“For heaven’s sake, Clara! Get a move on, will you?” Marge stopped for the umpteenth time and waited for her friend to catch up with her.
Panting and puffing, Clara trudged down the lane toward her, her face red and sweaty. “I’m hot,” she announced unnecessarily as she drew even with Marge.
“One minute you’re freezing, the next you’re roasting.” Marge jabbed a finger in her direction. “Take off your cardigan, you twit. No wonder you’re so hot.”
“I feel the cold.” Clara swept a critical gaze up and down Marge’s body. “I don’t have no fat to keep me warm, like some people.”
Marge bristled at that. “Hey, are you saying I’m fat?”
All the fight went out of Clara. “No, silly, of course not. I’m just tired, that’s all. Let’s forget about the Germans and go home.”
“Forget about the Germans!” Marge’s voice was shrill with disbelief. “Are you daft? We came all this way, didn’t we? What if the place is running alive with Nazis? If we don’t warn the village, they could be all over us by tonight.”
Clara’s face lost its ruddy glow. “Well, if there are Germans in the windmill, you’ve probably warned them by now. It’s right over there, behind you.”
Marge swung around. “Gawd, I didn’t realize we were that close.” She lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper. “We’d better duck down out of sight.”
Clara immediately dropped to a crouch. “How are we going to sneak up there without them seeing us? There’s no trees around here to hide us.”
“There’s trees on the other side of it. We’ll work our way around and come in from that side.”
“I still think we should have gone to the police station for help.”
“We’ll go when we’re sure they’re there,” Marge insisted. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I can’t walk like this.” Clara stuck her foot out and tried to waddle forward in the crouch.
Marge muffled a giggle. “You look like a crab.”
Clara shot to her feet. “I’m going home.”
Grabbing her arm, Marge said quickly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Look, let’s just walk normal until we get past the windmill. Even if they see us, they won’t know we’re looking for them. They’ll just think we’re out for a stroll. Then, once we get past them, we can duck back.”
“What if they shoot us while we’re going past?”
Marge hadn’t thought of that. She felt a sudden urge to pee. “Don’t be silly,” she said, more in an effort to convince herself than anything. “Of course they’re not going to shoot us. They don’t want everyone to know where they are, do they? How are they going to take everyone by surprise if we all know they’re there?”
Clara didn’t look too sure of herself, but she trotted along by Marge’s side, looking as if she were ready to bolt at the slightest sound.
Marge wasn’t about to admit that her heart was pounding hard enough to come right through her chest by the time they’d reached the far side of the windmill. Any minute she’d expected to hear a bullet or two whine over her head, and it was a bit of an anticlimax when all remained quiet and peaceful.
For several minutes they stood there, waiting to get their breath back while they stared at the rickety wooden walls of the dilapidated windmill. No branches stirred in the midday sun. No birds twittered, no squirrels chattered, no inquisitive field mouse or rabbit rustled through the tall grass. Nothing but a tall, dark, forbidding windmill with silent sails and darkened windows. It seemed as if everything were waiting for something to happen. Something bad.
Marge shivered as the creepy feeling crawled down her back. “I don’t like this. It’s too quiet. Like someone’s in there, watching us.”
Clara uttered a whimper of fright. “I want to go home. Now.”
She started to walk away, but Marge grabbed a stretchy sleeve of her cardigan and dragged her to a stop. “Wait a minute! Let’s just take a quick peek and then we’ll get out of here. I swear.”
“I’m not going in there!”
Clara’s wail sounded loud in the hushed silence of the woods and Marge winced. “All right then. You wait here and I’ll go. Then if they shoot me, you can run back and tell George and Sid that you let me go in there alone and now I’m dead.”
Tears formed in Clara’s eyes, but to Marge’s relief, she stammered, “All right, then. I’m coming in there with you. But if I get shot I’ll never forgive you.”
“If you get shot, silly,” Marge said grimly, “you won’t be around to forgive me, so what’s it matter? If you hear the slightest sound, you run like hell. Got it?”
