Harriet, perched again on the fender, asked them, ‘Isn’t it rather unlikely that Francis should fall off a mountain? He didn’t fall off the Himalayas, and these are really only hills.’
Meade said, ‘There’s a saying, ‘Climbing in the Alps is difficult, but not dangerous; climbing in the Himalayas is dangerous, but not difficult; but climbing in the Lake District is both dangerous and difficult.’’
Margaret Ormonde said, ‘I still subscribe to the theory that he went sleuthing.’
Harriet said, ‘Round that house, you mean? But according to the detective all he saw from the rock was a man throwing something into a well. People are always throwing litter about — we had to shut the park at Nollis. It doesn’t seem at all suspicious to me.’
‘It depends entirely on what he threw,’ said Sebastian. ‘What does one throw in wells — besides pussies?’
Harriet said, ‘Perhaps it was a pussy.’
‘Or a bastard child,’ suggested Sebastian.
David said, ‘Probably kitchen garbage.’
‘Perhaps something to cleanse the water — chlorine, isn’t it?’ said Gerda.
‘Is it a disused well?’ asked Doctor Ormonde.
‘I should imagine so,’ said Meade. ‘I’ve noticed that the beck’s dammed and piped — the one which comes down from the little tarn on Cat’s Howe. I’ve always assumed that it served both the Hall and Dale Farm.’
Sebastian said, ‘If the detective had any sense, he’d go and look at the well.’
‘The police can’t search private premises without a warrant,’ said David, ‘and they have to have a very good reason before they can get one.’
‘A bastard child would be a good reason.’
‘Don’t be silly, Sebastian,’ said Harriet. ‘The household is composed of a fragile elderly lady and her invalid son. There’s no one to have a bastard. A cat’s much more likely, but if it was a live cat Francis would have acted at once — it would have been well and truly drowned by midnight.’
‘Not if the well was dry,’ argued Sebastian.
‘There’s that, of course. And he’s fond of animals, though you can’t keep anything in colleges. But all the same I think he would have acted at once. He doesn’t dither.’
Meade said, ‘While you have been arguing from a hypothesis, I have been watching the weather. The mist is patchy now and those who know the place — myself and you two boys — could be usefully employed in searching the south slope of High Hoister, the foot of the Screes and Overdale, that’s the blind valley between Stone Fell and the Screes, and there’s a bit of rock that Francis spoke about once — Overcrag. I’ll take that because I know it. Carey, you go along the Old Road hollering for all you’re worth; don’t leave the track unless the mist clears; if it does you can go higher. Brown, there’s a sheep path starting just behind the house; it will take you up into the lap of High Hoister and when you’re there use your judgment, but don’t take risks.’
‘And me?’ asked Gerda.
‘You don’t know the place, Fräulein.’
‘As well as Sebastian I know it.’
‘If it clears, couldn’t I cruise round in the car?’ asked Harriet.
‘There’s nowhere to cruise. If it clears enough — and that will be Dr Ormonde’s decision — you ladies can walk up the ghyll, but don’t holler or you’ll confuse the rest of us. And don’t miss your tea. Ask them to serve it early.’
Meade went out, followed by Sebastian and David.
Harriet asked, ‘What’s this ghyll thing?’
*
V
Plodding steadily up into the lap of High Hoister, his eyes on the track worn by hundreds of little hoofs coming and going through hundreds of seasons, David drearily supposed that even if the Skipper were alive he would soon be getting spliced and you’d only to look at that Lady Nollis to tell that once married to her his climbing days would be over. David knew nothing of titles; he had no idea that the peer’s daughter, whom he assumed Harriet to be, would not have been referred to as Lady Nollis, and, though he had noticed with disgust her scarlet nail-varnish, he had missed the significance of her wedding ring. Perhaps her parents disapprove because the Skipper isn’t a lord, he thought ingenuously, or perhaps the engagement has already been announced in the south-country papers and I ought to have congratulated him; he’ll think it funny I didn’t and it’ll stick in my throat now I’ve seen her and I know that he’s had it, for she’s not one for the hills . . . she’ll take him to the Riviera or at best to winter sports — some place where there’s cocktail bars and dancing. It’s not my business. The Skipper has every right to get married — in fact, it’s time he did if he’s ever going to, but why, when there are dozens of strong wholesome girls, who climb themselves, who’d make good comrades and good housekeepers and take the rough with the smooth, must he choose this hot-house plant, who’ll sit for the rest of her life on a pedestal, while the Skipper wears himself out running round fetching and carrying? Now in High Hoister’s squelchy lap, the cloud driving past him but as thick as ever, David called, ‘Hoi . . . Hoi . . .’ and faintly through the mist from the wet crags on the ridge, his voice came back to him . . .
