Ellis Peters - George Felse 06 - Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Heart by Ellis Peters

half-cock; he had been a policeman’s son too long for that. If the affair turned out to be a mare’s-nest after all, there was no harm done; and if it didn’t, far better to take a close look at the circumstances as soon as possible, rather than after the scent had gone cold.
    “Save it,” he said, cutting off the details. “I’m on my way, we’ll have all that when I come.‘’
    It took him twenty minutes to drive from Comerford to the Follymead gates; there wasn’t much on the roads at this hour, and the going was good. The college station wagon was parked just behind the lodge, already turned to point back up the drive, with Dominic and Tossa waiting beside it.
    “We thought it might be better if you leave the car here at the lodge,” said Dominic. “Just in case there’s somebody who knows it.”
    “In that case,” said George reasonably, “the somebody would be even more likely to know me.”
    “Yes, but we hope you’ll be able to stay out of the general view. There’s only a handful of us know what’s happened. If anything
has
happened. And that way, if it all turns out to be nonsense, there’s no fuss, and nobody’s made to look a fool. It seemed the best thing. It’s this second-in-command, you see, he’s left holding the baby, and he’s terrified of calling the police, and terrified of not calling them. Whatever he does is probably going to be the wrong thing.”
    “So I’m the working compromise. He realised that if there does turn out to be anything in it, it becomes an official matter?”
    “If there’s anything in it, the fat’s in the fire, anyhow. Yes, of course he understands that. Even Arundale couldn’t help that.” Dominic climbed into the driving seat of the station wagon, and set it rolling up the long, pale drive, bordered now, by fitful moonlight and scurrying cloud, with phantoms of Cothercott ingenuity even more monstrous than by day. “Is Bunty very mad at me? I’m sorry about it, but honestly, this business… I don’t like the look of it.” He had only recently taken to calling his mother Bunty, and it didn’t come quite naturally yet, but using the old, childish form of address had suddenly become as constricting to him as a strait-jacket. He’d never so much as given it a thought until Tossa entered the house; but it still hadn’t occurred to him to work out the implications.
    “Not with you. Maybe with your missing folk-singer, for his bad timing. Cold, Tossa?” She was between them on the broad front seat, and shivering a little in spite of the camel-coloured car coat in which she was huddled.
    “No, it’s just tension, don’t mind me.” She relaxed against George’s shoulder, reassured by his presence. There were going to be times when Dominic would feel a little jealous of George, who, after all, was only forty-five, and tall and slim, and not that bad-looking as middle-aged men go. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t like this much, either. There are too many over-developed personalities around, things
could
happen.”
    “Well, let’s hear it.”
    Dominic told it, as succinctly as he could, and Tossa added an occasional comment. There was no time for all the background detail now, only for the facts. Nevertheless, glimpses of personalities emerged, and they were seen to be, as Tossa had said, a little distorted, drawn from a world where bizarre and improbable things could happen. The moon came out and silvered the pagoda roof, beyond the heronry where there were no herons, and picked out like a lance-thrust the black entrance of the hermit’s cave, distant in its concrete rocks. Anything was believable here.
    “With a house full of about eighty people,” said George, “he thinks he’s going to be able to keep this secret?”
    “If it has to be a full-scale investigation, no. But long enough for you to have a look at the set-up and judge, yes, I reckon with luck we might. Because almost everybody was right away from here all afternoon,