Ellis Peters - George Felse 01 - Fallen Into The Pit (25 page)

“Lend us a hand on a job, Jim?”

Jim left off leaning on the corner of the bar, and hitched his muscular length deliberately after them, the collie padding at his heel soundlessly. The men of Comerford, glasses suspended in forgetful hands, watched his dark, shut face pass by them, going where Chad Wedderburn called him, uncommitted, apparently incurious, certainly unsurprised. They fell silent again, their eyes following him until the door closed between. Joe, rolling back from the snug with an empty tray, looked them all over and asked blankly: “Who’s been through? The Pied Piper?”

When they told him, he shrugged his wide shoulders, and went on drawing beer. He was at sea already with Io; better to keep his fingers crossed and leave her alone.

In the kitchen Io turned on Chad and Pussy wide-eyed. “What is it? What’s the matter? Where did you find her, Chad, and what’s wrong with her?”

Chad looked at the clock; it was twenty-five minutes to nine. He looked down at Pussy, whose green eyes were blazing again hopefully, almost gleefully. “Now, then! Get your breath back, and tell all that tale again in less than five minutes. No interruptions, there isn’t time. If you or he are pulling our legs, look out afterwards, that’s all. But now, we’re listening!”

Pussy recounted in rather less than three minutes the instructions she had received from Dominic, and the way he had looked and acted at that interview. Io and Jim kept their eyes on her throughout the recital, but Chad’s were on Io, and when Pussy’s breath and facts gave out together Io seemed to feel the compulsion of his glance, for she looked directly up at him, and both of them smiled. A rather anxious, grave, and yet very peaceful smile, confirming, where there was no time for more, that while what was about to happen was extremely uncertain, what had just happened was the most certain thing in the world, and neither accident nor mistake.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” asked Chad.

“We must go, of course,” said Io. “I don’t say he’s really on to anything important, but almost certainly he’s going to be in some sort of trouble if we don’t fish him out of it. Either way, he needs rescuing.”

Jim said: “What is there to lose? If the kid’s father isn’t here to lug him out of mischief, somebody else better take over. All the more if there’s more to it than mischief.”

“There is,” said Pussy earnestly. “I tell you, he’s dead serious. I think he was a bit scared, really, but he’s got some clue, I’m sure he has. Let’s go, quickly! There’s only just time.”

They slid out from the scullery door to the yard, Io clawing a coat from the hooks in the passage as she went. It was the mackintosh she wore when feeding the hens, but she didn’t care. And suddenly in the half-lit scullery Chad turned and caught her hand restrainingly as she struggled into it.

“No need for you to come, Io. Stay here! We shall come back.”

“What do you take me for?” she demanded indignantly, and remained at his shoulder as they scurried across the yard. “This may be something real—have you thought of that? You know Dom. He isn’t a fool. He doesn’t go off at half-cock.”

“Yes, I’ve thought of it. So go back and help your old man, and take Pussy with you. Who’s going to look after the bar if you quit?”

“Damn the bar!” said Io. “If Pussy and I stay behind, who’s going to look after you?”

Dominic went up the last fifty yards of dark birch-coppice with his heart bumping so heavily that it seemed to him its impact against his ribs must be clearly audible a long way ahead, like a clock with an enormous tick. If it went on like this, it would be difficult to talk. He tried to restrain its leaping, breathing deeply and slowly, clenching his hands and bracing his muscles to struggle with the pulse that shook him. It was ten minutes to nine. He had just seen the smoke of the train, a pallid streak along the line with a minute rosy glow at its forward end, proceeding steadily in the direction of Fressington. It would take the old man the full ten minutes to walk up the lanes from the station and reach his forest gate. So Dominic had time to think, and time to breathe slowly.

