The Rising of the Moon (Mrs. Bradley), page 24
“It’s getting very late,” said he, looking out of the window. “Think we’d better be getting back?”
“I suppose so. Nobody will worry, though. They’ll think we’re still with Christina.”
He agreed, but we decided, all the same, to go home. We cleared up the mess we had made, and went down to show Mrs. Cockerton our trove and to ask whether we might keep it. She assented graciously, praised Keith’s industry and intelligence when he explained that he and Jack were making a model yacht, complimented me on my foresight in mending my fishing-net and in deciding to manufacture what she called an elegant and instructive weapon, and then showed us out through the scullery.
We had reached the gate, and were about to scramble over when Keith said suddenly.
“She never showed us the copper.”
“She didn’t intend to. She was joking when she said it was goat.” He looked obstinate, and said he must see it.
“You don’t want to see the copper now,” I objected. It was almost dark. The moon would rise within an hour. June would be worried and Jack annoyed.
“But I do,” he insisted. “Nothing would console me if I didn’t see the copper. The copper, Sim, is mysterious and improbable. I mean, its contents are. Sim, we must see it. It’s the only thing worth seeing in the house.”
I could not agree, but he seemed so much set on it that it would have been unkind to have gainsaid him.
“O.K.,” said I. “Let’s go back.”
So we returned to the scullery door. Mrs. Cockerton was upstairs. We could hear her singing.
“No time to lose,” said Keith. I made no response to this, but whipped the wooden lid off the copper.
“And now,” said I, laughing, “to see Bluebeard’s eighth wife.”
We peered in. I ceased to laugh. The contents of the copper were indescribable. Even after this considerable lapse of time I cannot bring myself to speak of them in detail.
“And now,” said Keith, with his teeth chattering, “do you still think we didn’t need to look?”
“All I want is to be sick,” I said. Keith was sick. His stomach was always far more delicate than mine. He went outside to the drain, and got there just in time. “But what does it mean?” I demanded, following him out.
“It means we’ve got to get out of here quick,” he replied.
We were not quick enough, however. There was a slight noise in the doorway connecting the scullery with the kitchen, and there stood Mrs. Cockerton.
What she saw in our faces I do not know, but she came forward and said at once:
“So, gentlemen, you halt upon the order of your going?”
“No,” gasped Keith. He seized my arm. “We’re just off. Coming, Sim?”
“Stay a moment, gentlemen,” said Mrs. Cockerton. Keith shrank against me as she stepped towards us. I put my arm round his shoulders, and stood my ground.
“You can talk to me,” I said. “I’m sorry we didn’t go when we said we would, but—”
“But I am not sorry, Mr. Innes,” said she; and nothing, I think, had ever horrified and fascinated me quite so much as the fact that her face and her tone and voice were the same as we had always known them. “You have seen what you have seen. We will not particularize. Yet, gentlemen, there is only to-night if you are to have the benefit of my advice and experience. We must lay this Attila by the heels. I know where he works, and we must apprehend him. Gentlemen, I depend upon your co-operation and support. Are you with me?”
“I don’t understand,” said I.
“It is simple. To-night, without benefit of clergy or police, you and I will rid this town of its scourge.” To my amazement, Keith, rallying, and putting away my arm from his neck, said loudly:
“Very well, Mrs. Cockerton. We’re on.”
“Spoken like a prince,” said she. She looked at me. I could do nothing but nod my head. What idea Keith had in his I did not know, but he had given a lead which I felt compelled to follow. “By moonlight, then,” she added.
“By moonlight, then,” said I. “And where, by moonlight, Mrs. Cockerton?”
“At the end of Drum Lane. We shall adventure from the Royal Horseguardsman, unless you prefer the Lamb, the Marquess of Granby, the Barge Aground, the Half Moon and Seven Stars, the Black Boy and Still, the Magpie and Stump, or the Duke of Cambridge.”
“What’s the matter with the Pigeons?” asked Keith.
