“Ah, I remember that bit,” said Warnford.
“Ah, you’ve bin ’ere afore, sir?”
“Yes, but I never came from this side before.”
“No, sir, I see. Well, you do just as I’ve told you an’ you can’t go wrong. Thankee very much, sir; much obliged, I’m sure. Good night, genelmen.”
The porter put the shilling in his pocket, climbed onto his bicycle, and rode leisurely away.
“ ‘And left the world to darkness and to me,’ ” quoted Marden.
“The twilight will last some time on such a clear night, and it didn’t sound far. Three fields, a wood, farm, bit of a lane, field, park wall, and so home. Come on.”
They walked through the meadows and found the wood, but it was wedge-shaped, with the point towards them and the path divided to pass up either side. They decided after discussion to take the right side, since the park must lie on their right somewhere, and wherever they found the wall they could walk along it to the gate. But the wood petered out on rising ground into patches of gorse and juniper bushes among which the path weaved about, divided, rejoined again, and lost itself. The darkness deepened; the moon lingered behind the hill, and the two men disentangled themselves from blackberry trailers and came to a stop.
“We’re lost,” said Marden cheerfully. “Look, there’s an owl; he passed quite close.”
“This path,” said Warnford, “wasn’t a path at all; it’s just cattle tracks. We’d better go back to the end of the wood and up the other side.”
But the wood, when they got back to it, had either changed its shape or else it wasn’t the same wood, and Marden stumbled into an unexpected depression in the ground and tore his trouser leg on a branch of thorn.
“What is this I’ve fallen into?” he asked. “It’s a foot or more deep and seems to be round.”
“Hut circles,” said Warnford. “Abode of prehistoric man. I know where we are now; this is War Down. Where’s north——? Oh, that way. We go south, come on.”
They were, however, fortunate in meeting an elderly agricultural labourer on his way home who put them on their right road in such broad Hampshire that it was difficult to understand him.
“I’d love to hear him discussing politics with a Clydesider,” said Marden. “I don’t believe either would understand a word the other said. Bit tough on an invading force who’d learned their English at school, trying to gather information from him. I see lights ahead; is that your village? It’s been a nice evening for a walk, but we seem to have missed the park altogether.”
“Never mind, we’ll attend to the park tomorrow. There’s a church tower against the sky; the Seven Stars is just across the green, and I hope the landlord’s got bacon and eggs.”
The landlord said yes, there were bacon and eggs if the gentlemen would like to have them, but they could have dinner in a quarter of an hour if they would prefer it. Soup, kidneys on toast, roast pheasant, sweet omelet, and a nice piece of Cheddar.
The visitors said they would much prefer it, but they had not expected to find catering of that standard in a small village inn. How on earth did the landlord manage it?
The landlord smiled proudly and said it was due to his having had the common sense and good luck to marry the cook from the big house in the park, one who really was a cook and took pride in it. Not but what he would probably have married her all the same if she hadn’t been able to boil an egg, but there it was, and he knew when he was well off. Rooms for the night? Certainly. Perhaps the gentlemen would like to see their rooms while the dinner was cooking. This way, please. “Lizzie! Dinner for two more, please.”
“You have other guests staying here?” asked Warnford.
“One old gentleman who’s been here before—several times this year, in fact—old Mr. Quint. Professor of botany, we understand. This is a great part of the country for wild flowers, he tells me; I don’t know much about that sort of thing myself, haven’t got time to study it. He walks miles all over the place, carrying tin boxes for his specimens, as he calls ’em, and has ’em spread all over his room on sheets of blotting paper, and it’s as much as the housemaid’s life’s worth to touch ’em. Now, there’s these two rooms, gentlemen——”
They dined excellently in a room panelled in oak with a log fire on the hearth whose leaping flames were reflected from the rosy faces of several copper warming pans hanging on the walls. The professor of botany was also dining at a small table across the room, a short wide man with grizzled hair, bushy eyebrows, and a stoop. He was very inclined to be friendly and asked if they took any interest in his particular hobby. “For I am one of those happy few whose profession is their hobby. If I were not a botanist I should want to be a botanist.”
