Your Secret Friend (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Oh, surely, after what’s happened . . .!”

  I don’t know so much. She was dead keen on the house, Simon or no Simon, and she’s a very obstinate gal.”

  “It sounds a bit morbid to me. I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Hildegarde Salter doesn’t think much of me as a psychologist, but in this instance I don’t think I am far out. Still, we shall see. Read your letter, and then we’ll exchange missives, if yours is suitable for my eyes.”

  Timothy read his letter. This was it:

  “You called my bluff and I suppose I had better give in. No more of those letters. I was out of my mind when I sent them. I believe, in spite of your impudence, (have I got it right this time?), you are a gentleman and will take no further action. I assure you there will be no more anonymity. If your visit has really saved me from the police, I am more than grateful. Perhaps we could meet again sometime, under happier circumstances.”

  “Well!” said Timothy, handing over the missive. “This does surprise me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she has given in so soon, and so easily. I expected a fight, when she’d had time to see that my threats really hadn’t a leg to stand on. Why, she sounds quite a reasonable, even a rather nice woman.”

  “Beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts. I wouldn’t trust Vere Pallis an inch. Tell me, Timothy Herring, who did put the lethal dose in the advocaat?”

  “I know what you’re implying, but I’ve thought it over, and she couldn’t have done. She was in Newcastle.”

  “Suppose we could prove she wasn’t? It was half-term, remember. She need not have been in Newcastle.”

  “Oh, no! You go too far. This craving for sensation must cease.”

  “It is all very well to laugh it off, Timothy Herring. Well, here’s my letter from her—handwritten, of course. No more typewriters.”

  Timothy read the second letter. It ran:

  “I don’t like it up here in the north. The weather is so cold after Dorset, and I am overworked at the school. I am given C stream classes for chemistry as well as the examination forms, and it seems to me such a waste of my time. If ever you have a vacancy I should be only too delighted to come back. I fancy you know how it was between Simon Bennison and me. I left because, with my sister buying that house, I could stand the situation no longer. I am sorry I wrote those silly letters. That’s all they were—despairing and silly. I suppose it was your idea to send Mr. Herring up here. You were always the wisest of women.”

  “Too wise, anyway, to be taken in by compliments from that source,” said Miss Pomfret-Brown drily, when Timothy commented upon the last statement in the letter. “And now, I suppose, you want to see Alison. I expect she had planned to spend the Christmas holiday with Simon, as usual. Oh, yes, I knew all about those holidays, and anything I didn’t know, that snake in the grass, Constance Vere Pallis, ferreted out and told me. Alison and Simon were about as clever at covering their tracks as the Yeti is, on the bare snowy slopes of the Himalayas!”

  “ ‘For see where Beatrice like a lapwing runs

  Close to the ground to hear our conference,’ ” quoted Timothy. “That was Vere, you think?”

  “Exactly. I shall now take Alison out of class and send her to you here and make myself scarce. Tell her about your visit to Constance, if you see fit.”

  “Do you think I should, O wisest of women?”

  I can’t smack Alison, but I could box your ears!” retorted Miss Pomfret-Brown.

  “A house-party for Christmas,” said Timothy. “Tom and Diana Parsons will be there, and so will my sister, my brother-in-law and their two children. I’ll even ask my cousin April, if you like, and, considering what I think of her, I can’t say fairer than that.”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “Right. That’s settled, then. I’ll drive you to the Cotswolds tomorrow. Be ready at nine sharp, because I must get there in time to see that all is in readiness for the festivities.”

  “Oh, but . . .”

  “Don’t worry. My sister and the brats are already in possession. It will all be perfectly proper.”

  “I didn’t mean that! Of course I didn’t!”

  “ ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’ In pledge of tomorrow morning at nine, then, I kiss your hands.”

  “That awful house has got to be purified,” said Veronica. Her companions could scarcely have been more surprised if the school cat had uttered this sentiment. It was the first day of the Spring term and Veronica had joined the group without invitation. “After what happened, we’ve simply got to take the spell off,” she continued.

