The Girl from Heavytree Farm

Chapter One: The Girl from Heavytree Farm

Mirabelle liked and admired George Manfred and Raymond Poiccart for their kindness and generosity, and their courage in everything they did to help humanity; and she adored her husband, but she knew he needed her at least as much as she needed him. She had known from their first meeting that Leon found 'sentiment' difficult to cope with. He prided himself on his scientific rationality, on his calm, nay, cold reasoning which deduced that such and such a man (it was nearly always a man) had offended against Justice and must die. When he was not eagerly expounding his latest theory or rhapsodising on some quirk of science, his face in repose was thin, sharp-featured and pale, like some priest of Justice. Mirabelle, with her bright eyes and lively personality, was like a burst of springtime against his cold November. Since she had come into his life, Leon had found himself acting in a most irrational and sentimental fashion: when he was away from her, he would sit with chin in hand, dreaming of her; when she was not at his side, he was edgy and irritable; if he was seated at his desk, writing, he found himself scribbling verses of adoration which were as sickly in their sentimentality as any schoolboy's. Embarrassed by his own emotion and yet realising that the human heart cannot be suppressed by reason (he had started writing a monograph on the subject), he had hidden the verses away in a drawer of his desk, where Mirabelle - searching for writing paper to send out letters for the agency - had found them and read them with a sweet, loving smile on her lips, and then hidden them again so that her husband wouldn't be embarrassed that she had read them. 

Mirabelle considered the passers-by in the street. Leon had gone out early to investigate a potential case. He was always at his most lively and amusing in the morning, and they had had an early, hilarious breakfast before he had rushed out into the morning sunshine, leaving her to get on with writing letters for the agency and reading the correspondence received, a task she shared with Poiccart. Leon had promised to be back for lunch, and they would go for a walk by the river - he had something he wanted to discuss with her, and in any case they tried to go out together every day, somewhere or other. Mirabelle missed him when he was out - she sometimes went with him on a case, and sometimes she had her own errands to run, but for the last few weeks he had been reluctant to let her go out with him - 'It's an unpleasant case,' he had said. 'I will want your assistance later, but I'd prefer to carry out the initial investigations myself.' 

So he had gone out alone, and even George Manfred said that he didn't know what Leon was up to: 'And I've long ago given up wanting to know,' he said reassuringly to Mirabelle. 'Sometimes these investigations of Leon's end up in shoot-outs at midnight, and I prefer to know as little as possible so that I don't have to lie to our friend Inspector Meadows.' 

Mirabelle had agreed. She liked Inspector Meadows, and fully sympathised with his position. The Three Just Men and One Woman could be a liability and an embarrassment as much as an aid to the police. 

So Leon had gone out, and George Manfred had gone out on another case, and even Poiccart had gone out on his motorcycle, leaving Mirabelle as the only member of the Triangle Agency in the house. She had read correspondence and written some letters - there were some warnings to issue, which were always composed on a thin, grey-green paper which Leon had brought back from Spain - and she had paid a few bills. Then she sent the boy out with the post, and now she was leaning on the windowsill, looking out into the street. 

Well, really! she thought to herself, I mustn't just stand here idly. It's on lovely days like this that I really miss Heavytree Farm. She wondered what her cousin Mark was doing there now: whether he was feeding the hens, or digging up potatoes in the garden, or checking over the cow, or looking over the barns ... 

No, this wouldn't do! She had been desperately frustrated at the farm: she and Aunt Alma had had no money, no means of developing the place; they had been losing money hand over fist, and were looking bankruptcy in the face - that was why she had taken that ill-fated job with Dr Oberzohn. Then had come Leon, and a complete change in her life; and the security of the gold mine, and a permanent job with her childhood heroes, the Three Just Men; she was happy here and she wouldn't want to change anything. It was just that on days like this, she missed Gloucestershire ...