“To the Wesleyan. Their fathers and mothers before them were Wesleyans; their relatives and friends are Wesleyans, one and all, they say; and, most important item of all, the man’s boot and shoe connection lies exclusively among Wesleyan ministers. This, he told me, is the most paying connection that a small boot-maker can have. Half-a-dozen Wesleyan ministers pay better than three times the number of Church clergy, for whereas the Wesleyan minister is always on the tramp among his people, the clergyman generally contrives in the country to keep a horse, or else turns student, and shuts himself up in his study.”
“Ha, ha! Capital,” laughed Mr. Clampe; “tell that to the Church Defence Society in Wales. Isn’t this a first-rate little horse? In another ten minutes we shall be in sight of East Downes.”
The long, dusty road down which they had driven was ending now in a narrow, sloping lane, hedged in on either side with hawthorns and wild plum trees. Through these, the August sunshine was beginning to slant now, and from a distant wood there came a faint sound of fluting and piping, as if the blackbirds were thinking of tuning up for their evening carols.
A sudden, sharp curve in this lane brought them in sight of East Downes, a tiny hamlet of about thirty cottages, dominated by the steeple of a church of early English architecture. Adjoining the church was the vicarage, a goodly-sized house, with extensive grounds, and in a lane running alongside these grounds were situated the village schools and the schoolmistress’s house. The latter was simply a four-roomed cottage, standing in a pretty garden, with cluster roses and honeysuckle, now in the fullness of their August glory, climbing upwards to its very roof.
Outside this cottage Mr. Clampe drew rein.
“If you’ll give me five minutes’ grace,” he said, “I’ll go in and tell the good woman that I have brought her, as a lodger, a friend of mine, who is anxious to get away for a time from the noise and glare of Brighton. Of course, the story of the stolen cheque is all over the place, but I don’t think anyone has, at present, connected me with the affair. I am supposed to be a gentleman from Brighton, who is anxious to buy a horse the Vicar wishes to sell, and who can’t quite arrange terms with him.”
While Loveday waited outside in the cart, an open carriage drove past and then in through the vicarage gates. In the carriage were seated a gentleman and lady whom, from the respectful greetings they received from the village children, she conjectured to be the Rev. Charles and Mrs. Turner. Mr. Turner was sanguine-complexioned, red-haired, and wore a distinctly troubled expression of countenance. With Mrs. Turner’s appearance Loveday was not favourably impressed. Although a decidedly handsome woman, she was hard-featured and had a scornful curl to her upper lip. She was dressed in the extreme of London fashion.
They threw a look of enquiry at Loveday as they passed, and she felt sure that enquiries as to the latest addition to Mrs. Brown’s ménage would soon be afloat in the village.
Mr. Clampe speedily returned, saying that Mrs. Brown was only too delighted to get her spare-room occupied. He whispered a hint as they made their way up to the cottage door between borders thickly planted with stocks and mignonette.
It was:
“Don’t ask her any questions, or she’ll draw herself up as straight as a ramrod, and say she never listens to gossip of any sort. But just let her alone, and she’ll run on like a mill-stream, and tell you as much as you’ll want to know about everyone and everything. She and the village postmistress are great friends, and between them they contrive to know pretty much what goes on inside every house in the place.”
Mrs. Brown was a stout, rosy-cheeked woman of about fifty, neatly dressed in a dark stuff gown with a big white cap and apron. She welcomed Loveday respectfully, and introduced, evidently with a little pride, her daughter, the village schoolmistress, a well-spoken young woman of about eight-and-twenty.
Mr. Clampe departed with his dog-cart to the village inn, announcing his intention of calling on Loveday at the cottage on the following morning before he returned to Brighton.
Miss Brown also departed, saying she would prepare tea. Left alone with Loveday, Mrs. Brown speedily unloosed her tongue. She had a dozen questions to ask respecting Mr. Clampe and his business in the village. Now, was it true that he had come to East Downes for the whole and sole purpose of buying one of the Vicar’s horses? She had heard it whispered that he had been sent by the police to watch the servants at the vicarage. She hoped it was not true, for a more respectable set of servants were not to be met with in any house, far or near. Had Miss Brooke heard about that lost cheque? Such a terrible affair! She had been told that the story of it had reached London. Now, had Miss Brooke seen an account of it in any of the London papers?
