Callers for Dr Morelle

by Ernest Dudley

  ‘You should have let us know you were coming,’ she said.

  He grinned a little sheepishly. He was feeling pretty low over the anti-climax. It hadn’t worked out a bit the way he had imagined it.

  ‘It was all one of those last-minute rushes,’ he said. ‘The ship was paid off at Singapore, my company sold her to a concern out there, and then completely unexpectedly I found there was an air-passage vacant for me. The company wanted me in London to talk about promotion, so they were willing to pay my fare. I leapt at the chance, and thought —’ he grinned again — ‘I might give you a surprise.’

  ‘It’s a lovely surprise.’

  ‘How are things? Isn’t Julie still at this club?’

  Had there been a hint of anxiety in her eyes, or had he been imagining it? ‘Yes, she’s still there. Only she — had had a few days off, they’re beginning rehearsals for a new show. So she thought she’d pop down to the cottage.’

  ‘She’s down there by herself?’

  ‘Just for a few days.’

  Again he was remembering how he had been conscious of something evasive about her tone; an undercurrent of anxiety, was that what it had been? He had dismissed the idea then, he had put it down to his feeling of disappointment.

  Then she had said: ‘Why don’t you go down?’

  ‘Do you think there’d be a welcome on the mat?’ Phil had said. ‘I’ll go now if you like.’

  ‘Please do,’ she had said. She had spoken quietly and he could have sworn that there was such urgency in her voice that he stared in surprise. But she had offered no explanation for her expression; and then his heart had begun to beat more quickly. Would Julie really want to see him, as much as Thelma seemed to be hinting?

  ‘You seem to be on my side, anyway,’ he had grinned at her.

  ‘I’ll wire her that you’re coming. She can meet you with the local jalopy. The cottage isn’t on the phone.’

  ‘How do I get there?’

  ‘Waterloo. Hatford’s the junction down there, and you pick up the train for Little Tiplow. It always seems to me to be like a journey into the wilds of Darkest Africa, getting to Little Tiplow. But to a globe-trotter like you, it’ll be nothing.’

  She had found a railway time-table and he had fixed on the next best train.

  ‘You can have my bedroom,’ she’d said. ‘Unless Julie insists on your having to stay at the local pub for fear of the scandal in the village, if it gets round that you both stayed the night under the same roof and no chaperone.’ And she had laughed.

  It was at the door of the flat just as he was going that she had told him she was at the same night-club as Julie. The Black Moth.

  She would not have mentioned it to him, if he hadn’t asked her how the show she was with was doing. She would not have volunteered the information, he had felt sure of that as he regarded her with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘I made a move. Went over to this other joint.’

  Her tone had been light.

  ‘To keep an eye on the kid sister?’

  His tone had been light, too. But at the back of his mind had been the hints Julie had dropped about the Black Moth in her letters to him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she had said to him, as if reading his thoughts. ‘It isn’t such a bad spot.’

  He had felt then that there had not been very much conviction in her voice. He had thought she had sounded as if she was kidding herself. He must ask Julie all about the place, he had promised himself. And then he remembered that it was because of what he had asked her in his letters about the club, the anxious questioning, that had, he’d decided, brought the coolness in her letters to him, her letters which had reached him less often.

  Then he heard Thelma saying:

  ‘Phil, I’m so glad you’ve come.’

  Then he had hurried away back to his room off Baker Street, quickly to pack a suitcase, whistling the song he had heard that time at the night-club when he’d first seen Julie in the show, his heart light at the prospect of seeing Julie soon. Yet that niggling shadow at the back of his mind growing more obtrusive, despite his attempts to brush it away.

  It was Thelma’s words to him: ‘Phil, I’m so glad you’ve come,’ which were in his mind now as the train sped on to Hatford.

  Chapter Three

  Phil could not help contrasting Thelma’s obvious pleasure at seeing him with her evasiveness about her sister. Oblivious of his cold pipe, he sat leaning back, staring out of the window.

