Dead Water

Miss Cost gave a shrill laugh.

Before Mrs Barrimore could answer, Dr Maine said very coolly, ‘You’re perfectly right. I have benefited like all the rest of you. But as far as my practice is concerned, I believe Miss Pride’s activities will make very little difference, in the long run. Either to it or to the popular appeal of the Spring. Sick people who are predisposed to the idea, will still think they know better. Or hope they know better,’ he added. ‘Which is, I suppose, much the same thing.’

‘That’s all damn’ fine but it won’t be the same thing to the community at large,’ Barrimore angrily pointed out. ‘Tom, Dick and Harry and their friends and relations, swarming all over the place. The Island, a tripper’s shambles, and the Press making a laughing-stock of the whole affair.’ He emptied his glass.

‘And the Festival!’ Miss Cost wailed. ‘The Festival! All our devotion! The response! The disappointment. The humiliation!’ She waved her hands. A thought struck her. ‘And Wally! He has actually memorized! After weeks of patient endeavour, he has memorized his little verses. Only this afternoon. One trivial slip. The choir is utterly committed.’

‘I’ll be bound!’ said Mr Nankivell heartily. ‘A credit to all concerned and a great source of gratification to the borough if looked at in the proper spirit. We’m all waiting on the doctor, however,’ he added. ‘Now, Doctor, what is it to be? What’ll you say to the lady?’

‘Exactly what I said two minutes ago to you,’ Dr Maine snapped. ‘I’ll give my opinion if she wants it. I don’t mind pointing out to her that the thing will probably go on after a fashion, whatever she does.’

‘I suppose that’s something,’ said the Mayor gloomily. ‘Though not much, with an elderly female so deadly set on destruction.’

‘I,’ Miss Cost intervened hotly, ‘shall not mince my words. I shall tell her – No,’ she amended with control. ‘I shall plead with her. I shall appeal to the nobler side. Let us hope that there is one. Let us hope so.’

‘I second that from the chair,’ said Mr Nankivell. ‘Though with reservations prejudicial to an optimistic view. Major?’

‘What’ll I do? I’ll try and reason with her. Give her a straight picture of the incontrovertible cures. If the man of science,’ Major Barrimore said with a furious look at Dr Maine, ‘would come off his high horse and back me up, I might get her to listen. As it is –’ he passed his palm over his hair and gave a half-smile, ‘I’ll do what I can with the lady. I want another drink. Anyone join me?’

The Mayor and, after a little persuasion, Miss Cost, joined him. He made towards the old private bar. As he opened the door, he admitted sounds of voices and of people crossing the flagstones to the main entrance.

Patrick looked in. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said to his mother. ‘The bus load’s arrived.’

She got up quickly. ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

His step-father said: ‘Damn! All right.’ And to the others. ‘I won’t be long. Pat, look after the drinks, here, will you? Two double Scotches and a glass of the sweet port.’

He went out followed by his wife and Patrick and could be heard welcoming his guests. ‘Good evening! Good evening to you! Now, come along in. You must all be exhausted. Awfully glad to see you –’

His voice faded.

There was a brief silence.

‘Yes,’ said the Mayor. ‘Yes. Be-the-way, we didn’t get round to axing the lady’s view, did we? Mrs Barrimore?’

For some reason they all looked extremely uncomfortable.

Miss Cost gave a shrill laugh.

IV

‘“;– and I’d take it as a personal favour”,’ Alleyn dictated, ‘“if you could spare a man to keep an eye on the Island when Miss Pride arrives there. Very likely nothing will come of these communications but, as we all know, they can lead to trouble. I ought to warn you that Miss Pride, though eighty-three, is in vigorous possession of all her faculties and if she drops to it that you’ve got her under observation, she may cut up rough. No doubt, like all the rest of us, you’re under-staffed and won’t thank me for putting you to this trouble. If your chap does notice anything out of the way, I would be very glad to hear of it. Unless a job blows up to stop me, I’m grabbing an overdue week’s leave from tomorrow and will be at the above address.

‘“Again – sorry to be a nuisance,

Yours sincerely,”

‘All right. Got the name? Superintendent A. F. Coombe, Divisional HQ, wherever it is – at Portcarrow itself, I fancy. Get it off straight away, will you?’

