“Well, it does seem so, doesn’t it, sir? Although, as I say, he’s always such a pleasant gentleman to speak to—always a joke or a cheery word. But it’s true that I have heard he was a difficult man to get up against, and him and Dr. Humbleby was daggers drawn, as the saying is, just before the poor gentleman died. And not a pleasant thought for Mr. Abbot afterwards. For once there’s a death one doesn’t like to think there’s been harsh words spoken and no chance of taking them back.”
Luke shook his head solemnly and murmured:
“Very true—very true.”
He went on:
“A bit of a coincidence—that. Hard words with Dr. Humbleby and Dr. Humbleby died—harsh treatment of your Tommy—and the boy dies! I should think that a double experience like that would tend to make Mr. Abbot careful of his tongue in future.”
“Harry Carter, too, down at the Seven Stars,” said Mrs. Pierce. “Very sharp words passed between them only a week before Carter went and drowned himself—but one can’t blame Mr. Abbot for that. The abuse was all on Carter’s side—went up to Mr. Abbot’s house, he did, being in liquor at the time, and shouting out the foulest language at the top of his voice. Poor Mrs. Carter, she had a deal to put up with, and it must be owned Carter’s death was a merciful release as far as she was concerned.”
“He left a daughter, too, didn’t he?”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Pierce. “I’m never one to gossip.”
This was unexpected but promising. Luke pricked up his ears and waited.
“I don’t say there was anything in it but talk. Lucy Carter’s a fine-looking young woman in her way, and if it hadn’t been for the difference in station I dare say no notice would have been taken. But talk there has been and you can’t deny it—especially after Carter went right up to his house, shouting and swearing.”
Luke gathered the implications of this somewhat confused speech.
“Mr. Abbot looks as though he’d appreciate a good-looking girl,” he said.
“It’s often the way with gentlemen,” said Mrs. Pierce. “They don’t mean anything by it—just a word or two in passing, but the gentry’s the gentry and it gets noticed in consequence. It’s only to be expected in a quiet place like this.”
“It’s a very charming place,” said Luke. “So unspoilt.”
“That’s what artists always say, but I think we’re a bit behind the times myself. Why, there’s been no building here to speak of. Over at Ashevale, for instance, they’ve got a lovely lot of new houses, some of them with green roofs and stained glass in the windows.”
Luke shuddered slightly.
“You’ve got a grand new institute here,” he said.
“They say it’s a very fine building,” said Mrs. Pierce, without great enthusiasm. “Of course, his lordship’s done a lot for the place. He means well, we all know that.”
“But you don’t think his efforts are quite successful?” said Luke, amused.
“Well, of course, sir, he isn’t really gentry—not like Miss Waynflete, for instance, and Miss Conway. Why, Lord Whitfield’s father kept a boot-shop only a few doors from here. My mother remembers Gordon Ragg serving in the shop—remembers it as well as anything. Of course he’s his lordship now and he’s a rich man—but it’s never the same, is it, sir?”
“Evidently not,” said Luke.
“You’ll excuse me mentioning it, sir,” said Mrs. Pierce. “And of course I know you’re staying at the manor and writing a book. But you’re a cousin of Miss Bridget’s, I know, and that’s quite a different thing. Very pleased we shall be to have her back as mistress of Ashe Manor.”
“Rather,” said Luke. “I’m sure you will.”
He paid for his cigarettes and paper with sudden abruptness.
He thought to himself:
“The personal element. One must keep that out of it! Hell, I’m here to track down a criminal. What does it matter who that black-haired witch marries or doesn’t marry? She doesn’t come into this….”
He walked slowly along the street. With an effort he thrust Bridget into the back of his mind.
