The Death-Cap Dancers (Mrs. Bradley) Page 4

  “He’s accepted the brush-off, then,” said Erica. “Good for him.”

  “A bit of a coincidence, though, his choosing to come to this place on the day we’ve chosen to come here, and to catch the boat those two were on. The trips run every hour, weather permitting, and today the weather does permit, although it must be very near the end of the season,” said Isobel. “I think the wretched youth was trailing us.”

  “Oh, forget him!” said Hermione. The next stop was at an ancient abbey on the further side of Gledge End. Tamsin, who had seen photographs, wanted to sketch the view of the ruins which was to be obtained through the great rounded arch of the gatehouse. They found the place without difficulty and she remained in the front seat of the car to make her drawing through the glass of the windscreen while the other three explored the ruins.

  She sketched in the archway. It was complete in itself although the walls in which it had been set were in ruins, and she was making rapid, expert strokes to indicate the broken arc where a rose window of the abbey church had been partly demolished to leave only a finger of masonry pointing to the sky, when she was interrupted. The driver’s door was pulled open and Adam Penshaw inserted himself into the driver’s seat.

  “Carry on! Carry on! Don’t mind me,” he said. Startled—for she had been too much absorbed in her work to hear him come up, Tamsin dropped her pencil. As he bent to pick it up she snatched out the car-key which was opposite him and dropped it into her jacket pocket.

  He knew what she had done. He laughed as he handed back the pencil.

  “Did you think I was going to run off with you?” he asked. Tamsin made a few quick strokes to her sketch of the sky-pointing finger of church masonry before she answered him.

  “No, of course not,” she said, “but I never trust an adolescent sense of humour.”

  “Oh, come, now! Don’t you like me?”

  “It is not a question of liking or not liking. I don’t want to seem unkind, but look here, now. My sister and I see all too little of one another when her school terms begin. We don’t live together, you see, because I still live at home, whereas she has to live reasonably near her school. She has always been friendly with Erica, but, there again, they see all too little of one another because their homes are so far apart. Can’t you understand that a small group of women sometimes want and even need to be on their own and to enjoy female companionship and a single-sex natter now and again?”

  “What about Hermione?” he asked, ignoring her plea. “Where does she come in?”

  “She is a bird of passage. She rescued the perishing when I hurt my ankle and she rescued you. We are very glad to have her with us, but I warn you that she doesn’t want a young boy horning in on our holiday any more than we do.”

  “I’m not a young boy, dammit!”

  “All right, then, be a grown-up gentleman and get out of the car. Just leave us alone. Forget us, there’s a nice person.” She spotted Erica, who was crossing the front of the ruins. “The others are coming back,” she said. He took the hint and skipped out of the car. This time she heard the engine of his motorcycle (a sound which must have gone unnoticed by her when he had arrived) and he careered off.

  “He seems to have taken a fancy to you,” said Erica, when she had come back to the car and had been told of Adam’s invasion of it. “It looks as though one of us had better stay with you in future. What a nuisance the wretched boy is! Oh, well, let’s hope you’ve really choked him off this time.”

  Such was not the case, but Adam made only one more attempt to seek their society. This happened on the same evening. They were late enough home from their excursion to decide to combine tea and supper and then to sit about until ten or when they felt ready for bed.

  The weather was changing by the time the meal was over; by eight o’clock the wind had got up and before nine the rain was lashing the windows. Woodwork in the cabin creaked and moaned and occasionally let off a sharp, protesting crack.

  “You’d think it is still alive,” said Tamsin.

  “What is?” asked Hermione.

  “The wood this place is made of. You know, there’s something creepy about a forest in this sort of weather. It’s as though the living trees were calling out to the dead ones.”

  “Oh, go to bed and pull the coverlet over your ears!” said Isobel. “That’s what I’m going to do.” The wind gave a sudden howl and there was a crash as a particularly rough squall hit the french doors. “‘It’s the wild night outside.’ That’s from Campbell of Kilmhor, my favourite one-act play.”

