The House 'Round the Corner Part 12

"I love it. I often fill and light dad's for him when he's busy. You ought to see him when he's tracking some Norse legend to its lair, or clearing up a point left doubtful by Frazer in the _Golden Bough_. Have you ever read Frazer? I know him and Mannhardt almost by heart. I help dad a lot in my own little way. Have you ever played cat's cradle?"

"With a piece of string?"

"Yes. Well, games and folk-lore go together, and cat's cradle has been played since the ancient Britons wore--whatever ancient Britons did wear. Now, you're laughing at me."

"Indeed, I'm not. I was marveling at our kindred tastes. Have you heard of the Jatakas and Panchatantras of India?"

"I know that there are such things."

"I'll jot down two or three, with a translation."

"Oh, wouldn't dad love to meet you! He often growls because he can't read Sanskrit."

"Tell me where you live, and I'll look you up some day."

"Our permanent address is----Oh, my! Somebody's coming, and I don't want you to be cross with me again."

She fled into the kitchen. The door had hardly closed when a shadow darkened the porch. Armathwaite, lighting his pipe, gazed through a cloud of smoke at a red-faced policeman.

"h.e.l.lo!" he said. "Who have _you_ come for?"

The policeman grinned, and saluted.

"There's not much doing in Elmdale in my line, sir," he said. "I was told the Grange had a new tenant, so I just looked in. I come this way Thursday mornings and Monday nights, as a rule. I'm stationed at Bellerby, nearly three miles from here. Last time I was in this hall----"

Armathwaite was too quick for him. Residence in Mr. Walker's "house 'round the corner" had proved so rife in surprises that the long arm of coincidence might be expected to play its part at any moment. So he countered deftly.

"Sorry I can't be more hospitable," he broke in, advancing, and deliberately causing the constable to step back into the porch.

"Everything is at sixes and sevens. I only arrived yesterday, and my boxes, as you see, are not yet unpacked."

He closed the door, feeling certain that his judgment had not erred. It was soon justified.

"Next time you're pa.s.sing, give me a call," he went on. "I'll be able to offer you a whisky and soda or a bottle of beer. Are you the man who was brought here by a Mr. Benson on a certain occasion?"

"I am, sir, and it was a nasty job, too. I'm glad someone has taken the place. It's a nice property, but the garden has gone to wrack and ruin since poor Mr. Garth went. Just look at them dandelions, growin' where there used to be a bed of the finest begonias I've ever seen! 'Begonia Smith' was the gardener's nickname for miles around. And convolvulus instead of sweet peas! It's a sin, that's what it is!"

The policeman, clearly an enthusiast, took off his helmet, and wiped his forehead with a purple pocket-handkerchief.

"You knew Mr. Garth, I suppose?" said Armathwaite, strolling towards the dandelions, whose vigorous growth was so offensive to the horticultural eye. The other went with him, little thinking he was being headed off a scent which might lead to a greater tragedy than the devastation of a once well-kept garden.

"Knew him well, sir. A very pleasant-spoken gentleman he was, an' all. I brought him a party of plow stots one day--men who dance in the villages at Martinmas, sir--and he was as pleased as Punch because they sang some old verses he'd never heard before. The last man in the world I'd ever have thought of to kill himself."

"There was no doubt that he committed suicide?"

"No, sir, that there wasn't. He'd been dead two days when I cut him down. Well, no need to talk of it now, but even the doctor was rattled, though the weather was very hot that June."

Armathwaite felt as if he had been conjured by some spiteful necromancer out of a smiling and sunlit English countryside into a realm of ghouls and poison-growths. A minute ago a charming and sweet-spoken girl had been chatting glibly about her father's wanderings in the by-ways of folk-lore, and now this stolid policeman was hinting at the gruesomeness of his task when called on to release the lifeless body of that same man from its dolorous perch beside the clock.

For an instant he lost himself, and fixed such a penetrating glance on the constable that the latter grew uneasy, lest he had said something he ought not to have said. Armathwaite realized the mistake at once, and dropped those searching eyes from the other's anxious face to some sc.r.a.ps of ribbon sewn on the left breast of the dark blue tunic.

"You have the Tirah medal, I see," he said. "Were you at Dargai?"

The question achieved the immediate effect counted on.

