by Robin Paige
By the time he managed to sort through everything, Patrick realized that he probably knew more about what had happened and what was going to happen than Mr. Tudwell himself—more than anyone else in the entire village, maybe. This realization might have made another boy feel puffed up and important, but it only made Patrick apprehensive. He was not a particularly moral child—as for most boys of his age, morality was a matter of what served most handily—but he knew that his dilemma was essentially a moral one. Mr. Tudwell had been a father to him when his own father had turned his back—wasn’t it right that he should tell him what the villagers were planning so that he could take steps against the conspirators? But if Patrick told and Mr. Tudwell fixed things for now, the eventual catastrophe—for it would come, of that Patrick was certain—could hurt a great many people. And whatever loyalties Patrick owed the stablemaster, Mr. Tudwell had led the village into the valley of temptation, as the vicar would put it—shouldn’t he pay for what he had done? Patrick was seized with another fit of shivering at the thought of a third death. There had to be a better way out.
The boy sat on his haunches for another ten minutes, pondering alternatives. Since he had come to Rottingdean, Mr. Tudwell had been the most important man he knew. That was no longer true, however. Patrick knew two other important men, and they might be able to help sort this thing out. He stood, looked cautiously out of the loose-box, and surveyed the passage in both directions, then slipped out and headed down the path. The story whose beginning he had seen that night on the beach now had a middle, and perhaps even an end. It was time to tell it to Mr. Kipling.
Kate was glad that today was Mrs. Portney’s half-holiday, for that meant that she and Charles could talk without fear of being overheard. It was well after six o’clock, and the informal but generous supper laid out on a white cloth on the drawing-room table was more than welcome. Amelia had lighted the gas lamps, the fire was burning cheerfully, and Kate, having changed into her favorite yellow silk dress, was pouring tea. Charles came into the room wearing a smoking jacket, his brown hair freshly combed
He sat down beside the fire with a tired sigh. “And this was meant to be our holiday! I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t intend—”
“Sshh,” she said. “It’s no matter. There will be time for our holiday.” She took him his cup of tea. “You’ve had a very long day. You must be exhausted.”
“I’m tired,” Charles admitted. “But I feel we are making progress.” He grinned ruefully. “Although I’m damned if I know what we’re progressing toward. Just when I think I understand it, something else presents itself.” He shook his head. “Like those blasted overlays,” he muttered.
Kate put a cold tongue sandwich on a plate, added several small egg-and-anchovy sandwiches and a generous spoonful of potato salad and dressed cucumbers. “I hope you don’t mind a cold supper,” she said, putting the plate on the small table beside his chair. “Mrs. Portney is out.”
Charles caught her hand and kissed it, then let it go. “I was well fed at luncheon. Barriston insisted that Pinckney and I share his partridge pie and apple pudding while we waited for the X-rays.”
A few silent moments passed while Charles ate and Kate prepared her own plate. When she had sat down on the other side of the fire, her plate in her lap, he said, “Would you like to hear what went on in Brighton—besides the partridge pie, that is?” He regarded her, his head on one side. “Although some of it is a bit grisly. Perhaps the story should wait until we’ve finished our suppers.”
“No, tell,” Kate commanded, and listened while he related the outcome of the two autopsies and his conversation with the gun shop owner. “It’s lucky that Dr. Barriston was able to take the X-rays and retrieve the bullet,” she said, when he had finished.
“Lucky indeed. The bullet would have been found, most likely, but the job would have taken a great deal more time.” He frowned at the fire. “I don’t know, though, that we learned anything from the bullet that we had not already surmised from the cartridge. We shall just have to wait and see what can be found out from Mr. Barker’s inquiries in London. If it is true that there are very few guns of that type, we might have something.”
“What about your errands here in Rottingdean?”
Abstractedly, Charles picked up his napkin and blotted his lips. “Yes. Well, I stopped for a visit with the constable, who is up to his ears in all of this.” He gave her a half-smile. “His nickname, by the way, is Fat Jack.”