  “And who asked you to push in?” demanded Sandra. Gillian—the pushful Gillian—who had had much the same irate question on the tip of her tongue, changed her mind. Sandra, she had decided, must be put firmly in her place this term—and kept there. It was time her reign was ended.

  “Why shouldn’t she push in?” she demanded. “she’s as much right to speak as you have.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” said this new and bold Veronica. “What’s right. We must do what’s right. While that spell is on the house, somebody else might die there.”

  “Oh, no, they won’t,” said Sandra loftily. “I had a long chat with Miss Pomfret-Brown last term—I told you—and she said not to worry. What happened was nothing to do with us.”

  “How funny!” said Gillian, sneering. “I quite thought it was Veronica who went to P.-B.”

  “Yes, and I’ve been reading a book in the holidays,” said Veronica. “In our town, when you’re twelve they let you use the grown-ups’ library if your parents write a letter and say you want to study, so I got out a book and it said that there are spells for taking curses off, and it told you what they were.”

  “Funny sort of book to get out of a public library,” said Mavis.

  “No, it wasn’t. It was a sort of ABC of superstitions and things, and it was written by an awfully important man who lectures in an American university and everything. It wasn’t a horrid book at all—just interesting. I copied some of it out—the bits that will help us take off the curse, you know.”

  Sandra changed her tactics.

  “How could we get inside the house?” she asked.

  “Broken window—same way as before,” said Caroline.

  “Be your age, clot! The whole place has been done up, and even the sash windows, where you could get a knife under, have gone.”

  “Well, how do burglars manage?”

  “They take wax impressions of keys and go to a locksmith.”

  “Yes, but we haven’t got keys, you dopey idiot.”

  “Well, it’s got to be done,” said Veronica. “If anybody else dies there, before we’ve taken off the curse, we’ll be murderers.”

  “Oh, that’s old stuff!” said Mavis. “There’s the bell.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Gillian, “but I’ll need time to work it out. You’d all better meet me at afternoon break.”

  “Says who?” demanded Sandra belligerently. “If you want to give the orders, Gillian Schofield, you can jolly well form your own gang. If you’ve got any ideas, you can tell them to me privately, and I’ll decide whether they’re any good, and I wouldn’t mind betting that they’ll be sheer mouse-trap cheese, so there!”

  “We’d better decide whether this book Veronica read is any good, before we make plans for getting into the house,” said Connie Moosedeer.”

  “Something in that,” agreed Sandra. “All right, the meeting will be at two o’clock sharp behind the gym. Veronica, bring along anything you’ve got. There aren’t any afternoon games or riding lessons or anything on the first day of term, so we can have a jolly good long meeting and sort everything out.”

  “It will be frightfully cold behind the gym. Why can’t we use the changing rooms? There won’t be anybody there if there aren’t any games,” said Gillian. Irritated although she was by this evidence that she had not even scotched the
snake, let alone killed it, Sandra was compelled to admit that Gillian’s was a sensible suggestion and would be adopted, so, at two o’clock, the re-formed coven met, sat on the changing-room shoe-lockers—shoes, having had contact with gravel, grass, and mud, were not permitted to be crammed in with shorts and shirts—and invited Veronica to get weaving.

  “Well,” she said, with a return of the diffidence to which the others were accustomed, “I don’t know which method you’ll think the best, so perhaps I’d better read them all out. Of course, you may not want . . .”

  “Cut the cackle, and get on with it,” said Sandra curtly.

  “Yes, all right, then. Well, two of them are charms against the Evil Eye.”

  “That’s not much good for taking off a curse, but it’s good for protection, I suppose. What’s needed?”

  “Only garlic—that’s one.”

  “Ugh! Filthy-smelling stuff! You can cut that out, for a start.”

  “It’s easy to get, though,” said Connie Moosedeer, “and lots of the things witches use don’t smell very nice.”

  “The other one is a thing called a triskelion. It’s like the badge of the Isle of Man—you know, three legs going sort of round in a circle and joined together at the top.”

