R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (25 page)

'Are you still on the line?' enquired the bored clubman's voice.

'Yes, Mr Winterbourne. The headmaster and myself think it almost certain he'll come to you. Have you any idea where else he might go? To a relative, maybe?'

'I'll put my mind to it.'

'Will you phone us at once if he does show up?'

'Of course.'

'Good. Meantime we'll check the railway stations this end. Someone must have seen him. Can I get you on this number any time?'

'No. Ring City 7404 after nine-thirty. My secretary will put you through. I'll leave instructions if I'm in conference.'

'Very well.'

There seemed nothing more to say so he jotted down the number and rang off, saying, 'He's a cool customer, isn't he?' and Herries grunted, 'So would you be if your income was twenty thousand a year plus. I've never been able to decide what made a chap like Winterbourne send his boy here. Couldn't trust his wife at Eton or Harrow, I wouldn't wonder.'

'I'm beginning to understand Winterbourne's problem,' David said. 'That chap might have been discussing a lost dog.'

'Spats is a bit of a lost dog, P.J., and so would I be if I was his age, and had his home life. Do you know what I think? I don't think he'll go that far. He'll just hang around. Bamfylde has been more a home to him than anywhere else, I wager.'

'Then why should he leave it?'

'To think things out, maybe. And let the dust settle.'

'Where does that leave us, sir?'

'Under an obligation to go through the motions of the lost, stolen or strayed drill. Get Boyer and four or five of the sharpest seniors in Havelock's. I'll check
the stations.'

'Couldn't we enlist all the prefects, sir?'

'I wouldn't if I were you,' Herries said, calmly. 'It's your first term as housemaster. You don't want kindly patronage from all your colleagues at this stage, do you?'

'No, I don't. Thank you, sir,' and he went back to Havelock's where Beth was brewing coffee, having first sent for Boyer and four seniors of his choice. They joined him before he had finished his first cup. Boyer said, doubtfully, 'We've… er… got a clue, sir. Not where he is but why he cleared off.'

'Well?'

'It came from Johnson Major, sir. He was out with his people yesterday and… well, he'll tell you himself, sir.' He went to the top of the stairs and bawled Johnson's name and a moment later the boy sidled in, looking, David thought, shifty and ill at ease. He said, at a nod from Boyer, 'If Spats… er… Winterbourne
has gone
off, sir I might be the reason but I thought I was doing the right thing, sir. I mean, well, sir, he's a good sport, and I didn't want anyone to spring it on him. With that kind of stuff in the papers it was bound to get around sooner or later, wasn't it, sir?'

'What are you trying to tell me, Johnson?'

Johnson swallowed. 'I… er… I saw the paper in the lounge of the Hopgood Arms, in Challacombe yesterday. I didn't want my people to see me reading it, and start asking questions, so I slipped it in my jacket and took it away.'

'You're saying you showed it to Winterbourne?'

'Yes, sir. I took him on one side after prep and I waited around while he read it. He asked if he could keep the paper and I said he could. After all, it wasn't mine, sir.'

'How did he take it?'

'He was sick, sir.'

'Sick? You mean really sick?'

'Yes, sir, there and then, behind the bandroom. I told him to go to matron, sir, and he promised he would, but he made me swear on the Bible not to let on to anyone. I wouldn't have, if Boyer hadn't explained.'

'No one else knows, sir.' This from Boyer, who looked a little sick himself. 'This is the first Dobson and the others have heard about it. Does it mean anything?'

'I think it does.' He pondered a moment and then, out of the corner of his
eye, he saw the wretched Johnson eyeing him. He said, 'Look here, Johnson, nobody holds this against you. I'm not sure you did the right thing but who the devil knows what the right thing is under these circumstances? Clear off now and don't breathe a word of it to anyone, you understand?'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,' and Johnson shot away, relieved to be out of it so cheaply.

