The Dancing Druids

Chapter Fourteen

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‘… and how the devil sat upon the top of the house and cried out, “Throw the villain up here!” ’

Ibid. (The Travelling Musicians)

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And now,’ said Mrs. Bradley, when her henchmen had slept and breakfasted, ‘I am going to the nine standing stones with a party of archaeologists. Do you know anything of archaeology?’ she added, turning towards the young men.

‘Well, I did some digging once,’ observed O’Hara, ‘when I was a kid of twelve. That was with my uncle and some friends in the south of France.’

‘Splendid. You shall certainly come and help. We shall be filmed at the same time. It will be most interesting.’

‘Filmed?’

‘Yes, child. All our party, with the exception of ourselves, my nephew and a friend of mine, an expert upon the Early Bronze Age, will be film extras hired for the occasion at union rates plus their tea. At least, I hope so!’

She gave such a horrible leer that the two young men did not know whether her remarks were to be taken seriously or not. Then she added:

‘To-morrow, then, we meet at the circle of standing stones. If you could bring a spade or two, and perhaps a pickaxe, a measuring-tape, a theodolite and a packet of sandwiches it would be as well, but no matter if you cannot get them.’

‘Have you hired the film extras?’ asked Laura.

‘Not yet. It will be a very good excuse, however, for calling at the house of the four dead trees, will it not?’

‘You know we’ve already been there?’ said Laura, a trifle uneasily. ‘That’s how we knew about Concaverty. Oh, and about that woman you called Mrs. Battle. I didn’t tell you about that.’

Mrs. Bradley heard the news with great interest and much satisfaction, and, to Laura’s relief, passed no judgment upon her secretary’s activities.

‘I’ll go and hire the film extras, if you like,’ Laura added. ‘That is, if you think I can.’

‘I have implicit faith in your abilities,’ said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. ‘When would you like to go? This afternoon? By the way, I wonder whether our Mr. Concaverty-Cassius is still at the Slepe Rock Hotel?’

The afternoon was cloudy and dull, and promised rain, and, although the rain held off, the atmosphere was depressing, and the blue-grey hills looked very far away. The sky remained threatening.

Laura set out from the hotel at Welsea at half-past two, with George to drive the car, and approached the house with trepidation. She was not at all sure what effect the previous visits had had, and she was uncertain, too, whether the woman whom Mrs. Bradley called Mrs. Battle had seen her with Gascoigne and O’Hara. If so, her present mission might be dangerous.

She went boldly up to the door, however, and rang the bell. It was answered by a scowling man whom she affected to take for Concaverty. She even addressed him by this name, and received, in response, no denial of the patronymic but merely a growling enquiry as to her business.

‘I want to hire some film extras,’ she replied. ‘I thought you might be able to tell me where to find some.’

‘You talk as though they were primroses or birds’ nests,’ he responded, giving her a bleak smile which had the effect of making his face look like a piece of carved wood.

‘I know,’ Laura meekly agreed. ‘But I’ve been told to get hold of a dozen or two for some March of Time sort of stuff by a distinguished amateur, and some people at the hotel told me they thought you had an outfit here that you might be willing to hire out.’

This clumsy expression of her requirements drew, rather to her surprise and trepidation, a morose invitation to go in, and Laura, a feeble and most unwilling Daniel, entered the lions’ den in the wake of the wooden-faced unknown. She was glad to see that he left the door wide open.

The interior of the house was not alarming. It was furnished modestly and in good taste, so far as Laura could see, but she saw little, for she was conducted to a small room containing a large desk and a picture by A. J. Munnings and there was invited to sit down. She was left alone for ten minutes, and then a young man in horn-rimmed spectacles came in, seated himself at the desk and unscrewed a short, thick fountain pen.

‘Name?’ he asked, with no preliminaries.

‘Menzies,’ Laura responded.

‘Business?’

‘To hire about a dozen or two dozen film extras for private and non-commercial work.’

‘Destination?’

‘Oh, I should want to film them here and there about this county, you know.’

‘That is location, not destination.’

‘Oh? Well, in that case, they wouldn’t have destination, but only location.’

‘I see. Well, I am not at all sure that we could do that, Miss Menzies. The usual rates, of course, if it turns out that we can spare our extras? I mean, there’s a Union to consider. And then, of course, when would you require them?’

‘I don’t know exactly. By the end of the week, I should think.’

The young man rang the bell and the man whom Laura had addressed as Concaverty answered it.

‘Show Miss Menzies out, Sorensen,’ said the young man briefly. To show that the interview was definitely at an end, he picked up a pen and began to write.

Laura left the house forthwith. She felt more than bewildered. Not thus, she thought, was crime conducted, unless the young man had been instructed to get rid of her with all speed. She wondered what they all knew about her and what the terrifying Sorensen suspected.

‘You ought to have those four trees cut down,’ she said, when they reached the front door.

‘What four trees, madam?’ the man enquired, giving her again his teakwood smile. ‘Oh, you mean the dead trees!’

