CHAPTER X
A WALK IN THE GARDEN
"Here you are, Emmy. These are the gentlemen you are expecting,"announced Carstairs, cheerily.
Miss Costivan--who was about four-and-twenty--said she was pleased tomeet them, and then turned to call through an open door, "Mother, theLondon gentlemen have come. Luke's just fetched 'em."
Immediately the sound of someone making vigorous use of a washboard,which all along had been issuing from the door, came to an abrupt end; apair of clogs clattered noisily across a tiled floor, and there issuedfrom the scullery a tall, gaunt, black-haired, somewhat slatternlyfemale whose cast of features was so strongly suggestive of the Romanyrace that one might well have suspected her of having more than a meredash of gypsy blood in her veins.
She advanced into the room, drying her hands on her apron, and welcomedthe newcomers heartily. Cleek decided that never in his life had he seena mother and daughter who bore so little resemblance to each other.
"I'll have the kettle on and some tea ready in a very few minutes,gentlemen," declared Mrs. Costivan, with an odd use of certain wordswhich was not lost upon Cleek. "But maylike you'd be glad to run up toyour room and wash a bit, the whiles the kittle's boilin'? Luke, lad,show the way, there's a bonny. Old Man's not home from the fields yet.They've a power o' hay to get under cover over at Mason's before theweather breaks." By which it was clear to Cleek that the good ladywished her visitors to understand that her husband was a field hand onone of the outlying farms.
Carstairs announced his readiness to perform the suggested office, andcalled on the two "London gentlemen" to follow him--an act which pulledCleek up with a jerk, for he had fallen into a state of abstraction bornof a sudden realization of the peculiar character of the wet marks Mrs.Costivan had left upon her apron when she dried her hands.
He had never heard of anybody washing things in mustard water--thingswhich required hard rubbing on a laundry board. Yet, if the yellow stainleft by drying her hands on her apron suggested anything, it certainlysuggested that.
Here, catching the sound of Carstairs' voice, Cleek turned, and togetherwith Mr. Narkom, followed him up the stairs to an airy, double-beddedroom overlooking the garden in the rear.
Here Carstairs, after looking to see that there were towels on the rackand soap in the dish, left them and went below. Presently they couldhear his voice and Emmy Costivan's blent in half-subdued laughter.
Cleek, leaving the door partly open and signalling to Narkom to placehimself so that he could see if anybody started to come upstairs, wentto the open window, looked out across the neglected garden to the beltof woodland beyond it and, putting up his hand, tilted his hat to oneside and began reflectively to scratch his head. Immediately, a barebranch moved above the level of a thick clump of wild elder bushes justby the broken paling which marked the rear boundary of the garden. Itremained stationary for an instant, and then dropped out of sight again.
"All right, Narkom, they are there!" he said in a swift whisper. "Sittight a minute and don't speak."
Then he slopped a quantity of water out of the jug into the wash-basin,plunged his hands into it, then rubbed them along the window-sill. Afterwhich he partially rinsed them and then dried them off on first onetowel and then the other--all the while moving up and down the floor andwhistling contentedly.
"All right," he announced, presently. "Needn't do sentry duty any more.Leave the door wide open. I don't think our friend Carstairs will bequite such an idiot as to waste his time in sneaking up; but if heshould the open door will be enough for him and, at the same time, giveus a chance to see him. A bad egg, that gentleman. He is pretty deeplyinvolved in this little business unless I miss my guess."
"I thought you suspected him of something when you crossed over to thatwild rose bush."
"What! Am I dropping into the habit of giving signs, then?" exclaimedCleek. "I wonder if our friend the vicar noticed, too? I caught his eyefixed upon me more than once."
"The vicar! Good heavens, man, you don't mean that you suspect----?"
"Ch't! Not so loud, or I shall wish I had made you a dumb man as well asa deaf one. Sh-h! Nothing now--your time is coming. We have dawdled tothe end of the dawdling period, and come to the active one. You shallhave speech and excitement enough the minute the darkness falls."
"You have an idea, then?" murmured Mr. Narkom. "You have really pickedup a clue?"
"I have picked up many. They may be good and they may be bad, I candecide only when St. Saviour's bells start ringing to-night."