Herries appeared with one of his half-inch ordnance maps and once again David had a fleeting trench memory, this time of an old, grey-haired brigadier, mounting a company-strength raid on the Boche line. He said, calmly, 'I've mapped out the likely routes. He didn't get the train at Bamfylde Bridge and he didn't get it at Crosshayes. Before we start half a dozen hares we'll check the locals. I'll drive over to the Crosshayes area myself and call in one or two of the farms. You take that three-wheeler of yours, P.J. and do the same as far as the Barrows. You others take the routes I've marked and check with any moorman you meet, but make it casual. Don't let them see we're much concerned, you understand?'

'Yes, sir.'

'We'll rendezvous at midday under the Clump and pool what news we have. Hold on, you can't comb Exmoor on empty stomachs. Go and get breakfast first. I've told Priddis to serve you before the multitude descends.'

They went out and Herries said, 'I didn't tell 'em to keep mum, did I?'

'You didn't have to, sir,' and he recounted what Johnson had told them. Herries said, 'Poor little toad. It's young to have to stand up to that kind of fire, but my guess is he'll do it somehow.'

'He's not likely to…'

'Do anything silly? Not a chance. Winterbourne isn't the hysterical type. Could that gel of yours spare me a cup of that coffee?'

'Of course,' and he fidgeted while Herries sipped the coffee Beth handed him. Over the rim of his cup Herries's sharp eyes caught the movement. 'It's all happened before,' he said, 'and it'll happen again. The important thing is to tread softly, my boy.'

They met as arranged at the foot of the knoll, marked on the maps as the Clump, but none of them had anything to report. Winterbourne had vanished and Herries thought it likely that he might be home by now but he was not.
There was no message from Winterbourne Senior and when Herries rang the City number he was told the boy had not yet appeared. Herries said, quietly, 'We've searched a five-mile radius here and we'll extend it to ten or twelve before dark. If he's still in the district we'll find him, Mr Winterbourne. Are you prepared to leave it at that, or would you prefer me to notify the police.'

David, standing near the door, heard the calm voice rise to a crackle and saw Herries scowl. 'Very well, that's your prerogative, Mr Winterbourne,' and he replaced the receiver.

'Damned codfish,' he said. 'That's what comes of making too much money, P.J. The word “police” sent his blood pressure soaring, just as I knew it would. Still, he has a point. The police mean publicity and he's had a surfeit of that. Wouldn't do us much good, either. We'll keep it in the family for the time being.'

After lunch they assembled all the prefects and sent them off in couples, nine pairs in all, covering all points of the compass ten miles afield. Those with farthest to go were given bicycles and instructions to phone in.

David pushed his own enquiries as far as Challacombe but when they all met again at dusk no one had seen or heard anything of Spats. Exmoor had swallowed him up.

Herries said, as they picked over a cold supper, 'There's no help for it. Publicity or no publicity we'll have to report him missing and I daresay we'll get a wigging for not doing it earlier.'

Beth said, unexpectedly, 'But you're still not really worried, are you?' and Herries replied, 'No, my dear, not to that extent. I'm irritated, and concerned as to his state of mind and my responsibilities. But when you've been at this as long as I have you learn to rely on the barometer in here,' and he tapped his hard, round stomach. 'Get a good sleep, both of you. We'll turn to again after breakfast tomorrow but I'll discuss it with Inspector Chawleigh at Challacombe before I go to bed.'

'But you're worried sick, aren't you, Davy?' Beth said, as soon as Algy's steps had died away on the stairs, and he replied, 'By God, I am! Who wouldn't be?'

'Why not trust Algy's instinct?'

'It's not only Winterbourne I'm concerned about,' he admitted, with something of an effort. 'It's us, you and me. A thing like this, to happen my first term here as housemaster. Damn that silly woman and her peccadilloes! Right now I could strangle her with one of her own silk stockings.'

She said, 'Come to bed, Davy,' and he followed her, without much confidence that he would sleep.

