She Fell Among Thieves (5 page)

My mind made up, I began to observe such surroundings as must have pleased any man. As is not always the way, the closer you drew to the country, the finer it looked. With a sparkling eye, I marked the sweep of the valley and the depth of the hammercloth forests that covered the mountain sides: the turf I trod was like velvet and the song of unruly water refreshed the ear. The torrent ran to my left – to be tamed lower down to the service of Vanity Fair. It was this laughing water that flowed in the pipes of Jezreel and flooded the castle with light, as well, of course, as providing the gentle, regular music which I had heard from my bedroom the night before. The further I went, the taller the mountains seemed and the more the forests that clad them hung on their sides: the natural grandeur about me grew more superb and impressive with every step, yet the friendly peace of the country was always there, for the meadows were deep and smiling and gentle-eyed cows were grazing and swinging their cumbersome heads to rout the flies.

The object of my walk was threefold. I found the valley lovely and I wished to prove the promise which its recesses held out: I wished to acquaint myself with the outskirts of Jezreel: and I wished to discover the way by which the man I had seen had reached the floor of a valley with walls so sheer. (I knew, of course, of one path: but I felt that Vanity Fair would hardly have told me the way which her man had used.)

Now I had a binocular with me, and when I had covered two miles, I had a sudden whim to survey Jezreel. It was rather late in the day, for, to see any detail at all, I should have looked back when I had gone but three furlongs, or less than that. All the same, my glasses were strong and, since the chance might not come back, I took my seat on a knoll and put them up to my eyes.

Inch by inch I raked the façade and the terrace, upon which I could make out two footmen arranging chairs. I inspected the roof and the tower and I saw that the fatal casement was now fast shut. I could see my bedroom windows, at one of which Bell was standing with something of mine in his hand. I could see the private apartments of Vanity Fair, and something at one of their windows of curious shape: a thick-set cross it looked like…

Vanity Fair lowered her glasses and waved.

Feeling uncommonly foolish, I did the same.

I also swore – for some ridiculous reason, under my breath. And then, with what grace I could summon, I put my glasses away and resumed my walk.

To be so disconcerted was childish, as I very soon saw, but it had not occurred to me that my progress along the valley was to be watched. To take with me and use my glasses was a perfectly natural act: and if it was the way of a knave, it was equally well the way of an honest man. And since, in any event, the damage, if any, was done, from that time on I determined to do as I pleased.

I, therefore, made the most of that afternoon, judging height and distance, marking what cover there was, surveying the sides of the mountains for signs of paths and seeking and finding three places at which one could cross the water by night as by day.

So I came to the head of the valley about a quarter past five.

The head of the valley was closed, except for a deep ravine by which the water came down. The torrent raged in this channel which it had worn and no man on earth could ever have gone that way; but I think, if he could, he would only have come to a cliff, for though, because the gorge curled, I could not see up, above the bellow of the rapids I was almost sure I could hear the roar of a fall. I very soon saw the path which I was to take, but hereabouts there was no other way out and, after a few minutes’ rest in the cool which the rapids dispensed, I left the turf to climb to the mountain road.

Now the path was mostly open: it follows that the higher I climbed, the better I viewed the mountains on the opposite side of the valley which I had left. These were most heavily wooded: but, observing them carefully, I presently saw that what I had thought one mountain was really two, and that though, from below, the foliage hid their juncture, there must at that point be a way that a man could take. (I do not mean to say that he could not have climbed straight up the mountain-side, for, steep as it was he could have gone up or come down by passing from tree to tree: but this would have been a most hard and perilous progress and could never have been attempted except by day.) When next I stopped to look, it was clear I was right, for I saw the faint ridge in the pretty green quilt of the tree-tops which tells of a pass.

Now Vanity Fair had not said that the valley was blind, but she had pretty well forced me to take the path on my right. I had little doubt of two things. One was that she did not wish me to find the pass I had marked: and the other that it was by that pass that the man I had seen in the meadows had come to Jezreel.

I was nearing the road now and I stopped once more to gaze across the valley and see what I could.

