Madame Montpelimar received the new recruit with reserve. She didn’t quite know what to make of her, but decided in the end that, though one must, of course, keep an eye on her. She couldn’t do much harm. Just a kid pulling old Mrs Bott’s leg. She used to do the same kind of thing when she was a kid, she remembered. Still did, come to that.
In any case, Madame Montpelimar had troubles of her own and had no time to waste on other people’s. The sprained ankle had turned out to be worse than it had seemed at first, and the doctor refused to allow her to leave the Hall. So there she was, tied by the leg with the goods still on her. However, she’d got out of tighter jams than that, and it was only a question of lying low till she could get away. The worst of it was that Mrs. Bott expected her to use her supposed clairvoyant gifts in order to discover the whereabouts of the brooch.
“I’m goin’ to put the police on to that boy whether or no,” she said grimly, “but I want to get my hands on that brooch. Wish I ’adn’t given ’im a week now. ’E’s prob’ly pawned it by now—or sold it. A young crim’nal like ’im knows where to get rid of the stuff all right. Prob’ly bin doin’ it for years. An’ that there brooch meant a lot to me. Botty give it me for the first anniversary of our weddin’. Or maybe it was the second. I forget. Anyway, ’e’ll take on somethink awful when he finds it’s gone. Can’t you see what’s ’appened to it, Madame Montpelimar? I mean, with your clairvoyance an’ spirit voices an’ dreams an’ all. I’d like to get it back before Botty comes.”
And Madame Montpelimar made, to all appearances, every effort to discover the whereabouts of the missing brooch. She went into trances, she heard spirit voices, she dreamed dreams. But all to the same effect. She followed the course of the missing brooch from its resting-place on the dressing-table into the pocket of a boy’s suit, followed it on its journey down a drainpipe, through a garden, down a road and into a house that, from her description, could be none other than the Brown’s house. And then, as she put it: “a cloud of evil seems to envelop me, Mrs. Bott—a real cloud of evil. I can see nothing more.”
“Well, ’e’s evil, ail right,” put in Mrs. Bott grimly. “I’ll never forget the time ’e sent a stone clean through my tomato ’ouse. An’ the time ’e let a mouse out in the Village ’All.”
“So thick I can’t see through it,” went on Madame Montpelimar, ignoring the interruption. “Evil always has that effect on me. I’m over-sensitive to it. It paralyses my powers.”
While deeply respecting this over-sensitiveness to evil on Madame Montpelimar’s part, Mrs. Bott began to turn more and more to Joan, who continued to, report “dreams” that faithfully reflected Mrs. Bott’s actions of the evening before.
“I see you’ve got the Gift, love,” said Mrs. Bott wistfully, “but I wish you would use it to find out where this brooch of mine’s got to. I’ve tried myself all ways, but I can’t get no dreams nor voices nor nothin’. I think I’m the same as Madame Montpelimar—paralysed by evil. She can see it right to this boy’s house an’ then it all goes off into this ’ere cloud of evil.”
And so Joan, who, in her determination to save William, was discovering undreamed-of depths of duplicity in herself, would describe dreams and feelings in which she almost—but never quite—discovered the whereabouts of the missing brooch.
“Well, you persevere, love,” urged Mrs. Bott. “There’s no doubt you’ve got the Gift. Us physic ones should hang together all we can, an’ I’ll be more grateful than I can say if you’ll tell me where it is.”
“I’ll try again to-night,” promised Joan. Each day she took home a report to William.
“It’s not in her bag. I said: ‘What a nice bag!’ to-day and she let me take it and open it and try the clasp. She wouldn’t have done that if it had been in it.”
“It’s not in her bedroom—I hunted everywhere while they were having tea.”
“It’s not in false heels in her shoes. She’s only got two pairs and she lets them go into the kitchen to be cleaned every day. She wouldn’t do that if she’d put it there. And her bedroom slippers are just felt without heels at all.”
“It’s not anywhere in her clothes. She lets Mrs. Bott’s maid help her dress and undress. She wouldn’t do that if she was hiding it in her clothes.”
