The House on the Strand

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I WENT ALONG to my dressing-room, found my own suitcase, put the bottle in one of the pockets and the documents about Bodrugan as well, locked the case and joined Vita downstairs.

"Did you find anything?" she asked.

I shook my head. She followed me into the music-room and I poured myself a whisky. "You'd better have one too," I said.

"I don't feel like it," she answered. She sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette. "I'm quite certain we ought to ring the police."

"Because Magnus has taken it into his head to roam the countryside?" I queried. "Nonsense, he knows what he's doing. He must know every inch of the district for miles around."

The clock in the dining-room struck midnight. If Magnus had left the train at Par, he had been walking for four and a half hours…

"You go to bed," I said. You look exhausted. "I'll stay down here in case he comes. I can lie on the sofa if I feel like it. Then as soon as it's light, if I'm awake and he hasn't arrived, I'll go out in the car and have another search."

It was true, she looked all-in: I was not trying to get rid of her. She stood up uncertainly, and wandered towards the door. Then she looked back at me, over her shoulder.

"There's something odd about all this," she said slowly. "I have a feeling you know more than you say." I had no ready answer. "Well, try and get some sleep," she went on. "Something tells me you're going to need it."

I heard the bedroom door shut, and stretched myself out on the sofa with my hands behind my head, trying to think. There were only two solutions. The first, as I had originally imagined, that Magnus had decided to find the Gratten site, and had either lost his way or ricked his ankle, and so decided to wait where he was until daylight; or the second… and the second was the one I feared. Magnus had gone on a trip. He had poured the contents of bottle B into some container that could be carried in a coat pocket, and had got out of the train at Par and walked — to the Gratten, to the church, anywhere in the district, and then swallowed the drug and waited… waited for it to take effect. Once this had happened he would not be responsible for his actions. If time took him into that other world that we both knew he would not necessarily witness what I had witnessed, the scene could be different, the point in time earlier or later, but the penalty for touching anyone, as he well knew, would be the same for both of us; nausea, vertigo, confusion. Magnus had not, as far as I knew, touched the drug for at least three or four months; he, the inventor, was not prepared and might not have the stamina to endure it as I, the guinea-pig, could.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture him walking away from the station, up the hill and across the fields to the Gratten, and swallowing the drug, laughing to himself. I've stolen a march on Dick! Then the leap backwards in time, and the estuary below, the walls of the house about him, Roger close at hand — leading him where? To what strange encounter on the hills or beside the strand? To what month, what year? Would he see, as I had seen, the faltering ship, dismasted, enter the creek, the horsemen riding on the opposite hill? Would he see Bodrugan drowned? If so, his actions might not be the same as mine. Knowing his taste for the dramatic, he might have flung himself headlong into the river and struck out for that opposite shore — and there would have been no river, only the smothered valley, the scrub, the marsh, the trees. Magnus could be lying there now, in that impassable waste land, shouting for help, and none to hear. There was nothing I could do. Nothing until daylight came.

I did sleep, after a fashion, waking with a jerk from some distorted dream that instantly faded, to fall off again once more. A deeper sleep must have come with the first light, for I remember looking at my watch at half-past five and telling myself another twenty minutes would not hurt, and then when I opened my eyes again it was ten past seven. I made a cup of tea, then crept upstairs and washed and shaved. Vita was already awake. She did not even question me. She knew Magnus had not come.

"I'm going to Par station," I said. "They'll know if he handed the ticket in. Then I'll try and trace his movements from there. Somebody must have seen him."

"It would be so much simpler", she insisted, "if you went direct to the police."

"I will go to them", I said, "if no one can tell me anything at the station."

"If you don't," she called as I left the room, "I shall ring them up myself."

I drew a blank at the station: a chap wandering about told me the booking-office would not be open for half an hour. I filled in the time by walking up to the bridge that spanned the railway-line and gave a view of the valley. Once this would have been wide estuary; Bodrugan's ship, dismasted by the gale, would have drifted past this very spot, driven by wind and tide, seeking shelter up the creek and finding death instead. Today, part reedy marsh, part scrub, it was still easy enough to trace the original course of the river from the winding valley itself. A man, sick or in some way hurt, might lie beneath those stubby, close-packed trees for days, for weeks, and no one know of it. Even the marsh ground on which the station stood, the wide, flat expanse between Par and neighbouring Saint Blazey, was still waste land to a large extent; even here there were large tracts where no one wandered. Except, perhaps, a traveller in time whose mind trod a vessel's deck upon blue water while his body stumbled amongst scrub and ditch.

I returned to the station and found the booking-office open, and for the first time proof that Magnus had arrived. The clerk had not only taken his ticket but remembered the holder of it. Tall, he said, going grey, hatless, wearing a sports jacket and dark trousers, with a pleasant smile, and carrying a stick. No, the clerk had not seen which way he had gone after leaving the station.

I got into the car and drove half-way up the hill, to where a footpath went off to the left. Magnus could have taken it, and I did the same, striking across country to the Gratten. It was warm and misty, foretelling a hot day. The farmer the land belonged to must have opened a gate somewhere since the preceding night, because cows wandered on the hillside now, amongst the gorse-bushes and the mounds, following me in curiosity to the entrance of the overgrown quarry itself. I searched it thoroughly, every corner, every dip, but found nothing. I looked down into the valley below, across the intervening railway line, to the sweeping mass of trees and bushes covering the one-time river bed. They might have been woven tapestry, coloured with silken threads in every shade of golden green. If Magnus was there, nothing would ever find him but tracker dogs.

Then I knew I must do what I should have done earlier, what I should have done last night. I must go to the police. I must go, as any other man would go whose guest had failed to arrive over twelve hours earlier, though his ticket had been given up at the station at the correct time. I remembered there was a police-station at Tywardreath, and I wound my weary way back again and drove straight there. I felt inadequate, guilty, like all persons who have been lucky enough never to have found themselves involved with the police, beyond minor traffic offences, and my story, as I told it to the sergeant, sounded shamefaced, somehow, irresponsible.

"I want to report a missing person," I said, and instantly had a vision of a poster with the haunted face of a criminal staring from it, and the word WANTED in enormous letters underneath. I pulled myself together, and told the exact story of all that had happened the preceding day.

The sergeant was helpful, sympathetic and extremely kind. "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Professor Lane personally," he said, "but we know all about him, of course. You must have had a very anxious night."

"Yes," I said.

"There's been no report to us of any accident," he said, "but of course I will check with Liskeard and Saint Austell. Would you like a cup of tea, Mr. Young?"

I accepted the offer gratefully, while he got busy on the telephone. I had the sick feeling at the pit of my stomach that people get waiting outside a hospital ward during an emergency operation performed on someone they love. It was out of my hands. There was nothing I could do. Presently he came back.

"There's been no report of any accident," he said. "They're alerting the patrol cars in the district, and the other police stations. I think the best thing you can do, sir, is to go back to Kilmarth and wait there until you hear from us. It could be that Professor Lane twisted an ankle and spent the night at one of the farms, but they're mostly on the telephone these days, and it's strange he shouldn't have rung you up to let you know. No previous history of loss of memory, I suppose?"

"No, I told him, never. And he was very fit when I dined with him in London a few weeks ago."

"Well, don't worry too much, sir," he said, "there'll probably be some simple explanation at the end of it."

I went back to the car, the sick feeling with me still, and drove down to the church. I could hear the organ — they must have been having choir practice. I went and sat on one of the graves near the wall above the orchard — Priory orchard once. Where I sat would have been the monks dormitory, looking south over the Priory creek; and close at hand was the guest-chamber where young Henry Bodrugan had died of smallpox. In that other time he could be dying still. In that other time the monk, Jean, could be mixing some hell-brew that finished off the business, then sending word to Roger that he must carry the news to the mother and the aunt, Joanna Champernoune. Ill-tidings were all about me, in the other world and in my own. Roger, the monk, young Bodrugan, Magnus; we were all links in an interwoven chain, bound one to the other through the centuries.

In such a night

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs

That did renew old Aeson.

Magnus could have sat here and taken the drug. He could have gone to any of the places where I had been. I drove down to the farm where Julian Polpey had lived six centuries ago, and where the postman had found me a week ago, and walked down the farm-track to Lampetho. If I had traversed the marsh at night, my body in the present, my brain in the past, Magnus could have done the same. Even now, with no water and no tide filling the inlet, only meadow-marsh and reeds, the route was familiar, like some scene from a forgotten dream. The track petered out, though, into marsh, and I could see no way forward, no means of crossing the valley to the other side. How I had done it myself at night, following, in that earlier world, Otto and the other conspirators, God only knew. I retraced my footsteps past Lampetho Farm, and an old man came out of one of the buildings, calling to his dog, who ran towards me, barking. He asked if I had lost my way and I told him no, and apologised for trespassing.

"You didn't by any chance see anyone walking this way last night?" I asked. "A tall man, grey-haired, carrying a stick?"

He shook his head. "We don't get many visitors coming here," he said. "Doesn't lead anywhere, just to this farm. Visitors stay mostly on Par beach."

I thanked him and walked back to the car. I was not convinced, though.

He could have been indoors between half-past eight and nine; Magnus could be lying in the marsh below his farm… But surely someone would have seen him? The effect of the drug, if he had taken it, would have worn off hours ago; if he had taken it at half-past eight, or nine, he would have come to by ten, by eleven, by midnight.

There was a police car drawn up outside the house when I arrived, and as I entered the hall I heard Vita say, "Here's my husband now."

She was in the music-room with a police officer and a constable.

"I'm afraid we've no definite news for you, Mr. Young," the Inspector said, "only a slight clue, which may lead us to something. A man answering to the description of Professor Lane was seen last evening between nine and half-past walking along the Stonybridge lane above Treesmill past Trenadlyn Farm."

"Trenadlyn Farm?" I repeated, and the surprise must have shown in my face, for he said quickly, "You know it, then?"

"Why, yes," I said, "it's much higher up the valley than Treesmill, it's the small farm right on the lane itself."

"That's right. Have you any idea why Professor Lane should have been walking in that particular direction, Mr. Young?"

"No," I said with hesitation. "No… There was nothing to take him there. I would have expected him to be walking lower down the valley, nearer to Treesmill."

"Well," the Inspector replied, "our information is that a gentleman was seen walking past Trenadlyn between nine and half-past. Mrs. Richards, wife of Mr. Richards who owns the farm, saw him from her window, but her brother, who farms Great Treverran, higher up the lane, saw no one. If Professor Lane was walking to Kilmarth it seems a long way round, even for someone who wanted exercise after sitting in a train."

"Yes, I agree. Inspector," I went on hesitantly, "Professor Lane is very interested in historical sites, and this may have been the reason for his walk. I think he was looking for an old manor house which he believes stood there once. But it couldn't have been either of the farms you mentioned, or he would have called at one of them." I knew now why Magnus — and it must have been Magnus, from the woman's description — was walking past Trenadlyn on the Stonybridge lane. It was the route Isolda had taken on horseback with Robbie, when the two of them had come riding down to Treesmill to the creek, to find Bodrugan murdered, drowned. It was the only route to the unknown Tregest when the ford across Treesmill was impassable through flood or high tide. Magnus, when he passed Trenadlyn farm, was walking in time. He could have been following Roger, and Isolda too.

Vita, unable to contain herself, turned to me impulsively. "Darling, all this historical business is beside the point. Please don't be angry with me for butting in, but I feel it's essential." She turned to the Inspector. "I'm quite sure, and so was my husband last night, that the Professor was going to call on some old friends of his, people called Carminowe. Oliver Carminowe is not on the telephone, but he does live somewhere in that district, where the Professor was last seen. It's quite obvious to me that he was on his way to call on them, and the sooner somebody contacts them the better."

There was a momentary silence after her outburst. Then the Inspector glanced at me. His expression had changed from concern to surprise, even disapproval.

"Is that so, Mr. Young? You said nothing about the possibility of Professor Lane visiting friends."

I felt my mouth flicker in a weak smile. "No, Inspector," I said, "of course not. There was no question of the Professor visiting anyone. I'm afraid my wife had her leg pulled over the telephone by the Professor, and I very foolishly did nothing to put her wise, but kept up the joke. There are no such people as Carminowe. They don't exist."

"Don't exist?" echoed Vita. "But you saw the children riding ponies on Sunday morning, two little girls with their nurse, you told me so."

"I know I did," I said, "but I can only repeat I was pulling your leg."

She stared at me in disbelief. I could tell, from the expression in her eyes, that she thought I was lying to get Magnus and myself out of an awkward situation. Then she shrugged her shoulders, flicked a rapid glance at the Inspector and lit a cigarette. "What a very stupid joke," she said, and added, "I beg your pardon, Inspector."

"Don't apologise, Mrs. Young," he said, rather more stiffly, I thought, than before. "We all get our legs pulled from time to time, especially in the police force. He turned again to me. You're quite certain about that, Mr. Young? You know of no one whom Professor Lane might have been calling upon after he arrived at Par station?"

"Absolutely not," I said. "As far as I know we are his only friends here, and he was definitely coming to spend the weekend with us. The house belongs to him, as you know. He's lent it to us for the summer holidays. Quite frankly, Inspector, I was not really concerned about Professor Lane until this morning. He knows the district well, for his father, Commander Lane, had this house before him. I was sure he couldn't lose himself, and that he'd turn up with some plausible explanation of where he had been all night."

"I see," said the Inspector. Nobody said anything for a moment, and I had the impression that he doubted my story, just as Vita did, and that they both thought Magnus had been bound on some doubtful assignation and I was covering up for him. Which, indeed, was true.

"I realise now", I said, "that I should have got in touch with you last night. Professor Lane must have twisted his ankle, probably shouted for help, and nobody heard. There wouldn't have been much traffic up that side road once it was dark."

"No," the Inspector agreed, "but the people from Trenadiyn and Treverran would have been astir early this morning, and should have seen or heard something of him by now, if he had had some mishap on the road. More likely he walked up to the main road, and then he could have taken either direction, on towards Lostwithiel or back to Fowey."

"The name Tregest doesn't convey anything to you?" I asked cautiously.

"Tregest?" The Inspector thought a moment, then shook his head. "No, I can't say it does. Is it the name of a place?"

"I believe there was a farm of that name once, somewhere in the district. Professor Lane could have been trying to find it, in connection with his historical research." Then I suddenly had another idea. "Trelawn," I said, "where exactly is Trelawn?"

"Trelawn?" repeated the Inspector, surprised. "That's an estate a few miles from Looe. Must be eighteen miles or more from here. Professor Lane would surely not start to try to walk there around nine o'clock at night?"

"No," I said, "no, of course not. It's just that I'm trying to think of old houses of historical interest."

"Yes, but, darling," interrupted Vita, "as the Inspector says, Magnus would hardly start looking for something of that sort, miles away, without telephoning us first. That's what I can't understand, why he didn't attempt to telephone."

"He didn't telephone, Mrs. Young," said the Inspector, "because he apparently thought Mr. Young would know where he was going."

"Yes," I said, "and I didn't know. I don't know now. I only wish to God I did."

The telephone rang with startling suddenness, like an echo to all our thoughts. "I'll get it," said Vita, who was nearest to the door. She crossed the hall to the library, and we stood there in the music-room saying nothing, listening to her voice.

"Yes," she said briefly, "he is here. I'll get him." She came back into the room and told the Inspector that the call was for him. We waited for what seemed an interminable three or four minutes, while he answered in monosyllables, his voice muffled. I looked at my watch. It was just on half-past twelve. I had not realised it was so late. When he returned he looked directly at me, and I saw from the expression on his face that something had happened.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Young," he said, "I'm afraid it's bad news."

"Yes," I said, "tell—"

One is never prepared. One always believes, in moments of acute stress, that things will turn out all right, that even now, with Magnus missing for so long, it would surely be to say that someone had picked him up with loss of memory and taken him to hospital. Vita came and stood beside me, her hand in mine.

"That was a message from Liskeard police station," said the Inspector. "Word has come through that one of our patrols has found the body of a man resembling Professor Lane near the railway-line just this side of Treverran tunnel. He seems to have received a blow on the head from a passing train, unobserved by the driver or the guard. He managed, apparently, to crawl into a small disused hut just above the line, and then he collapsed. It looks as if he must have been dead for some hours." I went on standing there, staring at the Inspector. Shock is a peculiar thing, numbing emotion. It was as though life itself had ebbed away, leaving me a shell, like Magnus. I was only aware of Vita holding my hand.

"I understand," I said, but it was not my voice. "What do you want me to do?"

"They are on their way to the mortuary in Fowey now, Mr. Young," he said. "I hate to trouble you at such a moment, but I think it would be best if we took you there right away to identify the body. I should like to think, for both your sakes, yours and Mrs. Young's, that it is not Professor Lane, but in the circumstances I can't offer you much hope."

"No," I said, "no, of course not."

I let go of Vita's hand and walked towards the door and out of the house into the hot sunlight. Some Scouts were putting up tents in the field beyond the Kilmarth meadow. I could hear them shouting and laughing, and hammering the pegs into the ground.