He paused for a second.
‘But I wish they’d found some other way to send you that message, because, really, Sam, you’re getting too old for this kind of thing,’ he continued.
He was talking to himself again, he noted — but after what had just happened, a padded cell was starting to sound like an appealing prospect.
TWELVE
The train was slow — very, very slow — and the driver — for some perverse reason of his own — had insisted on stopping at every little country station en route, so that by the time it finally pulled into Hadley Compton, Archie Patterson had almost given up hope of ever reaching his destination.
Yet as annoying as the train had been, he watched it pull out of the station with some regret. It was, after all, his only real link to civilization, and seeing it go was suddenly like saying goodbye to an old and trusted friend.
There was only one other person on the platform — a porter with sleepy eyes and a ragged moustache.
‘Where can I get a taxi?’ Patterson asked him, speaking slowly, since he believed that was what you had to do, if you wished these country people to understand you.
‘A taxi?’ the porter repeated, as incredulously as if Patterson had just requested a blue and pink spotted elephant which was fluent in French. ‘Whatever would youm want a taxi for?’
‘I want to go somewhere,’ Patterson said patiently.
‘Where?’
‘Hartley Manor.’
‘That be no more than a mile from here,’ the porter told him. ‘Youm can walk it easy.’
‘I’d prefer to take a cab,’ Patterson said firmly.
‘Ned Tottington’s got a taxi,’ the porter said. ‘Him don’t use it much, on account of him can’t see too good — but him got one.’
‘And where can I find Mr Tottington?’
‘Siddington Derby.’
Patterson sighed. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by that.’
‘Him live in Siddington Derby,’ the porter said, pointing vaguely out of the station. ‘It be five miles that way.’
‘And how do I get there?’ Patterson asked. ‘No, don’t tell me, let me guess — I have to walk.’
‘That’s right,’ the porter agreed.
Patterson left the station, and found himself plunged into a perfect bucolic scene. Birds were singing in the trees which lined the lane, with what seemed to him to be excessive cheerfulness. Cows stood munching away with slow contentment, in fields of unbelievably green grass. Insects chirped, butterflies fluttered, and bees buzzed — and it all made Patterson feel slightly uneasy.
The pace of the countryside was altogether too leisurely for his liking — he found the purity of the air unnatural, and the softness of the sounds grating. He had only been away from London for a couple of hours, but already he was yearning for the hustle and bustle and the soot-clogged atmosphere. And though he considered himself a fair-minded man — one who could see all sides of the question — he was finding it hard to imagine why anybody would choose of their own free will to live anywhere but in the big city.
He walked on, glancing over his shoulder occasionally for any signs of homicidal yokels wielding pitchforks or wild snorting bulls bent on his destruction. The railway porter’s idea of a mile seemed to be greatly at variance with his own, he realized, and it was three-quarters of an hour before he reached the ornamental gates of Hartley Manor.
‘Bloody countryside!’ he said to himself, in disgust.
This wasn’t the easiest job Sam had ever given him, he thought, as he approached the manor. For a start, General Fortesque probably wouldn’t like the fact that he was there under what — strictly speaking — could be called false pretences. Nor would he care for some of the questions that needed to be put to him.
So whatever way he looked at it, the whole business could turn out to be distinctly sticky.
‘You’ll cope all right, Archie,’ he told himself cheerfully. ‘You’re a jolly fat man — and everybody always trusts a jolly fat man, don’t they?’
Once the butler had gone into the study to announce his arrival, Patterson took the opportunity to examine himself in the full-length mirror in the corridor, as he supposed everyone waiting there must do.
If the face grinning back at him was anything to go by, he was not displeased by what he saw. So perhaps he was a little too heavy, he thought, but his clothes fitted his rotund shape perfectly, and if he were inconsiderate enough to lose any weight, it would mean his poor wife staying up, night after night, altering them. Besides, losing weight would probably involve exercise, and while it was all very well for people to say — as they often did — that exercise never harmed anyone, his aching feet were witness to the fact that that was patently untrue.
The butler reappeared in the doorway.
‘The General will see you now,’ he said, before turning again and announcing — in a most unconvinced voice — ‘Chief Superintendent Archibald Patterson.’
Patterson stepped into the study, and caught his first sight of the General.
The old man was sitting in a bath chair, and a heavy blanket covered his knees. He was frail — very frail — and though he was still clinging on to life, it seemed as if he was only doing it by his fingertips.
‘Yes, it is almost a miracle that I’m still breathing,’ the General said, reading Patterson’s expression. ‘Please be seated.’
‘It’s very kind of you to spare me the time,’ Patterson said, taking the proffered seat.
The General’s eyes scanned his visitor with a critical eye.
‘I was expecting to be receiving a chief superintendent,’ he said, ‘and to be perfectly honest with you, you don’t look like one.’
‘That’s because I’m not,’ Patterson admitted. ‘I’m Sergeant Patterson, Sam Blackstone’s assistant.’
‘Then why did you lie about your rank over the phone?’
‘I did it to cut through the red tape. From what Sam’s told me about you, I didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘And if I do mind? What if I inform your superiors of the deception?’
‘Then you’d be landing me — and also a sweet young police telephonist called Victoria — in a great deal of trouble.’
‘I should be sorry about the girl — but whatever happened to her would really be your fault,’ the General said.
‘Of course, we both know you’re not going to inform my superiors, don’t we?’ Patterson asked.
‘Do we? And why is that?’
‘Because if I’m in trouble, I can’t help Sam any more. And without my help, it’s more than likely that his investigation into your grandson’s death will grind to a halt.’
‘You have a great deal of self-confidence — and not a little nerve,’ Fortesque said.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Don’t assume I was handing you a compliment,’ the General told him. ‘You said on the telephone — in your role as Chief Superintendent Patterson — that you wished to ask me some questions.’
‘I do,’ Patterson agreed, ‘but before we get on to them, I’d like to ask you if you’ll give your permission for your grandson’s body to be examined by the police surgeon.’
The General’s eyes watered.
‘That’s not possible,’ he said mournfully.
Well, it was never going to be easy to get him to agree to something like that, Patterson thought.
‘I can assure you that the body would be treated with the utmost respect,’ he ploughed on, ‘and that the examination might well provide us with a valuable clue to your grandson’s murderer.’
‘I’ve no doubt his body would be treated with respect,’ the General replied. ‘Sam Blackstone would make certain of that — but it’s still not possible, because I don’t have my grandson’s remains.’
‘But I was led to believe that he had been shipped back to England for interment in the family vault.’