Sally gave Mr. Mort’s message. “I’ll drive you there in the Riley and leave you and come back to tea with Betty,” she suggested. “I really haven’t seen much of my family since they arrived.”
They sat round the fire for some time and talked in a desultory way of Bala, where Betty had first met Pamela, and of Cambridge and Pamela’s work and ambitions, which she took very seriously. Sally announced that she would go and start the Riley and drive it out of the garage and round the town, to make sure she was used to it before she picked up Pamela. Betty was quite surprised at such evidence of tact.
As soon as Sally had gone Pamela began: “It’s rather a relief to talk about these things to you, because I’ve been over and over them in my head till I thought I was probably losing all sense of proportion and getting an obsession. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind in the least,” Betty assured her; “and if you don’t ever want to talk about it again, you can forget you ever told me, and I’ll forget it too. But it does help to clear things up if you can say them out loud to someone else.”
“It’s awfully decent of you to be so understanding. You see, I know Aunt Myra didn’t like my father. He ran away and left my mother before I was born. Aunt Myra would never talk about him. I’m sure my mother must have had letters and photographs, but Aunt Myra destroyed them, I think, and always said there was nothing. I hate mysteries, and I don’t believe my father was such an out and out rotter. I can’t believe it; after all, he was my father, and I’m sure I should feel something bad inside me if he had been really bad. Besides, the worst things aren’t so bad if you know them.”
“You’ve never met any of your father’s relatives, I suppose?”
“Not a one. It’s almost as if he never existed; there seems to be no trace of him left. It’s a disagreeable feeling, you know; as if you were cut off from your roots. Of course Aunt Myra must have been awfully fond of my mother, who was her younger sister, and awfully cut up when she died.”
“The very nicest people can’t help being terribly jealous sometimes,” Betty suggested. “If your mother married someone whom her elder sister thought wasn’t good enough for her, your aunt might not be able to help feeling jealous of him, and when your mother died, that would make it worse.”
“Yes; I see all that. But it doesn’t account for everything. Aunt Myra always seemed to want to keep me away from Oxford. It had been arranged long ago that I should go up to Cambridge and I was keen about it, so there wasn’t any reason why I shouldn’t come here. But when I told her that Mr. Mort had been to see me she was so furious that I couldn’t help thinking that was the reason why she didn’t want me ever to come here—so that I couldn’t meet him. I’ve noticed for a long time her way of keeping people off when she didn’t want me to know them—as she did with you—and at first I thought that was a kind of jealousy, but then I began to see that there was a system about it. They were always Oxford people, or people who had some connection with Oxford.”
“She probably felt awfully responsible for you; even more than if she had really been your mother; and parents, you know, often think they’re doing good work by trying to censor their children’s friendships. It’s a complete mistake,” Betty declared, “but they’re always doing it.”
“Yes, I know,” Pamela agreed. “But that doesn’t account for it entirely. No; I’m sure Aunt Myra wanted to cut me off entirely from my father, and Mr. Mort is a sort of link with him, and that’s the reason why she tried to keep me from ever meeting him. Well, I suppose he’ll tell me about my father now—we didn’t have much time when I saw him before—but I feel rather awful about it. I had hoped that somehow I could persuade Aunt Myra that it was much better for me to know whatever there was to know, and although I expected there would have to be another awful row between us, I thought that afterwards things would be easier. And now—” Pamela’s lower lip trembled a little.
Betty squeezed her hand. “I’m awfully sorry, Pamela. It must be wretched. Do you really think you’d better go and see Mr. Mort to-day? Wouldn’t you rather wait a bit?”
“No, really; I’d rather see him at once.”
