Bismarck Herrings (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  The causeway turned out to be less than three-quarters of a mile long. He parked the car at the far end of it behind some derelict sheds beside a broken jetty, and locked it and walked back to the Hall. By the time he reached it the evening was darkening (so far as the clear sky would permit of actual darkness) into night. Somewhere across the marshes a church clock shuddered out the hour. There was a light in the gatehouse upper window, indicating that Mrs. Gee was at home. Timothy wondered whether Jabez was with her and, on impulse, decided to find out. Nobody, he thought, except her or her son, could have been responsible for putting the surreptitious box of matches on the table in the state bedroom, and he could not help wondering how either of them had managed to get into the house, since he remembered distinctly that, apart from locking the outer door, he had shot the bolts.

  The inference was that one of them had already been inside Warlock Hall when he and Alison had gone to bed, and the thought was not reassuring, considering Mrs. Gee’s statement of her superstitious fears. Timothy did not intend to mention any of this to the Gees, however, preferring to solve any mysteries connected with the house by his own wits and not by questioning mother or son, because, whatever their motives, their actions came under suspicion, especially since he had seen the palliasses and the other beds, and had discovered the existence of the derelict jetty. Ruinous as it was, a boat could tie up there, he reasoned.

  The door in the side of the gatehouse archway was unlocked, as Timothy discovered when he lifted the latch. This was surprising, again considering that Mrs. Gee claimed to suffer from nervous fears, but it occurred to him that the explanation was a simple one. She had left the door on the latch so that Jabez, who must be out on his lawful or unlawful occasions, could get in without bringing her downstairs to answer the door. There was another stout door at the top of the gatehouse staircase, he remembered.

  What job or jobs Jabez carried out down on the Hard had not been specified. As for the broken jetty, it did not give the impression that it was very often visited. Apart from the derelict sheds behind which Timothy had parked the car, there was nothing but a pot-holed stretch of asphalt bordered on the waterside by uneven flagstones, and the ruinous wooden jetty had several missing planks and a broken handrail. Timothy decided that Jabez must have been referring to some other place of work when he mentioned the Hard and his work with boats.

  Then he remembered that he and Parsons, as they approached the Hall from the north-west, had pulled up in the one lane which led to the river and seen numbers of small yachts, sailing dinghies, and motor-cruisers at moorings—all the kind of pleasure craft, in fact, of the Suffolk and Essex creeks and the Norfolk Broads. As for the creek near the Hall, the absence of roads over the marshes might explain the lack of summer visitors, he supposed, added to the fact that, except for the dangerous rickety jetty and an occasional stunted willow growing almost in the water, there was nowhere for a boat to tie up, and nothing to see, and nowhere to go except to the Hall, and he did not think that his great-uncle would have encouraged visitors.

  Switching on his torch, for he had taken it with him to the car and retrieved it after he had parked behind the rotting and disintegrating sheds, Timothy, having reached the gatehouse, walked up the stone stair.

  “Be that you, Jabez?” Mrs. Gee called out, as she opened the nail-studded, gaol-like door at the top and peered out. “You be back early, beant you?”

  “It’s Mr. Herring,” Timothy called up. “I found the door unlocked, so I thought I’d save you the trouble of coming down to let me in.”

  “Which it is very kind of you, sir,” said Mrs. Gee, appearing, “though I don’t never bolt the outside door, sir, this one at the top being very addicate.” In spite of the comparative lateness of the hour, she was fully dressed and was wearing Wellington boots. “I thought as Jabez wouldn’t be along just yet. But I thought as how you’d gone away, sir. I see you drive up, and I see your car-lights as you druv off. Is there anything as I can do for you, sir?”

  Timothy decided that he would not mention the jetty.

  “Yes, if you’ll be so good. I’ve had to park my car down the road because I need to tinker it up a bit,” he said, improvising rapidly, and beginning to enjoy himself. “I wonder whether you can lend me a screwdriver? I ought to have the right size in my kit, but I remember now that I took it out to do some small job in my garage, and I suppose I forgot to put it back in the boot with the other things.” He told these lies with bland assurance, and smiled guilelessly at her.

