Читать книгу The Footsteps at the Lock - Ronald Arbuthnott Knox - Страница 17

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The Gudgeon Inn proved to be empty of visitors, its management at once hospitable to strangers and incurious as to their errand. They secured a quite tolerable bedroom, whose windows looked down over the strip of grass on to the river itself. Luncheon was a hasty meal: Bredon was plainly full of impatience to be off, and Angela accommodated herself to his mood. They hired from the inn not only a canoe, but a substantial length of rope, and most of the journey upstream was in the end accomplished by towing—Miles walking on the bank while Angela steered and gave occasional dabs at the water in the stern. Few things travel quicker than a towed canoe. Indeed, the only circumstance which delayed them was the melancholy presence of a few dredgers, whose crews were occupied in dragging the bed of the stream for further traces of the catastrophe. At one point, where the whole stream was barred in this way, they found it necessary to pull over the bank. But this, fortunately, was the spot at which the boy scouts were encamped; and Bredon looked on with benignant interest while no less than fourteen good deeds were registered in their juvenile Treasury of Merit. The scout-master, a man of some age and education, fell into conversation with him while the operation was being conducted.

'Ironical,' said Bredon, 'that so much help should have been so close at hand when the accident took place.'

'Well,' said the stranger, 'I don't know that we should have been very much use. You see, we had only just moved in, and that morning the bigger boys had gone over to Wheathampton with the trek-cart to bring our stores over. Only the little ones were here, cleaning up and so on.'

'Then you were over at Wheathampton yourself?'

'Why, no; it's true I was in camp. But there are endless little details one has to arrange for, and I wasn't keeping an eye on the stream. Not at all, not at all; the boys enjoy doing it. Good morning to you, sir.'

The plan of campaign had been amended so far as the lock was concerned. If they demanded the opening of the lock, it would be necessary to go further upstream for the look of the thing, and this would be mere waste of time. Bredon hailed the lock-keeper, and asked if they might tie up the boat just underneath while they went over to Shipcote to get some tea. The lock-keeper paused impressively, like one struggling with the fallacy of many questions.

'There isn't nothing against your tying up the boat there, sir, not if you wished to. But you won't get no tea at Shipcote, because Mrs. Barley at the inn don't give teas. No demand for 'em, she says; that's how it is. You'd have got a nice cup of tea down at the Gudgeon, but you won't get none not at Shipcote. Of course, if you aren't in a great hurry, I could ask Mrs. Burgess if she'd put the pot on for you; she do sometimes in the season.'

Miles rightly conjectured that Mrs. Burgess was the lock-keeper's wife. By a trick of human vanity, we always assume a knowledge of our own surname in conversation with strangers. This was better than anything they had dared to hope for; the offer was speedily accepted; their position was assured; and Angela's appreciation of the garden would have been merely perfunctory, if it had not been genuinely forced from her by the beauty of what she saw. Within five minutes, she actually found herself applying to Mr. Burgess for horticultural advice; she excelled herself in superlatives; she called her embarrassed husband to witness that Mr. Burgess' pinks were a fortnight ahead of their own. So completely was she absorbed that in the end it was Mr. Burgess himself, full of importance over recent events, who called their attention to the fact that he was, so to speak, the scene of a tragedy.

'Ah, yes, that drowning business,' said Bredon. 'An extraordinary affair—have you ever known the bottom of a canoe stove in like that by running aground on a bit of shingle?'

'No, sir, I haven't, and you can take it from me that I told you so. For a racing-boat I wouldn't say, being built for speed and that; but those canoes is built very hard, if you see what I mean. Light, but hard, that's how it is; it's the quality of the wood. In a flood, now, I won't say but you might smash one up, or if you were shooting rapids with it. But there aren't no rapids here, you see, not nearer than the Windrush, and if they done the damage to the boat on the Windrush, how did they bring her all the way here safe and sound? That's what I want to know.'

'Looked sound enough, I suppose, when it passed through the lock?'

'Well, you see, sir, we don't take much stock of boats as they come through, not in the ordinary way. Sees too many of 'em, that's what it is.'

'I suppose, if it comes to that, you don't take much notice of the people who come through, either? Must be a nuisance when this sort of thing happens, having to answer a whole pack of questions about what the gentlemen in the boat looked like, and what was the exact hour at which they went through, and all the rest of it.'

'Well, it's curious you should say that, sir, because it so happened that I knew just when this boat came through, and was able to give information according. You see, sir, this young gent gets out, and he was anxious for to catch the train at Shipcote Station there. I told him, I did, he ought to have got off at the bridge higher up; then you'd have caught the bus, I says; the bus runs from the bridge to Shipcote Station, I says. Oh, he says, very la-di-da sort of gent he was. Oh, like that he says, I want to catch the nine-fourteen. Well, I says, you've time to catch the nine-fourteen by the footpath; it isn't hardly not a quarter of an hour's walk, and it's only five minutes to nine now, I says. The devil it is, he says, begging your pardon, mum, I make it nine o'clock if it's a minute, he says. So I told him I got the time here by wireless, and showed him my watch, same as it might be to you, and that's how it was I come to know what the time was when he went off, you see.'

