by John Bude
Eustace looked as if he had his doubts. The daring and originality of Sid’s plan had left him temporarily flustered. On the other hand, the very simplicity of it made an instant appeal. After all the letters were his, and since they were going to be used as evidence against him, he had every right to try out any expedient to recover them. His mind ran rapidly over the salient points of Sid’s suggestion. Already, recovering from the initial impact of the idea, he was re-gathering his wits. Were there any flaws in the plan? Any difficulties that might arise if he put it into execution? One problem occurred to him immediately.
He pointed out:
“But what if Mr. Penpeti happens to call at the Dower House that evening, Arkwright? He might walk back with Miss Parker after dinner at the manor. That would be embarrassing, to say the least of it.”
“Quite so, sir. But I’ve thought of that, too, and it struck me that if you worked it so that you’d know exactly where Mr. Penpeti would be that evening—well, Bob’s your uncle, sir!”
“But how on earth am I to do that?” asked Eustace, puzzled.
“I was thinking of that there roster you and Mr. Terence was drawing up—that Chain of Meditation idea, sir, that’s to be put into operation the moment the convention opens. Mr. Terence happened to show me his typewritten list the other morning. I noticed that Mr. Penpeti was earmarked to attend several times during the first week—that is in the temple in that Chinese summer-house place.”
“Quite true—he is,” agreed Eustace, feeling in his breast-pocket. “I happen to have the original list on me.” He spread out the folded sheet of paper and glanced at it closely. “Yes, here we are—Mr. Penpeti’s agreed to attend for one hour every week-day. The times of his attendance vary of course to fit in with his other commitments. On Monday next—that is the opening day of the conference—I see he’s down to attend from nine to ten in the morning. On Tuesday from two to three in the—”
“You’ll pardon me, sir,” broke in Sid deferentially. “All we need bother ourselves with are the times of his evening meditations. I seem to remember that on Thursday next—”
“Thursday!” exclaimed Eustace, running his finger down the list. “Yes—Thursday from nine to ten in the evening.”
“Well, there you are, sir!” pointed out Sid triumphantly. “What could suit us better? That makes sure of Mr. Penpeti. All you’ve got to do now is to see that Mrs. Summers and Mr. Terence are also away from the lodge that evening. And that shouldn’t be difficult, sir.”
Eustace sighed.
“I’m afraid I’m no good as a conspirator, Arkwright. I haven’t got the proper mental twist.”
Sid grinned.
“How if you suggested she had the afternoon off, sir? They’re showing a top-notch variety show over at the Downchester Palladium. You might suggest that Mr. Terence goes with her and that they both stay on and look into the show.”
“Umph—it’s a feasible idea. But do you really think this whole fantastic plan will work?”
“Certain of it, sir. If you’re ready to carry it out just as we’ve arranged.”
“Then you suggest next Thursday, eh, Arkwright?”
Sid nodded.
“Leaving the lodge somewhere about nine-thirty. That leaves us five days to attend to all the details and make sure we haven’t tripped up anywhere. Agreed, sir?”
“Very well, Arkwright. I’m in your hands. I can’t help feeling that it’s all very melodramatic and undignified, but I can quite see that it’s a moment for desperate measures. And please don’t think I’m not grateful to you, Arkwright, for your sympathy and co-operation in this very distasteful matter. I am—exceedingly grateful. It’s just that I can’t see myself in the rôle you’ve allotted to me.”
“Still…when the devil drives, sir…”
“Quite so, Arkwright, quite so.”
And at that, their strange and clandestine discussion was concluded.
Poor Eustace felt somewhat hypocritical, however, when some ten minutes later Penpeti turned up at the lodge with a polite little note from Mrs. Hagge-Smith. She was sorry that he had been unable to come over to dinner and trusted that his indisposition was not of a serious nature. She was projecting kind thoughts in his direction.
