Swing, Swing Together

CHAPTER 11

There was no need, as it turned out, for Harriet to consider whether she would forgive Constable Hardy, because they had reached Shiplake Lock and the gates were being held open for them. Four or five other small craft were inside and it required total concentration on everyone’s part to steer the skiff among them without the rending of wood. Standing up like a gondolier, Hardy paddled them expertly towards the left-hand wall, reached up and fastened the line to a chain. The lockkeeper was already thrusting his back against the beam of the gate behind them to close it. A young man in a yellow blazer was doing the same on the right. When the gates were closed, each man moved to the opposite end and began turning the handles to raise the paddles and fill the lock. Spouts of silver water gushed in, gurgling under the boats as they steadily ascended the gleaming walls.

“How much, Lockkeeper?” Thackeray called when the moment came to pay the toll.

“Threepence, sir, but I’ll not charge you anything if you’ll do me a good turn.”

“What’s that?”

“Take my young friend aboard and put him off at Phillimore’s Island half a mile upstream.”

Thackeray scrutinized the young man in the yellow blazer. “Would you mind, Miss Shaw? He’ll have to share your seat.”

“I have no objection,” Harriet answered. He looked a clean young man, for all his work on the lock gates. He had a neat little beard the shape of Tasmania at the base of his chin.

“I’ll hop in, then,” he said. “Much obliged to you, young lady. Bustard’s the name, spelt with a ‘u,’ like the bird. Just as far as Phillimore’s, if you’d be so kind, gentlemen. I’m in camp there for the night with a friend of mine, Jim Hackett.”

Harriet drew her skirt across to make room for Mr. Bustard and introduced her companions, taking care to prefix “Mr.” to their names.

“Going far?” he inquired.

“We’re hoping to reach Reading by this evening,” answered Thackeray. Hardy had lapsed into silence now.

“Not a pretty place to stop,” said Mr. Bustard. “Gasworks and factories. You’d be better off on an island, like us.”

“We intend to pull up as far as Tilehurst,” Thackeray explained. “Miss Shaw has a room at the Roebuck.”

“You’ll be in clover there, my dear,” said Mr. Bustard. “Better than a night under canvas, what? Somebody has a care for your comfort, I can see. If you bear to the right of the island, gentlemen, you’ll find I’m moored under a willow. Jim Hackett should be boiling a kettle for tea. That’s what I went to Shiplake for.” He tapped his blazer pocket. “Can’t survive without my Indian brew. I cadged a lift on a steam launch that had taken a mooring on the island. Filthy way to travel-I’m not in favour of steam at all-but beggars can’t be choosers, what?” He turned to smile at Harriet and displayed an immaculate set of white teeth. “This is my ideal-a seat beside a pretty girl and two strapping fellows to do the rowing for us.”

The ends of Hardy’s mouth had turned down in a perfect miniature of the central arch of Henley Bridge. And the ends of his moustache curled in precisely the opposite direction. Harriet could not suppress a smile. To avoid embarrassment, she turned it on Mr. Bustard. “How long have you been on the island?” she asked.

“Since yesterday. We’re doing the Thames by easy stages. Don’t know how far we’ll get in a fortnight, but the exercise does you good, what?”

Thackeray said, “I can think of better ways of getting it. I’ve got a blister the size of half a crown on each hand.”

“Then it’s ten to one you’re not one of the labouring class,” said Mr. Bustard. “Delicate skin, unused to manual work. Don’t tell me. I’ll guess. Stockbroker’s clerk. No, I don’t see you at a desk. Behind a counter, possibly. Grocer. Yes, I’d buy a dozen eggs from you. I’ll go for grocer. Am I right?”

“How did you guess?” said Thackeray, with the resource born of long experience.

“Training,” said Mr. Bustard proudly. “I’m a tallyman myself. You need to be quick on the uptake in my profession.”

“I’m sure,” Thackeray agreed. “I don’t suppose you miss a thing. Come to mention it, I was wondering if you might have noticed a party on the river a few hours ahead of us. Some people we were hoping to come across. Three men in a skiff like this, with a dog.”

“Three men in a boat? You wouldn’t be pulling my leg, by any chance, because I wouldn’t buy any more eggs from you if you were?” Mr. Bustard winked at Harriet.

“No, I’m serious,” said Thackeray.