  “We’ll use that. It only needs a drawing, I suppose. Now the important thing. What do you do to take off a spell?”

  “Well, there are things you can say.”

  “What things?”

  “Well, you can say Ofano Oblamo Ospergo.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, I copied out some more. There’s Hola Noa Massa.”

  “Massa’s in de cold, cold ground!” said Gillian.

  “Oh, shut up!” said Sandra. “That’s not clever or even funny. And now we can’t use that one, because you’ve been silly about it. Go on, Veronica.”

  “I only took down one more. It’s Pax Sax Sarax.”

  “That’s the best, because it’s partly Latin, so it’s a church sort of thing, like when they exorcise ghosts.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s quite like that, Sandra. I ought to have said it’s only for getting rid of an illness.”

  “Oh, honestly, Veronica! You are a dope! What’s the good of that?”

  “I just thought it might help. You can’t have too much protection when somebody’s died in a house, can you? But I’ve got some things for averting witchcraft.”

  “We don’t want to avert it; we want to cure it. I don’t see how this beastly book of yours is any good at all.”

  “I haven’t finished yet, Sandra.”

  “Oh? Well, what else have you got?”

  “There’s the Shield of Solomon.”

  “What’s that?”

  Veronica dropped her voice.

  “It’s a pentagram. You have to draw it, like-like the things you drew when you made me a witch. Then you exorcise the spell, and then you nail a horseshoe outside the door.”

  “That’s only a good-luck sign.”

  “Oh, no, it isn’t, Sandra. It’s to keep witches out.”

  “But that means it would keep us out,” said Gillian.

  “You do it after you’ve taken off the curse, loony!” said Sandra, witheringly. “Once we’ve taken off the curse we shan’t want to go inside the house again, not while we’re witches. We’re only being witches just this one occasion. For goodness’ sake be your age, can’t you? Now, listen, everybody. This afternoon may be our only chance to do what we have to do. We’re going to Little Monkshood right away, and do all these things to take away the curse. I got all my magic out of a book, too, only mine wasn’t from the library, it belongs to my older sister. I’m not sure, but I think she might be a Satanist.”

  “Haven’t you asked her?” demanded Mavis, in an awestruck, sepulchral tone. “They have the Black Mass, and all that sort of thing, don’t they?”

  “Never mind what they have. Now we shall want some chalk—Caroline, you go and get some from the form-room—and a horse-shoe—Mr. Gubbins at the forge will give me one if I say I want it for my sister’s wedding—and we’d better have a strong-bladed knife in case it’s any use forcing a window. You’d better get that, Connie. Sneak one out of the kitchen. Now is that the lot?”

  “I know a protective prayer—well, it isn’t exactly a prayer, more a sort of invocation,” said Veronica. “It will get us safely out of the house again.”

  “We shan’t need that, once the curse is taken off,” said Gillian.

  “The curse is only being taken off the house!” retorted Sandra. “And if we take off the curse, the evil spirits will probably guess that we don’t intend to be witches any more. Don’t you see? And then we could be in real trouble. Meet me outside the field gate in a quarter of an hour. Slip out separately. There’s nothing to say we mayn’t go for a walk, so long as we keep in bounds.”

  “But, if we go to Little Monkshood, we shan’t be keeping in bounds,” Stephanie pointed out.

  “Who said we would, Cleverstick? That’s why I don’t want you noticed, all leaving the field in a bunch.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Veronica, “if you don’t mind, Sandra, I think we ought to have some personal protection.

  Each of us, I mean.”

  “Not if it’s garlic,” said the leader firmly.

  “It isn’t. It’s the magic square.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, you draw a square, you see, and then you divide it into nine other little squares, and then you write the numbers from one to nine, only they add up, the same, across, and down—it’s ever so clever, really—to fifteen, if you see what I mean.”

  “What’s fifteen got to do with it?” asked the scornful Gillian.

