Bleeding Hooks

by Harriet Rutland

  “What do you mean?” demanded Miss Haddox. “Of course we were together all the time. Courtney doesn’t enjoy eating alone, and his day would be quite spoilt if I didn’t see him off in the morning, and join him at lunch-time. He’s just a great baby of a man really.”

  “All the time?” persisted Pussy.

  “Certainly,” replied Miss Haddox. “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t slip away for just five minutes? To reply to the call of Nature, you know.”

  Miss Haddox got up hurriedly.

  “Your remarks are in exceedingly bad taste,” she said stiffly. “In my day, young girls did not speak of such things.”

  “No? But they did them, I hope,” returned the irrepressible Pussy.

  Mrs. Pindar again tried to make peace.

  “Don’t you think you take the younger generation a little too seriously, Miss Haddox?” she asked in her soft voice.

  But Miss Haddox would not be appeased.

  “No, I do not.” she replied firmly. “As I have said, my own niece is both young and modern, and yet possesses tact and good manners. As for the modern young man, you have probably had more experience in that direction than I.”

  Mrs. Pindar flushed – unnecessarily, Pussy thought, but certainly Miss Haddox’s tone was offensive.

  “I must say that I quite fail to understand the reason for this cross-questioning about my movements yesterday,” Miss Haddox continued to Pussy. “But if you really wish to poke your nose into affairs which do not concern you, I should advise you to find out what your mother was doing out there at lunch-time, when she was supposed to be walking on the other side of the lake, and why she did not appear when we all went to look at Mrs. Mumsby!”

  Chapter 15

  “Of all the old cats!” exclaimed Pussy, after Miss Haddox had taken a triumphant departure. “I always think that women associated with titles are the worst when it comes to scandal-mongering.”

  Mrs. Pindar smiled.

  “Haven’t you rather underestimated the influence of the Army?” she asked. “The General was once in the Indian Army, you know, and socially that’s about the most snobbish organization in the world.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Pussy. “I think the General’s rather a pet, and all the Indian Army officers I’ve met –”

  “Ah yes, the men,” interrupted her companion, “but it’s the women who make the social life out there. The men are for too busy to bother. I never can understand why the women who go out to the Eastern stations will insist on keeping alive the narrow conventions which lead to such snobbery and cattiness. They’re really dreadful, and there seems no reason for it, unless you can assume that every woman who marries into the Indian Army is of a low intelligence type, rather in the same way that the boy who could never get a job used to be sent into the Church, not so long ago. They live in a foreign country, and ought to live in happy little communities, yet they spend their time back-biting, leaving cards, and shaking in their shoes lest the Colonel’s lady will refuse to meet the Major’s wife.”

  “I see the point of view, though,” said Pussy, who was bored. She always did feel bored when anyone made a long speech, partly because it meant too much sustained mental effort to listen, and partly because she never could understand why anyone should want to talk at such length. Nothing ever touched her so deeply that she wanted to make a speech about it, and even if it had, she would have been at too much of a loss for words to make one. “I expect it’s the same in the Navy, isn’t it?”

  “I really don’t know,” replied Mrs. Pindar.

  “I thought you’d know because Mrs. Mumsby said Mr. Pindar was a sailor, or something.”

  Mrs. Pindar hesitated, then said quietly:

  “You’ve said that before, you know. Mrs. Mumsby was as big a gossip as Miss Haddox. That’s why they hated each other so. It so happens that I am not married to a sailor, and you might remember it.”

  “Sorry and all that,” replied Pussy, quite unabashed. “By the way, talking about Mrs. Mumsby, were you fairly near to her yesterday?”

  “Yes. As Miss Haddox said, there’s only a certain amount of space for boats to land, and there were six boats altogether. We were all cut off from one another by walls or bushes, but we were all within earshot, I should think. It’s strange,” she mused, “how everyone tries to get away from his neighbours. We were all fishing, and all keen on the same sport, and you’d think that we should have joined together in one big party for lunch. Instead of that, we all tried to hide from one another. I know we did.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Pussy. “I’d do the same if I were on my honeymoon. Now don’t deny that, or it will break Mrs. Evans’ heart. She always likes to have one honeymoon couple in the hotel, for luck. Were you...” she broke off abruptly.