He came to the gate and waited there. Behind him the absolute dark of the first belt of conifers, beyond which the older mixed woods began; but in both, darkness enough, only the wide drive making a perceptible band of pallor until it lost itself among the tree’s. Very close to the pathway the bushes and trees leaned. He thought of them, and felt comforted. Before him, across the green track, the clumsy, crumpled mounds, half-clothed in furze and broom and heather, blundering away into a muddle of birch trees once more. On his left, the winding lane dipping down into meadows and coiling to the station; and on this side it seemed almost light by comparison with the blackness of the firs within the Harrow fence. On his right, grass-tracks meandering to the bowl of the well, autumnally filled now with coppery ocher-slime and stained, iridescent water.

Dominic’s feet were caked to the ankle, and felt too heavy to lift. He groped along the dark ground for a broken end of stick, and began to clean the worst accumulations from under the waists of his shoes. The little notebook he was clutching, still damp to the touch, and soil-colored almost to invisibility in the last remains of the light, could hardly suffer by such smears as found their way to its covers. It was already a disintegrating mess. But he had better keep his face and hands fairly presentable. The former he scrubbed energetically with his handkerchief, the latter he rubbed even more vigorously on the seat of his flannels. The moist October night settled deeper about him, an almost tangible silence draping his mind like cobweb, when his wits had to be so piercingly clear. He pulled the little torch out of his pocket, and tried the beam of it. Not too big a light, not so bright that it made vision easy even when held to the page. The faint, faded ink-marks in the book, widened and paled by soaking in water, sunk into the swollen texture of the pulpy leaves, winked and seemed to change and shift under the light, sometimes to vanish altogether with his intent staring. But here and there a word could be read, and here and there a column of figures, conveying its general significance but not its details.

Down the lane from the station there began the sound of footsteps, heavy but fairly swift, though the old man was climbing a decided slope. Presently there was a bulky, increscent shape vaguely discernible against the sky, gradually lengthening to a man’s full height; and Selwyn Blunden, puffing grampus-like, and leaning heavily on his stick, came laboring to the gate.

“Hullo, young man! So there you are! Afraid I’m late. Confounded train behind time, as usual. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?”

“Oh, no, only a few minutes. I saw the train pulling out.”

“Well, shall we go on up to the house? We can’t do anything here in the dark. You’ve brought this little book that’s been worrying you so much, have you?” He put a hand to the latch of the gate, and his walking-stick knocked woodenly against the bars as he led the way through. Dominic followed, but rather slowly, with some appearance of reluctance, and closed the gate after him with a flat clapper-note of the latch which echoed through the bushes. Straining his ears, he thought how deathly silent it was after the sound, and his heart made a sick fluttering in him. “What’s the matter?” said Blunden, wheeling to look at him with close, stooping head, in the darkness where the small shape was only another movement of shadow. “You have brought it, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes, look, here it is. But—couldn’t you look at it here? I was only a bit worried—I don’t want to be too late getting home, and if we go right up to the house won’t it take us rather a long time? My mother—”

A large hand behind his shoulders propelled him gently but firmly forward. “That’s all right, we won’t give your mother any reason to complain this time. I’ll take you home in the car afterwards. Mustn’t get you into trouble for trying to be helpful, must we? But I’m not a cat, laddie, and I can’t see in the dark. Come on up to the house like a good lad, and let’s have a real good look at your find.”

Dominic went where he was led, but walked no faster than he had to. He kept silence for a minute as they walked, and the black coniferous darkness closed behind them like another gate. He listened, stretching his senses until he could imagine all manner of sounds without hearing one; and then he thought there was the lightest and softest of rustling steps, somewhere alongside them in the bushes, and then an owl called, somewhere apparently in the distance, with a wonderfully detached, undisturbing note. But he was aware by a sudden quivering of the nerves that it was not distant, and not an owl. He held his breath, in apprehension that what was perceptible to him should also be obvious to the old man; but the heavy tread never halted.