“Vulgarized since the murder behind the public bar,” said Mrs. Cockerton blandly; and I have never been so much afraid of anyone in my whole life as I was at that moment of this odd but respectable old creature in her wide gown and rusty black hat; yet, so normal was her manner, and so much in keeping with all we knew of her was her conversation, that I began to feel within my breast a twinge of doubt which refused, at the moment, to be stifled.
“The Horseguardsman, then,” said I. She bowed, conducted us through the house to the front door, and watched us go. As we walked briskly homeward, for it was now getting late, and was, in any case, far past the time that June liked us to be out in the evening since the murders had made everybody nervous, I was wondering how we should make certain of leaving the house when the moon rose. Keith’s mind, it seemed, was similarly occupied, for, as we passed the Butts, he asked:
“How shall we manage it, I wonder?”
“As usual,” said I. “Fairly early to bed, and slip out. Nothing else to be done. I wonder who it was in the copper?”
“I don’t mean that,” said Keith. “How shall we lay her by the heels?”
We were home by nine, but June and Jack were very angry. We could not incriminate Christina by pretending that she had kept us out until that hour, so we made no particular response to Jack’s demands to be told where we had been and what we had been doing, and were sent to bed without supper.
“Good enough,” said Keith. “I could not have eaten a thing, and shan’t be able to for days.”
“What do you think Mrs. Cockerton knows?” I asked. “And how much hand did she have in it?” He shook his head, and began to take off his pull-over, looking in the dressing-table mirror as he did so.
“It doesn’t seem to show,” he said, “but I have aged ten years since tea-time. I don’t know what she knows, Sim, but we’ll have to find out to-night.”
We washed well, as we were going to meet Mrs. Cockerton again, but were soon in bed. We had thought it best to undress completely, in case Jack or June should decide to come upstairs and make sure, as we had been sent to bed in disgrace, that we were not in mischief. It was a sensible precaution, for June came soon after half-past nine, and found us blamelessly in bed, our clothes folded on chairs, our faces clean, and our breasts rising and falling in innocent, boyish slumber.
“Suspicious cat,” said Keith, when she had gone. He sat up. “How soon, Sim, do you think?”
“Give it another half hour, but don’t go to sleep if you can help it.”
“I shan’t, don’t worry. I keep thinking—”
“That’s enough. Let’s forget it,” said I, for I did not want him to enlarge upon what we had seen. I had contrived to get my stomach and my visual imagination more or less under control, and I did not want this precarious triumph undone. Keith was silent. We lay in the darkness and listened. Jack and June came upstairs soon after ten. Impatient though we were to be gone, we felt impelled to wait until we could be fairly sure that our brother and his wife were in bed. At twenty-past ten it seemed safe to make a move. We got up and dressed, and left the house by what had become our usual nocturnal route.
“I wonder what she really wants with us?” said Keith, as we caught our first sight of the rising moon where, large, round and orange, she lay low down in the sky, apparently on the other side of the canal.
“It’s too late, anyway. I expect she thought we’d be here much earlier than this,” said I. “The Royal Horseguardsman will be closed by the time we get there. I really believe, you know, she’s crazy. I hope she’s not there, and I’ll tell you what. I’m not going inside that shop of hers again for anything she offers.”
I was wondering, in fact, as we walked soberly along towards the rendezvous, what had induced us to obey her command (for it had amounted to that) and come at all. The more I thought of it, as we trudged along Drum Lane and down to the high street end of it, the less I could see any sense in what we were doing.
“I suppose,” said Keith, as though he were reading my thoughts, “we are committed to this adventure? We promised, didn’t we? I don’t feel as keen on finding out about her as I did.”
“Well, as a gentleman of honour,” said I, as I felt my sabre flap against my thigh, “I don’t see how we can disappoint a lady.”
“Um!” said Keith. “I suppose she is a lady? You don’t think she’d lead us into a trap, and cut our throats for us?”
“If she tries, we must sell our lives dearly,” I responded. “The thing that worries me about that, though, is whether we ought to set about her with these weapons which, after all, she gave us.”
