The Dreadful Hollow

by Nicholas Blake

  As to fingerprints, none had been found on the letters or envelopes except those of the recipient, the postman, and the postmistress or her son, who sometimes helped her with the sorting. As far as could be checked, they had all arrived by the morning delivery: and they all had the Prior’s Umborne postmark. They had, therefore, been posted some time between 3 P.M., when the box was emptied for the afternoon delivery, and eight in the morning. The stationery offered no hopeful lead either, being of a cheap brand obtainable at the village store, and in several Moreford shops. The police were trying to compile a list of all in the neighborhood who had bought such stationery, but they did not expect much from this routine. John Smart’s past history looked the most promising line of investigation. He had come to Prior’s Umborne not long after the end of the war, bringing his widowed sister with him, having answered an advertisement for a job as chauffeur-handyman at the Hall. He had offered an army discharge book by way of references, and Stanford Blick had been content with that. Smart’s other sister, a highly respectable woman, was married to a veterinary surgeon who lived in Umborne Magna. Smart had proved so trustworthy and such an excellent mechanic that, when the works at Moreford opened, Charles Blick persuaded his brother to let him take the man onto its staff. Smart was extremely unwilling at first to change over; but he finally consented, and was soon promoted to foreman. His sister Greta, questioned by the police after his suicide, said she believed he’d been employed at some Midlands factory before joining up in 1941; but both sisters had been out of touch with their brother for some time, and he never spoke about it when they came together again. They had an old mother, who lived in an almshouse in Nottinghamshire. Police inquiries had elicited little information from her, except that she thought her son had been working on aircraft at that period. So far, inquiries from Midland firms who made aircraft during the war had turned up no employee answering to John Smart’s description. Inspector Randall was now investigating the histories of the hands at the Moreford works, in case any of them could have been in contact with Smart in 1940.

  It was clear that Smart must have done something pretty bad that year. Otherwise, the threat of exposure would not have driven him to suicide. On the other hand, he was by all accounts a decent, normal, trustworthy man. This, thought Nigel, seemed to point toward some nonprofessional crime—homicide in the heat of passion, for instance, or sabotage undertaken from honest if misguided political motives—for which he might have been suspected, but which had not been proved against him. Smart’s reluctance to go into the Moreford works could well be interpreted as the reaction of a man who did not wish to revive memories of something that had happened in a similar milieu.

  These were futile speculations until further evidence came to light. But the crucial point, thought Nigel, as he sauntered up the road toward the church, was the apparent omniscience of the poison pen. His letters had not been mere scurrilous abuse; they had gone unerringly to the victim’s weakest spot, and as least two of them uncovered secrets which the victims had successfully kept dark for years from the Prior’s Umborne gossips. How could one and the same person have been in a position to know what John Smart had done in 1940, when he worked in the Midlands, and what the vicar’s wife was doing in London a year or two later? Even Joe Summers had had no knowledge of the vicar’s ever being married, and Joe was a compendium of village gossip.

  Turning over this problem in his mind, Nigel walked past the church and the tall stone gateposts of the Hall drive. It was dark now. A white owl slid like a phantom over the hedge to his right. But neither to right nor left could Nigel discover the “shack” with the white gate to which his eccentric acquaintance of the public bar had directed him. Indeed, after walking a quarter of a mile farther and finding only an outlying farm and a bungalow, Nigel began to wonder if he hadn’t dreamed the man and his invitation. Turning back, he presently came again to the Hall entrance. The gateposts—stone pillars surmounted by heraldic-looking birds—attracted his attention. The gate itself he had not noticed before, because it was lying open. It was a white gate, he now saw. And a wild notion came to him that the individual he had met in The Sweet Drop must have been Stanford Blick himself.