III
During the afternoon of Saturday, June 1st, the first members began to silt into the park, where Hansford Boot (who was in charge of this part of the arrangements) detailed them to their various tents. Some came via the train and the station-bus, others in their own cars, some on bicycles, and some, from the nearer localities, on foot. Over the wrought-iron gates of the north and south entrances, Mrs. Hagge-Smith had ordered the gardeners to erect two banners—WELCOME TO OLD COWDENE. It was a happy touch that set the keynote to the opening phases of the convention. Everybody was a-glisten with good-will and good-humour, settling into their respective tents with much badinage and facetiousness, forgathering in the big marquee for their meals, chattering, laughing, renewing old friendships, making new ones. Yes, despite the somewhat chill and lowering skies, a heartening scene and one which grew more animated and boisterous with every fresh batch of arrivals.
By late Sunday evening the rally was complete and everything was set for the unfolding of the fortnight’s programme, which was due to open with Alicia’s speech of welcome in the lecture tent on the following morning. One odd incident occurred on Sunday afternoon over in the ladies’ compound. Each bell-tent was scheduled to accommodate four members. It was quite understandable, therefore, that the inmates of Tent 6, Row D should go at once to Hansford Boot when they discovered a fifth and unrecognised member unpacking in their tent.
“But there must be some mistake,” protested Hansford, scanning his official lists. “No tent is supposed to hold more than four. I’ll come along at once.”
He had no difficulty in settling the little dispute. The names of Barker, Wicksteed, Grant, and Hazlitt were clearly inscribed on his list. The name of Minnybell was not! In fact, the name of Miss Minnybell didn’t appear on any official list, though to Hansford it had a ring of familiarity.
“Surely you’re from Welworth?” he said. Miss Minnybell didn’t deny it. “But I’d no idea you were a member of our Garden City group,” went on Hansford, suddenly recalling the gossip he had heard about Miss Minnybell’s reputed strangeness. “I never recall seeing you at any of our Carroway Road services.”
“Oh dear me, no!” smiled Miss Minnybell, sweetly. “I only applied for membership five days ago.”
“But we closed our list of convention members nearly six weeks ago. I’m afraid, Miss Minnybell, that in the circumstances we’ve made no provision for your accommodation.”
“Oh please don’t apologise,” beamed Miss Minnybell. “I know how busy you must have been. I really don’t mind where you put me. A simple palliasse in the open-air will do. That is,” she added slyly, “if it doesn’t rain. You can’t possibly be so unkind as to send me away.”
Hansford metaphorically scratched his head. Miss Minnybell had set him a teaser. Such wholehearted enthusiasm was praiseworthy and the poor soul seemed so helpless and vague that it would be a crime to deny her the spiritual feasts that were in store. He consulted his lists again, whilst Miss Minnybell stood patiently by his side, staring up at him with the eyes of an expectant spaniel.
“Well, Miss Minnybell, if you’ll come with me,” he said at length, “I’ll see what I can do for you. I think there’s a vacancy in Tent 12 Row H—a member from Manchester suddenly taken ill with appendicitis. It’s all rather irregular, you know, but in the circumstances…”
Miss Minnybell trotted happily in his wake and, after consultation with two other officials in the Camp Commandant’s office, it was decided that Miss Minnybell should be offered the vacancy that had occurred.
For the second time Miss Minnybell unpacked her meagre suitcase, whilst she affably engaged the res
t of the tent in an interminable and one-sided conversation. She was well satisfied with the results of her scheming, for Mr. Penpeti’s sudden disappearance from the Garden City had left her profoundly uneasy. She was quite certain that he had gone away to make final secret plans for her decimation. He was probably gathering around him a group of fellow-conspirators. Miss Minnybell did not hesitate. She learnt exactly where Mr. Penpeti had gone, filled in her membership form as a Child of Osiris and travelled down to Sussex. Now she was happy again. Once more she was in a position to keep an eye on him and thwart his evil machinations. She was determined, as far as circumstances permitted, to stick to Mr. Penpeti like a leech.
