At half-past two, Lord and Lady Fenshire came out through the French windows into the garden accompanied by Sir John Adamson and Violet Manciple. Amid a little burst of applause they mounted the rickety rostrum which had been constructed with much acrimony that morning by men who were now happily sozzled in The Viking.
“I am delighted,” said Lady Fenshire penetratingly, “to declare well and truly open the annual Fête of the Village of Cregwell.”
“One, two, three,” said a loud and slightly slurred voice, and with a crash of cymbals and a wail of trombones, the Cregwell band launched into their highly personal rendering of “Anchors Aweigh.” At the same moment it began to rain in earnest. It was exactly two-thirty-two.
At two-thirty-five the quiet man said, “Seems you’re in luck, Tibbett. We’ve been able to trace the information you wanted. Not through Bugolaland at all; they were most unhelpful, but one expects that nowadays. However, it seems that there are libraries in this country which preserve old copies of newspapers. I believe you said your clipping was from the Bugolaland Times of twenty years ago.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, this one is from the East Bugolaland Mail, the local paper of the region where the family lived, so the account is more detailed. It’s not an official record, of course, but it makes it quite clear that the little boy was killed along with his parents—all three of them in that car smash. Read it for yourself. What you intend to make of it, I can’t imagine.”
“One hundred and forty-nine pounds, two ounces,” said the stout lady slowly. The Vicar, who was standing rather self-consciously on a small platform made out of seed boxes, looked pleased.
“One hundred and forty-nine pounds, two ounces,” Emmy repeated, writing on a slip of paper. “Your name, please?”
“Mrs. Barton, Hole End Farm.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Barton. Here’s your stub. Sixpence, please.”
The man with her—presumably Mr. Barton—was a small, stringy creature who might have been a superannuated jockey. He said loudly, “A hundred and sixty-two pounds.” The Vicar’s face dropped. Emmy filled in the form, and the couple departed.
The Vicar said to Emmy in a stage whisper, “Actually, Mrs. Tibbett, I weigh…”
“Don’t tell me, please,” Emmy begged. “I might give something away if I knew.”
“I was only going to say,” said the Vicar with dignity, “that I weigh less than a hundred and sixty pounds.” He sighed, looked down at his comfortably rounded silhouette, and added, “I play some cricket in the summer. Not enough, I fear.”
“Most people have guessed around a hundred and forty-five pounds,” said Emmy comfortingly.
“A hundred and forty-five pounds, ten ounces is the average estimate,” said the Vicar, who had acute hearing. “I have been working it out in my head. A hundred and forty-five pounds, ten ounces. It is a lesson in humility.”
A small girl in a dirty cotton dress came up and said importantly, “Here’s sixpence, and my mum says two hundred and twenty pounds and three ounce.”
“Two hundred and twenty pounds?” echoed Emmy. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what my mum says. Two hundred and twenty pounds, three ounce,” she added at the top of her voice. Several passers-by showed a tendency to giggle. The Vicar went very red.
Emmy made out the slip of paper, took the sixpence, and dismissed the small girl. Then she said to the Vicar, “The child obviously doesn’t know the difference between a pound and a…”
“That has nothing to do with it,” replied the Vicar with some heat. “That was Elsie Beddows, and I have recently had cause to take issue with her mother on the subject of her Sunday School attendance. Elsie’s, of course. This is her way of scoring a cheap revenge. Really, I question whether I should have exposed myself to this sort of thing, even in aid of the church roof.”
He was interrupted by the arrival of a small, hard-bitten man in corduroy breeches and leggings. He was chewing a straw, and looked as though he had spent a lifetime on and around racetracks. He appraised the Vicar in silence for some time, chewing steadily. Then he walked around and studied him from the back. Finally, he squatted down on his haunches and ran his eye expertly up the ecclesiastical curves, missing nothing. At last he said, “A hundred and fifty-one pounds and six.”
“One hundred and fifty-one pounds, six ounces?” said Emmy.
“S’right.”
“Your name, please?”
“Harrow. Sam Harrow.”
“You are not from these parts, my man,” remarked the Vicar.
