O’Hara arrived by motor cycle at ten o’clock that night, too late for dinner. He was in high spirits and announced that he was ready and willing to take part in carrying out any plans that might be proposed by the others.
‘And what I wanted to tell you is this,’ he added. ‘You know that queer house—the big one with the four dead trees in its grounds? I’ve discovered, from looking up old records, that it used to be called Nine Acres. The recurrence of the number noted by Miss Menzies and sent along by you, Gçrry, seems a bit of a pointer, and so I propose that, instead of keeping out of that house as ordered by the notice on the gate, we jolly well go in. I’ve been thinking over the details of that day we had our run and I think I’ve stumbled on a clue.’
‘Say on!’ said Laura, with enthusiasm. Gascoigne looked interested but said nothing. O’Hara continued quietly:
‘It’s this: you know I thought I spotted you, Gerry, from the path round Grimston Banks? Well, the fellow I saw was Firman. We’re pretty certain of that. He was making for a gap in the hills, and he wasn’t so very far ahead of me. I ought to have caught him, but I didn’t, because of my gammy ankle. After that, I was misdirected by that fellow in the car. Now, if Firman had turned into that house, that would account for my having seen no more of him. It’s a long shot, I know, but the house is on the way to that farm, and we’ve had a hunch, all along, that there’s something fishy about Firman.’
‘It’s odd you should revive that,’ said Gascoigne. ‘A fellow down here, whose father disappeared and has never been traced, is cousin to Firman. It’s a coincidence, certainly, but there it is. I still don’t see, though, what the house has to do with it, or quite why Firman should turn in there.’
‘It’s only this,’ said O’Hara. ‘If Firman had done what he said he did, and gone to his uncle’s, I shouldn’t have spotted him at all. You remember we worked that out from the map. Also, if you did what you said you did—and I’m absolutely certain you did, allow me to say!—I couldn’t have seen you either. Therefore we inferred that it was Firman I saw. Now, Firman has a gammy leg, and I know I had a gammy ankle, but, even so, I ought to have caught him. Instead of that, I never saw him again. Ergo, he went to ground and for that there’s still no explanation, nor is there any explanation of why he said he went to his uncle’s.’
‘Well,’ said Gascoigne, looking at Laura. ‘We mustn’t be hampered. There’s a club event billed for Saturday which I had not intended to dignify with my presence, but in a good cause… What do you say?’
‘We’ve no guarantee that Firman will turn up for the run,’ protested O’Hara.
‘He’ll turn up all right, if only to disarm suspicion,’ said Gascoigne shrewdly. ‘Therefore— ’
‘In the changing-room when the runners have all set forth,’ said O’Hara, nodding.
‘Oh, well, that takes care of that,’ said Laura carelessly. ‘Now, about this house. When do you think we should go there? Before or after Saturday?’
‘I think to-morrow would be best,’ said Gascoigne at once. ‘I don’t think to-night would be feasible… not for a first visit, anyway. After all, we may be barking up quite the wrong tree, although…’ he glanced at his cousin’s thin, dark face, deep eyes and proudly-carried head… ‘Mike’s hunches are almost monotonously sound.’
Laura looked upon the gifted youth with favour.
‘Attaboy!’ she observed. But she had sighed with relief when she heard that the two young men did not intend to visit the house that night.
Laura was bold as a lion, but was as superstitious as a warlock. She was full of dark fancies drowned in primordial deeps. She also believed, with healthy, female instinct, that dangerous and delicate missions were less unpleasant in the daylight than in the dark. With respect to the house itself, she was torn between a frantic desire to visit it and an equally strong determination not to go anywhere near its boundaries. She was, in fact, like a child who both dreads and longs for a ghost-story just at bedtime. The thrill would be worth it, the aftermath definitely not. In other words, although Laura was both practical and hard-headed, and although she was brisk, jimp and daring in all that she undertook, she was also the prey of an inherited belief in the legends, spectres and bogies of a Highland ancestry. It was one of the many reasons for her adherence to Mrs. Bradley, who was legend, spectre and bogie all in one, for she felt, without realizing it, that the greater demon kept lesser demons at bay.
However, before the three parted that night, they were pledged to visit the house very early on the following morning.
‘Well, now,’ said Gascoigne, climbing into the car, ‘boot, saddle, to horse and away!’ The morning was fresh and fine as the car drove off for the house with the four dead trees.
‘But I can’t see what we’re going to do when we get there,’ said Laura, when they had left Cuchester and were crawling along a very narrow lane on the east side of the level-crossing. ‘It’s been keeping me awake all night.’
‘We’re going to test Mike’s password,’ said Gascoigne mysteriously.
‘Has he got a password? Oh, yes, of course! I think I know it. Mrs. Bradley said something.’
‘1 bet she did,’ said O’Hara. ‘It must have stuck out a mile to anyone with any intelligence.’
‘Ah, well!’ said Gascoigne. As they approached the turning which led to the house, they had to pull over to the right almost into the ditch in order to pass a large lorry loaded with great blocks of ice such as are delivered to fishmongers in the summer. The lorry had broken down, and the two men in charge of it were seated at the roadside smoking cigarettes. The bonnet was raised, and there were tools lying on the edge of the grass verge.
‘Lazy devils,’ grunted Gascoigne, as the car crawled round the lorry.
‘Ice?’ remarked O’Hara. ‘I wonder where they’re going? They’re coming away from Cuchester, and there’s nowhere much down this way until you get to…’
‘Ice!’ exclaimed Laura dramatically. ‘I bet I know where it’s going and what it’s for! Tell you what! When we get to the house we’ll hide and watch it go in.’
‘But we don’t know… how do you?… oh, I see what you mean!’ said Gascoigne. He looked amused. ‘I should hardly think so, you know.’
‘Well, we could hide the car in that little wood we’re coming to, and snake along to the house, and keep watch for a bit. If the ice is delivered there, it might very well mean what I think it means.’
‘Tell you what,’ said O’Hara, who took Laura’s suggestion more seriously than his cousin appeared to be taking it, ‘let’s stroll back in a minute, and ask them where they’re bound for. That can be done without arousing any suspicion. Anyway, they won’t know, ten to one, what the ice is to be used for. That is, of course, supposing it is delivered to the house we’re thinking of. Though, for my own part… Oh, well, it won’t hurt to find out.’
‘It’s a very good idea,’ said Laura. ‘You two go back and ask, and I’ll keep the engine running, ready to make a dash for it if necessary.’
Gascoigne seemed doubtful, but O’Hara’s strange experience on the evening of the hare and hounds had predisposed him in favour of wild schemes, for nothing, he felt, could be as wild as his unforeseen adventure.
‘Come on,’ he said briefly; and the two young men got out of the car and strolled back towards the ice-cart.
They returned in about a quarter of an hour.
‘Go on,’ said Gascoigne to Laura.