The door opened and Mrs. Cooper came in, carrying a tray on which were various letters. But Mr. Winterton was far too excited to take any notice. He held out his hand for the letters but did not take them, instead continuing his theme of the importance of a return to the gold standard.
“With all civilisation sliding to a smash,” he repeated, “the only way to be safe is to have a solid reserve of gold you can always rely on.”
So far as Bobby understood the question, he was in entire disagreement with everything Mr. Winterton was saying, since he could not see that there was in essence much difference between digging up a certain yellow metal, and saying that that represented food and shelter and clothing and all that men desire and need, and putting a piece of paper through the printing-press and saying the same thing of it. But he did not pretend to be an expert on economics, and what interested him – keenly, indeed – was the excitement Mr. Winterton showed. He was on his feet now, his eyes alight, gesticulating dangerously with his full glass, the contents of which Bobby fully expected to see sent showering around. It was evident that for him his theme was the one thing that mattered, and Mrs. Cooper said:
“The post, sir; it has just come.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” he said, taking the letters at last. “Off on my hobby-horse again, you see, Mrs. Cooper. But gold is always gold, and you can’t say so too often.”
“Well, sir,” she agreed, “there’s something about the gold sovereigns we used to have before the war that does seem different – I have two or three still I’ve always kept.”
“Go on keeping ’em,” Winterton told her. “So long as you’ve got them, you’ve got something real, and, Lord knows, with the way things are going, and a general smash likely any moment, when we shan’t need solid gold again – Communists and Fascists and all the rest of ’em–”
“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Cooper, and retired with her deliberate movements that looked so slow and measured and yet in some way enabled her to cover the ground so quickly.
The interruption had served to check the full flow of Winterton’s eloquence. He sat down now and drank off the contents of the glass he had been flourishing so dangerously.
“I daresay all that bores you, a young fellow like you,” he said.
“Oh, no, sir,” Bobby protested. “I think it’s frightfully interesting, and I’m like Mrs. Cooper; I’ve got two sovereigns. An old uncle gave them me years ago and I’ve always kept them.”
“Keep ’em,” Winterton advised him, as he had advised his housekeeper; “paper may some day be good for nothing but to light the fire, but gold’s gold. Intelligent woman, Mrs. Cooper, but I’m afraid she’s heard me at it before. Like most people, she couldn’t see the point at first, but I’ve made her understand it now.” He was looking at the letters that had just arrived, and now, with an impatient gesture, he tossed them on the table. “Nothing there,” he said; “only bills and circulars. She’s had a hard life of it, too. She married a man during the war when she was quite a girl, little more than a child. He did very well, was given command of his battalion, distinguished himself handling it, and was appointed to a brigade. Three days afterwards he was killed, and then it came out he had a previous wife still living – magnificent soldier and leader, apparently, and at the same time a heartless blackguard. That left her without any claim to pension or any recognition, and his family refused to have anything to do with her. So she was left to get along as best she could with two children, one quite young and one not born then. The one died soon after birth and the other has died since, and altogether she had a pretty bad time of it till she met Cooper. He’s quite a decent sort; had been batman to her husband – to the man she thought her husband, rather. The worst of her troubles were over then, but she had been through a good deal. She had a lot to do with getting her supposed husband’s abilities recognised, I believe, so it’s been rather a come-down – from a brilliant soldier already holding high rank, and marked for higher still, to a butler – and, though Cooper’s a very good servant, he’s hardly the stuff she can ever hope to make a success of. But she faces up to it very well.”
“Jolly hard lines,” Bobby said reflectively. “Rather awful to feel yourself let down like that.”
“It’s made her rather bitter in some ways,” Winterton observed. “She doesn’t say much, but now and then she lets something slip out that shows she hasn’t much faith left in anything, and it’s a little apt at times to make her forget herself – take rather a high hand with people. I had to give her notice once, she and her husband. Oh, good, there’s Miss Raby back at last. Excuse me a moment.”
As he spoke he jumped up and crossed the room to one of the windows, on that warm day standing open. A girl was coming briskly up the drive. She was rather small and slight in build, with a vigorous, springing step. Winterton called to her, and she left the drive and came across to him. Bobby saw that she had small, dark, well-shaped features, with very bright, vivacious eyes, dark brown in colour, matching the dark brown of her hair. A distinctly pretty girl, Bobby decided, though a good deal of her prettiness depended as much on a certain bright vigour that seemed to hang about her as on any regularity or perfection of feature. She looked quick and capable, too, as if she could be thoroughly relied upon. As she came near she called out:
“I found the book all right, Mr. Winterton. They only charged ten shillings.”
“Oh, good, good,” said Winterton. “I’m glad.”
“It’s in my suit-case,” she went on; “two big volumes of it. I left it for one of the village boys to bring up from the ’bus stop.”
“You came by the 5.55, then?” Winterton remarked. “I was going to send Adams with the car if you had missed that.”
The girl went on to the front door of the house and Winterton turned back into the room.