  “This way, sir, if you’d like to look in the tool bag. This floor did used to be one big room, as I expect you guessed when you and your lady come through the other day to go up on to the roof, but Jabez partitioned it off so’s I could have the bigger ’alf with the fireplace and enough room for me bits and pieces as well as me bed, and he could ’ave the other bit when he’s able to come ’ere to sleep of a night to keep me company.”

  She opened a cupboard underneath a small dresser and pulled out a workman’s tool-bag. Timothy laid out the contents and picked up a screwdriver.

  “This seems to be the fellow I’m needing,” he said. “I won’t keep it a minute longer than I can help. I’ll put it down just inside the lower door when I’ve finished, well out of the way, so that your son won’t tread on it when he comes in, and then I need not trouble you again.”

  “Which I should not wish you to trouble yourself, sir. We can easy ’ave it back when you comes this way again, or, if it’s your wish, sir, you can keep it and welcome, so you gives me a few pence, just to satisfy my boy, sir, seein’ as you seem to ’ave mislaid your own tools, sir.” Her tone was civil enough, but her suspicions were obvious.

  “Well, as I don’t know when I shall be down this way again, that might be a good solution, if you’re sure your son won’t be lost without the screwdriver,” said Timothy, equally suspicious of her and particularly of her eagerness to make certain that he did not return to Warlock Hall that night.

  “Oh, it’s as much mine as his’n, ’aving belonged to ’is poor father gone before ’im,” said Mrs. Gee. She accepted Timothy’s ten pence, handed over the somewhat rusty tool, and showed him to the door. His errand, if not his lies, had paid off. Mrs. Gee was going to remain at the gatehouse and Jabez was expected. What the significance (if they had any significance) of her Wellington boots might be he had no idea. Probably she had been on some errand across the marshes earlier in the day and had not troubled to change into her slippers, he inferred. That she might be going out again that night he thought unlikely, although it was possible.

  Screwdriver in one hand, torch in the other, he passed under the gatehouse archway and took the direction of the road in case Mrs. Gee should be watching out of the upper window to see him go. He followed the road towards the village, walked a couple of hundred yards to give her time, if she was watching, to conclude that he had taken himself off, and then he doubled back on his tracks, sneaked under the gatehouse archway and walked across the courtyard up to the front door of the house. He had no fear that he would be spotted from that direction, for the gatehouse windows looked out only on to the road and the marshes. Nothing of the courtyard or the mansion could be seen from Mrs. Gee’s eyrie unless there was a watcher on the roof, and this was most unlikely.

  He inserted his key, pushed open the heavy door which was set in the Norman stone arch and paused to listen. The old house was silent. It was an eerie silence, but at least nothing creaked, groaned, or scuttered. Timothy switched on his torch and entered the great hall. It was empty and was as silent as the rest of the building. He passed through it and entered the chamber which had the oriel window. There was nobody there. Suddenly his nerve was momentarily shattered. The grandfather clock in a far corner whirred noisily, cleared its throat and, while Timothy’s heart returned to its accustomed place after the initial shock, it solemnly struck eleven.

  “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” said Timothy, apostrophising it. “I thought
you were the ghost of Warlock Hall!” Considerably shaken, he left the clock to its vigil and climbed the spiral stair.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Exit Macbeth

  “I’m free from thee; and thou no more shalt heare

  My pulling Pipe to beat against thine eare:

  Farewell my shackles, (though of pearle they be)

  Such precious thraldome ne’r shall fetter me.”

  To Love

  The momentary shock which his nerves had received from the bronchial grandfather clock had a stimulating effect on Timothy. He explored the rest of the house, including the attics, almost blithely, returned to the front door, locked and bolted it, made certain that the garden door and all the downstair windows were secure, and had just returned to the four-poster bedroom and stretched himself on the bed, intending to turn in when he felt like it, when he became aware of voices on the floor below him. “Enter the ghost of Banquo, after all,” he said to himself. He put on his shoes and crept to the door. The visitors, he deduced, must be in the great hall, since he could hear their voices so clearly. They were conversing in somewhat strident tones and an argument appeared to be reaching the belligerent stage.