When the letter had gone he looked at his watch. Five minutes past midnight. His desk was cleared and his files closed. The calendar showed Monday. He flipped it over. ‘I should have written before,’ he thought. ‘My letter will arrive with Miss Emily.’ He was ready to leave, but, for some reason, dawdled there, too tired, suddenly, to make a move. After a vague moment or two he lit his pipe, looked round his room and walked down the long corridor and the stairs, wishing the PC on duty at the doors good night.

It was his only superstition. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs.’

As he drove away down the Embankment he thought: ‘Damned if I don’t ring that Super up in the morning: be damned if I don’t.’

CHAPTER 3 (#ud0ede4ae-c876-53ba-8e32-c1c50af5b7ea)

Threats (#ud0ede4ae-c876-53ba-8e32-c1c50af5b7ea)

Miss Emily arrived at noon on Monday. She had stayed overnight in Dorset and was as fresh as paint. It was agreeable to be able to command a chauffeur-driven car and the man was not unintelligent.

When they drew up at Portcarrow jetty she gave him a well-considered tip, asked his name and told him she would desire, particularly, that he should be deputed for the return journey.

She then alighted, observed by a small gang of wharf loiterers.

A personable young man came forward to meet her.

‘Miss Pride? I’m Patrick Ferrier. I hope you had a good journey.’

Miss Emily was well-disposed towards the young and, she had good reason to believe, a competent judge of them. She inspected Patrick and received him with composure. He introduced a tall, glowing girl who came forward, rather shyly, to shake hands. Miss Emily had less experience of girls but she liked the look of this one and was gracious.

‘The causeway is negotiable,’ Patrick said, ‘but we thought you’d prefer the launch.’

‘It is immaterial,’ she rejoined. ‘The launch, let it be.’

Patrick and the chauffeur handed her down the steps. Trehern stowed away her luggage and was profuse in cap-touching. They shoved-off from the jetty, still watched by idlers among whom, conspicuous in his uniform, was a police sergeant. ‘’Morning, Pender!’ Patrick called cheerfully as he caught sight of him.

In a motor launch, the trip across was ludicrously brief but even so Miss Emily, bolt upright in the stern, made it portentous. The sun shone and against it she displayed her open umbrella as if it were a piece of ceremonial plumage. Her black kid gloves gripped the handle centrally and her handbag, enormous and vice-like in its security, was placed between her feet. She looked, Patrick afterwards suggested, like some Burmese female deity. ‘We should have arranged to have had her carried, shoulder-high, over the causeway,’ he said.

Major Barrimore, with a porter in attendance, awaited her on the jetty. He resembled, Jenny thought, an illustration from an Edwardian sporting journal. ‘Well-tubbed’ was the expression. His rather prominent eyes were a little bloodshot. He had to sustain the difficult interval that spanned approach and arrival and decide when to begin smiling and making appropriate gestures. Miss Emily gave him no help. Jenny and Patrick observed him with misgivings. ‘Good morning!’ he shouted, gaily bowing, as they drew alongside. Miss Emily slightly raised and lowered her umbrella.

‘That’s right, Trehern. Easy does it. Careful, man,’ Major Barrimore chattered. ‘Heave me that line. Splendid!’ He dropped the loop over a bollard and hovered, anxiously solicitous, with extended arm. ‘Welcome! Welcome!’ he cried.

‘Good morning, Major Barrimore,’ Miss Emily said. ‘Thank you. I can manage perfectly.’ Disregarding Trehern’s outstretched hand, she looked fixedly at him. ‘Are you the father?’ she asked.

Trehern removed his cap and grinned with all his might. ‘That I be, ma-am,’ he said. ‘If you be thinking of our Wally, ma-am, that I be, and mortal proud to own up to him.’

‘I shall see you, if you please,’ said Miss Emily, ‘later.’ For a second or two everyone was motionless.

She shook hands with her host.

‘This is nice,’ he assured her. ‘And what a day we’ve produced for you! Now, about these steps of ours. Bit stiff, I’m afraid. May I –?’

‘No, thank you. I shall be sustained in my ascent,’ said Miss Emily, fixing Miss Cost’s shop and then the hotel façade in her gaze, ‘by the prospect.’

She led the way up the steps.

‘’Jove!’ the Major exclaimed when they arrived at the top. ‘You’re too good for me, Miss Pride. Wonderful going! Wonderful!’