The Beckoning Lady (31 page)

The man with the squashed face had only to refuse point-blank to part with the trophies and there was nothing to be done about it. The only intelligent plan of campaign was to bide one's time and to acquire them unobtrusively when he was otherwise engaged. At the moment this looked difficult.

Westy sat down on the wall to wait and helped Mary to get down beside him. She revealed the quality which George had lost so sensationally earlier in the day. There was no need to explain to her. Westy accepted the miracle and worried no more about it.

Meanwhile there was growing activity in the boat house. The Augusts, who had been dipping the obliging mermaids in the river, and had been frustrated from following the same course with an angry girl who did not know them, had begun to fool about with some coloured rockets. Mary watched them earnestly.

“When a red one goes up, George is to open the sluices,” she remarked, offering Westy half a bar of nut chocolate which she had taken out of her pocket.

He accepted the gift gratefully. “Who's George?” he enquired with a twinge of jealousy.

“You know, the one who can't stop talking. The silly one. He goes to school with you, doesn't he?”

“He's in no fit condition to open a sluice.” Westy was contemptuous. “Who fixed it?”

“One of these fishmongers. I happened to hear them talking. George went down to the fen with that big girl who giggles. They're waiting down there near the Indian camp for the red rocket.”

Westy shrugged his shoulders. He had the masks to
think of now. If George wanted to take over the sluices alone, there would be nothing to stop him.

By this time the Augusts were on the balcony. At least, two of them were, and the other three were attempting to climb up without using the stairs.

“You buy a horse.” The shrill north country tones of the true cross-talk comedian echoed over the moonlit garden and there was a faint movement from Uncle William's platform and one of the cigars went out.

“Me buy a horse?”

“Yes, you buy a horse.”

“Why should I buy a horse?”

“Because you want to race a horse.”

“I don't want to race a horse.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don't.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Why should I want to race a horse?”

“Because the horse will win.”

“How do I know the horse will win?”

“Because I say it will.”

“
Oh, you
say the horse will win?”

“Yes,
I
say the horse will win.”

There was an unnatural stillness on the platform ahead of Westy. He became aware of it despite the compelling quality of the repetitive nonsense on the balcony, which had a magic of its own, inexplicable and ancient.

“Why should I want the horse to win?”

“Because you'll get a lot of money.”

“Oh,
I'll
get a lot of money?”

“Yes, you'll get a lot of money, because you paid for the horse.”

“How have
I
paid for the horse?”

“That's a secret.”

“Oh, I've paid for the horse with a secret, have I?”

The shrill, asinine voices echoed over the garden, and one of the crime reporters, who was lying on the grass, turned over to speak to a confrère beside him.

“My God, do you hear this? They're all here. Burt, Hare, Smith, and Genappe of all people, arrived home unexpectedly. This has put the lid on that little deal. This is pure murder. They're giving the whole twist away. Who put them up to it?”

At the same time, on the other side of the lawn, Gilbert Whippet bent over Tonker, who was sitting happily in the darkness.

“You're taking an undue risk, old boy,” he murmured. “They'll get you for this.”

“Worth it,” said Tonker and chuckled into his glass.

Meanwhile, old Fanny Genappe, who was standing next to Minnie, put his hand on her arm.

“Have you ever heard of a man called Ben-Sabah, my dear?”

“Ben who? No, Fanny, I haven't. Is he here? Shall I ask Tonker?”

“No, no, it was just an idle thought. I don't think we'll bother him. Very amusing, these fellows, aren't they? They look so absurd. And their patter's informative.”

The cross-talk act went on inexorably, high, nasal and moronic.

“What's the horse's name?”

“The horse's name is Pontisbright.”

Someone pushed back a chair on the concrete platform near Westy and uttered a word which that young man hoped had passed over Mary's head. The Augusts were working up to a climax, shouting and pretending to fall off the balcony. A red rocket went up behind them and Mary jumped.

“See that?”

Westy nodded in the darkness. “I'm watching.”

“The horse's name is Pontisbright and I've paid for it with a secret!” bellowed an August.

“Yes, you've paid for it with a secret and the horse will run on my racecourse.”

“Oh, the horse will run on
your
racecourse?”

“Yes, the horse will run on
my
racecourse.”

“Why should the horse run on
your
racecourse?”

“Because,” shouted all the Augusts together, just as a ripple ran through the river and the wherry bridge which they had unfastened began to move, “because it's got a
bend
in it!”

In the next five minutes all sorts of things happened. Down in the fen meadows a liberated George Meredith, from whom all shyness had dropped like a cloak, had opened the sluices as far as they would go. As the pent-up water began to race, a dark bundle escaped from the irises higher up the stream and began to move swiftly through the garden.

At the same time the wherry bridge moved rapidly, and the two Augusts upon it flung their glübalubali aside and leapt nimbly ashore at the last possible moment, so that nearly everybody on the lawn was drawn to his feet, and most people stepped instinctively towards the river's brim.

Meanwhile, on Uncle William's platform near Westy and Mary, some sort of crisis appeared to be taking place. Angry murmurs were mingled with violent movement, and the S.S.S. man snatched up the limp pile of masks just before the table went over. He had leapt down into the garden before the body went by, and was looking towards the river when it appeared.

