Dennis Wheatley - Contraband

The Strange Tenant of Quex Park

Five minutes later Mrs. Bird put her head round the door and announced: 'Baked beans and very good butter, all good people come to supper.'

Gregory smiled at the old tag as they followed her out of the hall and down the stone flagged passage. He had managed to convince the Inspector of the real menace to Britain which lay behind the modern smuggling racket, and given him particulars of the secret depot on the Calais downs, after an agreement had been reached that they should pool their intelligence for the future.

Those were the best terms he could get, as he had never intended for one moment to withhold such vital information and he had demanded immunity for Sabine only in the hope that he might be able to trap the Inspector into making some promise which might prove useful later, while knowing quite well that the officer had no power to release her once she had been arrested.

In Mrs. Bird's cosy sitting room they found Rudd busily dishing up generous portions of scrambled eggs on to large squares of thick hot toast.

All four of them set to with gusto having acquired a remarkable appetite from their night's adventures. When they had done the Inspector turned to their hostess.

'Now you're satisfied that I'm a police officer, Mrs. Bird, I'm sure you won't object to my asking you a few questions.'

'Ask away young man,' she said cheerfully. 'Being a law-abiding woman it's my duty to answer.'

'Good; perhaps you'd tell us then, in your own words, how long you've been here and what you know about the owners of this house.'

'I don't know a thing about them except what I've heard from the gardeners who keeps the place in order. He's a Major Powell Cotton; a fine gentleman and a great hunter, so they say. There's a museum next to the house where he keeps his trophies, lions and tigers and all sorts of fearsome looking beasts, though stuffed of course. He and his wife shot every one themselves, and they're away now in some unchristian place looking for white leopards, if you ever heard of such a thing have been for months and may be for another year so meantime the Park's been let through an agent.'

'I see. Then you're not employed by the owner, but by the tenant.'

'That's right. Lord Gavin Fortescue's his name. He took the place from the March quarter and engaged me himself a few weeks later. Bit of luck for me he did too.'

'Why particularly?'

Mrs. Bird's thick eyebrows shot up into her lined forehead. 'Why you're asking. Well, I'd had a worrying time before. You see, I was housekeeper to a Doctor Chalfont who lived at Dulwich. That was his daughter, Milly, you saw walking in her sleep, poor lamb. Her mother died when she was a baby and I was her nurse. We lived very happy at Dulwich, the Doctor and Milly and me, but last November the Doctor died and when we went into things we found he'd left next to nothing. He was such a generous soul, always a' giving and a' giving and refusing payment from poor patients who couldn't afford it. If we'd ever thought we might have known he never had much chance to save. He was only fifty-two so he probably expected to live a lot longer and put something by, or maybe he thought that Milly would be married before he died.

'Anyhow, we found the house didn't belong to him and the few bits of furniture didn't bring in much after the lawyer was paid, and Milly having no relatives at all it was for me to do the best for her I could. Fortunately I've been a careful woman so I had a bit tucked away in the bank for me old age as you might say, but not enough for the interest on 'it to keep the two of us, even living very quiet, and my money would have gone in a year or so if I hadn't been able to get a job.'

Wells nodded sympathetically and the broad bosomed Mrs. Bird went on: 'One day I saw an advertisement in the paper "Caretaker wanted for country house, occasionally visited by tenants, must be able to cook, no other staff kept." Well, that might not have suited everybody as it looked a lonesome sort of post and most caretakers aren't much good in the kitchen, but it suited me all right so I put on my bonnet and went up to apply, as the advertisement said, to the office of the Carlton Hotel.

'I was shown up to a private sitting room where there was a funny little deformed creature who told me he was Lord Gavin Fortescue and that the advertisement was his. He asked me no end of questions about the doctor and the life I'd led, but in the end he seemed satisfied and agreed that Milly might live in the house with me too. He made a point of it that I was to have no other visitors though, even for a cup of tea, because there's all sorts of valuables in the house. He was afraid that if people came to the place they might speak about them to other folk outside and that might lead to a visit from the burglars. Very scared of having burglars in his absence, he was, and he asked me if I was afraid of handling firearms.

'I said I wasn't afraid of burglars or firearms and that seemed to please him quite a lot because he told me he would have put a man in; except that it was so difficult to find a man who could cook. As he flew backwards and forwards from France quite a lot on business he'd be landing in the grounds, sometimes late at night, and want a meal. He put me through it proper about the cooking too, as to what I could do and what not. A very particular gentleman he seemed but it wasn't for me to argue about that so Milly and I moved in last February.'

'That's all nice and clear Mrs. Bird,' the Inspector nodded. 'Now, will you tell us what's been happening since.'

'He didn't come near the place for a month, except to settle us in. It was then he gave me the revolver with instructions that if I saw anybody in the grounds at night I was to shoot first and ask questions afterwards. He said the police wouldn't make any trouble about it, me being a lone woman in a house like this, and that my first duty was to protect the property.

He said too, he'd prefer me not to go into Birchington or any of the other places round about, or make friends with the local people and that I'd have no cause to bother with the tradesmen calling because all our food would be sent down from London, except fresh vegetables and fruit, as it is in big cases marked "Fortnum" and very good food too. Towards the end of April '

'You hardly see a soul apart from the gardeners then?' Gregory interrupted.

'No, and not much of them either. All but one old deaf chap and a couple of lads who look after the glass houses and keep the place tidy have been lent to a charity institution by the owner of the estate while he's away. It's for a big new building they're putting up near Canterbury and a lovely place they're making of it too I'm told. They have to live near their work, of course, so the head gardener's cottage has been empty since we've been here and he only comes over once in a while for an hour or so to see that the others is not neglecting their job.'

'How about the lodge keeper? I suppose there is one in a place like this.'

'Well, he had an accident poor man, soon after we got here.'

'What sort of accident?' Gregory asked quickly.

'Knocked down by a motor car, he was, just outside the park gates, but his Lordship behaved very decent about that. Sent him away to have treatment at Bournemouth, and his wife and children with him all expenses paid.'

Gregory exchanged a significant glance with Wells. 'Then apart from your foster daughter and yourself there is not a single person sleeps on the estate now.'

'That's so, sir.'

'You were going to tell us what happened at the end of April.'

'Well, his little Lordship came down and stayed the night. Then next day a gang of workmen arrived to build a big shed at the edge of the trees on the far side of the house. A few days later he turned up again in an aeroplane which was garaged in the shed. Since then he's been backwards and forwards quite a lot, mostly at night time, and he never stays more than a few hours. Sometimes there's a tall gentleman with him, who's got a game leg and sometimes a dark lady. Very lovely she is; but some sort of foreigner. She was with him tonight and he always has two men too who fly his plane. He gives very little trouble and pays my wages regular as clockwork. Always very civil, too, though silent, and it never entered my head that there could be anything tricky about him until tonight. You wouldn't think it yourself, would you, him being a lord and a rich one into the bargain?'