A Red Herring Without Mustard

She stared at me long and hard, as if thinking. “There are those,” she said, “who work to preserve the foundations upon which their forefathers built. It is not always easy in this day and age …”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said. “I’d give anything to be a Hobbler.”

And in a way it was true. I had visions of myself limping cheerily along a country lane, my arms outstretched for balance, teetering like a tightrope walker, as I veered crazily from hedge to hedge.

“I’m a Hobbler,” I would shout out to everyone as I stumped past.

As I was hobbling to St. Ives …

“Most interesting,” the woman was saying as I came back to reality. “And is your father aware of your aspirations?”

“No!” I said, aghast. “Please don’t tell him! Father is very set in his ways and—”

“I understand,” she said. “We shall let it be our little secret, then. No one but you and I shall know about any of this.”

Hey presto!

“Oh, thank you,” I breathed. “I knew you’d understand.”

As she rattled on about the Act of Toleration, the Five Mile Act, the Countess of Huntingdon, and the Calvinist Connection, I took the opportunity to look around the room.

There wasn’t much to see: the bed, of course, which, now that I had time to think about it, reminded me of the Great Bed of Ware in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In a far corner near a window was a small table with an electric ring and a small kettle, a Brown Betty teapot, a biscuit tin, and a single cup and saucer. Reginald Pettibone was evidently not in the habit of having breakfast with his wife.

“Would you care for a biscuit?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” I said. “I don’t use sugar.”

It was a lie—but an excellent one.

“What an unusual child you are,” she said, and with a wave of the hand towards the tin, she added, “Well, then, perhaps you won’t mind fetching one for me. I have no such scruples.”

I went to the window and reached for the biscuit tin. As I turned, I happened to glance outside—down into the fenced area behind the shop’s back door.

A rusty green van stood with its double doors open, and I knew instantly that it was the one I’d seen parked outside Willow Villa.

As I watched, a powerful man in shirtsleeves stepped into view from somewhere below. It was the bulldog man—the man who had almost caught me in the coach house!

Unless I was sadly mistaken, this would be Edward Sampson, of Rye Road, East Finching—whose name I had found on the papers in the glove compartment.

As I stood rooted to the spot, he reached into the back of the van and dragged out a couple of heavy objects. He turned and, perhaps feeling my eyes upon him, looked straight up at the window where I was standing.

My immediate reaction was to shrink back—to step away from the glass—but I found that I could not. Some remote part of my mind had already spotted a detail that was only now leaking slowly into my consciousness, and I’m afraid I let out a gasp.

The objects gripped in the hands of the bulldog man were Harriet’s firedogs—Sally Fox and Shoppo!

EIGHTEEN

“WHAT IS IT?” THE woman asked. Her voice seemed to be coming from a very great distance.

“It’s—it’s—”

“Yes, dear … what is it?”

It was the “dear” that brought me snapping back. A “dear” or “dearie” to me is about as welcome as a bullet to the brain. I’ve had places reserved in the ha’penny seats of Hell for people who address me in this way.

But I bit my tongue.

“It’s—just that you have such a smashing view from your window,” I said. “The river … Malplaquet Farm … all the way to East Finching and the hills beyond. One would never suspect, walking in the high street, that such a—”

There was a floor-shaking crash from downstairs as some heavy object was dropped. A couple of muffled curses came drifting up through the floorboards.

“Reginald!” the woman shouted, and there was an awkward silence in the depths.

“Men!” she said, loudly enough to make herself heard downstairs. “Windmills on legs.”

“I think I’d better go,” I said. “They’ll be expecting me at home.”

“Very well, dear,” she said. “Run along, then. And don’t forget about those letters. You may bring them whenever you’re able.”

I did not tell her what I was thinking, but rather, gave a very small mock curtsy, then turned and made my way down the narrow stairs.

At the bottom, I glanced towards the back of the shop. Reginald Pettibone and the owner of the van stood staring at me from the shadows. Neither of them moved or spoke, but I knew, in the way we females are supposed to know, that they had been talking about me.

I turned my back on them and walked to the door, stopping only to write my initials casually in the dust that covered an ebony sideboard. I wasn’t exactly afraid, but I knew how an animal trainer in a steel cage must feel when, for the first time, he turns his back on the fierce gaze of a pair of new tigers.

Although she didn’t say so, Gladys seemed happy to see me. I had parked her against a tree across the high street from Pettibone’s shop.