  Mrs. Pindar laughed.

  “I don’t mind your questions in the least,” she said, “but as a matter of fact that one is superfluous. Given three hours in a boat, followed by a large lunch and liquid refreshment, the time inevitably follows when, as you so poetically put it, the call of Nature must be satisfied. In mixed company, this usually means departures at different times, or ‘dames’ to the right and ‘messieurs’ to the left. I was alone for two or three periods of a few minutes each after lunch.”

  Pussy chuckled.

  “Of course it’s only common sense,” she said, “but if people won’t answer a simple question, it makes you think they were doing something they don’t want you to know, and that always rouses my curiosity. You’ll think me an awful nuisance, I know, but somehow, I can’t believe that no one heard Mrs. Mumsby cry out. Are you sure you didn’t hear any noise?”

  Mrs. Pindar smiled at her tolerantly.

  “That all depends on what kind of noise you mean. There were dozens of different noises all the time, you see. The lapping of the water on the stones, for instance. I remember Jack quoted Tennyson,

  ‘I heard the water lapping on the crag,

  And the long ripples washing in the reeds’”

  Pussy suppressed a shudder. She could not bear the sound of poetry, even if it did not rhyme. The only rhythm for which she had any liking was swing. At least, you could dance to that.

  “There was the distant sound of a waterfall from the opposite side of the road,” went on Mrs. Pindar, “and the rumble of a cart. As for cries, the air was full of them.”

  Pussy looked incredulous.

  “From birds, I mean,” explained Mrs. Pindar. “There were a good many gulls flying over the lake. Our ghillie says that they breed on the rocky islands in the lake in summer. Then there were smaller birds among the reeds – dabchicks and waterhens, I think, and the cry of the curlew never ceased. Unless we’d been listening for any special kind of cry, we should never have noticed any strange sound. I suppose you do mean a strange cry?”

  “I suppose I do,” agreed Pussy, “but I’m hanged if I really know what I do mean.”

  She sat in unaccustomed thought, rubbing one long-nailed finger up and down the high bridge of her nose with unusual lack of concern for her make-up.

  Mrs. Pindar regarded her quizzically.

  “It all sounds very mysterious,” she said at length. “After all, Mrs. Mumsby is dead now, so it doesn’t much matter whether she cried out or not. I wish you’d tell me what you’re driving at. Perhaps I could help you.”

  “I’d rather tell you than anyone,” said Pussy earnestly, “but it’s not my secret. The only hint I can give you is to say that I have reason to believe that certain people in this hotel are living under false pretences.”

  To her amazement, Mrs. Pindar leapt up from her seat, and confronted her with the fury of a young goddess.

  “Interfering busybodies!” she exclaimed, and her voice trembled. “First Mrs. Mumsby, and now you! You know what happened to her! Why can’t you mind your own business?”

  Chapter 16

  While Pussy was making herself unpopular by her persistent questionings, M
r. Winkley was drifting down The Big Lake in Mrs. Mumsby’s boat, while Gunn followed, a few drifts behind, in Mr. Winkley’s.

  To a non-fishing man or woman, this exchange of boats and ghillies might have appeared strange, but no one at the Fisherman’s Rest would have considered it worthy of comment. They knew that whenever Mr. Winkley came down to fish the lakes, David Griffiths was reserved as his ghillie. It was, in fact, Mr. Winkley who had first made David’s name among the ghillies and visitors, by bringing in over a hundred sea-trout in a fortnight at a time when David was held to be a mere boat-puller, and thereafter, David’s name had gone up in Mrs. Evans’ list as one of the best six ghillies in Aberllyn.

  On the other hand, Gunn was a beginner, and had no fixed ghillie of his own, merely hiring any ghillie who was free by the day, and not by the week. It was, therefore, quite natural that Mr. Winkley should lend David to him for a day, much as the host of a shooting party might lend one of his best loaders and retrievers to the most likely youngster, so that a future enthusiast might thereby be encouraged. Mr. Winkley could not be expected to share the same boat with a beginner, any more than the host of the shooting party could be expected to share the same butt.