“Now then,” he said to himself. “Abbot. The case against Abbot. I’ve linked him up with three of the victims. He had a row with Humbleby, a row with Carter and a row with Tommy Pierce—and all three died. What about the girl Amy Gibbs? What was the private letter that infernal boy saw? Did he know who it was from? Or didn’t he? He mayn’t have said so to his mother. But suppose he did. Suppose Abbot thought it necessary to shut his mouth. It could be! That’s all one can say about it. It could be! Not good enough!”
Luke quickened his pace, looking about him with sudden exasperation.
“This damned village—it’s getting on my nerves. So smiling and peaceful—so innocent—and all the time this crazy streak of murder running through it. Or am I the crazy one? Was Lavinia Pinkerton crazy? After all, the whole thing could be coincidence—yes, Humbleby’s death and all….”
He glanced back down the length of the High Street—and he was assailed by a strong feeling of unreality.
He said to himself:
“These things don’t happen….”
Then he lifted his eyes to the long frowning line of Ashe Ridge—and at once the unreality passed. Ashe Ridge was real—it knew strange things—witchcraft and cruelty and forgotten bloodlusts and evil rites….
He started. Two figures were walking along the side of the ridge. He recognized them easily—Bridget and Ellsworthy. The young man was gesticulating with those curious, unpleasant hands of his. His head was bent to Bridget’s. They looked like two figures out of a dream. One felt that their feet made no sound as they sprang catlike from turf to turf. He saw her black hair stream out behind her blown by the wind. Again that queer magic of hers held him.
“Bewitched, that’s what I am, bewitched,” he said to himself.
He stood quite still—a queer numbed feeling spreading over him.
He thought to himself ruefully:
“Who’s to break the spell? There’s no one.”
Ten
ROSE HUMBLEBY
A soft sound behind him made him turn sharply. A girl was standing there, a remarkably pretty girl with brown hair curling round her ears and rather timid-looking dark-blue eyes. She flushed a little with embarrassment before she spoke.
“Mr. Fitzwilliam, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes. I—”
“I’m Rose Humbleby. Bridget told me that—that you knew some people who knew my father.”
Luke had the grace to flush slightly under his tan.
“It was a long time ago,” he said rather lamely. “They—er—knew him as a young man—before he married.”
“Oh, I see.”
Rose Humbleby looked a little crestfallen. But she went on:
“You’re writing a book, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’m making notes for one, that is. About local superstitions. All that sort of thing.”
“I see. It sounds frightfully interesting.”
“It will probably be as dull as ditch water,” Luke assured her.
“Oh, no, I’m sure it won’t.”
Luke smiled at her.
He thought:
“Our Dr. Thomas is in luck!”
“There are people,” he said, “who can make the most exciting subject unbearably boring. I’m afraid I’m one of them.”
“Oh, but why should you be?”
“I don’t know. But the conviction is growing upon me.”
Rose Humbleby said:
“You might be one of the people who make dull subjects sound frightfully exciting!”
“Now that is a nice thought,” said Luke. “Thank you for it.”
Rose Humbleby smiled back. Then she said:
“Do you believe in—in superstitions and all that?”
“That’s a difficult question. It doesn’t follow, you know. One can be interested in things one doesn’t believe in.”
“Yes, I suppose so,??
? the girl sounded doubtful.
“Are you superstitious?”
“N-no—I don’t think so. But I do think things come in—in waves.”
“Waves?”
“Waves of bad luck and good luck. I mean—I feel as though lately all Wychwood was under a spell of—of misfortune. Father dying—and Miss Pinkerton being run over, and that little boy who fell out of the window. I—I began to feel as though I hated this place—as though I must get away!”
Her breath came rather faster. Luke looked at her thoughtfully.
“So you feel like that?”
“Oh! I know it’s silly. I suppose really it was poor daddy dying so unexpectedly—it was so horribly sudden.” She shivered. “And then Miss Pinkerton. She said—”
The girl paused.
“What did she say? She was a delightful old lady, I thought—very like a rather special aunt of mine.”