“Well, where is it, then?” said William desperately. “There’s only one day now. P’raps,” with rising hopefulness, “ole Mrs. Bott’ll forget about it.”
“No, she isn’t forgetting,” said Joan. “She says she’s going to the police first thing to-morrow. She keeps saying she’s sorry she gave you that week.”
“Gosh!” groaned William. “No one’ll believe I didn’t take it.”
“Yes they will, William,” said Joan. “There’s a whole day left, and I’m sure to get an idea in a day.” That afternoon she went to the Hall as usual. Madame Montpelimar’s sallow face wore a triumphant little smile. All danger now seemed over. The doctor had said that she could go home to-morrow. She intended to be well away, leaving no trace, before Mrs. Bott went to the police to lodge her accusation against William.
During the afternoon Joan happened to lean against the end of the sofa where Madame Montpelimar was reclining, and to touch the coils of coarse brown hair twisted round and round into the enormous “bun”.
Madame Montpelimar moved her head sharply away.
“Mind Madame Montpelimar’s head, Joan,” said Mrs. Bott reverently. “It’s very sensitive. It’s on account of her astral body an’ the spirit messages goin’ in and out. She can’t bear it touched. Won’t even let Marie help her do it of a night and morning. Anyone but her touchin’ it gives her agony, don’t it, Madame Montpelimar?”
“It’s been terribly sensitive ever since I was a child,” admitted the clairvoyante, “ever since, in fact, the Gift first manifested itself in me.”
Joan looked thoughtfully at Madame Montpelimar and still more thoughtfully at the bird’s nest of coarse brown hair. Anything might be hidden in it. But her dislike of the lady was tempered with respect, and she realised that even now she must go very carefully.
Finding Mrs. Bott alone in the morning-room a short time afterwards, she said: “I’ve just remembered a sort of message I had last night,” she said.
Mrs. Bott looked at her, agog with excitement. “A message, love? A physic message?”
“Yes,” said Joan. “I heard it in a dream. It said that if Madame Montpelimar could go into a deep sleep directly after tea to-day—a very deep sleep—she’d dream where your brooch was. But she mustn’t know she was going to or she wouldn’t.”
Mrs. Bott looked thoughtful.
“That’s a bit awkward, love,” she said. “She doesn’t sleep after tea as a rule—”
“But I suppose she could” said Joan. “The doctor gave mother some things once when she couldn’t sleep and she only used about two. I know where they are and I could get one.”
“Oh, I’ve got some stuff meself,” said Mrs. Bott. “Quite ’armless, the doctor said it was. I don’t see why not. Well, after all, she’s as anxious to find that there brooch as any of us. She’ll be grateful when we tell ’er after it’s all over.”
Joan stayed to tea. She waited assiduously on Madame Montpelimar and drew her out to talk of her Gift, taking care to stand between her and the tea table while Mrs. Bott slipped a tablet into the lady’s second cup of tea. Madame Montpelimar was in a genial expansive mood. This time to-morrow, she kept telling herself. I’ll be safely off with the swag.
She invented tall stories for Joan of futures she had foreseen, of catastrophes she had averted, of dreams and visions. Irresistible languor began to steal over her.
“I feel a bit drowsy,” she said. “I think I’ll just put my feet up.”
Joan and Mrs. Bott waited breathlessly as Madame Montpelimar put her feet up, rested her head on the cushions of the settee, closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply . . . more deeply . . .
Mrs. Bott came and stood by her.
; “P’raps she’s dreamin’ where it is this very minute,” she said in an awestruck voice.
Joan joined her.
“I don’t think she looks very comfortable,” she said, “and I don’t think she can dream properly unless she’s comfortable. I think her head would be much more comfortable if it hadn’t all that hair to lie on.”
“Better not touch her hair, love,” said Mrs. Bott. “She never likes her hair touched.”
But Joan was slowly and carefully taking out the hairpins. One long thick coil came down . . . another followed . . . another followed . . . and then, from the very centre, she took out something wrapped in brown silk and opened it before Mrs. Bott’s incredulous gaze. “It can’t be,” gasped Mrs. Bott. “It—it—it—it can’t be.”
