Adders on the Heath

The anodyne worked. Somewhere a clock struck the half-hour. Richardson took the book to his room, and, putting it on the bedside table, went off for a bath before dinner.

After dinner, the mixed feeling of being, at the same time, in a trap and at a loose end, assailed him again, but a joyful surprise was in store. He was loitering in the front hall, trying to decide between the respective attractions of The Luck of the Vails and the television lounge, when the front door opened and in came the porter with a couple of suitcases. He was followed by a slender, tall young man with thick brown hair and wide-apart grey eyes. The young man was carrying a violin case in one hand and a flute, cased in leather, in the other.

'Oh, Lord!' exclaimed Richardson, joyfully. 'Uncle Francis Vail in person! Well, well, well!'

The newcomer apparently understood the reference.

'Oh, Geoffrey,' he said reproachfully, naming one of the heroes in the book, 'I did so hope that people would mistake it for a telescope. Then it would seem as though I'd been in the Navy. It's a terribly good thing to have been in, and I should be much respected if people thought I'd ever belonged to it. Are you sure it doesn't look like a telescope? It's really meant to look like one, you know.' He put the flute in its case to his eye.

'Quite sure, Scab, you lunatic. Come and sign the book. Which is his room, Barney? I've forgotten.'

'Number twenty-two, sir. I'll get the key.'

'And is our escutcheon still unsullied, or have you been up to something?' asked Denis, in his disconcerting way.

'I've been up to something,' said Richardson. 'Are you hungry, or shall I a tale unfold?'

'I dined in Winchester with a bloke I know. Is there a bar here?'

'There is. Let me lead you to it.'

'Right. I'll dump my kit and then I'll join you.'

'I'll put the car away while you're dumping. Somehow I don't think we're going to need it tomorrow.'

They met in the bar a quarter of an hour later.

'Tell me why we shan't need the car,' said Denis, over a pint of bitter. 'I thought you were going to walk your legs off while you were alone, and that we were to ride in the stately limousine as soon as I turned up. Incidentally, I'm sorry for the delay, but I got let in for playing polo.'

'You mean you preferred playing polo to getting down here when you said you would? Then it serves you right that you've missed all the fun of being my fellow gaolbird.'

'You don't say!'

'I do say. I've been scared out of my wits until now, but I don't seem to care quite so much now you've turned up.'

'Absolutely the right spirit. Tell me all. I can see you've lost weight since last we met.'

Richardson told him all. It was a straightforward narrative but, as Denis remarked at the end of it, fraught with unusual interest.

'There's only one thing to do,' he said.

'Confess, and get myself hanged?'

'That would be going too far and is, in any case, unnecessary. No, what you need, at this crisis in a young man's affairs, is the advice and assistance of my great-aunt.'

'Not Lady Selina?'

'Perish the thought! I refer to the one and only Dame Beatrice. Your corpses will be meat and drink to her.'

'Dame Beatrice? But?-Oh, she wouldn't take me on, would she? I mean, I've never even met her!'

'The loss is hers and can soon be remedied.'

'You'll really ask her?'

'Yes, of course, and I know she'll come. You must tell her everything, you know, just as you've told it to me. No hedging or ditching. She can't be expected to work with blinkers on. Your two rows with Colnbrook must be exposed with all their low-life implications and you'll have to confess that you saw these two birds on the heath, so that you knew they were in the neighbourhood. And if I were you,' continued Denis earnestly, 'I'd come clean to the Superintendent, too. He's bound to dig it all out sooner or later-the police do, you know-and you'll be in a far stronger position if the information comes from you in the first place.'

'Well, I don't know about that,' said Richardson, very doubtfully. 'I'm certain that he suspects me, whereas Dame Beatrice, I take it, will not.'

'She'll start from scratch, keeping an open mind. Still, you have an ingenuous, unbearded sort of face and are obviously frightened to death, so perhaps she'll give you the benefit of the doubt.'

'You are a Job's comforter!' said Richardson; but he looked quite happy again.

'Meanwhile,' Denis added, 'I will bend my own not inconspicuous intellect to your problem and let you know my conclusions in the morning. Sleep well!'

CHAPTER FOUR

IN SEARCH OF A BODY

'Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments.'

Shakespeare

'What we ought to do,' said Denis, on the following morning, 'and I've slept on this, I might tell you, because it actually occurred to me last night when I got to bed...'

'Is to tell the Superintendent there's Colnbrook's body hidden away somewhere. He won't believe us, you know. Besides-'

'You go too fast. Let me finish. It occurred to me last night, as I tossed restlessly on my pillow, that what we must do is to find that second body-or, rather, that first body-before they hold the inquest on the body found in your tent by the police.'

'But how on earth can we do that?'

'We will quarter the ground. Isn't there a riding stables at hand? We shall hire a couple of docile, trustworthy hacks and look for clues.'

'What about Dame Beatrice?'

'Fun first, business later. Must you have still another piece of toast?'

'Yes, really I must. But, about the horses...'

'Unreliable, you think?'

'I don't think that. I do think we'd be much better off on foot-that is, if we really must look for Colnbrook.'

'Why? I loathe a lot of walking.'

'Very well. You ride, I'll walk, and we'll compare notes at lunch.'

'Not a bad idea. Where do I find these riding stables?'

'The other side of the water-splash. Don't go through the splash or over the footbridge. Keep straight on and then turn left. There's a footpath across a bit of common.'

'It sounds complicated. I'll walk with you.'

'All right. It's a far better idea, really it is.'

So the two young men set out for the site of Richardson's camp. Denis had a camera and photographed a Forest pony and her half-grown chestnut foal. Three-quarters of the way along the beautiful road which led to the common, he insisted upon stopping at the 'pound' to obtain a picture of a farmer, his wife and his cowman urging an extremely lively bull calf to climb up a ramp into a lorry. Richardson was impatient to get on, and was almost dancing by the time his friend was satisfied.

'Nobody would think I'm threatened with the hangman,' he complained, when at last they were on their way again. 'Now don't waste any more time, and do forget that blasted box camera of yours for a bit. I didn't even bring mine.'

They soon reached the causeway. It led away from the gravelled road and ran straight and true (and was, in places, extremely muddy) between the sparsely-planted young pines and the heather, by the side of the drainage ditches, until it entered the narrow wood. Here Denis stood still and gazed about him.

'Rather good, isn't it?' said Richardson.