Elton Steele had asked him to drop in to his club in Falporth for a drink and a game of bridge one evening; Lewis Haldean had pressed him to join him on his next fishing trip. He was, it seemed, in the habit of going into St. Mawgan, where he had a number of acquaintances among the local fishermen, and staying there for a night or two whilst he made it the base for his operations. Falporth, he said, had become too commercialized.
Even Helen Carthallow had lost her slight air of irony towards him and had asked him to call whenever he wished. The beach in the neighbourhood of the headland was too far from the town to be overloaded with visitors and he was sure of finding a deck-chair at the back of one of the caves. She had promised to take him down the next time he came so that he could make himself free of them any time he felt the desire for a nap in solitude.
But it was with Hilda Eveland that he had found the closest affinity. She was so unashamedly content with life; so ready to laugh and so eager to look for the best in people. She was a sentimentalist, too; he had discovered that when Carthallow had brought up the question of popular taste and she had countered his cynicism with a robust defence of the simple folk who believed that virtue was always triumphant.
He had discovered something else. She was a reader of Romantic Stories. There was no surer way to Mordecai Tremaine’s heart.
11
THE NEXT DAY Jonathan Boyce decided that he preferred a deck-chair in the garden to any more vigorous way of spending the morning, and Mordecai Tremaine took his stroll over the cliffs alone. It was therefore inevitable that he should have walked in the direction of Hilda Eveland’s house.
It was set back some distance from the edge of the cliff, but there were few other buildings in the near neighbourhood and the view from its windows suffered little whilst it gained a great deal in shelter from the winds. The gardens were massed with flowers. As Mordecai Tremaine walked up the short gravelled drive he thought he saw Hilda Eveland’s personality in the riotous colours that blazed happily if haphazardly on either side.
She was obviously pleased to see him. They sat in deck-chairs on the lawn with the coffee she had hastened to make and found that their mutual liking of the previous evening was not merely an ephemeral thing and that they had many points of contact.
Within half an hour Tremaine had been given a review of Falporth and its inhabitants—with particular reference to those whom he had met on the previous evening—that was sufficient to give him a working who’s who of the district.
Hilda Eveland herself had been a widow for twenty years. Her husband had been killed in a road accident. She had come to Falporth in an attempt to forget that tragedy and had remained ever since. She lived alone except for Matilda Vickery who, it seemed, was an invalid and was confined to her bedroom.
Elton Steele was the senior member of the local firm of estate agents of Steele & Hilliard. He had made Adrian Carthallow’s acquaintance when the artist had bought Paradise.
Lester Imleyson, too, was a local product. His father had an interest in a number of hotels in Falporth as well as a flourishing agricultural supplies agency he operated from Wadestow.
“I suppose he helps to run things for his father?” said Mordecai Tremaine tentatively.
“Lester can’t seem to make up his mind what he wants to do. He was supposed to be taking up art but I haven’t noticed him doing much in that line.”
“Oh, I see. No doubt that’s how he came to meet Mr.Carthallow?”
“I think,” Hilda Eveland observed, “it was Mrs. Carthallow he met.”
Mordecai Tremaine looked at her over his pince-nez. He thought her tone was significant. But their friendship was still short. He hesitated to put it to the test so soon.
Instead of posing the question that was on his tongue, he said:
“What about Mr. Haldean? He didn’t give me the impression of being one of the local people.”
“He isn’t,” she told him. “Lewis has a bungalow down here, but he rarely uses it unless Adrian’s at Paradise. I believe they see a good deal of each other in London.”
“Yes,” Mordecai Tremaine said, the memory of a certain incident in his mind, “I rather thought they did.”
Hilda Eveland reached for the tray carrying the now empty coffee cups.
“If you aren’t in a hurry to get anywhere,” she said, “I’ll show you round. In any case I can hardly let you go without introducing you to Matilda. She’d never forgive me. She likes to see every new face and I try to humour her if I can. It’s all she has left, poor dear.”