Clara nodded, her eyes wide with fright.
Marge wasn’t feeling too chipper herself, but she’d come this far and she wasn’t about to turn back without taking a quick look inside that windmill. A large part of the force driving her was the anticipation of seeing Rita’s smug face turn sour when she found out they’d helped catch a bunch of Germans.
Armed with this vision, she crept forward, bending over as low as she could before the fleshy folds of her stomach got in the way. Although their footsteps made no sound on the soft grass, she could hear her friend right behind her. Clara’s teeth were chattering so loudly it was a wonder they didn’t fall out.
They reached the door without seeing or hearing any movement from inside the dark, towering building. Very carefully, Marge pushed the door open. A loud creak made her jump nearly out of her skin. Clara muffled a shriek and Marge shot a warning look at her, her finger over her lips.
Braced to flee at the slightest provocation, she took one step inside, then two. It smelled musty and damp, and there was another odor she didn’t want to analyze. A narrow beam of sunlight, with specks of dust swirling and dancing in its glow, slashed through the darkness from the high window above. The floor was uneven, with several of the floorboards missing or broken. Blinking to adjust to the shadows, Marge took a quick look around. Nothing. They were alone.
Clara crept up beside her and put her mouth to Marge’s ear. “I can’t hear nothing.”
Her hair tickled Marge’s nose and she backed away, fiercely shaking her head and pointing to the floor above them. There was another floor where somebody could hide, though if the Germans were up there, there wasn’t room for more than a half dozen or so. That made her feel a little better.
The two of them stood absolutely still, barely breathing, while the silence thickened about them. Then Clara spoke in her normal voice, spiking Marge’s nerves.
“There’s no one up there. Let’s go home.”
“Shh!” Marge hissed at her, then froze as a sharp snap sounded overhead.
All color drained from Clara’s face. “What’s that?”
Marge swallowed. “Could be old wood. You know how it creaks. Or maybe a rat.”
Clara squealed. “I hate rats.”
So did Marge. What’s more, her body ached with tension, and her chest hurt from not breathing deeply enough. “All right,” she murmured, “let’s go home.”
Clara had turned toward the door and Marge had taken one step when the unimaginable happened. Above their heads they heard a distinct sound-a loud and explosive sneeze.
Marge stared at Clara, who stared right back at her, with eyes almost popping out of her head. Then, without a word, she bolted out the door with Marge hot on her heels, and they didn’t stop running until they were all the way down the lane and back on the coast road.
Elizabeth did her best to ignore the axe in Bob Redding’s hand as she faced him across the room. “I’m not here to accuse anyone, Mr. Redding,” she said quietly. “But I would like to know why you think I would accuse someone of murdering Clyde Morgan, when the police are convinced it was suicide.”
Bob Redding turned back to the door and leaned the axe against the doorjamb. When he faced them again, his expression had softened considerably. “Beg your pardon, your ladyship. I was a bit ahead of you, that’s all. My mind gets a little blurry when that… when I hear the name Morgan.”
“He didn’t mean no harm-,” Marion began, then subsided into silence when her husband shot her a vicious glare.
“I don’t know if Morgan died by his own hand or someone else’s,” Bob Redding went on, “but I do know I weren’t the only one to hold a grudge against him. I heard somewhere that the gun was in his right hand. Everyone that knew Morgan knows he was left-handed. He couldn’t see out of his right eye, and he was always saying how lucky it was he was left-handed.”
“He could have shot himself that way out of spite,” Marion said, braving her husband’s scowl. “You know, just to make the constables think it was someone else that killed him.”
Bob uttered a scornful grunt. “He weren’t that clever.”
Marion stared at her husband in bewilderment. “But you said you thought he did it because of the guilt.”
He nodded. “That’s right, I did. But that was before I heard about the gun being in the wrong hand. The more I thought about it, the more I changed my mind. Morgan wasn’t the kind who’d do himself in.”
