Both Pentecost and Fleet House, Martin felt, would hold bitter dreariness at night Also, he was on a wire of nerves.
For he could not forget yesterday's events. Jenny had permitted him to go with her only as far as the foyer at Claridge's, where she was to meet grandmother. She had made him promise, solemnly crossing his heart, that he would see Richard Fleet first, Aunt Cicely second, and grandmother third.
Martin returned to his rooms at the Albany. After putting through a complicated and exasperating series of 'phone-calls, he managed to book a room at the Dragon's Rest Then, under the huge arched window which had served a Regency artist, he tried to make new sketches of Jenny from memory. They displeased him. Presently the telephone rang.
"Stannard here," announced the hoarse, hearty, half-chuckling voice.
He could picture Stannard leaning back in a swivel-chair, the black hair plastered with nicety on his round head, the black eyes twinkling. Martin could almost hear the pleased creak of the swivel-chair as Stannard shifted his stocky bulk.
"I hope, Mr. Drake, you haven't forgotten our little talk last night?"
No, he hadn't forgotten it But he could think only of Jenny.
Why, and in what crazy moment, had he insisted on this vigil in the execution shed?
"Because I'm glad to say," Stannard pursued, "that I have been successful. For a night or two at least we are masters of Pentecost Prison."
"Good! Good! Good!"
"Our good friend Ruth has helped us. A friend of hers has been kind enough to invite us all to spend the week-end—" "Yes. I know." "You know?"
This time an edge did get into Martin's voice.
"Mr. Stannard, it's a vitally personal matter; I’ll explain when I see you. I can't stay at Fleet House. But you'll find me at the pub just across the way."
There was a slight pause.
"You'll travel down with us, of course?" inquired Stannard. "Noon train from Paddington to Reading, change for Newbury, then bus for the rest Devilish awkward, being without petrol." "Sony. I'm afraid I've got to take an earlier train."
Now there was a definite pause. He knew Stannard had detected something odd in his tone, and that Stannard was examining the 'phone curiously.
"Shall I — ah — make excuses to our hostess and young host?"
"No. They'll have learned about it when you arrive."
"Shall I make excuses to Ruth?" This was said very casually.
"No." Martin clipped off the monosyllable.
"Ah. It should be very interesting to visit Fleet House," mused Stannard, "especially as I once had some slight acquaintance with its late owner. Just as you like, my dear fellow. Good-bye."
Martin replaced the telephone. He looked round his sitting room, on whose walls much of his own work hung framed amid his collection of rapiers. It had occurred to him that afternoon to ring Ruth Caliice and ask her what the devil Ruth had meant by her secrecy about Jenny. But Ruth was a good fellow; Ruth must have had some real reason; he put the thought aside.
That was how, next morning, a grey bus with dropsical wheels rattled him up in Rundown crossroads at half-past eleven. Not far ahead he could see the Dragon's Rest with its three tail and broad gables in a straight line, set up on a little rise on the east side of the road.
The Dragon's Rest was a beamed house of great age. Behind it lay rolling fields, the glitter of a stream, and the largish oak wood he later idenfified as Black Hanger. Not a blade of grass stirred, nothing stirred, in that hollow of silence and heat
Mr. Puckston, the landlord, took him up to a first-floor bedroom facing west Then Martin's first move was to clatter downstairs again to the telephone at the back of the saloon bar, and get in touch with Fleet House. He was answered by an informal and chatty maid,
"Mr. Richard? Oh, he's driven over to the races at Newbury."
Martin's heart sank. He put obvious questions.
"No, not back to lunch. But hell be back in the afternoon, because there's people corning. Would you like to speak to his mother? She's in the garden."
"No, thanks. You say he drove over. Can you describe the car?"
"Oh, it's just an ole black car. Makes a lot of noise."
"Do you happen to know the number?"
"Are you kidding?" asked the maid, who had evidently been out with American troops.
"As soon as he conies back, will you ask him to ring Martin Drake at the Dragon's Rest? It's very important. Will you give him that message?"
"You have a nice voice," said the maid. "I sure will!"
Martin went back to his room fuming. To follow Richard Fleet in the crowds at Newbury races would be certainly to miss him, even if there were a photograph for identification. The minutes ticked on. He had lunch in the scrubbed oak dining-room, the food being incredibly good. But always he prowled back to the bedroom, also clean and surprisingly comfortable despite the humps of age in the floor.
Pulling back the thin white curtains at one window, he kept glancing across the road to where — some three hundred feet away — Fleet House raised its square, uncompromising face of white-painted stone. Being on higher ground, he could look across almost to the topmost row of windows. Over trees and clipped lawns, he could see a flagstone terrace before the front door.
Flagstones. That was probably where Sir George Fleet had…
Martin saw no sign of an ole black car. But someone was moving on the terrace, woman in a long filmy dress with a red sash and a broad straw sun-hat
And Martin yielded to temptation.
On a table beside his bed, with its spotlessly mended white counterpane, lay an old-fashioned brass telescope of the short and folding sort. He pulled out its few bands and focussed the end one. The image sprang up close and clear, just as the woman turned her head round and up. Aunt Cicely.
He remembered Jenny's soft voice: "Aunt Cicely if kind. But she's so vague, though still very pretty." The westering sun was in Martin's eyes, though the telescope shielded it. Aunt Cicely must be into her fifties. Yet she had an Edwardian air, Martin thought: the sort Sargent had painted so well. With her pale blonde hair under the broad sun-hat, face turned up, she seemed (through the telescope, at least) almost young and rather fragile.
Furthermore, she had recently been crying.
Martin shut up the telescope. What was the air of sheer coldness which seemed to breathe out of Fleet House? Probably his professional imagination. But…
This situation was getting to be damned awkward. He had not seen Ruth or John Stannard. But then he had not seen H.M. or Masters either, though the landlord told him they had booked rooms. Half-past two and a quarter to three.
It was past four, the cigarette-tray full of stubs, before he made a guess which he should have made before. He hurried down, fumbled with the small, 'phone-directory, and rang Brayle Manor.
If grandma came to the ‘phone? All right! But it was a male voice which answered, evidently a butler.
"Is Mr. Richard Fleet there?"
"Yes, sir. Whom shall I say is calling?"
Martin spoke deliberately. "This," he said, "is an enemy. Tell Mr. Fleet that an enemy is waiting for him at the Dragon's Rest to give him a message of great importance."
If young Fleet had an ounce of sporting blood in his body, Martin thought, that ought to fetch him. He expected further questions. But the unruffled voice merely said, "One moment, please." And then, after a long minute, "Mr. Fleet will be with you immediately."
Got it!
At this hour of the day, the whole inn was so quiet that you could hear the wainscot creak. Mr. and Mrs. Puckston must be enjoying their afternoon nap. The Dragon's Rest had three front doors, one in each gable. As Martin unlocked the first one, which was in the saloon bar, the snap of the key sounded like an act of guilt