Momentarily there was a new note of seriousness in her voice. It did not last but it gave a glimpse of another Hilda Eveland; one who did not always find life amusing.
The house did not possess the obvious luxury of Paradise but it was nevertheless attractively furnished. Hilda Eveland had clearly planned her home with care.
“I like it,” said Mordecai Tremaine. “It’s so—so restful.”
He realized as he said it what had been wrong with Adrian Carthallow’s home. It had not enjoyed the calm of this house for all its apparent advantages. There had been an atmosphere of restlessness about it, as though it had been pervaded by Carthallow’s own unquiet temperament.
He recalled what Lewis Haldean had said about atmosphere. Maybe the big, blond man, with the Viking beard and the air of drama, had been nearer the truth than he had imagined. Maybe there was a quality about Paradise that could not adequately be put into words; something that was an intrinsic part of the house and yet was not wholly of it.
Hilda Eveland knocked lightly on one of the doors on the upper floor and led the way into a big airy room, full of flowers and with a neatness about it that belonged properly to a showroom in which no one stayed for long.
There was a woman propped up against the pillows in the bed that faced the open window. Her hair was grey and her face was lined both with age and with suffering. Her hands, resting upon the coverlet, were cruelly twisted by the disease that tied her to this one room and would never relax its grip until death came upon her. But her eyes were bright and she regarded her visitor with an eagerness that was unforced.
“This is Mordecai Tremaine,” said Hilda Eveland. “We met last night at Helen’s. He’s on holiday down here.”
Tremaine took one of the frail hands gently into his own. He did not know quite what to say. The sharp brown eyes examined him with the quick intentness of a bird.
“I saw you going in,” she said. “I’ve been wondering who you might be.”
“You saw me?” he said, surprised.
A smile came into her face. His reaction had been what was expected of him. Obviously this was her special and personal joke with all newcomers.
“I see everybody,” she said. “Nobody escapes old Matilda, even though she is kept in a cage!” And, relishing his bewilderment, she raised her arm—not without a wince of pain she did her best to conceal. “The window,” she told him. “That’s my spyglass!”
He looked as he was required to do and saw that from her bed she could see out over the cliffs. The path lay clearly in sight, winding its way towards Adrian Carthallow’s house. He saw the house itself and its screening trees out on the headland. From this position the bridge leading to it was plainly outlined, a thing of delicate tracery, etched against the sea and the sky.
“You certainly have a wonderful vantage point,” he said.
“I didn’t know how much there was to see,” she said, “until I had to lie here and watch things properly. I don’t have to worry about books and cinemas when there’s so much to look for just by lying here. There’s always the clouds, and the sea, and the birds, and the colours early in the morning and at sunset. And there’s people, too,” she added, with a sudden wickedness. “You’d be surprised at what I’ve seen.”
“Matilda must have the sharpest eyes in the district,” said Hilda Eveland, with her rich laugh. “She sees everybody who goes across that bridge and I haven’t known her make a mistake yet.
There’ll be no chance of hiding anything as long as she’s here.”
Mordecai Tremaine patted the drawn fingers that still lay under his own.
“You’re a very brave woman,” he said softly.
There was a moistness in the brown eyes.
“I’m a lucky one,” she told him. “I owe it all to Hilda. She—”
“Nonsense!” said that lady firmly. “Don’t you get spinning any more of your fairy-tales or else—”
She broke off. Someone had just rung the front-door bell of the house. It had been a distinctive ring. She said:
“That sounded like Lester. I told that young gentleman what I thought of him last night for neglecting you so badly.”
“Oh, no! You didn’t really say anything to him?”
“Nothing he didn’t deserve. And nothing you won’t be able to put right in two seconds!” Hilda Eveland pressed the invalid’s shoulder affectionately. “I’d better go and let him in before he starts climbing up to the window like Romeo!”
