Uncoffin'd Clay (Mrs. Bradley), page 9
“That is not what you said last night. If you want to go, we’ll go, unless it pours with rain.”
“Perhaps Dame Beatrice would like to take part,” said Mary.
Dame Beatrice disclaimed any such desire on the grounds that she felt inadequate at religious festivals.
“I suppose bad weather will not deter the faithful,” she said.
“Only to the extent that the little services will be held in barns instead of in the open air,” said Mary. “I do hope the weather holds up, though. The route goes through some of the loveliest countryside in Dorset, and that’s saying something. I always wonder why any of us go for holidays when there’s everything one could wish for right here on the doorstep, but Innes can’t do without at least a fortnight in his beloved Scotland. Anyway, I thought tomorrow’s thing might be rather fun. It starts off miles from here. In fact, Strode Hillary is nearly half-way along the route. The procession of cars meets in Ropewalk high street and from there it comes in our direction and stops first at a dairy farm to bless the herd, then at a fruit farm, after that comes a riding-stables, and then there is the stop for tea at Paulet Marquise.”
“Tea?” said Dame Beatrice. “This is not a morning procession, then?”
“No. It kicks off officially at three-thirty, giving everybody time to attend morning church, eat Sunday dinner, and do the washing-up,” said Innes. “They will allow an hour for tea at Paulet Marquise and then visit a sheep farm just outside the village. After that they will re-form in the market square here and go on to a trout farm. We saw the beginnings of the trout-stream at Lower Gushbrook. Then the cars end up at Aries St. Peter, where there is a short church service and then refreshments at the vicarage for all those who have stuck it out to the end. Most people will, I expect.”
“It all sounds most delightful,” said Dame Beatrice.
“But not quite your cup of tea? I’ll tell you what I suggest, then. Let’s take the main route, as we did before, leaving out visits to the farms, and show Mike some more of the countryside, as we planned. I’ll book Sunday lunch in Ropewalk, leave Mary at the hotel while I drive you and Mike home, Dame Beatrice, and then I can get back again for Mary by the time the procession of cars begins to assemble. How would that suit everybody?”
Mary, however, turned the plan down. She said she no longer wanted to go on pilgrimage. This was just as well, for scarcely had we got indoors, after lunching at Ropewalk that Sunday, than the clouds darkened and the rain fell so heavily that Innes had to switch on the lights to enable him to read his Sunday paper when we returned.
“My poor daffodils are not going to like this,” said Mary, standing at the french windows and looking at the sodden tubs and their wilting occupants. “One thing, we’ve had the best of them. They are nearly over for this year.”
“‘When a daffodil I see
Hanging down his head t’wards me,
Guess I may what I must be,’” quoted Dame Beatrice solemnly. She went on:
“‘First, I shall decline my head;
Secondly, I shall be dead;
Lastly, safely bury-ed.’”
I looked at the thin, lined face, the apparently frail figure, and wondered at her calm philosophy, but, of course, said nothing of my thoughts. Mary’s more robust mind was much bolder than mine. She quoted in her turn, and from the same poet:
“‘Stay, stay
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the Evensong,
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.’”
Dame Beatrice cackled, a harsh sound incongruent with her delightful voice when she spoke. She changed the subject.
“What were young Mr. Chettle and young Mr. Batcombe up to at Lower Gushbrook?” she asked. “I noticed them as we drove through it on our way to Ropewalk.”
“Peter and Ernie?” said Innes, looking up from his perusal of the newspaper. “Were they there? I didn’t spot them. They’re not usually birds of a feather, I believe, although at different times I’ve had each of them up before me on the Bench, Chettle for poaching and Ernie for causing a breach of the peace by hitting a fellow member of the local Supporters’ Club over the head with a mug of cider and starting a general fracas or, as the law puts it, an affray.”
“So you go in for football hooliganism even in these parts,” I said. “I thought the fighting always took place between rival gangs of supporters, though.”
