The House Above the River (15 page)

“A month, about. I shall see the season out here. It's comfortable enough and there are plenty of things to paint.”

“I'm sure there are,” Phillipa said. “Most attractive things.”

She was looking at the unfinished painting in the cockpit. It was purely conventional, a harbour scene, with houses in the distance, and boats in the foreground. But the drawing was firm and the colour clean and true, not prettified.

Jim saw her looking at it, and laughed.

“All commercial,” he said, understanding her look. “Posters, travel agencies, the Christmas trade. Gives me a splendid excuse to come over this side for the summer.”

“And to run the boat, I suppose?” said Tony. “The best of several worlds.”

“Quite.”

“Do you sail her single-handed?” Phillipa asked.

“Oh, yes. But I can choose my weather. And I do.”

He offered them drinks and Giles invited him to join them for dinner. After a suitable interval the party from
Shuna
left, after arranging to meet in half an hour outside the hotel in the little square behind the church.

“What do we do in the meantime?” Phillipa asked, as they wandered off.

“Go round to the other basin,” said Giles.

They walked on in silence.

“That chap said it was comfortable here,” Tony began, thoughtfully. “I can't see it, having to look after the boat going down on the sand every twelve hours, and then corning up again.”

“Didn't you see he'd got it all taped?” Giles answered. “That pulley with the weight from his masthead keeps him from falling outwards and automatically adjusts his warps. And he had a spar lashed alongside to keep him from scraping the wall, without bothering about moving his fenders all the time.”

“His paint isn't exactly worth cherishing, anyhow,” Phillipa laughed.

“It takes all sorts …” said Giles, easily. “I wish I could speak the patois.”

They were standing looking down at one of the fishing boats. There was much activity on board.

“Why? To ask them if they know Henry?”

“Yes. Your grocer friend said Roscoff, didn't she? That he'd gone to Roscoff.”

“I
think
she meant that.”

“Good enough. I'm afraid it's pretty hopeless, though, just thinking we might run into him.”

They left the quay after walking to the far side of the deep basin. Though it was after eight o'clock now, the shops were all open and the little town was still full of sightseers. Giles and his friends walked round the ancient church, admired its curious tower decorated with stone tracery, and turned into the square beyond. They found Jim Hurst sitting at one of the small tables outside the hotel in the corner. He had four tall glasses of golden liquor in front of him.

“I thought you'd need something long after all this walking around,” he said, in his deep voice.

“You've already given us drinks,” Giles protested. “This was meant to be our show.”

Jim laughed.

“You can take over when we get inside,” he said. “I'm really very grateful to you for turning up. I like to meet my fellow countrymen occasionally. I don't see any except trippers as a rule.”

He paused to lift his glass to them and then added, “Where's your boat?
Shuna
, isn't she called? I looked in the other basin, but there was nothing English except a motor-cruiser. Bloody great thing like a luxury liner. Just arrived!”

“Must have come in after we left,” Tony said. “We saw nothing but fishing boats.”

Giles went into the hotel to secure a table. When he came back they finished their drinks quickly and followed him to the dining-room.

There were windows along the whole side of the room that faced the sea. Through these they saw the rocks and the strip of channel and the Isle de Bas beyond. Two big yachts, one Dutch and one English, lay anchored there, white ghosts against the deep blue of the island, their riding lights twinkling like tiny stars above the water.

“That's not
Shuna
out there?” asked Jim.

“No. Twice the size. Actually
Shuna
is in dock at Morlaix.”

“
Morlaix
?”

“Look,” said Giles. “It's a longish tale and if you're bored, please stop me.”

But Jim was not bored, and Giles condensed the story of their visit to the Tréguier river by leaving out nearly all its most important features.

“If you can make head or tail of
that
garbled version, you must be very brilliant,” said Phillipa, at the end of it.

Giles reddened, and Jim laughed.

