'Come, come,' said Venables. 'I really can't go along with this modern playing down of evil as something that doesn't really exist. There is evil. And evil is powerful. Sometimes more powerful than good. It's there. It has to be recognised – and fought. Otherwise -' he spread out his hands. 'We go down to darkness.'
'Of course I was brought up on the devil,' said Mrs Oliver, apologetically. 'Believing in him, I mean. But you know he always did seem to me so silly. With hoofs and a tail and all that. Capering about like a ham actor. Of course I often have a master criminal in my stories – people like it – but really he gets harder and harder to do. So long as one doesn't know who he is, I can keep him impressive. But when it all comes out, he seems, somehow, so inadequate. A kind of anticlimax. It's much easier if you just have a bank manager who's embezzled the funds, or a husband who wants to get rid of his wife and marry the children's governess. So much more natural – if you know what I mean.'
Everyone laughed and Mrs Oliver said apologetically:
'I know I haven't put it very well – but you do see what I mean?'
We all said that we knew exactly what she meant.
Chapter 6
It was after four o'clock when we left Priors Court. After a particularly delicious lunch, Venables had taken us on a tour of the house. He had taken a real pleasure in showing us his various possessions. A veritable treasure house the place was.
'He must be rolling in money,' I said when we had finally departed. 'Those jades – and the African sculpture – to say nothing of all his Meissen and Bow. You're lucky to have such a neighbour.'
'Don't we know it?' said Rhoda. 'Most of the people down here are nice enough – but definitely on the dull side. Mr Venables is positively exotic by comparison.'
'How did he make his money?' asked Mrs Oliver. 'Or has he always had it?'
Despard remarked wryly that nobody nowadays could boast of such a thing as a large inherited income. Death duties and taxation had seen to that.
'Someone told me,' he added, 'that he started life as a stevedore but it seems most unlikely. He never talks about his boyhood or his family.' He turned towards Mrs Oliver. 'A Mystery Man for you.'
Mrs Oliver said that people were always offering her things she didn't want -
The Pale Horse was a half-timbered building (genuine half-timbering, not faked). It was set back a little way from the village street. A walled garden could be glimpsed behind it, which gave it a pleasant Old-World look.
I was disappointed in it, and said so.
'Not nearly sinister enough,' I complained. 'No atmosphere.'
'Wait till you get inside,' said Ginger.
We got out of the car and went up to the door which opened as we approached.
Miss Thyrza Grey stood on the threshold, a tall, slightly masculine figure in a tweed coat and skirt. She had rough grey hair springing up from a high forehead, a large beak of a nose, and very penetrating light blue eyes.
'Here you are at last,' she said in a hearty bass voice. 'Thought you'd all got lost.'
Behind her tweed-clad shoulder I became aware of a face peering out from the shadows of the dark hall. A queer, rather formless face, like something made in putty by a child who had strayed in to play in a sculptor's studio. It was the kind of face, I thought, that you sometimes see amongst a crowd in an Italian or Flemish primitive painting.
Rhoda introduced us and explained that we had been lunching with Mr Venables at Priors Court.
'Ah!' said Miss Grey. 'That explains it! Fleshpots. That Italian cook of his! And all the treasures of the treasure house as well. Oh, well, poor fellow – got to have something to cheer him up. But come in, come in. We're rather proud of our own little place. Fifteenth-century – and some of it fourteenth.'
The hall was low and dark with a twisting staircase leading up from it. There was a wide fireplace and over it a framed picture.
'The old inn sign,' said Miss Grey, noting my glance. 'Can't see much of it in this light. The Pale Horse.'
'I'm going to clean it for you,' said Ginger. 'I said I would. You let me have it and you'll be surprised.'
'I'm a bit doubtful,' said Thyrza Grey, and added bluntly, 'Suppose you ruin it?'
'Of course I shan't ruin it,' said Ginger indignantly. 'It's my job.
'I work for the London Galleries,' she explained to me. 'Great fun.'
'Modern picture restoring takes a bit of getting used to,' said Thyrza. 'I gasp every time I go into the National Gallery nowadays. All the pictures look as though they'd had a bath in the latest detergent.'
'You can't really prefer them all dark and mustard coloured,' protested Ginger. She peered at the inn sign. 'A lot more would come up. The horse may even have a rider.'
I joined her to stare into the picture. It was a crude painting with little merit except the doubtful one of old age and dirt. The pale figure of a stallion gleamed against a dark indeterminate background.
'Hi, Sybil,' cried Thyrza. 'The visitors are crabbing our Horse, damn their impertinence!'
Miss Sybil Stamfordis came through a door to join us.
She was a tall willowy woman with dark, rather greasy hair, a simpering expression, and a fishlike mouth.
She was wearing a bright emerald-green sari which did nothing to enhance her appearance. Her voice was faint and fluttery.
'Our dear, dear Horse,' she said. 'We fell in love with that old inn sign the moment we saw it. I really think it influenced us to buy the house. Don't you, Thyrza? But come in, come in.'
The room into which she led us was small and square and had probably been the bar in its time. It was furnished now with chintz and Chippendale and was definitely a lady's sitting room, country style. There were bowls of chrysanthemums.
Then we were taken out to see the garden which I could see would be charming in summer, and then came back into the house to find tea had been laid. There were sandwiches and homemade cakes and as we sat down, the old woman whose face I had glimpsed for a moment in the hall came in bearing a silver teapot. She wore a plain dark green overall. The impression of a head made crudely from Plasticine by a child was borne out on closer inspection. It was a witless primitive face but I could not imagine why I had thought it sinister.
Suddenly I felt angry with myself. All this nonsense about a converted inn and three middle-aged women!
'Thank you, Bella,' said Thyrza.
'Got all you want?'
It came out almost as a mumble.
'Yes, thanks.'
Bella withdrew to the door. She had looked at nobody, but just before she went out, she raised her eyes and took a speedy glance at me. There was something in that look that startled me – though it was difficult to describe why. There was malice in it, and a curious intimate knowledge. I felt that without effort, and almost without curiosity, she had known exactly what thoughts were in my mind.
Thyrza Grey had noticed my reaction.
'Bella is disconcerting, isn't she, Mr Easterbrook?' she said softly. 'I noticed her look at you.'
'She's a local woman, isn't she?' I strove to appear merely politely interested.
'Yes. I dare say someone will have told you she's the local witch.'
Sybil Stamfordis clanked her beads.
'Now do confess, Mr – Mr -'
'Easterbrook.'
'Mr Easterbrook. I'm sure you've heard that we all practise witchcraft. Confess now. We've got quite a reputation, you know.'
'Not undeserved, perhaps,' said Thyrza. She seemed amused. 'Sybil here has great gifts.'
Sybil sighed pleasurably.
