‘Actually, to know whether my friends—a man and his son—a boy of about sixteen—have left the house yet. We know they came, but don’t know how long they intended to stay.’
‘Oh,
‘Well, we are staying at the same hotel in Slepe, and hoped to meet them for tea,’ explained Laura, seizing upon the first excuse that came into her head.
‘You’ll not see them at tea to-day,“ said the woman decidedly. ’They’re to stay a night or two to see the Druids dance. It’s the great night around these parts, and, films or no films, everybody, so they tells me, goes up at midnight to see it.’
‘The Druids? How queer,’ said Laura, racking her brain for some means of prolonging the conversation, but finding none that she thought it would be wise to employ.
‘Oh, there’s things queerer than that,’ said the woman, ‘and I would advise you to keep clear of them.’ She lowered her voice to a confidential huskiness, and added, ‘And this Mr. Concaverty, too. You’re a real young lady, you are, and not for the likes of him, though he pays my wages.’
She shut the door on these words, and Laura walked back to the others.
‘I’ve put my foot in it,’ she said gloomily. ‘I’ve made her suspicious, I think.’ She recounted the conversation. O’Hara whistled. Gascoigne said:
‘We’ll see the Druids dance, too. That must be on the ninth of September. But, I think, not you, Laura dear. This sounds to me like men’s work.’
‘Sez you!’ retorted Laura with her usual force and inelegance. ‘And let’s drive on. I want to think, and I think better in a vehicle that’s moving.’
The first result of her thinking was a letter to Mrs. Bradley which she sent to the house in Kensington, knowing that it would be forwarded at once if Mrs. Bradley were not at home.
‘Essential to see Druids dance,’ wrote Laura with telegraphic brevity. ‘Don’t write back to say not. Mind made up. Should appreciate blessing on enterprise, and will promise to duck if guns brought into play. Hope you are well. Come back soon. Deep doings at Slepe Rock
Mrs. Bradley received this missive whilst she was at breakfast on the following morning.
‘Dear, dear!’ she observed to her maid Celestine who was removing the plate which had held Mrs. Bradley’s egg on toast. ‘What do you think Miss Menzies is up to now?’
‘That passes comprehension,’ said Celestine, whose attitude to Laura was one of the amused admiration of a human being for a young and lively elephant. ‘That one, she has of the most surprising stomach.’
‘And we, as we get older, have no stomach at all, surprising or otherwise,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘Ah, well! Tell Henri I shall be in to lunch and that there will be two gentlemen as well… my son Ferdinand, in fact, and the Assistant Commissioner of police. Will the butcher have offal, do you think?’
‘It will be surprising if not,’ replied Celestine with vigour. ‘Again, Henri has a chicken. It is from America, that land of the loan. It is frozen, like all the assets. I speak of the chicken, you understand.’
Mrs. Bradley cackled. Lunch consisted of very good giblet soup, some poached turbot, chicken
‘It is for the gentlemen, this lunch,’ said Celestine, sniffing slightly. ‘Ladies are less appetizing.’
Mrs. Bradley cordially agreed. She herself looked very far from appetizing in a sage-green costume and a bright red blouse, an heirloom brooch of vast proportions whose only virtue was that it did at least conceal some of the blouse, stout shoes with crepe rubber soles, knitted stockings and a rakish diamond clip on the side of her shining black hair.
‘What devilment now, Beatrice?’ enquired the Assistant Commissioner, finishing off Mrs. Bradley’s satisfying lunch with a glass of her equally satisfying brandy. ‘And where did you get this?’ He held up his glass. ‘Not bad!’
‘Imported under licence from the government,’ Mrs. Bradley replied with a smirk.
‘Oh, rot! Where did you get it?’
‘Henri has friends.’
‘I bet he has! Yes, I’ll have one more. And some more coffee? Thank you very much. Now, then, what’s all this about a cat with nine lives in Dorset?’
Mrs. Bradley told him at some length, whilst her saturnine son Ferdinand listened without offering a word.
‘But you can’t prove anything?’ the Assistant Commissioner suggested.
‘Not at present. But the chief point is that I don’t want this young O’Hara murdered.’
Ferdinand grunted (a sound which his mother correctly interpreted), and the Assistant Commissioner added:
‘All right. We’ll keep an eye on him for you. Don’t let your Miss Menzies get into trouble. Lots of peculiar happenings since the war.’
‘This may well have begun before the war,’ Mrs. Bradley pointed out.
‘Interesting,’ said the Assistant Commissioner, stealing Jove’s thunder without a second thought. ‘Ah, well! More brandy? Thank you, I think perhaps I will. Ferdinand owes us something over this last case of his, so I’ll take it out on you. The woman always pays. How true that is!’
‘Well, I suppose I had better go back,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I don’t know what mischief Laura will get into if I am not there to prevent her.’
‘The thing is,’ said Laura earnestly to her escort, ‘that we have to take up our positions early enough. It’s no good to get there after
‘The best plan by far,’ said O’Hara, ‘is to lay him out before we start. I will undertake to do that.’
Laura and his cousin Gascoigne gazed at him in surprised admiration. He continued, calmly :
‘It should be easy enough. A sock full of sand, which sand I can collect from the beach, a strategic point, a minute of co-operation from you, Gerry, to help move him into an inconspicuous position, and from you, Miss Laura, to divert the attention of that unprepossessing infant…’
‘Sisyphus?’ said Laura, who had contrived to learn that this was the boy’s second name, and who was fascinated by this baptismal error.
‘Right. Let us work out the details. I think perhaps that passage which leads to the lounge. Then we could plant him outside those French doors at the side…’
‘Good idea!’ said Laura, always the apostle of violence.
The business in hand having been despatched successfully and the victim having been put out to grass by Gascoigne and O’Hara, the three uninvited witnesses set out by car for the circle of standing stones.
‘How did you manage the kid?’ asked Gascoigne; for to Laura had been delegated this share in the responsibility of the attack.
‘I didn’t. He’s been sick all the evening.’
‘How come?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s genuine all right. The head waiter told me. They had to have the doctor. A bit of luck for us, but tough on the poor little thug.’
‘Yes, quite. Not that I love the little beast. I expect he’s got food poisoning. I thought myself that the rabbit stew at lunch was just a bit off, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t have it,’ said Laura. ‘I had cold.’
‘Wise woman. However, two double whiskies kept the bunny in place so far as I was concerned. Kids are less fortunate in their access to these obvious remedies.’
‘He’s not such a bad kid,’ said Laura, with female untruthfulness.
The car held the main road for about seven miles and then swung left and south again across the open country. The hills began to gather in, and the gloom deepened. It was nine by Laura’s wristwatch as they by-passed Cuchester, and nearly half-past by the time they approached, up the straight and sand-surfaced avenue, the house with the four dead trees.
Over the little bridge and past the lodge went the car, and then the narrow road dropped downwards past the golf-course until it took the lane to the farm.
