by Sapper
He looked up suddenly, and found my eyes were fixed on him.
“A very interesting part of your country,” he said suavely.
“Most,” I answered shortly, feeling a little annoyed at having been discovered staring at him.
“And this inn certainly belies the terrible reputation enjoyed by your country hotels abroad,” he went on politely.
“A reputation which I fear is thoroughly deserved,” I answered as affably as I could. After all, there was no good showing my feelings, though I found myself disliking his voice even more than his appearance. It was oily and sleek – if a voice can be sleek: and underlying it was another quality which for the moment I could not spot. Then I got it – it was cruelty: I could imagine the man opening his flat gold cigarette case, and extracting one with the utmost deliberation, just in order to keep his victim on the rack a little longer so that he might gloat over him.
We talked on casually, and all the time I was wondering what nationality he was. Italian possibly, though his English was faultless. The girl, in the two quick glimpses I had had of her might well have been Italian. And what was their relationship to one another? I knew that he was studying me also, though our conversation was confined to banalities: studying young Scott too with his heavy lidded eyes.
“Golf,” he was saying, “is a game which I unfortunately have never had the opportunity to master.”
“Master!” broke in Freckles with a laugh. “You’re in the same boat as a good many other people.”
“So I believe,” he said politely. “And yet it seems to the outsider that it should not be hard to hit a stationary ball with some degree of precision. Dear me – what’s that?”
From outside had come a sudden crash, followed by a loud “Damnation,” in Hugh’s voice. I rose at once, followed by Scott, and went into the hall. Standing outside the door was Hugh staring upwards; at his feet, smashed to pieces on the cobble, was a heavy chimney-pot.
“Confound it,” he exploded when he saw me, “this cursed thing only missed me by about a foot.”
Attracted by the noise the boots had appeared, and two or three of the guests were staring out of the window.
“Very sorry, sir, I’m sure,” said Boots scratching his head. “Such a thing ain’t never happened before, not to my knowledge.”
“And if it happens again somebody is going to get a thick ear,” said Hugh grimly. He was still staring upwards and his mouth was set in a hard line. Then with a little shrug of his shoulders he entered the hotel.
“I must apologise for my language,” he said with a smile to the clergyman.
“My dear sir,” said the cleric benignly, “a mild expletive is surely permissible under the circumstances. Why, if that heavy thing had hit you on the head it might have stunned you.”
Hugh gave a short laugh.
“As you say, it might have stunned me,” he agreed. “But it didn’t. I am going to wash, Peter, and then we might have some dinner.”
We followed him to the lavatory, and he carefully closed the door.
“Ever heard of a chimney-pot falling on a dead calm day?” he said quietly.
“What do you mean?” said Freckles looking startled.
“I strolled down to the bottom of the hill to see John off,” went on Hugh. “And also to put him wise to one or two things. Then I came back, and was standing outside the door lighting a cigarette. A sitting target, though I must say it never dawned on me that anything of that sort was likely to happen. But luckily the blighter missed.”
“You think someone pushed the thing over deliberately?” cried Freckles.
“I don’t think: I know. I saw his shadow move.”
“Then why not go and have a look-see,” said the boy.
“Because the shadow will have moved a considerable distance by now,” answered Hugh dryly. “In other words we’d find nothing, and merely make ourselves look fools. But don’t be under any delusions, you fellows: that was a deliberate attempt by someone to lay me out.”
“It can’t have been the bearded gentleman,” I said. “He’s been talking to us ever since you left.’’
“I don’t know who it was,” said Hugh drying his hands. “But if he, or they, are prepared to go to the length of attempted murder it proves one thing at any rate. We’re up against a pretty tough lot. It’s all right, young fellow,” he went on as Scott’s face fell. “This bunch is outside the garden wall: your girl is inside.”
But to me privately as we went out, leaving Freckles to the basin, he was not so optimistic.
“We were fools, Peter,” he said. “We ought never to have allowed that girl to go inside that house. I’m not frightened of anything happening to her now: what I am afraid of is what is going to take place if this lot, whoever they are, do get inside.”
“You think that’s the game?” I asked.
“Granger is the game,” he said. “And if the mountain won’t go to Mahommed, Mahommed must go to the mountain. Granger has gone to ground in his house, and nothing short of an earthquake is going to get him out. Therefore to get him, they’ve got to get into the house. Voilà tout.”
“We might send her a letter telling her to leave,” I suggested.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“From what I saw of the girl,” he laughed, “I think she’d tell us to go to blazes.”
Young Scott joined us and we went in to dinner. And though Hugh deliberately kept the conversation on outside topics, I couldn’t keep my mind off the problem that confronted us. The whole thing seemed so utterly disconnected: that was the trouble. What link bound the bearded man and his companions with the snorer at Spragge’s Farm? What was the signification of the red and blue lights? Above all, if Hugh was right, and he was not a man who made mistakes on matters of that sort, who was it who had deliberately tried to lay him out with the chimney-pot? And why?
