decided to return to the coach and smoke a quiet cigarette. If the driver had locked the coach and gone off for a bit, well, the weather was clement, the scenery pleasant and there was not enough wind to spoil the pleasure of smoking.
The coach, however was open, although there was no sign of Cyril Noone. This surprised Tedworthy, since most of the passengers had left coats, mackintoshes, umbrellas and hand-luggage on the racks, and had been assured by Noone that the coach was always locked and their property perfectly safe at the various stopping- places.
Tedworthy, who had enjoyed everything else that day, enjoyed his cigarette. He spread himself comfortably over the seat and by the time he had finished his leisurely smoke the others had come straggling back. Some had had tea at a discreetly-sited modern pavilion at the back of the house; others had noted familiar plants in the gardens; all were impressed by the size and beauty of the house and some spoke in admiring ignorance, others with self-conscious knowledge, about the pictures in the long gallery; some speculated on the chances that the house was haunted, the consensus of female opinion being that it most certainly was.
Time passed, the coach filled up and gradually a certain impatience began to make itself felt. It was more than half an hour later than the time specified by Noone for his passengers’ return to the coach. There began to be murmurings.
‘He can’t be at the pub,’ said one of the men. ‘It’s out of hours.’
‘Too far from here, anyway,’ said another, indicating the rural surroundings. ‘We left the last village miles back.’
‘Can’t be engine trouble,’ said somebody else. ‘If it was, he or a mechanic would be tinkering with it.’
‘Perhaps he went into the house and got lost,’ said one of the women. ‘I should think it would be easy enough in a place that size.’
‘Perhaps he’s been taken ill,’ said another voice. ‘These coach-drivers always suffer with their stomachs. It’s wrenching that steering-wheel round the bends that does it.’
They waited half-an-hour longer. Some got out of the coach and strolled about or climbed to the entrance to the gatehouse to look at the view.
‘Wish I’d had a cup of tea while I had the chance,’ said a woman wistfully, ‘but I suppose you’d have to pay again to go inside.’
‘You don’t want to go wandering off now, Doris,’ said her husband. ‘Ten to one the driver will be back any minute.’
But the minutes passed and the driver did not appear. Tedworthy, his schoolmaster sense of responsibility and leadership asserting itself, went up to the house to make enquiries. The man who issued tickets at a small hut just inside the gatehouse was certain that Noone had not passed his portals.
‘I know him well,’ he said. ‘Spring and autumn tours, when it’s quiet and I haven’t got much to do, he always comes along and has a crack with me. Besides, nobody can pass into the courtyard without they buy a ticket from me. You can see that for yourself, sir. Oh, no, he hasn’t come up here.’
Dissatisfied but convinced, Tedworthy returned to the coach and made his report. Another half-hour passed. Those who had left the coach returned to it. There was grumbling, a good deal of comment and speculation and a growing alarm and impatience. At last the man who had mentioned the pub came up to Tedworthy’s seat.
‘Look, old man,’ he said, ‘I used to drive a tank in the desert. How about you navigating and me taking this bus back to the hotel? We can’t stick here for ever. The hotel will have the means to contact the tour people and tell ’em what’s happened. What do you say? Be missing our dinner if we stay here much longer.’
Tedworthy was dubious.
‘There may be a question of insurance if one of us drives the coach,’ he said. ‘Put it to the meeting. Let’s have a majority verdict.’
The verdict was almost unanimous, so the ex-Desert Rat, guided by Tedworthy, brought the coach safely back to the inn in Dovedale.
There was discussion at the dinner table as to what would happen when Noone came back eventually to Hulliwell Hall and found the coach gone. Tedworthy assured his table that among the drivers of commercial vehicles there was a brotherhood of the road and that it would be hard lines indeed if Noone could not hitch a lift back to the hotel. There remained a spare seat at dinner, however, and an empty and clean coffee-cup in the lounge. By the time the last of the party had finished a game of bridge and retired upstairs, the missing coach-driver had not re- appeared.
In the morning there was an empty chair at the breakfast table and Tedworthy and the tank-soldier, joined by a decorative lady who was a retired hairdresser, sought another interview with the manager of the hotel, who already had been informed of the driver’s absence. He told them that a coach would be sent out from Buxton for the day’s outing, and that before nightfall another driver would be arriving from headquarters and would take over the tour if Noone had not put in an appearance. Meanwhile the police had been informed and a search was already under way.
The police also sought information from the passengers. Before Noone’s coach and its new driver could move off, every person on it was interrogated, but the answers provided no help and no clue. Noone had been his cheerful, confident self that day. He had issued specific instructions as to the time he intended to move off from Hulliwell Hall. There had been no hitch in the arrangements until he failed to turn up and take his party back to the hotel. Nobody had anything to suggest.
The new driver turned up later that night and the rest of the tour was carried out according to the promises made in the company’s brochure. Noone’s disappearance was a nine days’ wonder so far as most of the passengers were concerned. Only a very few, Tedworthy included, gave the matter much more thought except as a story to tell in the pub or at the table when the tour was over.
Dame Beatrice, who had selected Tedworthy as her first guinea-pig, decided to begin her search for Driver Noone by covering the ground for herself. Tedworthy had made a first-class witness. He had been lucid, unbiased and exact. He also knew just how long a time had elapsed between his leaving the coach for Hulliwell Hall and his return to it to smoke his cigarette.
‘I wanted to make sure I’d meet the driver’s deadline,’ he said. ‘I’ve had too much experience of rounding-up kids on school outings to be a culprit myself.’