  “What’s it matter what’s fifteen got to do with it?” demanded Sandra belligerently. “You carry on, Veronica. Draw out seven of these squares—unless Gillian doesn’t want one—and dish them out when we meet this afternoon.”

  This was done, and, immediately it seemed safe to do so, the intrepid coven started on its way to Little Monkshood. Neither its members nor Timothy were aware that they were destined to encounter one another. Timothy saw the children before they were aware of his presence. He had parked his car in front of the house, and was seated in it, with Tom and Diana Parsons, when Sandra and her companions came in sight.

  “Hullo,” he said. “The hounds of Spring!” He did not add that, as he recognised in their leader one of Alison’s bevy of pseudo-house-cleaners, he wondered whether she was following them, although the thought did cross his mind.

  “They look like hounds who are not about their lawful business,” said Diana, who was seated beside him. “I have a feeling that they are where they should not be.”

  “Oh, no,” said Timothy. “I’ve met one or two of them before. They’re Alison’s task force.” He tooted the horn. The children stopped. There was what appeared to be a hasty conference and a suggestion of turning tail.

  “I thought so,” said Diana. “I’ve been caught out-of-bounds myself in my time,”

  Sandra apparently was successful in rallying her troops. She led them towards the car. Timothy let down the driver’s window and put out his head.

  “Well, well, well!” he said. “How’s tricks?”

  “Oh,” said Sandra, coming up to him, “you let us in before. Can you let us in again? We—we haven’t brought the key.”

  “Then how did you propose to force an entry?”

  “I don’t sort of really know.”

  “Is Miss Pallis with you?”

  “Oh, well, no. No, she isn’t. Not this time.”

  “Nor last time, as I remember it.” He received a nudge from Diana. “What’s the game?”

  “Oh, do you mind not asking? And—and we’re in an awful hurry. There’s something we’ve got to do in there, and this is our only chance, because, after this, there will be games, you see, and our riding lessons. Please help us.”

  “Retire twenty paces. I would b
e in conference.” Sandra looked anxious. The coven had sidled a little closer. Without turning her head, she motioned them away. “Look here,” he went on, “there is a game on, isn’t there? You tell me what it is, then you get back while I talk to Mrs. Parsons. She understands small girls’ devilment, which is more than I do. Come on, now.”

  “All right. But we must be quick! We wanted to get in there and—and sort of pay our respects.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “I—I don’t really know. We—well, we just thought we would.” She looked imploringly at him.

  “Respects be d—jolly well sugared!” He turned to Diana.

  “The house belongs to Miss Pallis,” she said, “and I don’t think you have permission to go inside. Besides, you’re not being truthful, are you?”

  “Not—no, not quite. You see—well, we think it was our fault about Mr. Bennison, and we didn’t—don’t want anybody else to . . .”

  “Your fault? You didn’t put poison in those bottles, did you?” (Timothy had had no idea that Diana could be magisterial.)

  “No. Only sort of in the air.”

  Diana, as women will, when dealing with girls, became impatient.

  “Look here,” she said, “out with it, and no more nonsense. You morbid little beasts wanted to get inside and gloat over the spot marked with an X, didn’t you?”

  At this plain speaking Sandra’s small face crimsoned, but, to Timothy’s astonishment, with anger, not with embarrassment or shame.

  “No, of course we didn’t! We wanted to take the spell off, that’s all. We put a curse on April F . . . on Miss Bounty, and it went wrong, and Mr. Bennison was killed and Miss Pallis got ill, and—and—we thought the curse might still be there, so we ought to do something about it.” She stepped back, as Timothy opened the door of the car.

  “No conference needed,” he said. “You’re not going in, partly because I haven’t a key, and partly because I won’t let you. Besides, there’s no need. I’m a wizard myself, so I know what I’m talking about. All you need do—there are seven of you, I see, so that’s all right—is to walk widdershins round the house, reciting as you go. That’ll do the trick. Then you cut back to school. I’m corning there myself, as a matter of fact. I want to see Miss Pallis about this house. Get on with it, if you’re in a hurry.”