Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

“That sounds arbitrary,” Hester said coldly.

“Or you can take the boards up yourself and soak them in paraffin. That often cures it.”

Wade looked round the half-painted room at the crumbled wall. “I don’t think I can tackle it today.”

“I’ll do it for you,” Harry said. “Get me a hammer and chisel and a gallon of paraffin, and I’ll fix it for you.”

When the tools had been brought to him he began to wrench up the boards and pour paraffin on the joists beneath.

“You look like a fire-raiser,” Hester said.

“These boards aren’t too bad,” Harry said. “It may have spread to the floor beneath, that’s all. Morgan’s room is under this, isn’t it?”

“Morgan wouldn’t like to have his room torn up,” Wade protested.

“Take him out for a walk, Hester, then he’ll never know. I’ll do it very neatly,” Harry promised. “But I’ll need some more paraffin.”

“I’ll send Prudence up,” Wade said.

Hester lingered.

“Harry, do you know what you’re doing? You’re not going to do any damage, are you?” she asked unhappily.

“Damage?” He looked up with a serious, preoccupied face. She felt ashamed of her suspicions, without knowing precisely what her suspicions were.

“It’s hard to know when you’re being serious, Harry. You’re so different from anyone I’ve ever met,” she said despairingly. She left the room quickly before he had time to answer.

Prudence appeared with the paraffin, and stood, peering intently at the exposed joists.

“I’d like to see a death watch beetle,” she said.

“They’re like woodworm, only smaller. You’d need a magnifying glass.”

“I’ll get a magnifying glass.”

“They take cover. They don’t like being exposed to light. You can try, if you want to. I think I’ve finished this bit. I’ll have a look at the room downstairs. You wouldn’t like to hammer these boards back on for me?”

“Not much.”

“I’ll put them back later, then.”

He picked up the tools and the paraffin, and walked downstairs and nonchalantly into Morgan’s room. Prudence followed.

“Does Morgan know you’re going to be in his room?” she asked.

“I didn’t ask his permission. Death watch beetle can’t wait.”

“I can,” said Prudence, and sat down on the bed.

Harry looked at her briefly, then walked over to the heavy, dark, Jacobean wardrobe, and opened the door.

“See,” he said, “bottles.”

Prudence looked, entranced.

“Harry, I thought you weren’t serious.”

“People are always thinking I’m not serious, when I am. Help me roll back the carpet.”

They lifted a table to the corner, then took one end each of the frayed green carpet and rolled it to the other side of the room. Harry looked quickly at the dusty boards underneath, and walked thoughtfully to the middle of the room. He bent down and tapped one board with the hammer.

“There’s a lot of dust about. Get me housewife’s implements and I’ll sweep it up,” he said to Prudence.

She was out of the room for several minutes. When she came back she carried a book as well as a brush. Harry had already lifted one board and was staring into the hole.

She stood beside Harry, scrutinising him, noting with distaste that his brown hair waved, that his nose was not quite straight, as if it had once been broken, that his face was round and his mouth and chin soft. She liked a man to have a hard, lean, Hollywood look. Harry was nearly handsome, but he didn’t look like a man who would be put in charge of a spaceship.

“I’ve been reading about death watch beetles in my insect book,” she said.

“Yes?” Harry stood up.

“Are you looking at me with narrowed eyes?” he asked.

“Death watch beetles court in February,” she said. “You wouldn’t hear them tick in August. It’s people you hear ticking,” she added cryptically.

“In February?” he said, grinning. “Then I’ve made a mistake.”

“You have.”

“A natural, human mistake,” he said cheerfully. “So I’ll put the boards back and say no more. Imagine these little creatures confining their love life to February!”

“What do you know about death watch beetles anyway?” she asked grimly.

“I used to collect them when I was a boy. Relax, Prudence, unless you’re training to be a girl detective.”

“Do you mean to tear up any more floorboards?”

“There wouldn’t be any point in it, if I can’t separate them when they’re courting.”

“You know there aren’t any death watch beetles there,” she said accusingly.

“For all I know, there may be. I regard them as not proven. I’ll put the boards back.”

“Harry, I don’t know what you’ve been trying to do, but I shall tell Father. Then what will you say?”

“I shall feign madness. And I’ll leave him to put the floorboards back. You’ll never find out what I was trying to do. But if you keep your mouth shut, you’ll discover something very interesting – about Morgan.”

“About Morgan?” Prudence asked, frowning.

“Or perhaps you think he’s an ordinary man with nothing queer about him?”

“He is a bit odd,” Prudence said slowly. “But so are you.”

“In the next two days I’m going to show you just what Morgan is. You’ll have your name in the papers.”

“My name in the papers!” Prudence repeated scornfully. “Exactly what do you think I am? A child of twelve?”

“All right then. You win. Tell your father. I’ll give up. I’ll leave Morgan to get on with it,” Harry said savagely. He picked up the loose floorboard and dropped it back into place, his face drooping into melancholy. He looked down at the hammer and chisel he still held, then let them slip from his fingers. He looked like a man who had climbed nearly to the top of a pit, and was sliding down again.

“I won’t speak to Father now. I’ll give you two days,” Prudence said in the clipped, decisive voice that Englishwomen use to intimidate foreigners on the Golden Arrow.

MORGAN walked halfway up Furlong Hill with Hester before he was overtaken by ill-health. He clapped one hand to his side, waved a hand weakly in the air, and leant against a tree for support.

“I can’t go on,” he said.

“What’s wrong, Morgan?”

“It’s a pain at my heart, that’s all. I suppose it’s nothing, really.”

“Have you ever had trouble with your heart before?”

“I’ve suspected for years that there was something wrong.”

Hester looked at him thoughtfully. In the short time she had known him he had suffered from his liver, his appendix, and his tonsils. She knew nothing of how to treat a hypochondriac invalid.

“Are you unhappy about something, Morgan?” she asked.

“Unhappy? I feel as though I was being knifed,” he said in a gasping voice.

“But is there something else troubling you, Morgan?”

He groaned. “My heart!”

She sat down beside him. “We must wait until you’re better.”

“Hester? Did you see some strangers in the village?”

“I didn’t notice. Probably. It’s August, Morgan,” she said impatiently. “The village is always full of tandem bicycles or foreigners doing England in a one-day coach tour.”

“Your father told me this was quiet country where strangers never came.”

“It’s not Father’s fault that England is small and everyone has a holiday in August. Would you like to come home and rest?”

Morgan rose, wincing, and hobbled painfully down the hill. The path plunged steeply through the woods. He looked at it nervously, as though he thought it had been mined.