Once more Appleby’s car was rushing through the night. And once more Timothy Dumble was studying the map. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘here it is. Farthing Bishop. About eight miles. It seems a tiny place.’
‘It must have a post office, anyway.’ From the back of the car, Ian Dancer spoke in the carefully controlled voice of somebody in pain.
‘So it must – if your whole story’s not crackers.’ Timothy paused. ‘You just had to get off?’ he asked cautiously.
‘No help for it. I was rocking about on the back of the bike, and wrecking the whole show. The beastly doctors were right. I thought they were talking rot.’
‘It was madness, Ian.’ Pettifor, also at the back, steadied the injured youth as the car swung round a corner.
‘I thought I’d be all right, just hanging on behind. But the bloody thing made me howl whenever we bumped. David had to stop. And then we decided he must go on to this Farthing Bishop place by himself. I sat by the roadside for a bit, and managed to get a cigarette going. That made me feel a lot better. I began to think I’d been damned soft not to hold on. Then I saw I must get somewhere where I could get hold of the police and tell them about David.’
‘Did you, indeed?’ Appleby, intent over the wheel, spoke grimly. ‘It was a somewhat belated thought, if I may say so.’
‘I’m sorry. Well, I managed to get on my feet again and reach the high road. I thought I’d thumb something. And what I was lucky enough to thumb was Timothy here in your car, making back to Nymph Monachorum. We decided the best thing was to turn round and contact you at Tremlett.’
‘You were quite right. But what about the start of the business? Just what put it into your thick heads – yours and David Henchman’s – to go off into the blue without a word?’
‘Hear, hear!’ Timothy didn’t seem to feel that his friend’s agony deserved much consideration. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, you low hound?’
‘You?’ Ian was scornful. ‘That would have meant the whole gaggle in an instant. I expect we’d have told Sir John, if we’d known he was at the George.’
‘And just what would you have told me? What put his notion about the girl in David’s mind? Was it something Faircloth said?’
‘It was a little more than that, sir. You see, the old boy had been expecting his daughter all day, and she just hadn’t turned up.’
‘But didn’t he have a telegram?’
‘That was later. Actually, it was the telegram that gave David his suspicion of the truth. Or rather, it was the telegram that strengthened it. He had a first glimpse of the thing when he was having a bath before dinner.’
‘I see.’ Appleby’s voice was patient. ‘Of course there’s nothing more reliable than the sort of sudden notion that comes to one in a hot bath after an utterly exhausting day. Go on.’
‘He suddenly had this awful idea that it might have been poor old Faircloth’s precious Alice that he had encountered in that car this morning. You see, she was supposed to be motoring over from friends in Hampshire. She might quite easily have taken the road over the moor, and have stopped to picnic near Knack Tor. And so it would have been her car that David’s pursuers stole. And that would account for her not turning up in Nymph Monachorum.’
Pettifor interrupted. ‘It would only account, surely, for her not turning up in the car.’
‘But you see, sir, David realized that there might be an even more sinister side to it. These chaps were pursuing him simply to prevent their ever being identified by him and connected with what had happened up on the Tor. Well the girl must have had a perfectly clear sight of them when they bagged her car. So anything might happen.’
‘It might, indeed,’ Appleby said. ‘And that was as far as David’s thoughts got in his bath?’
‘Yes. And then at dinner there was old Faircloth, quite relieved in his mind. As far as Alice was concerned, I mean. Of course he was upset about all the horrors of the day. But he’d had this telegram from the girl, saying she was stopping in Hampshire a bit longer. So that seemed all right. And then David went to bed.’
‘It’s a pity he didn’t stay there. What got him out again?’
‘He’d happened to notice the name of the post office where the telegram had been handed in. It was Farthing Bishop. And suddenly, just as he was dropping off to sleep, he remembered seeing Farthing Bishop on the map – the local map – and being told something about it. It’s not in Hampshire; it’s quite close by. No doubt Faircloth hadn’t noticed. It’s not a thing one always does notice on a telegram. But it meant the message must be false. Alice had been kidnapped or something by the enemy gang. David came and explained it all to me.’
‘Explained is precisely the word. And then?’
‘Well, we boggled over it rather. It seemed possible and not possible. We wondered whether we should search out old Faircloth and reveal our suspicions. I was rather for doing that. But David seemed to feel it was up to him personally to go right in and find the girl. He had a notion he’d rather let her down. So we decided to borrow Leon’s bike and go and reconnoitre Farthing Bishop.’
‘And David is presumably there now. Do you know anything about it?’
‘Nothing at all. But Colonel Farquharson was saying something about it yesterday – I think that the manor house is untenanted.’
‘Quite right.’ Pettifor, who had remained for the most part sunk in sombre silence, contributed this. ‘People called Hotchkiss. They departed some years ago, being too hard up for the place, and have never been able to find a tenant. Indeed, it’s partly ruined, and there’s a tower of great antiquity.’
‘It sounds’, Appleby said, ‘a striking object in the landscape, even by moonlight. Owls and ivy, I suppose, and everything thoroughly romantic.’
