The Shadow (18 page)

Her eyes flashed upon each side. “You know I am.” Her breathing began to quicken.

“You're tired,” he said, observing the signs of distress.

She shook her head, but not at his remark.

“What's bothering you, Nan?” There was strong sympathy in his voice. “Something nasty happened?”

She could not look at him. Her distress mounted rapidly. The end of her endurance had at last been reached. Then an extraordinary thing happened. She suddenly looked at him and her features collapsed in a piteous way; she seemed to sink deeper into the bed while still looking at him; then in a wild, deathly withdrawal she brought the sheet up over her face.

He stood quite still. Aunt Phemie came in. The covered body heaved with sobs.

“It's all right, Nan,” said Aunt Phemie. “I'll be back in a minute.” Turning, she ushered Ranald quietly out of the room. At the foot of the stairs she paused, listening. “Why didn't you reassure her better about Julie?” she asked in a strong almost angry whisper.

“Julie is dead,” he said indifferently and, in the grip of his own thought, he walked away from her out of the house.

Ranald got off the bus opposite the town hall and, after looking about him, continued along the main street, a tall slim figure, easy-moving as an athlete, in dark flannel trousers, a grey tweed jacket, hatless, with black hair which waved just perceptibly. His manner was unselfconscious, his eyes curious for the appearance of the buildings, the cars drawn up on one side of the street, the shops, and the people who moved about. Having bought cigarettes and chatted to the girl behind the counter for a minute, he continued his stroll, blowing smoke from his lungs. Near the railway station the main street widened and ended in a region of hotels, banks and other respectable business premises. He had so far seen only one policeman but now as he was passing a short thick queue of people at a main bus-stop he saw a constable at some little distance coming towards him. He continued on his way until they met, when he asked, “Could you tell me, please, where the police station is?”

The constable was even taller than Ranald and as straight, but much more heavily built, with a disconcertingly direct look from light-grey eyes. “The police station? … Yes.” He pointed. “Down there on the right, just round the corner.” Then he considered Ranald again.

“Thanks.” But Ranald hesitated. He looked at the policeman with an easy civilian frankness. “You are stationed here?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I am staying at Greenbank, with Mrs. Robertson. Arrived the other night.” He hesitated again.

“I know Mrs. Robertson,” said the policeman.

“Oh, do you?” Ranald regarded him with interest. “You're not, by any chance, the constable who called there about—Miss Gordon?”

“I am.”

“Are you?” Ranald was pleasantly astonished at the odd coincidence. “You may think it strange of me to speak to you. But—it's more than just curiosity. Miss Gordon is not too fit.” His eyebrows gathered in real concern. “You can't ask questions yet.”

“Do you know Miss Gordon well?” The policeman's interest was aroused. He was a country policeman.

“Very well,” answered Ranald. “I knew her in London.”

“Are you a relation of Mrs. Robertson's?”

“No. I just know her through Miss Gordon.”

“I see… What do you want to know?”

“I was wondering just what did happen when Adam—uh—what's his name?—discovered the body.”

“Adam McAlpine. Do you know him?” The policeman's interest quickened.

“No, I haven't met him. But I know of him. I understand his home is here somewhere? I thought I might have a word with him. Where does he stay?”

“At a house on the south road: Beechpark.”

“Thanks. If I could help in any way—I am anxious—and Mrs. Robertson has her hands full. Not having a man about the house makes a difference. As far as you are concerned, the whole affair is cleared up now?”

“I am not saying that. Miss Gordon is not yet fit for an interview?”

“No. Heavens, no,” answered Ranald. “But if you cared to tell me—any difficult point—I would pass on to you personally any information I got.” He spoke confidently, his manner that of an educated man who knew the world and a policeman's job.

“The doctor will let us know when she's well enough.” But the policeman was now hesitating. He would clearly, country fashion, like to find out a lot on his own. He looked at Ranald. “Do you think she was with Mr. McAlpine when he found the body?”

“That's one of the things I should like to know,” replied Ranald, showing no flicker of surprise.

“Why?”

