Chapter 16

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EX-DETECTIVE Pank’s enthusiasm for his new avocation seemed, during the next few days, to suffer a temporary decline. He left Norwich early on the following morning for the market town of Fakenham, and he forgot even to take with him a sample of his wonderful heels. He took a commercial traveller’s room at the pleasant old-fashioned hotel, hired a shabby old Ford car from the garage, and spent the whole of that day and the next driving around the vicinity. He found his way to Keynsham Hall and spent at least half an hour gazing with much admiration at this lordly pile from different points of view. He spoke to no one and asked no questions. His chief concern seemed to be to accomplish a curious effort at timing. He drove slowly round the outskirts of the place until he reached the back gates of the Hall. Arrived there, he glanced at his watch and held it to his ear, as though to be sure that it was going. He was just about to settle down in his seat and start off, when he was aware of the approach of a very charming and attractive young woman who was walking with a gun under her arm and a keeper a few yards behind in respectful attendance. To Pank’s surprise she stopped by the side of the car.

“Have you lost your way?” she asked pleasantly.

“Thank you, no, Madam,” he replied, raising his hat. “My old car needs a rest every now and then. I was just starting off.”

She nodded and looked at him with frank curiosity.

“Have you been up to the house?” she enquired. “Did you want anything?”

“I would like to be allowed to go over it some time, Madam,” he admitted, “but I have not been up. I wasn’t sure whether it was shown to visitors. I am having a few days’ holiday in these parts, and I borrowed this old car from the mechanic to drive around.”

“Bad weather for a holiday,” she remarked. “If you want to see the house some time, you may. Say that I gave you permission---Lady Louise.”

She nodded and walked on. Pank looked after her for a moment thoughtfully, then he examined his watch again and started up. He drove steadily and at a fair pace along the byways until he came into the main road for Norwich. Here he continued on his way till he reached the outskirts of the place and pulled up near the lane which led to the golf links. He noted the time and smiled, took out his notebook and made an entry. It had taken him exactly three quarters of an hour to drive from the lodge gates of Keynsham Hall to that little corner in the suburbs of Norwich in which he was interested.

That afternoon ex-detective Pank seemed to develop an unusual vein of laziness. He sat about in the bar parlour of his hotel for several hours, talking amiably to the few visitors and cementing his acquaintance with the young lady behind the bar. A portion of the evening passed in the same fashion and he retired early. The next morning he drove out to the small golf links, made friends with every one connected with the place, borrowed an old-fashioned set of clubs, and greatly disturbed the local professional by very nearly beating him in a round. After lunch he took up his now familiar place in the bar parlour and talked of his exploits to any one who would listen to him. He had several acquaintances now amongst the tradespeople, whose conversation seemed always to interest him. The following morning he spent in more profitable fashion. From ten o’clock until nearly midday he studied the older architecture of Keynsham Hall and devoted himself afterwards to the pictures. The butler, who took him around, a grave and silent man, handed him a manuscript catalogue and left him for the most part to his own devices. Pank’s artfully concealed, but almost desperate attempts to break through his taciturnity were never once rewarded.

“I’ve read about the shooting parties you have here, in the papers; seen pictures of the guests too,” he remarked, as they reached the last gallery.

“Very likely, sir,” the man replied. “As to pictures, though, I can’t remember that I have ever seen one in the illustrated papers. His lordship doesn’t care for that sort of thing.”

“I thought I saw one,” Pank reflected. “Daily Sketch, I think it was. The time the Home Secretary was shooting here.”

The butler strolled away to examine the frame of one of the pictures on which he fancied that he had discovered a fleck of dust. When he returned it was with the polite but obvious desire to show his visitor out. He accepted a ten-shilling note with some apparent reluctance.

“Worth more than that,” Pank said. “But things are not what they were. I daresay you hear that from a good many others besides me---dining-room talk and that sort of thing?”

“I never listen to the conversation which goes on when I am serving,” the man replied. “I have enough to do as a rule to perform my duties.”

“You entertain a good deal here, I suppose?”

“When his lordship is in residence we do. There’s nothing else you would care to see, sir?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

The butler escorted him along the wide corridor which led to the back stairs.

“By-the-by,” the departing visitor confided, “I am no stranger here, you know. I was born in Norwich.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Did you ever have a chauffeur here---a distant relative of mine---name of Bowhill?”

“There was a young man of that name attached to the garage, I believe.”

“Still here?” Pank enquired indifferently.

The butler shook his head.

“He left for Canada some weeks ago. A foolish proceeding, we all thought. Any one in service with his lordship doesn’t often need to change.”

“For Canada,” Park murmured under his breath. “Hard work out there, I should think. Money in it perhaps sometimes, but a hard life.”

“I agree with you, sir. Things here may be difficult, but in England, if you’re in good service, there is always some one to fall back upon.”

The butler resumed his habit of silence. He escorted his charge to the courtyard and pointed to a Gothic door let into the wall.

“Her ladyship said if you cared to look at the gardens---there’s not much there at this time of the year, of course---you could wander about by yourself.”

“Much obliged to her ladyship,” Pank replied. “I’ll just look around for a few moments.”

