Yes, I said.
"You mean Vita is in the room?"
"I understand. You can answer yes or no. Anything turned up?"
"Well, we've had visitors. They arrived yesterday, and have just left." Vita was lighting up a cigarette. "If it's your Professor — and I can't think who else it would be — give him my regards."
"I will. Vita sends her regards," I told Magnus.
"Return them. Ask her if it would be convenient for me to come for the weekend, arriving Friday evening."
My heart leapt. Whether with excitement or the reverse I couldn't say. In any case with relief. Magnus would take over.
"Magnus wants to know if he can come on Friday for the weekend," I said to her.
"Surely," she answered. "It's his house, after all. You'll have more fun entertaining your friend than you had putting up with mine."
"Vita says of course," I repeated to Magnus.
"Splendid. I'll let you know the train later. About your urgent call. Does it concern the other world?"
"Yes," I said.
You went on a trip?
"Yes."
"With ill-effect?"
I paused a moment, with a glance at Vita. She had made no attempt to leave the room. "As a matter of fact I'm feeling pretty lousy," I said. Something I ate or drank disagreed with me. I've been violently sick and have a peculiar bloodshot eye. It may be due to drinking bourbon before lobster."
"Combined with taking a trip, you may well be right," he answered. "What about confusion?"
"That also. I could hardly think straight when I awoke."
"I see. Anyone notice?"
I took another glance at Vita. "Well, we were all pretty high last night," I said, "so the males of the party woke early. I had suffered a very vivid nightmare, and told Vita's friend Bill about it over a morning cup of tea."
"How much did you tell?"
"About the nightmare? Just that. It was very real, you know what nightmares are. I thought I saw someone set on by thugs and drowned."
"Serves you right," said Vita. "And it sounds more like the two helpings of lobster than the bourbon."
"Was it one of our friends?" asked Magnus.
"Yes," I answered. "You know that chap who used to keep a boat years ago over at Chapel Point, and was always sailing round to Par? Well, the nightmare was about him. I dreamt his ship was dismasted in a storm, and when he finally came ashore he was murdered by a jealous husband who thought he was after his wife."
Vita laughed. "If you ask me, she said, a dream of that sort means an uneasy conscience. You thought I was getting off with Bill and your vivid nightmare resulted from that. Here, let me talk to your Professor." She crossed the room and seized the receiver from me. "How are you, Magnus?" she said, her voice full of calculated charm. "I shall be delighted to see you here in your own home next weekend. Maybe you'll put Dick in a better temper. He's very sour right now." She smiled, her eyes on me. "What's wrong with his eye?" she repeated.
"I haven't the slightest idea. He looks as if he's lost a prize-fight. Yes, of course I'll do my best to keep him quiet until you arrive, but he's very stubborn. Oh, by the way, you'll be able to tell me. My boys adore riding, and Dick says he saw some children on ponies having a lot of fun on Sunday morning when we were in church. I wondered if there were riding-stables somewhere the other side of the village there — what-do-you~callit'rywardreath. You don't know? Well, never mind, Mrs. Collins might tell me. What? Hold on, I'll ask him…" She turned to me. "He says were the children the two little girls of someone called Oliver Carminowe and his wife? Old friends of his."
"Yes," I said. "I'm almost sure they were. But I don't know where they live."
She turned back to the telephone. "Dick thinks yes, though I don't see why he should know if he hasn't met them. Oh well, if the mother is attractive he's probably seen her around some place, and that's how he knows who they were. She pulled a face at me. Yes, you do that," she added, "and if you get in touch with them next weekend we might ask them round for drinks, and Dick can get an introduction to her. See you Friday, then."
She handed the receiver back to me. Magnus was laughing at the other end of the line.
"What's this about getting in touch with the Carminowes?" I asked.
"I got out of that rather neatly, don't you think?" he countered. "In any event, it's what I intend to do, if we can get rid of Vita and the boys. In the meantime I'll get my lad in London to check up on Otto Bodrugan. So he came to a sticky end, and it upset you?"
"Yes," I said.
"Roger was there, of course? Did he have a hand in it?"
I said no.
"Glad to hear it. Look, Dick, this is important. Absolutely no more trips unless we take one together. No matter how big the temptation. You must sweat it out. Is that agreed?"
"Yes," I said.
"As I told you before, I shall have the first results from the lab by the time I see you. In the meantime, abstention. Now I must go. Take care of yourself."
"I'll try," I said. "Good-bye." It was like cutting off the only link between both worlds.
"Cheer up, darling," said Vita. "Less than three days and he'll be here. Won't that be wonderful? Now what about going upstairs to the bathroom and doing something about that eye?"
Later on, the eye bathed and Vita having disappeared into the kitchen to tell Mrs. Collins about Magnus coming for the weekend, and doubtless to discuss his gastronomic tastes, I got out my road-map and had another look for Tregest. It just was not there. Treesmill was marked, as I knew, and Treverran, Trenadlyn, Trevenna — the last three on the Lay Subsidy Roll as well — but that was all. Perhaps Magnus would find the answer from his London student.
Presently Vita wandered back into the library. "I asked Mrs. Collins about the Carminowes," she said, "but she'd never heard of them. Are they very great friends of Magnus's?"
It startled me for a moment to hear her speak the name. I knew I must be careful, or the confusion might start up again. "I think he's rather lost sight of them," I replied. "I doubt if he's seen them for some time. He doesn't get down very often."
"They're not in the telephone directory — I've looked. What does Oliver Carminowe do?"
"Do?" I repeated. "I don't really know. I think he used to be in the army. Has some sort of government job. You'll have to ask Magnus."
"And his wife's very attractive?"
"Well, she was," I said. "I've never spoken to her."
"But you've seen her since you got down here?"
"Only in the distance," I said. "She wouldn't know me."
"Was she around in the old days when you used to stay here as an undergraduate?"
"She could have been," I said, "but I never met her, or the husband. I know very little about them."
"But you knew enough to recognise her children when you saw them the other day?"
I felt myself getting tied up in knots. "Darling," I said," what is all this? Magnus occasionally mentions names of friends and acquaintances, and the Carminowes were amongst them. That's all there is to it. Oliver Carminowe was married before and Isolda is his second wife, and they have two daughters. Satisfied?"
"Isolda?" she said. "What a romantic name."
"No more romantic than Vita," I replied. "Can't we give her a rest?"
"It's funny", she said, "that Mrs. Collins has never heard of them. She's such a mine of information on local affairs. But in any case there's a perfectly good stables up the road from here at Menabilly Barton, she tells me, so I'm going to fix something up with the people there."
"Thank God for that," I said. "Why not fix it right away?"
She stared at me a moment, then turned round and went out of the room. I surreptitiously got out my handkerchief and wiped my forehead, which was sweating again. It was a lucky thing the Carminowes were extinct, or she would have run them to earth somehow and invited a bewildered descendant to lunch next Sunday.