  A breeze was whipped in on him as the train sped through the oncoming dusk. He shivered slightly, recollecting that not long before he had stepped out of the aircraft in the heat of Karachi. The transition from the sweltering heat of the tropics to the cool of an English evening might be responsible for the sudden chill that passed over him.

  He noticed that the haze on the passing fields had grown. In the sky a dark pall was looming up from the west. The sunset light was lurid, bronze in colour, and he knew that some dirty weather was blowing up. Maybe it was the impending storm which had all along been at the back of his mind’s disquiet.

  The growing darkness was caused not only by the approach of night, but by those black swollen clouds which were crowding the horizon. Hardly a good omen, he thought, with a rueful smile.

  He raised the carriage window as a tang of smoke filled the compartment, beaten downwards in a long trailing plume by the heaviness of the atmosphere and sent swirling through the window. His thoughts kept in tune with the rhythmic monotony of the clacking wheels.

  Presently he stirred, feeling the grinding pressure of the brakes, as the train slackened speed and swung into Hatford Station, its platform lights glinting in the dusk.

  Phil knocked out his pipe, grabbed his suitcase and got out, glad to stretch his cramped limbs. A porter directed him, and he crossed the hollow-sounding bridge to another platform. The local for Little Tiplow was delayed, he learned, it was not expected for another half-hour. Impatiently Phil waited, pacing the platform. He wished that Julie could have met him at Hatford. He wished he had suggested it to Thelma, so that she could have put it in the telegram.

  The local, a small fussy engine and two grimy coaches, wheezed into view and clattered pompously alongside the platform. For the last lap of his journey Phil shared a carriage with a garrulous old man, smoking a foul-smelling black pipe.

  ‘Fine old storm coming up,’ the man said. ‘Thought one was brewing. Been thundery all day.’

  Phil nodded absently. He was in little mood for light conversation with strangers.

  ‘Clear the air, though, that’s one good thing,’ the man went on. ‘Rain’ll come down in fair torrents, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he prophesied with conviction.

  ‘I hope not,’ Phil said with a slight smile.

  ‘And last all night, I reckon.’

  Phil did not answer. The rest of his replies were so monosyllabic that at last the old man was reduced to silence, except for a series of gurgling noises from his pipe. The engine puffed stertorously as it wound through a treeclad valley, dark and still.

  Phil was thankful when at last the train panted into Little Tiplow. The station was merely a halt, with a short platform, and only a box of a booking-office and the glow from a signal-box further down the line. Phil got out, grabbing his suitcase and looked around. There was nobody in sight except a gangling porter who advanced out of the shadows and took his ticket.

  The porter’s answer to his query served to intensify his increasing gloominess of mind and uneasiness.

  ‘No, I ain’t see nobody. Been here all the time, and no one in no car’s turned up.’ His face was turned upon Phil blandly. ‘They knew what train you’d be coming on, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ Phil said, a trifle irritably. ‘There aren’t all that many trains, are there?’ Had Julie got the telegram, he wondered, had Thelma sent it off in good time? ‘A telegram was sent,’ he said.

  ‘Telegrams ain’t very quick round here. The post-office don’t always get a chance to
send them out. If they’re busy.’

  Phil sighed heavily. ‘I’d better just wait,’ he said.

  A quarter-of-an-hour passed.

  To Phil, pacing the little platform disconsolately, the darkness pressing down, each minute seemed interminable. Every now and again the porter poked his head out of the booking-office door and made friendly inquiries.

  A further fifteen minutes passed. When next the porter bobbed out with his parrot-like questions, Phil arrested his subsequent jack-in-the-box disappearance.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether my friend mightn’t have had a breakdown,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe, sir,’ the porter agreed with equanimity. ‘It’s dark enough and those winding lanes, might be in a ditch somewhere —’

  ‘No need to be so damned cheerful about it,’ Phil said. ‘We’d better do something. How about phoning for a car, a taxi?’

  The porter chuckled. ‘You won’t get anything like that tonight. The only one we got here clears off to Hatford arter the six o’clock comes in.’

  Phil groaned. ‘Then can’t I telephone for one from Hatford?’