They had tea, to Angela's delight, in a little arbour overgrown with ramblers and commanding a long vista of the river. She was already losing interest in the purpose of their errand, and accepting the expedition as a holiday. Miles, though he affected an even more conspicuous languor, was addressing strictly business questions to Mr. Burgess, who still hovered about, unskilled to close the flood-gates of his own eloquence.

'But of course that was the gentleman you saw on the bank; he was out of the boat, so you had a good look at him. But you wouldn't have been able to answer for the one who stayed in the canoe—and after all, that's the corpse; you might be called upon to identify him any day.'

'No, sir, that's a fact, you don't see much of a gentleman who just comes through in a boat, especially if he's wearing of a hat, same as what this one done. Same time, I'd know the other one anywhere. Want to catch the nine-fourteen, he says. Oh, says I, you've time to catch the nine-fourteen by the footpath. And so he had, you see.'

'But you'd be ready to swear that there was another gentleman who passed through the lock?' asked Bredon. These reminiscences of a dialectical triumph were becoming somewhat wearisome.

'Excuse me, sir, but were you in any way connected with the police?' asked Mr. Burgess, a chill of suspicion creeping into his voice.

'Good God, no,' answered Bredon fervently.

'No offence meant, sir. But you see how it is. If the police comes to me and asks me questions, then I'm prepared to answer 'em, according to what I know, and I can't do more than that, can I? But it's not for me to go out of my way giving information to the police promiscuous, and putting ideas into their heads. Mind you, I've nothing against the police, but what I say is, if it's their business to find out, they'll ask questions, and then they won't be told no lies. I'm a law-abiding man, I am, and nothing to fear from anybody, you understand; but I don't hold with getting mixed up with the police, not if you can help it. Supposing you was the police, sir, and you come and ask me, Was there another gentleman come through the lock? like that, Oh yes, I says. And so there was. But seeing as you're not connected with 'em, sir, I'll tell you more than that. There was one of 'em in the canoe when it come through the lock, but how long did he stay in the canoe? That's what I say, how long did he stay in the canoe?'

'Well, if we knew that, we should be able to tell the newspapers something, shouldn't we?'

'Ah, sir, them as knows isn't always them as tells. Now, look here, sir; I'm a plain, ordinary man, you know what I mean; and I don't set up to know more than another man. But I've got eyes, you see. Well, and this is what I'm telling you. When that young gentleman come through the lock in the canoe—same as it might be your canoe, only going down instead of coming up—when that young gentleman come through the lock, he was all sprawling on his back, same as if he was asleep; not steering her, sir, if you'd believe me, but just letting her float broadside on and go down as the wind took her. Ah, says I to myself, you've got some game on, you have. You wouldn't be shamming asleep like that if you hadn't got some game on, I says. Same time, I didn't take any notice of him; so long as a gentleman pays his fare, that's all I've got to look to. But it stuck in my head like, you know what I mean. Didn't seem natural to me, that's how it was.'

'So you didn't do anything about it?'

'At the time, sir, no, sir. But a little after, may have been about half an hour after, or twenty-five minutes, I went down along the island a bit to see after some of Mrs. Burgess' hens as had got loose in the wood like. Well, sir, you remember that iron bridge as you come under, just a little way down the lock stream? Kind of iron bridge for foot passengers, because there's no road leads to it, nor like to be.'

'Yes, I remember noticing it. Joins up the island to the West bank. What about it?'

'Maybe you didn't notice that the steps of that bridge is made of cement, same as the lock here. Well, I goes past them steps, the ones on the island bank of it, and what d'you think I see? Footmarks, sir; naked footmarks, for all the world like Man Friday in the tale. Seemed to me somebody'd been swimming in the water, or paddling maybe, and left those marks along of his feet being wet. Of course, if you was to go there now you wouldn't see nothing of 'em; they'd be all dried up like by now. But when I come past, there they were, as plain as for anyone to see, all the way down the steps of the iron bridge.'

'But that's extraordinarily interesting! Which way would they be pointing? I mean, did they go up the steps, or down? And were there any footmarks on the other set of stairs, across the bridge?'

'No, sir, only the one side, same as I'm telling you. And coming down, sir, toes pointing towards the island. So that's what makes me say to myself, Did the gentleman stay in the canoe?'

'Very interesting indeed! But it beats me to see why he only left marks going down the steps, and none going up.'