Sally, steering the Riley very decorously through Oxford, was recovering from several shocks. Somehow Burse, disguised as Aunt Myra and the tragically drowned only relative of this girl of her own age, became less of a fiend and more of a human being. And after all, Sally thought to herself, Burse was the only family she had, so I ought to help her to make the best of Burse. But how did the Morter come into it. Could he possibly know some disreputable secret about Burse’s past? One wouldn’t expect Burse to have disreputable secrets and one couldn’t imagine the Morter having any connection at all with anyone’s disreputable secrets. Or—could you? Perhaps a gay young rip might, if he repented of his youthful wildness, become just such a dried-up misanthropic scholar! But then why should the Morter be so anxious to see Pamela? Surely he couldn’t be longing to betray Burse’s dark past to her orphan niece? Especially if it were his own dark past as well? The whole thing was fantastic. The whole academic world seemed to be changing its nature, putting on wigs and false eyebrows and taking part in a melodrama.
The light at Carfax changed colour and Sally carefully took a wide corner to avoid the nursemaids with prams who always consider the roadway at this point a suitable gossip stand, and drew up neatly at the door of the Mitre. She leapt out of the car and into the hotel so quickly that she did not notice Detective-Inspector Braydon strolling along the pavement. When she came out again about five minutes later, with Pamela following, he was again loitering past and paused to look very attentively at Pamela. Her appearance seemed to impress him.
A pale gleam of winter sunshine shone kindly on the weathered surfaces of the fawn-coloured stone of the college walls.
“Oxford really is lovely!” said Pamela.
Could the girl really be so impressionable, thought Sally, that Burse was right in keeping her away in case she should want to desert Cambridge? After all, if someone in possession of her senses decided deliberately that she wanted to go to the other place, where she couldn’t even get a degree, surely the picturesque appearance of a few old buildings wouldn’t make her change her mind. Though there was something about the place——
They halted at the main gate of Sim’s.
“We can go in this way, by the Morter’s garden gate,” Sally explained. She guided Pamela round the quad and left her at the gate in the wall, with a cheery “Good-bye, and good luck!” for she had a vague feeling that there might be something rather unpleasant in front of Pamela, as if she were about to plunge into the mysterious depths of the university underworld.
CHAPTER XV
UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES
SALLY returned down St. Giles because it was easier to approach the Mitre from that side, bitterly regretting the speed limit as she hummed along. St. Giles is about four times the width of an ordinary street and a line of lamp-posts and islands divide the two tracks. Sally, well in the middle of the road, close to this frontier, noticed an elegant but rather dejected figure step nonchalantly from an island, cross her path and then hover uncertainly in the middle of the track. Surely it was Daphne. Sally knew that Basil was proud of his brakes and she gave a good display of their efficiency, nearly caused heart failure in the owner of a Morris Minor which was close on her tail and, when it perforce swerved round her on the wrong side, laughed heartlessly at the startled pedestrian’s wild backward leap from approaching death.
Daphne stood gasping with alarm and indignation by Sally’s left front wheel and remarked dispassionately: “Damn silly trick!” Then she looked at the driver. “Sally! Gosh! Whoever let you out alone in that?”
“You’re not to be trusted in a road,” said Sally severely. “What are you doing here?”
Owing to the width of St. Giles the traffic was able to swerve round them without much inconvenience whilst they discussed the situation.
“I saw you and just stopped
to pick you up,” Sally explained.
“I jolly nearly needed picking up,” Daphne retorted.
“Anyway, wouldn’t you like a drive in Basil’s car?” Sally kindly offered.
“I’m not sure that I would, and anyway, I’m not feeling at my best. I’ve had a row with Owen. Have you read his new poem? It’s called Dust, and is published by Blackwell at half a crown, and you ought to buy it because in ten years’ time it may be worth ten guineas. Now, I’ve got that off my chest. I did promise him I’d tell people to buy it—and really it’s worth it,” she added generously.
“I’ll tell Basil about it,” said Sally. “But what’s the matter with you? If reading Owen’s new poem makes you feel like dirt and go mooning about in the middle of the traffic as if you were sick of life, that’s not a very good advertisement.”