IV
It was on Tuesday at the breakfast-table that Eustace looked up from his poached egg on boiled lettuce and said with a nice air of sympathy:
“You’re looking tired, Mrs. Summers. I trust you haven’t been overdoing things down here. Without the domestic amenities with which we were blessed at Tranquilla, I’m afraid you may have found everything rather difficult.”
“Well, it’s not easy, Mr. Mildmann,” replied Mrs. Summers with a martyred air. “But one has to carry on and make the most of it.”
“Quite! Quite!” Eustace took a sip of his milkless green tea and went on: “I was wondering if you’d care to have a half-day off—say, next Thursday. I understand that Downchester is a very good shopping and entertainments centre.”
“It would certainly make a nice change, Mr. Mildmann.”
“Then we’ll take that as settled,” smiled Eustace with an inward sigh of relief. “Er…perhaps you’d care to have Terence as an escort. I imagine you may want to go to the evening performance at the theatre and return by the late bus. I should feel happier if he were with you.”
“It would be nice to have company,” agreed Mrs. Summers, “if Terence would like to come.”
“I’m sure he’d like to—eh Terence?”
Terence looked up from his plate and grunted. It was obvious that his thoughts had been far afield. Mr. Mildmann repeated his suggestion.
“All right,” muttered Terence ungraciously. “I’ll go if you want me to. No option anyway.”
And at that Eustace tactfully dropped the subject, only too thankful to find that this part of the conspiracy, at least, had been far easier than he had anticipated.
Chapter XII
Overture to Murder
I
By the morning of Thursday, June 6th, the cheerful bonhomie which had marked the inauguration of the conference had undergone a sad modification. It was raining—a light chill, weeping rain that went on and on, gently yet maliciously. It had been raining for forty-eight hours. It looked like raining for another week. Even Hansford Boot, oppressed as he was by Penpeti’s constant threat of exposure, felt a warm surge of self-satisfaction course through his veins on finding his dour prophecy so amply fulfilled. The park was dismal with the slop and squelch of innumerable overboots and soggy sandals. Every tent was thick with the effluvia of damp tweeds. Every tree glistened and dripped and sulked behind a grey mist of rain. The Children of Osiris scuttled about the park with the aimless frenzy of disturbed ants; from bell-tent to lecture, from lecture to meal, from meal to meditation, from meditation to the dubious comfort of their camp-beds.
They made every effort to preserve their initial enthusiasm, but even the most fanatic found it difficult to concentrate on such lecture subjects as “The Triune God of the Resurrection” or “The Inner Symbolism of Thoth” when they were made uncomfortably aware of hard benches, wet socks, damp underclothes, and the evil odour of massed mackintoshes. Eustace did his utmost to whip up an interest in the niceties of dogma but it was uphill work. He himself, at the mercy of his personal troubles, was in exceptionally bad form. Twice in one lecture members at the back of the marquee were forced to ask him to speak up as they couldn’t hear a single word he was saying. Twice Eustace tried to oblige them, only to find his voice issuing from him in a quavering falsetto. People began to cough and fidget and rustle their papers.
It was Penpeti who really rescued the convention from the doldrums. He was here, there and everywhere, his magnetic eyes flashing, his rich oriental voice upraised in greeting, his oddly-garbed figure striding through the rain with Jehovah-like indifference. His lectures were evangelical in their thunder-and-lightning intensity. Penpeti ignored the intellect and concentrated on the emotions of his rain-sodden audiences. His panegyric on the “Significance of Set, the Evil one” was applauded as a masterpiece of didacticism. He made them wriggle on their benches under the lash of his sarcasm. He filled them with remorse and a desire for repentance. He left them exalted in a whirl of mystical excitement, so that many, quite unconscious of their surroundings, passed out there and then into a state of “non-being”.
Miss Minnybell alone remained totally unmoved. From the middle of the third row she just sat there and stared at Penpeti with watchful and suspicious eyes. She noted his every gesture. Every detail of his person. And towards him she projected a stream of enmity. More than ever she was convinced that Penpeti was plotting to waylay her in some dark corner of the park in order to liquidate her. Her obsession had never been more virulent.