Mordecai Tremaine went out of the room with her. As they went down the stairs she said:
“Matilda’s known Lester since she used to feed him up with surreptitious cakes when he was a small boy. He’s always been a favourite of hers. She’d do anything for him.”
The door bell was now pealing protestingly. She opened the door hurriedly to reveal a grinning Lester Imleyson holding a parcel in his free hand.
“Morning, Hilda!” he announced cheerfully. “The prodigal has come to report according to orders. How is she?” He caught sight of Mordecai Tremaine and nodded a greeting. “Hullo, Tremaine. Marvellous day!”
“Marvellous,” agreed Tremaine to the empty air, for Imleyson had already passed him and gone bounding up the stairs.
He said, slowly:
“Last night I thought I knew you, but I see that I was basing my judgment on insufficient evidence. I’m only just beginning to find out how fine a person you really are.”
“If you go on like that,” said Hilda Eveland, “I shall forbid you the house!”
But her eyes were smiling and Mordecai Tremaine knew that they understood each other. As he went down the path he heard from the open window above him Lester Imleyson’s boisterous tones saying something outrageous and Matilda Vickery’s delighted giggle of make-believe protest.
12
SO MUCH OF interest was packed into the next few days that looking back on them later Mordecai Tremaine was surprised that the period of time involved was so small. The explanation was due partly to a spell of fine weather that made the already long summer days appear even more spacious, and partly to the fact that he was engaged upon the stimulating adventure of making new acquaintances.
For instance, there was Charles Penross. The inspector was experiencing a fairly quiet time and as often as his duties permitted he would drop in for a chat with Jonathan Boyce. They were chats Mordecai Tremaine was reluctant to miss; two policemen yarning over past events in the varied fields of crime provided a feast his appetite for detection could not resist.
He enjoyed their sessions the more because Penross treated him as an equal. Thanks to Jonathan Boyce, the dapper little inspector with the booming voice had accepted him from the start on a professional basis. Several times when the discussion turned upon some famous murder case or other in which an obscure legal point had been at issue, Penross asked for his opinion and Mordecai Tremaine felt himself growing in stature.
He talked enthusiastically of ballistics and fingerprints and medical jurisprudence. His library of criminology was an extensive one and he had accumulated a vast store of technical knowledge. If Penross was at first surprised that such a mild-looking elderly gentleman should display so much acquaintance with criminal matters, he soon adjusted himself to the situation and discoursed as freely as though Mordecai Tremaine was one of Scotland Yard’s professional manhunters.
And then there was Lewis Haldean. He encountered the blond man on the cliffs a couple of mornings after the dinner party at Paradise.
“Are you doing anything special tomorrow?” Haldean asked him, his dramatic tones automatically implying that there could in any case be no opposition to what he was about to suggest. “If not, why not come over to St. Mawgan with me? We can run over by car. I promise you some good fishing.”
Mordecai Tremaine, secretly unwilling to risk his stomach in a small boat for an unspecified number of hours, tried to think of a polite reason for declining. But Haldean was breezily insistent. When they parted company a few moments later Tremaine reflected dazedly that since there was now no hope of drawing back his best policy would be to make a discreet breakfast and hope that there would be no drastic change in the weather.
Haldean lived towards the rear of Falporth in a green-roofed bungalow overlooking the public gardens on the outskirts of the town. It was built against the slope of a hill that protected it from the strong winds that blew periodically from the sea. Being a bachelor, he was looked after by an elderly couple who acted as housekeeper and gardener, saw to his general wants and kept the place tenanted during his absences.
He saw Mordecai Tremaine approaching, and, opening the window, hailed him cheerfully.
“Shan’t keep you a moment! Come on in and make yourself at home!”
The front door of the house was ajar. Tremaine went inside and found that the room from which the blond man had addressed him was his bedroom. Haldean was putting on his sports jacket. He swept a huddle of shirts and underclothes from a chair and tipped them on to the bed.