“I wasn’t mooning. It was yesterday that I read Owen’s poem. It’s this foul detective work that has upset everything. I asked Owen to find out something about Draga and Coniston and the penknife, and he’s simply furious. I see now that it was rather a dirty trick.”
“You can’t have done it properly. You’d better get in and come for a drive and then we can both go back to the Mitre for tea. In fact, I think I’d better go there first because I said I’d go back at once. I’ve been taking Burse’s niece, Pamela, to see the Morter, and Betty might wonder what had happened.”
“She might, and with good reason. But why on earth to see the Morter?”
“Get in and I’ll tell you.” Sally held open the door and Daphne settled herself into the low seat.
“Don’t go too fast, because this hat easily comes unstuck,” she advised.
They were held up by the traffic lights before they could enter the Corn, and Sally was suddenly aware of a tall figure bending over the back of the car and opening a door.
“May I get in, Miss Watson? I want a word with you and I am being followed, so this is providential!”
“Oh!” gasped Sally. “I had quite a shock; I thought you were the police!”
“Well, so he is!” Daphne reminded her.
Sally exploded in giggles.
“Green light! Get on!” said Daphne.
They proceeded along the Corn.
“What do you mean about being followed?” Sally asked over her shoulder. “Is someone trying to murder you?”
That, of course, would be in accordance with the best thrillers, but she had never expected that the Cherwell mystery would come up to scratch to that extent.
“The hounds of the press,” said Braydon gravely. “They are on my track. They seem to think that I go about dropping clues as if I were a paper chase and that by following me they’ll pick some up. I was just wondering what was the best means of seeing you. If the press could report that I visited blank college and spent an hour interviewing Miss X, it would make a splendid headline, especially if Miss X were young and charming.”
“I don’t particularly want to be a headline,” said Sally. “And Betty would hate it. But won’t it make a better one if they can say ‘Detective steps into fast car and is rushed by lovely young lady to’—well, anywhere—Broughton Poggs, perhaps.”
“Of course it might. We must hope for the best. But are you really bound for that enchantingly named place?”
“As a matter of fact we’re going to the Mitre at the moment. You might come along with us. My sister’s there, but she knows all about it. Blast these lights! I suppose I can’t go past them on the strength of having Scotland Yard in the car?”
Betty was not unduly surprised to see Sally return with Daphne, but when a tall dark man followed them into the room she thought that surely this must be the mysterious Mr. Mort. Why on earth—? And where was Pamela?
“This is Detective-Inspector Braydon,” said Sally. “My sister, Mrs. Pongleton.” She wondered whether it would be bad form to mention that Betty had helped to solve the famous Pongleton case; Betty didn’t like her to talk about it; better not.
“I wanted to ask your sister one or two questions,” Braydon explained, “so I cadged a lift when I saw her passing, and she brought me here.”
“I’ll leave you in peace,” said Betty quickly. “Really—there’s something I want to do——”
“It’s not in the least necessary; in fact, I think that perhaps you can help,” said Braydon. “First of all”—he turned to Sally—“can you tell me when, if at all, any of you told Mr. Coniston that you had found that knife, or gave him some hint that you had found it?”
Daphne turned pink. “It’s my fault entirely. I asked someone else, a friend of mine, if he could find out whether that was Matthew Coniston’s knife, and though he didn’t much like the idea, he dropped a hint to Matthew, or rather, he laid a sort of trap. He was awfully fed up about it afterwards.”
“When was this hint or trap dropped or laid?” asked Braydon.
“On Saturday evening, I think. I say, I do hope this isn’t serious, because it would be simply ghastly if somehow I had made—er, this friend of mine get Matthew into a mess.”
“I hope, too, it isn’t serious,” Braydon assured her. “Can you tell me what sort of a hint your friend dropped? I’m sorry if it’s painful, but criminal investigation is apt to be painful and generally unpleasant.”
Daphne writhed. “As for that, I’m out of it from now on,” she assured him. “I don’t know exactly what was said, but I think Matthew gathered that I was in it and that I knew a knife had been found, but probably he thought the police had done the finding.”
