'I only saw the chauffeur the first day, when they arrived. He took the lady's things from the car into the hall. Mrs Fletcher showed him where to put them.
Then he parked the car in the drive. Next time I came by it was empty, and I didn't see him again. I thought he must have gone into the village.'
'That's where he went,' Madden said later, as they walked back up the lane. He nodded behind them towards the woods of Upton Hanger, bright with the colours of autumn. The morning mist was gathering again, starting to weave silvery threads among the tips of the Scotch pines lining the crest. 'He knew by then he'd be coming back. He was scouting out a site for his dugout."
They reached the corner. Looking up the road, the inspector caught sight of the small red two-seater coming towards them. He raised his arm. Stackpole saw the light in his eyes and grinned under his helmet She drew up beside them. 'Hullo, you two.' Her deep blue glance rested on Madden. 'I've just bumped into young Jem Roker. He was looking for me. His father's fallen off a haystack and broken his arm. I'll have to go out there.' She smiled into his eyes. 'A doctor's life 'Will you be long?' he asked anxiously.
'Not more than an hour. But I've got to stop in at the surgery first. Come along there for a moment.'
They followed the car as it turned off the road on to the track that circled the green. The door of the doctor's waiting-room was ajar when they got there.
Stackpole hung back.
'I'll wait for you here, sir.' He studied the grey sky as though it held some feature of interest.
Madden went inside and found Helen in her office.
She came from behind her desk into his arms. He held her to him, wordless. The thought of the peril that had come so close to her sent a shudder through him he couldn't control.
'John, what is it?'
'No… nothing… I'm just…' He abandoned all hope of words and clung to her.
She kissed him. 'Those poor people at Stonehill…
I lay awake all night trying to imagine what you must be doing… I wanted you with me, I don't want you going away any more He tightened his hold on her and they kissed again.
'I've something to show you,' she said. She led him back to the desk and picked up an envelope that was lying there. 'This is from Dr Mackay in Edinburgh.
She says Sophy has started talking about her mother again. Still nothing about that night, but it won't be long, Dr Mackay thinks.' Helen took out a folded sheet of paper from the envelope and handed it to him. 'This is something Sophy did. Dr Mackay thought I'd like to see it.'
Madden smoothed out the paper in his hands. It bore a child's drawing done in crayon of a lake with mountains in the background. Yellow-billed ducks floated on the blue water. Giant birds flapped overhead.
'What are those?' he asked, pointing.
Helen frowned. 'Highland cattle?' she hazarded.
Madden laughed. 'Of course.'
'It's a happy picture, don't you think?'
'Yes, I do.' He took her in his arms again. They stood unmoving for several moments. Then she spoke.
'Let's get married soon,' she whispered. 'Let's not wait. There's so little time.'
'Time…?' He didn't understand her, and drew back a little to study her face. 'We've all the time in the world now.'
'No, it's going, it's passing every second, can't you feel it?' Laughing, she challenged him with her eyes.
'Marry me now, John Madden.'
He returned her straight gaze, unblinking. 'By God, I will!' he vowed.
Stackpole was waiting on the green a little way from where the Wolseley was parked. Madden put the doctor's bag on the passenger seat besides the splints and bandages that Helen had brought out from the surgery. She got into the car.
'When you've finished go straight to the house.
Father's spending the afternoon in Farnham, so you won't find anyone there. But Molly will be pleased to see you. Just let yourself in. The front door's not locked.' She held his gaze for a moment. 'I'll be back as soon as I can.'
With a wave to the constable, she drove off.
Their last call of the afternoon was on the Fletchers' cook, Ann Dunn, who lived on the opposite side of the green. She, too, remembered Mrs Aylward's visit to Melling Lodge. 'When lunch was ready in the kitchen, I sent for the chauffeur, but he wasn't in the car. We thought he must have gone to the pub.'
Mrs Dunn brushed a lock of hair from her forehead with a flour-dusted arm. She had found new employment with the village baker. The pleasant smell of newly baked bread filled the small cottage. 'I've just remembered now. It was poor Sally Pepper I sent out to look for him.'
The afternoon light was beginning to fade as they recrossed the green. Glancing at the inspector, Stack pole saw his eyes filmed over with thought and he smiled to himself again. The smoke of autumn fires hung in the still air. When they reached the constable's cottage they found Mrs Stackpole herself, hair bound up in a yellow scarf, busily raking dead leaves into a bonfire.
'Here I am, Will Stackpole, doing your work as usual." She smiled a greeting to Madden. 'There was a call from Oakley while you were gone. Dick Wright says he's lost another pair of chickens. And they pinched some food from his kitchen, too. He still says it's gypsies.'
'Gypsies!' Stackpole snorted with derision. 'Whenever anything's lifted hereabouts, it's always the gypsies.'
Mention of Oakley jogged the inspector's memory.
'What became of our friend Wellings?' he asked. 'Did you charge him in the end?'
'Never had a chance to, sir.' Stackpole discarded his helmet and began to unbutton his tunic. 'He did a midnight flit. Packed up and slipped away without a word. It hardly seemed worth the trouble to try to get him back. The pub's been shut ever since.'
Madden caught sight of a curly head framed in an upstairs window of the cottage. 'Hullo, Amy,' he said.
Mrs Stackpole spun round. 'What are you doing there, young lady? Get back to bed this instant!'
The child's head vanished.
'Amy's down with the measles,' her mother explained. 'Dr Blackwell said she'd look in later on her way home.'
Stackpole busied himself with the rake. 'Perhaps you'd like to wait here for her, sir,' he said casually.
'No, I don't think so, Will.' The inspector adjusted his hat. 'I'll be on my way.' "You're leaving now?' The constable looked aghast 'Not this moment.'
'Then we'll be seeing you again?'
'I shouldn't be surprised.'
Turning at the garden gate he was in time to see Mrs Stackpole jab an elbow into her husband's ribs.
Grinning, he raised an arm in farewell.
Thick grey clouds hung close to the earth, brushing the tops of the tall beech trees. Away to his left the woods of Upton Hanger were no more than a dark shadow in the deepening dusk. Madden walked down the lane in a cocoon of mist-wrapped silence, buoyant with a happiness that sent his spirits soaring and lightened his step on the damp ground underfoot.
Pausing at the locked gates of Melling Lodge, he looked down the elm-lined drive, but it was already too dark to see the house. He recalled the day he had driven through the gates in Lord Stratton's Rolls Royce, and all that had happened since.
But as he walked on his mood changed. The euphoria began to drain away and was replaced by a low current of unease, which at first he attributed to the dank air and gathering mist, reminding him, as they did, of freezing nights spent in no man's land, waiting to ambush an enemy patrol.
At the same time he was aware of a nagging voice at the back of his mind. Madden was gifted with unusual powers of retrieval; it was one of his strengths as a detective; there was little he heard that he forgot.
But his attention had strayed from his work that afternoon. His thoughts had wandered. He had the uncomfortable feeling of having missed something important. Of having heard, but not listened.