They slid in through the gap and under the rick sheets into a dark space smelling of petrol; a faint light filtering through the roof showed the outlines of a big American saloon car painted black.
“I wish I’d brought an electric torch,” said Warnford. “I want to look at this; there might be something interesting in the pockets.”
“If I hold up this—er—glittering arras,” said Marden, “you might be able to see a little. Aren’t rick sheets heavy? This one is heavier than usual—with cobwebs. That any better?”
“Much, thanks. Let’s try the driver’s side first. All right, you can let go; here’s a torch in the cubbyhole. Now what have we? An empty matchbox, a screw driver and a spanner, a dirty duster, and a copy of Men Only. In the pocket of the door one map and a piece of paper containing a ham sandwich. The map—— Hullo! It’s marked, look. There’s a pencil line leading to Marybourne.”
“Where does it come from?”
“Winsbury—it’s very faint—Alton, Guildford, Reigate, Westerham. I don’t think it goes beyond Westerham.”
“They wouldn’t start it from their front door, you know,” said Marden. “Of course they may live at Westerham, or it may be the place where they join the main road.”
“I’ve got a feeling,” said Warnford, “that we’d better not linger here. I’ll put the map back where I found it; have a look through the other pockets while I fold it up, will you? Nothing in any of ’em? Then either they haven’t owned the car long or they aren’t human. We’ll shut the doors and go. ‘By the pricking in my thumbs Something evil this way comes.’ I’ll give you a leg up; are you through? Anybody about? Splendid. I am with you.”
Looking back from the ridge from which they had first seen the cottage, they saw two men returning across the park, and one had a gun under his arm and was swinging something.
“Rabbit for dinner,” said Marden. “Just in time. They might have had us.”
18. Hambledon Listens In
At about the time that Warnford and Marden were breaking and entering the barn, Hambledon and Denton arrived at the Seven Stars and asked for lunch. While preparations were being made Hambledon talked to the landlord, asking a few casual questions about Marybourne House and its owner.
“Captain Kendal is a very nice gentleman indeed,” said the landlord warmly. “Of course he owns all the property round here. He is very well liked indeed.”
“I’ve come down here to see him,” said Hambledon, “though actually I’ve never met him.”
“Then, sir, I’m afraid you’ll be unlucky; the captain is away from home.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I suppose you’ve no idea when he will be coming back?”
“I couldn’t tell you, sir.”
“No. Well, perhaps they’ll be able to tell me at the house how to get in touch with him.”
“That will be your best plan, sir, to ask at the house. Very unfortunate, the captain being away just now; as it happens there’s two other gentlemen staying here who’ve come on purpose to see him, and they’ve been disappointed too.”
“Oh, really? Perhaps they are mutual friends. What are their names?”
“Mr. Warnford and Mr. Marden, sir.”
“Oh,” said Hambledon with assumed indifference. “No, I don’t know them. Are they here now?”
“They are out at the moment but will be back presently; they are staying here tonight. Excuse me, gentlemen,” said the landlord, “lunch is served.”
They entered the dining room; a short thickset man with bushy eyebrows, who had been sitting in a corner of the lounge reading Country Life, rose and went in too. He sat alone at a small table not far from theirs, and Hambledon heard the waitress call him “Mr. Quint, sir.” Hambledon and Denton got through the meal quickly and went out to their car; they did not, of course, discuss Warnford’s presence till they were alone.
“I still want to find out,” said Hambledon, “why your Tank Corps major didn’t want us to come. If he knew the man Kendal was away, why not say so? So we’ll just run up to the house and try to find that out and then return to the Seven Stars, hoping to find Messrs. Warnford and Marden, for my soul desires them. I did say one of them might be Warnford, didn’t I?”
They drove in at the lodge entrance of Marybourne House just as Warnford and Marden were emerging from the public footpath a hundred yards farther down the road. “We are late for lunch,” said Marden; “our hostess will look reproachfully at us.”
“We’re not so late,” said Warnford, “and, anyway, I want to see a map while that route is still fresh in my mind. I thought it better to put the other one back where we found it in the car.”
They walked into the lounge and met the landlord, who said that lunch was served.
“Let it wait just a moment,” said Warnford. “I want something else first. Can you find us a map covering the country between here and Westerham in Kent via Alton and Reigate.”
“Between here and Westerham,” repeated the landlord. “I think so. Let me just look in the office.”
There came a clatter from the dining room next door as though someone had dropped his spoon and fork hastily on a plate, followed by the sound of an outer door opening and shutting. The dining room at the Seven Stars had a separate entrance from the street. The next moment a thickset figure passed hastily by the window, and as the landlord went to his office Marden watched Professor Quint hurrying up the street and diving into a telephone box at the next corner.
“Curious,” said Marden to Warnford. “Why so much excitement?”
“He’s forgotten to back Buttered Toast for the two-thirty,” suggested Warnford, and the landlord heard him.
“Professor Quint is not a betting man,” he said, returning with a map. “He disapproves of it. Will this be the one you want, gentlemen?”
“Thank you, this’ll do very well,” said Warnford, and laid out the map on a table. “Here we are—Alton, Guildford, Reigate. Where was the last place? Westerham?”