“Oh, did you know her?” Rose’s face lit up. “I was very fond of her and she was devoted to daddy. But I’ve sometimes wondered if she was what the Scotch call ‘fey.’”
“Why?”
“Because—it’s so odd—she seemed quite afraid that something was going to happen to daddy. She almost warned me. Especially about accidents. And then that day—just before she went up to town—she was so odd in her manner—absolutely in a dither. I really do think, Mr. Fitzwilliam, that she was one of those people who have second sight. I think she knew that something was going to happen to her. And she must have known that something was going to happen to daddy too. It’s—it’s rather frightening, that sort of thing!”
She moved a step nearer to him.
“There are times when one can foresee the future,” said Luke. “It isn’t always supernatural, though.”
“No, I suppose it’s quite natural really—just a faculty that most people lack. All the same it—worries me—”
“You mustn’t worry,” said Luke gently. “Remember, it’s all behind you now. It’s no good going back over the past. It’s the future one has to live for.”
“I know. But there’s more, you see…” Rose hesitated. “There was something—to do with your cousin.”
“My cousin? Bridget?”
“Yes. Miss Pinkerton was worried about her in some way. She was always asking me questions…I think she was afraid for her—too.”
Luke turned sharply, scanning the hillside. He had an unreasoning sense of fear. Bridget—alone with the man whose hands had that unhealthy hue of greenish decomposing flesh! Fancy—all fancy! Ellsworthy was only a harmless dilettante who played at shopkeeping.
As though reading his thoughts, Rose said:
“Do you like Mr. Ellsworthy?”
“Emphatically no.”
“Geoffrey—Dr. Thomas, you know, doesn’t like him either.”
“And you?”
“Oh, no—I think he’s dreadful.” She drew a little nearer. “There’s a lot of talk about him. I was told that he had some queer ceremony in the Witches’ Meadow—a lot of his friends came down from London—frightfully queer-looking people. And Tommy Pierce was a kind of acolyte.”
“Tommy Pierce?” said Luke sharply.
“Yes. He had a surplice and a red cassock.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, some time ago—I think it was in March.”
“Tommy Pierce seems to have been mixed-up in everything that ever took place in this village.”
Rose said:
“He was frightfully inquisitive. He always had to know what was going on.”
“He probably knew a bit too much in the end,” said Luke grimly.
Rose accepted the words at their face value.
“He was rather an odious little boy. He liked cutting up wasps and he teased dogs.”
“The kind of boy whose decease is hardly to be regretted!”
“No, I suppose not. It was terrible for his mother, though.”
“I gather she has five blessings left to console her. She’s got a good tongue, that woman.”
“She does talk a lot, doesn’t she?”
“After buying a few cigarettes from her, I feel I know the full history of everyone in the place!”
Rose said ruefully:
“That’s the worst of a place like this. Everybody knows everything about everybody else.”
“Oh, no,” said Luke.
She looked at him inquiringly.
Luke said with significance:
“No one human being knows the full truth about another human being.”
Rose’s face grew grave. She gave a slight involuntary shiver.
“No,” she said slowly. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Not even one’s nearest and dearest,” said Luke.
“Not even—” she stopped. “Oh, I suppose you’re right—but I wish you wouldn’t say frightening things like that, Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
“Does it frighten you?”
Slowly she nodded her head.
Then she turned abruptly.
“I must be going now. If—if you have nothing better to do—I mean if you could—do come and see us. Mother would—would like to see you because of your knowing friends of daddy’s long ago.”
She walked slowly away down the road. Her head was bent a little as though some weight of care of perplexity bowed it down.
Luke stood looking after her. A sudden wave of solicitude swept over him. He felt a longing to shield and protect this girl.
From what? Asking himself the question, he shook his head with a momentary impatience at himself. It was true that Rose Humbleby had recently lost her father, but she had a mother, and she was engaged to be married to a decidedly attractive young man who was fully adequate to anything in the protection line. Then why should he, Luke Fitzwilliam, be assailed by this protection complex?
