‘Atmosphere only?’ Dyson asked. The words came from his mouth like reluctant bullets.
‘Not only. As my wife would tell you. But won’t, because I’ll ask her not to. Not just yet. No good talking until I’ve got a bit straighter … But I’ve got jobs for you tomorrow …’
Dyson sat up with a jerk. ‘Tomorrow? What about Dollboys?’
‘After Dollboys,’ said Anthony. ‘We’re coming into the open with Dollboys tomorrow. Early, you and Flood and I interview Mr Dollboys. And what you’ve begun with Dollboys I’ll finish. You two’ll be free as soon as Dollboys and I’ve begun our chat.’
Dyson squirmed in his chair. Behind his glasses his eyes were tight shut. His lank black hair seemed more than ever like a disorderly and badly-attached wig. His thin-lipped mouth opened as if he were about to speak. But he shut it again before sound had escaped him. At him Flood gazed with a smile which grew into the widest of grins. Still grinning he looked at Anthony and winked. He said, in a stage-whisper:
‘He’s not used to it.’
Dyson opened his eyes. They blazed at his friend.
‘Shut y’r mouth!’ said Dyson.
Anthony looked down at him. ‘Dyson,’ he said, ‘I’m running this business. Possibly you’d run it better. Only it’s no use running at all if we don’t run one way.’ His voice was very pleasant.
Dyson shut his eyes again. His mouth emitted a sound which may have been the word ‘Quite!’
Lucia did not allow the silence which followed to remain.
‘Wherever,’ she said, ‘is Mr Pike?’
Flood shrugged. Dyson made no reply of voice or gesture.
‘I can guess,’ said Anthony. ‘No; I won’t say. I might be wrong, you know.’
Lucia glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece. ‘It’s so late,’ she said.
The clock struck the quarter-hour past two. And on the last of its strokes the door opened.
Pike came in. He wore no overcoat, but the collar of his tweed jacket was upturned. At sight of Lucia, who smiled at him, he snatched from his head the cap which had been pulled down almost over his eyes. Despite the cold of the outer night his face was flushed beneath its tan, and there was a gleam of sweat upon his forehead. His boots looked sodden; and to the tweed trousers there stuck blades of grass, a burr or two, and traces of mouldering leaves.
Dyson opened his eyes, squirmed round in his chair, said ‘Enter bit of Big Four!’ and closed his eyes again. Pike, fumbling at his collar to turn it down, came near to the fire. To Lucia he made a slight, stiff, pleasing little bow. He said, looking at Anthony:
‘’Fraid I’m a bit late, sir. I’ve been with that Dollboys, only he didn’t know.’ He chuckled a little. ‘These two’—a little circular movement of his head indicated Flood and Dyson—‘frightened him so much, I thought he’d be none the worse with an eye on him, as you might say.’
Dyson snorted. ‘He’s not suicidal. Wrong sort of guts, if any.’
Flood nodded.
Pike gazed from one to the other of them something in the manner of a parent proud yet irritated by precociousness in offspring. He said drily:
‘Maybe. Or maybe not. But he is the sort that might do a bolt. Quite easy too. And s’pose he’d flitted tonight, where’d we have been? It would’ve made us surer still that he knew something, but it also might’ve made us too late finding out what it was that he knew … This isn’t any ordin’ry case; we’re up against time, time, time!… And I didn’t want what you two had started—and none so badly either—spoiled for a ha’porth o’ tar.’
Dyson grunted. But Flood said:
‘Believe you’re right, Lestrade.’
‘Entirely right,’ Anthony said. ‘Good work, Pike. And Dollboys is all right till the morning, is he?’
Pike nodded. He looked down, rather ruefully, at a rent in his jacket. ‘I’ve been atop of a shed he’s got there next his house. I could see right into his bedroom. He took a long time getting to bed, but he’s there OK …’ He broke off to stare at Flood, who was looking at him speculatively; he returned the look. His tone changed to one of cheerful truculence. ‘What’s up with you?’ he said.
‘I was wondering’—Flood was bland but curious—‘exactly how you got to Dollboys’ house. And back.’
