Faintley Speaking

‘Go and look for our friends if you want to, while I get breakfast,’ said Mrs Bradley’s voice behind her. ‘A towel and a bathing cap are sufficient camouflage, I think.’

Laura went below, exchanged her pyjamas for a bikini, draped the largest towel she could find around her powerful and beautiful shoulders, pulled on her swimming cap and dropped into the dinghy.

The morning brightened rapidly and the baffling haze on the water began to lift. She spotted the rusty cruiser with a thrill of joy, and marked its position. It was lying almost under the drawbridge, close to the steps, a fact which seemed to indicate that its crew had business ashore.

Laura sculled on, under the bridge, which carried a toll-road inland. Beyond the buoyed channel and the toll- house, she found a suitable spot to swim. The water was cold at that time in the morning, and breakfast, she thought, must not be long delayed, so she contented herself with a brisk five minutes in the water, and then, draping the towel around her almost naked body, she rowed rapidly back to Canto Five.

There was grape-fruit, cereal, toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast, and the crew did not stop to wash up, but, while the morning was still very young, they went ashore and tied up at the steps near which the rusty cruiser was moored.

No one was visible or audible on board her, and Laura would have been tempted to try the tactics which she had already carried out on the dredger, but time pressed if they were to find Damp House before the village was stirring.

They crossed the drawbridge, placed the fee on the tollhouse window-sill – the gates had been left open – and came into the village past the harbour-master’s house and the post office. At the end of the next street was a fourteenth-century church, and not far away were some shops and a small hotel. Beyond the hotel was a long, narrow pier and nothing else, but between the back of the post office and the landward side of the hotel was a narrow lane of concrete which led back to the harbour. To the right, another lane led to the castle, refortified during the war to control the entrance as it had done in the Middle Ages. Between the castle and the harbour wall was a house of moderate size with heavily-curtained windows and a door which had neither letterbox, knocker, name nor number.

‘This might be it,’ said Laura, ‘but we’d better finish exploring, I suppose. If it is it, I wonder what Trench meant by calling it Damp House?’

They finished exploring the village, and even walked a mile or so up the hill which bore the only inland road, but no dwelling was named Damp House.

‘Well, the first thing to do when the post office opens is to telephone Detective-Inspector Vardon and tell him where we are and where the highly-suspect dredger is. Then he can make up his mind what to do,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I shall also tell him about the parrot with the remarkable turn of speech. There is no doubt that we are on the right track. After we have sent out our message, the next thing to do will be to keep a watch on this house, and how that is to be managed without ourselves being detected, I confess that at the moment I do not know.’

‘Let’s get back to the cruiser and plan the campaign. Then, when we come ashore again, you can send your message to the cops and I’ll go and interview the harbourmaster.’

‘An excellent idea,’ said Mrs Bradley. As they walked back to the steps beside which the dinghy was moored, Laura suddenly said:

‘Come to think of it, what did you make of Miss Franks’ admission that Faintley had asked her for a loan of four hundred pounds?’

‘Interesting and possibly instructive. I have thought about that a good deal. Miss Faintley had her salary which, although in one sense inadequate, was enough to live on; she rented, but had not bought, the flat for herself and her aunt, yet she asked for the loan, and must have needed it pretty badly if she thought that Miss Franks would supply it, for Miss Franks, no doubt, has the Jewish sense of money values. I think that at some time we might contact Miss Franks again. That four hundred pounds might be significant.’

‘And, meanwhile, what do we do?’

‘Thereby, as they say, hangs a tale. Pray step into your dinghy and let us go.’

Laura complied with this polite request, and they were soon back on board Canto Five.

‘What did you mean by saying thereby hangs a tale?’ Laura inquired, as she sat on the cabin-top and stared out to sea.

‘How soon can you see the harbour-master?’ Mrs Bradley inquired.

‘Any time after nine, I expect. Why?’

‘His house might afford an excellent base from which to keep an eye on our suspects, if the nameless house near his is the one we want.’

‘Yes, I’d thought of that. But how do we get him to play ball?’

‘I will telephone first. The rest should then be easy.’

‘Sez you, with all respect. But we can try.’

As soon as the church clock struck nine, Mrs Bradley went ashore in the dinghy while Laura washed up the breakfast dishes. Mrs Bradley was back inside half an hour.

‘Give the Inspector time to telephone the harbourmaster,’ she said, ‘and then I think you can go ahead.’

The harbour-master was an old sailor. He was friendly and obliging, and would have been so, Laura concluded, even without the knowledge that their errand was of public importance. As it was, he had agreed to allow her to use a window on the first floor of his house if the police report justified this, so that she could keep a watch on the house without a name. What part Mrs Bradley proposed to play while she herself was thus employed, Laura did not know, and she was too well-disciplined to inquire about it. She was startled, however, by Mrs Bradley’s next question.

‘You remember Alice Boorman, who was a member of your particular trio at College, dear child?’