Authors: Emma Smith
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, observing how tightly she still pressed the letter to her chest. “I am not going to compel you to give me your letter—I am merely suggesting it. You are quite right to hold it so tightly. That’s very good—I like to see it! What you have there in your hands is information more precious than diamonds. It concerns not only the life of the man who gave it to you, but the life of a whole nation. Now listen to me very carefully, for I am going to tell you my name and also my address, and if you pay attention I think you will be able to see for yourself that what is written on that envelope is the same name and the same address.”
When Amy continued to stare at him fixedly with no change of expression, he added:
“I am trying to tell you that I believe that the letter you are holding is addressed to me.”
Then slowly and clearly he told her his name and his address, spelling them out for her while Amy, with painstaking obedience, traced the counterpart with the tip of her finger.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s what he’s written here.”
But still she kept hold of the envelope, merely going a step or two nearer without relaxing her grip on it, to gaze up searchingly into the man’s face.
“For what are you looking, my child?” he asked her, smiling a little.
“You can tell by the eyes,” said Amy briefly; and then she gave him the letter.
He received it from her with a curiously formal bow, as though he were paying homage to more than either a letter or the person giving it: to a moment in history.
“Will you excuse me, please?” he said to Mrs Protheroe as he tore open the flap of the envelope.
“Why, certainly I will. You carry on and welcome,” she said, going to the switch at the door. “You’ll need a bit more light, though. It’s as dark in here as the inside of a whale. There—that’s better.”
“Mum, if I don’t have a spoonful of porridge soon I swear I’m going to die,” said Ivor. He had cast off his outdoor clothes and was slumped in a chair, his elbows on the table, chewing at somebody else’s discarded crust.
“Wait now, Ivor—I’ve not forgotten your porridge, don’t think it! But I’ll have to make you a new lot—those boys scraped the pan clean. It wouldn’t have tasted so very special by this time, even supposing they
had
left any! Only I’m bound to get that coat off Amy first—sopping it is! You’ll let me have your coat, Amy, won’t you? Now you don’t have to go out again there’s no reason for you to keep it on, is there. Look at you, child—shivering! I’m going to fetch a blanket and wrap you up in it, top to toe, and put you to sit close in to the fire. That’s what you need—a real warm right through.”
“I lost our old ironing blanket,” said Amy dreamily. “It must have come off me when I went over the edge of the Dingle.”
“Oh, Amy—you never!” cried Mrs Protheroe, aghast. “I can’t bear to think of that journey for you. How you ever came through it I don’t know. But you’re here now, and safe—that’s all that matters. Come by the fire—come and sit down,” she coaxed her.
But Amy instead went up to the man who stood on the hearthrug. He had finished reading whatever it was Bartolomeo had scrawled on the two sheets of paper and was gazing intently over the top of them as though his mind were focused half a world away. Amy touched his arm respectfully to attract his notice.
“I just wanted to ask you something, if you don’t mind. Bartolomeo isn’t a murderer, is he? They said that he’d killed somebody—did he?”
The man Ivor had called an Ambassador put his hand on her shoulder.
“Bartolomeo Cordoba is not a murderer,” he said. “He is a hero. And Luis Alvarez, who was killed three days ago in Cardiff—he too was a hero. He was an old man, and a very brave man. He was also my cousin. It was to prevent him from telling me this”—he held up the letter—”that Luis was killed. And yet,” he added, more to himself than to Amy or the others, “because by chance there happened to be a certain sailor and a certain child, he has told me just the same. By chance! Is it chance that arranges such matters? I wonder! Life is very strange.”
“I’m sorry about your cousin,” said Amy, “but I’m glad about Bartolomeo. I knew it wasn’t true, though, him being a murderer. When he saw me go over the cliff he was nearly up the top of Cader Ddu, safe, and he came all the way down to fetch me. If he’d been bad like those others he wouldn’t have bothered, would he? And he wouldn’t have gone back to the Gwyntfa after, on account of my granny. He was worried for her being left on her own there with
them.