“I gather this man Davenport has hopped it, and that you suspect him of sabotage. Very interesting. You also have a vague clue that he might be in Roscoff. Still more interesting, if not exciting.”

“Why?” they all exclaimed.

Diners at the nearby tables looked at them in shocked surprise. Their waiter came to serve them with the next course.

“Because,” said Jim, as if there had been no interruption, “I had a few words with a slightly peculiar Englishman very late last night.”

“In Roscoff?”

“At the harbour. I was about to go aboard my own boat, to turn in. I was leaning against the wall of the main basin, looking out to sea, watching the lights and the boats leaving the harbour, when I heard a scuffle behind me. I turned round and there were three fishermen holding up a fourth who seemed to be collapsing. I thought he was an ordinary drunk, until they dumped him on a pile of nets and went away. I heard him muttering to himself—in English.”

“And then?” Phillipa asked, in an awed voice.

“I went up to him, of course, and asked him, in English, if I could do anything. He pulled himself together at that. Told me he was due on board the
Marie Antoine
, but he was ill, so damned giddy he couldn't stand, and he couldn't see the boat, and they might go without him. The types who had left him there thought he was drunk, though he had told them what he wanted.”

“And the boat had gone?”

“No. Luckily she hadn't. In fact they were looking for this chap. Half the crew were up on the quayside, arguing, and calling out for him and to one another.”

“Calling him by name?”

“I suppose so. But the Breton dialect is beyond me, except for a few odd words. It wasn't beyond the sick type, though. As soon as we got near, he hobbled away without a word of thanks, and they closed round him and practically lifted him on board, and were off in a matter of minutes.”

“That sounds remarkably like our Henry,” said Giles. “Just the manners we got. A surly beggar, from start to finish.”

“So he's gone fishing,” said Tony.

“Oh, no.” Jim looked at each of them in turn. “The
Marie Antoine
isn't a fishing boat. She carries onions. This chap was dressed like a typical onion seller, black beret, blue blouse and all.
Marie Antoine
hasn't gone fishing. She's gone to Southampton. She'll be there tomorrow morning, at the latest.”

Giles went to St. Malo by train early the next morning. He was lucky enough to find a returned seat on a plane for England, and by the afternoon had arrived in Southampton, booked a room at an hotel there for the night, and set out to find Henry Davenport.

He went first to the docks in search of
Marie Antoine
. This proved more difficult than he expected, until he realised that the Brittany boat had probably left port again. He changed his method of inquiry and soon found that this was so.
Marie Antoine
had docked the day before, discharged her cargo of onions and onion peddlers, taken on board a few stores, and left on that morning's tide.

This was unfortunate. Giles had hoped to find the boat still at Southampton and his task a comparatively easy one. Now he was back where he had started. He was not even certain that the sick Englishman described by Jim Hurst was really Henry. Whoever he was, three things might have happened. He might have gone back to Roscoff on
Marie Antoine
; he might have been well enough to set out with his bicycle and his onions, and be anywhere at all in the southern counties; or he might have landed, been too ill to go on, and be now lying sick in lodgings or in hospital.

Having reached these conclusions, Giles decided that it was not possible for him to investigate any of them but the last. His enthusiasm was considerably damped. He had rushed off from Morlaix without really thinking the thing out. All the way to Southampton he had promised himself a dramatic encounter with Henry, thinly disguised, on board
Marie Antoine
. He might have guessed he would be too late for this. In his own eyes he had lost face, so naturally his resentment against Henry grew.

It was easy enough to get a list of the local hospitals from the main post office. A co-operative clerk told him the most likely one in which to find a sick seaman. But there was no patient there called Henry Davenport.

“Admitted yesterday, some time, I think,” said Giles, when the porter at the hospital had gone carefully through the admissions book.

“No, sir. No one of the name of Davenport. No Englishman at all yesterday, as a matter of fact. Two Indians and one Chinese.”

A thought occurred to Giles.