The wax-white face staring up sightlessly at the stars, sailed down the whole length of the lawn, passed the boat house and passed the crowd. Somebody screamed, and a sibilant ripple trickled all the way down the line.

The S.S.S. man acted rapidly. Even Westy, who was standing on the wall trying to make out what on earth was happening, did not see what occurred. Smith threw the masks one after the other into the stream. Some fell one way and some another, but they all floated on the tide, so that within a matter of seconds another sightless white face bobbed down the dark pathway beside the lawn, to be followed by another and another, then two together, then one more.

“Masks!” “Only the masks!” “Masks!”

The cries went up all over the garden and laughter, much of it shocked but all of it relieved, broke out everywhere as the crowd receded and there was gaiety again.

Only Amanda, who was standing by her husband in the whispering garden, caught her breath.

“Albert, seven went by. There
are
only six. Get Luke quickly. Down to the fen.”

MR. CAMPION CLOSED
the drawer of Miss Pinkerton's desk very softly although he knew he was alone in the house, and, pushing back the chair on which he had been sitting, stepped across the room and switched out the light. Then he drew back the heavy curtains and left the way he had come, which was, as on the day before, through the window.

The house without a back rose stark and silent behind him and he set off across the long slope down to the river with swinging strides. Away to his left the patch of brilliance which was The Beckoning Lady glowed like a fairground in the night. There were still several hours before dawn, and, judging from the faint roar blown towards him by the light wind, the proceedings had reawakened after the period of comparative quiet.

A little group awaited Mr. Campion under a tree by the river. Luke was there, South, and Amanda, and Old Harry who had guided them. He was sitting apart on a log, very solemn in his Sunday-and-Funeral suit, but sly-eyed and watchful in the moonlight.

“I doubt you had no luck, sir.” The Superintendent's tone was difficult to place, but Mr. Campion felt that for once he was not actually grinning.

“It was hopeless,” said Luke. “It's been destroyed.”

“Wait.” Mr. Campion spoke briskly as he came up beside them. “I hope this was not the actual tree where she was found, Superintendent? I don't want to destroy any traces.”

“That's all right, sir. That's the tree over there where Buller says he saw her and thought she was sleeping. Some people ought to have their heads X-rayed, but we can't go into that now. There's an empty gin bottle there but we
can't see the bicycle. I have no doubt she hid it because she didn't want to be spotted and in my opinion she probably wheeled it in the river. In that case it may have travelled. The whole stream is choked with rubbish this time of year. You never know, she may have pushed it on to something that looked as if it would keep it afloat and not spoil it. People do crazy things like that when they're thinking of suicide. Well, we shall see. You've come back empty handed, sir, have you? I was afraid you might.”

“I don't know.” Mr. Campion leant against the tree which was not the one under which Old Harry had seen Miss Pinkerton's body in the dawn, and felt in his pocket. “I didn't find the actual note, which, as I told you, I noticed yesterday on the mantelshelf under the one addressed to Mr. Smith. That note was for an R. Robinson Esquire, and I give you my solemn word that at that time I had no idea who the man was, and that the whole matter had slipped my mind as unimportant until we all stood up in the Indian camp half an hour ago and looked down at the body we had just taken from the stream. Then, as you know, I did remember it, and I asked you, Superintendent, if you'd ever heard of him.”

“And my reply gave us all the shock of our naturals,” interrupted South. He was brightening. “How were you to know that our local Coroner wasn't a doctor? Don't tell me you've
found
the letter, sir?”

“No.” Mr. Campion still sounded promising. “The note has gone, and I don't think any of us can be very astounded by that. But I have found something. I don't know what you're all going to make of it and I don't know if it will be considered acceptable as evidence, but here it is. I took this sheet from the drawer of her typing desk.”

He took a flimsy paper from his breast pocket and handed it up to them.

“Perhaps I ought to tell you first,” he said, “that just after the meal this evening Lugg came in to tell me that he had at last traced the chemist in Hadleigh who supplied Miss Pinkerton with dormital regularly on a London
doctor's prescription. She did not drink alcohol in the normal way, so presumably she felt it was quite safe.”

Luke produced a torch and both men bent over the letter, their faces hidden in the shadows.

“My God,” said Luke, “what do you know? A carbon!” He began to read aloud in his official voice, expressionless and ill punctuated.

His voice ceased abruptly and there was a long silence on the bank of the stream. Luke kept the torch beam on the paper and when Amanda stepped closer he held the sheet down for her to see.

“No signature, of course,” he said at last.

“How could there be?” An entirely new quality in Superintendent South's voice impressed everybody. He was serious. The alarming quality of jocund innuendo had vanished from his personality. “You can't have it
all
given to you,” he said virtuously. “Sometimes we've got to use our heads and sometimes we've got to be thankful. Well, I can't say I'm surprised. It was in my mind all day yesterday once we'd got the crime figured out. ‘It could have been quite unintentional' I said to myself before I went to sleep last night. ‘Quite unintentional'—a man with a skull as thin as that.”