Dominic drew a deep breath and felt better. Someone, at any rate, had kept the tryst. He ought to have known; he ought to have trusted Pussy, she never had let him down, never once. He clutched the little book, braced his shoulders, and said firmly: “I’d better tell you about it, sir.” His voice sounded clearly in the arching of the trees, a light thread through the darkness. “Look, you can see from the look of it why it took me a long time to make anything of it.” The beam of the torch, shaken by his walking, wobbled tantalizingly upon the sodden grayish covers with their stains of ocher. “It was the day before yesterday, when we were coming up from the Comer and crossing by Webster’s well there, and you know it’s in an awful mess now, after the rain. We were fooling around, ever so many of us, and I found this right in one of the holes in the clay by the brook there. It must have been there some time, and I should have thrown it away again, only, you know, for the murder. But we all used to hope we’d find something that would be a clue.”

“Every boy his own Dick Barton,” said Blunden, with a laugh that boomed among the trees; and he patted Dominic with a pleased hand. “Very natural, especially in the police-sergeant’s son, eh? Well, so you showed it around, I suppose, among you?”

“No, I kept it just to myself,” said Dominie. “I don’t know exactly why. I just did.”

“Why didn’t you give it to your father, right away?”

Dominic wriggled and admitted reluctantly: “Well, I should have, only—the last time I tried to help, there was an awful row. My father was awfully mad at me, and told me not to interfere again. He didn’t like me being in it at all. And I didn’t want to get into any more trouble, so I tried to make it out by myself, this time, at least until I could be sure I’d really got something. And I just couldn’t, though I’d cleaned it up all I could. But honestly, I didn’t like to risk showing him until I was sure. Most of the time I didn’t think it was anything, really,” he confessed, “only it just
could
be, you see. So then when you were so decent this morning, I thought perhaps if you could read German—and you could!”

“Could and can, old man, so we’ll soon settle it one way or the other. How much did you find out on your own? This is very interesting—and damned enterprising, I may say!”

“Well,” said Dominic, slowly and clearly, “it’s got a lot of dates in it, and some columns of figures, though you can’t make out just what they are, at least not often. It looks like somebody’s accounts, and a sort of diary, and it is German, honestly it is. Look, you can see here!” He stopped, the better to steady the light upon the warped and faded page, and the old man bent his head into the glow beside his, to peer closely, and shut one hand on the nearer side of the book; but somehow Dominic’s hand was interposed, and kept its closer hold.

“Look, that’s a German word, you can read that—it’s the German word for machine. That’s funny, isn’t it? And look here, again—” He pulled himself up suddenly from a skid into enthusiasm, moving on again slowly from under the massive bulk of the old man.

Softly in the dark Blunden said, behind him, over him: “But, my dear boy, you’re perfectly right, it is German. No doubt about it. Now what do you make of that?”

“Well, you see, it’s just that it was found
there
—where we found him. And
he
was German. I know it seems farfetched, but I do sort of wonder if it can have fallen out of his pocket somehow. And at the inquest it came out how very careful he was, and kept records of everything he did, almost, even his washing and mending. Only there was quite a lot of money without any records. And in here, look, there’s what seems to be something about money. Columns of figures, and everything. Could it be, do you think, that he was just as careful about that extra money he had, only it was a bit shady where he got it, and so he kept it in a separate book? You do see, don’t you, how it would sort of make sense?”

“Oh, yes, I quite see that!” said the old voice softly, humoring him. A sudden hand reached out again for the book. “Let me see it closer! Of course, I don’t want you to be disappointed, after so much ingenuity, but much better settle it quickly.”

Dominic held on to it, bending the torch upon its pages industriously, and frowning over the unfamiliar syllables. When the hand would have touched, he stopped abruptly, the better to study the inside cover. “Just a minute, sir! It’s funny—a trick of the light, I suppose—there’s something here I’ve tried and tried to make out, even in a good light, and now, all of a sudden—”

“Let me see! Perhaps I can tell you.” He came nearer. Dominic hesitated, and backed a step, looking up at him oddly. “Well, come on, child! You brought it for me to see, didn’t you?”

