XIV
Bredon Is Taken for a Walk
In front of the Load of Mischief stands an alehouse bench—that is the description which leaps to the mind. Ideally, it should be occupied by an old gaffer in a white smock, drinking cider and smoking a churchwarden. A really progressive hotel would hire a gaffer by the day to do it. A less appropriate advertisement, yet creditable enough to the establishment in the bright air of the June morning, Angela was occupying this seat as her husband came back from his shopping; she was knitting in a nice, old-fashioned way, but spoilt the effect of it rather by whistling as she did so.
“Well, did you get a bargain?” she asked.
“So I am assured. I have got a very good line; I could go a long way and not find another handkerchief just like this one. Or indeed six other handkerchiefs just like these six. They are distinctive, that is the great point. Even you, Angela, will have difficulty in getting them lost at the wash.”
“And how was Mr. Simmonds?” asked Angela, dropping her voice.
Bredon looked round cautiously. But Angela had chosen her place well; she knew that publicity is the surest safeguard of privacy. In the open square in front of the inn nobody would suppose that you were exchanging anything but trivialities. Bredon communicated his mystification and his alarm, depicting the strange behaviour of that haberdasher in terms that left no room for doubt.
“Yes,” said Angela when he had finished, “you were quite right not to press him with any more questions. You do seem to be rather heavy-handed, somehow, over these personal jobs. Now, I’ve been having it out with ‘Raight-ho’ since breakfast, and I got quite a lot out of her. Miles, that girl’s a jewel. If she wasn’t going to be married, I’d get her to come to Burrington, in spite of your well-known susceptibility. But it’s no use; the poor girl is determined to sign away her liberty.”
“To Mr. Simmonds?”
“So I gather from what Mr. Leyland told me last night. But of course I was far too discreet to ask for any names.”
“How did you manage to worm yourself into her confidence? I’d as soon tackle a stone wall.”
“One must unbend. It’s easier for us women. By a sudden inspiration, I reflected that it must be an awful nuisance washing up all those plates after breakfast, especially in a pub where they seldom have more than two guests at a time. So I offered to help. That was just about the time you went out shopping. I’m quite good at washing up plates, you know, thanks to having married beneath me. She said ‘Raight-ho,’ and we adjourned to the scullery, where I did wonders. In the scullery I saw a copy of Home Hints, which was very important.”
“I don’t quite see why.”
“Don’t you remember that cantankerous old bachelor friend of yours who came to us once in London—Soames, I think his name was—who told us that he wrote the column headed ‘Cupid’s Labyrinth’? The column that gives advice to correspondents, you know, about affairs of the heart. It’s the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that the modern pillion-girl is any less soppy about her amours than the young misses of last century. I knew instinctively that ‘Raight-ho’—her name, by the way, is Emmeline, poor thing—was an avid reader of ‘Cupid’s Labyrinth.’ And I’m afraid I rather prevaricated.”
“Angela, you surprise me. What particular form of lie did you blacken your soul with this time?”
“Oh, I didn’t exactly say anything. But I somehow allowed her to get the impression that it was I who did the column. After all, Mr. Soames is a friend of yours, so it wasn’t so very far from the truth. Miles, she rose to the bait like anything.”
“Heaven forgive you! Well, go on.”
“It was all to save you twenty quid, after all. Up till then, she’d been saying all the ordinary things—she’d got a sister in London, whom she goes and stays with; and she finds Chilthorpe rather slow, hardly ever going to the pictures and that; and she’d like to get up to London herself—it’s what they all say. But when I let on that I was Aunt Daphne of ‘Cupid’s Labyrinth,’ she spread herself. How would I advise a friend of hers to act who found herself in a very delicate situation? So I told her to cough it up. The friend, it seemed, had been walking out with a young man who was quite decently off; that is, he had quite enough to marry on. But one day he explained to her that he had expectations of becoming really very rich; if only a relation of his would die, he would then come into a property far above his own station, let alone hers.”
“The situation sounds arresting in more ways than one.”
“Don’t interrupt. Well, the man suggested they should get engaged, and they did, only on the quiet. And then, a few weeks ago, or it might have been a fortnight ago, this man suddenly informed her friend that all his dreams of wealth had suddenly collapsed. The rich relation had made a new will in which he made no provision for his family. And he, the young man, was very nice about it; and said of course he’d asked her to marry him at a time when he thought he could make her a rich woman; and now he couldn’t. So if she wanted to back out of the engagement now, he would give her complete liberty.”
“Sportsman.”