But it was.
And Madame Montpelimar—snoring slightly, blissfully unconscious—slept on.
* * *
Madame Montpelimar—alias Princess Borinsky, alias Lady Vere Vereton, alias Baroness Gretchstein, alias Mary Smith—had been removed to the police station, where investigation was proving her to be a person whom the police had long wished to meet again. Mrs. Bott had been humbly, tearfully apologetic to William, offering him fantastic sums in compensation for the wrong she had done him—which Mrs. Brown, much to William’s regret, firmly refused. Half a crown and permission to play in any part of the Hall grounds he wished, for an indefinite period, was finally considered to meet the needs of the case.
The next night William went to call for Joan.
“You did jolly well, Joan,” he said.
“In a way I rather enjoyed it,” said Joan.
“Well, I—I couldn’t have done it better myself,” said William, and it was a lot for William to admit.
“Come on—let’s spend the half-crown and then have that game of Red Indians.”
Chapter 5 – Reluctant Heroes
“D’you know,” said William thoughtfully at breakfast, “I don’t seem to remember the time there wasn’t a war.”
‘‘Don’t be ridiculous, William,” said his mother. “It’s hardly lasted two years and you’re eleven years old, so you must remember the time when there wasn’t a war. All the same,” she added with a sigh, “I know what you mean.”
Certainly the war seemed to have altered life considerably for William. Sometimes he thought that the advantages and disadvantages cancelled each other out and sometimes he wasn’t sure . . . Gamekeepers had been called up and he could trespass in woods and fields with comparative impunity, but, on the other hand, sweets were scarce and cream buns unprocurable. Discipline was relaxed—at school as the result of a gradual infiltration of women teachers and at home because his father worked overtime at the office and his mother was “managing” without a cook—but these advantages were offset by a lack of entertainment in general. There were no parties, summer holidays were out of the question because of something called the Income Tax, and for the same reason pocket money, inadequate at the best of times, had faded almost to vanishing point.
Now that Ethel was a V.A.D. and Robert a second lieutenant in one of the less famous regiments, home life had lost much of its friction, but it had also lost something of its zest. William had looked on Ethel and Robert as cruel and vindictive tyrants, but he found, somewhat to his surprise, that he missed both the tyranny and his own plans to circumvent and avenge it.
Even the feud with Hubert Lane lacked its old excitement. There didn’t seem to be so many things to quarrel about as there had been before the war. Moreover, William needed a credulous audience for his tales of Robert’s prowess and Hubert supplied it. For Robert, in his second lieutenant’s uniform, was to William no longer an irascible dictatorial elder brother, hidebound by convention and deaf to the voice of reason. He was a noble and heroic figure, solely responsible for every success the British army had achieved since the war began. It was Robert who had conquered the Italians in Africa, raided the Lofoten Islands, crushed Raschid Ali’s revolt . . . Hubert was so credulous that William’s stories grew more and more fantastic. It was Robert who, according to William, was solely responsible for the sinking of the Bismarck. It was Robert who had captured Rudolf Hess . . . But there even the worm of credulity that was Hubert turned.
“But Robert wasn’t in Scotland when Rudolf Hess came over,” he objected.
“How do you know he wasn’t?” said William mysteriously. “Gosh! If I told you the places Robert had been in you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Well, there was nothing about him in the papers.”
“No, they kept it out of the papers,” said William. “Robert’s very high up an’ everythin’ about him’s gotter be kept very secret.”
The worm of credulity turned still further.
“Thought he was only a second lieutenant.’’
William gave a short laugh.
“They keep him a second lieutenant just to put the Germans off the scent,” he explained, “so they won’t know who it is that’s doing all these things.”
“But I bet he didn’t capture Rudolf Hess,” persisted Hubert.
“Huh, didn’t he!” said William, who was as usual now completely convinced by his own eloquence. “Well, I can’t tell you about it ’cause it’s a secret an’ I’d get shot if I told people, but it was Robert got him over from Germany to start with.”
“Crumbs!” gasped Hubert.