‘That’s what I said, ’said Laura.

‘Yes, madam, but, you see, we need them at the moment. There may be shooting to-morrow or the next day.’

‘Shooting? Oh, you mean shooting the film!’

‘What other kind of shooting could I mean, madam?’

Laura did not answer this question. She walked towards the gate feeling like a person caught in a dream which he knows is a dream and from which he cannot awake.

‘Crazy,’ she muttered to herself, as she came to the little culvert over the ditch.

‘I don’t think I’ve done the slightest good,’ she confided to Mrs. Bradley when she returned, ‘but I have been inside that house, and it doesn’t seem particularly sinister.’

‘You have done bravely, child,’ her employer cordially responded. ‘You have established, I think, that Mr. Concaverty, under his pseudonym of Cassius, is still at the hotel at Slepe Rock, and that is exactly what we wanted to know. Did they promise you any helpers?’

‘I don’t really know,’ said Laura, looking and feeling perplexed. ‘Do you think they’ll send us an answer?’

‘I expect so, if you left an address.’

‘I didn’t! And they didn’t ask for one.’

‘Excellent, child. And now for your smugglers’ cave. We hired a sea-going cruiser from Welsea Beaches, and from there we shall go to the cave and explore its interior. I have very great hopes of that cave.’

‘I say!’ said Laura, enthralled. ‘You didn’t tell me! How decent! It’ll clear our cobwebs away! Who’s going to handle the navigation, I wonder? I can’t, because I don’t know the coast.’

‘We are taking a boatman from Welsea.’

‘Won’t he wonder what on earth we’re up to exploring a cave? I mean, it’s kids’ stuff, really, and if he sees you …!’

‘Geology knows no law,’ said Mrs. Bradley complacently.

‘We shall take our little hammers and a specimen or two, and then we shall chip rocks and collect bits and pieces, and place them with tender discernment in little bags discreetly but obviously labelled. It won’t be scientific, but it will pass. At least, I hope so.’ She cackled with great enjoyment.

Laura giggled. She spent the evening helping to prepare for the ‘great camouflage’ as she herself termed it, and early on the following morning, she, Gascoigne, O’Hara and Mrs. Bradley set forth in a motor cruiser, a chunky, sturdy, seaworthy affair in charge of an old man and a boy of fifteen, with the geological apparatus well displayed.

They stood out to sea to avoid the shore-setting currents around the headlands, and arrived off Slepe Rock at lunch-time. They had lunch on board, and then the motor-cruiser ran in, slacked off when it came almost opposite the cave, and took advantage of the tide to back cautiously under the cliffs.

The dinghy was soon lowered from the cabin top where it had been slung, and its little outboard motor, with full pivot reverse for driving sideways or astern (a very necessary feature for the kind of work which the dinghy might need to perform in the cave) having been started up, away went Mrs. Bradley, Laura and O’Hara, whilst Gascoigne remained on board with the man and boy.

Laura, who was skilled in such matters, edged the dinghy into the cave, keeping just enough way on her to avoid her stern being swept round on to the rocks.

The cave was dark and cool, and smelt of seaweed. The water into which they nosed with such circumspection and finesse ran deep, as might have been expected, and was wonderfully smooth once the yard or two of surf at the mouth of the opening had been crossed, but it had been a tricky little passage, on the whole, and Laura felt that she merited the congratulations offered by her crew and passenger.

‘Well, anyway, we’re in,’ she said modestly. ‘I should think we’d better have lights.’

Mrs. Bradley and O’Hara, who were already well forward, switched on powerful electric torches which lit up the glistening walls and indicated the dark distances of the cave. Laura cautiously started the engine again, for the cave was too narrow for oars.

‘Good heavens! This cave must run inland for several hundred yards!’ exclaimed O’Hara. This estimate proved to be an exaggeration, but the tunnel was fully one hundred and fifty yards long, and in a few minutes the young man, who had given Mrs. Bradley both torches and was using the boathook as a lead-line, announced shoal water.

Laura cut out her engine, which, in any case, was barely functioning, took the second boathook, and helped to fend the dinghy from the side. The cave had widened into an almost circular end, but on the port side of the boat was the natural shelf which Laura had noticed on her first visit. Moreover, as they reached shoal water, they came upon a pinnacle of slimy rock which stood up like a pointing finger.

Laura caught at it with the boathook, but the metal hook slipped off the weedy surface and the dinghy, answering the pull, began to heel. She drifted stern in and bows out, but, being well fended, she did no more harm to herself than to bump her port quarter gently against the side. At this, she tried to head herself towards the opposite wall, but Laura, leaning out boldly, caught at the slimy finger of rock, and held on long enough to arrest the drift of the boat and bring her head-on again. O’Hara came to the rescue with the deft dropping of a mooring rope over the pinnacle. Then he stepped ashore and made fast.

‘Take care how you come!’ he said, offering Mrs. Bradley a hand. ‘It’s beastly slippery up here.’ He was on the rocky shelf, which now formed an unsafe but possible path.