‘No doubt. But I never heard there was anything romantic about the Hotchkisses. They were city people. I never knew them, and I don’t think I know anybody in the neighbourhood either.’
‘David and I’, Ian said, ‘wondered whether Colonel Farquharson did. I mean, whether he knows people near there. Because he shot past us.’
‘What’s that?’ Appleby’s question came sharply.
‘On this road, and just before I had to give up because of my shoulder. He overtook us in his car, going at a good lick. We’d drawn into the side, so he didn’t see us.’
‘I say! Do you think it was just coincidence?’ Timothy put this question with lively interest. ‘It seems to me there’s a general convergence on this Farthing Bishop.’ He appealed to Appleby. ‘Don’t you think so, sir?’
‘I certainly do.’ Appleby’s tone was grim. It was clear he hadn’t greatly liked the news about Farquharson.
‘Nobody missing except old Faircloth.’
‘Faircloth? You needn’t worry. He certainly got there some time ago. He was making for the place when he passed us.’
‘Passed us?’ Timothy was bewildered.
‘My dear lad, the car that nearly ran into us as we were approaching Tremlett was certainly Faircloth’s.’
At this Pettifor sat forward. ‘Appleby, what was that? Faircloth at Tremlett! Whatever should he be doing there?’
‘He had some quiet business to transact.’
‘Business!’
‘Yes. But, oddly enough, its true nature wasn’t clear to him.’
‘Indeed.’ Pettifor didn’t receive this enigmatic statement very patiently. ‘But no doubt it is perfectly clear to yourself?’
‘Well, yes – as a matter of fact it is. And I hope to explain it to Faircloth quite soon. There isn’t, you see, much mystery left in this affair. Only danger. And I was saying to David Henchman this morning that danger’s not really so interesting. However, we must try to cope with it when it turns up.’
There was danger, Timothy thought, simply in the pace they were travelling. And it was almost possible to believe that Appleby was relieving some state of nervous tension by talking at random. Timothy took a sidelong glance at him in the dim light. His face was set and stern.
Suddenly Timothy found himself lurching towards the wind-screen. Appleby had braked powerfully, and now he brought the car to a halt. Timothy looked at him in surprise – and was yet more surprised to see that he was smiling broadly. ‘Well,’ Appleby said, ‘that’s that. Didn’t you see?’
‘See, sir?’
Without answering, Appleby switched on a spotlight at the tail of the car and reversed. They ran back for about thirty yards, with Timothy staring out into the moonlight. By the side of the road a wheel came into view. And then a motorbike. And then, standing by the machine and scowling furiously, David Henchman.
Timothy had lowered a window. Appleby leant across him. ‘Can we give you any help?’ he called out cheerfully.
David stared at them. It was a second before he made them out. ‘It’s stopped,’ he said. ‘It won’t go. I’ve been here for ages.’
‘Perhaps we might take you on tow?’ Appleby’s voice held something that puzzled Timothy for a moment. And then he realized that it was simple joy. It was almost as if he hadn’t expected to see David again.
‘A tow? Don’t be stupid.’ David was obviously dead tired as well as feeling a fool. ‘It’s the beastly ignition. The thing won’t fire.’ There was a moment’s silence as David fiddled again with the machine. ‘Oh, good lord!’ he said.
Appleby laughed aloud. ‘Petrol?’
‘Yes. The tank’s bone dry.’ David turned to him. One could see in the moonlight that he was flushed and furious. ‘Can you let me have some?’
‘I could – certainly.’ Appleby was now quite grave again. ‘And then you could proceed on your own. And to the moated grange, I suppose.’
‘What do you mean – the moated grange?’ David peered into the car, and spotted Ian as well as Timothy. ‘What have these great idiots been saying?’
‘They’ve been helping me to piece things together, I admit. And now you turn up like a bad penny. It’s most satisfactory. Quite suddenly, this whole messy business comes under control. I think you’d better leave your friend’s motorbike – it will be safe enough where it is for an hour – and get in here. It would be a shame if you never saw that grange at all.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ David still sounded sulky. But he was opening the door of the car and getting in beside Timothy.
‘Haven’t you been told that Farthing Bishop boasts a highly romantic deserted manor house, which even incorporates a lofty and ancient ivy-clad tower?’
‘Yes, I did remember something of the sort, when I started thinking about the place. I must have heard it talked about lately. But I don’t see–’
But Appleby had let in the clutch. ‘We must be getting on,’ he said. ‘My own curiosity about Farthing Bishop grows. You know, there’s been a lot of artistry in this affair.’
Pettifor leant forward sharply from the back. ‘Artistry? Just what do you mean?’
‘Perhaps I ought to say a great deal of inspired improvisation. David jumping on Ian’s horse, for instance, and then thinking to get himself smuggled away in an ambulance.’
David laughed. His sulking fit wasn’t proof against this memory. ‘It didn’t work,’ he said.
‘Quite so. And there’s a lot more that isn’t going to work, either.’