After tea, Rosemary and the Tibbetts drove back to Berrybridge Haven. The sky was clearing fast, and the declining sun was touching the clouds with pink—the prelude to a hearteningly red sunset, with its promise of fine weather to come.
They reached the hard just in time to see Tideway coming upriver to her moorings. Two tall, oil-skinned figures moved about on her deck, while Anne sat at the helm: but as the boat approached the bobbing red and white mooring buoy, Henry noticed that Hamish went aft and took the tiller himself. Alastair grabbed the buoy and made the chain fast. Anne clambered up on deck and waved energetically.
Rosemary glanced at her watch. “Half past six,” she said. “Another half hour to opening time, it being Sunday. But I’m sure Bob won’t mind us going in and waiting. The others are bound to be ashore in a minute.”
They walked back up the hard to The Berry Bush. Outside the pub, in the yard, stood a sleek red Aston-Martin. “Bob’s back,” Rosemary remarked, when she saw the car.
“That’s a very handsome vehicle for a country publican,” said Emmy.
Rosemary smiled. “It’s Bob’s pride and joy,” she said. “Heaven knows how he affords to run it.”
They went into the bar, where a fire was already blazing. A small man with a sharp-featured face and very bright blue eyes was busying himself behind the bar.
“Hello, Bob,” said Rosemary. “D’you mind if we sit by the fire till opening time?”
“Course not, Mrs. Benson, make yerself at ’ome,” said the landlord kindly, in a marked Cockney accent. “Just got in meself, and glad to be in the warm, I can tell you, out of—” He suddenly stopped, and looked at Henry. There was a moment of dead silence.
“How are you, Bob?” said Henry. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Bob came out from behind the bar, hand outstretched. “Well, well, well,” he said. “It’s a small world, I always say. And ’ow are you, Inspector?”
“Very fit, thank you.”
“What brings you ’ere, then?” There was the faintest note of anxiety in Bob’s voice. “Expectin’ a crime wave in Berrybridge?”
Henry smiled. “No, no, this isn’t a business trip,” he said. “We’re sailing with Mr. and Mrs. Benson.”
“Sailin’, eh? Been out today?”
“No,” said Henry. “We’ve been over at Ber
ry Hall.”
For a moment, a wary look crept into Bob’s blue eyes. Then he said, “Well, well, well. ’Ave a seat by the fire, then. Lucky I didn’t suggest servin’ you with a drink before hours, eh? I’d ’ave bin in trouble, and no mistake.”
Henry grinned. “I know how honest you are, Bob,” he said.
Bob shot him a suspicious glance, but all he said was, “Well, if you’ll excuse me, ladies and gents, I’ve got work to do.” He disappeared through the door behind the bar.
“You know Bob, Henry?” Rosemary asked, surprised.
“Yes,” said Henry. “He’s an old friend. Used to keep a pub in Soho.”
“What’s his surname?” Emmy asked.
“Calloway,” said Rosemary.
“Bob Calloway?” Emmy turned to Henry, and frowned slightly in an effort at recollection. “Wasn’t that the man who—”
Henry gave her a reproving look. “He’s the man who used to keep the Duck and Doorknob in Bear Street,” he said. “An old haunt of mine.”
“I see,” said Emmy. But she looked thoughtful.
CHAPTER SIX
A LITTLE LATER, Henry said to Rosemary, “I believe there’s a telephone here, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” said Rosemary. “Out of that door and down the passage. Next to the gents.”
“I’ve just remembered some loose ends at the office,” Henry explained apologetically, “and I don’t want to hold up the sailing programme by coming ashore to phone tomorrow. Thank goodness the law never sleeps. There should be somebody reasonably intelligent to take a message even on Sunday evening.”
He armed himself with the requisite small change for a call to London, and stepped out into the corridor. The telephone was at the far end of the gloomy, unlit passage, and somebody was already using it. As the shaft of light from the bar doorway fell across the red-tiled passage, there was a tinkle as the receiver was replaced, and a small, nimble shadow disappeared through a door near the telephone. This door remained slightly ajar, but no light came from behind it.
Henry walked down the corridor and into the cloakroom. When he came out, the door was still not closed. He sighed, and went back up the passage to the outside door, and out of The Berry Bush into the crisp evening air. It was ten minutes’ brisk walk, uphill all the way, to the main road: but Henry could remember having seen a public telephone box on the corner. It was half an hour later when he rejoined the others at the bar.
Promptly at seven, as the bar opened, the intrepid mariners from Tideway came in. Hamish and Alastair were both unusually silent, exchanging a few, sparse remarks on the day’s sail, but for the most part brooding with apparent contentment on remembered exhilaration. Anne, however, was garrulous and excited.
“We went all the way up to the Deben and back,” she said, a trifle breathlessly, “and the seas were huge. Honestly, Rosemary, huge. And it was raining and spray was breaking all over the boat and we got soaked and it was wonderful.”
“It sounds horrid,” said Rosemary drily.
Anne looked at her reproachfully. “Oh, no—it was just marvellous. But we were all absolutely wet through. We’ve just been up to Hamish’s house and had a gorgeous whisky to warm us up.”
“Mean brutes,” said Rosemary. “You might have called in here for us on the way.”
There was a tiny, awkward silence, and then Anne went on quickly, “The deck was so slippery, Hamish made me wear a lifeline when I went forward to help change the jib. We rolled down two reefs and set the storm trysail off Berry Head, so that’ll show you how rough it was.”
“You shouldn’t have been on deck at all,” said Hamish. “You weren’t strong enough to be useful. You were just in the way.”
“What a vile thing to say.”
“She wasn’t in the way,” said Alastair. “She was a great help. I think it was very plucky of her to come out at all.”
Anne rewarded him with a brilliant smile. “Darling Alastair,” she said. “I do love being appreciated.” She turned to Henry. “And what have you been doing all day? Cooped up in a stuffy cabin drinking gin, I suppose.”
“On the contrary,” said Henry, “I’ve been out on the river.”
“In a boat?”
“Of course. What else?”
“I don’t believe you. Which boat?”
Henry told her about his trip with Sir Simon. Anne was scornful. “Oh, motoring,” she said, wrinkling her minute nose. “That’s quite different. Still, you can bear me out about how bad the weather was.”
“I think the wind must have moderated by the time we went out,” said Henry. “It didn’t seem too terrible to me.”
“It wasn’t at all terrible,” said Hamish. “Anne always exaggerates.”
Anne grinned. “It’s all very well to take that attitude now that you’re snug in a pub,” she said. “You know very well you had some nasty moments out there.”
“Rubbish,” said Hamish, and relapsed into a moody silence.
It was not long before Sir Simon arrived in the rapidly filling bar. He came straight over to Henry and Emmy, and began to talk in a friendly way. He did not mention his sister.
After a polite but somewhat aimless speculation as to the possibilities of improved weather, Sir Simon said, “I’ve been thinking over what you said about Pete Rawnsley, Mr. Tibbett.”