And yet he did, a few minutes after she had taken him in her arms, and as he drifted off he thought, drowsily, 'She's right… I can cope with anything so long as she's around… I've been feeling damned sorry for myself all day but I'm luckier than that chap Winterbourne, for all his investments and fancy trappings… If he'd had the sense to marry someone like Beth his boy wouldn't be out on the moor feeling the sky had fallen on him.' His hold on her tightened, as though he was suddenly aware of the fragility of happiness, how chancy it was and how easily lost.

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I
T HAD LEAKED BY RISING BELL THE FOLLOWING MORNING, A heavy, sultry day, with a promise of sticky heat and thunderstorms before evening.

The wildest stories concerning Spats Winterbourne were circulating and there was no stopping them, as Boyer told him after the school had gone into breakfast. Even Algy had lost some of his ebullience and drifted in to tell them Inspector Chawleigh would be making his own enquiries from Challacombe, and was sending a man over to get statements.

'None of these people seem to be able to do a thing without first putting it on paper,' he grumbled. 'One of these days the entire Western world will grind to a halt, its apparatus clogged with forms, files and memoranda. I had it in mind to comb the south-eastern area today, starting from farther out with Boyer, and one or two others. Will you stay here meantime and cope with that scrivener?'

'Anything you say,' David said, feeling that he had lost control of the situation. 'Beth planned to take the twins into Challacombe for their inoculations, so I won't have the car until she gets back. I could cancel it, of course.'

'Don't do that,' Herries said, 'that diphtheria scare is still on, I'm told. We had everyone jabbed the first week of term. I was an idiot not to tell Willoughby to do the infants then. I'll phone in around midday and we can exchange news. I daresay Mr Moneybags will call again. Tell him the state of the poll.'

David watched him drive off, his Austin Seven grossly overloaded with the Sixth Form posse. Ten minutes later Beth drove the Morgan round from the coach-house with the twins aboard, Joan in front with her, Grace perched in the dickey seat behind. He did not go down and reassure the children about the inoculation. In his present mood she was more qualified to do that, but
he waved as they bumbled off down the west drive and Grace waved back. There was no point in going into class. For one thing he couldn't concentrate. For another he was likely to be fetched at any moment to deal with Inspector Chawleigh's man, so he asked matron to show him Winterbourne's locker, sorting through his belongings in the linen room, looking for some kind of clue as to the boy's whereabouts.

There was nothing of any consequence in the pockets and turning them out lowered his spirits a degree or two farther, for he remembered performing this same office for casualties behind Béthune, in the autumn of 1915. A cardboard folder caught his eye and he took it over to the window, surprised to find it contained about a dozen very creditable watercolours, all of Exmoor scenes and signed '
E. W. Winterbourne'
, with dates reaching back a couple of years.

The quality of the work astonished him. Spats could not have been more than thirteen when the first of them was painted and, so far as he knew, the boy had had no training. There was one that impressed him particularly, a limpid sketch in bronze, russet and green, of Chetsford Water, where it flows out of the middle moor and passes under an old stone bridge through a desolate area of upland. The autumnal tints of the moor had been trapped by the boy's brush. It had a soft, brooding quality, unrelieved by the width of a sky dappled with those long streamers of cloud that passed in endless procession over the scene at all seasons of the year.

He was still looking at it when Mrs Gorman, the matron, presented herself. 'The policeman is here now, Mr Powlett-Jones. Mrs Herries is showing him into the head's study. Will you be wanting any further help from me?' He told her no, tucking the folder under his arm and going down the slate steps to the quad. The light seemed very queer out here, overcast with a yellowish tinge as if, at any minute, the low clouds pressing on the school buildings would split and empty themselves. From the direction of Big School, where Bouncer was in session, he heard a burst of laughter, and turned in through the arched door leading to the head's kitchen quarters and thence to the study, where a young policeman, looking just as green and uncertain of himself as he had when he reported for his first interview there more than seven years ago, was thumbing his notebook.

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