The torch went out, and left them a moment in the dark, the velvet-black night between the trees extinguishing faces and voices. The wind sighed a little in the bushes, and somewhere on the left a twig cracked, but softly, moistly in the damp undergrowth. When the tiny beam erupted again, glow-wormlike, they were three yards apart, and the small, upturned face, lit from under the chin and very faintly, was an awestruck mask with hollow, staring eyes.

“I think, sir,” he said in a pinched voice, “I ought to go straight home now. If you don’t awfully mind.”

“Go home? After coming all up here for a special purpose, go home with nothing done? Nonsense, child! There’s no hurry, you’ll be home just as quickly in the car.” And the big body, powerful and silent, leaned nearer, seemed to Dominic’s fascinated eyes simply to be nearer, without a sound or a movement. He backed away by inches, trying to keep the distance between them intact. The hands of the bushes, sudden and frightening, clawed at his back; he did not know quite how he had been deflected into them, but they were there, nudging him. He felt sick, but he was used to that, it happened in every crisis, and he was growing out of it gradually and learning to control it.

“Yes, sir, but— It’s very good of you, but I ought to go straight back to my father. I ought not to wait. And there isn’t any need for me to bother you now, I’ve just found what we needed. It’s quite all right now, thank you. So if you really don’t mind—”

The darkness round his little glowworm of light confused him. He was trying to stay steadily between Blunden and the gate, now perhaps a hundred yards behind them; but somehow in his anxiety to keep his face to the old man he had allowed himself to be edged round into the rim of the drive, into the undergrowth; and now he had no sense of direction at all, he was just marooned on a floating island of inadequate light in a sea of dark. He knew he would see better if he switched the torch off, but he knew he must not do it. Other people, mere whispers in the bushes—and how if they were only owls and badgers, after all?—they had to see, too; they had to see everything.

“And what,” said the old man softly, “what have you found? What is this magic word that settles everything? Show me!” And the ambling, massy darkness of him below the shoulders shifted suddenly, and he was nearer, was within touch. Something else moved, too, from left hand to right; the walking-stick on which he had leaned so heavily, so ageingly, since Charles was killed. He was not leaning on it now, his back was not sagging, the stoop of his head was a panther’s stoop from muscular, resilient shoulders. Dominic felt behind him, and was lacerated with holly spines.

“It’s his name,” he said in a little, quaking voice which longed rather to shriek for George than to pursue this any farther. “I tried and tried, and couldn’t read it before, but it is his name, Helmut Schauffler— So it’s all right, isn’t it? I must go quickly, and give it to my father. It was very kind of you to help me, but I’ve got to go and find him at once—”

“Pretty superhuman of you,” said the old man’s voice heartily, “not to have shown it to someone long before this. Didn’t you? Not even to some of the other boys?”

“No, honestly I didn’t.”

“Not to anyone at all?” The hand that held the stick tightened its fingers; he saw the long line of descending darkness in the darkness lift and quiver, and that was all the warning he had.

“No, nobody but you!”

Then he gathered himself, as if the words had been the release of a spring, and leaped a yard to his right, stooping his head low, the light of the torch plunging madly as he jumped. He saw only a confusion of looming, heavy face, immense bristling moustache, exaggerated cheeks, set teeth and braced muscles steadying the blow, and two bright, firm, matter-of-fact blue eyes that terrified him more than all the rest, because they were not angry, but only practically intent on seeing him efficiently silenced. He saw a dark, hissing flash which must have been the stick descending, and felt it fall heavily but harmlessly on his left arm below the shoulder, at an angle which slid it down his sleeve almost unchecked, to crash through the holly-branches and thud into the ground. Then his nerve gave way, and he clawed his way round into the line of the drive, and ran, and ran, dangling his numbed left arm, with the heavy feet pounding fast behind him. He threw the little book away, and the torch after it, and plunging aside into the bushes, tore a way through them into somebody’s arms.