Kate looked up at him, startled. “The constable is involved in the smuggling?” Then, more thoughtfully, she remarked, “Well, I suppose he would have to be in on it, in one way or another. This is a small village. The constable would certainly have to know what was going on. And then of course he’d have to pretend not to, or he’d have to arrest people, or report them, or something.”
“Precisely. Fat Jack is a lazy man with a very simple philosophy: people who don’t ask questions are never told any lies.”
Kate was thinking that Charles’s reply was remarkably like Kipling’s line, “Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie,” when the door opened and Amelia stepped in. “A Mr. Kipling is ‘ere t’ call,” she said, “wi’ a young boy—Patrick, I b’lieve.”
Kate turned, surprised, as Rud and the boy—dressed in the same coarse shirt and green corduroys he had worn that morning, and still without a jacket—came into the room.
“Forgive us for interrupting your supper,” Rud said. “We wouldn’t have come at such an hour, but it seemed rather ... well, urgent.”
“It’s no interruption,” Charles said. “We’ve finished, although there is plenty left for those who are hungry.”
Kate smiled at Patrick, who stood shyly behind Rud. “Would you like a glass of milk and a sandwich, Patrick?”
The boy pushed back an unruly lock of hair. “Thank you,” he said, and took the chair Kate pulled out for him at the table. She sent Amelia for milk and heaped a plate with food, which the boy began to devour hungrily.
“You’ve eaten, Rud?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you,” he replied. “We had a late, large tea, and Carrie is off to bed with a flannel brick at her feet and a magazine in her hand—containing one of Beryl Bardwell’s stories, if I’m not mistaken. Her cold is troublesome, and the house is beastly damp. I dare say bed is the best place for her.” He eyed the decanter of port on the table. “I’d be grateful for a glass of something, though. If you’ve the time to listen, Patrick has a story to tell, and stories do go better with a glass.”
“Well, then,” Kate said, pouring a glass for Kipling. “When Patrick has finished eating, we can all listen.”
“Meanwhile, Rud,” Charles said to Kipling, “I have one or two things to tell you about today’s inquiries. Shall we go into the garden for a smoke?”
When Patrick had finished and the men had come back, the three of them joined Kate at the fire. “A story?” she asked, looking expectantly at Patrick, sitting in a large chair that made him look like a very small boy. “Well, tell away, then, Patrick. We are all ears.”
Patrick told the story simply and straightforwardly, with very little nervousness. When he came to the end, he lowered his head and said to Charles, “I’m sorry, sir, really I am. I expect that if I’d told earlier, Captain Smith might not have gotten killed.”
“Because he would have been in jail for murdering George Radford, you mean?” Charles asked dryly.
“Something like that,” Patrick said. Kate heard the unhappiness in his voice and impulsively reached out to touch his hand. “The trouble was,” he added, “I wasn’t sure it was really Captain Smith rowing the skiff that night—although the coast guards always wear black oilskins, while everybody else wears yellow. Almost everyone else,” he amended.
“That’s right!” Kate exclaimed. “George Radford had black oilskins. I saw them hanging in the cottage today.”
“Who else has black oilskins, Patrick?” Charles asked.
The boy hung h
is head. “Mr. Tudwell,” he said, after a minute.
“Harry Tudwell,” Kipling said, “has been a good friend to Patrick. Given him work and taken him shooting and the like.”
“I see,” Charles said.
Patrick bit his lip. “I was sure that it was the coast guard skiff, too—but then, anybody could have borrowed it. It’s kept on the beach, right there at the Gap. So I didn’t tell, because I didn’t ... well, I wasn’t sure just who to tell, or whether telling was right. I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, and I was really only guessing.”
“Sometimes guesses are all there are to go on,” Charles remarked.
“The part I really don’t understand, though,” Kipling said, pulling at his mustache with a frown, “is that man—the antiquarian, you called him?”
“Yes, but he isn‘t,” the boy said. “That’s only what he pretends to be, sir. I’ve seen him out among the downs poking around and sighting with his compass and marking up his maps, but he’s always miles away from the burial sites and the old settlements. And I’ve seen him talking to Captain Smith.” Patrick frowned. “I think I’ve seen him somewhere else, too, only he didn’t—” His voice trailed off and he shook his head as if he were puzzled.