He took leave of his guide and made his way out into the far-famed gardens. There were a good many men at work but little to be seen except the glass houses. He lit a cigarette and walked slowly about, deep in thought. He was a sensitive little man, sensitive in his nerves and apprehensions, a gift which had helped him towards the few successes he had attained. He was beginning to rely somewhat upon that part of his nature. With the exception of one piece of information, drawn with the utmost difficulty from his guide of the morning, he had learned nothing during two days of adroit questioning. It began to dawn upon him that this taciturnity was scarcely all accidental. He felt, in the butler’s silence, in the unfriendliness of one or two other men whom he had accosted, in the lack of communicativeness on the part of every one he had come across, even so far afield as Fakenham, there was something to be explained. There was, without doubt, a sense of mystery about Keynsham Hall and the doings of its noble occupants. . . .

He turned back to the house. As he reached the last bend in the path, he came face to face with Lady Louise, surrounded by a small army of dogs. She greeted him with a friendly nod.

“You found the pictures interesting, I hope?” she enquired.

“Very interesting indeed,” he replied. “The Sir Peter Lelys are wonderful, and the two Turners I had never seen.”

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

“Colour appeals to you?”

“Always,” he admitted.

“I wonder that you care to walk about the gardens of a Norfolk country house in February, then,” she observed.

His eyes followed hers. In a sense there was a deserted air about the broad, flowing lawns and neat but empty flower beds, the rather sad green meadows below, unstarred with any form of flower or weed. On the other hand from the freshly turned brown earth came a pleasant aromatic smell. The swiftly opened and closed door of one of the long glass houses let out an odour of exotic plants, mingled with the more pungent perfume of hyacinths. From underneath the shrubs came furtive glimpses of little beds of snowdrops, and the white mist curling around the ditches below had here and there a dim suggestion of faint blue.

“It’s not the same thing, of course,” Pank said respectfully, “but I can’t help thinking, your ladyship, that there is colour even here, if one looks for it.”

“You know who I am?” she questioned.

“You mentioned your name the other afternoon. I have seen your pictures in the papers too,” he told her. “Besides, I’m Norfolk born, although I’m not here often.”

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Pank,” he told her. “Ernest Pank.”

She called back two of the more adventurous of the dogs, but showed no signs of moving herself for the moment.

“We are rather discourteous, I’m afraid, just now to our visitors. An unfortunate incident took place here a few weeks ago and we have had detectives around, making enquiries. My brother has been forced to give orders to all the local people to abstain from answering questions from strangers.”

“Indeed, your ladyship,” Pank exclaimed curiously. “I don’t seem to have noticed anything about it in the papers.”

She watched a flight of pigeons for a minute, high over the wood.

“It was nothing of any real importance,” she confided. “Just one of our guests was held up on his way back to London. A great many people seem to have developed a ridiculous curiosity as to what really happened to him.”

“I’m not an inquisitive person,” Pank assured her.

She laughed and dismissed him with a wave of the hand.

“I think you are quite harmless,” she agreed. “Only we are all a little on edge in these parts. If you take my advice, you won’t ask questions whilst you are in the neighbourhood.”

She passed on with a nod of farewell. The ex-detective stepped into his Ford car and made a noisy departure.

Notwithstanding Lady Louise’s injunctions, Pank made one more effort in questioning. He had a glass of beer at the Keynsham Arms and induced the landlord to join him.

“Been looking at the pictures,” he confided. “Lady Louise showed me the gardens too. Lovely place.”

“The finest place in Norfolk, to my mind, sir,” the publican agreed.

“I was born in Norwich,” Pank went on. “I had a sort of cousin living out here---Bowhill his name was. Used to be in the garage.”

The publican glanced doubtfully for a moment at his customer. The mention of Lady Louise’s name had, however, already half dispelled his suspicions. Besides, there was nothing impressive or mysterious about Pank.

“That’s right,” the landlord agreed. “Nice chap but a little glum, Tom. He was the first servant I ever knew who left his lordship of his own free will. He went to a garage in Norwich to see if he could better himself, and his lordship let him have one of the old cars for a song. He couldn’t make it do, however, so he went off to Canada. Always in here in the afternoons for his glass, Tom was.”

“And no fool, either,” Pank said, as he set down his tankard empty. “If I hadn’t got to drive my old tin kettle to Fakenham, I should have another. It’s good beer.”

“It’s the best I can get,” the publican declared, with a smile, as he accompanied his guest to the entrance. “When I took this place, it was tied with a Norwich house whose name I won’t mention. Bad stuff. His lordship got me out of that. His lordship seems to get any one out of any scrape they get into. There’s not a soul in these parts,” the man concluded, as Pank climbed into the driving seat, “who isn’t thankful for the day he made his fortune and was able to buy back Keynsham.”

Pank drove back to Fakenham, but he had very few more questions to ask in the bar parlour that evening. He did, however, venture upon one.

“Ever have any gentlemen staying here for the shooting?” he asked of the florid young woman with the waved hair who was presiding over the counter.

“Not enough,” she replied, with the air of one having a grievance. “There was three gentlemen about two months ago wrote for rooms, just about the time one of the big shoots at Keynsham. Then they changed their minds and went to Norwich.”

“I wonder if one of them was a friend of mine?” Pank ruminated.

“Can’t say, I’m sure,” the young lady replied. “Master was so cross when they decided not to come that he tore up their letter. I’ll tell you where it was written from, if that helps you---the Savoy Hotel in London.”

“It gives one an idea,” Pank confessed.