To anybody of Laura’s naturally lawless nature, the sound of broken glass was apt to act as a clarion call to action. She was across the road and in the shadow of the house in no time. A light had been switched on in the downstair room into which she was looking, and, as the curtains had not been drawn together, she could see that the two men who had invaded the house were facing two others. Each man was holding a knife, three men in their right hands, the fourth, who had his back to Laura, in his left. One of the men facing her was the stammering left-luggage clerk who had refused to let her take away Miss Faintley’s parcel.
Before the murderous fight began, four words were spoken. The stammerer… but he showed no trace of a stammer now… said:
‘Lastrea Filix-Mas!’
The left-handed man replied, scornfully, ‘Asplenium Fontanum!’ Both men spat, and the battle was then joined. The most extraordinary thing about it, in Laura’s opinion, was its almost uncanny silence. The room was deeply carpeted so that, except for breathless grunts as the contestants circled round one another, no sound was heard. The room was a large one, running (with folding doors open) from front to back of the house, and, as though it had been prepared as an arena, it was unfurnished except for the carpet.
Laura watched, fascinated. Suddenly the door into the farther room began to open very slowly, and round the opening peered the unlovely visage of Tomson. He also held an open knife.
Now Laura knew nothing much about the other four, and, in any case, they seemed evenly matched; but she had a strong distaste for Tomson. The broken window had been forced open, and the combatants were far too much occupied to notice a silent spectator. She began to scramble over the sill.
‘No, you don’t!’ murmured Bannister’s voice behind her. (So he had been the third man!) He hauled her back, thrust her roughly aside into some bushes, and leapt into the fray. He tackled Tomson tigerishly. The naked knife shot out of Tomson’s hand and slithered along the carpet towards the open window. Laura, who had crawled out of the bushes and was feeling murderous, shot in over the sill and picked up the knife. Then she pulled out the police whistle which Mrs Bradley caused her to carry, and blew and blew and blew.
The electrifying sound acted with its usual magic. Except for Tomson, who was flat out in the middle of the carpet, and Bannister, who stood over him licking his knuckles, the contestants melted away, some by way of the door, the others through the window. One aimed a vicious blow at Laura as he shot past, but she hooked him up neatly, and his head came crashing against the wallpaper.
‘But why did you bring the police along so soon?’ complained Bannister, when he, Laura and Mrs Bradley were having a night-cap on board Canto Five before he returned to his boat to sleep. ‘I was just beginning to enjoy myself!’
‘That was the reason,’ said Laura, squinting into her empty glass. ‘I didn’t see why you should barge me into the shrubbery and hog all the fun yourself. And where did you come from, anyway?’
‘I hadn’t gone, you see. I was hanging about to keep an eye on you, because it don’t become a young woman to join in private fights.’
‘Was Tomson’s knife any good?’ asked Laura of Mrs Bradley.
‘It is hand-made, and closely resembles (so far as my memory serves me) the one with which Miss Faintley was stabbed to death. Detective-Inspector Vardon will no doubt compare them.’
‘And are all the gang rounded up?’
‘There is no means of telling at present. We took two on board the dredger… those who thought to escape by taking out the rusty cruiser… and, as you know, five were captured in or near the house. You will probably be asked to identify three of them.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, I can swear to the stammering bloke who wouldn’t let me have the parcel, but the other two… I suppose they’re the chaps who removed the case of ferns from Cromlech Down House… that’s going to be more difficult. I’m not hazarding any guesses. If I’m not absolutely positive… and I don’t see how I can be… I ain’t saying nothing.’
‘Quite right. And now please go and turn in. I want a word with Mr Bannister.’
Laura poured herself another drink.
‘Here’s to both of you,’ she said. ‘No heel-taps!’ She gulped down the contents of the glass and said rapturously, ‘More to-morrow!’ Then she removed herself to her bunk, leaving the other two in possession of the saloon.
‘It was good of you to answer my call so quickly,’ Mrs Bradley said, in tones too low for her secretary to hear.
‘I came because of her, you know… Laura.’
‘I see. You are aware, I take it, that she is already engaged to be married?’
‘She doesn’t wear a ring.’
‘She dislikes what she calls the badge of servitude. She will probably refuse to wear a wedding-ring, too, when the time comes.’
‘Would you mind if I saw her occasionally?’
‘I do not think she would make a schoolmaster’s wife, but you will be welcome at my house at any time you care to visit us. Good night. I am very glad that you were able to prevent her from making any unmaidenly display of physical prowess. We shall see you in the morning, no doubt.’
But at dawn Bannister put back to Lymington, moored his small boat, and went back to his lodgings by train. Laura, on deck at eight, looked for the yacht, but it was gone.
‘Ah, well!’ she remarked philosophically to a seagull perched on a bollard. ‘What’s the matter with a swim?’ She untied the dinghy and rowed off, returning with an enormous appetite for breakfast.
Chapter Fifteen
UNCLE TOM COBLEIGH AND ALL
‘Now this isn’t the end of this shocking affair…
and although they be dead, of the horrid career…’
« ^
‘We ought to have seen a lot sooner that the knife which killed Miss Faintley could be connected with Trench,’ said Laura. ‘How goes the fernery, young Alice?’
Her friend Alice Boorman, thin, wiry, an athlete and a botanist, looked up from her work of mounting the fifteen specimens of British ferns which Mrs Bradley had asked her to acquire.
‘Quite well, I think, Dog. What are they really needed for? Mrs Bradley has already used the ones she wanted. Is this for the jury at the trial? She didn’t say, and I didn’t like to ask questions she might not want to answer.’
‘So you get your information by the back door, do you?’ asked Laura, grinning. ‘Well, I’ve no clue to the answer, so it’s not a bit of good trying to pump me. She’s at Hagford, preparing to convict this gang of smugglers of getting currency out of the country. The ferns, as no doubt you are aware, formed their code.’
‘Yes, I know… I think I know.’
‘Cagey, aren’t you? But if you will kindly distinguish one from another for me… for I confess that my eye for ferns is not as acute as I could wish… I will endeavour to reconstruct for you her theory.’
‘All right. I say, it was very ingenious, you know.’
‘It was. You wait and see. Go on.’
‘Well, this is Blechnum Spicant, and this is Lastreas Nephrodium. Mrs Bradley said I was to mount them almost touching one another. That means they’ve got to be taken together, I suppose.’
‘It does, and it’s the cleverest of the whole lot, in my opinion. You see, the code-ferns were sent in two packings, a flat one made of wood and a small plaster thing in the form of a statue. The statues were made in France; the wood came from Kindleford School. The ferns packed in wood were orders, we think, indicating where the stuff was to be picked up next… for the gang didn’t risk shipping it always from the same place.’
‘Well, what about these two ferns? One, in English, is the Hard Fern, and the other the Buckler Fern, so-called from its supposed resemblance to a kidney-shaped Roman shield.’