“It sounds as if he reports to the men who are financing this enterprise,” Kate said thoughtfully. “What was it he called them? Investors? They must make a huge profit when all the goods are sold.”
“They haul it all to London, I suppose,” Kipling remarked. “That’s where they’re likely to get the best price.”
“Some of the goods go to Brighton,” Patrick put in. “Mr. Tudwell sends me with messages which are supposed to be about horses but which are really about tobacco and brandy.” He smiled self-consciously. “It’s like a game, you see. Everybody knows it’s not horses, but everybody pretends not to know anything.”
“The Great Game,” Charles said reflectively.
“What doesn’t go to Brighton or London is sold in the High Street,” Kate said, and told about her afternoon’s shopping expedition and Mrs. Portney’s offer to find brandy and truffles.
“My word.” Kipling beetled his thick brows in mock dismay. “The dressmaker, the tobacconist, and the grocer? Oh, Rottingdean, innocent Rottingdean, to what depths have you descended? I daresay we’ll soon be hearing that the vicar is holding the lantern.”
“Actually,” Patrick said, “this vicar is new, and too proud to hold a lantern for anybody.” He looked puzzled at Kipling’s chuckle and added, earnestly, “But the very oldest tunnel under the village goes to the vicarage, and the Reverend Hooker was a lookout man for the old Rottingdean gang. He probably held the lantern.”
“Look here, lad,” Kipling said sternly, “how do you know where the tunnel goes? And about Hooker, too, for that matter.”
“I know about the Reverend Hooker because Mr. Forsythe—he’s the village schoolmaster—told me. And I know about the tunnels because I go...” He corrected himself. “I mean, I used to go down there with the other boys.”
“Used to?” Charles asked.
“When I first came here. Now, though, we’re not supposed to. Mr. Tudwell told me to keep clear, and Ernie Shepherd got an awful beating from his father for going down there.”
“Because it’s dangerous?” Kate asked. “I suppose there might be cave-ins, or you could get lost.”
“Because we’re not supposed to know that the men are working down there,” Patrick replied off-handedly. “Last year, you see, they repaired the old tunnels and dug some new ones and made the underground cellar much bigger.”
“ ‘They’?” Charles asked. “Who was in charge of the excavation?”
The boy bit his lip. “Mr. Tudwell.” He raised his eyes. “But he’s a good man,” he burst out. “Good to me, anyway. He ... he’s looked after me.”
“I see,” Charles said. “Well, then. You were saying that you weren’t to go into the tunnel.”
“Right. We weren’t to know anything about it, but the end of it comes out in the cliff. It’s behind a rock fall, but we found where they tipped the spoil out on the beach so that the waves could wash it away.”
“I don’t suppose,” Charles said pensively, “that you did as you were told. About the tunnels, I mean.” He looked straight at Patrick, and there was a twinkle in his eye. “If I were your age, nothing would keep me out of them.”
“Yes, m‘lord,” Patrick said, unblinkingly. “I daresay that’s true, m’lord.”
Kate suppressed a giggle.
Charles took out the scrap of paper on which the tunnel was drawn and showed it to Patrick. “This is a sketch of the tunnel system, isn’t it? Is this accurate?”
The boy studied it for a moment, then nodded. “More or less, sir. This is where it comes out on the beach. And this”—he pointed—“is the new section.”
“Where’s the underground cellar?” Charles asked.
“Here.” Patrick put his finger on the map, at a point not far from Seabrooke House. “Where this circle is.”
“How big is it?”
Patrick looked around. “Bigger than this room. The ceiling is a lot lower, though.”
“What are you getting at, Charles?” Kipling asked.
“I’d like to see this tunnel for myself,” Charles said. “Where can we get in without attracting any attention?”
“How about my cellar?” Kipling offered. “We’d have to unblock the passage, but it probably wouldn’t be very much work. We’d have to do it, though,” he added ruefully, “without waking Carrie. She wouldn’t be quite easy if she knew we were larking about in the old smugglers’ tunnel.”