"I was, an' all, sir," and the ex-soldier squared his shoulders. "Though no Scottie, I was in the Gordon Highlanders. Were you there, sir?"

"I--er--yes, but as a non-combatant. I was in the Politicals--quite a youngster in those days, and I was fool enough to envy you that rush across the plateau."

"It was warm work while it lasted, sir."

"There have been few things to equal it in warfare. What time do you pa.s.s through the village on Monday?"

"Shortly after eleven, sir."

"If you see a light, come in. If not, look me up next Thursday. If I'm fis.h.i.+ng, I'll leave word with Mrs. Jackson that you're to have a refresher should you be that way inclined."

"Thank you, sir. My name's Leadbitter, if ever you should want me."

"And a jolly good name, too, for a man who fought against the Afridis.

By the way, can you tell me what time the post leaves here?"

"A rural postman calls at Thompson's shop for letters about half-past four, sir."

A cigar changed hands, and P. C. Leadbitter strode off, holding his head high. It was a red-letter day. He had met one who knew what the storming of the Dargai Pa.s.s meant. Even the memories of Stephen Garth pendant from a hook beneath the china shelf faded into the mists of a country policeman's humdrum routine. He was halfway to Bellerby when he remembered that he had not done the one thing he meant doing--he had not asked Mr. Armathwaite's intentions with regard to the garden. Begonia Smith had retired to a village lying between Bellerby and Nuttonby.

Though too old to take a new situation, he would jump at the chance of setting his beloved Grange garden in order again, and, of course, he was just the man for the job. Leadbitter believed in doing a good turn when opportunity offered. After tea, he went in search of Smith of the order Begoniaceae. To save half a mile of a three miles' tramp by road, he pa.s.sed through the estate of Sir Berkeley Hutton, and met that redoubtable baronet himself strolling forth to see how the partridges were coming on.

"Ha!" cried Hutton, knowing that his land was not in the policeman's district, "has that rascally herd of mine been gettin' full again?"

"No, Sir Berkeley, Jim's keepin' steady these days," was the answer.

"There's a new tenant at the Grange, Elmdale; he'll be wantin' a gardener, I'm thinkin', so I'm going to put Begonia Smith on his track."

"A new tenant! You don't tell me. What's his name?"

"A Mr. Robert Armathwaite, Sir Berkeley. A very nice gentleman, too.

Been in India, in the Politicals, he said. I didn't quite know what he meant----"

"But I do, by Jove, and a decent lot of chaps they are. Picked men, all of 'em. I must look him up. I haven't met anyone of that name, but we're sure to own scores of friends in common. Glad I met you, Leadbitter.

I'll drive over there some day soon. Armathwaite, you say? Sounds like an old Yorks.h.i.+re name, but it's new to me. The coveys are strong on the wing this year, eh?"

So, all unwittingly so far as Armathwaite was concerned, his recognition of an Indian Frontier ribbon had set in motion strange forces, as a pebble falling from an Alpine summit can start an avalanche. In truth, he had not yet grasped the essential fact that residents in a secluded district of Yorks.h.i.+re, or in any similar section of the United Kingdom, were close knit throughout astonis.h.i.+ngly large areas. He had belonged to a ruling caste among an inferior race during so many active years that he still retained the habits of thought generated by knowledge of local conditions in India, where a town like Nuttonby would have little in common with a hamlet like Elmdale, whereas, in Yorks.h.i.+re, Nuttonby knew the affairs of Elmdale almost as intimately as its own.

But enlightenment on this point, and on many others, was coming speedily. He received the first sharp lesson within a few hours.

Marguerite Ogilvey might be a most industrious young lady when circ.u.mstances were favorable, but she had so many questions to put, and so much local news to absorb from Mrs. Jackson and Betty, that the morning slipped by without any material progress being made in the avowed object of her visit.

Armathwaite, piling rows of books on the library floor, noticed that the collection of seven, ranging from a Sheffield cake-basket to a Baxter print, had not been added to. The girl wanted to know, of course, why Leadbitter came, and was told, though his references to the disheveled state of the garden were suppressed. Then she volunteered to help in disposing of the new lot of books, but her services were peremptorily declined.

"You're a grumpy sort of cousin at times, Bob," she cried, and betook herself to the scullery and more entertaining company. She had been chatting there an hour, or longer, when she wheeled round on Mrs.