“Nothin’. I ’aven’t done nothin’.”
“Where’s Brookie?” I asked casually. “I need to see him about a pair of fire irons.”
My words had the desired effect. Colin’s arms swung round like the vanes on a weathercock, his fingers pointing north, south, west, east. He finally settled on the latter, indicating that Brookie was to be found somewhere beyond the Thirteen Drakes.
“Last time I seen him ’e was unloading ’is van.”
His van? Could Brookie have a van? Somehow the idea seemed ludicrous—as if the scarecrow from
“Thanks awfully, Colin,” I told him. “You’re a wonder.”
With a scrub at his eyes and a tug at his hair, he was over the stile and up Shoe Street like a whirling dervish. And then he was gone.
Had I just made a colossal mistake? Perhaps I had, but I could hardly carry out my inquiries with someone like Colin drooling over my shoulder.
Only then did a cold horror of an idea come slithering across my mind. What if—
But no, if there’d been blood on Colin’s clothing, I’d surely have noticed it.
As I walked back to retrieve Gladys, I was taken with a rattling good idea. In all of Bishop’s Lacey there were very few vans, most of which were known to me on sight: the ironmonger’s, the butcher’s, the electrician’s, and so forth. Each one had the name of its owner in prominent letters on the side panels; each was unique and unmistakeable. A quick ride up the high street would account for most of them, and a strange van would stand out like a sore thumb.
And so it did.
A few minutes later I had pedaled a zigzag path throughout the village without any luck. But as I swept round the bend at the east end of the high street, I could hardly believe my eyes.
Parked in front of Willow Villa was a disreputable green van that, although its rusty panels were blank, had Brookie Harewood written all over it.
Willow Villa was aptly named for the fact that it was completely hidden beneath the drooping tassels of a giant tree, which was just as well since the house was painted a hideous shade of orange. It belonged to Tilda Mountjoy, whom I had met under rather unhappy circumstances a few months earlier. Miss Mountjoy was the retired Librarian-in-Chief of the Bishop’s Lacey Free Library where, it was said, even the books had lived in fear of her. Now, with nothing but time on her hands, she had become a freelance holy terror.
Although I was not anxious to renew our acquaintance, there was nothing for it but to open her gate, push my way through the net of dangling fronds, squelch through the mosses underfoot, and beard the dragon in her den.
My excuse? I would tell her that, while out bicycling, I had been overcome with a sudden faintness. Seeing Brookie’s van, I thought that perhaps he would be kind enough to load Gladys into the rear and drive me home. Father, I was sure, would be filled with eternal gratitude, etc., etc., etc.
Under the willow’s branches, lichens flourished on the doorstep and the air was as cool and dank as a mausoleum.
I had already raised the corroded brass knocker, which was in the shape of the Lincoln Imp, when the door flew open and there stood Miss Mountjoy—covered with blood!
I don’t know which of us was the most startled to see the other, but for a peculiar moment we both of us stood perfectly still, staring wide-eyed at each other.
The front of her dress and the sleeves of her gray cardigan were soaked with the stuff, and her face was an open wound. A few fresh drops of scarlet had already plopped to the floor before she lifted a bloody handkerchief and clapped it to her face.
“Nosebleed,” she said. “I get them all the time.”
With her mouth and nose muffled by the stained linen, it sounded as if she had said “I give them all the twine,” but I knew what she meant.
“Gosh, Miss Mountjoy,” I blurted. “Let me help you.”
I seized her arm and before she could protest, steered her towards the kitchen through a dark hallway lined with heavy Tudor sideboards.
“Sit down,” I said, pulling out a chair, and to my surprise, she did.
My experience with nosebleeds was limited but practical. I remembered one of Feely’s birthday parties at which Sheila Foster’s nose had erupted on the croquet lawn and Dogger had stanched it with someone’s handkerchief dipped in a solution of copper sulfate from the greenhouse.
Willow Villa, however, didn’t seem likely to have a supply of Blue Vitriol, as the solution was called, although I knew that, given no more than half a teacup of dilute sulfurie acid, a couple of pennies, and the battery from Gladys’s bicycle lamp, I could whip up enough of the stuff to do the trick. But this was no time for chemistry.
I grabbed for an ornamental iron key that hung from a nail near the fireplace and clapped it to the back of her neck.
She let out a shriek, and came halfway out of the chair.
“Easy now,” I said, as if talking to a horse (a quick vision of clinging to Gry’s mane in the darkness came to mind). “Easy.”
Miss Mountjoy sat rigid, her shoulders hunched. Now was the time.
“Is Brookie here?” I said conversationally. “I saw his van outside.”