Now the path had been leading me back, away from the head of the valley towards Jezreel, and when I looked round this last time, I saw directly before me a delicate fall of water which was lacing the hanging forest a crow’s mile off. The cascade itself was so slender and the forest about it so deep that unless I had turned at that moment, I should never have known it was there. That was how I had missed it when I had gone by in the valley, because for two or three paces I was looking the other way.

At once I whipped out my glasses and set my back to a rock.

If there
was
a path up to the pass, at some point or other that path had to cross that fall…

And so it did, halfway up. I could see the rough-hewn bridge that carried it over the foam. There was not so much as a handrail: and the bridge was very narrow, just wide enough for one man.

At last I lowered my glasses, to smile at my luck. Three paces more or less, and I should have gone empty away. As it was…

I put my glasses away and turned to the road.

This was closer than I knew. In fact, the boulder had masked it – the rock against which I had leaned, to steady my gaze. As I rounded that comfortable bulwark –

‘That’s right,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘Did you set your watch?’

She was sitting alone in the back of an open car. On its step was spread a napkin, on which was standing a glass. As I stepped on to the road, the chauffeur, called Jean, ripped open a bottle of beer.

‘I knew you’d be thirsty,’ she said. ‘And thirst is a healthy emotion which should be indulged. Not a thirst for knowledge, you know. I’ve known that to be unhealthy.’

I saw my chance and leaped in.

‘I never asked her,’ I said. ‘She volunteered the information.’

An image regarded me straitly.

‘Who volunteered what?’

‘Virginia,’ I said. ‘She saw me setting my watch and told me the legend and that the clock doesn’t chime the quarter past. If she wasn’t pulling my leg, that means that I must be mistaken and that it was the half-hour and not the quarter that I heard chimed last night.’

The eyes of Vanity Fair were like dancing steel.

‘Oh, Richard Chandos,’ she said, ‘when I asked you this afternoon, why ever didn’t you say that you’d set your watch by the chime?’

I picked up my glass.

‘It wouldn’t have been true,’ I said.

‘I wasn’t thinking of that,’ said Vanity Fair.

I confess that I drank her health…

On the way down we stopped, to look at Jezreel.

‘You can’t see it so well from the valley,’ said Vanity Fair.

Nearly an hour had gone by when I stopped in the midst of my toilet to stare upon Bell.

‘But I saw you,’ I said. ‘You were standing just there, with something of mine in your hand.’

‘It wasn’t me, sir,’ said Bell. ‘I’ve been down in the garage, at work on the Rolls. I’ve never come into this room all the afternoon.’

For a moment I stood, still staring. Then I returned to the business of fastening the studs of my shirt. It was no good my being annoyed: again I had been treated exactly as I deserved.

‘Well, just run through the drawers,’ I said, ‘as a matter of form. I don’t suppose anything’s gone. Whoever it was had orders to search, not steal.’

With that, I continued to dress.

As I got into my jacket, I heard Bell exclaim. Then he turned from an open wardrobe and came to my side. The pistol with which I travelled was in his hand. Its magazine was empty, and the round that had lain in the chamber had been withdrawn.

‘So they did come to steal,’ said I. ‘Have we any spare ammunition?’

‘That we have, sir,’ said Bell. ‘I’ve got a box in the Rolls.’

‘Well, fill it up,’ said I, ‘and put it where I can reach it, just under the bed.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Bell. ‘But I think you should lock your doors.’

‘I will,’ said I. ‘And tell Captain Mansel this. I think that I ought to see him. If I can’t – well, I can’t. But tell him that I’m being played with. He’ll understand.’

‘That’s what you’re here for,’ said Mansel.

Bell and I jumped like two children and then swung round.

Mansel was sitting on a table, dressed in an old suit of flannels, swinging a leg.

‘We’re perfectly safe,’ he said. ‘It’s my evening off. I’m believed to be cycling to Perin. That’s why I’m late. But when you come up to bed, you shall have your talk.’

‘Well, I’m damned glad to see you,’ I said. ‘But how did you come? By the salon?’

Mansel shook his head.