*
Sebastian walked briskly down the Old Road calling, ‘Holà . . . Holà . . .’ He thought: Star-crossed lovers . . . as a dithering deb. she was pushed into a marriage with an aged earl and too late, too late (the saddest words in the English language) she met Francis and now there’s some insuperable barrier, a mountain and a wood between them. Why don’t I meet women like her? thought Sebastian; all I meet are scruffy kids from Somerville and Lady Maggie’s in skirts and wind-jammers. ‘Holà . . . Holà . . .’ If I find Francis I shall hoist him on my back and stagger in white and exhausted, and she’ll say ‘Oh, Sebastian, how sweet of you!’ and Meade will say, ‘Good show, Carey,’ and that oaf, Brown, will be utterly shattered. And perhaps after this she’ll do something about the insuperable barrier . . . would that be a good thing or would they settle down in North Oxford to kids and gardening and thickening waist-lines? Horrible, horrible. Let the mountain and the wood stand even darker than last year they stood. Better to yearn a lifetime for the unattainable . . . that’s what I shall do . . . some sad and lovely woman — Laura, perhaps, or Paula — mated (like Harriet) to a clown. ‘Holà . . . Holà . . .’ These women who were summer in men’s hearts . . . . Next term I’ll give up seeing Jill. There’s no need for a scene. I’ll just not show up at the Cadena. It’s not one’s fault. One grows out of ice-creams and these boy-and-girl affairs . . . ‘Holà . . . Holà . . .’
*
Meade trudged sturdily into Overdale. Queer, he thought, a little painted-up thing like that . . . married too . . . most reprehensible . . . he might lose his job over it. And what’s he thinking of? She’s no use on the fells. ‘Couldn’t I cruise round in the car?’ That’s what’ll happen to him — he’ll be cruising round in the car before he knows it. Thank God I steered clear of females. Needles and pins, needles and pins, when a man marries his trouble begins. Good God, where did I get that from? There was What’s-her name, the Dean’s daughter . . . you don’t see girls like her nowadays . . . peaches and cream and honey . . . and even in Oxford never a summer like that summer, the blue Italian skies, the kingcups and the buttercups and the fritillaries . . . but I’d more sense, I kept my head when another chap might have lost his, what with the violins and the starlight and the smell of the limes. Different for me, perhaps; mathematics keep you cool . . . mediaeval studies . . . the darkness and peril and the praying and the lamp they lit and it shone, I grant you, till the great white dawn of Reason quenched the little flame. Standing by the shrunken Overbeck — a wet-weather stream — Meade in his cracked old voice began to call, ‘Worthington . . . Worth-ington . . .’
*
VI
Dinner that night was eaten in an atmosphere of gloom. Harriet had not been accorded a place at the climbers’ table; she sat in the corner opposite to Price’s with an
open book propped against a vase of daffodils; Price read a morning paper, and only Gloria’s murmur of ‘Potatoes, please. Thank you. Cabbage, please. Thank you,’ and an occasional word exchanged between Dr Ormonde and Gerda broke the discouraged silence of the weary men. ‘Shape, please,’ said Gloria, and for reasons of her own it was in Sebastian’s ear that she whispered, ‘The mist’s gone. There’s a wonderful moon.’
‘D’you hear that, sir,’ Sebastian shouted to Meade and sprang up, made for the window and pulled back the curtain. The yard was silvered with moonshine and the shoulder of the fell showed clear against a starry sky.
‘Just like this climate,’ grumbled Sebastian, letting the curtain fall and returning to the table. ‘Well, chaps, where do we go tonight?’
Meade said, ‘There’s no more to be done tonight, Carey. You and Brown both look dead beat and the proper course is to get to bed as soon as you’ve digested your food, and have a good night’s rest and start fresh tomorrow morning. Hardwick will give us breakfast as soon as it’s light; he has offered to join us again, and so has Arnot. We’ll go further afield if you like, though Hardwick’s been on the telephone to Wasdale and Ennerdale and goodness knows where else, and I believe the police are also on the alert.’