  Every sporting man wishes to interest others in his favourite pastime, every ghillie or loader wishes to see his future assured by the advent of potential employers. This arrangement of Mr. Winkley’s, therefore, was pleasing to everyone, and most pleasing of all, perhaps, to Mrs. Mumsby’s ghillie, John Jones.

  John had seen a certain two pounds a week disappear, and doubted whether he would even receive the money already due to him from his late employer. A day’s fishing with Mr. Winkley meant an extra ten shillings, and possibly twelve-and-six, for Mr. Winkley was not a mean man. It would be an enjoyable day, too, for Mr. Winkley, with his collection of round, yellow tobacco tins, and square, blue cigarette boxes, was one of the best fishermen who visited the district, and knew as much about The Big Lake as any man alive.

  It was all the more surprising, therefore, that Mr. Winkley should express the desire to drift towards the bay at the west end of the lake, when the wind was blowing from the north, and it was obviously a day for the Glasyn River drift on the opposite side.

  “The wind’s in the north, sir,” remarked John.

  “I know it is,” replied Mr. Winkley, slashing his line into the wind with a two-handed cast.

  “A north wind’s no good in that bay, sir, no good whatever.”

  “But it won’t stop us drifting, surely?”

  The ghillie spat over his left shoulder.

  “Oh, we can drift, indeed, but not over the trout. That bay is very deep, sir, and the only place you can get trout there is between the shore and the Black Ledges. And you know yourself, sir, we can’t get near the Black Ledges today.”

  Mr. Winkley looked up at the gathering clouds.

  “I’ve fished it in a north wind before now,” he said. “Besides, the wind will change before long. We’ll give it till lunch-time, anyway.”

  And fish it they did, though the set of John’s shoulders as he turned the boat a little into the wind with one oar, expressed disapproval.

  After an hour, the wind dropped altogether, and the water looked pale-grey and oil-smooth. Mr. Winkley’s flies dropped into a slack, depressing heap on the water before he could adapt his casting to the changed conditions. Using his rod as a two-handed salmon rod and sweeping his line in a wide circle over his head for each cast was the tiring order for the next half-hour, at the end of which time an impish puff of wind blew the wet flies into his face. He had barely enough time to struggle into his black oilskin coat and sou’wester hat, before slow, heavy raindrops became the centres of intersecting circles on the smooth surface of the lake. But with the first cast, which cut neatly across the pock-marked water, he hooked and landed a trout, thus confirming his pet theory that fish rise when the pressure is released from the surface of the water.

  As long as this heavy shower lasted, he hooked trout, but in less than half an hour’s time the rain had ceased, and the wind was back again in the north.

  He glanced at the shore, then at his watch, and said:

  “We’ll land for lunch now. It’s early, but it’s no use fishing in this wind.”

  John slipped the other oar into its rowlock, and pulled for the shore without hesitation.

  “Best to do that, indeed. We were lucky to get those fish. This bay is no good whatever in a north wind,” and Mr. Winkley let him have the last word.

  The ghillie made to land at the exact spot where he had beached his boat on the previous day. By suggesting lunch when he did, Mr. Winkley had ensured that the man would do so, for the boat had been in a direct line with that part of the shore. As they approached it, Mr. Winkley saw that another boat was already drawn up just beyond the wall, and as he reeled in his line, and fixed the tail fly to the cork covering of the butt of his rod, he remarked:

  “Mr. Gunn is here already.”

  John Jones rested for a second on his oars, and glanced at the boat.

  “That’s not Mr. Gunn, sir,” he said. “That will be him away over there.”

  He pointed to the opposite side of the lake, where Mr. Winkley could barely discern the small, humped speck indicated by the ghillie, which to his eyes might equally be an island or a rock.

  “Are you sure, John?” he asked. “I said we’d meet Mr. Gunn for lunch, and this looks like David’s boat.”