II
It was with a sigh of relief that Eustace watched Terence and Mrs. Summers depart for Downchester shortly after lunch on Thursday. Now that the critical hour was approaching his nervousness was at fever-heat. Sid had slipped up to London on Monday and returned with the complete “Penpeti” outfit, which he had concealed in the loft. Three times he had rehearsed Mr. Mildmann in the part he was to play. Together they had pored over Sid’s simple plan of the Dower House. The dummy revolver was ready and waiting. Sid had even coached his employer in the kind of dialogue that might prove effective, forcing him to transmute his gentle tones into a kind of staccato bark; an ordeal that caused poor Eustace to squirm with embarrassment. In Sid’s opinion nothing could go wrong. Eustace had already told Alicia that he would not be over to dinner at the manor that evening, owing to pressure of work. The Daimler was ready primed to rush him to the Dower House and back. Even the weather, Sid claimed, was in their favour, for the low rain-clouds would certainly mean a premature dusk. By the time Eustace was scheduled to approach the Dower House it would be almost dark.
For all that, as the afternoon wore slowly to a close, Eustace was filled with apprehension. He had a hasty cup of tea with his flock in the crowded mess-tent, slipped away unobtrusively, climbed into his waiting car and returned to the North Lodge. In about three hours’ time he was due to go over to the barn and “doll himself up”, as Sid put it. He spent the time in quiet meditation, alternating with periods of cold panic and a very natural impatience. If he succeeded in his quest he was quite sure that Penelope would never speak to him again. On the other hand, if he failed…
Closing his eyes against the possibility and dire consequences of failure, Mr. Mildmann screwed himself up to the sticking-point. The clock on the mantelshelf ticked relentlessly, throwing the minutes with gleeful indifference over its shoulder!
Chapter XIII
Inspector Meredith Gets Cracking
I
Inspector Meredith mounted the steps of New Scotland Yard with his customary springy step, issued a nod, a grin and a brisk salute to the commissionaire at the door and went through to his office. For the last six weeks he had been investigating a particularly dull and unenterprising forgery case in Finchley and he was feeling, to use his own phrase, “about as lively as a Welsh evangelist on a wet sabbath in Swansea.” It was one of those cases calling for tremendous patience, a relentless attention to detail and a strict adherence to an unswerving routine. In short, it was typical of the ninety-nine out of a hundred jobs that the average C.I.D. man is called upon to tackle. And from Meredith’s jaundiced point-of-view the case looked like stretching itself out for another six weary weeks. He stuck his lanky legs under his de
sk, sighed deeply and began to collate material from a number of depositions he had recently placed on file.
Barely had he got down to work, however, when the buzzer of the internal telephone sounded at his elbow. Meredith took up the receiver.
“Hullo? Yes—speaking. What? Immediately? O.K. I’ll be right along.”
As he wended his way along the corridors he wondered what was in the wind. The call had been put through by the Chief’s private secretary. The Chief wanted to see him without delay. Why?
Meredith didn’t have to wait long for his answer. The Chief, as usual, wasted no time in preliminaries.
“Morning, Meredith,” he barked. “Seen the morning editions of the papers?”
“I just had time to skim the headlines over a bolted breakfast, sir—nothing more.”
“Then you obviously didn’t spot this item in the stop-press. Take a look at it.”
The Chief handed over a copy of the London Daily Echo. Meredith read:
Mystery death of two well-known members of religious sect known as Children of Osiris was reported late last night. Tragedy occurred at Old Cowdene Park, Sussex, where Summer Convention of movement is now taking place. Police called in.
As he handed back the newspaper, Meredith asked:
“And what exactly has this got to do with me, sir?”
“At the moment…nothing. In the future…toil, tears and sweat, Meredith. At least, that’s what I suspect. Chief of the West Sussex County rang through from Chichester this morning. Old friend of mine. Wants a Yard man to go down at once and take over the case. It seems that there’s more to it than meets the eye. What are you on at the moment?”