“Westerham, yes,” said Marden, still looking out of the window. “Quint hasn’t got his call. He is standing outside the box looking impatient.”
“He has left his pudding unfinished,” said the landlord, returning from the dining room door. “Very unusual. He’s particularly fond of boiled-treacle pudding.”
“He is pacing round the box all same like tiger in zoo,” said Marden.
“I hope he hasn’t had bad news,” said the landlord. “Come to think of it, he couldn’t have, not since he started lunch. He couldn’t have heard any.”
“Heard,” said Marden slowly, and Warnford looked up from his map. “Tell me, do you happen to know whether he knows those two odd keepers you pointed out to us last night?”
“Know the keepers?” said the puzzled landlord. “Why, no, I’m sure he doesn’t. I’ve seen him pass ’em by more than once. He’s not one to talk much with the folk about here. Come to think of it, it’s queer him going up to that box when we’ve got a telephone back of the lounge here; why go out?”
“Where’s your telephone? Through that door? Right.” Marden dived towards it, followed by Warnford asking what the idea was.
“He heard us asking for the map to Westerham,” murmured Marden, hastily turning up Kendal in the telephone directory and lifting the receiver. “Marybourne 67, please. This is Marybourne 43. . . . Yes, thank you. . . . Oh, is that Marybourne House? . . . Would you put me through to the keepers’ cottage, please? The two new keepers in Meek’s cottage.”
“They are still out, sir,” said a voice from the other end in slightly reproachful tones. “I will ring you back, sir, as soon as they return, as I said just now.”
“Thank you,” said Marden, and replaced the receiver. “Quint did ring them up. He is in the swindle. He did hear us ask for the map. He is waiting at the telephone box for the call. Something is going to occur.”
“Perhaps he’s going to tell ’em to clear out,” said Warnford. “I think we’d better get back
there as quickly as possible. Something might be done about that car of theirs, if only a potato in the exhaust pipe.”
“But your lunch, gentlemen,” said the hospitable landlord as they passed him in the lounge on their way out.
“ ’Fraid it’ll have to wait,” said Warnford; “we’re busy,” and they left the inn at a smart pace.
In the meantime Hambledon, in the car driven by Denton, arrived at Marybourne House, and the butler opened the door.
“I have come from Town,” began Hambledon, “on purpose to——”
“Oh,” broke in the butler, recognizing an official voice, “did Miss Kendal send you?”
“Not exactly,” said Hambledon, realizing from the man’s agitated manner that there was something very much wrong. Such butlers as this do not break into the opening remarks of visitors without very good reason. “I haven’t seen Miss Kendal, but I’ve come down to—er—you understand.” Hambledon hoped so, anyway, since it was more than he did at the moment.
“Yes, sir, of course. Please come in.”
“You’d better come too,” said Hambledon to Denton. “Now,” he went on to the butler when they were inside, “perhaps it would be best if you just told me yourself exactly what happened, then I can ask you again about any point that isn’t quite clear.”
“Yes, sir. This is the morning room, if you would care to sit down.” The butler went on to tell them much the same story that Jenny Kendal had told Warnford twenty-four hours earlier. “Of course we in the house didn’t know exactly what the master was doing, but we knew it was something important for the government. . . . Came down on Friday morning, and when we went to call him he wasn’t in his room and the bed not been slept in, then the head housemaid said to me it looked as though the lights was still on in the pavilion. Well, it’s difficult to tell, sir, by daylight, so I hurried across there, wondering if there’d been an accident, and the lights was all on, but no sign of the master. . . . Miss Kendal went up to Town Monday morning early, saying she’d see somebody who would do something about it, as the police didn’t seem to worry. So when you came, sir, I thought you’d seen her.”
“Tell me exactly what happened the evening before—— When did you last see Captain Kendal?”
“Well, sir. To start with, whenever he was going to work late he’d tell me after dinner. Then about ten o’clock I used to take him coffee in a thermos flask, and sandwiches, over to the pavilion, and put out whisky and a soda siphon and a glass as was kept over there in a cupboard. I did this Thursday night as usual. He was working there then, very busy; he just looked up and said, ‘Oh, thank you, Vokes,’ and I said, ‘Good night, sir,’ and came away. That’s the last I saw of him, sir.”
“Hear anything in the night?”
“Well, I wouldn’t like to say. Something woke me up in the night, but I didn’t hear anything when I was awake. It might not have been anything, but I don’t awake between two and three as a rule. I woke up with the idea I had heard something, if you understand me, sir. I got up and opened my bedroom door, but all was quiet in the ’ouse—house. I then put a coat on and had a walk round, but all was as it should be, and the dogs was asleep in the hall. So I went back to bed and, looking out of the staircase window as I went up, I saw the lights was still on in the pavilion. It might not have been anything, sir.”
“No, it might not. Is there any house or cottage nearer the pavilion than this?”
Vokes told him about the keepers’ cottage and that they had said they had heard nothing. Hambledon noticed that his tone in speaking of them was rather cold and asked, “Reliable men, are they?” Vokes answered that he could not say; they were new men, only taken on a month ago, and were complete strangers, not men off the estate or even from the immediate—— A bell rang, and the butler said, “Excuse me, sir, the telephone.”