  “‘Is the rain still coming down?’” quoted Tamsin in her turn.

  “‘It is that, then.’ What’s the bit about some poor lost soul coming up to the door, and we refusing it shelter?”

  “Oh, you two!” said Erica. “Shut up! You make me go all goose-flesh. Let’s do the washing-up.”

  “Can’t it stay till morning?” asked Isobel.

  “No, it jolly well can’t. If I begin to let you lot slack off, this place will be a pigsty by Saturday.”

  Adam’s last visit to them was heralded by a furious battering on the french doors, a sound which outdid even the fury of the storm.

  “Oh, Lord! What now?” said Erica, who had been the last to get into bed when the washing-up was done.

  “It’s only the wind,” said Tamsin.

  “It certainly isn’t.” The almost frenzied banging came again. Erica rolled out of bed, pulled on her dressing-gown, and went into the lounge. “Who is it?” she called out.

  “Let me in! My bike’s conked out and I’m soaked to the skin. Open the door!”

  “I can’t. We’re all in bed!”

  “Let me in, I tell you! I’m nearly drowned!” The hammering came again, a positive fusillade. This time it had an effect, but not the one which Adam intended. Another voice, deeper than his own, said, “What’s all this?”

  “Oh, John! John Trent!” shouted Erica. There was a yell and an indeterminate scrabbling noise. Then John Trent called out, “All right, ladies! All clear now!” Erica opened the door. John Trent, torch in hand, was on the verandah. Erica pulled him inside.

  “Oh, dear! You are wet!” she said.

  “Nothing to speak of. What was all that racket?”

  “That was the wretched boy who’s been dogging our footsteps for the past two days. We thought we’d got rid of him.”

  “You don’t value him, then?”

  “We’re sick to death of him.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, then. I’ve just chucked him over your verandah railings.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Tamsin, distressed.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll retrieve him and bed him down in our shack. He can have the spare bunk and I’ll chase him away in the morning with a flea in his ear that he won’t forget. I’m sorry he’s made such a nuisance of himself. I’ll see it doesn’t happen again.”

  — 4 —

  DODDER

  After breakfast on the following day Erica paid a visit to the cabin across the way to thank John Trent for his intervention.

  “But for you, it looks as though we might have been pestered by that youth for the rest of our stay,” she said.

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so. If he is staying at Youth Hostels he is allowed a maximum of three nights in any one of them. It was abominable of him to attempt to knock you up at that time of night, but I don’t think you’ll see or hear any more of him. I’ve put his motorcycle right and sent him off.”

  She had scarcely got back to her own cabin when she and the others had another visitor. This was the warden. He was accompanied by the forester who had led the conducted tour on the Sunday.

  “Not to alarm you,” he said, “but I’m making a round of the cabins because I have just had a police message. A convict has escaped from Hangmoor. He will be in need of money and a change of clothes. The police don’t think he has any outside contacts. He’s a convicted murderer, not a habitual criminal, but he must be desperate and may
be dangerous. The police think he is somewhere on the moors and will soon be recaptured, but until that happens it might be as well to stick to the forest walks, or, if you do go out on the moors, to remain in your car and on no account to give anybody a lift. Anyway, whatever you do or wherever you go, my advice is that you all keep together and make sure that your cabin is locked up when you’re out and is made secure at night.”

  John Trent came over after the warden had gone.

  “My parents and I are checking out on Saturday morning,” he said, “and I don’t know whether our cabin has been booked for the following week. If it should be left empty you’ll be rather isolated out here, so you’ll be a bit careful until this fellow is caught, won’t you?”

  “You know,” said Tamsin, when John had left them, “I think all that business with Adam has upset my nervous system. I don’t believe I want to go out today.”

  “That’s nonsense,” said Isobel. “We mustn’t give in to a scare. There isn’t one chance in a thousand that we shall run across this murderer. As for Adam Penshaw, well, he was just a nuisance to you, and that was your own fault. You shouldn’t have encouraged him in the first place.”