Pike smiled; a grim, small smile with triumph somewhere within it. He said:
‘I walked back. That’s why I’m late. I went there by motor-car. Dollboys’s motor-car. I was in the dickey, though he didn’t know that. I shut the top behind me. You see, Mr Flood, they do teach us just one or two things in the Police. And one of ’em’s to think quick. And another’s to take a chance … Thank you, sir.’ This as he took the proffered tumbler from Anthony’s hand.
Dyson’s voice came again. It said:
‘This other job for the morning, after Dollboys? …’
Anthony turned. ‘Yes. One, for you or Flood or both, according to what the morning brings, is to rout out everything you can about a woman. Decent reticence to be jettisoned …’
‘Haven’t got any,’ said Dyson.
‘Mine sloughs,’ said Flood.
Anthony smiled. ‘The name,’ he said, ‘is Carter-Fawcett.’
Dyson opened his eyes. Flood whistled. Anthony surveyed them. He said:
‘Thought you’d know the sound. She’s news, I suppose?’
‘With two capital Ns.’ Flood had got to his feet. ‘You don’t mean to say she’s mixed up in this business?’
‘I don’t,’ said Anthony, ‘know myself what I mean to say. Except that I could bear to know about her.’
Dyson grinned. ‘Tall order. Don’t suppose she does herself. I’ll have a slap at it.’
‘Or,’ said Flood, ‘me.’ He looked at Anthony. ‘What’s the other job? Or jobs?’
Anthony shook his head. ‘That I’ll tell in the morning. I may change my mind about it—if I’ve got one to change … And now we’ll sleep. All of us. May not be much time for it soon.’
Lucia got to her feet. She was pale, though not with fatigue. Her eyes were enormous. She said:
‘I shan’t sleep. I’m too excited.’ She took a step towards her husband. Her hand came out and rested long, slender fingers upon his arm. ‘If …’ she began. She hesitated; tried again. ‘If this man Dollboys … if you see him in the morning and … won’t you be able to—to make him tell? And if he tells, isn’t it … well, over? I mean … oh! You know what I mean!’ Her voice broke a little on those last six words. Her fingers gripped at the arm they held. She looked up into her husband’s eyes. She had forgotten the other men.
Anthony smiled at her. ‘Of course I do. And you might—you may—be absolutely right, dear. But we daren’t count on that. That’s the obvious, easy solution. So obvious and easy that the chances are against its coming out that way. Never mind what they tell you, its not generally the obvious that happens in this sort of business. Especially in real life, which is very nearly always true to the canons of Wallace. Edgar, I mean.’ He turned to the three men. ‘Dollboys early,’ he said. ‘Before breakfast Dyson, Flood and myself’ll go down there. Six-thirty start. Dyson and Flood, we’ll fix up your other jobs definitely on the way. Pike, will you wait till I come back?’
He received three nods. Lucia, with an effort, smiled and said ‘Good night.’ She smiled once and spoke once; but somehow each of the three was sure that he, at least, had not been overlooked. She slipped a hand through her husband’s arm. Flood held the door for them.
At the head of the stairs, Anthony felt upon his upper arm a sudden, convulsive little squeeze. Lucia shrank against him. He looked down; she was pointing, her arm fully outstretched, at the door to the left of the stairhead. Beneath it showed a thin blade of yellow light.
In the semi-darkness Anthony nodded. He freed his arm and slipped it about soft shoulders. ‘I know,’ he said. But there’s nothing to do, except what we’re doing. And we’re getting on.’ The lighted room was the room of Selma Bronson.
‘Think of it! Just think … I don’t suppose she’s slept for … even since the Appeal … Poor thing! Poor, poor thing!’ Her voice was dull and heavy. In her lap her hands twisted about each other.
‘Think,’ said Anthony, ‘of what I just said. We’ve done something. We’re doing something. We’ve done better, really, than we’d any right to expect. It won’t do us, or her, any good to get overwhelmed by pity.’ He put a hand beneath her chin and tilted up her face. He smiled down at her. ‘Don’t forget Dollboys,’ he said. ‘And what we’re going to find out tomorrow … today, really. We’re going to be a lot further on before we go to bed again. Dollboys, you know, is a gift from the gods. I don’t know what we’d do without our Dollboys. And that’s the truest thing I’ve said tonight. You get to bed and dream of Dollboys and what Dollboys will bring. He might even—I didn’t say it wasn’t a possibility—he might even give a complete solution. He might say: ‘That’s the man!’ and tell me X’s name … I’m afraid he won’t go quite as far as that, but he might. There’s no denying he might … But whatever he says, and whatever he does, you can bet your small and expensive shoes it’s going to put us on the right pair of rails.’
