“But nothing else strikes you about the door as you remember it?—the door or the knocker?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry! If only I knew what sort of something, even!”
“If only I could tell you,” he agreed ruefully. “Well, thanks, anyhow. I shall have to pass on all this to the police. You won’t mind?”
The heavy, smooth cap of russet hair swung again. “I don’t mind. I’ll keep thinking about it. Something might occur to me.”
He knew he had interrupted her in the middle of a job, there was paper in the typewriter on the desk at the window, and a sheaf of loose pages beside it to be copied. He knew he ought to go, and was even aware that he would be well advised to go now, if he intended ever to come this way again. The time for knowing her better was not yet; but it would come.
“Yes, do keep it in mind. If you think of anything that even may be significant, would you let the Midshire C.I.D. know about it?” He had the wit not to ask her to regard him as the natural intermediary, and send her afterthoughts to him.
She had risen with him, to accompany him to the door. She had a long, free, self-reliant step, and when she gave him her hand it was significant, the seal on an agreement. At the last moment, before he turned towards the gate and she closed the door, she said with deliberation: “A photograph might help, if your local paper carried one. Look in, when you’re in town again, and if you’ve got a picture, bring it with you.”
It was the measure of her impact that there was no echo at all. Bobbie Bracewell might never have existed. All he felt was that simple and exhilarating lift of the heart assuring him that he would see Alix Trent again, that it was she who was making the approach easy for him.
“I will,” he said, and walked away from her down the path with
CHAPTER 5
« ^ »
George Felse stood under the arching trees that shadowed the south porch of St. Eata’s, in the first fine drizzle of rain, and stared at the wreath of wilted, greyish-green herbage that sagged on the sanctuary knocker. The head of the mythical beast, inanely grinning, jutted out of the tired greenery like a clown from a wilted muslin ruff, obscenely mocking the gravity of the beholders. Withdrawn, the village moved about stealthily in circles, eyes slanted always towards the profaned place of death, feet always directed assiduously somewhere else. There wasn’t a soul for two miles round who didn’t know.
The dark-green, crinkled leaves drooped despondently, as if they held out very little hope that they would be effective in warding off the obscure evil from outside human experience—which was hypothetically the purpose for which someone had placed them there. It was even something of an achievement to get hold of that much parsley in October, let alone hang it in position in this most exposed of places without being caught in the act. Though a soul benevolent enough to be scheming for the protection of this troubled place against all evil spirits should also have been indifferent to observation. Unless, of course, by demons, whose attentions it would be reasonable enough to avoid if possible.
“All right,” said George philosophically, “you didn’t see anyone, you don’t know anything. I get it. But you do know what this is for, don’t you? Avaunt, ye spirits of chaos, spawn of darkness, malicious powers, make yourselves scarce! This is no place for you, this is a place protected. All right, you can unhook it now, it’s served its purpose.”
“I dursen’t, sir,” said Ebenezer Jennings without a blush, and stood by George’s side in full daylight to be surveyed, his face as hard as the building stone they had once quarried from the western slope of Callow, now long overgrown in bracken and furze. “That’s magic, sir. That’s good magic. I don’t meddle with yon. This church is troubled bad, and that garland, that’s blessed. Yes, I do know what virtue’s in these leaves. You leave ’un there, I say. That ain’t no ill, is it? Leave ’un be, and hope!”
George wondered, in one instant of mental irresponsibility, whether it was the mere fact of the man’s office as verger, or something in his remarkable appearance, that enabled him to get away with that kind of language without being ridiculous. He was almost sure that it was not because of any actual belief he had in these things; on the contrary, the whole delivery had something of the impressiveness of a first-class theatrical performance, larger than life and double as natural. The office of verger was practically hereditary in Mottisham; and this was the role that went with it, the trappings, the privilege.
Eb Jennings the Fifth was a man of medium height and inordinate dryness, all stout bones and leathery hide without much flesh between. He looked as if the wind might blow him away, but he was as tough as old boots. His head was large, with a lofty, domed skull bristling with long grey hair, his face all forehead, tapering away down a long nose to a narrow, hanging jaw, and his eyes in their gaunt sockets burned with a dark, prophetic fire. He would not have been out of place in the direst books of the Old Testament. Even in ancient flannels blotched with paint and grease, and a washed-out oiled-wool sweater, beginning to unravel at the hem, he was impressive.
“And how can you be sure it was put there to protect?” George asked curiously, watching the verger’s lantern of a face. “Oh, yes, we know that’s what it means, or what it’s supposed to mean, but what if whoever put it there did it to frighten the whole village half to death, on the principle of ‘the mair mischief of mair sport’? That wouldn’t be much benefit to anybody except the murderer, would it? If he stirred up enough muck he might escape notice in the obscurity. Might even be left free to make his next move, whatever that may be. You live here at the lodge on the corner of the churchyard, don’t you? Right in the danger zone!”
A boy of about eighteen or nineteen came butting through the gathering rain, shears in hand, and dived into the porch beside them just in time to hear this. George had seen him clipping back the encroaching ivy from the north wall before the shower began.
“Don’t you waste your time trying to scare this old raven,” he said, punching Jennings lightly in the ribs, and dropping the shears on to the bench inside the porch. “I’d be sorry for the demon that tried tangling with him, I tell you.”
“You mind your own business,” Eb Jennings told him smartly, “and don’t interrupt your elders and betters.”
“And don’t let him kid you he takes any stock in this Dracula stuff,” went on the boy, undeterred, nodding a shaggy, light-brown head at the dangling wreath. “He’s got his own recipes.” He sat down beside his shears, and leaned to examine the withering leaves more closely. His lively lips curled in tolerant disdain. “You know there’s a couple of London cranks from some psychic research gang booked in the ‘Arms’ last night? And a folklore collector from Birmingham? As well as a few national press folks. Somebody slipped the word out there were devils loose up here.”