“That was Miss Raby,” he explained, “my secretary; very clever girl. She does crossword puzzles for one of the London papers sometimes; gets a couple of guineas or so for each one they take, I believe. She’s been to London to try to get hold of an old work on the French assignat issue I wanted, and she’s found it, apparently. I thought she would have had to pay more for it,” he added, with considerable satisfaction.
“Is there a good train service?” Bobby asked. “There’s no station nearer than Deneham, is there?”
“No, and that’s a good eight miles,” Mr. Winterton answered. “There’s a train Miss Raby evidently missed that gets in about three. The next gets in at 5.55, and there’s the last one at 8.20. If anyone comes by that I have to send the car, or they’ve got to walk, as the last ’bus has gone by then. The other two trains the ’bus waits for as a rule. Very convenient, too. Unfortunately, they’re talking of taking them off or reducing the service. They say it doesn’t pay; too little traffic. I’m glad Miss Raby got the 5.55, though; it’s a bore sending the car.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late,” he remarked; “time to dress. We generally dress for dinner here. I like to keep it up even if we are buried in the wilds. Black tie, of course.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The Missing Airedale
The room assigned to Bobby was small but comfortable-looking, with a fine view from its one window out over the Cove to the open sea beyond. His suit-case had been brought up, and he was busy unpacking it and putting his things away when there came a knock at the door.
When he opened it he found Mrs. Cooper there, composed and dignified, her strong white hands folded before her. She had come, she said, to know if he had all he needed.
“The bathroom is at the end of the passage,” she explained. “There is only one; though Mr. Winterton says he will have another put in some day.” There was, Bobby thought, the faintest touch of a perhaps unconscious contempt in the tone in which she pronounced that “some day,” as if it were an expression her clear-cut and determined mind held in utter scorn. She went on: “Mr. Winterton usually has his hot bath in the morning, at half past eight. Mr. Colin likes one before d
inner. I have it ready for him at half past seven, but he is generally late. If you wish it, I could have one ready for you every evening at a quarter past seven. When Mr. Miles is here, if he wants one at night I usually have it ready for him at ten minutes to eight, but then he and Mr. Colin generally get in each other’s way. Dinner is at a quarter past eight. Mr. Colin and Mr. Miles usually go for a swim before breakfast. I will put a bath-robe and towels ready for you if you would like them. Or do you prefer a hot bath?”
“I think a swim would be rather jolly,” Bobby said.
“Would you require a swimming costume?” Mrs. Cooper asked.
“Well, I hadn’t thought of bringing one,” Bobby admitted.
“I will put one out,” Mrs. Cooper said.
“Are you sure there’s one to spare?”
“There are always some ready in case they are wanted,” she explained quietly, “either for ladies or gentlemen. Mr. Winterton does not care for sea-bathing himself, but most of his visitors do. Breakfast is ready at nine, but there are thermos flasks of coffee and biscuits every morning on the table in the hall, if required. Mr. Colin always likes to be called at seven, in case he oversleeps and misses his swim. If you wish it, I will tell Cooper to knock at your door, too.”
“Oh, thank you,” Bobby answered. “I expect I shall be awake all right. Is ‘Mr. Colin’ Mr. Colin Ross, Mr. Winterton’s nephew?”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Cooper. “Mr. Miles, Mr. Winterton’s other nephew, is not staying here at present. That is Mr. Ross coming now,” she added.
Bobby had heard nothing, but when he turned to look out of the window he saw a young man in a suit of plus fours, of a somewhat pronounced pattern, coming up the gravel drive with some golf-clubs swung over his shoulder. Bobby could not see his face plainly, but noticed that he seemed rather on the small side, and that he had a quick, slightly hurried step, like that of one who felt he never had much time to spare. And Bobby noted, too, that Mrs. Cooper must have unusually good hearing to have caught already the sound of the new-comer’s footsteps. Bobby himself had heard nothing.
“There’s a golf-course near, then,” he remarked. “One can get a game?”
“The nearest course is at Deneham, eight miles along the Cromer road,” Mrs. Cooper answered, “but Mr. Winterton and Mr. Colin – and Mr. Miles, too, when he’s here – play on the Point for practice. They say there’s a kind of natural course there. That is what the trouble was about.”
“What was that?” Bobby asked.
“It was in the London papers, I understand,” Mrs. Cooper answered quietly. “I expect Mr. Winterton could explain it, if you asked him.”
“Oh, yes,” Bobby said, feeling slightly rebuked. “I suppose the bathing is quite safe?”
“Perfectly safe in the Cove, though Mr. Miles grumbles about its being too shallow at low tide in some parts. Outside the Cove it’s quite safe for good swimmers except at the turn of the tide. There’s a strong current then runs along the coast, about a mile out, it is dangerous to be caught in – as happened this spring to poor Mr. Archibald.”
“Oh, yes, that was a sad affair,” Bobby said.
“We all felt it very much,” Mrs. Cooper told him gravely. “It was such a shock. Mr. Winterton was greatly affected; he hasn’t got over it yet. It made me thankful I’ve always felt too nervous of the water to be a swimmer. I will attend to the bath-robe and towels for you, sir,” she added, as she moved away down the passage.