“Ernie’s cousin, who plays at full back, put the ball through his own goal,” Innes explained. “Another youth strongly criticised this action because it was the only goal of the match. His remarks caused Ernie’s clan spirit to be aroused and he bounced the pint pot on the other lad’s head which, fortunately for its owner, is made of teak. What annoyed him most, he explained later, was not being crowned so much as the waste of cider, for Ernie, with great presence of mind, had seized the other fan’s pint with which to commit assault and battery on him.”
“Talking of Lower Gushbrook,” I said, “I think some of the village people have been having a game with that waterlogged punt. You noticed it, Mary, when we took Dame Beatrice there the other day.”
“You pointed it out,” she said.
“You remember those plants which were growing in it?” I turned to Innes. “Well, they’d been changed. Some had gone and the others were differently arranged and there were roots of water forget-me-not—doesn’t flower for about another month, but I couldn’t mistake it—and that most certainly wasn’t growing in the punt when we went to Lower Gushbrook the first time. I wonder who’s been gardening?”
“Oh, kids love playing games with mud and water, and making little gardens,” said Innes, “but I would like to know what Peter and Ernie were doing there today. It’s right off their beat. I hope they haven’t made some mischief to upset the procession this afternoon. The church will be empty until the procession arrives, and Ernie may be a churchgoer, but it isn’t his church.”
“But will the pilgrims go into the church? I thought it was only arranged to go straight through Lower Gushbrook on the way to the trout farm,” said Mary.
“Well, if those two were together, they weren’t up to any good,” said Innes. “There’s nothing in the paper, by the way.” He tossed it aside. “Are there any muffins? Let’s have tea early and then spend a long cosy evening thinking about how wet the procession will be. I wonder whether they’ll cut things short in all this rain?”
“Not they,” said Mary confidently. “They can’t by-pass any of the farms. Offence would be taken. Besides, there is all the trouble people have gone to with the tea at Paulet Marquise and the refreshments at the vicarage.”
“I do not think country people pay much regard to rain until the rivers burst their banks and there are floods,” said Dame Beatrice. “Snow is a different matter. It blocks roads and the sheep have to be dug out of drifts. I think Mary is right. The pilgrimage will go on as planned.”
Tidings of it came to us on the following morning. They were brought, of course, by Martha Lorne. The rain had ceased during the night and a burst of sunshine brought her along at eleven o’clock just as Innes had set out the usual bottles. He brought another glass from the kitchen and Martha settled down to tell us the tale. Her excuse for calling at such a time, she said, was to bid me farewell before I returned to London.
“That is very kind of you,” I said, “but, actually, you know, I’m not leaving today, after all.”
“No, it was the arrangement,” said Mary, “that Mike should go home after lunch today, but, now that my godmother is here, we’ve persuaded him to change his mind. Did you do the bounds yesterday, Martha?” (I noticed that she did not mention Lord Maumbury’s invitation.)
“Well, I’d been offered a seat in the Tollers’ car and I did not like to disappoint them. I knew they would go, whatever the weather. You know what very church people they are. The daughter has her eye on the Reverend Basil. Such a mistake for a bachelor to take on five parishes. One of them is bound to have a designing spinster or two, don’t you think? So embarrassing for the Reverend Basil because Gloria Toller has no reticence or inhibitions at all, but simply goes all out to make her desires known. Jane Upcerne has the same hankerings, but is much more discreet. Sometimes I think she’d like to murder Gloria,” said Martha.
“Talking of murder,” said Innes, “has anything more been heard of Winters?”
“Well, he wasn’t at the tea-party in Paulet Marquise church. I don’t remember seeing him at Aries St. Peter vicarage, either, but of course there was such a crush there that we overflowed into three rooms, so one might have missed him. I must say that the W.I. had done a wonderful job at the vicarage. One advantage, I suppose, of being a bachelor vicar is that all the women will work their fingers to the bone for you.”
“I didn’t realise that the W.I. was involved,” said Mary. “Nobody mentioned it at the last meeting.”
