The Beckoning Lady (27 page)

At dusk he had returned to it and before beginning his dismantling had detached the bell and had won back Miss Diane's wayward heart with it from the foreigner.

Much later in the night, when most of his trove was garnered and safe in its hiding-places all over the village, he had made a special journey up the stream to find out if there was any good reason for the bicycle's presence in the water at all.

Under a tree some few yards from the field path which led up to the house without a back he had found one.

Old Harry's ethics were peculiar in the sense that they were special to himself, but such as they were they existed and accounted for his most thoughtful treatment of Luke, both at night when he had assuredly saved his reason from being spirited away by the dangerous rays of the moon, and in the morning when he had as good as reported the body to him if the man had any understanding at all.

So now, at noon on the day of Mr. Tonker's Feast, or party as people were calling it nowadays—names changed with the years in Old Harry's experience, but Feasts mercifully did not: Man and his Belly they stuck together, modernise them how you liked—here he was, richer, happier and in Midsummer mood.

He fortified himself with a draught of the wicked wheat wine of his own making, which he had broached for the late evening's celebration when he had a mind to show the Londoner a few wonders, and went round to the back of the shed where, under some cabbage leaves by a little spring, he had some of his posies waiting for the ladies.

These were tight bunches of flowers, very formal and conical in shape and doubtless of some ancient significance, but they were beautifully made out of the choicest blooms which the gardens of Pontisbright could produce, as Old Harry well knew, having made a tour to collect them just after he left Luke. There was one for Minnie, tipped with one of her own red roses, another for Emma, one all-gold for Amanda, for she was of the nobility, and a small white one for Annabelle. But the best and biggest of all was a glowing crimson pyramid smothered in buds and cradled in maidenhair, which was ‘special for a lover'.

Old Harry took down a dusty waisted basket, relict of some Edwardian wedding, and placed the posy inside. Then he went down to see his new friend, the Head policeman, to whom he had taken a fancy because he was such a splendid, well-furnished young man, a pleasure to the eye.

“I take my hat off to you, Minnie. It's a species of miracle. I wouldn't do it for mink and millions. The work, woman, the work!”

Tommasina, wife of Wally, Tonker's friend and boss, sat on Minnie's bed and made up her mouth with a lipstick as red as a raspberry. Like Minnie, she had never had the disadvantage of having been born beautiful, but unlike Minnie, in something over forty years, she achieved something very near it. She was as rounded as a girl, and genuinely elegant, and her white and navy dress made the very flowers look countrified. Minnie grinned. She was very pleased to see her, and was secretly delighted to find that the old elixir which the prospect of a party had always poured into her own veins had not failed her once again. She could feel it now, a recklessness and a gaiety which killed worry and anxiety as an alkali kills acid.

“It's going to be all right,” she said and crossed her fingers in the pocket of her new print dress. “It wouldn't be fun if one didn't do it oneself for people one likes. These business do's could be awfully dreary, and then they'd defeat their own object.”

“You're telling me.” Tommy spoke bitterly. “I see enough of that. Who's coming? Everybody, I suppose. Wally's been as nervous as a cat. What's old Tonker got on?”

“On?” Minnie started violently. “I don't know of anything special.”

“Oh well, then, forget it. I only wondered. I don't know anything.”

Minnie slid between her and the mirror. “Give,” she commanded. “Out with it. That man frightens me.”

“I know nothing.” Tommy sat back on the bed. “Honest, I don't know a thing. I only know that he's fixed up something with the Augusts.”

“The Augusts?” Minnie groaned.

“It's nothing destructive.” Tommy was holding her
arm. “I only know it's some sort of patter, and if you mention it they'll neither of them ever forgive me. Seriously, angel, I only know that whatever it is, Tonker came down here to fix it over the telephone because he wanted to give them long, quiet instructions and wouldn't do it from the office at all.”

“What?”

“That's all I know and all Wally knows. That's terribly important.” She laughed. “Yet it may be all crackingly silly. You know what they are.”

“Oh well,” Minnie dusted her nose with a mighty powder puff, “it can't be worse than we've known.”