  “I tell you we got to find somewheres else.” This was the voice of Jabez Gee, and it was raised in angry protest.

  “I don’t want them at my place. Why can’t we go on using this?” asked a second voice, in injured but cultured tones.

  “They come here, I tell you, the noo owners. No tellin’ when they might not turn up again,” Jabez impatiently explained, “and an ’igh-nosed feller ’e was, and don’t you make no mistake about that. Give you the back of ’is ’and as soon as look at you.”

  “You could pass the word to Jankers, couldn’t you, if there’s any danger in landing the cargo?” This was a third voice, fruity, rich, and beautifully produced.

  “Well, Mother could, but, with the noo owners about, what if we was to be rumbled? What then?” demanded Jabez.

  “Clear out, and leave the customers to do the best they can. They don’t know our names, or where we come from, or anything else about us. They couldn’t let us in for anything, that’s certain. If we need to abandon them, they’ll simply have to take the rap, that’s all.” The voice was less fruity and there was an impatient rasp in it this time.

  “That’s all you know. The game ain’t worth the candle. Why, the owner might turn up again any time, and, anyway, ’e’s goin’ to sell up, and then where shall we be? E’s been over ’ere this very day, if you want to know. My mother told me.”

  “We’re going on with it, just the same,” said the second voice. “A spice of risk rather adds to the fun, don’t you think? Besides, if we don’t carry out our assignments, where’s the rest of the money coming from, apart from the fact that we’ve got those poor devils to consider?”

  “Take the money and chance the consequences. We can always leave them to it, as I keep telling you,” said the third fellow, mellifluously again. “Don’t be a fool, man.”

  So there were three intruders in the house, thought Timothy, and the three included Jabez Gee, if he could be called an intruder. There was a fourth, somewhere or other, it seemed—a man named Jankers. It was also clear that Timothy’s suspicions were amply justified in that something illegal was being carried on, using Warlock Hall as a base. Timothy’s instinct was to descend the newel stair, confront the visitors, and demand to be told their business, but two things caused him to stop and think again. Jabez was a powerfully built fellow and his companions might be equally strong and tough. In a fight (if it came to that) the odds of three to one were pretty formidable and this age of the early 1970s was one in which, all too often, might was right and the Queensberry Rules were at a discount. Moreover, the situation of the house was remote and lonely, and not even Alison knew that he had gone to it. He had told Mrs. Nealons that he was going to his inheritance, it was true, but, so far, she knew nothing of the actual address of Warlock Hall.

  On second thoughts, therefore, he decided that his best plan would be to try to get a look at the two strangers so that he would recognise them again, and then wait until the morning, tackle Jabez on his own, and try to bully him into confessing what the game was. In that almost deserted, marsh-ridden countryside, with a navigable creek at hand, there was no doubt that some form of smuggling was being carried on. With the Norderney Islands and also Amsterdam only just across the water, it could be diamonds, dope, or illegal immigrants.

  “You pays your money and you takes your choice,” Timothy said to himself, “but I rather think the conversation plus those palliasses gives the game away.”

  He took off his shoes, but carried them under his arm. With infinite caution he began to creep down the stairs to the hall.

  There was a door at the foot of the stairs and it was open. He had known that it must be so, otherwise he could not have heard the voices come up to him so clearly. As he held his breath and rounded the last turn of the spiral stair, he could see a flickering light. He put his back against the side wall and craned his head round. The light came from two candles which were in bottles on the heavy hall table. The flickerings shone on the three seated figures so that they looked like a conversation piece in an old Dutch painting.

