Chapter 17

What a mysterious thing sleep is. You go to bed worrying about gipsies and secret enemies, and detectives planted in your house and the possibilities of kidnapping and a hundred other things; and sleep whisks you away from it all. You travel very far and you don’t know where you’ve been, but when you wake up, it’s to a totally new world. No worries, no apprehensions. Instead, when I woke up on the 17th September I was in a mood of boisterous excitement.

‘A wonderful day,’ I said to myself with conviction. ‘This is going to be a wonderful day.’ I meant it. I was like those people in advertisements that offer to go anywhere and do anything. I went over plans in my head. I had arranged to meet Major Phillpot at a sale at a country house about fifteen miles away. They had some very nice stuff there and I’d already marked down two or three items in the catalogue. I was quite excited about the whole thing.

Phillpot was very knowledgeable about period furniture and silver and things of that kind, not because he was artistic – he was entirely a sporting man – but simply because he knew. His whole family was knowledgeable.

I looked over the catalogue at breakfast. Ellie had come down in a riding habit. She rode most mornings now – sometimes alone, sometimes with Claudia. She had the American habit of drinking coffee and a glass of orange juice and nothing much else for breakfast. My tastes, now that I hadn’t got to restrain them in any way, were very much those of a Victorian squire! I liked lots of hot dishes on the sideboard. I ate kidneys this morning and sausages and bacon as well. Delicious.

‘What are you doing, Greta?’ I asked.

Greta said she was meeting Claudia Hardcastle at the station at Market Chadwell and they were going up to London to a white sale. I asked what a white sale was.

‘Does there really have to be white in it?’ I asked.

Greta looked scornful and said that a white sale meant a sale of household linen and blankets and towels and sheets, etc. There were some very good bargains at a special shop in Bond Street of which she had been sent a catalogue.

I said to Ellie, ‘Well, if Greta is going to London for the day, why don’t you drive in and meet us at the George in Bartington? The food there’s very good, so old Phillpot said. He suggested you might come. One o’clock. You go through Market Chadwell and then you take a turning about three miles after that. It’s sign-posted, I think.’

‘All right,’ said Ellie, ‘I’ll be there.’

I mounted her and she went off riding through the trees. Ellie loved riding. She usually rode up one of the winding tracks and came out on the Downs and had a gallop before returning home. I left the smaller car for Ellie as it was easier to park and took the big Chrysler myself. I got to Bartington Manor just before the sale began. Phillpot was there already and had kept a place for me.

‘Some quite nice stuff here,’ he said. ‘One or two good pictures. А Romney and a Reynolds. I don’t know if you’re interested?’

I shook my head. My taste at the moment was entirely for modern artists.

‘Several dealers here,’ Phillpot went on, ‘a couple down from London. See that thin man over there with the pinched lips? That’s Cressington. Pretty well known. Not brought your wife?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘she’s not awfully keen on sales. Anyway, I didn’t particularly want her to come this morning.’

‘Oh? Why not?’

‘There’s going to be a surprise for Ellie,’ I said. ‘Did you notice Lot 42?’

He took a glance at the catalogue and then looked across the room.

‘Hm. That papier mache desk? Yes. Rather a beautiful little piece. One of the best examples of papier mache I’ve seen. Desk rather rare too. Plenty of hand desks to stand on tables. But this is an early example. Never seen one quite like it before.’

The little piece was inlaid with a design of Windsor Castle and the sides of it had bouquets of roses and thistles and shamrock.

‘Beautiful condition,’ said Phillpot. He looked at me curiously. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it was your taste but —’

‘Oh, it isn’t,’ I said. ‘It’s a little too flowery and ladylike for me. But Ellie loves the stuff. It’s her birthday next week and I want it as a present for her. А surprise. That’s why I didn’t want her to know I was bidding for it today. But I know there’s nothing I could give her that she’d like more. She’ll be really surprised.’

We went in and took seats and the sale began. Actually, the piece I wanted was run up pretty high. Both the London dealers seemed keen on it although one of them was so practised and reserved about it that you could hardly notice the almost infinitesimal motion of his catalogue which the auctioneer was observing closely. I bought a carved Chippendale chair as well which I thought would look well in our hall and some enormous brocade curtains in good condition.