Warnford merely knew some of the more familiar flowers when they were brought to his notice but would never think of looking for them. He left the conversation to Marden, who was quite capable of being enthusiastic over Lycopersicum barbarum in Hampshire. “In Norfolk or Essex, now,” said Quint, “one would not be surprised, but here——”
“I’ve seen it in East Kent,” said Marden. “The Duke of Argyll’s tea tree to you,” he added to Warnford.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” confessed Quint. “I imagine there must be a story attached to such a strange name, but I’m afraid I’ve never heard it. This district is a botanist’s paradise; I have found no less than ten varieties of orchids within a three-mile radius of this place, and even the very rare Spiranthe aestivalis.”
Marden admitted that he had never even seen it; the autumnalis species, now, that was common enough if you knew where to look for it. Intercepting an imploring glance from Warnford, he disentangled himself with difficulty from the old botanist, and the two friends retreated towards the bar.
“I suppose,” said Warnford, “that sort of thing is frightfully interesting if you like it.”
“Yes, it certainly is,” said Marden. “At the same time, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to find out if the old bird really is a botanist or not. He is.”
“Good for you; I couldn’t have risen to those heights.”
“Botany was my father’s hobby,” said Marden. “I had it pumped into me daily when I was a boy.”
They entered the bar which was comfortably but not overly filled with clients and were greeted by a slight pause in the conversation while everyone glanced at the newcomers and immediately went on with what they were saying. A game of darts was in progress at the far end of the room which was attracting most of the attention; Warnford looked round to see if there were present any of the few estate servants who might have remembered him, the head keeper, the head groom, possibly a gardener, and certainly the butler, but none of them was there. He leaned against the bar, ordered whisky for himself and Marden, and opened the ball by saying that this was a lovely part of the country.
The landlord said he didn’t believe it had its match in England, of its kind, and supposed it was the gentlemen’s first visit.
Warnford said no, as a matter of fact he had spent a week end there some years ago at the invitation of Captain Kendal, and, finding himself again in the neighbourhood, thought it would be a good idea to look him up. But it appeared that he was away from home.
The landlord, with a certain reserve in his voice, said yes, he understood the young squire was away just now. From which Warnford gathered what he would have known if he had ever lived in real country himself; namely, that Kendal’s unexplained absence was known all over the village, however quiet Jenny thought she had kept it. No comment would, of course, be made to a total stranger, but several men looked at him with curiosity in their glances.
Warnford said it was very disappointing; he’d looked forward to renewing the acquaintance. No doubt there had been a good many changes since Captain Kendal’s father died. And what was the landlord having?
The landlord said his was a port, with many thanks. Yes, there had been changes, of course. “Your health, gentlemen. Captain
Kendal was a very clever gentleman, by all accounts—was, I said—is, I mean, of course. He’s very busy all the time inventing some new explosive or some such for the Army. Anyway, there’s some fine bangs goes on in the park now; frightened all the game off the place. That pheasant you had for dinner, now, I’ll bet that was one of the Marybourne House pheasants, for all it was shot on old Leonard Scrubbs’ land three miles away.”
“I’ve heard Captain Kendal has a great reputation as an expert,” said Warnford casually. “Seems a pity, though, to spoil the shooting here; it used to be so good. We had a day with the pheasants when I was here, I remember.”
One game of darts came to an end and another started; a few people went out, and there was something of a space left round the bar when things settled down again.
“I was really looking round, wondering if I might recognize anybody in here,” went on Warnford, “keepers principally, but I suppose they’ve been paid off since there’s no game.”