  Jabez, his powerful shoulders hunched and his elbows on the table, almost had his back to the staircase, but Timothy recognised his long, untidy thatch of hair and his workman’s hands. Another man was at the head of the table and had his back to the fireplace, so that he was presenting Timothy with his left profile. It was that of a Roman emperor, sensual, coarse, and fleshy, with a high-bridged nose and a full, cruel, double-chinned jaw. Facing the staircase was the third man, his countenance fully illuminated by the candles which were on the table directly in front of him. He had a bony, boyish face, a long-lipped, humorous mouth and his clasped hands, on which his square chin was resting, were long-fingered and sensitive.

  Timothy summed the three men up and decided that the odds were against him. “Caesar” could probably be accounted for easily enough. One good punch in the diaphragm would double him up. Jabez was a different proposition and as for the youngest man (a d’Artagnan, maybe) he looked lean and hardbitten enough to be able to hold his own, even without the help of the hulking Jabez. All the same, Timothy disliked the thought that his premises were being used to bolster up nefarious enterprises, and, disliking even more the feeling that he himself was ineffectual, he began to wonder whether, if he could not fight the intruders, he might at least contrive to frighten them. He did not care to make a move while the men were silent, so he remained where he was and waited. Jabez was the first to speak.

  “I could do with some sleep,” he said. “The tide won’t be right for the landings for three hours yet. What say we kip down for a bit? No point in sittin’ here chewin’ the fat with each other.”

  “Those damned camp beds!” complained “Caesar.” “What’s the matter with my taking the four-poster?”

  “Because we’d never get you out of it,” said the youngest man. “Besides, if the owners come back—and Gee thinks they will—they’ll expect it to be as they left it.”

  “Sheets can be changed, though, can’t they?”

  “And who’s to change ’em, with Mother goin’ over to me auntie’s tomorrer and the owners maybe comin’ back any old time?” demanded Jabez truculently. “You leave the four-poster be. Anyway, you’ll be luckier than the other poor devils what have to make do with them sacks I laid down in the basement. Jankers on’y spoke of five, but, in case there’s more, I’ve made up two kips in the attics. Any others can shake down on the floor.”

  “One of us ought to be down at the creek,” said the tall, thin man.

  “Not for a good two hours, and even at that there’ll be time to kill,” said Jabez. “They’ll ’ave to fetch up on the tide, I tell you, and that’s three hours away.”

  There was a general pushing back of heavy chairs. Under cover of the noise, Timot
hy climbed the stair, went into the state bedroom for his torch, made his way through the shadowed library, and emerged upon the minstrels’ gallery. Here, hidden behind its solid oak front, he gave vent to an ear-splitting whistle. To his astonishment, and (it must be admitted) to his panic terror, from the other end of the gallery he could have sworn he heard a terrified cry. The effect of both sounds upon the conspirators varied according to their nature and upbringing.

  Jabez gave a yell and raced for the opening which led into the screens passage. The heavy thud of the front door indicated that he had vacated Warlock Hall by the shortest route which lay open to him. The lean young man picked up one of the candles, shone it towards the gallery, and shouted out, “You jolly well stay where you are! I’m coming up!” “Caesar” dashed the other candle to the stone floor, rushed towards his companion, seized his candle from him, and flung it down as he yelled, “Don’t be a fool, man! It may be the bobbies! Let’s get out of this!”

  “Oh, no, we don’t! It’s some damned snooper, and I’m going to get him,” shouted the thin young man. Timothy could only guess at what was happening, but there was a crash and a yell of pain, followed by curses, and then the thin man shouted, “All right, you fat rabbit, scram, then!”

  Another door slammed and then there were footsteps. The thin man was blundering up the spiral stair. Timothy left the minstrels’ gallery, stole through the library, and waited outside the further door. It was pitch-dark at the top of the stairs, but he had his torch. He flashed it in the intruder’s face, then dropped it and lashed out. The man, however, was taller than he had allowed for, and the blow landed only on his chest. It was heavy enough, however, to cause the fellow to stagger backwards. He fell part-way down the stair and Timothy raced back through the library to the staircase by the minstrels’ gallery, thinking to waylay his quarry in the hall.