Patrick shook his head. “It would be easier from the cellar here, sir. There’s an entry behind that big wooden rack where they keep the wine bottles. All you have to do is unhook a wire and push the rack to one side. There’s a hasp on the door, but it isn’t locked.”
“Of course there’s an entry there!” Kate exclaimed, thinking of the broken brandy bottle. “But how do you know about it, Patrick?”
“Mrs. Portney is Mrs. Higgs’s sister,” Patrick said. “I’ve helped her carry things up and down the stairs.” He looked at Charles. “If you want to see the tunnel and the cellar, sir, I could show you. We’d need lanterns, though.” He glanced at Charles’s smoking jacket. “And you’d need to wear something else. It’s filthy down there.”
“There are lanterns hanging on the wall in the back passage,” Kate said, standing up. “I’ll get them, and we can all go.”
Charles gave her a firm look. “Not all of us,” he said. “You must stay here, Kate.”
“But that’s not fair!” she protested. “I want to go. I’ve never been in a tunnel. And besides, Beryl Bardwell is considering putting the tunnels into a story, and she can’t do that if she hasn’t seen them.” She looked down at her full yellow skirt. “Wait while I change. It will only take a moment.”
“When this is all over,” Charles said, “you can climb into a pair of my trousers and you and Beryl can explore as much as you like. But tonight, we need someone to stand watch for us, in case there’s difficulty.”
Patrick gave her a sympathetic look. “I’ll be glad to go with you and this Beryl person,” he volunteered helpfully. “I can show you all kinds of interesting things. If you don’t mind rats,” he added. “And bats, at the beach end.”
“Good,” Charles said. “Now, where will we find those lanterns?”
And with that, Kate had to be satisfied.
25
“I warned the old fox and his neighbours long ago that they’d come to trouble with their side-sellings and bye-dealings; but we cannot have half Sussex banged for a little gun-running.”
—RUDYARD KIPLING Puck of Pook’s Hill
“Are we ready?” Charles asked, checking his trousers pocket for his compass, the map, and a small notebook. Patrick seemed confident enough, and Charles doubted that either compass or map would be necessary, but it might be good to get a s
ense of where they were with reference to the aboveground features.
“Ready, by heaven!” Kipling exclaimed, lifting the lantern to peer into the dark opening in the cellar wall. “Yo-ho-ho and a dead man’s chest. How Stevenson would have loved this adventure!”
As the boy had said, the wine rack was easily pushed aside and the plank door readily opened to reveal a narrow, low-ceilinged passageway.
Charles turned to Kate. “We’ll leave the door open,” he said, “and one of the lanterns here with you. When do you expect Mrs. Portney to return?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said, her worried look giving her away. “Do you really think this is a good idea? What if you’re discovered? What if you meet some of the villagers in the tunnel?”
“We won‘t,” Patrick said in a reassuring tone. “It’s such a beastly place that nobody ever comes down unless they’re hauling or digging or something. And if they were doing that, we would hear ’em. Sound carries a long way in the tunnel. Sometimes you can hear people talking all the way at the other end.”
“Then I’ll hear you,” Kate said, “if you call out.”
“You will,” Charles promised her. He suspected that they were in greater danger of discovery by Mrs. Portney than by anyone else. But he patted his jacket just the same, making sure that he had the pistol that the Chief Constable had lent him. He did not think there would be trouble, or he would not have allowed the boy to lead them; on the other hand, it was well to be armed.
By the time they had gone fifty yards or so in the direction of the beach, Charles had decided that the boy was right: the tunnel was a beastly place, indeed, a place for gnomes and earth-people. It was scarcely wider than Charles’s shoulders, and too low for him to stand erect. The chalk walls were grayish-white and bore the marks of picks and chisels, like the toothmarks of some ancient beast, and here and there clusters of embedded flint nodules, glinted in the lantern light. The ceiling was covered with soot, where it had been blackened by the burning pitch of long-ago torches. At one point, a date had been hacked roughly into the rock, with soot rubbed into it so that it stood out against the whiteness.