I went on up the stairs, leaving Mrs. Cass staring after me. I felt exhausted, thankful to get to bed. But I didn’t sleep at all well.
The events of the day swirled round and round in my torpid brain. Leeson, Max, Ian… But it was always at the thought of those brilliant headlights that I twitched back into full and flushed wakefulness.
Next morning I felt washed out. Max didn’t turn up all day, but I was used to his casual idea about business by now.
In a way I was relieved. Though I had decided to overlook his forced kiss—it was the only thing I could do—the morning had brought me no nearer a way of letting him down lightly.
Any lingering hope I had that Ian might not have seen me with Max last night was rudely dispersed early in the day. When we passed one another on the laboratory stairs, he gave me the stiffest possible nod of greeting, not troubling to hide his contempt. Miserably I went through the production rooms and saw Leeson glowering at me through the window of his cubbyhole. He made no attempt at all to acknowledge me. Nobody came to my office all day. It was as if I had something catching.
Mrs. Cass too was gloomy that evening. Another brush with Janet, I suspected. Even the Women’s Institute meeting had done nothing to revive her spirits—she appeared and disappeared without speaking, almost like the woman she’d been when I’d first arrived.
Come Friday afternoon I was glad of a job that would legitimately get me out of the office for a while. I had taken over the collection of cash for the wages of the weekly-paid staff. Max had always done this before, but he seemed to take it for granted that the job really came within my province.
I was prompt getting back to the office after lunch. Miss Fenders brought in the cheque on the dot of two o’clock, and I signed it and headed for the bank right away.
I enjoyed the short drive to Lechford in the sunshine. I soaked up the lazy atmosphere of the little market town, sleepily dozing away the fine summer afternoon.
After calling at the bank I strolled down the High Street towards the car park by the market cross. I was attracted by the sweet yeasty smell coming from the bakery. I looked at the array of crusty loaves in the window, and was tempted by the mouth-watering lardy cakes.
I had my hand on the shop door when it was opened from the inside, and I found myself face-to-face with Gillian Hayes. This was an encounter I could happily have skipped.
‘Why, hello Dulcie,’ she said, smiling at me in her sweet-little-girl way. ‘What brings you to Lechford?’
I was suddenly struck by an avalanche of jealousy like nothing I’d ever known before. It was Gillian, pretty, innocent-looking too-good-to-be-true Gillian who stood between me and the man I loved. It cost me an almighty effort to speak to her without being downright rude. I escaped to the car, quite forgetting the lardy cakes, and drove back home in a green fury.
Just before I turned in at the gates of Malverton, I noticed a small blue car parked at the side of the road, half-hidden by overhanging bushes. As I watched, it pulled out and passed me.
I could see the driver quite plainly—it was Eric Reade, the man from the drug-store at Lechford. He must have seen me too, but pretended not to.
If he’d wanted to talk to his girlfriend Janet, why hadn’t he driven right up to the house? Because Mrs. Cass would have shown pretty violent objections, I guessed.
I must have been gone for something like an hour—hardly more. But when I reached the office again, Miss Fenders told me that Max had been in and had already gone again.
‘Mr. Tyler seemed rather flustered. He said I was to tell you he was sorry to miss you, but he had to go to London again right away.’
‘Did he say when he’d be back?’
‘No, Miss Royle. Just that he had to go at once.’
I handed over the wages money for her to make up, and immersed myself in work. There were a few letters for me to sign at five, and I felt cross with myself that I hadn’t got my fountain-pen with me. I valued it because it had been a present from Edwin, and it was a rather good one. This was the second time I’d mislaid it—I was getting careless.
I quit sharp at five-thirty. I usually did, or Doris Fenders would feel obliged to stay on too. As I opened the door communicating with the house, I heard a slight rustling sound, as if something was caught against it. I found a small envelope—the cheap buff kind. It was simply addressed “Miss Royle—Private”. Who on earth would send me a note when they could perfectly easily come and see me in the office?
As I was looking at the envelope, mystified, Mrs. Cass came into the hall.
‘I’ve just found this pushed under the door,’ I said. ‘Have you any idea who put it there?’
She shook her head. ‘It could have been anybody in the laboratory.’
I slit it open as I went upstairs to my room. Inside was a flimsy sheet of paper, which I recognized at once as one of the firm’s analysis forms. On the unprinted side was some typing.
The trouble with you is that you don’t know who your friends are, it read. If you want the low-down on your Scottish heart-throb, meet me at ten tonight up at Crofter’s Point. But don’t tell anyone about this, or you’ll get nothing out of me. G.L.
George Leeson!
It was a trick—a trick to get me into a lonely place so he could try making a pass at me again.