'Ah, sir, that's because you don't recollect the bridge properly. Rises very sudden, sir, with iron bars to support it, coming down close to the water on either side. And I says to myself, What's to prevent the young gentleman having laid hold of those iron bars, standing up in the canoe, like, and pulled himself up by his arms on to the bridge? The banks is steep there, you see, and they was muddy after a night of rain; so if he'd gone ashore he'd have been bound to leave some marks of it. But those prints of his wet feet on the bridge steps, why, if I hadn't have come along within the hour, they'd have faded away altogether, and you and me none the wiser.'

'Then you mean he just got out of the canoe, left it to drift, and went off the nearest way to a road?'

'Not the road, sir, the railroad. If he'd have liked to go down to the end of the island, he'd have just had to swim the weir stream, and then he'd be on the field track that goes straight from the tow-path to the station. Though, mind you, he might have come right back to the weir, same as the other gentleman done, and crossed by the weir-bridge, and there he'd get the short path to the station, see? Of course, I won't say as that would be easy without me seeing of him; but you know how it is, sir, when a man's got his little bit of garden, he can't be always looking about him, and I've only one pair of eyes.'

'Funny, though, that nobody else should have seen him. Because surely they would have mentioned it by now.'

'It would surprise you, sir, to know what a lonely place this can be, more especially when it's early morning. Of course, if he'd have taken the longer path, the one opposite the end of the island, I won't say but he'd have been seen going through Spinnaker Farm; he had to pass through that, you see, to get to the station. But if he took the shorter path, from the weir, there wasn't nobody about, not a living soul. Come to think of it, there was a gentleman went through in a punt just before they came, because I remember letting of him through. But he'd be out of sight, you see, before I'd got the water through the lock again.'

'Angela, we ought to be getting back. We mustn't take up any more of your time, Mr. Burgess. I'd better see Mrs. Burgess about the tea, hadn't I? Good afternoon; I expect we'll be up this way again before long.'

Bredon, however, had not yet finished with the neighbourhood. As soon as they reached the junction of the two streams, he piloted the canoe to the right bank, and left Angela to paddle on slowly while he had a word with Spinnaker Farm. Here he was greeted by a vociferous dog, fortunately tied to a barrel, and an old lady with a shrill, kindly voice, who needed little diplomacy in the matter of approach. Indeed, her opening question was, 'Did you come for the tobacco-pouch, sir?'

'Oh, have you found it?' Bredon answered promptly; he had, fortunately for his success on such occasions, a good reaction-time.

'Yes, we found it sure enough; my Flossie she see it when she was out in the big field yesterday. Oh, she says, whatever is that? But she's a good girl, Flossie, she didn't open it; she brought it straight to me, and of course I kept it in case it was called for. That'll be the one, sir?'

She produced a voluminous waterproof tobacco-pouch, tightly rolled into a hard cylinder. Bredon knew at the touch that it contained something more interesting than tobacco; but he saw no reason to mention the point. 'I couldn't be sure where I'd dropped it,' he said. 'Was it along the tow-path?'

'Yes, sir, on the tow-path, sir; just where it leaves the river over against the island. I thought at first it might have been dropped by the gentleman who came through yesterday morning early, and I said to myself, "Oh dear, he'll never come back for it", because he passed in such a hurry you could see he was running for the train.'

Bredon began to regret his rôle of pouch-loser; it would hardly be decent to show too much interest in the stranger. 'I expect that was the gentleman I passed myself yesterday morning. About nine o'clock it would be; a young, dark-haired gentleman, with no hat on. I'm glad to know he caught the train, for he looked to me as if he were going to miss it.'

'That would be the one, sir.' Bredon did not venture on any closer examination. He hurried back down the path, unrolling the package as he went. It proved to be a spool of camera-films—one that had been used and rolled up by unskilful hands. 'That', he said to himself, 'might be much worse. That might be very much worse.' And he thrust it away into an inner pocket.

'Well,' he asked, as he executed a kind of back somersault into the canoe, 'how's that for a day's outing? You obviously are the complete river-girl; your disguise takes in everybody. I suppose, after all that, we shall hear at Eaton Bridge that they've fished up the corpse, and it's no business of ours how it got there.'

'They'll fish up at least two corpses if you try to get into the boat like that again. Well, what did you think of the Burgess theory? I thought him rather splendid. Of course, I may have been just carried away by his eloquence. But it seemed to me he was the complete detective. I was wondering whether you and he couldn't swap jobs; I could do the gardening part, and I suppose you could manage to sit backwards on to a lock-gate till it opened. I'm sure the Indescribable would find Mr. Burgess a gold-mine.'

'Oh, of course Burgess is all wrong. Anybody could see he's talking through his hat. No, don't ask me why just now; ask me after dinner. I want to try and work the thing out myself a bit. I wonder if the Gudgeon has such a thing as a dark-room?'