“I see; thank you. Now I hope you can put it out of your minds. At least you can rest assured that if some of you had not picked up the knife, the police would have found it, with its fingerprints intact.” He knew that if Coniston’s story was accurate, the knife would probably have been recovered by the owner—or perhaps would never have been left behind—but there was no need for the girls to know that.
“And remember that it won’t do Mr. Coniston any good to let any gossip about that knife get about, especially as it is possible that it need never be mentioned in the case again. There is not even any proof that the knife belonged to Mr. Coniston.”
Daphne heaved a sigh of relief. Sally felt some disappointment. She liked things to be tidily cleared up, and this knife affair was apparently to remain wrapped in mystery, unless Daphne had extracted more information from Owen.
“We haven’t yet found out anything about the Ferry House inscription,” Sally announced; “but Gwyneth was bristling with mystery this morning; I think she has some clue, and we may be able to let you know this evening. I’ve not had much time to cope with it. I’ve been occupied with Miss Denning’s niece.”
“Ah! The slender fair girl whom you carried off in your car after lunch?” Braydon suggested.
“So you saw us then?” Sally asked in surprise that she herself had failed to notice. “You are a snooper!”
“Sally!” exclaimed Betty, horrified. She had been sitting quietly in the background and they had forgotten her.
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” Sally explained apologetically. “But Inspector Braydon seems to dog my footsteps.”
“Isn’t that in accordance with popular ideas of a sleuth?” inquired Braydon. “Don’t worry! I’m not offended, Mrs. Pongleton. In fact, I think I’m rather pleased to find that I escaped Miss Watson’s observant eye.”
“Of course that was Pamela Exe who got into the car with me,” Sally informed him.
“Yes; I should have known her anywhere,” said Braydon, almost to himself.
“So you’d seen her before?” asked Sally. Observing a denial in his expression she set her brains to work and produced an explanation. “Of course, you’ve been going through Miss Denning’s papers with a fine comb and you saw her photograph!”
That point being satisfactorily settled, Sally dismissed it.
“Pamela has gone to see Mr. Mort.” Betty explained.
There was a moment when Braydon’s surprise adver
tised itself in his face; instantly he controlled his expression, but Betty, who had naturally been looking at him, noticed that he was taken aback by this news. Sally and Daphne, occupied with some murmured question and answer about Daphne’s lunch, noticed nothing.
“Of course,” Braydon remarked, “he’s a friend of the family, I believe, and would know she was coming to stay with you here.”
“He hardly had time to know,” said Betty; “but Pamela was anxious to see him, so my sister rang him up and arranged it. Pamela is staying with us here for a day or two, if you should want to see her; but she finds it rather difficult to talk about the affair—naturally—and I’m quite sure she hasn’t the ghost of a notion as to any motive or reason behind the murder of Miss Denning.”
“You’ve talked to her about it?” Braydon inquired.
“Not much about that, but about herself and her parents a bit,” Betty told him. “She seemed to want to talk to someone about things that were worrying her.”
Braydon nodded and turned to Sally. “There’s one other thing I wanted to ask you two; not very important, but it may help to explain a slight detail. Do you remember what state of mind Miss Czernak seemed to be in when Inspector Wythe questioned her on Friday night? You know her well and can judge best whether she seemed very upset or alarmed at being sent for.”
Sally and Daphne considered. “She seemed particularly calm; not even very surprised that she had been sent for,” Sally informed him. “Oh, dear! I keep forgetting that you’re the police! I don’t mean that she expected to be sent for, but Draga’s like that sometimes. She’ll take the most astounding things absolutely calmly and then she’ll go off the deep end suddenly over nothing at all. She never told us what she said to Inspector Wythe; she rushed back to her room again, I think, after the interview; but it’s quite likely that she started calm and boiled over in the middle of the interview and then she may have said anything.”
Death on the Cherwell (British Library Crime Classics) Page 18