“Several times he tried to engage the man in conversation, but received only a rebuff for his pains

Dixon Hawke: The Case of the Missing Pearls: Episode One

Dixon Hawke’s big car was stranded on the breast of a hill three or four miles from a village. Both he and Tommy Burke had tried unsuccessfully to discover the cause of the trouble. “This would happen,” Tommy grumbled. “It’s one of the few times when we’ve a reasonable chance of resting, and now we’re stuck on a second-class road miles from anywhere, and – ”

“With a very warm day for early spring, and plenty of time to spare,” smiled Hawke. “It could be a lot worse. Maybe Providence has taken a hand and is stopping us from getting back to London in time to meet an uninteresting case which we can’t avoid.”

Tommy chuckled. “Trust you to see the bright side if there is one, guv’nor! Anyhow, you’ve a book in your grip that I know you want to read. You stay here and I’ll walk back to the nearest village for help.”

“That’s taken the words out of my mouth,” smiled Hawke. “You might be able to get a lift, too.”

Tommy left the famous detective filling his pipe, and started at a brisk rate. Hawke was right; it was a blessing it was such a warm, clear day. But he hoped a motorist would come along.

After about half a mile Tommy heard the first sound of an engine. The noise gradually grew terrific, and whatever was coming was banging and rattling, snorting and groaning.

Tommy stopped and held up his hand, seeing a very old and bright blue bus coming his way.

Cracked

One wheel seemed loose, the windscreen was badly cracked, but the bus was crowded to overflowing. Tommy groaned. There wasn’t much chance of a lift there.

However, the driver, a fat, red-faced man with an enormous moustache, pulled up.

“Room for one more?” asked Tommy hopefully. “I only want to go into the nearest village.”

“Bless me, there’s room for another dozen the likes of ’ee,” said the driver cheerfully. “B’aint there, folks?”

A sea of country faces regarded Tommy, all of them friendly, and a chorus of country voices came. “Ay, ’tis so, George ! ”

“Come in, right welcome, lad!”

“B’aint never been a time when there wasn’t room for another on old George’s bus,” cried a burlylooking farmer. “Mind the time we had 50 up, George?”

“Ay, don’t I?” grinned the driver. “Christmas, it were. Forty-three o’ them varmints was in my old bus, sir, an’ seven more stopped us. Never turned a customer away in me life, sir, that’s me. ‘Come on the top’, says I to them, and on they climbed, holding on I don’t know how. Me, I dassen’t drive at mor’n five miles an hour!”

A general chuckle followed, and Tommy joined in. There was something comical about the way the driver told his tale while he drove.

The rattling and banging was considerably worse inside, and although the speedometer registered over 25 miles an hour, to Tommy they seemed to be travelling at about fifteen.

Casually Tommy regarded his fellow-passengers. One man was different from the rest, sitting sullen and unsmiling.

“A sinister-looking customer,” thought Tommy. “I wouldn’t trust him any further than I could see him. “And he’s a surly beggar, too.”

Next to this man, who was dark, swarthy, and very thin, with dark, insolent eyes and a high-bridged narrow nose as well as thin lips pressed tightly together, was the burly farmer who had said there was always room for another passenger.

Bad-humoured

Several times he tried to engage the dark man in conversation, but received only a rebuff for his pains. Finally the surly one stood up and the driver stopped.

“Good-day to ye, Mr Peggott. ‘Ope ye’ve had a comfortable ride.”

“Comfortable!” barked Peggott. “It’s time this old wreck was condemned. It’s not fit for anything better than pigs.”

He jumped down and hurried over a stile near the end of the road. George let in his clutch savagely.

“Ay – and all its passengers would be pigs if they was all the likes of ’e,” he said distinctly.

“That’s right, George!” “Bad-humoured old miser,” said the burly farmer, whose name appeared to be Elias. “I’d like to know what goes on in his cottage, that I would.”

“I did hearsay that he made bad money,” said someone from the back of the bus. “Mind the time there was so many dud half-crowns about? Just after he came to live here, that was.”

“Nothing about Peggott would surprise me,” said George. “Well, here’s your place, Elias.”

The burly farmer squeezed past Tommy to the door.

“‘G’day, Elias!” called the driver. “Mind ’ee don’t forget to drink my health tonight!”

There was another chuckle as Elias went off. Tommy managed to get a seat now, and was amused by the friendliness and good spirits of the countryfolk.

In and out of his mind there passed thought of the comments about counterfeit coins and the man Peggott, but that was forgotten when George stopped outside a wayside cottage, whose owner was waiting outside to collect a parcel.

The journey seemed unending.

At least six similar stops were made before they came in sight of the village. On the outskirts there was a fine old Georgian mansion and to Tommy’s surprise the driver pulled up outside the gates.

“Parcel for the Colonel today, then?” someone called.

“Ay – a special! Come out o’ the jewellers,” said George. “Miss Whittaker’s pearls been re-strung, I did hear say.”

“By gee!” came an exclamation. “Do the Colonel trust ’ee wi’ that, George?”

Missing

A roar of laughter followed, while George began to ferret amongst a lot of small parcels in a cupboard built near him. “Ay, trust me with anything,” he said complacently. He paused and opened the cupboard wider.

“Could have sworn I put that packet there,” he added.

Silence gradually fell upon the bus.

It became a strained and anxious one, as the driver’s red face turned gradually paler. Finally he said: “It ain’t there. I couldn’t have put it anywhere else, I’m sure. I wanted it where it would be under my eye all the time.”

“Better look under the seats,” came a suggestion. As one man, the passengers rose. Some climbed on to the road, and others began to pull parcels of all shapes and sizes from beneath the seats.

None was the missing packet, however, and the driver finally said in a curiously flat voice: “I’d best go see the Colonel, folks.”