But she’s got Mick—I told Mick to watch out for her. And I told my granny to watch out for Mick. Because I
had
to go, didn’t I? Somebody had to go. And we didn’t know where Bartolomeo was, not then. He thought I’d be all right, soon as we got over Cader Ddu—he couldn’t tell there was going to come a blizzard, could he? So that’s what he did,” said Amy in a slow sing-song voice. She had shut her eyes, as though to see more clearly the events she was describing. “He went off back to our place, and he’s only got our hacker with him, and they’ve got guns. Or at any rate Mr Nabb’s got a gun, and if he’s got a gun I should think Inspector Catcher’s got a gun as well, bound to have. That’s not their proper names, Catcher and Nabb—he said it for a joke. He likes jokes, that’s why; the tall one does. He’s called Vigers. And it rhymes with tigers, and he can tell where people are—like a tiger can, he said. And the little one, Mr Nabb, he’s called Harris. I listened when they were talking, that’s how I know. That’s how I found out first they weren’t the police. And Bartolomeo’s got a horrible great gash in his arm,” said Amy, all the facts in her head becoming more and more confused. “It’s horrible to look at—worse than any gash I ever saw before. My granny put a bandage on, but she said by rights he ought to have a doctor. I’ve come for help,” finished Amy in a rush, thankful to have unwound the tangled skein of her account and reached the point of it at last.
The Ambassador took both her hands in his. She felt their strong grip, and noticed how cool they were, and for a moment fancied she was back in the snow and that these were the hands she had then so longed for, hands that would rescue her and take charge of her. But of course it had been all right because Bartolomeo had come. By another great effort of will she recollected where she was, and that this was not Bartolomeo. This was somebody else who was speaking to her now.
“Are you sure,” he was saying, “that one of these men is called Vigers? Was that the name you heard—Vigers?”
She nodded.
“You are quite sure?”
She was surprised at the way her head nodded again for her; kept on nodding until she stopped it.
“Can you describe him?”
Instantly Amy seemed to see Inspector Catcher leaning against the mantelpiece in their front-kitchen.
“He’s tall,” she said, “and he likes to make jokes—and he’s got long fingers—and he’s the same colour all over like cream toffee—and his eyes—” She stopped. “It’s his eyes are so awful,” she whispered. “I can’t look at them—but they look at me. They look right inside my head and they can see everything I’m thinking. Brilliant, that’s what they are. Blue—same exactly as the eyes of that old fluffy cat they’ve got down the Post Office.”
He let go of her hands. “I know who you mean. I know him well. His name is Vigers, as you said, and he is a very extraordinary man; or you could say, a devil. There are some men who play tennis for a sport. His sport is cruelty. That is the game he chooses to play for his amusement, as well as for his profit. I am astonished to learn that Vigers has actually come here himself. I should have thought the risk would have been too great—but no doubt for such a man it is the risk that gives flavour to the sport. And now—let us see if I have understood correctly what you tell me: this old lady, your grandmother, she is alone in her cottage with Vigers and with an associate of his, someone called Harris—yes? And Bartolomeo Cordoba, the sailor, who has been wounded, is now at this present moment returning to your cottage, having previously made his escape—something of that sort. Am I right?”
For the third time, Amy nodded.
He looked at her a full minute longer, seriously, compassionately. “It is always the same old story,” he said. “Always it is the innocent who suffer in order that evil may be overcome.”
With a sound like a sigh he turned away; but then immediately his manner changed, became decisive again.
“Mrs Protheroe, I shall have to use your telephone—at once.”
“Oh, yes, of course, you must,” she cried. “I’ll show you where it is.”
“Please—don’t trouble yourself. I know where it is. This child is the one who has need of your attention. Her hands are very hot. I think she has a fever.”
Mrs Protheroe’s agitated energies were promptly diverted into caring for Amy. She hurried off to fetch a blanket, swathed in which, unresisting at last, Amy was deposited in Mr Protheroe’s big baggy armchair. As an extra precaution her feet were propped on a footstool to be out of the way of draughts. Her flushed face was sponged. A cup of warm milk was held for her to sip. Only when she had done for Amy’s comfort all that she could think of doing, did Mrs Protheroe set about making Ivor his long overdue porridge.
But no matter how busily she occupied herself, her mind managed to occupy itself quite separately, fitting together bits and pieces of the jigsaw to complete a dreadful picture. And however much she kept her thoughts inside her head and closed her lips tightly to keep back the questions which, partly for fear of upsetting Amy and partly for fear of what her answers might be, she dared not ask, still she could not prevent herself from seeing over and over, as though in miniature, the figures of her husband and her two sons and Victor Pugh the policeman toiling up the steep hillside towards the Gwyntfa, unaware that the danger they had never really believed in was already ahead of them, was waiting for them, even perhaps watching their progress through the little snow-bound cottage windows; or that it was worse, far worse, than anything any of them had ever suspected. Mrs Protheroe could restrain herself no longer. She paused in her stirring and turned towards Amy, whose cheeks, framed in the folds of blanket, were now scarlet.
