‘Freelance? It sounds a little risky. Supposing there weren’t enough clients?’
He smiled, rather engagingly, she admitted. ‘I’m retained by quite a big outfit. And there’s never any lack of clients.’
It was at that point that the stranger entered the dining-room, and stood for a moment looking round him as if in search of an acquaintance. Charlotte had seen him turn in the doorway to speak to Mrs Lane, whose placid smile indicated that she knew and welcomed him. He looked like a local man, at home and unobtrusive in this comfortable country room as he would have been in the border landscape outside. He was tall and thin, a leggy lightweight in a dark-grey suit, with a pleasant, long, cleanshaven face, and short hair greying at the temples and receding slightly from a weathered brown forehead. He was of an age to be able to wear his hair comfortably short and his chin shaven without eccentricity, probably around fifty. Middle age has its compensations.
There were only a few people left in the dining-room by that time, two elderly men earnestly swopping fishing stories over their brandy, a young couple holding hands fondly under the table, and a solitary ancient in a leather-elbowed tweed jacket, reading the evening paper. The newcomer scanned them all, and his glance settled upon Charlotte and her companion. He came threading his way between the tables, and halted beside them.
‘I beg your pardon! Miss Rossignol? And Mr Hambro? I’m sorry to intrude on you at this hour, but if you can give me a few minutes of your time you may be able to help me, and I’ll be very much obliged.’
Charlotte had assented to her name with a startled bow, but without words. Gus Hambro looked up with rounded brows and a good-natured smile, and said vaguely: ‘Anything we can do, of course! But are you sure it’s us you want? We’re just visitors around here.’
The stranger smiled, still rather gravely but with a warmth that Charlotte found reassuring. ‘If you weren’t, you probably wouldn’t come within my—strictly unofficial—brief. We locals don’t frequent Aurae Phiala much, we’ve lived with it all our lives, it doesn’t excite us. I gather from the visitors’ book that you were both there this afternoon, that’s the only reason for this visit. May I sit down?’
‘Oh, please!’ said Charlotte. ‘Do excuse us, you took us so by surprise.’
‘Thank you!’ he said, and drew up a third chair. His voice was low, equable and leisurely; so much so that only afterwards did it dawn upon Charlotte how very few minutes the whole interview had occupied. ‘My name is Felse. Detective Chief Inspector, Midshire C.I.D.—I mention it only by way of presenting credentials. Strictly speaking I’m not occupied on a case at the moment, and this is quite unofficial. If you were at Aurae Phiala this afternoon you probably saw something of a party of schoolboys going round the site with a teacher in charge. A coachload of them from Comerbourne.’
‘We could hardly miss them,’ said Gus. ‘They were loading up to leave just when we came out.’
‘Including a senior, a boy about seventeen, who was probably subjecting his teacher to a certain amount of needling?’
‘Name of Boden,’ said Gus. ‘We had a modest brush with him ourselves. Incidentally, they’d lost him—the coach set off without him in the end.’
‘Exactly the point,’ said Chief Inspector Felse. ‘He still hasn’t come home.’ He caught the surprised and doubtful glance they exchanged, and went on practically: ‘I know! He’s perfectly competent, well supplied with money always, and it’s no more than a quarter past nine. Probably you’d already gathered that it isn’t the first time he’s played similar tricks, and that he’s a law to himself, and comes and goes as he pleases. The simple fact remains, he’s never yet been known to miss a meal. Suppose you tell me exactly where and how you last saw him.’
They did so, in detail, each supplementing the other’s account and refreshing the other’s memory.
‘Odd as it seems, that’s the latest mention of him I’ve got so far. He drew off and went back towards his party?’
‘Not directly,’ said Charlotte. ‘I suppose we just took it that he would, and weren’t surprised that he made a pretence of being unconcerned and going his own way about it. What he actually did was to stroll away down-river, right along the perimeter. I watched him as far as the corner of the curator’s garden, and saw him turn in alongside the hedge. I didn’t pay any attention afterwards. I just took it for granted he was on his way back to the group.’
‘I’ve talked to his particular friends. None of them saw him again. He never rejoined his party.’
‘Have his parents reported him missing?’ asked Gus.
‘No, not yet. His father happens to be a close neighbour of mine in the village of Comerford, that’s all. Young Collins—he teaches Latin for his sins—reported to the Bodens when the coach got back to Comerbourne, not to complain of the kid, but so that they shouldn’t be worried about his non-arrival. They know their son, and are more or less resigned to his caprices, but they know his consistencies, too. He likes his comforts and he likes his food. When he failed to show up by half past eight they did begin to wonder. I happen to be three doors away, and dropping it in my lap is a discreet step short of making an official report. Easier to back out of, and sometimes produces the same result. This isn’t a case. And if it ever becomes one—God forbid!—it won’t be my case. But the odds are Gerry’s merely run into something more interesting than usual, worth being late for supper.’
‘A girl?’ suggested Gus dubiously.
‘It happens. Though up to now he’s been too much in love with himself,’ said the chief inspector frankly, ‘to show much interest in girls. He’s not a bad kid, really. Just the only one, too spoiled, and too clever.’ He rose, and restored his chair to its place at the neighbouring table. ‘Thanks, anyhow, for pin-pointing the actual place and time. No one seems to have caught a glimpse of him since.’
‘You don’t think,’ said Charlotte, suddenly uneasy, ‘that he could possibly have missed his footing and slipped into the river? It’s running so high, and so fast, even a good swimmer might not be able to get out if he once got caught in the current.’
‘No, I don’t. He is a good swimmer—quite good enough, and quite mature enough in that way, to respect flood water. And he wasn’t attended by his admirers at that stage, so he had no inducement to show off by taking risks. No, I feel confident he absented himself deliberately, for some reason of his own.’
‘Then he’ll reappear,’ she said, ‘in his own good time.’
‘In all probability he will. As soon as he begins to think pleasurably of his bed.’ He smiled at her. ‘Thank you, Miss Rossignol, and goodnight. Goodnight, Mr Hambro.’
He turned and left the room, threading his way between the deserted tables to vanish in the warm, wood-scented half-darkness of the hall. In a few moments they heard a car start up and drive away. Down-river, Charlotte thought. Perhaps he wasn’t as completely convinced as he made out that a lost boy, however bright and confident, could not have ended in the Comer. And perhaps he wasn’t going to wait until morning before launching a search.
Gus Hambro was sitting quite still, his brows drawn together in a tight and abstracted frown, and the focus of his eyes fixed far beyond the panelling of the dining-room.
‘Of course he’ll be all right,’ said Charlotte, all the more firmly because she was not totally convinced.
Gus said: ‘Of course!’ in a slightly startled voice, and visibly withdrew his vision and his thoughts from some distant preoccupation in which she had no part. He looked vaguely at her, and quickly and intently at his watch; but at least he had returned to the consciousness that she was present. He even managed a perfunctory smile. ‘He’ll turn up when it suits him. Don’t worry about him. What do you say, shall we see what’s on television?’