Hubert, however, though still, in the main, believing William’s stories (as I have said, he was an exceptionally credulous boy), was growing a little tired of them. He’d listened to them for weeks on end and the one-sidedness of the situation was beginning to pall. If he’d had a few tales of his own to swop in exchange, he wouldn’t have minded so much, but he hadn’t. He was an only child and had no elder brother or even near relation to glorify . . . Resentment had been slowly growing in his breast for some time, and the Rudolf Hess story seemed the last straw. He was not a boy to be content to yield the limelight to another indefinitely without becoming restive, and he was now becoming restive. He’d swallowed all Robert’s exploits as recounted by William—the African victory, the defeat of Raschid Ali, the sinking of the Bismarck. He had even swallowed Rudolf Hess, but—he’d reached saturation point.
“What’s the matter, Hubert dear?” said his mother solicitously to him at lunch, looking at his plump, sulky face. “I hope you’re not feeling ill, darling.”
“No,” muttered Hubert, “I’m not feelin’ ill. I’m only sick of that ole William Brown.”
Mrs. Lane shuddered at the name.
“I don’t know why you have anything to do with him,” she said. Then she turned to her husband. “Oh, by the way, I heard from Ronald this morning. He’s got a week’s leave and can spend it with us.”
“Who’s Ronald?” said Hubert.
“Didn’t I tell you, dear? He’s a second cousin of mine. We’ve never seen much of him because his people always lived in Switzerland. They’re still there and so, of course, he can’t spend his leave with them and will be very glad to spend it with us. I asked him to bring a friend if he liked and he says he’d like to bring another lieutenant in his regiment, who has leave at the same time and has no relations in England to go to. It’s rather amusing. He says”—she took a letter out of her pocket, opened it and read—“‘I must warn you that Orford has the most amazing resemblance to Hitler. Actually he takes rather a pride in it, and cultivates the moustache and forelock. So don’t think that I’ve brought Hitler back as a present when you see him.’”
Hubert put down his knife and fork and stared open-mouthed at his mother. He didn’t often have ideas but he was having one now. It came slowly and painfully, and he turned paler than usual with the unaccustomed effort.
“Darling,” cried Mrs. Lane in renewed concern, “you’re not looking at all well. Don’t you like the pudding?”
“No, I don’t like the pudding,” said Hubert calmly. “It’s not sweet enough. But I’m feeling all right ’cept for that.”
&
nbsp; Hubert walked along the road with a new briskness. There was even a little smile on his face. He looked very pleased with himself. It happened that when he reached the gate of William’s house, William himself was coming out of it. They went down the lane together.
“You know, when Robert captured the Hess man,” began William, who had thought out a few more details during lunch, but Hubert interrupted him.
“Funny you should’ve told me that this morning,” he said.
“Why?” said William.
“Well, it’s jus’ a sort of coincidence, that’s all,” said Hubert.
“What d’you mean, a coincidence?” said William, his curiosity aroused, as Hubert meant it to be.
“Will you promise not to tell anyone?” said Hubert.
“Yes.”
“Cross your throat?”
“Cross my throat.”
“Well, jus’ the same sort of thing seems to’ve happened to a cousin of mine what’s coming to stay with us.”
“The same sort of thing as what?” said William impatiently.
“Same sort of thing as Robert capturin’ Hess.”
“Dunno what you mean,” said William. “Your cousin couldn’ve captured Hess ’cause—I keep tellin’ you—Robert captured him.”
“Oh no,” said Hubert, “he’s not captured Hess.” He paused a moment, then brought put with a superb air of casualness: “He’s captured Hitler.”
“What?” gasped William, then, recovering himself, said firmly: “He couldn’t have.”
“Why not?” said Hubert, who was enjoying a conversation with William for the first time for weeks.
“’Cause he’s not been captured.”
“Oh yes, he has,” said Hubert. “They’ve not put it in the papers, of course, ’cause it’s all gotter be kept secret same as the things Robert does.”
“Well—” William grappled helplessly with the staggering idea. “Who’s carryin’ on in Germany then?”
William Carries On (Just William, Book 24) Page 8