  “I suppose I encouraged him too, you know,” said Hermione. “I gave him the lift in my car. Who was to know that he would latch on to us the way he did?”

  “Well, the rain has stopped,” said Erica, “and I can’t see us spending all our time cooped up indoors just because there’s a convict on the run. Why don’t we try one of the forest trails if Tamsin’s ankle will stand up to a bit of walking? We need not go all that far.”

  “Oh, the ankle is all right. I’ll buy an ash-plant just in case. I expect they’ve got some at the shop,” said Tamsin. “If not, they’ll have them in Gledge End.”

  “We’ll each buy one,” said Hermione, “and then it won’t matter how many escaped convicts we meet.”

  “We’re not likely to meet any in the forest,” said Isobel, “with the foresters and the other cabin people all over the place. I’m game for a walk. Who’s coming?”

  Into the outhouse at the Youth Hostel slunk a bedraggled, dirty, unshaven man. The outhouse was an open-fronted shed with a bench on all three sides. It was there to accommodate Youth Hostellers who arrived before five in the afternoon, since the hostel admitted nobody before that hour. The man knew nothing of this. He was merely taking a much-needed rest. When he heard voices he got up from the bench and almost collided with two young men who were about to enter the outhouse.

  “No good trying yet. It wants a quarter to five,” said one. “I say! You’re wet, brother! Been sleeping rough?”

  “Lost my way,” said the man, trying to push past.

  “Mean you were out in the rain last night? They’ve got a drying-room here. You’ll be all right by morning.”

  “Drying room?”

  “Sure. Dry your gear, see? Haven’t you stayed in one of these before?”

  “One of what?”

  “Aren’t you a member?”

  “Member of what? I’ve got to get on. Let me by.”

  “Where are you bound for?”

  “What’s that to you?” He pushed past and plunged downhill on to the moor, but the questioner was not to be put off so easily. He ran after him and caught up with him. The man turned on him like an angry cat. “Let me be! Get lost!” he said hoarsely.

  “I can’t let you be, brother. You’d be on my conscience. Look, you’re down on your luck. I can see that. Come back with me to the hostel and I’ll get you a bed. A mate of mine can’t come and I’ve got his membership ticket as well as my own. You can be him, so far as the hostel will know. The Lord will forgive me the bit of cheating, as it’s in a good cause. Come on back with me. I’ll see you through. Got any money?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think you have, but the bed is paid for. We have to book and pay in advance. On the road, are you?” All this time the earnest young man had remained with a sinewy hand grasping the wanderer’s sleeve. The unkempt man ceased to resist. “Would they really give me a bed?” he asked.

  “Sure, if I show them the card. Your name’s Bert Leeds for tonight. Got it? Bert Leeds. That’s who you are, and you have to leave before ten in the morning. Now I don’t ask any questions, so you don’t need to tell me any lies. I want to be your friend, brother, that’s all. You see, I believe we were put into this sinful world to help each other, so I’m going to help you. Just between ourselves, what’s your name? I want to pray for you.”

  “I don’t have a name and prayers won’t do me any good.”

  “Oh, well, brother, if that’s the way you want it, I won’t press you. Where are you making for?”

  “I’ve got to get to Gledge End, so let me get on.”

  “You’ll never make it across the moor tonight. You look to me like you’ve got a weak chest. You come on back with me, brother. I’m not going to have your death on my conscience.”

  “What did you say my name was?”

  “Bert Leeds. All I have to do is hand in the cards and collect them up again when we leave.”

  “I’ll have to leave early.”

  “That’s all right. You leave as early as you like.” The other young man came up to them. “Oh, hullo, Tony,” said the Good Samaritan. “Are they open?”

  “They are, Steve, they are.”

  The bedraggled man licked his lips.

  “I haven’t heard those blessed words since I don’t know when,” he said. The young men laughed.