“That's true.” The other wife of Perception and Company Limited echoed exactly the tone of mingled pride and resignation. “Are all the old gang coming as well? Jenny and Robert and Eve and Cocky and Poppy and the Whippets—”

“And the kids.” Minnie spoke with a certain pride. “I do a deal,” she said mysteriously. “We do all the work and I trade friends in for extra help.”

Tommy laughed. “You're mad as a coot. Wally says you take the inquisitors too seriously. What do they do? Demand to see a visitors' book with each name's probable value accurately assessed?”

“Not now.” Minnie was giving her nails, which she wore in the old-fashioned way, a final burnish. “But oh dear, my little snooper chum is dead. I keep remembering him.”

“He's not the one in the papers, I hope?” Tommy's voice had a dangerous inflection.

“Well, yes he is. Was, I mean.”

“Minnie!” Her visitor's mascara'd eyes had widened. “Wally was muttering about this all the way down. I say Minnie, if there was a scandal now, it really would be unadulterated hell, darling. You do realise that, don't you? The new client is coming down and is bringing old Lord Tudwick himself. Wally and Tonker have been simply slaving on some business for them for months and
months. Oh dearest, it would be too cruel if something frightful broke.”

“Oh I know.” Minnie was shaking her head. “You're telling me. Fang wrote me yesterday. He's bringing . . .”

“Listen, Minnie.” Tommasina's eyes were unnaturally bright. “Let's face it. Tonker hasn't the temper of an angel. You don't think that . . . I mean you are sure . . .?”

“Tonker says he didn't,” said Minnie flatly, “so don't be ridiculous. It's going to be the best party we've ever had and there's nothing whatever to worry about. It's going to be the Lions and Lovelies Party. Tonker wouldn't call it that if he'd—well, if he'd thought the police were interested in him. We'll be all right. Put a bit more colour on. What a glorious dress that is.”

Tommy was reassured because she wanted to be and momentarily sidetracked.

“It's good, isn't it? The Paris house of the Old Firm, there's no one like them. They charge the earth but you do get heaven. I bought it over there when I was doing a little publicity job for Lemesurier's. Alarmingly hard work. I had to spend the whole of a long dreary Thursday afternoon at Auteuil with S. S. Smith and some appalling pals of his. I didn't escape them until nine in the evening. He'll be here today, they say.”

“Yes.” Minnie was thinking. Her eyes had narrowed and she seemed half afraid to ask the question in her mind. “Which Thursday was this?”

“Last week. Does it matter?” Tommy had captured the mirror again. “Not the day before yesterday. The Thursday before that. Anything of great importance in that?”

“No.”

“Darling, what on earth is the matter? Do you care where the S.S.S. man was last Thursday week?”

“Yes, I do, rather.” Minnie spoke absently, and then, catching the other woman's expression, bridled like a girl. “Oh, don't be so silly,” she protested. “Don't be so disgusting. Whatever next?”

“That wouldn't please the V.I.P.,” Tommy was beginning, when a handful of stones splattered over the window. There was silence outside, followed by a school-boyish guffaw. Minnie looked out and Tommasina joined her. Two stocky figures stood side by side on the path outside the window, with their backs to the house. Wally was very decently clad in formal grey, but Tonker had put on his party garment which his friends had brought down for him. It was a very early M.C.C. blazer, just a little large for its present wearer and cut with all the pyjama-jacket respectability of the Victorian sporting mode, in quarter-inch thick flannel. The stripes of scarlet and yellow were but little faded, and the effect was both gay and grand.

“Ripping!” said Minnie, fishing out the right word. “Absolutely whacky. Bang on.”

The two figures, still making smothered noises, turned slowly and there was a squeal from the window. Both Wally's magnificent black beard and Tonker's sandy grin were hidden by ‘beautiful girl' masks, ill-fitting but still horribly lifelike. Tonker's blazer, buttoning almost to his chin, added to the revolting incongruity. Wally screwed up his face and thrust his chin forward, and the supple rubber of the mask moved also. Tonker covered his eyes.

“It's got a bend in it!” he shouted and they both roared with laughter.

Tommasina turned to Minnie. “I'd believe anything of them after that,” she said.

After lunch, instead of getting dressed, Amanda and Rupert were romping. The enforced rest in the morning seemed to have produced an unnatural energy in both. They were also excited. Old friends had telephoned, Old Harry's posy had been a success, and the weather was much better than anyone could have hoped.