Here a reply from Loveday in the negative formed a sufficient excuse for relating with elaborate detail the story of the stolen cheque. Except in its elaborateness of detail, it differed but little from the one Loveday had already heard.
She listened patiently, bearing in mind Mr. Clampe’s hint, and asking no questions. And when, in about a quarter of an hour’s time, Miss Brown came in with the tea-tray in her hand, Loveday could have passed an examination in the events of the daily family life at the vicarage. She could have answered questions as to the ill-assortedness of the newly-married couple; she knew that they wrangled from morning till night; that the chief subjects of their disagreement were religion and money matters; that the Vicar was hot-tempered, and said whatever came to the tip of his tongue; that the beautiful young wife, though slower of speech, was scathing and sarcastic, and that, in addition, she was wildly extravagant and threw money away in all directions.
In addition to these interesting facts, Loveday could have undertaken to supply information respecting the number of servants at the vicarage, together with their names, ages and respective duties.
During tea, conversation flagged somewhat; Miss Brown’s presence evidently acted repressively on her mother, and it was not until the meal was over and Loveday was being shown to her room by Mrs. Brown that opportunity to continue the talk was found.
Loveday opened the ball by remarking on the fact that no Dissenting chapel was to be found in the village.
“Generally, wherever there is a handful of cottages, we find a church at one end and a chapel at the other,” she said; “but here, willy-nilly, one must go to church.”
“Do you belong to chapel, ma’am?” was Mrs. Brown’s reply. “Old Mrs. Turner, the Vicar’s mother, who died over a year ago, was so ‘low’ she was almost chapel, and used often to drive over to Brighton to attend the Countess of Huntingdon’s church. People used to say that was bad enough in the Vicar’s mother; but what was it compared with what goes on now—the Vicar’s wife driving regularly every Sunday into Brighton to a Catholic Church to say her prayers to candles and images? I’m glad you like the room, ma’am. Feather bolster, feather pillows, do you see, ma’am? I’ve nothing in the way of flock or wool on either of my beds to make people’s head ache.” Here Mrs. Brown, by way of emphasis, patted and pinched the fat pillows and bolster showing above the spotless white counterpane.
Loveday stood at the cottage window drinking in the sweetness of the country air, laden now with the heavy evening scents of carnation and jessamine. Across the road, from the vicarage, came the loud clanging of a dinner-gong, and almost simultaneously the church clock chimed the hour—seven o’clock.
“Who is that person coming up the lane?” asked Loveday, her attention suddenly attracted by a tall, thin figure, dressed in shabby black, with a large, dowdyish bonnet, and carrying a basket in her hand as if she were returning from some errand. Mrs. Brown peeped over Loveday’s shoulder.
“Ah, that’s the peculiar young woman I was telling you about, ma’am—Maria Lisle, who used to be old Mrs. Turner’s maid. Not that she is over young now; she’s five-and-thirty if she’s a day. The Vicar kept her on to be his wife’s maid after the old lady died, but young Mrs. Turner will have nothing to do with her, she’s not good enough for her; so Mr
. Turner is just paying her £30 a year for doing nothing. And what Maria does with all that money it would be hard to say. She doesn’t spend it on dress, that’s certain, and she hasn’t kith nor kin, not a soul belonging to her to give a penny to.”
“Perhaps she gives it to charities in Brighton. There are plenty of outlets for money there.”
“She may,” said Mrs. Brown dubiously; “she is always going to Brighton whenever she gets a chance. She used to be a Wesleyan in old Mrs. Turner’s time, and went regularly to all the revival meetings for miles round; what she is now, it would be hard to say. Where she goes to church in Brighton, no one knows. She drives over with Mrs. Turner every Sunday, but everyone knows nothing would induce her to go near the candles and images. Thomas—that’s the coachman—says he puts her down at the corner of a dirty little street in mid-Brighton, and there he picks her up again after he has fetched Mrs. Turner from her church. No, there’s something very queer in her ways.”