Sam Harrow regarded him coldly. “I work the fairs,” he said. “Buying and selling. Horses, mostly. Having a flutter. Nothing worth having here, but I was in Kingsmarsh for the market.” He fixed the Vicar with a wicked eye. “I don’t make mistakes,” he said. He pocketed his stub and walked off.
The Vicar said to Emmy, “It’s this suit, I fear. Made some years ago, when I was stouter. It gives an—em—misleading impression.” He laughed with embarrassment. “You never want to judge a parcel by its wrapping, you know.”
It was at this moment that Isobel Thompson arrived. “Tea break,” she said cheerfully to Emmy.
“Oh really, Isobel, I…”
“No argument,” said Isobel. “Violet has taken over the jumble, I am to relieve you for half an hour, and you are to get yourself some tea. And I’d hurry, if I were you,” she added.
Indeed, the rain had begun to fail again in large splashy drops. Emmy noticed that Isobel was now wearing a raincoat over her cotton dress. Emmy said gratefully, “Thank you. In that case, I’ll go at once.”
“I think,” said the Vicar plaintively, “that I should put on my mackintosh.”
“That would be most unfair, Mr. Dishforth,” said Isobel, cheerfully but firmly. “You must let the customers get a good look at you.”
“You make me sound like a freak at a sideshow, Mrs. Thompson.”
“Well, freak or not, you’re certainly a sideshow,” said Isobel. “And think of the church roof.”
“Your husband wouldn’t approve of my catching my death of cold.”
“I don’t mind holding an umbrella over your head, but you are not to put on a raincoat. Mrs. Manciple said so.”
“Really, Mrs. Manciple has no authority to…”
Emmy left them to it and made her way to the shelter of the refreshment marquee.
As she sipped a cup of hot, strong tea, and ate one of Mrs. Richards’ excellent cakes, something that the Vicar had said came suddenly back into her mind. And with it, inspiration. She looked around, hoping to see Frank Mason; but there was no sign of him. She peeped out through the tent flap. It was raining harder than ever, and Emmy did not feel inclined to waste her precious half-hour’s respite trudging in the damp. She did, however, see Maud, and called to her.
“Hello, Mrs. Tibbett,” said Maud. She was wearing Wellington boots, a shiny black oilskin coat, and a sou’wester, and she looked as though no amount of rain could daunt her. “What can I do for you?”
“Have you seen Frank Mason?”
“Not recently, but he’s around somewhere. Do you want him?”
“Not specially. But if you see him, tell him from me that his book is probably in the Lucky Dip.”
“You mean, the book he brought by mistake for the jumble?”
“That’s right. He told me at lunchtime that it was wrapped in brown paper. And your mother said several times that all the Lucky Dip things were wrapped, while the jumble wasn’t. So I’m sure it must have gotten put into the tub.”
Maud made a face. “Some hope of finding it in that case,” she said. “Anyhow, I’ll tell him if I see him.”
“Thanks,” said Emmy. She returned to the dry warmth of the marquee with the added glow of having done her good deed for the day. It was four o’clock.
The quiet man was beginning to show a certain amount of enthusiasm. That is, he had assembled several files and papers on his desk, and was al
lowing a cigarette to burn unattended in his ash tray while he studied them. He said to Henry, “You may have something here, Tibbett.”
“I hesitated for a long time,” said Henry. “I simply couldn’t believe it.”
“In this department we can believe anything,” said the man with a certain gloomy pride. “Look at the Lonsdale case. A complete personality built up over twenty years in several different countries…”
“I’d thought of that,” said Henry. “But this boy is so young…”
The quiet man tapped a typewritten paper which had just been laid on his desk. “The step-grandmother,” he said, “Magda Manning-Richards, nee Borthy. Hungarian. Came to London as a cabaret dancer more than fifty years ago. Met and married Humphrey Manning-Richards, who was at that time a district officer in Bugolaland. Went out there with him, and was badly received by the British community. Conceived an intense dislike for all things British. After the death of her husband and the marriage of her stepson, Tony, she returned to Hungary, where she became an active revolutionary. With her knowledge of Bugolaland, she was naturally in touch with the most violent left-wing elements in that country before the days of independence. Twenty years ago Tony Manning-Richards was killed in that car smash in Bugolaland, along with his wife and five-year-old boy. It was ten years later that Magda turned up in Alimumba, the town where she had first lived with her husband in Western Bugolaland. Naturally, she didn’t dare go back to the East, where Tony and his family had been well-known, because she had this fifteen-year-old lad with her whom she described as her orphaned grandson.”