‘Well, you seem to have enjoyed yourself all right,’ said Phillpot, rising to his feet when the auctioneer completed the morning’s sale. ‘Want to come back this afternoon?’

I shook my head.

‘No, there’s nothing in the second half of the sale that I want. Mostly bedroom furniture and carpets and things like that.’

‘No, I didn’t think you’d be interested. Well —’ he looked at his watch, ‘we’d better be getting along. Is Ellie meeting us at the George?’

‘Yes, she’ll be there.’

‘And – er – Miss Andersen?’

‘Oh, Greta’s gone to London,’ I said. ‘She’s gone to what they call a white sale. With Miss Hardcastle, I believe.’

‘Oh yes, Claudia said something about it the other day. Price of sheets and things are fantastic nowadays. Do you know what a linen pillow case costs? Thirty-five shillings. Used to buy ’em for six bob.’

‘You’re very knowledgeable on household purchases,’ I said.

‘Well, I hear my wife complaining about them.’ Phillpot smiled. ‘You’re looking in the pink of condition, Mike. Happy as a sandboy.’

‘That’s because I’ve got the papier mache desk,’ I said, ‘or at any rate that’s partly it. I just woke up feeling happy this morning. You know those days when everything in the world seems right.’

‘Mm,’ said Phillpot, ‘be careful. That’s what’s known as being fey.’

‘Fey?’ I said. ‘That’s something Scottish, isn’t it?’

‘It comes before disaster, my boy,’ said Phillpot. ‘Better curb your exuberance.’

‘Oh, I don’t believe those silly superstitions,’ I said.

‘Nor in gipsies’ prophecies, eh?’

‘We haven’t seen our gipsy lately,’ I said. ‘Well, not for a week at least.’

‘Perhaps she’s away from the place,’ said Phillpot.

He asked me if I’d give him a lift in my car and I said I would.

‘No use taking the two of them. You can drop me here on your way back, can’t you? What about Ellie, will she be bringing her car over?’

‘Yes, she’s bringing the little one.’

‘Hope the George will put on a good meal,’ said Major Phillpot. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘Did you buy anything?’ I asked. ‘I was too excited to notice.’

‘Yes, you’ve got to keep your wits about you when you’re bidding. Have to notice what the dealers are doing. No. I made a bid or two but everything went far above my price.’

I gathered that although Phillpot owned enormous quantities of land round about, his actual income did not amount to much. He was what you might describe as a poor man though a large landowner. Only by selling a good portion of his land would he have had money to spend and he didn’t want to sell his land. He loved it.

We got to the George and found a good many cars standing there already. Possibly some of the people from the auction. I didn’t see Ellie’s though. We went inside and I looked around for her but she hadn’t turned up yet. However, it was only just past one.

We went and had a drink at the bar while we were waiting for Ellie to arrive. The place was pretty crowded. I looked into the dining-room but they were still holding our table. There were a good many local faces that I knew and sitting at a table by the window was a man whose face seemed familiar to me. I was sure I knew him but I couldn’t remember when and where we’d met. I didn’t think he was a local, because his clothes didn’t fit in with these parts. Of course I’ve knocked up against a great many people in my time and it is unlikely that I can remember them all easily. He hadn’t been at the sale as far as I could remember, though, oddly enough, there had been one face that I thought I’d recognized but couldn’t place. Faces are tricky unless you can connect up when and where you’d seen them.

The presiding goddess of the George, rustling in her usual black silk of affected Edwardian style which she always wore, came up to me and said:

‘Will you be coming to your table soon, Mr Rogers? There’s one or two waiting.’

‘My wife will be here in a minute or two,’ I said.

I went back to rejoin Phillpot. I thought perhaps that Ellie might have had a puncture.

‘We’d better go in,’ I said, ‘they seem to be getting rather upset about it. They’ve got quite a crowd today. I’m afraid,’ I added, ‘that Ellie isn’t the most punctual of people.’

‘Ah,’ said Phillpot in his old-fashioned style, ‘the ladies make a point of keeping us waiting, don’t they? All right, Mike, if that’s all right by you. We’ll go in and start lunch.’

We went into the dining-room, chose steak and kidney pie off the menu and started.