Lucia’s face had changed. The despair of hopeless pity had gone from it. Her colour had come back. Once more she was eager. She interrupted. She said:
‘But … but all that tonight? All the what you call oddities?’
‘Won’t,’ said Anthony, ‘be oddities any longer. Not in the end. When Dollboys talks, I daresay most of the oddnesses ’ll be smoothed out at once. And any that are left ’ll drop into place just a bit further up that line that the talk of Dollboys is going to put us on to.’ He was not looking at Lucia now, but above her head and out into nothingness; there were lines in his face which had not been there before he began to speak of Dollboys.
Lucia studied him. She drew in her breath sharply. She said, in a smaller voice:
‘What are you going to do to that man?… Suppose he won’t say anything?’
Anthony brought back his gaze. He smiled. ‘He’s got to say something. And say a lot. He will, all right.’
Lucia kept her eyes upon his face. She shuddered a little. ‘I don’t think,’ she said uncertainly, ‘that I like you looking like that. And yet I do …’
Anthony pointed, towards the western wall of their room. ‘Remember her,’ he said. ‘I was telling you not to just now. But in a different way … And remember Bronson himself … It’s up to us to …’ He left his sentence unfinished. His tone changed. He said: ‘But just at present don’t remember anything—except that I’ve got to be out of bed in four hours and that if you’re not in bed within three minutes I’ll beat you. And once you’re in bed you go to sleep and dream dreams about the trustworthiness of your Uncle Stalky.’
CHAPTER V
SATURDAY
I
THERE was heavy mist in the morning. It lay like white, heavy wool over the land. Down a road which might, for all the three men could see of it, as well have been a river, crawled Anthony’s car. Anthony drove. Beside him, huddled in an oil-stained, creased and ancient weather-proof of an astonishing yellowness, was Dyson. Upon the nearside running-board, clinging to door-top and windscreen, stood Flood. He was bent half-double, peering at the road’s left-hand edge. Every moment he gave hoarse directions. By them Anthony steered.
The first two miles and a half of the four-mile journey took them twenty minutes which seemed an hour. Dyson said, drawing the yellow coat yet more closely about him:
‘Quicker walk. Let’s try it.’
Anthony shook his head. ‘Might clear up any moment. And anyhow it’ll have gone by the time you want to come back.’
They went on. In patches, the mist began to lift, so that they could sometimes see as much as fifty yards ahead of them. And then would come a dense patch, seeming denser than ever by comparison. But progress became faster. The mile and a half to the lane to Dollboys’ farm was done in under the ten minutes, and Flood did not miss the turning.
The big car left the macadam of the high road for bumps and ruts and miniature pot-holes which it took with creditable smoothness. The lane was an incline of steepness and, suddenly, with the level, unhurried wonder of a miracle, they came out from the white night of the mist into the clear grey light of an early November morning. They blinked, looked, and gave thanks. Straight before them, and to their left, the countryside, wrapped in the sedate stillness of a steel-engraving, rose sharply to the crests of the three hills called collectively The Share. Down in the valley was nothing for the eye save the white, smoking sheet of the dissolving mists.
To their right, the other side of the once-white post-and-rail fencing, was the land and square stone house of Dollboys. In the yard was no stir of man nor beast. The only sign of existent humanity was a bicycle—a new and shining and heavily-built bicycle—which rested against the house’s wall to the right-hand side of the main door. And this door, they saw as the car came to the gate in the fencing and swung inwards, stood ajar. Anthony looked at the clock upon his dashboard. It showed the time to be ten minutes short of seven. He looked up at the chimneys. There was no smoke. He shook his head, like a man puzzled. He brought the car to a standstill in the centre of the yard.
