Hill House at Long Greenford, as the name suggests, stood at the top of a hill, some distance apart from the village street that lay below it in the valley. It was a timber framed Elizabethan house with a brick façade that had been added in later times. Set a little back from the road in well maintained gardens it was a typical middle-class country house.
Marjorie Grimshaw sighed with frustration. It was a big rambling old house filled with furniture that had been handed down through several generations. She’d looked everywhere for it in vases on mantle shelves, at the back of drawers, she’d even looked in the pockets of some of his clothes. Trust Humphrey to go off and not tell her where he had left the key to the bureaux. It was a fine 18th century one, highly valued and the last thing she wanted to do was to damage it by forcing an entry. It contained papers, an amount of cash and the cheque book to which they were both signatories. The end of the month was approaching; there were bills to paid and the gardener’s and housemaid’s wages would be due. Neither she nor her brother Humphrey had married and they had lived on in the house since their parents had died many years ago. Although Humphrey usually dealt with the household accounts both were familiar with them and if either went away the other simply took over. Where had Humphrey left that key?
Ernest Gathercole had been an insurance agent in the area for as long as many people could remember. Like the postman, the vicar, the policeman and many people in the early 1950s he still cycled on his rural rounds covering the villages that lay within a seven- mile radius of his home. The company he represented was not one of those prestigious ones to which wealthier people paid their annual premiums for their cover. His company served the lesser weekly paid folk who paid their insurance premiums by weekly or monthly instalments. Ernest peddled his cycle round the villages collecting the instalments and occasionally picking up a bit of new business.
His routes, he carefully planned, every one of his customers knew the day and almost the hour when a knock on the door would announce his arrival to collect their payments. No matter the weather Ernest had a clockwork regularity, whether in shirtsleeves on a hot summer’s day, muffled up in winter or draped in a yellow oilskin in the pouring rain he stuck to his timetable.
Even those who were not Ernest Gathercole’s customers all knew who he was and he was something of a respected and trusted member of the community. Amazingly, having cycled his rounds on weekdays he would still be seen out on his cycle at weekends. On Saturdays he refereed local village football games and cycled to matches. On Sundays as a nonconformist lay preacher he would often be seen pedalling off to conduct services at distant village chapels.
It was about mid-day when Ernest reached Long Greenford village street that Thursday and as was his usual custom at that time and place, he stopped, propped his cycle up against the bus shelter, took a flask and sandwich out of his saddlebag and sat down in the shelter to a brief lunch. As he munched his sandwich he took out a notebook checking that he had missed no calls in the morning and reminding himself where the afternoon was to take him.
Engrossed in his notebook Ernest didn’t notice a pallid man in a dark suit cross the road from the churchyard gate until he was seated beside him. Ernest looked up and the man said “You are Ernest Gathercole, I believe? I thought you would be here at this time and I need somebody I can trust. Will you do me a great favour please?”
Being of a generous nature Ernest replied that he would if he could and wondered what was coming.
The dark suited man hurriedly explained “I have not got much time; I should not really be here at all today, but I want you to deliver a message for me. As you ride out of the village can you stop at Hill House and ask for Miss Marjorie Grimshaw and tell her Humphrey, her brother, says the bureaux key is in the bottom of the grandfather clock in the hall.”
Ernest listened, his eye on his flask cup as he poured his second coffee. He looked up to say “Why can’t you…” but the man had disappeared, there was no sign of him.
Ernest finished his lunch break and mounted his cycle again and rode out of the village. He dismounted and walked the last steep rise to the top of the hill and leaving his cycle at the gate walked up the path to the front door of Hill House. He heard a bell jangle inside as he pressed an old porcelain button and the housemaid answered the door and he asked to see Miss Grimshaw. Marjorie Grimshaw soon appeared and Ernest explained that Humphrey had asked him to inform her that the bureaux key was in the bottom of the grandfather clock.
“Well, wait a minute and let’s see” said Marjorie opening the door into the clock and peering into the cavity below the weights and the pendulum. “Oh! I’m so relieved, here it is” she cried. She thanked Ernest for calling to tell her and added “Were you in hospital with my brother Mr Gathercole?”
“No” replied Ernest “to tell you the truth I’ve never been in a hospital. Cycling every day seems to keep me very fit and healthy. Your brother Humphrey came and sat down beside me while I was having my lunch today and asked me to convey the message.”
Marjorie Grimshaw’s face darkened “I’m not sure that I like your sense of humour Mr Gathercole. Humphrey died in hospital eight days ago. He was buried in the churchyard yesterday.”
About the author
Guy Pratt is a retired octogenarian second hand bookseller who enjoys gardening, long walks with his dog and travel. He gravitated into the book trade after earlier years in farming, the army Intelligence Corps and the civil service.
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Good story.
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