"You have a clue to that, then?"
"Not I. They will be the last on my list for investigation. At present Iam principally concerned with the astonishing circumstance regarding thenoise of that fellow Davis's death struggle."
"But, man alive, he didn't make any."
"Precisely. That's the astonishing circumstance to which I allude!"said Cleek. The queer one-sided smile travelled slowly up his cheek.
Midway down the neglected garden Mrs. Costivan was engaged in the taskof hanging up a pair of wet gray overalls, and along the path beside hera stream of yellowish water from a recently emptied washtub wastrickling down the drain.
"Mr. Narkom!"
"Yes."
"Essex is your native county, I believe, so naturally you ought to be anauthority on it. Tell me something. Is it a peculiarity of Essex hay,then, to give off a deep yellowish stain?"
"Hay? Hay _stain_? What confounded nonsense!"
"Precisely. That's how I feel about it myself. And as between Mrs.Hurdon and Mrs. Costivan----Come along, let's get down and eat. I hopethe fair Emmy will give us something good. I'm famished."
The "fair Emmy" did, presiding over the tea-pot herself, and laying outsuch a tempting spread that even Carstairs was prevailed upon to joinwith the others and to defer his departure for another half-hour or so.
But finally he had to go, and Emmy, excusing herself, rose to see him asfar as the door. And it was only then, as she looked round over hershoulder at leaving, and a flash of alertness came into her eyes, thatCleek was able to put his finger on a point which heretofore had baffledhim. He had wondered from the first whose eyes hers reminded him of;now, when he saw them with that expression in them and accompanied by acertain twitching movement of the head, he knew!
Carstairs went his way, and Emmy returned to set about making matters aspleasant for the visitors as she knew how. Then, after a time, Emmy'sfather having come home and had his meal in the kitchen, and gone"straightaway up to bed, poor lad! the sun havin' give him a splittin'headache." Mrs. Costivan, too, came in while Emmy went out to wash upthe dishes. It soon became very apparent to the two "London gentlemen"that they were not going to be allowed to get out of the sight of one orother of the occupants of this house for so much as one minute if thething could be avoided.
Meantime, night was drawing in and Cleek, borrowing a sheet of paper andan envelope, sat down to "drop a line to my missus before I turn in."Mr. Narkom, taking his cue from this, slipped down in his chair andbegan to snore softly.
Cleek wrote on until darkness fell and the moon rose and all thetree-tops beyond the garden were picked out in silver; then sealed theletter in its envelope and put it into his pocket. He rose then,stretching and yawning, from his chair. Mr. Narkom, hearing him, openeda pair of blinking eyes and looked up.
"Bedtime?" he inquired, sleepily.
"'Most," said Cleek. "Feel like having a pipe and a toddle up and downthe garden before turning in? Come along then, old sport. Mind our goingthrough the kitchen, missus?"
Mrs. Costivan did not; but for fear they should not quite know the way,piloted them, and as they stepped out into the shadowy darkness andlighted up they were conscious of the fact that, as soon as she put outthe kitchen light, she sat down beside the window and kept watch ofthem.
The flare of the lighted match had done more than merely supply fire fortheir pipes. They knew that it would; but they were in no haste. Timemust be given and--they gave it. Three t
imes they made the journey upand down the garden's length, smoking and chatting away now and again,before Cleek, coming abreast of the broken palings and the clump ofelder bushes, ventured to say in a whisper, "Next time down be ready tograb the pipes!" and they faced round and strolled back toward thecottage again.
It was the fourth time down the garden that the thing was done. Suddenlyboth men gave a jump, Cleek shouting excitedly, "A hare, by Jove! Grabit!" Then both plunged into the elder bushes. A voice said, "Missed it!Lord, didn't the beggar bolt?" Then Hammond took Narkom's place andPetrie took Cleek's, and Mrs. Costivan, who had just started to run downto the spot where she had seen them dive out of sight, suddenly sawthat they had come back laughing and twitting each other over theirfailure to catch the hare, and were again walking up and down the gardenand smoking. And the good lady slipped back into the darkness again. Andso it fell out that when the pipes were finished and the smokers tiredenough to go to bed, it was Petrie and Hammond who slept that nightunder the thatch of the Costivan cottage.