Maria passed in through the lodge gates of the vicarage. She walked with her head bent, her eyes cast down to the ground.
“Something very queer in her ways,” repeated Mrs. Brown. “She never speaks to a soul unless they speak first to her, and gets by herself on every possible opportunity. Do you see that old summer-house over there in the vicarage grounds—it stands between the orchard and kitchen garden—well, every evening at sunset, out comes Maria and disappears into it, and there she stays for over an hour at a time. And what she does there goodness only knows!”
“Perhaps she keeps books there, and studies.”
“Studies! My daughter showed her some new books that had come down for the fifth standard the other day, and Maria turned upon her and said quite sharply that there was only one book in the whole world that people ought to study, and that book was the Bible.”
“How pretty those vicarage gardens are,” said Loveday, a little abruptly. “Does the Vicar ever allow people to see them?”
“Oh, yes, miss; he doesn’t at all mind people taking a walk round them. Only yesterday he said to me, ‘Mrs. Brown, if ever you feel yourself circumscribed’—yes, ‘circumscribed’ was the word—‘just walk out of your garden-gate and in at mine and enjoy yourself at your leisure among my fruit-trees.’ Not that I would like to take advantage of his kindness and make too free; but if you’d care, ma’am, to go for a walk through the grounds, I’ll go with you with pleasure. There’s a wonderful old cedar hard by the pond people have come ever so far to see.”
“It’s that old summer-house and little bit of orchard that fascinate me,” said Loveday, putting on her hat.
“We shall frighten Maria to death if she sees us so near her haunt,” said Mrs. Brown as she led the way downstairs. “This way, if you please, ma’am, the kitchen-garden leads straight into the orchard.”
Twilight was deepening rapidly into night now. Bird notes had ceased, the whirr of insects, the croaking of a distant frog were the only sounds that broke the evening stillness.
As Mrs. Brown swung back the gate that divided the kitchen-garden from the orchard, the gaunt, black figure of Maria Lisle was seen approaching in an opposite direction.
“Well, really, I don’t see why she should expect to have the orchard all to herself every evening,” said Mrs. Brown, with a little toss of her head. “Mind the gooseberry bushes, ma’am, they do catch at your clothes so. My word! what a fine show of fruit the Vicar has this year! I never saw pear trees more laden!”
They were now in the bit of orchard to be seen from the cottage windows. As they rounded the corner of the path in which the old summer-house stood, Maria Lisle turned its corner at the farther end, and suddenly found herself almost face to face with them. If her eyes and not been so persistently fastened on the ground, she would have noted the approach of the intruders as quickly as they had noted hers. Now, as she saw them for the first time, she gave a sudden start, paused for a moment irresolutely, and then turned sharply and walked rapidly away in an opposite direction.
“Maria, Maria!” called Mrs. Brown, “don’t run away; we sha’n’t stay here for more than a minute or so.”
Her words met with no response. The woman did not so much as turn her head.
Loveday stood at the entrance of the old summer-house. It was considerably out of repair, and most probably was never entered by anyone save Maria Lisle, its unswept, undusted condition suggesting colonies of spiders and other creeping things within.
Loveday braved them all and took her seat on the bench that ran round the little place in a semi-circle.
“Do try and overtake the girl, and tell her we shall be gone in a minute,” she said, addressing Mrs. Brown. “I will wait here meanwhile. I am so sorry to have frightened her away in that fashion.”
Mrs. Brown, under protest, and with a little grumble at the ridiculousness of “people who couldn’t look other people in the face,” set off in pursuit of Maria.
It was getting dim inside the summer-house now. There was, however, sufficient light to enable Loveday to discover a small packet of books lying in a corner of the bench on which she sat.