  He walked up the winding, tree-lined drive, which opened out into a rectangle of gravel in front of the house. Not a light was to be seen in its elaborate Jacobean façade. Nigel stood there for a minute, contemplating it. Then he rang the bell, and waited another minute. No one came to the door. On an impulse, he found his way round to the back of the house, which frowned down upon him with what he felt was a disapproving hauteur. As if his footsteps had touched off a mine, a fiendish clamor of dogs, yapping, snarling, baying, suddenly exploded nearby. There was a chink of light in the window of one of the outbuildings. Then the curtains were drawn open, and the face of Nigel’s scruffy acquaintance looked out. Nigel moved toward this window; but before he had crossed the courtyard, the man emerged, calling out cheerily:

  “I say, I absolutely forgot. Oh, lor’, what a bloomer! Do forgive me. Have you been here long?”

  “That’s perfectly all right. Only just arrived. Afraid I’m late. I couldn’t find your house at first.” Nigel added, feeling a little awkward: “This is your house, is it? I mean—”

  The man’s mouth fell open in comical dismay, and he wrung his hands.

  “My dear old fellow, what must you think of me! I should have introduced myself. My name is Stanford Blick. And I am domiciled here, really and truly.” He took Nigel affectionately under the elbow. “Come along in. I do hate dogs, don’t you?” The barking had started again, and he had to shout above the din. “I got interested in a job I was doing in my workshop, and quite forgot you were coming.”

  As they reached the back door, Nigel caught out of the tail of his eye a figure flitting away from the building on the far side of the courtyard. It was like an instantaneous exposure. The light from the window gave one glimpse of reddish hair; the face was averted, and the dark figure had a stooping, scurrying gait. The next instant, the shutters of the night closed upon it, and it was gone. So quickly did this happen that Nigel could not even be sure if the figure was a man or a woman. But the hair had seemed more abundant than a man’s, and Nigel smiled to himself, remembering Stanford’s “I got interested in a job I was doing in my workshop.” Stanford had been opening the back door at that moment, oblivious to his other visitor’s exit.

  He now strode through the passages, throwing on electric switches with the lavishness of a magnifico scattering coins to the mob, and led Nigel into a large room at the front of the house.

  “D’you know,” he said confidentially, “I was so absorbed, I quite forgot my grub. The servants are in Moreford, at the cinema”—he pronounced it “kinema”—“so I’ll just see what’s in the larder. Make yourself at home. Are you interested in trams? You’ll find some in that wellington.”

  No doubt, thought Nigel, he’s gone to tell the lady that the coast is clear and she can leg it for home. But he’ll find the lady has vanished. Nigel looked round the room. Immense, superbly proportioned, with medallions on its greenish walls and elaborate moldings on the ceiling, it struck one first, however, as a mausoleum of its owner’s dead hobbies. There seemed enough furniture in it, good, bad and indifferent, to stock three houses. On the long mantelpiece was arrayed an army of Etruscan figures. By the door stood a tall, exquisite porcelain urn, with an umbrella stuck in it, while a lighted niche nearby displayed, not an ikon, but a mug inscribed “Present from Clacton.” The pictures on the walls, no less than the ceramics, revealed an indiscriminate acquisitiveness of which a jackdaw might have been ashamed. There were cases, with trays full of carefully numbered seashells; monstrosities of brass, from Birmingham via Benares; revolting pieces of pseudochinoiserie; a magnificent radiogram; a litter of dog baskets on the Aubusson carpet; and there was the wellington to which Stanford Blick had directed him.

  Nigel opened one of its drawers, which was crammed with albums. The albums were fil
led with photographs, postcards, illustrations from trade magazines and press cuttings, all on the subject of trams. It appeared that there were, or had been, more trams in the world than Nigel cared to contemplate. The other drawers contained a mass of contributions to the same unalluring subject.

  “Fascinating, aren’t they?” came Stanford’s enthusiastic, chuckling voice. “I’ve got just on three quarters of a million pictures of trams. You’ll find the rest upstairs, if you’re interested.” He waved his left hand vaguely toward the ceiling; his right held some bread, cheese and onions on a newspaper. Spreading the newspaper on an elegant inlaid marble table, he began to eat. “The tram used to be my vehicle for meditation. It provides the perfect symbolism for the problem of free will and necessity. Have you met the vicar yet?”

  Nigel admitted guardedly that he had, realizing they were on the edge of a doctrinal minefield.

