathy seemed to be the mode in the Green Lion, too, for Harry Luce suddenly broke the companionable silence with:
“I hear you’ve had a visit from Major Keston.”
“News travels fast in Folyton.”
“Oh, he were in here day before yesterday, wasting my time with a lot of daft questions about you. ‘Why, damn me,’ I says to en, ‘if thee wants to know so much about them, why don’t thee go and ask them theself. ’Tis no concern of I,’ I says. So he said he would.”
“And you put two and two together? But I’m surprised at his coming in here. He told me he didn’t drink.”
An expression of righteous indignation came over Harry’s thin, ferrety face. He flicked cigarette-ash off his waistcoat and spat volubly into the fire.
“No more he does. Stands at my bar twenty minutes by the clock and don’t buy even a packet of Woodbines. ’Tis not right—not to my way of thinking.”
“Pretty popular in the district, isn’t he?”
“He is, and he isn’t. He’s in with the farmers, and the gentry calls up to Yarnold Farm quite a bit, so they do say. But he wants to rule the roost—he’s too bossy for we down here. Mind you, when he comes first, us rings the joybells for en—as you might say—seeing his family used to be squires in Folyton——”
“I never realised that,” Nigel interrupted. “I thought he was a new-comer.”
“He was, and he wasn’t,” Harry replied deliberately. “The Kestons haven’t lived here for two generations now, and Folyton House has been empty of late. Now what I wants to know, Mr. Strangeways and Madam, is this—why didn’t he take Folyton House, if he wanted to set himself up as squire?”
“Couldn’t afford it, perhaps.”
“Why, damn me, he must have spent thousands rebuilding Yarnold Farm. He has the money, for certain. There’s another thing, now. He used local labour for that job, but last year, when he wanted to add on another bit, he brought in a lot of foreigners to do it.”
“Foreigners?”
“From London, or some such. Us didn’t have no truck with they. ’Tweren’t right, not to my way of thinking. Wonderful workshop he’s built himself up there, so they do say. Wonderful man with his hands.”
“We must walk over and have a look at it.”
“Don’t thee go by night then,” said Harry, winking slyly at Georgia.
“Why ever not?”
“Has thee never heard of the ghoost up to Yarnold Cross? Thee’d best ask Joe here. None of us likes to go past the cross at night, do us, Joe?”
Joe Sweetbread, who during this conversation had taken his usual place by the fireside, poked the fire with his stick and poured out his cider, which had been warming in a saucepan there. He was a very old man and—to Georgia’s eye—indistinguishable from one of those extras, dressed up to look like rustic ancients for a British quota film, who enliven the proceedings by bursting out every now and then into Somerset folksongs in perfect harmony and Portland Place accents. Joe’s voice, however, failed to preserve the illusion. It was thickened by age, an almost unintelligible dialect, and what seemed to Georgia an all-time high in adenoidal growth.
“Yis, maaster, yis, ’tes right,” Joe Sweetbread whined vivaciously. “Ghoost up tu Yaarnold Cross. I seen en. Heh-heh! Churning butter. Poor maid.”
“Maybe she’m keeping herself warm,” Harry suggested. “Her was dairy-maid up to Yarnold Farm, see?—a hundred years ago, ’twould be. Her started making eyes at farmer, see? So farmer’s wife——”
Joe chipped in—“Her took a stake, and her sharpened he, and her stuck it in maid’s eyes. Maid rushes out of house, yowling fit to bust, and falls down girt well, poor soul, heh-heh. Now she’m walking up along at cross-roads. I seen en.”
“They bricked up the well,” Harry added, “but naught went right for they after that. They left the farm and it fell down in ruins. So ’twas.”
“Has any one seen this ghost lately?” Georgia inquired.
“Young Henry Tule, he seen en. He was courting and he went up over the cross one night. That was after Major Keston came, weren’t it, Joe? Came fair busting down the hill on his bike. ‘I seen en,’ he yells. So white as a sheet he was. Mind you, young Henry’s a bit simple. Did you ever hear about the time he got into the tub?”
“No.”
“Well, this young Tu
le, he was feeling poorly one day. So he goes to the doctor, and then he comes home and eats a hell of a great dinner. After dinner he goes out into the yard, and presently his mother hears him calling. Out she pops, and finds young Henry sitting stark naked in a tub of water. ‘What’s thee doing in tub?’ says she. ‘Never thee mind, Mum,’ he says, ‘fetch out thic bottle the doctor gave I.’ ‘Is thee gone daft?’ says she. ‘Hell,’ says he, ‘will thee fetch thic bottle! Doctor told I to take medicine three times a day, after meals, in water.’ In water, see?—so he gets into tub. True as I’m standing here. Damn me, it was a laugh. Young Henry’s a most simple chap, no doubt of it.”
When Harry got launched on the local folklore, there was no holding him. After a little, since the subject of Major Keston seemed to be exhausted, Georgia and Nigel started home.
“I wish I could remember—I’m sure I’ve heard something about the major before,” said Georgia. “Where did he come from? It’s queer Harry not saying anything about that, considering he’s a sort of walking Who’s Who for the neighbourhood.”
“Let’s go up to Yarnold Farm to-morrow and ask him. He seems to have been inquisitive enough about us. About time we had a return match.”
So the next afternoon saw them walking up the lane that led to Yarnold Cross. At the top of the hill, it veered to the right and stretched in front of them along the ridge. Already the sky beyond held that possessed and luminous look which tells the traveller he is nearing the sea. Instinctively, though they were breathing hard from the sharp climb, they quickened their pace—Nigel walking with his ungainly, ostrich stride, Georgia moving with the beauty and tireless swing of an athlete. A quarter of a mile brought them to the cross. Here they paused for a moment while Georgia took their bearings. Ahead, the lane dodged downhill in a series of steep, narrow turns to the main road which swung inland here from the coast. To their left, another lane wandered off towards the Exeter road, which farther west passed through their own village. The right-hand road, little better than a stony track, dropped down sharply into the combe where Yarnold Farm was situated. Yarnold Cross was the end of this inland promontory, from which the brown and green hills fall away on three sides. Hardly aware that she was doing so, Georgia drew a sketch-map of the place in her mind’s eye. Then they turned right, and in a couple of minutes, heralded by a loud barking of dogs, were standing outside Major Keston’s door.