“Amy,” she said, hesitantly, “I’m sure it will all come out all right for—for everyone, so there’s no cause for us to fret ourselves, not unduly. But did I hear you say there’s two men up at your granny’s place? Or was it three? And all with guns, and likely to use them? Mind, I’m only asking. I don’t mean for you to excite yourself, Amy. But who are they?”
“I don’t know,” answered Amy. “I can’t say—they just came to our place. First of all there was Bartolomeo—”
“He was the one who gave you that letter?”
“Yes—and he took the leg of mutton you sent up for us, only it wasn’t cooked then, so we took it back off him and we cooked it and Granny wrapped it in newspaper and put it inside his coat—to keep him warm, she said, same as if it was a hot brick.”
“Ivor—do you think she’s wandering?” asked Mrs Protheroe in a low voice.
“If you don’t hurry up with that porridge, Mum, you’ll have me wandering,” said Ivor emphatically.
“That was when those others came,” said Amy. “They came on skis—fast!—like they were flying. Beautiful, it was—a sight to see. I never did see skis before, except at the pictures. They told us they were policemen, but that was a lie. And it kept on snowing, and snowing. And he said to keep Mick away or else he’d kill him next time for sure. So then I got out of the window and—and then I took my toboggan. I made a toboggan, Ivor, just like you showed me, with a bit of old corrugated—not as good as yours, though. And we brought down the hay on it, bales and bales of hay. We’ve got your ewes over our place, Mrs Protheroe, all five of them. One was lost, but I found her—I found her down Tyler’s Place. There’s a lot more to tell, only I don’t think I’ll bother just now.”
Mrs Protheroe felt her forehead and then looked significantly at Ivor.
“Don’t you say another word, Amy. There’s nothing for you to trouble yourself about now—it’s all going to be all right,” said Mrs Protheroe, still wretchedly seeing in her mind’s eye four figures, unwarned, unguarded, plodding on through the snow towards the Bowens’ cottage. “Ivor—just you hand me over two of those bowls, will you?”
“At
last!”
said Ivor.
He gave her the bowls and watched while she doled out the steaming porridge.
“Mum,” he said, “did you tell the Ambassador about that man who was asking questions in the Post Office a day or two back?”
“Why no, Ivor, I don’t believe your father did happen to mention him. But he had nothing to do with what’s going on. He was a teacher, Mrs Ames said, in charge of a party of schoolboys back in Llwynffynnon, making enquiries—” She suspended her operations and stared across the kitchen at Ivor in sudden dismay. “He was asking Mrs Ames about suitable places for teaching boys to ski. Oh, Ivor!—was it just a story, do you think?”
“Sure to be,” said Ivor, calmly. “But never you mind, Mum—it won’t make any difference, not now.”
He had managed to swallow only four scalding spoonfuls of porridge when their visitor came back into the kitchen wearing the fur cap and the black overcoat with the big collar that he had arrived in the night before.
“Can you direct me to some other telephone, Mrs Protheroe? I am sorry to have to tell you that yours is out of order.”
“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, deeply distressed. “It must be this blizzard just now that’s done it. You’ll have to go down the village—there’s nothing nearer. Right at the far end of the street you’ll see a kiosk. But if you were to ask Mrs Ames, she’ll let you use the one in the Post Office, I know—that would be a lot more convenient for you. Only what if it’s out of order too?”
“We must hope otherwise, Mrs Protheroe—I hope it very much. How can I get there? I must go quickly. Do you have a horse I can ride?”
“You can go on my pony, Ginger,” said Ivor. “I tied him in the shed and he’s still got his bridle on. I’ll saddle him for you.”
Mrs Protheroe followed them out to the scullery.
“I don’t a bit like the feel of Amy, nor the sound of her, neither—she’s as hot as fire and rambling in her talk. I was wondering, would you ’phonethe doctor please, while you’re down there. Or just mention it to Mrs Ames and she’ll do it. And Ivor, before you come back in could you see to the animals for me? They need to be fed and watered, same as usual, the poor things.”