‘I didn’t know you had one,’ said her employer. Laura grinned, and then added, with her usual cheerfulness :
‘Anyway, it’s a grand afternoon and it’s glorious country, and I like to have something to do. Somewhere to aim for, I mean. I say, though, it’s steep up here! And talk about the wind on the heath!’
They avoided, however, the steepest and shortest slope, and followed the rough path which ended in a wooden gate beside which was a notice. This proved to be indecipherable, so, unable to take advantage of any warning or invitation it might once have conveyed, they opened the gate and passed through.
To their left a narrow track led them up to the entrance of the fortress, two great banks of earth, turfed over now, but reinforced underneath with enormous blocks of hewn stone.
‘We must come here again,’ said Laura, as they mounted a high bank and began to circumambulate the citadel. They were moving to their left, round the northern circuit of the embankments, past a ditch which was fifty feet deep. To their left stretched the fields and lay the sheepfolds of a lesser and more homely civilization. Farther off was a symmetrical round barrow, and in front of them, everywhere that they faced, were hills, but hills higher and kindlier than the shadowed and doom-laden mound on which they stood.
‘By Jove, you know, it makes you think,’ said Laura.
‘This way, I think,’ said Mrs. Bradley. She crossed a bridge of earth at the western end of the ditch. Laura followed, and soon they had cut through the middle of the inner sanctuary of the fortress. They passed the ruins of a Roman temple, by-passed the heights on which the cattle of the Iron Age had pastured in time of war, and regained the track which ringed the fortress. Soon they were in the ditch where O’Hara had turned his ankle. From this they reached the sandy lane where O’Hara had been stopped by the man in the car.
‘Well, O’Hara told the truth so far, wouldn’t you say?’ enquired Laura, leaning against a gate. ‘And there’s George. Geo—orge!’
She waved, and George drove towards them.
‘There has certainly been a car up here, madam,’ he said, ‘and only one. I made a sketch of the tyre-tracks in case you should want to identify them anywhere else.’
‘Excellent, George,’ said Mrs. Bradley, handing him back his drawing. ‘And very useful. Miss Menzies and I are going to continue our walk. You have directions for finding the farm. You had better keep about half a mile away from it, or, if anything, rather more. You don’t want to seem interested in it in any way whatsoever. There are plenty of things to admire. Be careful to excite no suspicion.’
‘Very good, madam.’ He reversed the car towards the main road, and turned it expertly at a gateway.
‘Now, then,’ said Laura, ‘on we go! Come on, and I’ll walk your legs off!’
‘Done!’ said Mrs. Bradley, accepting the challenge in deed as well as in word. She set such a cracking pace up the sandy lane that even Laura, always in training, had to lengthen an already Amazonian stride in order to keep up with her.
The countryside was delightful, and Laura enjoying the prospect of bluish downs, the green of the sloping fields and the miles of open country, had forgotten the object of the walk until the road began to darken and they found themselves passing a strange house with an inhospitable legend.
‘Keep out,’ said Laura, slowing up and reading aloud these unsociable words. ‘I wonder where the old chap has gone with the barrow? You know, this place looks a bit like a lunatic asylum to me. One of those grim places you read about in Victorian novels. What do you think?’
‘I don’t think at all at present. I merely observe and note,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘This is undoubtedly the Elizabethan manor which has the four dead trees in the park, for, as we turn the corner, there they are! Mr. O’Hara has not, so far, misled us.’ Her tone expressed something more than satisfaction.
‘It is a queer-looking place,’ said Laura, gazing in fascination at the trees. ‘How did that notice affect you, by the way? Personally, I have an almost uncontrollable desire to turn in my tracks and Go In.’
‘We have not much time to spare,’ said Mrs. Bradley, setting out briskly again. Soon they had left the grim gibbets of the four dead trees. The woods began to show bluish away to the south, and, at last, Mrs. Bradley leading, she and Laura entered a deep, dark tunnel of trees in a small, silent, circular wood, and were at the farm.
Opposite the ruined cottage Mrs. Bradley stopped, and Laura came up and caught her arm. From a chimney of the farmhouse smoke was coming.
‘I say!’ muttered Laura. ‘I don’t like this very much! Did you expect to find the place occupied, after what those lads told us the other day?’
Mrs. Bradley did not answer, and the two of them moved forward with great caution. They crept up the front garden path and peered in at the window, The room was empty, but flickering flames were being thrown out by a small and lively fire.
‘Well, I don’t know what you think,’ muttered Laura, gluing her nose to the glass, ‘but I should say that fire’s not been lighted very long. You know, this is what I should call rummy—very rummy. Those lads said the place was empty. Could it have been sold between Sunday and to-day? Or—oh, of course, they did find the ashes of a fire in this same grate— ’
Mrs. Bradley drew her enthusiastic secretary away from the window, and they moved quietly round to the side door of the house. This was ajar. To Laura’s surprise, Mrs. Bradley walked in and called loudly:
‘Is anybody about?’
There was the sound of footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs, and an elderly woman came down.
‘Did you want anything?’ she asked.
‘Can you direct us to the nearest garage?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired. ‘We’ve had to leave the car up the road and are strangers to the neighbourhood.’
‘I don’t know whether I can help you,’ replied the woman. ‘How far away is your car?’
‘Oh, a mile or so,’ Mrs. Bradley vaguely replied. ‘Somewhere over there.’ She waved a skinny claw in a north-easterly direction.
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m only here to air the house. It’s been let because of the film people down at Cottam’s.’
‘Really? Oh, well, thank you.’ Mrs. Bradley touched Laura’s arm. ‘We had better go back and try that other little lane, my dear. I don’t envy you if you’re staying the night here,’ she added, turning to the woman. ‘It seems very lonely, doesn’t it? We happened to see the smoke from your chimney. I am so sorry to have troubled you.’
‘Oh, I don’t live here,’ said the woman. ‘I’m only here to oblige. The gentleman sent a postcard to ask me to air the house. I live at Little Dorsett, over yonder, up the hill. There’s a short cut. It isn’t very far. You could walk it in half an hour. I’ll put you on the road if you like, but I mustn’t be long, else my old man will be shouting after me.’
She took off her apron, hung it on the end of the banisters, smoothed her hair with a working-woman’s blunt-fingered hand, and then went with Laura to the gate.
‘I shall be slower than you will,’ said Mrs. Bradley to the woman, ‘so I’ll follow behind, and meet you as you come back. You go on, Laura, will you?’
Laura nodded intelligently and urged the woman along at a pace which was almost a trot. Mrs. Bradley loitered behind them, and, as soon as they had turned into the wood, she darted back to the house, went in, and hastened into the room in which the fire was burning.
For what purpose it had been lighted she could not determine. There was nothing to show that it had not been lighted to air the house, as the woman had said. There was no sign that documents had been burnt on it. A stout poker lay in the hearth. Thoughtfully impounding this, and holding it in a gloved hand, Mrs. Bradley searched the rest of the house.