“Forgive my bachelor chaos. My housekeeper’s always threatening to leave me unless I mend my ways, but fortunately she doesn’t mean it.”
Mordecai Tremaine smiled and sat down upon the chair that had been cleared.
“You sound like the Bachelor Gay,” he observed. “I wonder no designing female has ever managed to get you into her net!”
“I’ve had one or two narrow escapes,” Haldean said, “but luckily I’ve been able to save myself at the last moment.”
Waiting for the blond man to finish his preparations, Tremaine glanced curiously around him. He saw the book lying on the bedside table and noted its title mechanically. It was a work on metaphysics. Haldean’s choice of late-night literature seemed to be on the heavy side.
His eyes roved to the dressing-table and arrived by way of hair tonic and fixing cream at a framed photograph. It was the photograph of a girl. Judging by the hair style it had been taken many years previously. He studied the delicate round face with the dark, appealing eyes. It was a trustful face. Not perhaps beautiful—the mouth was a shade too large and the nose betrayed rather too pronounced an inclination towards a tilt—but there was a quality of gentleness in it that found an echo in Mordecai Tremaine’s sentimental soul. There was something written across the bottom. He adjusted his pince-nez, peering forward in an effort to see more clearly, but he could not read the inscription.
He became suddenly aware that Lewis Haldean was looking at him. He sat back in his chair, his expression apologetic.
“I’m awfully sorry—frightfully rude of me. I was admiring your photograph. The face seems so—so gentle.”
Haldean picked up the photograph and stood gazing at it for a moment or two.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “she was gentle.”
Mordecai Tremaine said:
“Was? ”
Haldean nodded.
“She—died. It was a long time ago. In San Francisco.”
“What was her name?”
“Margaret.” Haldean lingered over the word, and Mordecai Tremaine, believing him to be in the mood for confidences, was unashamedly curious.
“Your sister?” he asked, thinking it unlikely.
Haldean smiled.
“No,” he said. “Not my sister.” He replaced the photograph. “Still, you don’t want to listen to my reminiscences. I’ve kept you waiting too long already.”
Mordecai Tremaine was disappointed but intrigued neverthe
less. Despite the blond man’s appearance of light-heartedness he suspected that the photograph meant a great deal to him. Did it, he wondered, carry the explanation of why Haldean had remained a bachelor? He felt the influence of Romantic Stories creeping upon him and manfully turned his thoughts into another channel.
Very soon he had other matters to occupy him to the full. Haldean was a good driver but he believed in speed. Mordecai Tremaine spent the journey to St. Mawgan in a state that was part philosophic resignation and part prayer for deliverance. He experienced a detached wonder at the thought that he was still alive as Haldean slowed down to manœuvre the car through the narrow, winding streets of the town.
It was, indeed, hardly more than a fishing village. On the outskirts there were a few hotels and a huddle of small private houses, each of which carried a card in its windows announcing that it specialized in Bed and Breakfast or Full Board, but the real St. Mawgan was a picturesque if somewhat untidy collection of whitewashed buildings with slate roofs grouped around the harbour.
Haldean’s destination was a pub overlooking the water. It was a low-ceilinged, rambling old place that looked as though it had served as the setting for many a smuggling drama. No doubt its cellars had held more French brandy than the excisemen had been allowed to see.
The blond man was on good terms with the landlord, a burly, weatherbeaten Cornishman whose tanned and wrinkled face was a proof that he combined looking after his bar with hauling the nets.
“Sometimes I spend a night or two here,” Haldean explained. “Saves me the trouble of going back into Falporth. Besides, Tregarwen here does me well,” he added, with a wink. “There’s more good whisky in his bar than the usual visitors suspect, and he has a friend or two among the farmers who see to it that he doesn’t starve.”
Moored to the stone jetty a few yards from the pub was a motor launch. She was not new but she was a roomy craft and had obviously been recently overhauled and painted.
So Pretty a Problem Page 14