  The other shook his head. ‘It’s like this. The Hatford drivers won’t take no orders from here on account of trouble we’ve had with them not turning up as promised in the past. You might just as well try to get a special sent down from Waterloo, as get a hired car to-night.’

  ‘All right,’ Phil said. ‘How far is Lilac Cottage from here?’

  ‘Lilac Cottage?’ The man pushed his cap on the back of his head. ‘Let’s see now.’ He muttered to himself while Phil waited with growing impatience. ‘I reckon it’s about two miles. You turns down a little lane, first left — I think it’s left — arter you gets to the cross-roads.’

  ‘Good,’ Phil said firmly. ‘I’ll walk.’

  ‘Walk, sir? With this storm coming on? Why, look at it, dark as the inside of a black pig. And it’s going to pour any minute.’

  ‘I’m banking on it holding off for a bit,’ Phil said. ‘I’ll risk it.’

  Undoing his battered suitcase he took out a light plastic raincoat and put it on. With a grim glance at the sky he said good night to the porter and set off briskly.

  What had the porter said? About two miles? As if it was any distance at all. Already he felt better now he had decided to walk. Kicking his heels on that comic little station had been a depressing business. It was good to have something definite to do.

  With every step his spirits rose, the weight of foreboding seemed to be about to lift from his mind.

  The storm burst upon him when he had covered about a mile.

  In a matter of moments he was drenched, and cowering beneath the violence of the downpour. Lightning slashed across the sky and ripped apart the black, lowering clouds. Thunder crashed and rumbled; the rain driven by squall after squall stung his face with the sharpness of needles.

  His raincoat was soon letting in the rain, which ran down the back of his neck, as buffeted by the storm, his trousers flapping, wet and uncomfortable around his ankles, his shoes squelching in the mud and puddles on the narrow road, he battled miserably forward.

  No sense in stopping now. He might as well push on. Wryly he was reminded of those times when he had stood, hanging onto the ship’s rail, battered and soaked by the fury of China Sea hurricanes. This was something like it, except that he was still on firm ground, and not on a reeling, creaking ship.

  Barely able to make out the way, he staggered on. He found himself stumbling into a ditch. He stumbled against some thorny bushes, and cursed as he heard a rending sound, and felt the rain soaking through the tear in his raincoat.

  Finding his way on to the road again, his shoes soggy in the mud, he pushed on. Suddenly his sense of humour took over, and he laughed aloud at himself. What a spectacle he must make, for a lover going to meet his girl. Rain-drenched, tattered raincoat flapping, splashed with mud to the knees.

  ‘Phil Stone,’ he roared at the storm, ‘you’re just about the biggest fool west of Suez.’

  Tramping on, head down, he collided with something solid. He looked up. He had walked into the signpost which stood at the cross-roads. In the brief light of a flash from the sky he could not make out what the signpost said. But it didn’t bother him. The gangling porter had said for him to keep on going past the cross-roads, and take the first on the left.

  He could see only a few yards ahead. Suddenly he halted and he stood irresolute. Had that damned porter said left? He was sure he had. Somewhere along the road ahead of him he should turn left, that was it.

  And then a watery, wavering light appeared in the darkness before him, drew nearer. It was a cyclist approaching along the road, he was coming from the direction in which Phil was about to head. Bent forward against the storm, the figure on the bicycle, Phil saw, was a man, hurrying as best he could.

  Thankful for the sight of somebody who could reassure him that he was on the right way, Phil stepped out into the cyclist’s path, waving his arms to attract his attention. The bent pedalling figure came on, apparently unaware of anyone in his path.

  Phil let out a shout above the clamour of the storm. The cyclist jerked up his head. He seemed unable to understand that he was required to stop, he made no effort to slacken speed.

  ‘Can you stop,’ Phil yelled. ‘I think I’m lost.’

  This time the cyclist heard. He slowed down, and stopped alongside Phil, wobbling as his brakes slid on wet wheel-rims.

  ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ His voice was friendly. He didn’t sound like one of the locals, it was a cultivated voice. ‘Did you say you were lost?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Phil said. ‘Sorry to trouble you, but I want Lilac Cottage. I’m a complete stranger, I’m afraid. I think this is the road, isn’t it? That’s what the porter at the station said.’

  The cyclist, who wore a sou’-wester tied under his chin, and a glistening oilskin coat, produced a torch from out of his pocket. Phil noticed as it was switched on and was trained on his face, that the man had a leather bag hooked over the handlebars of his machine.

  ‘Sorry, I’m blinding you,’ the man said, and turned the torch, so that its reflection illuminated his own face; he had ruddy, weatherbeaten features, and keen eyes, wrinkled against the rain.

  ‘Lilac Cottage?’ he said. ‘That’s it, first turning on your left. About a hundred yards on.’

  He jerked his head back indicating the direction from which he had come.

  ‘Thanks so much,’ Phil said.

  ‘What a night, you must be soaked.’

  ‘I’m all right, especially now I’m nearly there.’

  ‘I’m in a hurry, I’m afraid.’ The man’s voice was resonant and warm. ‘Just when my blasted car is in dock. Got a baby to help bring into the world, so I’ll be shoving along.’

  ‘Sorry to have stopped you, Doctor,’ Phil said quickly. ‘But I was afraid I might be off the right track.’

  The other laughed good-humouredly, brushing the rain out of his eyes with one hand.

  ‘You haven’t got far to go now,’ he said. ‘You’ll find it half-way down the lane. What a hell of a night.’

  And as Phil again called out his thanks, the man pushed off and pedalled into the darkness.

  Phil turned to stare back at the dark figure and the wobbling red rear-light until it vanished, then he went over the cross-roads, peering ahead for the turning on the left.

  As he came to the lane, it suddenly struck him that the wind had dropped, the rain had almost ceased. The thunder was growling away in the distance. He saw lightning rimming the clouds on the horizon with an electric blue shimmer. The storm had blown itself out as quickly as it had begun.

  He stood for a moment listening to the drip-drip from the branches of a nearby tree. Then he turned into the lane, with a grin of anticipation and a quickening step.

  Chapter Four

  Lilac cottage stood white and low-built back from the lane and as he opened the gate and went up the litt
le path, his soaked shoes making no sound, Phil suddenly glimpsed what appeared to be an appropriate lilac tree in a corner of the front patch of garden.

  The cottage was distempered white with beams picked out in black. It was one-storeyed, its slate roof glistening in the gloom. A porch faced him, on either side of which was a window.

  The thrill of expectation that had uplifted him ran higher now. At last, he was so very near to his heart’s desire.

  He caught an edge of light round the curtained window on the left of the porch as he put down his suitcase and reached for the brass knocker. His rat-tat echoed beyond the front door and he pictured Julie’s face as she heard his knock. He hoped she would not be startled too much. She wouldn’t be used to visitors out of the night, he imagined. That was assuming she hadn’t received Thelma’s telegram, and it remained to be seen what had happened about that. He would not have to wait long to know for sure, he told himself.

  There was no sound of movement within. Only the sigh of the wind round the cottage and the sound of rain dripping from the trees nearby. A few moments passed as he stood there, staring at the door, chilled and damp round the back of his neck. He could feel the water that filled his shoes seeping out onto the stones beneath them. His trouser turn-ups were sticking to his ankles.

  Still no sign of Julie having heard his knock. Far away came the faint sound of a train, the little sound seemed to intensify the silence around him.

  He banged the brass knocker again, more loudly this time. A squall of wind swirled into the porch, and a cold rivulet of water ran down his back inside his bedraggled collar. He wondered if Julie had the radio on and had not heard him for that reason, but he could hear nothing within.

  His teeth chattering a little reminded him that he had become used to the tropical weather, where even the rain was warm. He banged on the door once more. Much louder this time. What an anti-climax to the wearisome journey this was.

  He recalled what the porter had said about the telegram. If in fact it hadn’t been delivered for some reason, though he hadn’t taken the man’s observations about the local post-office seriously at the time, but if Julie wasn’t expecting him, she might have gone out.