Flood jumped down from the running-board. He stamped his feet upon the stones and beat cold hands against his sides. Dyson got out stiffly and stood flapping his arms like an eagle disguised as first cabman in a musical comedy. Anthony shut off his engine and stepped over the car’s low door and stood back to survey the house. His eye kept returning to the bicycle against the wall.
‘Next move?’ Dyson said. ‘Walk in or wait for invitation?’
Anthony did not reply. But the question, almost before it was out, nevertheless was answered.
The door that was ajar was flung suddenly wide. A man stood in the doorway and surveyed them. Upon his round, bucolic face, now pale where normally it was almost crimson, there dawned slowly a look of incredulous relief. A tall man, this, and a portly. A man in clothes of blue, with many shining buttons down the coat, and shining letter-badges upon the stiffly-upstanding collar. A man whose gleaming baldness of head prevented them, for one puzzled half-second, from seeing what he was. Then:
‘Bobbie, by God!’ said Anthony, and was at the door in three long strides which were leaps.
II
‘Y’see my trouble, sir,’ said Police-Constable Murch. He looked at Anthony, and jerked his bald head towards the corner where the old woman, Flood bending over her, was huddled moaning in the high-backed oaken chair. ‘Can’t ’ardly leave ’er. An’ yet it’s my dooty to notify the Inspector. All cases of sooicide ’ave to be notified immediate.’
Anthony nodded. Behind an impassive face, his mind was racing. He said, raising his voice:
‘Flood: can Dyson drive a car?’
Flood straightened his back. He kept a hand upon the old woman’s shoulder. Over his own he said:
‘Very well. Any sort, too.’ He turned his body again, and once more stooped over his charge.
Anthony turned to the policeman. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘My other friend will drive you where you want to go. Quicker than your bicycle; you can put that in the back. This gentleman’—he waved a hand towards Flood—‘and I will stay here and look after the woman till you get back … That suit you?’
Mr Murch beamed. His round face seemed in an instant to slough the lines of care which had been making it like a mask of unhappy infancy. He said:
‘Thank’ee very kindly, I’m sure sir, Takes a load off’n me mind like. T’wouldn’t ’a been so bad if that girl what came an’ reported would ’a come back with me. But the kid were so scairt like, it wouldn’t ’a been no manner o’ use forcin’ her t’ come along. An’ ’ow was I to know there wouldn’t be not another soul in a ’ous
e o’ this size an’ what men as the deceased ’ad over away to Blackfan? What I mean t’say, sir …’
Anthony dammed this flow by retreating from it. He strode to the door and through it out into the yard.
‘Dyson!’ he called.
Dyson came, lounging but with some celerity, round the side of the house. He was shaking his head. Behind the great glasses his eyes were puzzled and resentful. He said as he came up:
‘It’s all wrong! Not suicide type. But he goes ’n does it!’
Anthony was brief and explicit. Within two minutes his car, Dyson peering over the wheel like a savage bird, was carrying Police-Constable Murch and Police-Constable Murch’s bicycle out of the yard gates.
Anthony went back into the house. In the old chair in the square hall’s corner, the mother of Dollboys still moaned and twisted and alternated dumb and safety-seeking clutches at Flood’s hands with harsh, screaming efforts to beat him off. She would cry, only half-articulately, so that her sounds were like those of an animal who miraculously has acquired speech; and then the crying, in which the only words distinguishable were ‘boy’ and ‘Andrew’ would cease as suddenly as it had begun. And the whimpering, more distressing still, would begin again.
But Flood dealt with it; most surprisingly Flood dealt with it in a manner entirely efficient; it was as if for a great part of his life he had been controlling the hysteria of women. He was kind always; adamant at times, soothing at others. He exhibited neither impatience nor distaste, too much sympathy nor too little. He was wholly admirable.
Anthony left him to it. Anthony crossed the stone floor of the hall upon noiseless feet, went again down the dark, narrow passage to the kitchen. The kitchen door he shut behind him. He leaned back against it and looked at what he had already seen, but not statically and not alone.
He was in the room to which, upon the night before, Dyson had made his deliberately dramatic entrance. And the room, save that the table was laid with breakfast and not supper furnishings and that in the big grate was grey ash instead of glowing fire, was, in regard to itself, as Dyson had seen it.
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