“Her friend indignantly said ‘No’; she wouldn’t dream of backing out. She wanted to marry him for himself, not for his money, and all that. So they are continuing to regard the engagement as a fixture. But her difficulty, I mean the friend’s difficulty, is this: was it just a sort of melodramatic instinct which made her say that the money meant nothing to her? Was it just her pride which made her think she was still in love with the man, now that he was no longer an heir? Or was she really still in love with him? That was the problem, and I had to set to and answer it.”
“And what was your answer?”
“Oh, that’s hardly important, is it? Of course, I put on my best Aunt Daphne manner, and tried to think of the sort of tripe Soames would have written. It wasn’t difficult, really. I said that if the man was quite comfortably off as it was, it was probably far better for them both that they shouldn’t become enormously rich; and I laid it on thick about the deceitfulness of riches, though I wish I’d more experience of it, don’t you? And I said if they were already walking out before the man mentioned anything about the legacy, that proved that her friend was already in love with him, or half in love with him, before the question of money cropped up at all. And I told her I thought her friend would be very happy with the man, probably all the happier because he knew that she wasn’t mercenary in her ambitions, and all that sort of thing—I felt rather a beast doing it. She was very grateful, and it didn’t seem to occur to her for a moment that she was giving herself away, horse, foot and guns. She can’t have known, obviously, that you and Leyland were rubbering in the lane last night. And so there it is.”
“And confoundedly important at that. Angela, you are a trump! We’ve got Leyland down, both ears touching. He himself said that his theory about Simmonds would break down if it could be proved that Simmonds did know about the codicil, did know that he’d been cut out of the will. And it can be proved; we can prove it! It’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it, that all this should have happened a fortnight ago or thereabouts? Obviously, it was hearing about the codicil which made Simmonds offer to free ‘Raight-ho’ from her engagement, and jolly sporting of him, I consider.”
“Candour compels me to admit that I’ve been rather efficient. But, Miles dear, the thing doesn’t make sense yet. We know now that Simmonds wasn’t expecting anything from his uncle’s will, and therefore had no motive for murdering him, unless it was mere spite. Then, why has Simmonds got the wind up so badly? You aren’t as frightening as all that.”
“Yes; it still looks as if Simmonds had got something on his mind. And we know that Brinkman’s got something on his mind. Perhaps Brinkman will react on this morning’s conversation and let us know a little more about it.”
Almost as he spoke, Brinkman came out from the door of the inn. He came straight up to Bredon as if he had been looking for him, and said, “Oh, Mr. Bredon, I was wondering if you would care to come for a bit of a walk. I shall get no exercise this afternoon, with the funeral to attend, and I thought perhaps you’d like a turn round the gorge. It’s considered rather a local feature, and you oughtn’t to leave without seeing it.”
It was clumsily done. He seemed to ignore Angela’s presence, and pointedly excluded her, with his eyes, from the invitation. It seemed evident that the man was determined on a tête-à-tête. Angela’s glance betrayed a surprise which she did not feel, and perhaps a pique which she did, but she rose to the occasion. “Do take him out, Mr. Brinkman. He’s getting dreadfully fat down here. Instead of taking exercise, he comes out and chats to me in public, more like a friend than a husband—and he’s making me drop my stitches.”
“Aren’t you coming?” asked Bredon, with a wholly unnecessary wink.
“Not if I know it. I’m not dressed for gorge inspecting. You may buy me a picture postcard of it, if you like, on the way back.”
The two strolled off up the valley. Bredon’s heart beat fast. It was evident that Brinkman was taking advantage of the overheard conversation, and was preparing to make some kind of disclosure. Was he at last on the track of the secret? Well, he must be careful not to betray himself by any leading questions. The post of the amiable incompetent, which he had already sustained with Brinkman, would do well enough.
“It’s a fine thing, the gorge,” said Brinkman. “It lies just below the Long Pool; but fortunately Pulteney isn’t fishing the Long Pool today, so we shan’t be shouted at and told to keep away from the bank. I really think, apart from the fishing, Chilthorpe is worth seeing, just for the gorge. Do you know anything about geology and such things?”
“You can search me. Beats me how they do it.”
“It beats me how the stream does it. Here’s a little trickle of water that can’t shift a pebble weighing half a pound. Give it a few thousand years, and it eats its way through the solid rock, and digs a course for itself a matter of fifteen or twenty feet deep. And all that process is a mere moment of time, compared with the millions of years that lie behind us. If you want to reckon the age of the earth’s crust, they say, you must do it in thousands of millions of years. Queer, isn’t it?”