The bearded man was eliminated, which left of those we knew the girl and the chauffeur. But even granted it was one of them the second question remained unanswered. Why? Even if we had aroused their suspicions by going back on our tracks in the car, their return for it seemed a little drastic.
Another alternative came into my mind: supposing it wasn’t them at all? Supposing we had struck some completely new factor in the situation? Again came the same unanswerable question. Why? What had we done – or rather what had Hugh done – to give any possible reason for trying to kill him? The only person who could legitimately feel that way was Spragge, and it seemed well nigh incredible that that worthy should have secreted himself on the roof on the bare chance of laying him out.
From Spragge my thoughts turned to the snorer. He was a possibility. True he hadn’t seen us as far as we knew, but Hugh was an easy man to describe. Supposing Spragge had told him what had happened in the afternoon: supposing the man was a criminal and thought detectives were after him, and had determined to try to get rid of them?… And then I gave it up: it was obvious that that solution wouldn’t hold water. Genuine detectives don’t go about the country in racing Bentleys slogging people over the jaw. And further he had no possible means of knowing that we were going to be at the Dolphin.
We were halfway through dinner when the bearded man and the girl entered. She swept past us as if the whole of Rye belonged to her, but her companion paused by our table and nodded to me.
“I must congratulate you, sir,” he said turning to Hugh, “on your narrow escape. I was talking to your friends at the time, and the crash was terrific.”
“Thank you very much,” said Hugh gravely. “It’s the worst of these old houses: anything might happen.”
“Precisely: anything might happen,” agreed the other, and with a bow he passed on to his table.
“Unless I am much mistaken,” said Hugh thoughtfully, “the time is coming in the very near fu
ture when that gentleman’s face will disappear through the back of his skull. He is the type of mess I like not: moreover he is undoubtedly one of the players. So here’s to hoping.”
We finished our dinner in silence, and it was not until the coffee came that any further allusion was made to the subject. Hugh, I could tell, was trying to puzzle things out in his own mind as I had done, and Freckles – the confounded young scoundrel – couldn’t keep his eyes off the girl.
“What’s the plan of campaign, Hugh, for tonight?” I asked, after the waiter had left us.
“I’ve been thinking over it, Peter,” he answered, “and I’ve come to the conclusion that the safest way of tackling it if we want to find out anything, will be to approach the house from the other side – that is from the sea. I figure it out this way. We are obviously under suspicion: it is known that we are taking an interest in Spragge’s Farm, in that swab over there all covered with hair, in Granger’s house – in fact, in the whole outfit. If, as is more than likely, we are all three seen leaving Rye in the Bentley and taking the road towards Spragge’s Farm, the betting is a fiver to a dried pea that we shall be followed. We’ll have to leave the car in the road, and that gives us away completely. So my suggestion is this. There is a road – it’s pretty bad, but it will serve – that runs past the golf links and goes down to the sea. True we still have to leave Rye in the direction of the farm, but as long as they don’t find the car in the road it doesn’t matter. In fact it’s rather to the good; it may help to put ’em off the scent if they think we’ve gone on towards Folkestone. So we’ll leave the car on the sea road, which incidentally peters out into nothing, strike inland on foot, and approach Spragge’s Farm from the rear. And after that, it’s on the lap of the gods. Ever done any night work, young Scott?”
“What sort of night work?” demanded Freckles.
“Moving about country at night, of course.”
“Can’t say I have,” admitted the youngster.
“Well, keep close to me, and do exactly as you are told,” said Hugh. “And pay attention to where you put your clumsy great feet. We’ll want silence, and don’t forget it.”
“Do you think there is a chance of a scrap?” he asked eagerly.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Hugh. “But I want to avoid one if possible. We want to find out all we can, and not be discovered doing so.”
“What time do you suggest starting?” I asked him.
“Let’s see,” he calculated. “It will be a good hour’s walk – perhaps more. Allowing for the car journey – say an hour and a half. So if we leave here as soon as we’ve finished dinner, we ought to strike the farm about eleven thirty.”
He finished his coffee and got up. And for the first time to my knowledge the girl showed herself aware of our existence. Her glance rested on Hugh – coolly and thoughtfully: then I was honoured and after that young Scott. Then she returned to her dinner as if we had been summed up and dismissed, for all the world like a man turning down three horses that had been brought out for his inspection. I said as much to Hugh as we left the coffee room, and he smiled slightly.
“Bless her heart,” he laughed. “I wonder if it was she who tried to anoint my head with the chimney-pot. Incidentally, I wonder what their names are. Presumably they are staying here since she has changed for dinner.”
We opened the hotel register, and looked at the last three entries.
Paul Vandali.
Madame Vandali.
Jean Picot.
“H’m,” grunted Hugh. “If the names are genuine, they mark the chauffeur down as French, and the other two as Southerners of sorts. Possibly Italian. However, we shall doubtless find out in time. Now you fellows, smoke if you want to, because once we start walking it will be a case of no lights.”