One by one she took them in her hand and closely scrutinized them. The first was a much read and pencil-marked Bible; the others were respectively, a congregational hymn-book, a book in a paper cover, on which was printed a flaming picture of a red and yellow angel, pouring blood and fire from out a big black bottle, and entitled The End of the Age, and a smaller book, also in a paper cover, on which was depicted a huge black horse, snorting fire and brimstone into ochre-coloured clouds. This book was entitled The Year Book of the Saints, and was simply a ruled diary with sensational mottoes for every day in the year. In parts, this diary was filled in with large and very untidy handwriting. In these books seemed to lie the explanation of Maria Lisle’s love of evening solitude and the lonely old summer-house.
Mrs. Brown pursued Maria to the servants’ entrance to the house, but could not overtake her, the girl making good her retreat there.
She returned to Loveday a little hot, a little breathless, and a little out of temper. It was all so absurd, she said; why couldn’t the woman have stayed and had a chat with them? It wasn’t as if she would get any harm out of the talk; she knew as well as everyone else in the village that she (Mrs. Brown) was no idle gossip, tittle-tattling over other people’s affairs.
But here Loveday, a little sharply, cut short her meanderings.
“Mrs. Brown,” she said, and to Mrs. Brown’s fancy her voice and manner had entirely changed from that of the pleasant, chatty lady of half-an-hour ago, “I’m sorry to say it will be impossible for me to stay even one night in your pleasant home, I have just recollected some important business that I must transact in Brighton tonight. I haven’t unpacked my portmanteau, so if you’ll kindly have it taken to your garden-gate, I’ll call for it as we drive past—I am going now, at once, to the inn, to see if Mr. Clampe can drive me back into Brighton tonight.”
Mrs. Brown had no words ready wherewith to express her astonishment, and Loveday assuredly gave her no time to hunt for them. Ten minutes later saw her rousing Mr. Clampe from a comfortable supper, to which he had just settled himself, with the surprising announcement that she must get back to Brighton with as little delay as possible; now, would he be good enough to drive her there?
“We’ll have a pair if they are to be had,” she added. “The road is good; it will be moonlight in a quarter of an hour; we ought to do it in less than half the time we took coming.”
While a phaeton and pair were being got ready, Loveday had time for a few words of explanation.
Maria Lisle’s diary in the old summer-house had given her the last of the links in her chain of evidence that was to bring the theft of the cheque home to the criminal.
“It will be best to drive straight to the police station,” she said; “they must take out three warrants, one for Maria Lisle, and two others respectively for Richard Steele, late Wesleyan minister of a chapel in Gordon Street, Brighton
, and John Rogers, formerly elder of the same chapel. And let me tell you,” she added with a little smile, “that these three worthies would most likely have been left at large to carry on their depredations for some little time to come if it had not been for that ridiculous ghost in Fountain Lane.”
More than this there was not time to add, and when, a few minutes later, the two were rattling along the road to Brighton, the presence of the man, whom they were forced to take with them in order to bring back the horses to East Downes, prevented any but the most jerky and fragmentary of additions to this brief explanation.
“I very much fear that John Rogers has bolted,” once Loveday whispered under her breath.
And again, a little later, when a smooth bit of road admitted of low-voiced talk, she said:
“We can’t wait for the warrant for Steele; they must follow us with it to 15, Draycott Street.”
“But I want to know about the ghost,” said Mr. Clampe; “I am deeply interested in that ridiculous ghost.”
“Wait till we get to 15, Draycott Street,” was Loveday’s reply; “when you’ve been there, I feel sure you will understand everything.”
Church clocks were chiming a quarter to nine as they drove through Kemp Town at a pace that made the passersby imagine they must be bound on an errand of life and death.
Loveday did not alight at the police station, and five minutes’ talk with the inspector in charge there was all that Mr. Clampe required to put things en train for the arrest of the three criminals.
It had evidently been an “excursionists’ day” at Brighton. The streets leading to the railway station were thronged, and their progress along the bye streets was impeded by the overflow of traffic from the main road.
“We shall get along better on foot; Draycott Street is only a stone’s throw from here,” said Loveday; “there’s a turning on the north side of Western Road that will bring us straight into it.”
So they dismissed their trap, and Loveday, acting as cicerone‡ still, led the way through narrow turnings into the district, half town, half country, that skirts the road leading to the Dyke.
In the Shadow of Agatha Christie Page 13