“Well, there was so much other business and, in any case, all the arrangements were put in hand weeks ago, before you joined, dear, and all the volunteers were co-opted then, and promises given and duties assigned and all that.”
“Perhaps I ought to have turned up yesterday after all, but the weather was beastly and I have two guests staying—”
“Oh, don’t talk about the weather! It was all right at Breedy’s farm because we had our little service in that lovely old barn which used to belong to the abbey in the far-off-days, but only the vicar got out at Mrs. Smith-Tidewell’s. The rain came down in sheets and he just said a quick blessing on her ponies and a mare which had a tiny foal, while the rest of us cowered in our cars. The dairy farm was more or less all right because we all made a quick dash for the dairy itself and the cowsheds. The vicar blessed both and one of the dear cows mooed a most beautiful Amen. We had to laugh.”
“Did the W.I. do the tea at Paulet Marquise?” asked Mary.
“Oh, my dear, no! Lady Maumbury undertook Paulet Marquise, as she did last year, but some of our members cooked for it and it was a great success. I think people hung tea-time out as long as they could because of the rain, but eventually we got everybody back to the cars. Half a dozen youths turned up on motorcycles and were a very great nuisance and rather a danger weaving in and out and racing their engines the way they do, and all looking like beings from Star Trek or a horror comic or something. I believe they only came for the tea, although they did stay with us after that. One of them skidded almost under the wheels of the sheikh’s car, and only the chauffeur’s skill prevented a very nasty accident which would have spoilt the whole thing.”
“You don’t mean the sheikh turned up in church!” said Innes.
“Not in the actual church, no. I don’t think he got out of his car at any of the stops until we went into the vicarage, and that was with a purpose. The vicar has a beautiful bitch with a litter of pups—golden Labradors, you know—and the sheikh had his youngest son with him and was given no peace from little Murad until he had bespoken a puppy for the boy.”
“Did the motorcyclists attend the service?” asked Mary. “And who was the one who skidded?”
“Oh, yes, they had grace enough to come into the church. If they had not, I don’t suppose even Peter Chettle, wicked though he is and not as psycho as he pretends, would have had cheek enough to go into the vicarage for cake and cider and sausage rolls and wolf his fill. It was Ernie Batcombe who skidded.”
“Was he hurt?”
“Oh, no. The devil looks after his own,” said Martha Lorne bitterly. I exchanged glances with Innes, but, of course, neither of us made any comment. She went on: “I don’t know how he got the money to buy a motorbike. He’s been out of work for months, and the bike looks brand-new.”
“I expect the State provided it, along with his board and keep,” said Innes. “That’s why fools like me pay our taxes.”
Mary thought it well to change the subject.
“Did Jed Poole turn up?” she asked.
“No. The garage was open, so I suppose he had to work. That dreadful Peter Chettle, who doesn’t own a bike, rode pillion behind Ernie. So dangerous!”
“So he got spilled too,” said Innes.
“He fell into the hedge, that’s all.”
“Boys on bikes are monkeys on sticks,” I said. “No sooner down than they’re up again.”
“Boys are like cats,” said Innes. “They have nine lives. I crashed on a push-bike when I was twelve years old, and went headfirst down a hill which was littered with boulders, but I never touched one of them. Everybody said it was a miracle.”
“Well, I wish Ernie Batcombe and Peter Chettle had broken their necks,” said Martha. “The village could well do without them.”
“Did anything happen at Lower Gushbrook?” asked Innes. Martha looked surprised.
“No. Why?”
“Because those two lads were there. I thought they might have been up to mischief as it was on the route taken by the procession. Besides that—”
“So the sheikh’s little boy had one of Diana’s puppies,” said Mary, making another deliberate intervention.
“Well, he chose one, but it is too young to be taken from its mother. He is to have it in two weeks’ time. I hope he will treat it properly. Foreigners have a bad reputation for cruelty to animals. Oh, dear! Is that the time? I had better go.”