“Who is he?” Henry asked. He felt a little sick. He was thinking of Maud.
The quiet man shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, old boy. Almost certainly Hungarian, maybe a genuine relative of Magda’s. A child of the revolution, that’s for sure, and carefully groomed for his job as a secret agent. His ultra-conservative, die-hard colonialist pose was cleverly done, to judge by the reports we have on him.”
“He,” Henry was aware of grasping at a straw, “he knows who he is, does he?”
“I’d say rather,” said the quiet man, “that he knows who he isn’t. He knows that he’s not Julian Manning-Richards. His meeting with Maud Manciple was no coincidence, nor was his engagement to her. His instructions were to get that job at Bradwood. Think of it.” He sat back in his chair and spoke almost admiringly. “If they could have gotten an agent in there. Sir Claud’s personal aide, married to his physicist niece. Access to every secret document in the place; nothing to do but pass on the information at his leisure; and so firmly entrenched that it would have taken a Royal Commission before anybody dared point a finger of suspicion at him.”
“And Magda?” Henry asked.
“Died last year in Bugolaland. Had, of course, given up all political activity since returning to Bugolaland ten years ago. Of course. Ostensibly. A dear little old lady with her charming grandson. Very much persona grata with the new regime, but politics? Oh, dear me no. Nobody ever mentioned her years in Hungary after the war. Even our people seemed to take it for granted that she’d never left Bugolaland, until they looked into it.” The quiet man looked curiously at Henry. “What beats me,” he said, “is how you rumbled him.”
“It was Aunt Dora,” said Henry.
“Aunt Dora?”
“Old Miss Manciple, who died last week. She—she knew Humphrey Manning-Richards well. She didn’t recognize Julian.”
“Any reason why she should have?”
“She knew he was wrong,” said Henry.
The quiet man raised his eyebrows.
“He didn’t fit. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t recognize him. She quite definitely anti-recognized him, if you follow me.”
“No, I don’t,” said the quiet man.
“And then,” said Henry, “there were the peaches.”
“The peaches?”
“It’s too complicated to explain,” said Henry. “But from one or two things he said, I felt pretty certain that his childhood memories of Bugolaland were pretty hazy, to say the least of it. Yet I knew he’d lived there. Then I realized—he knew about West Bugolaland, where it’s very hot and humid, but he knew very little about East Bugolaland, where he was supposed to have been born and reared and where the climate is quite different.”
“And you deduced all this from a remark about peaches?”
Henry shrugged. “Just call it a hunch,” he said, “a correct one, I’m afraid.”
“You’re afraid?”
“Well, he is such a charming young man,” said Henry.
The quiet man did not bother to reply to this. He was already telephoning instructions with chilling efficiency.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AT FIVE O’CLOCK Emmy emerged from the tea tent to make her way back to her post. Miraculously, the rain had cleared, and a watery sun was doing its best to send out a few farewell shafts before it sank behind the flat, marshy horizon.
In this unexpectedly bright light the Fête looked bedraggled. The setting sun gilded the few unsavory remnants still left in the jumble booth; the Hoopla was down to its last Christmas-cracker rings and brooches; and the jams and jellies had been completely cleared, leaving only the trestle table partially covered by its tailing and jam-smeared sheet. From the shooting range, sporadic shots indicated that business was still reasonably brisk. The schoolchildren, who had been immaculately scrubbed and starched for the opening of the Fête, now wandered in small groups, grubby and tired, but apparently happy. Some of them clutched the prizes they had won in the various sporting events; some of them still trailed the sacks of potatoes which had formed part of their racing equipment; all of them were chewing or sucking candy of some sort, and several of them looked as though they might soon be sick.