  “Not that kind of open, brother,” said his rescuer. “We’re strictly T.T. Come on, and I’ll stake you to a tin of beans.”

  The four young women found that the walk through the woods was not an unqualified success. It was extremely wet underfoot after the rain, the trees dripped relentlessly on to the walkers who had a tendency to keep glancing from side to side in a wary, in fact nervous, manner, and at the end of a mile Tamsin’s ankle was beginning to feel the strain of coping with slippery mud and the heaps of sodden, fallen leaves.

  With the help of Erica’s walking-stick as well as her own, she managed to get back to the carpark and the reception room, where Erica commanded her to sit and rest while she herself brought the car across the clearing.

  “I was looking at the notice-board while you were gone,” said Isobel, when they had got themselves and Tamsin into the car. “There are some folk-dancers coming to give a show in a church hall at Gledge End on Saturday afternoon. The warden here has tickets. Shall we go?”

  “How much are the tickets?” asked Erica.

  “Fifty pence and downwards, Mistress Shylock.”

  “For that dirty crack I shall treat you all, so there!”

  The Youth Hostel was a popular one, but, so late in the holiday season, it was not full. Steve handed in the three tickets and he and Tony were soon making use of one of the calor gas cookers to heat up baked beans and fry the sausages they had bought at the hostel shop. Their guest ate his share, but remained taciturn. He did, however, insist upon doing the washing-up unassisted. After that, he asked where his bed was, so Steve showed him a large dormitory crowded with bunk beds, and he said he would turn in. The other two went into Long Cove Bay, the fishing village near by, to take a look at the sea, but by nine o’clock they, too, were in their bunks, and the hostel locked its doors at ten.

  The warden did not live on the premises, but had what had been the lodge when the big Victorian house had been a private residence. She came over at seven in the morning to hand out the after-breakfast chores of cleaning and tidying-up which the hostellers were pledged to carry out before they left and to hand back membership tickets to those who were checking-out.

  There was no sign of their overnight guest when Steve and Tony turned out of their bunks at eight. Steve applied to the warden.

  “Oh,” she said, “I expect he’s the energetic sort. He must have gone out before I came over. His name is Leeds, you say? Well, he certainly hasn’t che
cked out because his membership card is still here.”

  “He’ll have to get his own breakfast, then, when he gets back,” said Tony. “One thing, it’s only tea and cereal and baps and that pot of marmalade we bought here at the shop last night.”

  They prepared their own breakfast and ate without talking. At nine they had performed the tasks allotted them by the warden but they still hung on without, at first, sharing the thought which was in both their minds.

  At a quarter to ten the warden said brightly, “Well, you two are quite the last. You know I have to close the hostel at ten, don’t you? I should think your friend has decided to go on ahead of you.”

  “Well, we can’t wait any longer for him,” said Steve. He collected the three tickets and he and Tony went out to the vestibule where all outdoor boots and shoes had to be left so that mud was not brought into the public rooms. “He’s cut his stick, I reckon,” he added to Tony when they were out of earshot of the warden.

  He had not only left the hostel, they discovered. He had taken Steve’s anorak and rucksack with him. Steve was too godly a young man to swear. Instead, his eyes filled with tears of self-pity and disappointment.

  “And I helped him and I trusted him,” he said. “I called him brother. I was a Good Samaritan unto him. Our iron rations of biscuits and chocolate were in that rucksack, as well as all my spares.”

  He could say no more at the time, for the warden came out after them. She still spoke brightly.

  “Oh, well, if you’re off, I can lock up now,” she said. “I hope you catch up with your friend, but I daresay he’s on his way back here by now to join you unless he’s run into the escaped convict.”

  “Escaped convict?” said Tony.

  “Why, yes. Didn’t you see the notice I put in the common-room? It was for the benefit of the girls mostly. You boys can always take care of yourselves, can’t you? Yes, I had a police warning. A convicted murderer has escaped from the Hangmoor gaol and is thought to be on the moors.”

  The two young men looked at one another.