“Well, no,” said the landlord. “There’s been changes, of course; some gone and others come, but on the whole there’s more than there used to be. Very funny sort of keepers some of ’em are, too; my old span’el here knows more about game than the likes of them. Funny speech, too, the last new ones; come from Sheffield, they tell me. They say quite openly they don’t know much about the country and don’t like it much, either, but they was out of work, and the job offered and they’d try anything once. Fact is, sir, in my opinion they aren’t keepers at all, not ordinary gamekeepers; more what you’d call park keepers to see folks don’t trespass where they ain’t wanted. Well, stands to reason all them explosions must be dangerous; why, they shakes our windows sometimes, just like guns. May be guns, for all I know. Well, they wouldn’t want people wandering about getting hurt; young Squire wouldn’t want that. Quite right too. He’s got a six-foot wire fence around part of the park, over towards the warrens, and no matter when you happen to go by near there’ll be one of these fellows warning you off. Why, only yesterday my two little nieces went in after sweet chestnuts, as children will, and were told to run away. Excuse me a moment, sir. Yes, Lizzie, what is it?”
“Marvellous man,” said Marden in an undertone. “Runs on and on like a dripping tap.”
“Very nice too,” said Warnford. “Gasbags have their uses. Hullo, I wonder if these are the two new keepers; they don’t look like countrymen.”
Two newcomers entered and came up to the farther end of the bar, one a fat pasty-faced man and the other tall, with a long nose and eyes set too near together, both of them reddened but not browned with the sun.
“I think you’re right,” said Marden. “Not long accustomed to an open-air life. What is more, they’ve been drilled at some time or other; look at their shoulders.”
“Ex-Army, possibly. Not last war; they’re too young.”
The newcomers ordered beer, and somebody in the room called out some jesting remark about a badger. The tall one laughed, and the landlord came back to tell Warnford a long story about their meeting a badger one morning before dawn and thinking it was a wildcat, if you ever heard the like. A square man with the air of a seaman came up to the bar and engaged the pasty-faced man in conversation. Warnford and Marden had their glasses refilled and listened without appearing to do so.
“Mr. Owen,” said the landlord quietly, indicating the square man. “Retired mercantile marine. Mate, I believe.”
Apparently navigation was the subject, for Mr. Owen said something about a sextant and “shooting the sun.” The pasty-faced man said something about the stars which made Owen laugh but persisted, mentioning “astral navigation.” Then came something which was lost in a burst of laughter in the room, and then “artificial horizon.” Marden pricked up his ears.
The landlord returned from another errand, leaned upon the bar, and said in confidential tones, “Those are the two new keepers I told you about. Now, what do you think?”
“I wouldn’t have said they were brought up to it, certainly,” said Marden cautiously, and Warnford asked where they lived.
“Up near the gardens. In a cottage where an old man used to live who was keeper here years ago and pensioned off. Old Meek; you wouldn’t remember, I expect. He was bedridden some time; he’s dead now.”
Warnford nodded. These were the same two keepers of whom Jenny had spoken, the only two near enough to the pavilion to have heard if there was any disturbance on the night when Roger Kendal disappeared. “Have another, Marden?”
“Just time for another round, gentlemen,” said the landlord, glancing behind him at the clock on the wall.
“One more for the road to bed,” agreed Marden. “Doesn’t Professor Quint ever come in here in the evenings?”
“Hardly ever. Has whisky and a siphon taken up to his room after dinner; he says that’s when he does his work. Arranges his specimens, I suppose, and does his writing. I believe he’s writing a book.”
“Botany, I suppose. He seems a man of one idea,” said Warnford, who found Mr. Quint a bore.
“He’s a very quiet gentleman,” said the landlord loyally. “Time, gentlemen, please!”
Marden came into Warnford’s bedroom for a moment and shut the door behind him. “Did you hear the conversation between that pasty-faced feller and the Ancient Mariner? The keeper is, or has been, a flying man and a navigator at that.”
