“Indeed they are. Actually, my love, it’s the kind of story you might have dreamt up yourself.”
“I was rather hoping you wouldn’t say that.” Antonia sighed.
“I’ve got some titles for you... The Case of the Spurious Uncle... Murder at The Mongoose... The Captain and the Enemy... Though who is the Enemy?”
“Could the captain be the Enemy?”
Payne cocked an eyebrow. “You think Jenner may be setting us up — for some dubious purpose of his own? Come to think of it, it was a bit odd that he denied having imagination while he clearly has lots of it— No, no! He’s thought of jolly highly at the club, you know. The general consensus of opinion is that he’s straight as a die. Why would he want to set us up, anyhow?”
“I could always think of a reason,” Antonia said dreamily.
“Of course you could. It’s the sort of thing you excel at.” Payne took a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. “He was good enough to draw a rough map for us, so that we shouldn’t spend too much time looking for The Mongoose... What d’you think?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Hugh. Isn’t it time we stopped mixing ourselves up in things that are no business of ours?”
“Things? Things? You call a quest for a truth that may turn out to be stranger than fiction a ‘thing’? Come on, be a sport. It isn’t as though we’ll be embarking on some protracted, wearisome journey, Magi-fashion— The Mongoose is not in the Golan Heights, it’s in Highgate — and as it happens, Highgate’s just round the corner from us.” The Paynes lived in Hampstead. “The former child star and her sinister consort are neighbours! This particular mystery happens to be at what’s practically our doorstep! Who would have thought it?”
They set out the following day, sometime after eleven in the morning. Antonia seemed unusually quiet.
“You look as though you already have a theory,” Payne observed as they got into the car.
“It’s something Captain Jenner told you... the bit about his uncle’s involvement with gangs... Also that he killed a child... Uncle Ben is clearly crooked to the core and nasty to boot... The kind of man who would have a great number of people baying for his blood...”
“I agree... Well? What d’you deduce from that?”
“I have an idea I know who Eden Swann’s sinister consort might be,” Antonia said.
They parked the car next to a small green glade covered in primroses and took a path between a row of trees that formed an arch above their heads. Glancing round, Payne observed that spring was getting to be as colourful and as picturesque as the restraints imposed by the English climate allowed. Captain Jenner’s map was in his hand.
“Remember the plan of action we agreed on?”
“Couldn’t you think of something less theatrical?”
“D’you think it’s theatrical? All I want you to do, my love, is feign a fainting fit — I ring the front-door bell and ask for a glass of water and then I beg to take you in so that you could lie down while I call a doctor. Then I ask to use their phone as we happen to have left our mobiles behind.”
For the sake of verisimilitude, they had left their mobiles behind, in their car, which, on second thoughts, Antonia didn’t think particularly wise of them.
“I am not at all sure it’s going to work,” she said. “I very much doubt they will open the door... He’s bound to be suspicious after Captain Jenner’s visit... He won’t allow Eden to go anywhere near the front door...”
“We could always set the house on fire. That should bring them scuttling out. Or I could smash one of The Mongoose’s windows with my brolly? Or two of the windows?” Payne waved his rolled-up umbrella. He might have been an Indian brandishing a tomahawk. “That’s bound to provoke a reaction.”
“It certainly will. They’ll call the police and we’ll be arrested for a random act of vandalism.”
“A criminal record may boost your sales. A succès de scandale, don’t you know. No, they won’t call the police... People who have something to hide don’t call the police.”
“What if they are not in?”
“Then we’ll go back home, but we’ll return tomorrow... Now, don’t be defeatist. We want to get to the bottom of the Mongoose Murder Mystery, don’t we?”
“We don’t know yet there’s been a murder.”
“Our aim is to scrutinise the faux uncle at close quarters.” Payne glanced down at the map. “Where is the bloody house? We should have got there by now... What the hell’s that?”
“Sounds like a posse of small ill-tempered dogs.”
The next moment the dogs appeared — there were three of them, all pugs — trotting along the path towards them on leashes held by a tall, ramrod-backed woman in a belted tweed suit, porkpie hat, and gloves. She was middle-aged, with a pleasant weather-beaten face, somewhat flushed. She was wearing brogues, carrying a handbag, and clutching a stick. “Lovely weather!” She raised the stick in a hearty greeting.
The Paynes nodded and smiled. Antonia thought the dogs hideous — flat-faced, goggle-eyed, overfed, slobbering.
“Do you by any chance know a house called The Mongoose?” Payne asked.
“I am afraid I don’t! I am a stranger to these parts!”
“It should be somewhere here — an old, ivy-covered house?”
The tweedy lady halted. “Oh. I did pass by a Gothic monstrosity — it was covered in ivy, yes. Looked like an abandoned lunatic asylum!”
“That must be it—” The next moment the good major ouched. Having broken from its leash, one of the pugs had rushed towards him and, without the slightest provocation, dug its needle-sharp teeth into his ankle.
“Come back at once! Roland! Come to Mother! Bad boy!” the tweedy lady cried and rushed to help. The dog ignored her. “Bad boy! Oh, I am so sorry!” Her scent, Antonia noticed, was something evocatively old-fashioned: cinnamon, orange, and vanilla came into it. “Bad boy!”
A tall teenage boy riding a bike passed them. He had also come from the direction in which they were going. Antonia was struck by his extreme pallor, by his blood-red lips, and the fact that, despite the warm day, he was wearing a woolen hat pulled low down his forehead. He gave them an insolent look. “Bad boy,” he mimicked. “Bad boy.” He disappeared down the path. The tweedy lady glared after him.
So the place was not entirely isolated...
“I think we’ve got him under control,” Payne said. With Antonia’s help he had managed to detach the growling beast from his trouser leg and he held him firmly by the collar. The dog kept twisting its short fat body, snarling and snapping viciously, trying to bite Payne’s hand.
“Don’t know what’s got into him... I am so sorry... Stop it,” the tweedy lady said. “Behave.” The next moment she whacked the dog with her stick, making him yelp. “Are you badly hurt?”
“No, not at all,” Payne reassured her. “I don’t think there’s any blood—”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when they heard a very loud bang.
Startled, the pugs set off barking. The tweedy lady said incredulously, “What was that? Not a gun?”
“That was a gunshot, yes,” Payne said. His trouser leg was torn — but it couldn’t matter less now.
“You don’t think it came from — that house?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Let’s go and see. What’s the time? We’d better make a note of the time.”
“Twelve minutes past twelve exactly,” Antonia said.
“I really must dash. I am expected,” the tweedy lady said.
“Please, come with us,” Antonia said. “We may need help... Or another witness...”