“Because it would help us to understand her condition. But surely Adam McAlpine told you?”

“It's not for me to say what he told—or what information we have got since. But if you find out anything I'll be glad to hear it from you.”

“Certainly,” said Ranald. “You can understand that we are more anxious than you.” He looked thoughtfully across the square. “I'll do what I can and let you know.” He took out a packet of cigarettes. After a few more remarks he was able to ask in the light tone of one stating an accepted fact, “You are quite satisfied that Gordie was your man?”

“Satisfied enough—though the absence of money on the body is a difficulty.” He was beginning to accept Ranald, from whom some new clue might come.

Ranald nodded, taking a moment. “That would confuse you on the question of motive.”

“Yes. And everyone knows about the missing deposit receipt in particular. But apart from that, what could anyone know, as I said?” He regarded Ranald.

“And what use would a deposit receipt be to anyone anyhow?”

“Precisely.” The policeman nodded thoughtfully. A bus drew up by the queue. “I'm stationed up at Elver village. You'll find me there.” Now he looked as if he might say more, but he had to catch his bus.

Ranald walked out to the south road. He had just come from Elver where a casual enquiry had drawn the information that the policeman had left on the last bus for the town. Whenever he had seen the thistledown-grey eyes, he had known his man.

The houses grew fewer, and presently he saw the name BEECHPARK painted on the stone pillar of a main gate. As he walked on, the upper parts of a large house came into view. Shrubs and trees were everywhere, but through a narrow gap he caught a glimpse of the front of the house. He went on for some distance and came back, but still there was no-one to be seen about the house. By the main gate he paused and lit a cigarette, his features drawing together sharply in thought, but he continued on his way back into town. Near the goods section of the railway station he saw the name McALPINE in great white letters spread across the roof of a large shed or warehouse. So Adam was the son of big business as a county town knows it? The notion seemed about right! Only, it was necessary to meet him alone.

Ranald looked into two hotel lounges, went and had a beer in a pub, and continued his walk through the town. He was seeking a man with a green tie. But whether the man was wearing the green tie or not, he reckoned he would know him. You cannot be anything so odd as a poet or an artist, particularly if you have lived in London and abroad, without its being immediately apparent to a discerning eye. Ranald's thought was of that sharp laconic kind. He was even aware of the glances cast on himself. But though there were some visitors about the streets, in odd enough garments, he was never for a moment uncertain. It takes the young female of the species in her most unconventional or daring holiday get-up to proclaim the real bourgeois or subbourgeois origin; the touch of perversion that reveals; she was being “free”. Ranald didn't smile at his thought.

Now he was walking along a main thoroughfare with the mountains rising in the distance; but presently his eye was caught by what looked like wooden sheep pens on his right, against the back of the town. As he went along the lane towards them they grew in extent in an astonishing way. A wooden gate was open and he went through it and along a passage between the pens towards a man who was sweeping up trodden manure, his broom noisy on the concrete.

“This is a big place,” said Ranald.

“Ay, it's the auction mart,” replied the man, pausing to lean on his broom, his knuckles under his chin.

“And how often do you have sales here?”

“Every Thursday.”

“As often as that?” Ranald took out his packet of cigarettes; the man said “Thank
you,
sir,” and they lit up.

“Big sales?” asked Ranald.

“Oh yes; big sales: too big for me sometimes!” His slow smile brought a humoured glint to his eye.

“Sheep and cattle from all round?”

“Ay, and from more than all round at the big sales.”

“Really? And how many then would you handle in a day?”

“Well now, that's a teaser!” The man straightened himself slowly and scratched below his ear. Ranald leaned back, stretching his arms along a wooden rail. He looked genuinely interested. Within five minutes he had a fairly accurate picture of the auction mart as the centre of live-stock transactions over a wide area. From large low-ground agricultural farms like Greenbank, from crofts up on the “marginal” lands, from distant hill sheep grazings, innumerable droves of living beasts came to this great junction, to be sold and bought, to be despatched by rail great distances, for fattening, for further breeding, for the slaughter-house. He found out who owned the auction mart, how it was run, what commission the auctioneers got, and nearly—but not quite—what the man himself earned. When the man told a story about how a bull the other day helped a loudvoiced “county” woman with buck teeth over a wooden rail, Ranald tilted his head back and laughed. On his part, he described what happened in Smithfield, London, the early-morning scenes in that immense meat market, who ran it, what wages were paid, and other detail that greatly interested his listener, who took another cigarette and asked a few questions on his own, until Ranald had to tell him that he wasn't in the meat trade.