“Well, it couldn’t be you, anyway,” Marion said, glancing at Elizabeth as if to convince her. “You weren’t even here the night Clyde Morgan died. You were visiting Sheila at the sanitarium in North Horsham, weren’t you, Bob?”
Bob sent his wife a strange look that Elizabeth couldn’t interpret. “I reckon I had as good a reason as anyone to want him dead,” he said slowly, “but there are plenty of others. Ned Widdicombe, for instance.”
Marion gasped and shot another scared look at Elizabeth. “I don’t think Ned would…” Her voice trailed off as once more Bob glared at her.
“Who is Ned Widdicombe?” Elizabeth asked gently.
“He’s a butcher, lives in North Horsham.” Bob waved a hand at the chair Elizabeth had just vacated. “Sit down, your ladyship, and make yourself comfortable. I’ll tell you all about Ned Widdicombe.”
Reluctantly, Elizabeth lowered herself onto the chair. This big man made her uncomfortable, though if asked she’d be hard-pressed to explain why. Maybe it was the secret signals he was exchanging with his wife, or the evil look in his eyes whenever he mentioned Clyde Morgan’s name. Whatever it was, she sensed an undercurrent of tension beneath the affable expression he now presented to her.
“Ned’s mother used to live two doors away from us, in that little green house with the white fence.” Bob walked over to a vacant chair and sat down. Holding his cap between his knees, he paused, as if sorting out what to say next. Finally, he went on, “Not long ago, Morgan came down here collecting, as he called it. If you ask me, it was no better than begging.”
He ignored Marion’s small sound of protest. “Anyway, my dear wife gave away some of my clothes to him, and books I hadn’t read yet-”
“You’d had those books for years and never read them,” Marion protested.
Ignoring her, Bob went on, “And a lot of other things she had no business giving away. Morgan must have thought he was on to a good thing. He went down to all the cottages looking for more bounty. That’s when he met Mrs. Widdicombe. Widow she were, must have been in her eighties.”
“Eighty-four, she were,” Marion confirmed, then squirmed after yet another nasty look from her husband.
“Anyway, Morgan goes inside, picks up just about everything he could lay his hands on, and carts it off to sell it all. By the time Ned heard about it, the lot had gone. Morgan told him the old lady said to help himself to what he wanted, so he did. Ned was spitting mad. They had to hold him off Morgan, so I heard. Kept yelling at him that he’d pay him back for what he did.”
“I see.” Elizabeth shook her head. “What a dreadful thing to do.”
“What’s even worse,” Bob said, “it was such a shock for the old girl, she dropped dead. Marion used to pop in there every day just to keep an eye on her, since Ned could only get down on Sundays, and she found her dead on the floor. Doctor said it was her heart and the shock of losing all her belongings.”
“Ever so sad, it was,” Marion chimed in. “Such a shock to find her like that.”
“Anyhow,” Bob said, getting to his feet, “if anyone had good reason to bump off Clyde Morgan, I’d say it were Ned Widdicombe.”
Elizabeth got up, too. “Well, perhaps I’ll have a word with Mr. Widdicombe.”
“He’s got a shop in the High Street,” Bob told her. “You can’t miss it. Widdicombe the Butcher’s. Got a big sign in front of it.” He opened the door, as if anxious to be rid of his visitor. “Thank you for calling on us, your ladyship.”
Elizabeth nodded at Marion, then moved to the door. “Thank you for your time. I hope you are soon fully recovered, and I wish you all the best of luck when you go back.”
For the first time, Bob Redding’s eyes softened. “Very nice of you, Lady Elizabeth. Much obliged, I’m sure.”
Elizabeth walked slowly down the garden path, fighting the urge to look back to see if Bob Redding was watching her. She had the feeling his eyes followed her until she had started her motorcycle and had ridden down the lane and out of sight.