  “Not at all a sound fellow. I caught him out in a flagrant heresy in the very first sermon he gave here. Still, he’s a Cambridge man, and one must make allowances. My brother hasn’t had one of these letters yet, has he?”

  “I don’t think so.” Nigel was learning to follow his host’s free-associational method of talk: the link word here, no doubt, was Cambridge.

  Stanford Blick champed an onion with his blackened teeth.

  “How’s the sleuth getting on? ‘Sleuth,’ you know, is a word probably of Icelandic derivation, originally meaning the trail of a beast followed by the hunter.”

  “Very suitable in the present context.”

  “Oh, the letters are all beastly, are they? Really beastly?” Stanford cocked a relishing eye at Nigel.

  “Most of them.”

  “Funny the chap hasn’t had a go at Charles yet. He seems to be picking on the village nobs mostly.”

  Nigel opened his mouth, then shut it again. Stanford, with startling alacrity, swooped on the unspoken remark.

  “That’s perfectly all right, old bean. I know who’s been getting them because Daniel Durdle lends me a hand in the workshop sometimes. Queer fellow, Durdlepots—d’you know, he really does believe in the doctrine of predestination.”

  “He’s a skilled mechanic, is he? How did he learn?”

  “During the war, I believe. I took him on when John Smart went into my brother’s factory.”

  “What about Smart now?” asked Nigel. “What was his guilty secret?”

  “Oh, that’s obvious, I should have thought. Have a glass of port, won’t you? It’s rather delish. Grandpop laid it down.”

  Stanford Blick fetched a decanter and glasses from a cupboard.

  “Cheerio,” he said, tossing back his port like beer, and smacking his lips. “Where were we? Oh, yes, poor old Smart. He’d been a Commie, you know.”

  “Had he indeed? Did he tell you?”

  “No. But I took up communism myself once. And one old Stalinist can always recognize another. Little turns of phrase, and so on. Like lapsed Catholics.”

  “But you don’t commit suicide because you’ve once been a Party member.”

  “Charles, or Pop, would have slung him out on his ear if they’d known.”

  “He could have got another job easily enough, a skilled man like him.”

  “Not if it came out that he’d been an active undercover Commie during the war, and done something really naughty.”

  Nigel sat up. Here was something right in line with his own speculations.

  “But who could have known?” he muttered. “Did you notice, was there anyone in the village Smart particularly tried to avoid?”

  “Not specially. He kept to himself, as they say.”

  “You said that Durdle learned his trade during the war. Where was he then?”

  “Factory. Somewhere up in the North, I believe.”

  “And where were you?”

  Stanford Blick chuckled, wagging a forefinger good-humoredly at Nigel.

  “Quite right, old sport! You keep at it! I was a boffin of sorts. Place near London. So hush-hush that I didn’t know what I was doing myself, half the time. No, you’d better concentrate on Durdlepots. The mystery man of Prior’s Umborne.”

  “Why do you call him that?”

  “Because his past is shrouded in mystery,” Stanford replied in his husky, confidential voice.

  “His past?”

  “His provenance. Very fishy. Now, if I was looking for a poison-pen writer in this village, I’d give one look at Mother Durdle and call it a day. Wheeoo, what a monster!”

  “Yes, I’ve seen her. She is rather forbidding. But—”

  “Which reminds me. I must show you my own Valentine. Come along upstairs.”

  “What? D’you mean you’ve had an anonymous letter too? But you must tell the police.”

  “I’ve saved it up for you, old top. Don’t fuss.”

  Nigel followed his host up the main stairway. It was a handsome flight, with carved oak balustrade. The steps had been built wide enough for six people to go abreast; but at present they housed a considerable section of Stanford Blick’s library, books being piled high on either side of each tread. They entered a room on the first floor.

  “My den,” said Stanford complacently. “How do you like it?”

  Nigel was unable to answer immediately, since the room was in pitch darkness. His host lit a few of the oil lamps—no doubt of the Birmingham 1860 vintage—which stood everywhere. The light revealed a somewhat cheerless apartment, one wall lined with filing cabinets, another with crudely-colored religious posters depicting, in strip-cartoon form, profusely illustrated by references to Biblical texts, such subjects as “The Straight and Narrow Way or the Flowery Path?” Four office desks formed a hollow square in the middle of this room.