‘It’s too bad of Ellie,’ I said, ‘to stand us up like this.’ I added that it was possibly because Greta was in London. ‘Ellie’s very used, you know,’ I said, ‘to Greta helping her to keep appointments, reminding her of them, and getting her off in time and all that.’

‘Is she very dependent on Miss Andersen?’

‘In that way, yes,’ I said.

We went on eating and passed from the steak and kidney pie to apple tart with a self-conscious piece of phoney pastry on top of it.

‘I wonder if she’s forgotten all about it,’ I said suddenly.

‘Perhaps you’d better ring up.’

‘Yes, I think I’d better.’

I went out to the phone and rang. Mrs Carson, the cook, answered.

‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Rogers, Mrs Rogers hasn’t come home yet.’

‘What do you mean, hasn’t come home? Home from where?’

‘She hasn’t come back from her ride yet.’

‘But that was after breakfast. She can’t have been riding the whole morning.’

‘She didn’t say anything different. I was expecting her back.’

‘Why didn’t you ring up sooner and let me know about it?’ I asked.

‘Well, I wouldn’t know where to get at you, you see. I didn’t know where you’d gone.’

I told her I was at the George at Bartington and gave her the number. She was to ring up the moment Ellie came in or she had news of her. Then I went back to join Phillpot. He saw from my face at once that something was wrong.

‘Ellie hasn’t come home,’ I said. ‘She went off riding this morning. She usually does most mornings but it only lasts half an hour to an hour.’

‘Now don’t worry before you need to, boy,’ he said kindly. ‘Your place is in a very lonely part, you know. Maybe her horse went lame and she might be walking it home. All that moorland and downs above the woods. There’s nobody much in that part to send a message by.’

‘If she decided to change her plans and ride over and see anyone, anything like that,’ I said, ‘she’d have rung here. She’d have left a message for us.’

‘Well, don’t get het up yet,’ Phillpot said. ‘I think we’d better go now, right away, and see what we can find out.’

As we went out to the car park, another car drove away. In it was the man I had noticed in the dining-room and suddenly it came to me who it was. Stanford Lloyd or someone just like him. I wondered what he could be doing down here. Could he be coming to see us? If so, it was odd he hadn’t let us know. In the car with him was a woman who had looked like Claudia Hardcastle, but surely she was in London with Greta, shopping. It all floored me rather…

As we drove away Phillpot looked at me once or twice. I caught his eye once and said rather bitterly:

‘All right. You said I was fey this morning.’

‘Well, don’t think of that yet. She may have had a fall and sprained an ankle or something like that. She’s a good horsewoman, though,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen her. I can’t feel an accident is really likely.’

I said, ‘Accidents can happen at any time.’

We drove fast and came at last to the road over the downs above our property, looking about us as we went. Now and again we stopped to ask people. We stopped a man who was digging peat and there we got the first news.

‘Seen a riderless horse I have,’ he said. ‘Two hours ago maybe or longer. I would-a caught it but it galloped off when I got near it. Didn’t see anyone though.’

‘Best drive home,’ suggested Phillpot, ‘there may be news of her there.’

We drove home but there was no news. We got hold of the groom and sent him off to ride the moorland in search of Ellie. Phillpot telephoned his own house and sent a man from there too. He and I went up a path together and through the wood, the one that Ellie often took, and came out on the downs there.

At first there was nothing to be seen. Then we walked along the edge of the wood near where some of the other paths came out and so – we found her. We saw what looked like a huddled heap of clothes. The horse had come back and was now standing cropping near that huddled heap. I began to run. Phillpot followed me faster than I’d have thought a man of his age could have kept up.

She was there – lying in a crumpled-up heap, her little white face turned up to the sky. I said:

‘I can’t – I can’t —’ and turned my face away.

Phillpot went and knelt down by her. He got up almost at once.

‘We’ll get hold of a doctor,’ he said. ‘Shaw. He’s the nearest. But – I don’t think it’s any use, Mike.’

‘You mean – she’s dead?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s no good pretending anything else.’

‘Oh God!’ I said and turned away. ‘I can’t believe it. Not Ellie.’

‘Here, have this,’ said Phillpot.

He took a flask out of his pocket, unscrewed it and handed it to me. I took a good deep pull at it.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

The groom came along then and Phillpot sent him off to fetch Dr Shaw.