“Do you think you’ll go back to America with Joe?” Polly asked, leaning her elbows on the sink to get a better view of the back garden.
Sadie uttered a scornful laugh. “What, me? Go to America? What the heck would I do in America? Full of cowboys and Indians, it is.”
Polly shot her a look over her shoulder. “Don’t be daft, Sadie. That’s only in the films. America has enormous wide roads and lots of cars, and big buildings and lovely houses with swimming pools. I’ve seen pictures of them.”
“What, in Photoplay? What makes you think they’re real? It’s a film magazine, isn’t it?”
“What about the cities like New York, that you see in the films, then? They’re just like London. What about the pictures of the film stars’ homes? They’ve got to live somewhere, haven’t they? Are you going to sit there and tell me the beaches in Los Angeles aren’t real? I didn’t see no cowboys and Indians running around shooting arrers there.”
Sadie grinned at her friend. “Okay, okay, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I was just having you on, that’s all. ’Course I know there’s no cowboys and Indians in Los Angeles or New York, but I bet you anything they have ’em in Wyoming, where Lady Elizabeth’s major lives.”
Polly stared at her. “How d’you know where he lives?”
“I heard them talking.” Sadie stretched her spine against the back of the hard chair. “He was telling her he goes riding on horses there. Miles and miles of open land, he told her. You can ride all day there and not see another soul.”
Polly turned her back on the window and gazed dreamily at Sadie. “Ooh, how romantic. Can’t you just imagine her ladyship riding on the back of his horse, hanging on to his waist?” She sighed, slapped a hand over her heart, and rolled her eyes at the ceiling.
Sadie burst out laughing. “She’s more likely to be riding on her motorcycle chasing after him.”
Polly’s romantic visions vanished. “Well, I think she’s madly in love with him, and I think he loves her, as well, so there.”
“I hope not.” Sadie’s face sobered. “If you’re right, I can see trouble ahead for them. What’s going to happen when he goes back to America?”
“She’ll go with him, of course.”
“Oh? Then what’s going to happen to all of us, might I ask? What about Violet and Martin, and you and me? What about the Manor House? Who’s going to take care of that?”
Polly stuck out her bottom lip. She didn’t want to think about what might happen. Thinking of her ladyship and Major Monroe together made her feel warm inside, and she didn’t want anything to spoil that. Why did things always have to be so blinking complicated?
With her mood dampened, she turned back to the window. The sun shone directly in her face, momentarily blinding her. She blinked… and blinked again. No, she wasn’t seeing things. She let out a yell that echoed all the way up the stairs. “Sadie! The knickers! They’re gorn!”
Sadie got up so fast she knocked over the chair. She swore, then picked it up, muttering, “You’d better be joking.” Thrusting Polly aside, she stared out of the window.
There was the sound of a door opening and Polly’s mother’s voice floated down the stairs. “Polly? Is that you? Why aren’t you at work? What are you doing down there?”
Polly grabbed Sadie’s arm. “Come on,” she whispered hoarsely. “He can’t have got far. Let’s go after him.”
“You were supposed to be watching for him,” Sadie began, then yelped as Polly dragged her across the kitchen. Footsteps started down the stairs, and Edna, Polly’s mother, called out, “Polly? What are you doing?”
Polly didn’t wait to answer her. She shoved Sadie through the back door and out into the garden. Side by side they raced for the gate and threw it open. They were just in time to see a bicycle disappear around the bend.
“Come on!” Sadie yelled. “After the bugger!”
Polly threw herself on her bicycle and pedaled like mad down the road after Sadie, who was already speeding away from her. They rounded the bend and there in the distance was a very short man huddled over the handlebars of his bicycle as he raced along the coast road.
Sadie waved a frantic arm at Polly and yelled, “Get a move on, Polly! We can’t lose him now!”
Polly put her head down. She didn’t know where they were going, or what they would do if they caught up with the thief. They had reached the top of the hill and were gathering breakneck speed, and all she cared about now was staying on her bicycle.