“And not an out-of-work from a Sheffield slum,” said Warnford. “I think we’ll look them up in the morning.”
They entered the park on the following morning by the public footpath which ran across a corner of it, not wishing to be asked their errand at the lodge gate. There was an inconspicuous track which turned off, twisting through the shrubbery; Warnford led the way through it without interruption except once, when a cheerful whistling sent them to earth behind a clump of oaks while a boy went by with letters in his hand. Presently the track bent to the right while on their left the trees thinned out to a screen. Warnford turned left through the trees which ceased suddenly; there was a steep drop of a hundred feet or more, and there below them was a small white cottage backed up against a shrubbery which curved round towards another building farther off, a white building with windows flashing in the sun.
“This is old Meek’s cottage where those men live,” said Warnford. “Keep back under cover; don’t show yourself. The building beyond is the pavilion, and behind that again are the tennis courts. Those walls farther back are the walls of the gardens, and there’s the house, farther round to the right. Got the lie of the land now?”
“Perfectly. I don’t see anyone about.”
“Nor do I. Let’s sit down under that clump of bushes there and contemplate Nature for a bit; something might happen. Have a cigarette; we’re well hidden.”
“There’s a barn or something down there,” said Marden when they had settled down. “This side of the cottage—look, against the trees.”
“Oh yes, but that’s never used now; it’s quite derelict. The roof was beginning to go when I was here last.”
Some time passed before anything happened, then suddenly the cottage door opened and two men came out, by their build the same two who were in the bar of the Seven Stars the night before. They stood outside the cottage, talking, then one of them walked away round the edge of the shrubbery towards the pavilion and disappeared in the distance. The other went round the cottage towards the back, was gone for a few minutes, and returned carrying something heavy in each hand.
“What’s he got?” murmured Marden. “Looks like square boxes.”
“Cans,” answered Warnford excitedly. “Petrol cans. Now what?”
The man walked along to the disused barn some fifty yards from the cottage and put his cans down. He then opened one of the doors, not without effort, picked up his cans again, and went in.
“Well, well,” said the interested Marden. “What d’you know about that? Derelict, eh? Perhaps they’ve had it done up since you were here.”
“They may
have, of course. It’s their barn. I wish he’d opened the door a little wider; we might see what’s inside. Now what happens?”
There was a short wait while the man busied himself within the barn, then he reappeared again.
“The cans are now empty,” said Warnford. “See the debonair way he swings ’em.”
“He returns to the cottage,” said Marden, lying flat on the ground and sticking his face through a tussock of grass. “He is going round to the back where he got those cans from. Perhaps he’s been brought up to be tidy and is now putting the empties away. No, he returns with two more. Full ones.”
“Eight gallons,” commented Warnford. “He rather toils along, doesn’t he? I don’t think Augustus really likes work. Now what happens? Same again?”
It was the same again, except that this time the man shut the barn doors and appeared to lock them also.
“Twelve gallons,” said Warnford. “Must be a big car. One would almost think it was being prepared for a journey, wouldn’t one? Round the back of the cottage again to put the empties away. Now which way? Up towards us? Make up your mind, Augustus. No, away across the park; he’s going towards the warrens where the barbed wire enclosure is, according to our host. Now what do we do? Go and look at the barn? Right, come on.
“In the old days,” went on Warnford as they reached it, “these walls were full of chinks you could see through, and the dogs used to squeeze in and hunt rats. I don’t find any chinks now.”
“There is something hung up inside; looks like a rick sheet,” said Marden. “The ivy’s been cut round the doors, and there are tire marks in the grass. You work round that side and I’ll take this.”
When they met again behind the barn he found Warnford pulling at a shutter which had been nailed up, but the wood was rotten with age and broke away from the nails. “They won’t notice this from inside,” he said, “thanks to the rick sheet; they’ve hung them all round the walls. You heave that side, Marden. Come off, you—got it. Throw it in the bushes; I’m going in. Coming?”
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