A Red Herring Without Mustard

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Of course he does. I’d forgotten. Well, then, I’d better be getting along. I think you’d best lie down for a while, Miss Mountjoy. You’re still quite pale. A nosebleed takes so much out of one, doesn’t it? Iron, and so forth. You must be quite worn out.”

I led her to the little parlor I had seen at the front of the house and helped her recline on a horsehair settee. I covered her with an afghan, and left her clutching at it with white fingers.

“I’ll see myself out,” I said.

ELEVEN

LIKE AN ACTOR IN the pantomime muddling his way out from behind the curtains, I pushed aside the hanging willow branches and stepped out from the green gloom and into the blinding glare of the sun’s spotlight.

Time was running out. Inspector Hewitt and his men were probably minutes away and my work was hardly begun.

Since Brookie’s van was directly in front of me, I’d begin there. I glanced quickly up and down the street. There was no one in sight.

One of the van’s windows was rolled all the way down: obviously just as Brookie had left it. Here was a bit of luck!

Father was always going on about the importance of carrying a handkerchief at all times, and for once he was right. Opening the door would leave my fingerprints on the nickel-plated handle. A clean bit of linen was just the ticket.

But the handle wouldn’t budge, although it did give off an alarming groan that hinted of extensive rust beneath. One thing that I didn’t need was to have a van door fall off and go clattering into the street.

I stepped up onto the running board (another metallic groan) and used my elbows to lever myself into position. With my stomach on the bottom of the window frame, I was able to hinge the top half of my body into the van, leaving my legs and feet sticking straight out in the air for balance.

With the handkerchief wrapped round my hand, I pressed on the glove compartment’s release button, and when it popped open, reached inside and pulled out a small packet. It was, as I thought it might be, the registration papers for the van.

I almost let out a cheer! Now I would find out Brookie’s real address, which I somehow doubted would be Willow Villa.

Edward Sampson, the document said. Rye Road, East Finching.

I knew well enough where East Finching was: It lay about five miles by road to the north of Bishop’s Lacey.

But who was Edward Sampson? Other than being the owner of the van from which my bottom was probably projecting like a lobster’s claw from a trap—I hadn’t the faintest idea.

I shoved the papers back into the glove compartment and pushed home the panel.

Now for the coach house.

“Come along, Gladys,” I said, taking her from where she had been waiting. No sense having my presence detected by leaving her parked in plain view.

Because of the peculiar shape of Miss Mountjoy’s property, the coach house was located at the end of a hedge-lined L-shaped lane that ran along one side and across the back. I tucked Gladys out of sight behind a box hedge and proceeded on foot.

As I approached the building, I could see that the term “coach house” was no more than a courtesy title. In fact, it was almost a joke.

The building was square, with bricks on the bottom floor and boards on the top. The windows were coated with the kind of opaque film that tells of neglect and cobwebs; the kind of windows that watch you.

The door had once been painted, but had blistered away to reveal gray, weathered wood that matched the un-painted boards of the upper story.

I wrapped my hand in the handkerchief and tried the latch. The door was locked.

The first-floor windows were too high to gain entry, and the tangle of ivy on a broken trellis too fragile to climb. A rickety ladder leaned wearily against the wall, too dangerous to be pressed into service. I decided to try round the back.

I had to be careful. Only a sagging wooden fence and a narrow walkway separated the rear of the coach house from Miss Mountjoy’s overhanging willow tree: I’d have to crouch and run, like a commando on the beach.

At the end of the fence, on the left side of the walkway, was a wire compound attached to the coach house, from which issued, as I approached, an excited clucking. Inside the compound, there was a cage no more than two feet high—rather less, in fact—and in it was the biggest rooster I had ever seen: so large that he had to strut about his cage with stooped shoulders.

As soon as he saw me the bird made for the wires that separated us, fluttering up towards my face with a frightening rustle of wings. My first instinct was to take to my heels—but then I saw the pleading look in his marmalade eye.

He was hungry!

I took a handful of feed from a box that was nailed to the framework of the cage and tossed it through the mesh. The rooster fell upon the stuff like a wolf upon Russian travelers, his comb, as red as paper poppies, bobbing busily up and down as if it were driven by steam.