ELEVEN
LIKE AN ACTOR IN the pantomime muddling his way out from behind the curtains, I pushed aside the hanging willow branches and stepped out from the green gloom and into the blinding glare of the sun’s spotlight.
Time was running out. Inspector Hewitt and his men were probably minutes away and my work was hardly begun.
Since Brookie’s van was directly in front of me, I’d begin there. I glanced quickly up and down the street. There was no one in sight.
One of the van’s windows was rolled all the way down: obviously just as Brookie had left it. Here was a bit of luck!
Father was always going on about the importance of carrying a handkerchief at all times, and for once he was right. Opening the door would leave my fingerprints on the nickel-plated handle. A clean bit of linen was just the ticket.
But the handle wouldn’t budge, although it did give off an alarming groan that hinted of extensive rust beneath. One thing that I didn’t need was to have a van door fall off and go clattering into the street.
I stepped up onto the running board (another metallic groan) and used my elbows to lever myself into position. With my stomach on the bottom of the window frame, I was able to hinge the top half of my body into the van, leaving my legs and feet sticking straight out in the air for balance.
With the handkerchief wrapped round my hand, I pressed on the glove compartment’s release button, and when it popped open, reached inside and pulled out a small packet. It was, as I thought it might be, the registration papers for the van.
I almost let out a cheer! Now I would find out Brookie’s real address, which I somehow doubted would be Willow Villa.
Edward Sampson, the document said. Rye Road, East Finching.
I knew well enough where East Finching was: It lay about five miles by road to the north of Bishop’s Lacey.
But who was Edward Sampson? Other than being the owner of the van from which my bottom was probably projecting like a lobster’s claw from a trap—I hadn’t the faintest idea.
I shoved the papers back into the glove compartment and pushed home the panel.
Now for the coach house.
“Come along, Gladys,” I said, taking her from where she had been waiting. No sense having my presence detected by leaving her parked in plain view.
Because of the peculiar shape of Miss Mountjoy’s property, the coach house was located at the end of a hedge-lined L-shaped lane that ran along one side and across the back. I tucked Gladys out of sight behind a box hedge and proceeded on foot.
As I approached the building, I could see that the term “coach house” was no more than a courtesy title. In fact, it was almost a joke.
The building was square, with bricks on the bottom floor and boards on the top. The windows were coated with the kind of opaque film that tells of neglect and cobwebs; the kind of windows that watch you.
The door had once been painted, but had blistered away to reveal gray, weathered wood that matched the un-painted boards of the upper story.
I wrapped my hand in the handkerchief and tried the latch. The door was locked.
The first-floor windows were too high to gain entry, and the tangle of ivy on a broken trellis too fragile to climb. A rickety ladder leaned wearily against the wall, too dangerous to be pressed into service. I decided to try round the back.
I had to be careful. Only a sagging wooden fence and a narrow walkway separated the rear of the coach house from Miss Mountjoy’s overhanging willow tree: I’d have to crouch and run, like a commando on the beach.
At the end of the fence, on the left side of the walkway, was a wire compound attached to the coach house, from which issued, as I approached, an excited clucking. Inside the compound, there was a cage no more than two feet high—rather less, in fact—and in it was the biggest rooster I had ever seen: so large that he had to strut about his cage with stooped shoulders.
As soon as he saw me the bird made for the wires that separated us, fluttering up towards my face with a frightening rustle of wings. My first instinct was to take to my heels—but then I saw the pleading look in his marmalade eye.
He was hungry!
I took a handful of feed from a box that was nailed to the framework of the cage and tossed it through the mesh. The rooster fell upon the stuff like a wolf upon Russian travelers, his comb, as red as paper poppies, bobbing busily up and down as if it were driven by steam.
As he feasted, I noticed a hatch on the far side of the cage that opened into the coach house. It was no more than rooster-sized, but it would do.
Throwing a couple more handfuls of feed to distract the bird, I turned to the wire fence. It was only about seven feet high, but too far to leap up and grasp the upper frame. I tried to swarm up the mesh, but my shoes could find no grip.
Undefeated, I sat down and removed my shoes and socks.
When I come to write my autobiography, I must remember to record the fact that a chicken-wire fence can be scaled by a girl in bare feet, but only by one who is willing to suffer the tortures of the damned to satisfy her curiosity.
As I climbed, my toes stuck through the hexagons of the wire mesh, each strand like the blades of a cheese cutter. By the time I reached the top, my feet felt as if they belonged to Scott of the Antarctic.
As I dropped to the ground on the inside of the enclosure the rooster made a lunge for me. Since I hadn’t thought to bring a pocketful of feed to appease the famished bird, I was at his mercy.
He threw himself at my bare knees and I made a dive for the hatchway.
It was a tight fit, and I could only squirm my way painfully through the opening as the enraged bird pecked furiously at my legs—but moments later I was inside the coach house: still inside a wired partition, but inside.
And so was the rooster, who had followed me in, and was now flinging himself upon me like an avenging fury.
Seized by a sudden inspiration, I squatted, caught the bird’s eye, then with a loud hissing, rose up suddenly to my full height, weaving my head and flicking my tongue in and out like a king cobra.
It worked! In his feeble rooster brain, some age-old instinct whispered a sudden, wordless tale of terror that involved a chicken and a snake, and taking to his heels, he shot out through the hatch like a feathered cannonball.
I poked my fingers through the mesh and rotated the strip of wood that served as a latch, then stepped into the corridor.
I suppose my mind had been filled with images of dusty box stalls, of shriveled harness hanging from wooden pegs, of currycombs and benches, and perhaps a long-abandoned phaeton carriage lurking in some dim corner. Perhaps I was thinking of our own coach house at Buckshaw.
But whatever the case, I was totally unprepared for what I saw.
Beneath the low, beamed ceiling of what had once been a stable, couches upholstered in green and pink silk were jammed together like buses in Piccadilly Circus. Cameo jars and vases—some of them surely Wedgwood—stood here and there on tables whose old wood managed to glow even in the dim light. Carved cabinets and elaborately inlaid tables receded into the shadows, while nearby horse stalls overflowed with Royal Albert ewers and Oriental screens.
The place was a warehouse—and, I thought, no ordinary one at that!
Against one wall, almost hidden by a massive sideboard, was an exquisitely carved Georgian chimneypiece, in front of which, half-unrolled, was a rich and elaborate carpet. Something very much like it had been pointed out to me on more than one occasion by Feely’s friend and toady, Sheila Foster, who managed to drag their carpet into even the most casual conversation: “The Archbishop of Canterbury was down for the weekend, you know. As he was pinching my cheek, he dropped a crumb of his Dundee cake on our dear old Aubusson.”
I had just stepped forward to have a closer look at the thing when something caught my eye: a gleam in a dark corner by the chimneypiece. I sucked in my breath, for there in Miss Mountjoy’s coach house stood Sally Fox and Shoppo—Harriet’s brass fire irons!