“Not exactly,” said Ranald, “though I am interested.”

“Ah, you have an interest in it?”

“No, not that kind of interest, not financial.”

The man looked at him shrewdly. “Now if it is not a rude question, what will you be interested in yourself?” Their talk had become very friendly.

“Well,” said Ranald, “by your age I should judge that you were in the first war.”

“I was, in the Camerons.”

“And I was in this one, in the Air Force.”

“Are you telling me that? … I had a son in the Air Force. He was a gunner.”

Ranald knew by the way the man's eyes steadied and stared that his son had been killed. But the man said no more. Automatically he gave a small sweep with his broom.

“It's tough,” said Ranald calmly. “I crashed myself—but I got through.”

“Ay. That's the way it goes.” He made small sweepings, then paused and took the cigarette from his mouth.

“Some of us,” said Ranald, “are getting a bit fed up with wars. We are beginning to think that unless the way in which things are run is changed we'll have wars until nobody is left at all.

“I have heard that too. I have a nephew who is a socialist. He has great talk on him whiles. But I don't know.”

“What don't you know?”

“Ah well, I wonder——”

But what exactly was the profound nature of this countryman's wonder, Ranald did not find out, for just as the man was gathering his thoughts, his eyes hazing slightly as they looked into distance, his expression swiftly changed. “Here's McAlpine,” he muttered more to himself than to Ranald and started sweeping.

Ranald looked up the lane and saw a dark stout figure of middle height coming towards them. He was wearing a bowler hat, and something purposeful and solid about him as he advanced through the grey wooden maze of the empty pens held for the moment a startling significance. Ranald had an impulse to move away but suppressed it. The sweeper was now paying no attention to him.

The man came right up. He had a pale fleshy face with small quick-moving eyes; perfectly shaved, washed, solidly respectable. He gave Ranald a quick glance and something less than a curt nod, “James,” he said, with a jerk of his head, and went on. “Yes, sir,” said James and followed him, carrying his broom.

Ranald left the pens and went back into the town. He had half an hour to wait for his bus and found the pub he had already been in. Sitting on the narrow wooden seat by the window, his pint of beer before him, he lit a cigarette.

A faint smile came to his face as he thought of the “significance” of the dark bowler-hatted man. What was the dream significance of a maze? Something to do with the intestines wasn't it, the guts? Not inapt. He blew a stream of smoke and the smile faded. He rarely experienced that dream effect in what he saw. Even now there was something of the stuff of nightmare in the advance of the bowler-hatted man through the grey empty pens. The grey slats and rails had the greyness of wood on a sea shore, the weathered greyness of spewed-up wood in peat bogs. But he did not like this kind of vision and snapped it out by a blink of an internal eye—and instantly the vision of Nan drawing the sheet over her face swam before him. There was a perceptible constriction of his features as he snapped that vision out also.

The trouble was the irrational nature of this kind of stuff. Give in to it and no peat bog had a deep enough bottom for it. It was childish, primitive, and so in a certain way shocking. The child's shock; and fear. So poets and artists, under the impression that they were “revolutionary”, tried to shock the world. Good God. Regression. The denial of the intellect. To call it revolutionary art—good God. Ranald caught the barman's eye on him. The barman removed his eye to look at the glass he was polishing. Two countrymen in thick tweeds were talking huskily together, standing, their pints in their hands, confidential. The barman was discreetly listening or Ranald would have gone over and spoken to him. As he removed his glance, his internal eye saw the black-hatted figure again. Father of Adam, the man with the green tie. A pastel shade of light green. The internal eye saw the exact shade and the full length of the tie.