‘I could do with an early-morning breakfast,’ said Laura with feeling. ‘When do we resume our archaeological pursuits? I rather liked fooling about on these ancient hills.’
‘We could, of course, “discover” the corpse, child. Somebody will do so, sooner or later, you know.’
‘Oh, no! Not us!’ said Laura, horrified. ‘What on earth made me mention breakfast? I don’t think I’ll ever want anything to eat any more.’
‘We had better report to the Chief Constable as soon as we know what they propose to do with the wagon,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘After that, I think we will let the police discover the body. It will be less embarrassing for them and for us that way.’
‘No more archaeology, then?’
‘The police will provide all the digging that is necessary—at any rate for some time,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘I anticipate their taking up all the nine stones to see whether anything else is buried beneath them. The police are nothing if not thorough.’
‘What do you think is in the box?’
‘I did think it was a body, but now I am not so sure. It is possible (as so many people seem to be involved) that it is the proceeds of robbery. But no doubt before long we shall know.’
‘I’m dying to get it open,’ said Laura. ‘At least, I think I am. It couldn’t be money, could it?’
The wagon bumped on down the deeply-rutted cart-track. Once or twice the carter looked back, as though aware that there were people behind him, but they were a long way off, and all that the man could see, Mrs. Bradley hoped and believed, were two early-morning walkers intent on the view, or deep in conversation, or, in the case of the young one, on switching at the nettles in the hedge.
The wagon made heavy weather of the turn at the bottom of the hill, but was into the farmyard at last, and there was left, an innocent-looking adjunct, in the cartshed, whilst the carter went off to his breakfast, or perhaps to polish up his holy lights, whatever these ostensible manifestations of dark superstition (for as such Mrs. Bradley interpreted them) might be.
She and Laura, who had hung back until it was certain that the carter had gone, now turned in their tracks, climbed part of the hill once more, kept low behind a hedge which ran at right-angles to the cart-track, and then sat down to keep an eye on the farmyard, which was now directly below them, and to decide what their next move should be.
‘One of us,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘had better remain whilst the other goes back to breakfast, and then we can perhaps change places. The vigil will not last long, because whichever of us goes first can inform the police of what has occurred, and no doubt they will very soon be on the spot.’
‘But what do you make of it all?’ enquired Laura. ‘I said it was a secret society, but it’s a gang of crooks, I should imagine. Have you heard of any robberies in the neighbourhood?’
‘No, child. Neither shall we do so. At least, if we do, they will not, I may venture to predict, be the work of those men.’
‘Do you think Mike’s fat man was murdered?’
‘I have very little doubt of it, child.’
‘You don’t think that’s him in the iron box?’
‘I have very high hopes of it, I confess.’
‘You really think that’s not treasure?’
‘I really think that the iron box contains the corpse of the painter Toro.’
‘Toro? Oh, but…’
‘If the rest of my deductions are correct, I do not see who else it can be but Toro, child. When we have concluded our present business, which is to see that the head and hands in the wagon come into the possession of the police so that the dead man can be identified, we will persuade my picture-dealer in Cuchester co describe Mr. Allwright for us.’
‘But why shouldn’t it be Mr. Battle? Why do you say so definitely that it’s Toro?’
‘I don’t say it definitely, child. It may not be a body at all. But if it is a body, then I say it is Toro. It could not possibly be Battle, because Battle, to the best of my belief, is not only alive, but is in constant touch with his son David.’
‘Then all that story of David’s is a lie?’
‘Most of it, I think, is untrue. Its own internal evidence is against it.’
‘And he doesn’t really hate his father at all?’
‘I think he hates his father as deeply as he says he does.’
‘Then… But why do you think his father is still alive?’
‘Because I think we have seen him this morning.’
‘This morning?’ Laura was almost shouting in her excitement.
‘Of course, the horse may have thrown him and broken his neck for him by now,’ said Mrs. Bradley.
Chapter Eighteen
—«♦»—
‘… so at last he let them come in, and they bespoke a handsome supper, and spent the evening very jollily.’
Ibid. (Chanticleer and Partlet)
« ^ »
There was a saloon bar at the side entrance to the hotel at Slepe Rock, and thither Gascoigne and O’Hara went to drink beer and pass the time away until the hour should come to carry out the instructions they had received from Mrs. Bradley. They discovered that it was the barmaid’s night off, and that the proprietor, a genial man (now in his waistcoat), was doing her work for the evening.
‘Quiet here to-night,’ said O’Hara.
‘Yes,’ the host replied. ‘People are going home from their holidays now. We shall be very quiet indeed until about the end of May. Then visitors start trickling in, and by July, of course, we’re full. Then they fall away in the first two weeks of September, and by the end of the month we’re practically clear. Funny thing happened this evening…’
‘No permanent guests?’ enquired Gascoigne.
‘Permanents? No. Don’t encourage ’em. My experience of permanents—not here, but when I was in Welsea—is that they get a wrong sort of vested interest in the place. They get to thinking they can always take the same seat in the lounge, and the same place by the fire or near the windows or in the garden, or wherever it might be. Why, some of them even look upon the hotel servants as their personal lackeys and chambermaids, and make all sorts of demands on them which no servant to-day will put up with. And not much in the way of tips or presents, either. No, when I took this place I said to Mrs. Cooke—that’s my wife—I said to her plainly: No permanents. So we don’t encourage them. I suppose Mr. Cassius and his ward are the nearest, but I don’t mind men. It’s the ladies… God bless ’em!… that make all the trouble in hotels. And talking of Mr. Cassius, that reminds me. Funny thing happened here this evening…’
‘Mr. Cassius?’ said Gascoigne. ‘Has he gone?’
‘Well, more or less. Said he might be back for a fortnight, later on, without the boy. The boy will be at school, no doubt, next week or the week after. Then Mr. Cassius will be down again, I daresay. But it will only be his usual short visit. We generally see him for the last fortnight in September, and then no more until May. But I was going to tell you…’
‘He’s a regular visitor, then?’
‘Regular enough, the last ten years.’
‘Don’t you mean nine years?’ asked Gascoigne. The landlord, who had accepted a half-pint of beer and was about to light his pipe, paused with the match already aflame. He shook it out as the flame reached his fingers, and scratched his head with the matchstick.
‘Funny you should ask that,’ he remarked. ‘Now let me see…’