Bobby went on with his dressing, and he was aware of an odd sensation that Mrs. Cooper’s real object in coming to him had been, in the common phrase, “to weigh him up,” and that this she had done very thoroughly. That was why she had talked so freely. Well, he had talked freely, too, and for the same reason – the wish to weigh her up, as it was his business to weigh up everyone who might have any connection with the tragedy he was there to investigate. But he did not feel that, on his side, he had been very successful; there was some quality about the woman by whose virtue she seemed able to hold herself aloof, as it were, from common life, even while taking her full daily share therein. Perhaps, Bobby thought, it was the tragic experience she had known that helped thus to give her this manner of being set apart. He hoped, at any rate, that the clear sight of those disillusioned eyes of hers had not discovered that he had any connection with the police. He had been careful to fill his belongings with every kind of evidence of his public school and university years, so as to throw the curious off the scent and allay any suspicions that might be entertained in any quarter. No one who knew he was an old St. George’s man would be likely to suppose that he was also a C.I.D. man, but the feeling did not leave him that Mrs. Cooper was a person likely to see more than most.
When he was ready, he went downstairs to the study – or “den,” as Mr. Winterton called it – where he found his host waiting with the young man of the golf-clubs, Colin Ross, who acknowledged Mr. Winterton’s introduction with a grunt and then went back to the evening paper, over which he was looking very ill-tempered.
“They’ve scratched Four Aces,” he announced. “Dirty trick. They don’t want her to win, that’s all; keeping her back for next time.”
“Four Aces scratched,” Bobby exclaimed, with a great show of interest. “I was going to risk a pound on her, both ways.”
“ ‘Going to’ is lucky,” Colin retorted. “I have – a fiver.”
Bobby duly sympathised, and Colin grew more friendly in the realisation that Bobby also knew something of racing and was apparently interested in the sport. In point of fact, Bobby’s interest in racing was entirely theoretical, but he knew well that the surest way of winning the confidence – and the confidences – of any Englishman is to have, and to be able to express, an instructed opinion on that great perennial question: “What’ll win?”
In fact, the discussion between the two young men grew quite technical and animated till Mr. Winterton interposed with a dry suggestion that Colin had better “go and wash his face and comb his hair” before dinner.
“How much have you dropped recently, Colin?” he added as the young man, acting on this tactful suggestion and muttering something about supposing old Mother Cooper would be raggy if he were late, was making his way to the door.
Colin looked sulky, as though the question did not please him.
“I’ll pick up next week,” he declared. “I’m on a good thing – try a tenner on Blackberry, Uncle George. You’ll get a good price, because Gordon Richards is riding Sandboy. But Blackberry’s a dead cert – even Gordon can’t stop her beating Sandboy unless there’s a dickens of a lot of rain between then and now. That might do it, but nothing else will.”
He vanished, and, as the door closed behind him, Bobby caught the oddest expression showing for a moment on Mr. Winterton’s face – of doubt and questioning, it seemed, and something that looked almost like a haunting terror, that in Colin’s presence the older man had been at pains to suppress but that now peeped out the moment he was gone. Then Mr. Winterton seemed to remember Bobby was there, and said hurriedly and nervously:
“I know those good things of Colin’s – a pretty penny they’ve cost me. They do come off sometimes, though. I might risk a trifle, perhaps.”
He turned to make a note on the blotting-pad on the table, and when he looked round at Bobby again he had recovered his selfpossession.
“Mr. Ross seems to know a good deal about the game,” Bobby observed.
“A good deal too much. He’ll burn his fingers pretty thoroughly one of these days,” Mr. Winterton grumbled. “I’ve told him more than once he ought to stop it; so did Archibald. A regular row they had about it. Of course, it’s the boy’s own business, really; he’s his own master and it’s his own money.”
“Is Mr. Miles Winterton interested in racing, too?”
“Miles? Do you know him?” Mr. Winterton asked quickly, and then, as if recollecting himself: “Of course you would,” he declared; “it was Miles’s father who was with your fath
er and myself on that walking-tour we all made in the Scottish Highlands.” He paused, and could not resist bestowing a wink on Bobby, as if to claim admiration for the way in which he had followed the advice given him of identifying Bobby’s supposititious parent with some actual former friend. “No, I don’t think Miles goes in for racing much. I don’t suppose you’ll meet him this time; he’s not staying here just at present.”
He said this rather shortly, frowning as he pronounced Miles’s name, and Bobby made a mental note that if it almost seemed as though he held one of his nephews in secret terror, against the other he held some hidden, unexpressed anger.
The gong sounded presently, and they went into the diningroom, where Mary Raby was waiting for them. Mr. Winterton introduced Bobby and plunged into talk about the book Miss Raby had been to London to secure. It had arrived now, having been brought up from the ’bus stop by someone from the village, and Mr. Winterton was still talking about it when Colin appeared – after the soup had been served, for Mr. Winterton would wait no longer, but having “combed his hair and washed his face”; in other words, having had a bath and changed from plus fours to a dinner-jacket in something like record time.
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