“One for the road,” said Innes. She sat down again and had one for the road. Then, as she rose to go, she said,
“Winters was not at breakfast this morning. I met his sister in the Square as I came along here. She was extremely worried and had been to the police. They are not bound to look for missing persons unless there is reason to suspect foul play, and so they told her, but she isn’t satisfied, of course. After all, there was that bullet which went through Winters’s hat and even if that was meant for the sheikh and not for Winters, it couldn’t have been a very pleasant experience for either of them.”
“Winters may have decided to leave the neighbourhood for a bit,” said Innes. “He was responsible for negotiating the sale of Bourne Farley to the sheikh, wasn’t he? Perhaps that has made him somewhat unpopular in some quarters, and he knows it. I expect the bullet scared him into going into hiding.”
“I don’t know what Strode Hillary is coming to. Bullets through hats and people caught in man-traps! I wonder how young Hamid is getting on?” said Mary. “How soon will the police be able to question him?”
“According to what I’ve heard,” said Martha, “they won’t need to amputate the leg. The rumours about gangrene, even if they were true—and I don’t believe they were, because gangrene surely would not have set in so soon—must have been greatly exaggerated. Gloria Toller, who knows one of the sisters at the hospital, told me that Hamid had recovered consciousness, but, of course, she knew nothing about when the police would be allowed to talk to him. That is a matter for the doctors to decide.”
“What a good thing he will not lose the leg!” said Mary. “He’s only nineteen years old, I believe. It’s terrible to lose a leg at any time of life, but particularly dreadful at that age. Will he be crippled?”
“The sheikh is so rich that everything will be done which can be done,” said Martha. “You would think the police would have found out by now who set the trap. I heard that the sheikh is offering a huge reward for information. Personally, I suspect Jed Poole. He’s wild enough.”
“I’m afraid you are wrong this time, Mrs. Lorne,” said Dame Beatrice. “I am sure Jed Poole did not set it.”
“Well, somebody did,” said Martha spiritedly, “or Hamid couldn’t have caught himself in it, could he? If you ask me, there is something very strange going on, and everything began with that bullet through Winters’s hat. Effie Winters was worried to death when he told her of it.”
“Would a bullet through my hat worry you, Mary?” asked Innes.
“Not if you were walking with somebody else, especially if he was known to be unpopular. I should be certain that the bullet was meant for him, and I should just hope that you wouldn’t walk about with him any more.” She turned to Mrs. Lorne. “How long has Winters been missing, Martha? By that, I mean when does his sister say he was last at home?”
“I don’t know exactly, but long enough ago for her to be worried about not hearing from him. At first Effie Winters thought he might have seduced one of the village girls and gone into hiding for fear of the father or brothers—not that anybody cares much about that sort of thing these days—but there have been no rumours. No gossip has been bandied about, or I would have known.”
“Why did she expect to hear from him? Brothers are not all that considerate of a sister’s feelings. They seem to assume she hasn’t got any,” said Innes.
“Well,” said Martha, “Effie thought that by this time he would either have sneaked back for some clothes or asked her to send some along. She says he took nothing with him, not even so much as a clean shirt. That’s what really worries her—that and the bullet, of course. She doesn’t even know when he left home. She had been away for a few days, although I believe she was back for the weekend.”
CHAPTER 8
THE WATERLOGGED PUNT
One mystery soon seemed to sort itself out. The police picked up the Fell Hall caretaker, Burrows, for the local robberies, and he completely exonerated his wife, who, as we had surmised, could have known nothing about the locked second-floor room in the ruined building. However, he turned Queen’s evidence on Winters who, he alleged, had been his partner in crime.
“So far, so good,” said Innes, when he heard the news. “Well, the hearing before the Bench will be more or less a formality now. On Burrows’s own confession we shall have to send him for trial. Anyway, everybody’s stolen property, including our own, will soon be returned, and Hallicks will have a further reason for rounding up Winters. What is more, the hospital has now given permission for him to see Hamid, provided he does not excite or tire him. It will be interesting to know what the boy has to say.”
He met Hallicks after the court hearing at which Burrows had been ordered to be remanded in custody, but had little to tell us when he came home.
