‘He would have us sit down with our backs against that horrible Stone,’ continued Margery with a shudder. ‘Said I was silly to be afraid of it, and the sooner I got over the feeling, the better. Well, I didn’t feel so unsafe with him beside me, and he began to tell me stories – fairy tales, delightful things! – until his voice going on and on made me forget the Stone and everything. I just felt as though I must go to sleep. Suddenly he brought his hand down hard on my shoulder and pulled his face in close to mine, and glared into my eyes, and said in a horrible, blood-curdling voice, “And then the ogre cried – !” I suppose he did it for a joke, but I was so terrified that I just tore myself free and jumped up and ran through the woods for all I was worth. I fell over things, and tore myself on brambles, and caught my feet in things, and it was getting quite dark in among the trees.’
‘What time was this?’ Mrs Bradley rapped out the question from her corner.
‘Time? Oh, just after nine o’clock. I remember hearing the church clock strike nine when I first began to feel drowsy. I was to meet him at a quarter to nine, you remember, so we had not been in the woods very long.’
‘Nine o’clock? I see. Please go on. I’m sorry I interrupted,’ said Mrs Bradley, sitting back in her chair.
‘Yes, well, I don’t know how I managed not to go crashing into tree-trunks, dashing about like that. Still, I was lucky, I suppose. Suddenly, what was my horror to come bursting out into a clearing! I knew there was only one clearing in the Manor Woods, and that was the pine ring with the Stone in the middle. And, sure enough, there it was – the great, sprawling, horrible toad-like thing! – but he was not sitting there. I suppose he went after me when I ran away. Anyway, I was so frightfully breathless that I felt, Stone or no Stone, I must sit down just for a minute, so I sat down, and bent my head to my knees, as our gym mistress taught us to do if we felt a bit faint.
‘Well, just then I heard a slight sound quite close to me. Well, you know how it is when you hear a noise – you raise your head. Well, I raised mine, and, to my absolute horror, the first thing my eyes fell on was the figure of a man coming crawling out of the bushes like a great black slug!
‘Ugh! Those awful woods! I’m afraid I shrieked. At any rate, I got up and ran. I stumbled by accident upon the main path to the wicket gate, and I simply tore along it, and fell through into the road, and raced home and went straight up to bed. Oh, Felicity, I wouldn’t go out at night like that again for anything you could offer me!’
‘Well, it’s all very exciting,’ said Felicity gravely, ‘but what exactly is the point of it all?’
‘Why, don’t you see?’ Margery gripped her arm in excitement. ‘That man crawling out of the bushes! After nine o’clock that night! It must have been Rupert Sethleigh, still funny in the head from concussion! Don’t you see? And, if it was Rupert, then Jim Redsey didn’t kill him, because he was in the “Queen’s Head” by that time!’
‘But you don’t know that the man was Rupert. You didn’t really recognize him,’ Felicity objected.
‘No, but I’d swear I did, if the police asked me,’ said Margery sturdily. ‘And, anyway, he did have a frightfully familiar sort of look, so I expect that’s who it was.’
‘But you can’t say you recognized him if you didn’t!’ Felicity stuck doggedly to her point. ‘It wouldn’t be right, and, if you do say it, I shall contradict you.’
‘Anyone would think, Felicity Broome, that you wanted that poor boy to be hanged,’ said Margery, preparing to be tearful.
Felicity went white.
‘Telling a lie to get people out of trouble doesn’t help, and you are not going to do it,’ she said. ‘Besides, suppose it were found out that you hadn’t spoken the truth? It would do Jim a lot of harm. You ought to see that for yourself. No, it’s no use arguing, Margery. And look here. I don’t want to seem like Paul Pry, but this tale doesn’t exactly connect up with Willie Bailey, you know. I mean, Willie is so very much an English Public School boy, isn’t he? I’m sure he wouldn’t think it at all the thing to meet girls in woods and then frighten them to death.’
Margery’s gloom perceptibly deepened.
‘If it had been that baby kid, I wouldn’t really be so scared of Father knowing,’ she said. ‘Although he said I wasn’t to go out with him, I know. But still – I could wangle that. No, that’s the whole point, Felicity. It was not Willie Bailey!’
CHAPTER XIV
What Happened at the ‘Queen’s Head’
I
SAVILE did not see her arrive. Clad in nothing but dark-grey flannel trousers and a pair of old shoes, he was standing in the middle of the back garden path between a gooseberry bush and a clump of lavender. His attitude, which might have graced a master of the ballet, seemed far from pleasing to Cleaver Wright, who, pipe in mouth and blue eyes narrowed into slits, was seated on the kitchen steps with a drawing-board on his knees and a scowl of intense ferocity on his brow.
‘No, no!’ he shouted. ‘It’s no good like that, you ass!’
He took the pipe out of his mouth and pointed with the stem of it at Lulu Hirst, who was watching the proceedings from a hammock slung between two apple trees.
‘Tip that girl out of there and hoist her up above your head. I want to see those back and shoulder muscles brought into play. You’re supposed to be a Japanese wrestler, damn you, not a tailor’s dummy or a sinuous Salome! Come here, Lulu, and don’t act the fool, or he’ll drop you. Now then, Savile! Up with her!’
‘Half a moment,’ demurred Savile, with his oily smirk. ‘These trousers. Too long. Inartistic, my dear fellow. If I am to be a Japanese wrestler I must look the part. My artistic conscience –’
‘To hell with it!’ said Wright resignedly. ‘Go on, then. Only buck up.’
Savile stepped carefully over him and disappeared into the house. Lulu rolled gracefully back into the hammock and curled herself up like a sleek yellow cat. Mrs Bradley, smiling gently, advanced towards Cleaver Wright. Wright grinned.
‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘You ought to pay, really. Look. Isn’t that beautiful?’
Mrs Bradley drew out a small reading-glass and surveyed the returning Savile. He was clad effectively and with great simplicity in a loin-cloth. His satin skin glistened with oil. Without a look or a word he trotted across to the hammock, gathered up the recumbent form of Lulu with as much ease as he would have handled a kitten, and carried her across the garden to his former position in the centre of the path.
‘Now then,’ said Wright. ‘Up with her. That’s the ticket. Can you keep her there a second?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Savile, who, to Mrs Bradley’s surprise, appeared to find little difficulty in holding Lulu clear above his head on outstretched arms. The muscles of his back and shoulders stood out like cords under the beautiful, creamy skin. It was a delight to look upon such perfect muscular development.
Wright picked up a piece of charcoal.
II
‘Well,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘I never would have believed it!’
‘No,’ agreed Wright, putting finishing touches to his sketch. ‘A bit startling, isn’t it? He looks such a worm in his clothes. But take them away, and, damn it, the chap’s a pocket Hercules. Most surprising fellow.’
He held the drawing at arm’s length and studied it thoughtfully.
‘Not too bad,’ he said at last. ‘Two guineas. Want it?’
‘Yes, if you’ll take me in and show me the other things you have done, young man,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I have never seen a studio. It will be an experience for me. And at my age’ – she glanced at him out of the corner of a beady black eye – ‘one embraces new experiences with avidity, because there will come a time –’ She broke off and cackled – a harsh, unlovely sound. Wright looked pained. His bright, intensely blue eyes sought hers sombrely.