Valentine Williams - Dead Man Manor

He had turned to regain the road when a slight rustle in the bushes caught his ear. Startled, he swung about sharply. But the forsaken gardens lay quiet and silent in the sunlight—there was not so much as the swaying of a leaf to betray the presence of any living creature. He laughed to himself and with his finger eased his collar. The unrelieved solitude of the place was getting on his nerves, he decided—anyway, it was high time he was pushing on to the village. It was only at the foot of the hill—in a very few minutes now he’d know whether Dudley Hunter had sent him on a wild-goose chase. . . .

At that moment he was aware of a face looking out at him through the foliage, a face, dark as an Indian’s and framed in matted hair, with a single, savage eye that glared at him and a mouth that slavered through black and broken teeth. It was visible only for the fraction of a second, then it vanished as noiselessly as it had appeared, and Mr. Treadgold found himself regarding the trembling tangle of greenery.

He sprang towards the tree, forcing his way through the underbrush. ‘Hey, you there!’ he called peremptorily, ‘come out of that, d’you hear?’ But not a twig stirred—once more brooding silence had descended upon the grounds. In a voice made harsh by the fright he had received, he repeated the summons. His cry, echoed back from the house, fell dead, and with a baffled shrug, he disentangled a thistle from his stocking and made briskly for the gate.

Ten minutes later he was passing the first houses of St. Florentin. The village street, with its bleak frame dwellings, each with its small platform supported on struts before it, was deserted, except for the swarms of black-haired, barefoot little children squatted on almost every porch—he had already discovered that French Canada is the land of large families. The whole colour scheme of the village was russet—russet-gravelled roadway, russet fences, russet houses—and there was a characteristic odour in the air as of charred wood. He was chilled by a sense of isolation. The houses, each with its rounded clay bake-oven at the side, were so primitive, hoisted on low stilts like the huts of some native village: the silhouettes of the men in the fields so unfamiliar—broad-brimmed straw hats, pale yellow corduroy breeches, woollen socks and boots reaching halfway up the calf: the names over the shops so quaint—why, they were pure Balzac! Euclide Fortin, Druggist: Evariste Laliberté, Butcher: Narcisse Laframboise, Baker.

Ruffier’s store, Mr. Treadgold knew, was at the far end of the village, with a gasoline pump before it—Dudley Hunter had been coming from Trois-Ponts and had stopped at the store for gas: he had said that Ruffier’s was the first pump he had encountered on entering St. Florentin. Several of the village shops boasted pumps, Mr. Treadgold noticed—there was even one outside a somewhat flyblown sweet-stuff shop styling itself, rather pathetically, ‘Restaurant de la Gaieté.’

Then with a thrill he saw a faded blue signboard inscribed ‘Joseph Ruffier, Marchand Général.’

The store was a dusty, twilight place, crammed to the rafters with a bewildering jumble of merchandise, from canned goods to wooden hay-forks, from bolts of cloth and bedding to storm lanterns and stovepipes. High under the roof a row of women’s dresses swaying eerily on a wire might have been Bluebeard’s wives strung up in their forbidden chamber, and in the dim background a suit of cotton jeans dangling from a hook suggested a farmhand who has hanged himself in a barn.

A pallid woman in a blue-and-white frock appeared behind one of the counters as Mr. Treadgold entered. ‘Is Mr. Joseph Ruffier in?’ he asked in English and, perceiving that she had not understood, repeated the question in French.

‘Un petit instant, Monsieur!’ Noiseless in felt slippers she glided to the back of the shop.

A moment later a man, who might have been in his late forties, came out enquiringly from behind a stack of packing-cases. A pen was behind his ear and he had a ledger in his hand, as though he were taking an inventory. He wore a cloth cap and had discarded coat and vest. His blue shirt and dark trousers belted at the waist were neat—in station he looked distinctly superior to the general run of villager.

‘Mr. Ruffier?’ said the visitor.

The storekeeper shot him a quick, appraising glance. His eyes were small and lively. ‘C’est moi-même, Monsieur,’ he replied guardedly, and added rather thickly, ‘No onderstan’ English!’

Mr. Treadgold was so excited that he could scarcely speak. With an effort he pulled himself together. ‘Then I’ll try to explain myself in French,’ he said in that language. ‘I’ve come on rather a curious mission. About a month ago an American gentleman, a friend of mine in New York, stopped here to buy some gas. . .’

He spoke slowly, framing his sentences in his mind ahead as was his custom when speaking French. His measured diction seemed to make the storekeeper restless. ‘That may well be,’ he broke in rather impatiently.

‘On that occasion,’ said Mr. Treadgold, looking at Ruffier sharply, ‘you showed my friend an envelope of old stamps, and asked him if he’d care to buy them. But my friend isn’t interested in such things—besides, he was in a hurry and wouldn’t stop. On his return to New York, however, he mentioned the incident to me and, as I happened to be in your neighbourhood on a fishing holiday, I thought I’d run over and ask you to let me look at them.’

All this, Mr. Treadgold got off very glibly. He was warming to his task and his French was going well. He glanced up hopefully to see to his dismay the storekeeper solemnly shaking his head.

‘There’s some mistake,’ he protested stolidly. ‘I’ve no stamps to sell!’ His arm described a wide arc. ‘You see what I am, a general merchant. I sell almost everything. But not old stamps. I regret!’ He turned away and began to arrange a shelf.

‘Yet my friend was quite specific,’ the other persisted. ‘Is there anyone here to whom he could have spoken except yourself?’

‘Nobody but my wife. Your friend may have bought his gasoline elsewhere. My name is not uncommon. . .’

‘Is there another Joseph Ruffier in the village?’

The man shrugged. ‘For that, no! But the gentleman may have got the name of the village wrong?’

‘Out of the question! My friend is a most accurate-minded person. He couldn’t be mistaken about a thing like that!’

With an indifferent air Ruffier hoisted his shoulders once more and fell silent.

But Mr. Treadgold was not so easily beaten. He had no doubt that the stamps were there. The only thing was, he had been too eager—he had shown his hand too soon: the fellow was merely stalling, to put up the price. The time had come to talk straight, he decided.

‘My friend,’ he said, putting his hands on the counter and leaning forward to look the other in the eye, ‘I’m going to be frank with you. I’m a collector of old stamps and I’m prepared to pay a reasonable price for any you have for sale!’

Ruffier’s face darkened. ‘But I tell you I have no stamps!’ he cried angrily.

Mr. Treadgold smiled amiably and, producing his wallet, extracted a five-dollar bill, which he laid on the counter. ‘You play poker, Monsieur Ruffier?’

The storekeeper frowned—he was puzzled. ‘Yes,’ he said dubiously.

‘Eh bien, I’ll see you—for five dollars!’

Ruffier stared at him hard, then at the note. Thinking that the man had not grasped his meaning, Mr. Treadgold elucidated further.

‘There’s five dollars! It’s yours for the sight of any old stamps you happen to have in your possession. And,’ he added, ‘I won’t deduct it from the price, if we come to terms!’