The elderly lady, disdaining assistance, landed without mishap and shone an inquisitive torch all over the walls before she led the way onwards. The cave, now an upward-sloping passage, still ran on into the hill.

It seemed a long way to walk, and the rock had changed to a damp and crumbling landslide of chalk, trampled and marked by footprints, before the smell of the seaweed was out of the venturers’ nostrils, and a strong reek of petrol took its place.

‘Stop!’ said Mrs. Bradley, speaking quietly. She had returned one of the torches to O’Hara, and Laura had a small one of her own. ‘Put out the lights. I think I know where we are! I took a compass bearing at the mouth of the cave, another as soon as we had tied up the dinghy, and a third one minute ago.’

Suddenly from over their heads came a noisy and terrifying rumble. O’Hara and Laura instinctively ducked their heads, but Mrs. Bradley, more knowledgeably, remained bolt upright and smiled into the petrol-scented darkness. She explained that she had no doubt whatever, from her compass bearings and from what rough estimate she had been able to make of the distance the three of them had travelled since the dinghy had entered the cave, that they were now below the concrete floor of the pull-in for coaches, and that the noise was that of a motor coach driver or a lorry driver racing his engine.

‘We can go back now,’ she added.

Laura, entranced by what she termed ‘the boys’-book atmosphere of the proceedings‘, was in favour of repairing forthwith to the pull-in and finding the trap-door or other aperture which opened on to the cave.

‘What we need,’ said O’Hara, ‘is a car that wants repairing. They’ve a pit for repairs at that place. I’ve seen it. I should think it is bound to be the opening we want. If the cave is used in the way Mrs. Bradley thinks, they wouldn’t risk having a suspicious-looking opening into it. Nobody would think of looking at an inspection pit in a biggish garage, which the pull-in certainly has. If we could only manage to get hold of a damaged car, we could gather round the inspection-pit while they dealt with it.’

‘We will see what can be done. George will know about things like that,’ said Mrs. Bradley.

‘One thing,’ said Laura, as they reached the tied-up dinghy, ‘it looks fishy about those people in that yacht.’ Mrs. Bradley did not question this statement.

‘I shall again appeal to the Chief Constable,’ she said. ‘He is so angry with me already that one more red herring—if it should turn out to be that—can scarcely annoy him more.’

This refreshing point of view appealed to her hearers, and it was with gusto that they climbed into the dinghy and reversed her out of the cave.

‘Well, you found plenty in the hole to interest you,’ said the boatman encouragingly when they rejoined the cruiser, and the dinghy, after some trouble, had been hoisted aboard. For answer, Mrs. Bradley peered with an expression of vulpine rapture into one of the little linen bags she had taken with her, and produced for the boatman’s inspection one or two specimens which she had had the forethought to borrow from her archaeological friend before she had returned from her visit to London.

‘Ah,’ said the fifteen-year-old mate, coming up and peering politely over Gascoigne’s left elbow, ‘if you found them there in that ’ole, it’s where somebody must have dropped ’em.’ To the horror of three of his hearers, the stupefaction of the fourth and the cackling delight of the fifth, he continued, pointing, ‘That there be a bone of bos longifrons; that be part of the blade of a Stone-Age sickle; and that un be a bit of the turnover top of a Neolithic collared urn. I don’t hardly reckon none of they would be found in a hole like that un, but maybe they would.’³

‘Well, here they are, anyway,’ Mrs., Bradley briskly replied, for she neither could nor would give the erudite child the lie.

The motor cruiser took up her anchor and moved off on her return journey to Welsea Beaches. The short passage was as uneventful as her crew and passengers could desire, and the latter were back at the hotel in time for dinner. They did not return to Slepe Rock. Mrs. Bradley feared for O’Hara’s safety there, although she did not give that as her reason for remaining in Welsea.

‘But when can we take the damaged car to the pull-in?’ asked Laura. ‘That is, how soon can we get a damaged car? George won’t let us mess up our own.’

‘Soon; I can promise that,’ said Gascoigne, looking at Mrs. Bradley. ‘You’ve simply got to say when. If we can’t find some legitimate means of getting into that pull-in and using their garage without exciting suspicion, I shall be surprised and will eat my hat.’

‘Yes, but I don’t think you wear a hat.’ observed Laura. ‘By the way, what about our film extras? I don’t think it’s much good depending on those people, somehow, at the house with the four dead trees. But perhaps you don’t want any now?’ she added, eyeing Mrs. Bradley narrowly.

‘Oh, yes, I do want them, and we shall get them,’ Mrs. Bradley responded. ‘My nephew Denis knows someone who is in film circles in some managerial capacity, and this man rang up the Gonn-Brown company and the extras will be sent to us on loan at the usual rates.’

‘Good,’ said Laura. ‘I shall sleep soundly to-night. Hope I don’t dream of our cave!’

‘And I that I do not dream of that terrifying child on board the cruiser!’ said Mrs. Bradley.