We strolled down the hill, and I noticed that Hugh was glancing from side to side. But the road seemed deserted, and we got into the car without having seen a soul.
“One hour at this time of night ought to be enough to make Folkestone,” he said as we got in.
“Did you see him, Peter?” he asked me as we drove off.
“Not a sign,” I said surprised. “Where was he?”
“In the shadow of that big warehouse place. Mr Jean Picot for a tozzy. I couldn’t make out his face, but there was someone there crouching against the wall.”
“Then let’s hope you put him off,” I remarked.
The night was a perfect one for our purpose. Already dark, it would be darker still, as the moon was not due to rise till three o’clock. A faint breeze was blowing, and in the distance the light of a signal gleamed like a great red star. For the first half mile the road ran dead straight: then came a T bend. To the left lay the road to Folkestone and to the proper entrance to Spragge’s Farm: to the right lay our route to the sea. And so it was with some surprise, after what he had said at dinner, that I found Hugh swing left-handed when we got there.
“There are no flies on those birds,” he said briefly. “And on these marshes you can see the headlights of a car for miles.”
He drove on for perhaps another mile until he came to a small track leading off the road. Then he switched off the headlights, and turned the car.
“I’m taking no chances, Peter,” he said as we drove slowly back with only the small side lamps alight. “We’re up against brains this trip.”
We got back to the bend without having met anyone, and took our proper road. He was still driving without headlights and so our progress was slow. Gradually the road got worse and worse, until the murmur of the sea on the shore to our right told us we had struck the coast. To our left lay the sand dunes, and Hugh continually peered in that direction as if looking for some landmark.
“There’s a path somewhere about here which leads a little way into the dunes,” he explained. “It will give us a bit of cover for the bus. Here it is.”
We swung along it, and after going about twenty yards he pulled up. The car was almost hidden from the road: certainly at night no one passing along would be likely to spot it. And there we left it, and struck inland on foot, Hugh leading. At first the going was bad: the low sandhills so beloved of golfers exercise no attraction for the mere pedestrian. But after a while it got better, and the loose-shifting soil gave place to firm reclaimed ground.
We walked in silence; only the harsh cry of a stray night bird broke the stillness of the night. In the distance the lights of Rye glittered from the hill: in front of us darkness save for an occasional gleam from some cottage.
Suddenly Hugh paused, and we came up with him. He was standing on the edge of a dyke – one of the many which intersect the Marsh in all directions. But for some reason or other this one seemed to interest him.
“I’ve never seen one so broad,” he explained. “This is more like a miniature canal. However, it seems to be leading in the right direction. We may as well follow it up.”
We walked on once more, sticking to the bank, until once again he paused, this time with a low whistle of surprise. A boat was in the water completely covered with a tarpaulin, and even in the darkness it was easy to see that it was no ordinary row-boat. He scrambled down, and lifted up the covering: then he came up and joined us again.
“A motorboat and a powerful one,” he said thoughtfully. “Now I wonder if that is also part of the jigsaw. Or is it just a perfectly harmless machine belonging to some perfectly harmless individual?”
“Useful for smuggling,” I suggested.
“Quite,” he answered. “Or as a line of escape. Do you notice, Peter, that the dyke narrows and becomes congested with weeds from here inland? Whereas the other way presumably it is clear right down to the sea. However, there is no good wasting time. We’ll just make a mental note of the fact that it is here.”
We pushed on again still keeping to the edge of the dyke
. And now there were more signs of life. We saw sheep in a field to our left, and also a few cows.
“This is probably Spragge’s ground,” said Hugh. “We must begin to go warily. Hullo! Is that our friends, I wonder?”
In front of us about a mile away we could see the headlights of a car. It was moving fast in the Folkestone direction, and for a while we stopped and looked at it. At one moment it seemed to be coming straight towards us: then as the road jinked we saw only the reflection of the lights travelling sideways across our front. And so we stood until the glare had almost faded away to our right: almost but not quite. For Hugh had been correct in his tactics: it was our friends as he had predicted. The reflection became stationary in the sky: shifted as the car turned, and then became again the headlights returning on the same road. And to me there seemed something strangely ominous in that powerful silent light searching the country for us, with people who we even now knew would stick at nothing, in the car behind it. Was the girl driving again, with Paul Vandali sitting beside her; or were other unknown people on the trail too?
“Let’s hope that has put ’em off the scent anyway,” said Hugh as the light disappeared in the direction of Rye. “It’s lucky we took the sea road.”
Once more we struck out along the bank of the dyke. We walked in single file with Hugh leading and young Scott in the centre. Sheep were becoming more plentiful now, and suddenly Hugh came to an abrupt halt.
“There’s the house,” he said in a low voice as we joined him. “Straight in front of us.”
It lay there black and silent. No chink of light came from any window: no sound broke the stillness save the faint creaking of the branches of a tree. A little to one side lay the outhouse we had noticed that afternoon and suddenly Hugh clutched my arm.