‘A fat lot of good they’ll be, whizzing along the roads in cars and looking for traffic offences.’
Meade said, ‘My dear Carey, a man with a sprained ankle can get to the road in time, and Worthington’s not the sort to sit and wait to be rescued. But the shepherds and their dogs are the one’s to rely on.’
‘And it’s the week-end,’ said David. ‘There’ll be a lot of chaps out climbing.’
Sebastian said, ‘It’s dam’ cold out on the fells at night. When Francis rescued the porters on Chowolunga he didn’t wait to digest his food and have a good night’s rest; nor did he rely on shepherds.’
Meade said, ‘At twenty-five thousand feet there aren’t any shepherds to rely on. Also, it’s impossible to survive a night in the open. Worthington’s tough. With a minor injury, which is the best we can hope for, he should be able to get through a night in the Lake District in April.’
Sebastian retreated into a sulky silence, which he kept for the rest of the evening. Price talked on the telephone. The others occupied themselves by planning the search parties for tomorrow, and with the help of a map explained to Harriet into which dales she might drive and make enquiries.
At half-past ten Sebastian said good night, collected his boots from the hall and went upstairs. He slammed his bedroom door, slung his boots round his neck, climbed out of the window and dropped into the yard. In his socks he followed the shadow of the outbuildings, crossed the road out of sight of the hotel windows and scaled the dry-stone wall. In the meadow he put on his boots and, walking soundlessly on the turf, reached the gate and returned to the road a hundred yards down the dale from the hotel. He was going to the Hall. Francis had seen a man chuck something in a well there, and though everyone agreed that that was a very ordinary happening, if Francis thought it suspicious, suspicious it must be. If a snoop round the Hall revealed nothing, there was still Cat’s Howe to search, and as for being ‘dead beat’, Sebastian was tired, of course, his legs felt like chewed string, but though great hulking muscular common-sense chaps like Brown came eventually to a place called ‘Stop,’ wiry imaginative people like Sebastian had always a reserve of nervous energy, a triumph of mind over matter, on which they could draw. Wonderful it would be if, while Brown was grounded, Sebastian found Francis. ‘Where’s David?’ ‘He was whacked, poor chap, and went off to bed like the others . . .’
Sebastian reached the larch wood which surrounded the Hall, and there he paused. Should he enter by the drive, creep round the house and see if it was yet in darkness, or, skirting the wood, find a gap in the wall and proceed to the courtyard? Hesitating, he heard a lamb bleat, the hoot of a hunting owl, the beck running. Then came another sound: nailed boots on the highway.
It wasn’t late. Robertson, the farmer, could have been up to the inn for a drink and stayed to chat, or to Highbeck to spend the evening with the Arnots — climbers and hikers would be abed, but the locals had their lives, though one forgot it. On the other hand, a homicidal maniac might be roaming the dale in search of another victim. Quickly, in the shadow of the wall, Sebastian dropped on his stomach, pulled last year’s bracken across his face and waited.
The steps sounded brisk and resolute. Would a maniac walk like that or slink in the shadows? I wish I’d brought a weapon, regretted Sebastian; a kitchen knife would have been better than nothing, and I wish I hadn’t been too bloody aesthetic to learn boxing at school. Then: hell, what a flop, he thought, recognising David, and for a moment he considered lying low — Brown would be boss now; he’d take the credit; still, the main thing was to find Francis, and it wouldn’t help if he and Brown spent the night stalking each other. ‘Psst,’ uttered Sebastian, and David stopped dead. ‘Who’s there?’ he said softly.
‘The name’s Carey,’ said Sebastian, scrambling to his feet. ‘Great minds appear to think alike. Through the window?’
‘That’s right,’ said David.
‘And now, where?’
‘Into this courtyard wherever it is; I’d like to take a look at the well. After that the outbuildings and then the house.’
‘Just my idea. But I was wondering whether to take a look at the house first in case anyone’s still up and might hear us in the courtyard.’
‘It’s a ruddy great house and we’ll have our boots off. No one sleeping in the front will hear our fairy footsteps. If we do the courtyard and the outbuildings first, it’ll give the invalids, or whatever they are, time to settle before we break in.’
