The Last Train to Scarborough (38 page)

I
came to a bandstand that projected out from the Prom and hung over the beach.
The crowds were particularly dense here even though a dozen notices, fixed all
around the bandstand, said that the concerts would not begin until the
Saturday. The seaward edge of the beach (which was pebbly, as Howard Fielding
had said) was crowded with bathing machines and, as I looked on, one of them rolled
forwards, which set the people standing about applauding. A little while after,
two men emerged from it, waded a little way out, and began to swim. Some of the
crowd clapped again, some cheered, and some laughed in derision for the water
must still be freezing.

Won't
be for long though, I thought: the day was beautiful, and all the predictions
were for a fine summer.

I
continued my walk, looking for a lavender coat and a mass of curls under a
feathered hat, but most of the ladies wore white that day, and perhaps she did
too. Or perhaps she was nowhere near Eastbourne.

I
walked easterly until I came to a round fortification sitting on a hummock of
grass. It had been built to keep Napoleon off but was now part of a pleasure
ground. I bought an ice cream from an Italian with a barrow, and turned around
and walked back towards the pier. That seemed promising, being so packed, and
as I approached I studied the men and women walking up and down, and the thing
in general. The highest of the white wooden buildings on it was crowned with a
kind of white, round summer house, and this - as I realised when I approached
the pier turnstiles and all the signs announcing the attractions available for
my penny - was the famous camera obscura of Eastbourne, being some species of
magic lantern that captured scenes from all along the front. I might see her
inside there, projected two inches high and flickering in whatever the camera
obscura made of the glorious sunlight. But the queues leading up to it were too
long.

I
walked to the end of the pier and back with no luck.

...
Or was it just as well?

On
the Grand Parade once again, I was practically trampled to the ground as I took
out my pocket book where I'd noted the times of the return trains. It was now
nearly four o'clock, and there was one at a quarter after: an express too. I
would be in plenty of time for A. K. Chambers and his thoughts on the New
Atlantics. But I decided to wander inland a bit, and so, with my suit-coat over
my shoulder, I walked for nearly an hour amid the comfortable villas, which all
had names: The Chase, The Sycamores, The Grove, The Haven. I had half an eye
out for a house called Paradise, but the names in Eastbourne were a cut above
that.

I
returned to the front thoroughly over-heated, although the sun was now going
down and making a golden road running out to sea. I was a good way further east
than I had been before, towards Beachy Head and the cliffs, where Eastbourne
becomes country. The sounds of the Grand Parade came to me faintly, and I saw
that the Promenade here was ail-but deserted. A zig-zag path winding through
ornamental gardens brought me down onto it, and looking right I saw her. She
was gazing out to sea in a blue dress, a straw boater in her left hand. Well,
it would never have fitted on top of her curls, and I believed that she only
carried it for form's sake. Something told me she was about to look my way, so
I darted towards a laurel bush that stood between us, and when I stepped out
again she'd gone; and I found that I could hardly catch my breath because she
was alive and looking just as before; because I had seen her; and because I now
could not.

I
then noticed the shelter on the Prom, made to look old and quaint with white
plaster, black beams and a thatched roof. She must be in there. The thing was
open at the front and I knew that, short of walking directly up to it, the best
way of getting a look inside would be to drop down from the Prom to the beach,
and walk a little way towards the sea.

This
I did. In fact, I walked right to the water's edge, where two lads stood
throwing stones at some rocks a little way out. I faced out to sea with the
shelter now behind me, not quite directly and at a distance of, say, forty
yards. I half turned and saw her on the bench inside it with legs crossed,
kicking her top-most boot. She might be sheltering from the continuing sun, or
from the slight breeze that was picking up, or just lazing after a long day of
doing not much. I decided that she was most likely not working. She was
supposed to be lying low after all, and I knew she was in funds. On my visit
with the Chief to Paradise I'd inspected the vanity case and all the other
boxes in Fielding's tall chest of drawers, and the forty pounds was nowhere to
be seen.

I
looked again towards the Prom, but this time the other way, for I had to ration
my glances at the shelter ... and there was Adam Rickerby, walking .slowly. He
looked thinner, though still not
right,
and he
seemed to list as he walked. What was wrong with his face? Was his hat on
backwards? That was the effect somehow; there also seemed less of his curls
under it, and I knew from the way his sister rose to greet him in the shelter
that he was poorly. I wondered whether the bullet was still in him; I hoped not,
for where would he find a doctor to take it out? I looked forward again,
watching the stones thrown by the two lads into the little waves.

What
had I done wrong in the Paradise guest house? As far as everybody else was
concerned, it seemed very little. But then I was the only one who knew that I'd
fallen for Amanda Rickerby.

What
had been the result of my doing so as far as the investigation was concerned?
One consequence was that I'd given too little time and thought to Tommy Nugent.
I ought to have taken him in hand on the Monday: packed him off home - flatly
insisted that he leave Scarborough. But I'd been too keen to get back to Miss
Rickerby.

Would
I have stopped in the house for that second night had it not been for my
feelings towards her? And the thought that something might happen between us? I
believed I would have
done ...
Then again, it was my feeling
towards her that had finally made me lock the door
against
her.

Why
had she told me to lock the
door? I wanted to ask her that, at least. Had she really known of the danger
presented by Fielding? In which case, why had she not done more to protect us
all? I believed she had been on the point of telling me to lock my door on the
first night. She had begun to say it, late on in the kitchen, but she had
pulled up. She wanted to make sure of her suspicions, and by flirting with me
she was able to approach certainty.

And
then again - the question of questions - why had she held my hand in the ship
room, having used me for her own purposes for the entire ... What had it been?
Only an evening and a day; and I'd only been in her presence a fraction of that
time. Had she taken my hand to apologise for what had happened, or for what
was to come? Or had there been some other reason for it?

'Mister,'
one of the lads was saying (and he'd probably been saying it for a while),
'we're aiming for that rock.'

He
pointed out to sea.

'Want
to try?' he said, and he walked up with a handful of stones.

'I'll
only need one,' I said, taking the biggest. I shied it and scored a direct hit,
no doubt because of not trying at all.

I
turned about and saw Amanda and Adam Rickerby in the shelter, both looking
forwards. She, I believed, was smiling.

The
first boy was eyeing me in amazement, but the second was a bit of a harder nut:
'Bet you can't do it again,' he said, but I knew from his face that I could
rest on my laurels, that no second throw was required. I glanced down at my
watch.

'Where
are you off to now?' enquired the first lad, doubtless wanting to know what
amazing feat the hero of the hour might perform next.

'I'm
off to catch a train,' I said.

He
nodded, and it evidently seemed the right course of action to him, as it did to
me for a dozen different reasons.