Mr. Bustard trailed his hand thoughtfully in the water. “Would one be built like Dr. Grace, the cricketer-bearded, with a large size in belts?”

“That’s right!” said Thackeray.

“And are his two companions smaller men, with spectacles?”

“Absolutely correct!” said Harriet, clapping her hands.

“Small white dog?”

“The very same!” said Thackeray.

“Haven’t seen ’em,” said Mr. Bustard.

There was a pause. Thackeray was the first to say, “But how the devil did you know-”

“Jim Hackett met ’em this morning when I was cooking breakfast and told me about ’em. Straight out of Jerome K. Jerome, I said. We had a laugh about it. You must meet Jim. You’ve time for a cup of tea on the island, haven’t you?”

As duty obviously required that they meet Jim Hackett, they made the skiff fast beside the one already under the willow, and stepped ashore. They found him squatting beside a small fire not far from the bank, cooking a sausage on the end of a toasting fork. He got quickly to his feet, putting fork and sausage guiltily behind his back, which looked quaint, because he was built like a barge horse, with massive shoulders and three inches of height to spare over Thackeray.

“What’s this, Jim?” said Mr. Bustard. “This ain’t supper-time, you know.”

“How right you are, Percy,” said Jim Hackett. “ ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ Numbers, Chapter 32, Verse 23.”

“He’s very knowledgeable about the Good Book,” explained Mr. Bustard. “Never mind, Jim. You can eat it cold at the proper time. Has the kettle boiled? That’s the question. We’ve got visitors, as you can see. Miss Shaw, this is Jim Hackett. I wouldn’t shake his hand-it’s thick with sausage grease. This is Mr. Thackeray, Jim, who is escorting Miss Shaw and her young man, Mr. Hardy, up to Tilehurst. They rowed me up from the lock.”

“Kettle just boiled,” said Jim Hackett, picking it up and thrusting it into the fire. Harriet was relieved not to shake his hand. Besides being very large, it was calloused and, from the slowness of his movement with the kettle, insensitive to heat.

“Do you prepare all your meals like this?” she asked.

“Lord no, my dear,” said Mr. Bustard. “When we have the chance we buy our creature comforts from riverside inns such as the one you’re making for. It’s boiling, Jim. We got a very good veal and ham pie from the George and Dragon at Wargrave on Tuesday evening. Very welcome, veal and ham.”

“Dog and Badger,” said Jim Hackett, removing the kettle from the flames.

“Eh?”

“Dog and Badger, not George and Dragon.”

“If you insist, Jim, old boy, if you insist.”

“There’s a Dog and Badger at Medmenham,” said Hardy. “It’s my local pub.”

“It was a spanking pie, wherever it came from,” said Mr. Bustard. “Milk and sugar, Miss Shaw?”

“I believe you spoke this morning to some people we were looking for,” Thackeray said to Jim Hackett. “Three men in a boat-not to mention a dog.”

“That’s right. Helped push them out. Was they mates of yours?”

“Not exactly,” said Thackeray, who must have seen a glint of menace in Jim Hackett’s eye. “We was told they was ahead of us on the river and we want to find them if we can.”

“They wasn’t your sort. Swells, they was. Threw me a tanner piece after I gave ’em a shove.”

“I wonder if we’re talking about the same three,” said Thackeray artfully. “Was one of them a large, bearded cove? Not large by your standard, but just as tall as I am and a sight heavier?”

“One of ’em, yes.”

“And the others?” chipped in Constable Hardy.

“Half-pints. Dressed and talked like they owned the river, but couldn’t even push their own bleeding boat out.”

“Language, Jim,” protested Mr. Bustard.

“God, I’m sorry, lady,” Jim Hackett told Harriet. “‘Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.’ St. Matthew, Chapter 12, Verse 36.”

“He should have gone into the Church,” said Mr. Bustard.

“Did these men say where they was going, by any chance?” Thackeray asked.

“Streatley,” said Jim Hackett. “They was making for Streatley.”

“They didn’t mention where they came from?”

“They’d been three days on the river. Spent the first night at Runnymede and the second in the Crown at Marlow.”

Later in the afternoon, when they set off again, with Thackeray ostentatiously pushing the skiff away from the bank without assistance, Harriet opened Three Men in a Boat. If Jim Hackett’s memory of the movements of the suspects was reliable, they were scrupulously faithful to the itinerary of George, Harris and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome.