Josephine Tey - To Love and Be Wise

Well, it was a dull enough report. An uninspiring collection of unhelpful facts. No clue to the thing he had wanted most; Searle's intimates in the States. No illumination on Searle himself. But something in the report rang a bell in his head.

He read it over again, waiting for that warning click in his mind that was like the sound a clock makes when it is preparing to strike. But this time there was no reaction.

Puzzled, he read it through again, slowly. What was it that had made that warning sound in his mind? He could find nothing. Still puzzled, he folded up the paper and put it away in his pocket.

'We're finished, I suppose you know? Rodgers said. 'We'll find nothing now. Nothing has ever been taken back from the river at Salcott. In this part of the country they have a proverb. When they want to say: Give a thing up, or: Put it out of your mind for good, they say: "Throw it over the bridge at Salcott".

'Why don't they dredge the channel instead of letting all this stuff silt up on them, Grant said, out of temper. 'If they did they wouldn't have the river flooding their houses every second winter.

Rodgers's long face shortened into amusement and kindliness. 'If you'd ever smelt a bucket of Rushmere mud, you'd think a long time before you'd willingly arrange for it to be dragged up in wagon loads and carted through the street. Shall I stop them now?

'No, said Grant, mulishly. 'Let them go on dragging as long as the light lasts. Who knows, we may make history and be the first to take something back from the river at Salcott. I never did believe in those country superstitions, anyhow.

They did go on dragging till the light went, but the river gave nothing back.

'Shall I give you a lift back to Wickham, Rodgers asked Grant, but Grant said no, that he had his own car up at the Mill House and would walk up and fetch it.

Marta came out into the windy twilight to meet him, and put her arm through his.

'No? she said.

'No.

'Come in and get warm.

She walked beside him in silence into the house and poured him an out-size whisky. The thick walls shut out the sound of the wind, and the room was quiet and warm as it had been last night. A faint smell of curry came up from the kitchen.

'Do you smell what I am cooking for you?

'Curry. But you can't be expected to feed the Department.

'Curry is what you need after a whole day of our English spring glories. You can, of course, go back to the White Hart and have the usual Sunday evening supper of cold tinned beef, two slices of tomato, three cubes of beetroot, and a wilting lettuce leaf.

Grant shivered unaffectedly. The thought of the White Hart on a Sunday evening was death.

'Besides, tomorrow I shan't be here to give you dinner. I am going back to town. I can't stand the Mill House any more at the moment. I'll stay in town till Faint Heart goes into rehearsal.

'Having you here has practically saved my life, Grant said. He pulled the American report from his pocket and said: 'Read that, would you, and tell me if anything rings a bell for you.

'No, she said, having read. 'No bells. Should it?

'I don't know. It seemed to me when I read it first that it rang a bell in my mind. He puzzled over it again for a moment and then put it away.

'When we are both back in town, Marta said, 'I want to be introduced to your Sergeant Williams. Perhaps you would bring him to dinner one night?

'But of course, Grant said, pleased and amused. 'Why this sudden passion for the unknown Williams?

'Well, I have actually two different reasons. The first is that anyone who has the mother-wit to see that Walter Whitmore is a «push-ee» is worth meeting. And the second is that the only time I have seen you look happy today was after talking to Sergeant Williams on the telephone.

'Oh, that! he said; and told her about Benny Skoll, and the Watchman , and Williams rebuking virtue. And so they were gay after all over their Sunday supper, with Marta supplying libellous stories of the Watchman's theatre critic. So that it was not until he was going that she asked what he was going to do now that the search for Searle had failed.

'I tidy up some ends here in Salcott tomorrow morning, he said, 'and then I go back to London to report to my chief.

'And what happens then?

'There is a conference to decide what action, if any, is to be taken.

'I understand. Well, when you have got things straightened out ring me up and tell me, won't you. And then we can arrange a night when Sergeant Williams is free.

How admirable, he thought as he drove away; how truly admirable. No questions, no hints, no little feminine probings. In her acceptance of a situation she was extraordinarily masculine. Perhaps it was this lack of dependence that men found intimidating.

He went back to the White Hart, called the police station to know if there were any messages, picked the menu off the dining-room sideboard to verify Marta's prognostication as to supper (she had forgotten the stewed rhubarb and custard, he must tell her) and for the last time went to bed in the little room under the roof. The text was no promise tonight. The Hour Cometh, indeed. What a lot of leisure women seemed to have had once. Now they had everything in cans and had no leisure at all.

But no, it wasn't that, of course. It was that they didn't spend their leisure making texts in coloured wools any more. They went to see Danny Minsky and laughed themselves sick for one-and-tuppence, and if you asked him it was a better way of recovering from the day's work than making meaningless patterns in purple cross-stitch. He glared at the text, tilted the lamp until the shadow blotted out his vision of it, and took his notebooks to bed with him.

In the morning he paid his bill, and pretended not to see the landlord's surprise. Everyone knew that the river-dragging had been unsuccessful, and everyone knew that a piece of clothing recovered from the river had caused that dragging (there, were various accounts of which particular piece of clothing), so the landlord hardly expected Scotland Yard to be taking its departure at this juncture. Unless there was a clue that no one knew about?

'Coming back, sir?

'Not immediately, Grant said, reading his mind like a book and not particularly liking the stigma of failure that was being tacked on to his name at this moment.

And he headed for Trimmings.

The morning had an air of bland apology. It was smiling wetly and the wind had died. The leaves glittered and the roads steamed in the sun. 'Just my fun, dears, the English spring was saying to the soaked and shivering mortals who had trusted her.

As the car purred along the slope, towards Trimmings, he looked down at Salcott St Mary in the valley, and thought how odd it was that three days ago it was just a name that Marta used occasionally in conversation. Now it was part of his mind.

And God send it wasn't going to be a burr stuck there for good!

At Trimmings he was received by the refayned Edith, who broke down enough to look humanly scared for a moment when she saw him, and asked to see Walter. She showed him into the fireless library; from which Walter rescued him.

'Come into the drawing-room, he said. 'We use it as a living-room and there is a fire there'; and Grant caught himself wondering ungratefully whether it was his own comfort that Walter was considering or his guest's. Walter did affect one that way, he observed.

'I am going back to town this morning, Grant said, 'and there are one or two small points I want to clear up before I make my report to my superiors.

'Yes? Walter was nervous and looked as if he had not slept.

'When I asked you about your journey down the Rushmere, you said that you had picked up mail at arranged post-offices.