“This man was on a Breton boat,” he said. “Probably he'd come up with the Breton skipper. They might not be speaking English; most probably wouldn't be. He can talk both Breton and French.”

The porter's face lit up.

“A French case?” he said. “Now why didn't you say so before?”

He turned to the girl at the telephone panel behind him.

“Didn't you have a call from Out-patients to transfer a French case to the General?” he asked.

The girl, attracted by Giles's appearance, had been listening to the conversation. She nodded.

“End of the afternoon. Dr. Mathers saw the case in Casualty. We hadn't got a bed in a medical ward here. I transferred it to the Bed Service.”

“Do you know what the name was?” Giles asked.

“I don't remember. I'll get E.B.S. for you and inquire.”

She pulled out plugs and pushed them into a new formation, and presently was speaking to the telephone exchange of the Emergency Bed Service.

“The name was Henri Dupont,” she announced, “and they got him a bed at the General.”

“That's right,” said the porter, complacently.

Giles thanked them both and left the hospital. Having got so far, even if it proved to be a false track, he decided he must check it. He made his way to the General Hospital, and asked boldly for news of a seaman, Henri Dupont, admitted the day before.

The porter at the General got on to the ward.

“Comfortable, Sister says,” he reported.

“Can I see him, do you think?”

The porter looked at the dock.

“Not visiting hours. But you could go up to the ward if you like. You a relative?” he asked, doubtfully.

“Friend,” said Giles.

“Well, go along and see Sister. She might be able to help you. He's not on the danger list, or anything like that.”

“Good,” said Giles, trying to sound relieved.

He was told how to find the ward in question. When he reached it, a nurse made him wait outside, but promised to tell Sister he was there.

Giles began, once more, to feel a fool. Suppose it was not Henry at all? Why the devil should he give his name as Dupont when it was Davenport? The latter could be pronounced in a French way quite easily and would pass as French, if he wanted to conceal his nationality. But why should he? This must be some unknown type, not Henry at all, and he would be justifiably abusive if Giles succeeded in reaching his bedside, only to tell him he was not the man he expected to find.

He was just making up his mind to creep away and disappear, giving up the whole preposterous business, when Sister arrived.

“Do you speak English?” she asked, briskly.

Giles told her who he was, and what he wanted.

“
English
?” she said. “But he hasn't spoken anything but French since he came in with his friends.”

“Friends?”

“The men off his ship. From Brittany. He's a Johnny Onions you know.” She looked at him, sharply suspicious. “Or don't you know?”

“Look,” said Giles, giving in. “I'm trying to find a friend of mine. I think this is the man, but I'm not dead certain. He seems to be using a different name. Can I just have a look at him, to make sure?”

“That's a
very
odd story,” said Sister. But there was an amused gleam in Giles's eye, and an air of authority about him that she could not resist. So she led the way into the ward and pulling back the closed curtains of one of the cubicled beds, stood aside for him to look in.

At first Giles thought he had failed. A pale bloated face lay on the pillow, eyes closed. Dark hair, disordered by restless sleep, lay across the forehead. The lips were blue and puffy.

“He is very ill,” whispered Sister, “and we don't know yet what is wrong with him. Except this oedema—swelling,” she translated.

“They said downstairs he was not on the danger list.”

“I think he may be—now,” she answered. “The pathologist has just taken a blood sample, and the consultant will be seeing him again this evening. They are really worried.”

Giles was still staring. In spite of the astonishing change he decided that this was indeed Henry. When Sister asked, “Is it your friend?” he nodded, and was turning away when the sick man opened his eyes. For a few seconds he glared at Giles, recognition and astonishment plainly shining out, then, deliberately, he shut them again, and turned his head away. But Sister had been watching.

“Five minutes,” she said, and went away, closing the curtains behind her.

Giles moved forward and sat down beside the bed.

“I came after you,” he said, “to ask you what the hell you meant by tampering with my boat?”