Good old sentimentality to the fore again, thought Luke. The protective male! Flourishing in the Victorian era, going strong in the Edwardian, and still showing signs of life despite what our friend Lord Whitfield would call the rush and strain of modern life!
“All the same,” he said to himself as he strolled on towards the looming mass of Ashe Ridge, “I like that girl. She’s much too good for Thomas—a cool, superior devil like that.”
A memory of the doctor’s last smile on the doorstep recurred to him. Decidedly smug it had been! Complacent!
The sound of footsteps a little way ahead roused Luke from his slightly irritable meditations. He looked up to see young Mr. Ellsworthy coming down the path from the hillside. His eyes were on the ground and he was smiling to himself. His expression struck Luke disagreeably. Ellsworthy was not so much walking as prancing—like a man who keeps time to some devilish little jig running in his brain. His smile was a strange secret contortion of the lips—it had a gleeful slyness that was definitely unpleasant.
Luke had stopped, and Ellsworthy was nearly abreast of him when he at last looked up. His eyes, malicious and dancing, met the other man’s for just a minute before recognition came. Then, or so it seemed to Luke, a complete change came over the man. Where a minute before there had been the suggestion of a dancing satyr, there was now a somewhat effeminate and priggish young man.
“Oh, Mr. Fitzwilliam, good morning.”
“Good morning,” said Luke. “Have you been admiring the beauties of Nature?”
Mr. Ellsworthy’s long, pale hands flew up in a reproving gesture.
“Oh, no, no—oh, dear me, no. I abhor Nature. Such a coarse, unimaginative wench. I have always held that one cannot enjoy life until one has put Nature in her place.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“There are ways!” said Mr. Ellsworthy. “In a place like this, a delicious provincial spot, there are some most delectable amusements if one has the goût—the flair. I enjoy life, Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
“So do I,” said Luke.
“Mens sana in corpore sano,” said Mr. Ellsworthy. His tone was delicately ironic. “I’m s
ure that’s so true of you.”
“There are worse things,” said Luke.
“My dear fellow! Sanity is the one unbelievable bore. One must be mad—deliciously mad—perverted—slightly twisted—then one sees life from a new and entrancing angle.”
“The leper’s squint,” suggested Luke.
“Ah, very good—very good—quite witty! But there’s something in it, you know. An interesting angle of vision. But I mustn’t detain you. You’re having exercise—one must have exercise—the public school spirit!”
“As you say,” said Luke, and with a curt nod walked on.
He thought:
“I’m getting too darned imaginative. The fellow’s just an ass, that’s all.”
But some indefinable uneasiness drove his feet on faster. That queer, sly, triumphant smile that Ellsworthy had had on his face—was that just imagination on his, Luke’s part? And his subsequent impression that it had been wiped off as though by a sponge the moment the other man caught sight of Luke coming towards him—what of that?
And with quickening uneasiness he thought:
“Bridget? Is she all right? They came up here together and he came back alone.”
He hurried on. The sun had come out while he was talking to Rose Humbleby. Now it had gone in again. The sky was dull and menacing, and wind came in sudden erratic little puffs. It was as though he had stepped out of normal everyday life into that queer half-world of enchantment, the consciousness of which had enveloped him ever since he came to Wychwood.
He turned a corner and came out on the flat ledge of green grass that had been pointed out to him from below and which went, he knew, by the name of the Witches’ Meadow. It was here, so tradition had it, that the witches had held revelry on Walpurgis Night and Hallowe’en.
And then a quick wave of relief swept over him. Bridget was here. She sat with her back against a rock on the hillside. She was sitting bent over, her head in her hands.
He walked quickly over to her. Lovely springing turf strangely green and fresh.
He said:
“Bridget?”
Slowly she raised her face from her hands. Her face troubled him. She looked as though she were returning from some far-off world, as though she had difficulty in adjusting herself to the world of now and here.