He went into the hall, and they heard him say, “I will ascertain, sir.” There followed subdued clicks and a pause, then the butler’s voice saying, “They are not in. If you will give me your number I will ring you back. Thank you.”
Vokes came back to the morning room and said that of course the master’s absence might have some perfectly natural explanation, but it was not like him to rush off like this without telling anyone, not even Miss Kendal. He was always thoughtful and considerate even as a boy, when you might expect—— The telephone bell rang again. Vokes excused himself and went out hastily; they heard him say, “They are still out, sir. I will ring you back, sir, as soon as they return, as I said just now.”
He came back again looking a little irritated and said that of course every time the telephone bell rang he hoped it was some news of the master instead of somebody wanting to speak to those keepers. Some people had no patience.
“You have a private switchboard in the house here, have you?” said Hambledon.
“Yes, sir. With extensions to some of the cottages so that we can ring them from here and they can also have calls from outside put through.”
“And both those calls were for the keepers? The same person each time?”
“I thought the voice was the same, sir; I may of course have been mistaken.”
“Very odd. He is in a hurry, isn’t he? Do you get a clear line here when anyone is speaking from outside to one of the cottages? I mean can you listen in to what is being said?”
“You could, sir, easily. Not that one would——”
“Of course not, normally, but the circumstances are unusual. When they do talk to each other I should like to listen, if you don’t mind.”
“But, sir——”
“Look at this,” said Hambledon, and showed the man his official card.
“Indeed, sir. Thank you, sir; that is another matter. In that case I will call up the cottage now to see if they are back and connect them with the number the gentleman gave.”
“Half a minute. You said ‘gentleman’; did you really mean it, or was it just politeness?”
“The voice sounded like that of a gentleman, sir.”
“Did you recognize it?”
“No, sir.”
“And do you know whose number he gave—was it a local call?”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t know which house it belongs to.”
“Pity,” said Hambledon. “He is waiting there—wherever ‘there’ is—and we could have dived down and looked him over. However. Try them again, will you?”
The butler led the way across the hall to an alcove in which there was a telephone and a small switchboard. He rang up a number on his board, and a deep voice could be heard answering.
“Hold on a minute,” said the butler; “there’s a call for you.” He telephoned the exchange, asked for the number Quint had given, said, “Is that you, sir? . . . The men have returned and I have put you through. . . . Thank you,” and handed over the receiver to Hambledon.
“That you—er—Jones?” said one voice.
“Jones speaking,” said the other.
“Gut,” said the first voice, relapsing into German. “There are two men at this hotel asking for a map which covers your route. They seem excited. They have found out something; it is possible they have seen your map. You have probably left it lying about, dunderheads that you are.”
The second voice uttered noises suggestive of protest, but the first voice swept on unheeding.
“Clear out at once. Take the car and clear out. And beware of two men somewhere along the drive; I saw them going that way. Get out.”
One receiver was slammed down, and a click followed when the second was replaced. Hambledon put down his receiver and repeated the conversation to his enthralled audience of two.
“Good gracious, sir, you don’t mean to say so,” gasped Vokes. “I never did take to those two men.”
“Definitely suspicious characters,” drawled Denton, “definitely.”
“Did you say they were talking German, sir?” went on Vokes. “Then the poor young master——”
“Your master has got to b
e found,” said Hambledon. “Denton, get outside and have a look round. Vokes, will you point out to him where the keepers’ cottage is? And which way they are likely to go.”
“They must pass the house,” said Vokes, leading the way to the front door, “if they are going by car. But where did they keep the car?”
“Try to stop them,” said Hambledon rather dubiously. He picked up the receiver again and rang the local exchange. He was answered by a woman speaking in a pleasant country voice and asked her if she would be so good as to tell him where that last call came from.
“From the telephone box in Marybourne Village,” she said at once.
“Thank you very much. I suppose you didn’t recognize the voice? The gentleman forgot to give his name.”
“I didn’t recognize the voice, sir, but I saw the caller. This post office be just opposite telephone box.”
“Oh, is it? How very convenient. Who was it?”
“Excuse me, sir, the gentleman was speaking to you, was he?”
“He was,” said Hambledon truthfully, adding, “though he didn’t know it,” to himself.
“And forgot to give his name? Well, then, it was that old professor of botany, or whatever he is, that’s staying at the Seven Stars. Quint, the name is.”
“Thank you so very much,” said Hambledon gratefully. “That is most helpful.” He replaced the receiver. “But not to Quint,” he added grimly. “I’ll hinder him.” He strolled across the hall to the front door, humming a tuneless little song.
In the meantime Denton stood on the two broad steps outside the front door with the butler. The drive up which they had come stretched away in front of him straight as a line for half a mile till it disappeared into a wood. In front of the house there was a wide expanse of gravel; on the right side of this two other drives led off; one, said the butler, towards the gardens and the keepers’ cottage, while the other went round the house to the stables.
“They must come up there, sir,” said Vokes, “and pass us in front ’ere—here. That is, if they are driving, though I cannot think where they would keep——”
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