‘Don’t lock your doors,’ he said. ‘It isn’t worthwhile.’ He walked to a massive pier-glass, heavily framed in gilt and fastened against the wall. ‘You know the old riddle,’ he said: ‘“When is a door not a door?” Well, here’s a new answer, William: “When it’s a looking-glass”.’ He laid hold of the frame and pulled. At once the mirror swung inwards, and there was a thin, stone corridor, running both right and left. ‘The back-stairs, William. You never saw such a system. Takes you all over the house.’ He closed the door carefully. ‘And now you’ll have to be going. Don’t let your lady friend bounce you, and listen for all you’re worth. I rather think you may get some copy tonight.’

‘I’ve more than enough to go on with,’ said I. ‘We simply must have a talk. But I mayn’t be up for ages. You know what she is.’

‘You’ll find me here,’ said Mansel. ‘I’m out on the loose, you know: and I can come in when I please. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t care how late you are, for I happen to be very tired and I’m going to sleep – in your room. Don’t you worry, William. Bell will look after me.’

Two minutes later I was drinking an excellent cocktail and arguing with Virginia about the various styles in which women dress their hair.

The priest was late for dinner – a breach of duty so grave that, without being told to do so, a servant ran off to his room. He appeared, however, whilst the soup was still on the board, to take his seat in manifest agitation, which I supposed to be due to his failure to be in time.

Vanity Fair knew better.

‘I understand you’ve received a registered letter. Is that the stone which has troubled the stagnant pool?’

With that air of importance which only the unimportant ever take on –

‘My presence is required,’ said the priest. He breathed very hard. ‘If you will allow me, I will leave for England tomorrow.’ He sipped his soup. ‘As a trustee, you know. There’s talk of an aerodrome.’

His mistress sat very still.

‘“Leave for England?”’ she said. ‘You’re out of your mind.’

The chaplain was wagging his head.

‘“Leave for England”,’ he said. ‘I confess I shall feel the move. Besides, I’ve no bags. I used to have one – a brown one: but things get lost. Of course, one shouldn’t take root. But business is business, madam, as someone has said.’

He returned to his soup, frowning. The rest of us awaited the earthquake with bated breath.

‘Quite so,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘And business will keep you here, at the Château Jezreel.’

To everyone’s horror, the divine saw fit to disgorge a ripple of mirth.

‘Madam,’ he declared, ‘I know you. You think that I shall be lost. But you mustn’t seek to dissuade me. As the solicitors say–’

‘I never seek to dissuade,’ flamed Vanity Fair. ‘Be good enough to tell your advisers that the services of my chaplain cannot be spared.’

But the man had no ears to hear. The deference shown in his letter had made him drunk.

‘Don’t tempt me, madam,’ he boomed. ‘As trustee, my duty is plain. I have no more desire to leave you than you have to let me go. But it will not be for long. And when my business is concluded–’

‘Business be damned. Understand this, Below. If you leave Jezreel tomorrow, you leave for good.’

The chaplain started and choked: for a moment he stared about him: then his benignant satisfaction changed to incredulous dismay. As a baby’s whose cake has been taken, his lips went down, and when, at that moment, a servant offered him wine, he waved away the dainty as though such consolation was only fit for the dogs.

‘But, madam,’ he wailed, ‘year after year you have urged me to go on leave: and now that I–’

‘That will do,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘Give your letter to Acorn. He’ll write you a suitable answer and send it off.’ She turned to me. ‘Did Virginia show you the lanterns that came from Prague?’

‘She showed me a lot,’ I said, ‘but–’

‘You must see them tomorrow, if you can spare the time. Has Gaston shown you his wardrobe – that came from Bordeaux?’

‘I have bought nothing in Bordeaux,’ screamed Gaston.

‘You may have bought them in Paris, but they are “as worn in” Bordeaux. Have a word with Mr Chandos’ servant. He’ll bear me out.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Where did you go today?’

‘We had tea at Moineau,’ said Virginia.

‘The dog returns to his vomit,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘Which of you two is it that has this disgusting taste? Or do you both wallow together? Don’t think that I’m going to forbid you, but I’d very much rather you drank.’

Virginia prayed me in aid.

‘Don’t you like dancing, Mr Chandos?’

‘Yes,’ I lied stoutly. ‘I do.’

‘Quite so,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘You also like the Zoological Gardens. But that doesn’t mean that you cherish the ways of baboons.’ She raised her eyes to heaven. ‘The casino at Moineau, when crowded, must be a gorgeous sight.’