In fact, the afternoon was drawing predictably to its close, and Emmy hurried across the lawn to her table. Any moment now the secret of the Vicar’s weight would be revealed, together with the numbers of the winning raffle tickets, the lucky program and the highest scorecard from the shooting range. Then Lady Fenshire would emerge once more from the house, where she and her husband were enjoying, respectively, a cup of tea and a whiskey, with Sir John Adamson; she would again mount the rostrum, names would be called out, and prizes distributed. And at last the Village would feel free to disperse to its various firesides, armed with the ammunition for many evenings of gossip, while the hard core of helpers rallied around Violet Manciple and made a start at clearing up the mess.
With no sense of foreboding whatsoever Emmy walked across the damp grass; and still no warning bell of trouble rang in her mind when she saw Mrs. Manciple emerge, looking worried, from a little knot of people clustered around the Lucky Dip.
“Oh, Mrs. Tibbett,” Violet began.
“Yes, Mrs. Manciple?” said Emmy politely. “I must congratulate you. Everything has gone off splendidly.”
“It’s that Mason boy,” said Violet. “He says it was your idea.”
“What was?” Emmy felt slightly alarmed.
From the center of the group of people Sir Claud’s voice rose in half-amused exasperation. “Mr. Mason, I really must…”
“Go on!” Frank Mason was shouting. “Go on! Take it! There’s no law against it! Go on!”
Other voices began to rise from the group, and Violet Manciple said, “Oh please, Mrs. Tibbett, he may listen to you.”
Reluctantly Emmy pushed toward the bran tub.
Sir Claud Manciple and Frank Mason were facing each other, separated only by the tub. Sir Claud looked as nearly flustered as it is possible for a leading atomic scientist to do. Clearly, Frank Mason was exhibiting a behavior pattern which deviated from the norm, and, with the inadequate facts at his disposal, Sir Claud was unable to form a reasonable hypothesis to account for it. Meanwhile, the Lucky Dip was in danger of fission.
Frank’s red hair was standing on end and his sharp face was white with anger and emotion. He was waving a five-pound note in the air,
and as Emmy approached, he shouted again, “Take it! Take it!”
Around this strange couple a selection of Cregwell’s citizens were standing and staring with that impenetrable inertia which descends on the English, like a cloak of invisibility, when they wish to observe events without being personally implicated. Emmy realized, with a pang of envy, that if any of these onlookers should be appealed to by either side they would simply melt into the landscape and disappear, only to reappear to watch the fun when the threat of involvement had passed. She, however, was in a different position; she had allowed herself to be drawn into the arena.
Frank Mason saw her and was diverted. “Mrs. Tibbett, it was your idea. You must make him see sense!”
“What was my idea?”
“That my book would be in the Lucky Dip.”
“Well, yes. It occurred to me…”
“You’re right, of course. And I’ve got to get it back.”
“Mrs. Tibbett,” said Sir Claud a little desperately, “please reason with this young man. I am in charge of the Lucky Dip, and…”
“Take it!” yelled Frank, attempting to ram the five-pound note into Sir Claud’s waistcoat pocket.
“He wishes,” Sir Claud explained to Emmy, “to buy up the contents of the barrel. Five pounds at sixpence a time would give him two hundred dips, and there cannot be more than twenty objects left in the tub. In any case, everyone should be entitled to his turn…”
“You said nobody had taken out a book,” shouted Frank.
“Nobody while I’ve been in charge,” said Sir Claud with dignity. “However, I was relieved for a short spell by my niece Maud, and…”
“Oh, to hell with the lot of you!” Frank Mason had reached the breaking point. He flung the five-pound note at Sir Claud’s face and overturned the bran tub.
The bran rose into the air like a cloud, and, behind its protective cover, several villagers applauded, while others shouted disapproval. Sir Claud let out a bellow of baffled intellectual rage, and Violet moaned, “Oh dear, oh dear. I knew something like this would happen!”
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