‘I suppose,’ suggested Laura, ‘it wouldn’t be a good idea to push along to that house again and have another look round?’
‘I hardly think so, child. The men have got what they wanted. They are not likely to take the risk of turning up there again, and you saw for yourself how little the house has to tell us. Until the men proved its value by removing it, there was nothing to suggest that the case of ferns had any significance. Now we know it has, and I am infinitely obliged to you for finding that out.’
‘You’d have found it out for yourself, later on,’ said Laura shrewdly. ‘I still don’t believe you flew to France just to find smugglers’ caves.’
‘Those were not smugglers’ caves, child, but I will admit that after I had been over that house (as you surmised) with the police, I had a long conversation over the telephone with the last known occupant of the house. I asked him what he had left behind, because it seemed inexplicable that he should have left one room more or less furnished.’
‘How did you get in touch with him?’
‘The police knew his name, of course, as the school had been advertised in all the local papers for miles around, and a scholastic agency soon put me upon his track. He replied that nothing had been left behind, so far as he remembered. Then I mentioned the case of ferns, but he was certain that the school had never possessed one. Interesting, is it not?’
‘Focus on ferns, as the B.B.C would say. But why France? We deduced you must have got hold of some information, or else had the whale of a hunch.’
‘I thought Mark would like the trip, child.’
Laura looked at her suspiciously.
‘Now stop pulling my leg,’ she said, ‘and come and help me overhaul the gear.’
‘No. You go and see to the boat. I’ll pack,’ her employer replied. ‘We must be off betimes in the morning.’
‘For me as well? You’re an angel. Celestine packed for me coming down. If she hadn’t I should have brought about half the things I did bring. I can’t think how she gets what she does into a suitcase. A cabin trunk wouldn’t contain it all if I did the packing!’
It was not a long run from Cromlech to the Hamble River, and the early morning was ideal. The cruiser bounced and nose-dived, flung up spray, and spread a fantail of foaming wash behind her. It was an exhilarating trip. It also seemed a long way from the magic caves of Lascaux, Mrs Bradley reflected – about forty thousand years, in fact.
‘There we are,’ said Laura, when she had brought the cruiser over from the Calshott side in order to get a good view of the buoy which marked the river entrance. She altered course from due north to north-east to follow the channel. It was not a tricky entrance, particularly on such a good day, but Mrs Bradley remained seated and silent whilst Laura performed the necessary manoeuvres, for the river was popular with yachtsmen who had to be given right of way, and, at that time of year, it was crowded.
Skilful and careful, Laura came on past Warsash and Bursledon, and at last brought the Canto Five to her usual moorings.
‘There’s George with the car,’ she said when the cruiser was tied up. ‘Good. He can help with the luggage.’
The stocky chauffeur saluted them gravely, tucked them into the back seat, stowed away the suitcases and said, ‘The Lyndhurst road, madam?’
‘Yes, George. We want our lunch. Do you know where Kindleford is?’
‘I have heard of it, madam. I will look it up on the map. The papers have made an interesting thing of the case of Miss Lilian Faintley.’
‘Was her name Lilian? Oh, yes, I remember it was Lilian at the inquest. Are you acquainted with any headmistresses, George?’
‘Only with one, madam, and she, unfortunately, is no longer among us.’
‘Indeed? And who was that?’
‘The lady who directed my infant intelligence from the age of five until seven, madam. I had an immense passion for her. I may say, without offence, that, apart from my mother, she is the only woman I have ever really loved.’
‘Present company excepted,’ said Laura, with a mischievous grin.
‘Naturally, miss,’ agreed the chauffeur with unimpaired gravity.
‘I’ve never taken the micky out of George yet,’ said Laura regretfully, as they drove off towards the green tunnels and sunny heaths of the New Forest. ‘Do you suppose he ever laughs?’
‘I have known him to do so once, many years ago, when a man laying down the law to him on the subject of types of cars, slipped and fell backwards into a tub of swill.’
‘I’d like to have been there. When do we pursue this headmistress at Kindleford school?’
‘Mark tells me that the school reopens on Wednesday – that is, to-morrow – so there is little doubt that Miss Golightly will be there preparing for the new school year, and we should be able to obtain a comparatively uninterrupted interview with her if we set off directly after lunch.’
‘She will bless us! Still, that can’t be helped. What part, if any, do I play?’
‘Time will show, child. Look! Quite a number of New Forest ponies! I owned one when I was a child.’
Laura glanced at her. She found this sudden change of subject disquieting. She said, ‘Did you?’ in a non-committal voice and changed the subject herself.
‘Are you going to the Kindleford police, as well as to Miss Golightly?’
‘Yes, I am. Some interesting news came through from them to the Inspector who is investigating the death at Cromlech. It seems that a certain Mr Mandsell, an impecunious author —’
‘Aren’t they all?’
‘I imagine so… went to the Kindleford police as soon as he read about the murder, and told them a rather interesting story which may have considerable significance. It appears that this Mr Mandsell took, on a public telephone, a call from Miss Faintley which, it had clearly been arranged, was to have been picked up by somebody else. The result was that Mr Mandsell, for a whim, went to a railway station, picked up a parcel and delivered it at an obscure and not too much above-board little shop in a back street. He had been told to ask for a receipt, forgot to do so, went back and was blandly informed that no parcel had been handed in.’
‘Very fishy. Whom did Miss Faintley think she’d been talking to on the phone? Did that come out?’
‘No, it did not, and the police have no clue to his identity. But for Mr Mandsell’s having picked up the call by mistake, they would not even know that this man existed.’
‘Mandsell may be lying?’
‘The Kindleford police do not think so. They have made inquiries, and there is no reason to doubt that he had never so much as heard of Miss Faintley before. My own view, from what little I know at present, is that Miss Faintley’s correspondent was one of the men teachers at the school.’
‘A teacher? What makes you think that? Teachers, on the whole, are not given to mixing themselves up with fishy parcels and grimy, two-purpose little shops, are they?’
‘No, decidedly they are not, but one or two things in Mr Mandsell’s evidence struck me as pointers to Miss Faintley’s collaborator. First, although there was this arrangement to call some man up on a public telephone at a given time —’
‘You’d think it would have been more practical for him to have called her up, under those circumstances, wouldn’t you?’
‘You certainly would… but I’m coming to that. It all fits in with my theory that he was a teacher. Well, now: Miss Faintley lived with an aunt in this little provincial town of Kindleford, but we know from the police that the aunt’s house is not on the telephone. Therefore, wherever she was, Miss Faintley was not at home when she spoke to Mandsell. The time, incidentally, was round about nine in the evening. All the shops, including the post office, were shut, and had been, all the afternoon.’