‘Name’s Stringer,’ I called up to him, ‘Jim Stringer.’
He nodded and turned on his heel. He had not given out his own name. I ought not to have given him mine. Lydia stood next to me, and close enough for me to know that our late argument was at an end.
‘Why did you not say you were a policeman?’ she asked, when the man was out of earshot.
‘I don’t want him to bolt,’ I said.
‘You think he’s here to make mischief for this John Lambert?’
‘Well, he’s not here for a ramble in the woods, is he?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve found out where this man Lambert is?’
‘He’s at the Hall.’
‘Which way is that?’
‘Don’t know just yet.’
‘Why not ask someone?’
I looked at my silver watch: quarter to nine.
‘I don’t know who to trust. You don’t know who might be in with the bad blokes.’
Lydia was grinning at me. I might almost have thought she’d taken a drink at The Angel, only she never touched a drop.
‘Fairly drowning in mysteries, aren’t we?’ she said.
‘What’s up?’ I said.
‘ Him,’ she said, taking hold of my sleeve, and pointing up the road after the clerk.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘what about him?’
‘The papers he’s just dropped,’ she said. ‘Half were quite blank, and half were written in German.’
‘ German? ’
‘Your face, Jim Stringer,’ she said, grinning.
Chapter Eleven
We were taking a turn through the woods, the wife occasionally giving a glance at my cap, and frowning. I had half an eye out for the Hall, but I was above all trying to develop a plan.
The low sun seemed to track us through the trees, always keeping a wary distance. I revolved in my mind the events of the evening, while the wife talked fast. She was in good spirits in spite of my cap, and she picked wildflowers as she walked. She’d fallen into conversation with Mrs Handley, the landlady at The Angel, and taken a liking to her. ‘She’s a feminist, if she but knew it,’ Lydia said. ‘She’s perfectly well aware that she ought not to do as much work as she does, but she says that her mind runs on so if she doesn’t, and she’d rather have the work than the worry.’
‘Why was she crying in the garden?’
‘I’m sure that was on account of the work,’ said the wife.
‘Not the worry, you don’t suppose?’
She gave me a quick glance, but made no answer.
The wife had also been galvanised by a quick cold bath, and a glass of Mrs Handley’s lemonade. ‘It’s nectar, Jim,’ she said. ‘Do you suppose that man from Norwood is connected to the Moroccan business?’ she went on.
‘Well…’ I said, for the question knocked me.
‘He’s up to devil knows what,’ said the wife. ‘Do you suppose it’s too late for violets?’ she said, as we came out into a clearing.
We looked about, and I said, ‘That fellow’s made you sit up, hasn’t he? Do I take it you believe something’s going on?’
‘No,’ said the wife, ‘I don’t for one minute.’
I put my hands in my trouser pockets, and eyed her coolly.
I said, ‘But it’s true about the German papers?’
She nodded once, briefly.
‘There are fixed agents,’ the wife said cheerfully, ‘and there are travelling agents. The Germans have a brigade of spies in Britain… I’m just thinking of all the lies I’ve read in the newspapers… Honestly, it’s all such rubbish. Why shouldn’t a man have German documents about him? He might be half-German for all we know.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but given what I told you at the inn…’
She was shaking her head, wouldn’t have it. She had chosen her side in Britain’s battles. The folk who talked up the German menace were the ones who talked down the women’s movement, and you couldn’t believe in both.
I saw by the presence of telegraph poles that we were hard by the railway line. Swallows flew fast through the evening air, making a high, singing noise as they swooped over the wires. I might once have taken this for the sound of the wires themselves, for I had been told in my early days on the railways that it was possible to hear the electrical signals as they flew from pole to pole. But this was not true. You could not hear the signals however close you stood.
Just then, two sharp cracks came from the wood; a cloud of birds rose up from it, and moved away to the left like smoke.
‘It’s fucking happened,’ I said.
‘You will not…’ said the wife, but I was straight back into the woods and crashing through the branches as a third shot came.
‘You there!’ I called out. ‘Police! Stop firing!’
I felt panic as I clashed through the trees, but my curiosity was stronger than my fear.
‘Give over, mister!’ came a high voice through the trees — a boy’s voice. ‘It’s only t’ rabbits I’m after.’
It was Mervyn Handley, the kid from the inn, but I had to march on for a good half-minute more until I clapped eyes on him. He stood amid fallen trees in the woodsman’s clearing I’d seen from the train, and he held a double-barrelled shotgun pointed down. His powder flasks and shot pouches were too near the fire that bent the warm air behind him. His ferret — which was tied to the skeleton frame of a steam saw — was too near the terrier that was tied to the thickest branch of a fallen log, the result being that the dog was barking fit to bust, and the ferret was giving a constant thin scream. In the clearing, patches of ferns grew, and there were two dead-straight rows of sunflowers. Some of the timbers had been used to make a low shelter with a tarpaulin slung over the top. At the entrance, I saw a dead rabbit, a woodsman’s bill-hook, a funny paper for boys and a sack.
The boy was calming the dog — and so also the ferret — as I spoke up.
‘Do you know of a John Lambert?’ I asked him.
The boy nodded.
‘Stops up at…’
‘Where?’
‘Up at t’ all.’
‘The Hall? Is he the squire, so to speak?’
Mervyn Handley frowned.
‘Well… there’s t’ new man.’
But surely, I thought, John Lambert — being the eldest son — would have inherited the house? He would be the new man. But this might be a rather complicated matter. I tried a different tack.
‘John Lambert’s father died, didn’t he?’
‘Aye, mister,’ the boy said, and he looked at me levelly. After an interval, and still eyeing me, he said, ‘Shot to death.’
‘And who shot him?’
Silence for a space. Then the boy said:
‘His son. Master Hugh.’
‘He’s about to swing, en’t he?’
The lad nodded.
‘Why did it take so long to come to a hanging?’
‘Master Hugh made off. France, and all over.’
‘When did they lay hands on him?’
‘Last back end.’
‘And you knew the man accused — Master Hugh?’
A long beat of silence.
‘I knew him, aye.’
I was going in strong here. I knew the kid didn’t want to be asked, but then again I knew he would answer. So I kept on.
‘What did you think of him?’ I asked, and he shot back the answer directly: ‘Liked him.’
The wife was pacing about near the fire; she had entered the clearing only a few seconds after me, so she’d been privy to the whole conversation. I began to hear the sound of a river rolling past.
‘ Why did you like him?’
No sound but the rushing river.
Mervyn said:
‘He’d give me presents.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like a dormouse,’ said the kid, this time fast, and he turned his head once again to the side. ‘There now,’ he said, and nodded two or three times.
The wife cut in to spare the lad more of my questions:
‘What’s your dog called, Mervyn?’
‘Alfred,’ he said.
‘Is it safe to stroke him?’ she asked.
‘It’ll be safe for you,’ he said, which put the wife in a fix, leaving her no option but to go over to the animal.
The wife was stroking the dog, which seemed more bored than anything else by the attention.