‘How are we going to break in?’
‘There might be an open window. If not, I’ve got this.’ David took a length of stiff wire from his pocket. ‘I can pick most locks — one of the things I learned at Carismouth Central.’
‘Good school that,’ said Sebastian.
‘Over the wall, then?’ said David.
‘No need for that. I was with Francis when he climbed the rock, remember. I wish to God I’d gone up with him. Anyhow, I did notice some gaps in the wall on the Cat’s Howe side, just behind the courtyard.’
‘Right. You lead.’
Sebastian went ahead, walking beside the wall, and soon reached the angle and the first gap, where he sat down and pulled off his boots. Inside the wall was half an acre of derelict orchard and beyond it a wall of mortared stone in which an archway, lacking a door, presumably gave entrance to the courtyard. Beckoning David on, Sebastian, bent double, flitted dramatically from one tree shadow to another . . .
Chapter Eight – Something Hit Me
As Sebastian and David paused at the entrance to the courtyard, Francis recovered consciousness. It’s cold, he thought, and with a tremendous sense of desolation: where are they? . . . then, after all, I didn’t find them . . . but I did . . . it’s all right . . . I’m at Camp III . . . it’s bloody cold and I’ve the same old headache, the same lassitude, but no sore throat, thank goodness. Was I going up, or coming down? . . . Where’s Peter; where’s Hugo? I don’t know. I’m lost. I’m lost and mad on a mountain. He sat up and was sick into the bilberries.
He felt better then. Don’t panic — wait, he told himself, and into his blurred vision came the moon, so it was night and that was one thing. And it wasn’t snow he was sitting on; it was bilberries, so that was another thing and a good thing, because where bilberries grew you couldn’t be lost and the porters were all right — around somewhere. Get up. The moon swung; the hills tilted as he tried to rise. Wait. It’ll pass off. He was sick again.
Now he could see the hills — not the Himalayas, but the friendly hills — High Hoister and the Pike, Stone Fell and Silver Screes . . . I’m all right . . . I’m down the dale somewhere. It’s happened, he thought, I’ve fallen — please God the rope broke and they’re safe, the others. Hugo, was it? Francis, he
said, I’m going. But it was all right. The belay held and I went down to him. It wasn’t Hugo — that was long ago. It was young Sebastian. My mamma flaps about my climbing, he said, and I said, properly done it’s no more dangerous than crossing the Corn, and now I’ve killed him. But why here? Why down the dale? There was a tooth of rock I climbed, but he didn’t come. No bloody fear, he said; and it’s night and he can’t still be waiting. No, I went down. I wakened him. We walked back to the inn. I rang up Scotland Yard and the Inspector came back and he didn’t believe me. Then what? Then after a rag in the smoking-room I came down to the Hall. There was nothing to see in the well but water, but in the locked barn there was the car they’re dismantling piece by piece and throwing into the well. I cut out the hasp with my good old knife . . . and then stars and stars . . . something hit me, but how in God’s name did I get up here on the Dragon’s Tooth again? . . .
Something hit me . . . Francis felt his head. The hair was damp, as if with rain, but underneath it seemed stiff and God! how tender his head was. A swipe and then amnesia. Perhaps he had run — oh dear, not very heroic — and they — whoever they were — had come after him and he had shinned up here — you did mad things when you were concussed; instinct took over, and afterwards, try as you might, you could never remember . . .
He struggled clumsily to his feet. He was incredibly stiff considering the short time he had been lying there: the moon was still up and sailing high above High Hoister, almost exactly where she had been when he had crossed the courtyard. The journeying moon . . . She had journeyed damn slowly. And he was soaking wet . . . there must have been a short but exceedingly sharp shower. He looked at his watch. The damn’ thing had stopped at eleven o’clock. That was just when he had wound it, and perhaps overwound it, as he had started off down the dale.
To ease his stiffness he paced the bilberries, flexing arms and legs. A hammer thudded dully in his head; now that his sickness had passed he felt extremely hungry — queer that; there had been roast duck for dinner and Gloria had brought him a second helping. The sooner he got off this rock the better; the Hardwicks wouldn’t mind if he raided the larder and stirred up the kitchen fire and got rid of these shivers.
The Body in the Beck Page 15