“Damned rum.”
“You almost understate the position. Don’t you feel sometimes as if the whole of human life on this planet were a mere episode, and all our boasted human achievement were a speck on the ocean of infinity?”
“Sometimes. But one can always take a pill, can’t one?”
“Why, yes, if it comes to that. … An amusing creature, Pulteney.”
“Bit highbrow, isn’t he? He always makes me feel rather as if I were back at school again. My wife likes him, though.”
“He has the schoolmaster’s manner. It develops the conversational style, talking to a lot of people who have no chance of answering back. You get it with parsons too, sometimes. I really believe it would be almost a disappointment to him if he caught a fish, so fond is he of satirizing his own performance. … You haven’t been in these parts before, have you?”
“Never. It’s a pity, really, to make their acquaintance in such a tragic way. Gives you a kind of depressing feeling about a place when your first introduction to it is over a deathbed.”
“I am sure it must. … It’s a pity the country out toward Pullford has been so much spoilt by factories. It used to be some of the finest country in England. And there’s nothing like English country, is there? Have you travelled much, apart from the war, of course?”
“Now, what the devil does this man think he’s doing?” Bredon asked himself. Could it be that Brinkman, after making up his mind to unbosom himself, was feeling embarrassed about making a start, was taking refuge in every other conceivable topic so as to put off the dreaded moment of confession? That seemed the only possible construction to put on his conversational vagaries. But how to give him a lead? “Very little, as a matter of fact. I suppose you went about a good deal with Mottram? I should think a fellow as rich as he was gets a grand chance of seeing the world. Funny his wanting to spend his holiday in a poky little place like this.”
“Well, I suppose each of us has his favourite corner of earth. There, do you see how deep the river has cut its way into the rock?”
They had left the road by a footpath, which led down steeply through a wood of fir-trees and waist-deep bracken to the river bank. They were now looking up a deep gully, it almost seemed a funnel, of rock; both sides falling sheer from the tumbled boulders and fern-tufts of the hillside. Before them was a narrow path which had been worn or cut out of the rock-face, some five or six feet above the brawling stream, just clear of the foam that sprang from its sudden waterfalls. There was no habitation in view; the roaring of the water drowned the voice unless you shouted; the sun, so nearly at its zenith, could not reach the foot of the rocks, and the gorge itself looked gloomy and a little eerie from the contrast. “Let’s go along the path a bit,” said Brinkman; “one gets the effect of it better when one’s right in the middle of it. The path,” he explained, “goes all the way along, and it’s the regular way by which people go up when they mean to fish the Long Pool. I’ll go first, shall I?”
For a second Bredon hesitated. The man had so obviously been making conversation all the way, had so obviously been anxious to bring him to this particular spot, that he suddenly conceived the idea of hostile design. A slight push, disguised as an effort to steady you round a corner, might easily throw you off the path into the stream; they were alone, and neither rock nor stream, in such an event, would readily give up its secret. Then he felt the impossibility of manufacturing any excuse for refusing the invitation, Brinkman, too, was a good foot smaller than himself. “All right,” he said, “I’ll follow on.” He added a mental determination to follow at a safe distance.
About twenty yards from the entrance, they stopped at a resting-place where the rock-path widened out till it was some five feet in breadth. Behind it was a smooth face of rock six or seven feet in height, a fresh narrow ledge separating it from the next step in that giant’s stairway. “Curious, isn’t it,” said Brinkman, “the way these rocks are piled against one another? Look at that ledge that runs along, over there to the right, almost like the rack in a railway carriage! What accident made that, or was it some forgotten human design?” It looked, indeed, as if it might have been meant for the larder-shelf of some outlaw who had hidden there in days gone by. A piece of white paper—some sandwich paper doubtless, that had fallen from above—tried to complete the illusion. “Yes,” said Bredon, “you expect to see a notice saying it’s for light articles only. By Jove, this is a place!” Forgetting his tremors, he passed by Brinkman, and went exploring further along the gorge. Brinkman followed slowly, almost reluctantly. There was no more conversation till they reached the end of the gorge and climbed up an easy path on to the highroad.
Now, surely, if there were going to be any confidential disclosures, they would come. To Bredon’s surprise his companion now seemed to have grown moody and uncommunicative; whatever openings were tried he not only failed to follow them up but seemed, by his monosyllabic answers, to be discouraging all approach. Bredon abandoned the effort at last, and returned to the Load of Mischief thoroughly dissatisfied with himself, and more completely mystified than ever.