  To him all grey boats looked alike.

  “’Tis not, indeed,” returned the ghillie. “I might as well not know my own boat, for the two of them were built by the same man down there on the quay, and my brother it was who bought the timber. Besides, David would never bring the young gentleman to fish this bay in a north wind.”

  And when they landed, Mr. Winkley saw that this boat was named the Dobell whereas David’s was called more pretentiously Queen Mary, and he marvelled at the keen eye-sight which could so easily distinguish one long, grey boat from another over the whole width of the lake.

  While John took the basket out of the boat, he strolled across the wet, crisp grass and looked over the wall to see who had arrived before him, but no one was in sight. He turned, and deliberately seated himself in the same spot which Mrs. Mumsby had occupied on the previous day, and John’s nervous start of apprehension when he saw him, did not escape his notice.

  He settled himself against the large, grey boulder, and motioned to the ghillie to seat himself within conversational distance. He did not as a rule encourage such an arrangement, although the reason was not snobbish in origin. To chaff a ghillie and share one’s cigarettes with him during the long hours in the boat was one thing: to share his off-time duty was quite different. In his experience, even the best of ghillies could not withstand taking advantage of the familiarity implied by the latter procedure. But he had engineered this man here (skilfully he hoped) for a purpose, and he knew that in their present respective places, no man of John’s mentality could refrain from introducing the conversation which constituted that very purpose.

  “It gave me quite a turn to see you sitting there, sir,” he said, as he opened the newspaper containing his meagre lunch.

  Mr. Winkley nodded.

  “You mean Mrs. Mumsby, poor woman? I suppose it gave you a bit of a shock to see her like that, John.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir. I can’t help thinking that if I’d done what she really wanted me to do, she might have been alive now.”

  “Oh? How was that?”

  Mr. Winkley appeared to be more interested in his food than in Mrs. Mumsby.

  “Well, I waited around till she gave me a cup of coffee and some of her food – she was always kind like that.” He eyed Mr. Winkley’s plate of chicken and ham enviously. “The lunch they give the ghillies is a disgrace to the hotel. Nothing but great hunks of bread and a scraping of butter, and meat so tough that –”

  “Yes, yes,” was Mr. Winkley’s hasty and unsympathetic interruption. He k
new the food was poor, but he knew also that it was due to the ghillies’ increasing demands for more free drinks from the bar.

  “Well, she had often asked me to sit and have my lunch closer to her, as I’m having it now, sir, but I always went as far away as I could, round the rocks and away across the road, so that she wouldn’t be calling for me all the time. ‘If I don’t hear her,’ I think, ‘I won’t be blamed for staying away.’”

  “That’s rather a high-handed way to treat your customers.” remarked Mr. Winkley. “How could you know when she wanted to start fishing again? She might have wanted to go out in a hurry.”

  John laughed.

  “Not she.” he said. “She was never what you might call keen on fishing. A waste of time it was to go out with her at all. Besides, on a fine day she always went to sleep for at least half an hour after lunch, so I knew I was safe.”

  Mr. Winkley balanced a piece of yellow pasteurized cheese on a biscuit, and his voice was as mild as the cheese as he asked:

  “Did you like Mrs. Mumsby?”

  “Like her?” asked John bitterly. “God! I could have murdered that woman many a time. She was dangerous, I’m telling you. If you had never been in a boat alone with her, you wouldn’t know what she was like. She paid me well; she knew that she had to. She liked me, you see. She had to take old Lloyd when the other ghillies were busy, but she. would always rather have a younger man if she could get him. I hated the job, but I’m getting married next year, and I needed the money.”

  “You didn’t come back to speak to her again before she died then?”

  “Not I,” said John, and Mr. Winkley, catching a glimpse of his oddly assorted eyes, wondered fantastically whether a man could be colour-blind in one eye only, and if so, what the result would be. “I knew her too well. Why, she never stopped talking once she started, and I needed a bit of rest.”

  “I don’t suppose she did much talking yesterday, though,” he said. “She must have been feeling rather off colour.”