“We’re fools to come,” said Keith.
I stopped short outside the Horseguardsman, and looked at him.
“We’ll be all right,” said I. “There are plenty of people about. We must meet her, and refuse to go anywhere with her, that’s all. I always thought she was to be trusted until she married the rag and bone man, but now, to tell the truth, I don’t know what to think. I wish you hadn’t agreed to meet her to-night. Why did you?”
“I don’t know now,” said he. “Would it hurt to step across the road and let Mr. Seabrook know what she told us this evening?”
“That she could lead us to the murderer? Well, it’s difficult. One would think, if she wanted the police to know, she would have told them.”
“Yes,” said he, doubtfully. “I was a fool to let you in for this. I thought it might be a scheme to go with her and find out what she was up to, but I’d give a lot to be out of it now.”
“What do you think she felt when she knew we’d seen what was in the copper?” I enquired.
“We ought to let somebody know about that, at any rate,” said Keith, “and here comes a policeman.”
“Tell Mr. Seabrook to look in the antique copper,” he said to the man. “He’ll understand.”
The man was about to reply when all conversation was arrested, for there beside us was Mrs. Cockerton herself, having just been turned out of the Horseguardsman private bar. The policeman had moved away, and I do not think Mrs. Cockerton had noticed him.
“Ah, nice of you,” she said. “You have elegant manners in the keeping of appointments, gentlemen. Shall we go immediately to the lair, or shall we break our journey for bite and sup at my house?”
“I thought your lease expired when the moon rose, Mrs. Cockerton?” said Keith. She looked up at the round orb.
“I have left matters full late, full late,” she admitted. “Come, then, to Dead Man’s Bridge.”
“Where we saw the murderer,” said Keith. She looked at him with curious intentness, then turned and began to lead the way along the high street.
Our high street is narrow and long; so long that in the year 1748 the inhabitants at one end of it insisted that the parish church at the other end was too far from their homes, and demanded a Chapel of Ease. From where we were it was a mile and a quarter to walk to the canal, and another mile and a half to Dead Man’s Bridge. By the time we arrived at the Bridge, the moon, I deduced, would be high enough in the gentle summer sky to give almost a daylight visibility. What we could expect to see by its waxing radiance I had not the faintest idea. I felt nervous and excited, and found myself to be filled with the greatest reluctance to embark upon this extraordinary night stroll with an old woman, who, whatever her value as a friend and companion, was, according to our standards, as mad as a hatter, and almost certainly a murderess.
Keith, it seemed, had similar feelings. No sooner had we passed the mouth of Saint George’s Court, beside which nobody now lingered even by daylight, than he touched my arm, and, as the pavement narrowed at the beginning of the long and gradual descent to the Half Acre, he fell in behind Mrs. Cockerton and I behind him.
She turned her head, but, finding us to be meekly following, lengthened her stride and took us at a pace which kept us alternately striding and trotting at her heels. We passed her shop almost at the double, and neither she nor we so much as hesitated. On we went, to see the now risen moon reflected in the empty windows of shops, and crossed the Half Acre and went into the oldest part of the town. We passed the mouth of Catherine Wheel Yard, but were on the opposite side of the high street, went past our oldest inn, the Castle, whose foundations were said to date from the time of King Henry the Fourth, arrived at the market square and passed it, and so came up the round slope to the high street bridge over the canal.
As we began to mount, Keith stumbled and I cannoned into him. He clasped me as though to hold me up, muttered, “Bunk for it when I say. We’ve done enough to keep our promise,” and set off again after Mrs. Cockerton, who had halted for a moment to allow us to catch up.
We were accustomed, both of us, to following a plan made suddenly by the other. My nebulous fears had crystallized. I now felt certain that I did not want to go to Dead Man’s Bridge, along the towing-path or by any other route, with Mrs. Cockerton, and I now feared her almost as much as the rag and bone man himself.