After being merely silly, Rupert suddenly got very naughty and refused to put on his new long white trousers.
Amanda, who was half dressed herself, was so ill advised as to chase him, and they tore all over the top of the house like lunatics, finishing up in Aunt Hatt's bedroom. Rupert took a flying leap at the bed; Amanda, seizing the opportunity, caught him by the leg; and with a shriek he snatched up the tortoiseshell hairbrush from the high chest beside the bed, hit her over the head with it, and flung it away from him into a corner where it broke.

Mr. Campion, coming up to see if the goats had got in, arrived in time for the lamentations. Rupert was weeping in an agony of remorse, Amanda was rubbing her head, and they were both rather appalled about the hairbrush, which was a ‘good one'. Mr. Campion had to have the entire business explained to him in detail, a difficult matter since no one had been thinking very clearly at the time.

“I didn't mean to do it.” The ancient wail went up in the old house, which must have heard it a hundred times before in its long history. “She was trying to catch me. I didn't think. I didn't mean to do it. Honestly I didn't mean to do it.”

The silence which followed, and which was only broken by Rupert's sobs, went on so long that after a time both warriors glanced cautiously at Mr. Campion, who appeared to have forgotten them. To their intense indignation, they discovered that he had. He had wandered over to the window and now stood looking out into the garden with unseeing eyes.

“Of course,” he said at last in a surprisingly matter of fact tone. “Of course. What a silly chap I am.” Turning, he appeared to notice the two insulted faces for the first time. “Yes, indeed,” he said, “you two must hurry up, mustn't you?” And, swinging round, he strode out of the room and ran lightly downstairs, leaving them sobered and flat but partners in adversity.

As he reached the hall, the telephone began to ring and he was advancing upon it when Luke, a little flushed and misleadingly businesslike, hurled himself out of the
dining-room to answer it. Mr. Campion stepped back obligingly and was sickened to see the nervous possessiveness with which Luke's long hand closed round the receiver, and immediately afterwards to hear the dull sullenness in the voice which said gruffly, “Lugg. For you.”

At the other end of the wire the thick and familiar tones were heavily mysterious.

“That you, Cock? No luck yet, but I've got a bit of a lead. I'm pressin' on.”

“Good. Where are you?”

“In a perishin' general shop, with a pack of bullocks' eyes glued to me . . . That's shifted 'em.” The background noises were various, including the strange soughing of a distant sea which he gathered with astonishment was his caller breathing.

“In Kepesake?”

“No, I've gorn on to Ring and now I'm makin' for 'Adleigh. I've met a pill-basher 'oo's sendin' me to 'is 'ead office, got that?”

“Yes. Keep at it.”

“Orl right. Thump a willin' 'orse, you know what 'appens.”

“What?”

“The noble animal gets ruddy fed up. You take 'Er Ladyship and the Gawd-ferbid to the party, and expec' me when you see me. Tell 'em I'm coming. I've got a lot to do down there, and if you're right on this lark there'll be a bit more.”

“So there will.” Mr. Campion sounded non-committal. “It's important, though, because I've got an idea.”

“Chalk it up.” The flat voice was derisive. “'Old on to it. Don't let it escape yer. That's what the bloke said 'oo 'ired me my transport.”

“Good heavens, what is it? Equine?”

“No. One of them little motor-scooters you can drop by parachute. A Sealy'am.”

“Corgi. My hat Lugg, are you all right? Be careful.”

“That's what they all say.” Lugg was heavily amused.

“I got a percession o' motors be'ind me all follerin' to see me blow up. A very ignorant type of person in 'abits these parts. Under-entertained. Every now and again I show 'em—look, no 'ands! Wot yer.”

Mr. Campion hung up and went into the dining-room. Luke was sitting at the table before a portable typewriter and the inevitable sheaves of tidy papers all round him. The C.I.D. sergeant, a slender quiet-eyed young man, who had been sent down to help him, was sitting at the small desk in the corner tabulating notes. On the table, in a tumbler of water, was the crimson posy Old Harry had made. It gleamed like a wound on the dark surface of the ancient wood. Mr. Campion looked at it sharply in passing and glanced at Luke, who was in shirtsleeves, his face hard and preoccupied.