My first reaction was to screw up the note and toss it into the waste basket. Then I had second thoughts. I picked it out and smoothed the paper on my dressing table.
How could Leeson know about my feelings for Ian? How could anybody know? Had I given myself away so easily, been so gauche, with love shining out of my eyes like an adoring teen-ager?
I grew hot at the very thought. Had Ian noticed too...?
What could Leeson possibly have to tell me about Ian that would be to his discredit? Stories of his love life? But surely Leeson of all people wouldn’t imagine that such tales would shock me? I’d been around, and I didn’t expect that a normal healthy young man would have lived a monastic life.
But what if Leeson meant something else? I remembered the scene at Father’s desk. A startled Ian, caught-out rifling through the drawers. Had my hasty theory about stealing a secret formula been so melodramatic after all? Everything that I knew about the peculiar thefts of Physolaria had been suggested by Ian. But what if it were he himself, and not George Leeson, who was up to something?
I didn’t believe it. But the tiny scratch of doubt itched. I had to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Meeting Leeson up on the Beacon was quite out of the question, of course. He just couldn’t be allowed such a triumph. But how else would I ever know what he had to tell me? I could never ask Ian himself. And discussing it with Max, even if he had been here, would seem like a betrayal of Ian.
The answer was so simple. I would wait until tomorrow, and send for Leeson to come to my office. I could have it out with him there.
That evening the clock dawdled so much that often I was sure it must have stopped. By eight-thirty I had decided I couldn’t wait until morning. I would go up to the Beacon tonight and meet George Leeson.
By nine-fifteen I decided it would be madness. I poured myself a sherry—normally I never drank alone—and settled down in an armchair with my book. I would go to bed at ten.
At nine-thirty I could stand it no longer. I jumped up, snatched my lambskin jacket from its peg in the hall, and got the car out.
The way up to the Beacon was no more than a grassy track, lined with stunted gorse bushes. After a few yards I stopped the car, realizing I’d be mighty early. I mustn’t appear over-eager, or Leeson would be sure to misinterpret my motives.
Not able to sit still, I got out and strode up and down impatiently, willing the time away. I made myself stay there until three minutes to ten. Then I started the car and drove on slowly up the hill in low gear.
Crofter’s Point was a small level patch on the edge of an almost vertical drop that swept to the valley bottom far below. I had no doubt that in the daytime it was a magnificent viewing platform, the landscape stretching for miles in three directions. But now it was deserted. Courting couples would have chosen the more sheltered rocks and crannies lower down, out of the wind.
I looked around for George Leeson, but there was no sign of him. Where was the man? I called out his name once or twice, irritably.
It seemed to be growing darker in little jerks. One minute I could pick out a particular hummock, and the next it was gone. Odd lights blinked at me from the darkening countryside, here a single isolated cottage, there a cluster from a village. But the nearest was uncomfortably far off....
I shivered violently, pulling the short jacket tight around me, trying to find some comforting warmth.
Every moment it became plainer that Leeson was making a monkey out of me, dragging me up here at night with a wild tale about giving me secret information. But to get his revenge in full he’d actually have to witness my discomfiture. I was sure he must be hiding somewhere, watching me. There was still just enough light to silhouette my figure against the skyline.
Hopelessly, I looked around for him. There was almost nowhere up here a man could conceal himself—unless he was actually crouched in the gorse. In that case he might be quite close….
‘Mr. Leeson,’ I called in a loud voice again. ‘Please come out. I know you’re there.’ But the wind snatched my words away.
I couldn’t see the hands of my watch, but I guessed it was close to ten-fifteen by now. I’d give him two minutes, not a second more. To keep myself company, I counted slowly up to a hundred and twenty, and was glad to reach the end. That was that, then. And so much for my hopes of something useful coming out of this trip,
Going back to the car it was difficult to make myself walk slowly. But if Leeson was in the bushes, I’d not give him an ounce more satisfaction than I could help. Fears of the dark unknown pricked my spine. I felt as if grasping hands were stretching out to me. Twice in those few yards I had to take a frightened look over my shoulder, and because I wasn’t looking ahead, I stumbled over a small mound and nearly fell headlong. I got back to the car thoroughly shaken, and drove down the hill much too fast.
Someone to talk to was what I wanted just then. Someone reassuringly normal.
As soon as I got home and garaged the car, I sought out Mrs. Cass in her sitting-room. She was taking off her hat and coat, and looked at me in surprise. ‘I’ve just been along to the post,’ she told me.
‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ I said. ‘I felt like some coffee, and wanted to let you know I’d be in the kitchen.’
She wouldn’t let me get it myself, of course. She came out with me, and put the kettle on.
‘I feel chilled through,’ I said apologetically. ‘Won’t you have a cup with me?’
She looked scandalized at the very idea.