We crossed the bridge and dropped down the soft earthy slope to the towing-path and the lock. There were people about, and men still awake on the barges. We heard a baby crying, and a man’s harsh voice bidding the woman in charge of it to hush it and let him have his sleep. Somewhere a dog barked, and from the old tower of Saint Anthony’s the clock began to chime.
The moon grew smaller and more luminous. She was gibbous. The effect was of a fairy tale, unreal, dreamlike, and pretty. The summer weeds by the canal bank were long and lush. Summer grasses grew in the hedge. The hawthorn flowers were long past, and the leaves were thick and close-set. On the opposite bank tall trees stood black against the moonlight, and before us we saw the heavy lines and thick, silhouetted girders of the railway bridge across the water.
It was quite light under the bridge except in the one shadowed patch against the wall. I walked on behind my younger brother, feeling settled, serene, and almost happy. I knew he had a plan in his head, and there was no sense in having two plans. I was prepared to act upon his nod, and to act at once.
We lagged a little upon approaching the bridge, allowed our guide to come out on the other side of it, and then trotted through. She turned her head and laughed.
“You do not like the bridge, gentlemen?” she asked us, over her shoulder. We laughed, too, politely, and did not answer. Beyond the bridge the towing-path made a long bend to the lock, and beyond the lock was a footbridge which took the towing-path over the canal and alongside those fields, among which was Mr. Taylor’s field, which bordered the Manor Road.
Beneath our feet the towing-path had turned soft and loose, like Rotten Row in Hyde Park, where people can gallop their horses. Our footsteps made no sound.
“Are you there?” Mrs. Cockerton asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Keith, almost on her heels. On the words he added, “But my bootlace is coming undone.”
He stopped, and I stopped. He faced round. Our guide strode on like a Scotswoman walking over heather. We took to our heels, and ran as we had never run in our lives. The long bend was in our favour. Almost at once she lost sight of us.
“Let me get in front,” gasped Keith. “I must make the pace. I can’t keep up with your stride. Let’s hope that policeman’s got some sense!”
He shot past me on the hedge side, and we did not slacken until we gained the bridge.
We had reckoned without our host. Mrs. Cockerton, running like a miler, came into sight round the bend.
“The Leys, when we get into the high street,” said I. “She’ll never catch up with us there.”
We were hard pressed, however. One would have supposed that two boys would readily lose contact with an old lady cluttered up by petticoats, but this was not the case. Mrs. Cockerton ran like a Spartan, and was going strongly, and even gaining on us a little, as we scrambled up the slope and on to the road.
Chapter Twenty
The Old Woman
The high street, fortunately, was deserted. A last dash took us down Church Alley and on to the Leys. We turned the corner by the first row of cottages, and dropped into a walk, straining our ears for the sounds of pursuit. There was nothing to be heard except our own echoing footsteps past the blank and lifeless houses.
Then we heard her, but not until we were on the grass verge of the path which led to the village of barges. Terror had lent me wits. It seemed to me that by far our best chance of eluding Mrs. Cockerton was to cross the plank bridge which was laid from side to side of the hopper, and then jump from boat to boat until we gained Catherine Wheel Yard, up which we could dart to the high street so long as she did not see which way we went.
I did not communicate this scheme to Keith. There was no need. By virtue of longer legs and deeper lungs, I was in command now. It was later, very much later, that I remembered the dog. He gave tongue as soon as we approached, and we heard Mrs. Cockerton beginning to run again, for now she knew where we were.
“Quick!” said Keith. “Get on quick!” I had always supposed him to have much stronger nerves than I had, but it was evident that, on this occasion, at any rate, his nerve had failed him. Risking an attack from the dog, which was off the chain, and stood, a silhouette of bristling rage, on the half-deck of one of the mudbound boats, I took the lead and unerringly found my plank bridge. Somebody growled at the dog, but nobody tried to stop us. We crossed the hollow hopper and jumped from gunwale to gunwale of four boats which lay between us and the concrete bank of the further side of the basin, and jumped for the bank.