  Stanford Blick sat down on one of the four swivel chairs, and rummaged in a drawer.

  “Now, where did I put the dratted thing? I like to have four desks, so I can move from one job to another without getting them mixed up. Ah, here we are.”

  He fished a sheet of paper from under a heap of blueprints.

  “What do you make of that? Came two days ago.”

  Handing the letter to Nigel, he gave him the look of an animal trainer testing out a new pupil—a look of dubiety masked by interest and encouragement. Nigel was by no means unaware how his host had been putting him through the hoops for the last half hour. He had a strong feeling, too, that Stanford’s indiscretions were—sometimes, at any rate—very nicely calculated. The letter said:

  Does Charlie know about your goings-on with his redheaded bitch?

  “I make nothing of it at all,” answered Nigel, rather disingenuously. “Perhaps you could enlarge on it.”

  Stanford Blick could hardly wait to do so. Bouncing up and down in his chair, he said: “Old Charles has chummed up with Miss Chantmerle lately. Glorious girl. Spiffing head of hair—just like a copper warming pan. Well, you see, there are certain awkwardnesses about it; and Miss Chantmerle being an old buddy of mine, she comes now and then to cough up her troubles. Jolly smart of the chap to have spotted it, don’t you think?” he added enthusiastically.

  “You mean you meet in secret?”

  Stanford Blick tapped the side of his nose, looking more than ever like a disreputable leprechaun.

  “It has to be a bit hush-hush. Family difficulties, etc.”

  “I gathered your father didn’t altogether approve of Rosebay Chantmerle—we are talking about her. I presume, not her sister?”

  Stanford’s eyes opened comically wide. “But of course. Good lord! Did you think I’ve been forgathering with the Ice Queen?”

  “You don’t like the elder sister?”

  “Oh, I think she’s perfect,” was Stanford’s reply: “a perfect masterpiece. Now, before you go, you must come and look at my Susie. I’ve got her on the bench.”

  Nigel pocketed the letter, which his host appeared to have entirely forgotten about, and followed him downstairs. They went out at the back again, crossed the courtyard, and entered t
he block of outbuildings. The lighted window by which Nigel had glimpsed Stanford’s other visitor proved to be part of a large workshop, equipped with every facility, as far as Nigel could judge, which the mechanically-minded could desire, and in contrast with the Hall itself a model of cleanliness and order. For all that, he thought, it was a curious place to choose for an assignation with a lady.

  “Have you any ideas on the writer of this letter?” he asked. “Who might have discovered about your meetings with Miss Chantmerle? Does she come to the Hall to see you?”

  “Generally. Sometimes in here. At night, of course. I’m convinced the servants couldn’t have found out. Somebody must be spying on us, though.”

  Stanford’s tone was distrait and uninterested. Here, in his workshop, he seemed a different man, a dilettante no longer. His attention was concentrated upon a large, elaborate engine, its metalwork gleaming, rigged on a bench before him.

  Nigel was pondering the question—why should so unconventional a character have imposed such secrecy upon his meetings with Rosebay Chantmerle? Why did her emotional difficulties have to be discussed at night, with the servants out? His thoughts were interrupted by Stanford, who had been fiddling with the engine and now turned to him, a professional glint in his eye.

  “Isn’t she a beauty? I’ll just give her a run. She’s quite quiet.”

  He made a final adjustment, and pressed a button. The engine exploded into life with the deafening roar of a Spitfire, shaking the bench as if any moment it would take off and zoom through the workshop roof. Stanford’s mouth was moving with immense animation; no doubt he was pouring out technicalities, but in this fiendish din Nigel could not hear a word he was saying. Now Stanford had reduced the volume a little and was listening to the engine, head cocked and a worried frown on his forehead, like a conductor who suspects a wrong note in a full orchestral passage he is rehearsing. At last he switched off the ignition.