Cosmo put his hands together and shook his head. He closed his eyes to lock down the effect.
“I couldn’t possibly do that. I was born to this, Anty. Ever since I learned that I was related to the great Flaps Fleming I knew that it was my life’s calling to tell his story.”
“Ever since?” I repeated. “How long, roughly, is ever?”
“About six weeks, as it happens. My mother is in America for an extended stay, and I was going through her correspondence, looking for a lighter or something I think, and I came across some old letters. One clue led to another, and I discovered that Mama and the major were cousins.”
“She never saw fit to mention it?”
Cosmo shared a meaningful glance with the vicar, who smiled reassuringly.
“Relations with the family have always been a bit wobbly for me,” he said. “I expect Mama thought I’d bother him about, well, writing his life story or some such thing.”
“Raven-haired ram of the family, are you?”
“I suppose there’s a bit of that, yes.” Cosmo fiddled distractedly with his pencil and turned his gaze back to the scene beyond the windows. “I’ve had a couple of false starts. Nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s so much easier to acquire a reputation for failing than it is for trying, what?”
“You’ve had other life’s callings?” I asked.
“Nothing like this, of course. I held the British patent for the Trident Precision Timepiece. Have you heard of it?”
“I think not.”
“It’s a waterproof wristwatch. Accurate to a depth of three hundred feet. Unfortunately, it was only accurate at that depth. On dry land it tended to display random times and was known to run backward.”
“Rotten luck.”
“Just so,” agreed Cosmo. “Pure chance. That was not, however, the view taken by Mama. She swore — in front of a notary, mind — that it would be the last time she financed one of my ventures.”
“There were others?”
“One or two. Three if one counts sponsoring a bicycle team in the London to Exeter Rally.”
“Isn’t London-Exeter a motorcycle race?”
“Which is why I don’t count that one.”
“Quite rightly, too, in my view.”
“Mistake easily made.”
“Like falling off a log,” I agreed. “But now you’ve found your vocation. Did you say that your uncle was fully throttle-down about the project?”
“Oh, rather. He was all chips in for the book. And I hadn’t even mentioned the Hollywood offer.”
“There’s been an offer from Hollywood?” I asked.
“Well, no, not in concrete terms, but it only stands to reason, what? Once the book is a roaring success.”
“I can’t help but think, Cosmo, that you’ll want to have settled the legal details before entertaining Hollywood offers.” I paused while we all accepted another cup of tea. “Do you know if your uncle left a will?”
Cosmo looked up from the task of blowing steam off his tea. “I’m quite sure he didn’t. He was still a young man, by most standards.”
“Nevertheless,” I said. “Bachelors of a certain age are known to become sentimental about their legacy. I knew of a chap who added a codicil to his will requiring all his descendants be named Evelyn.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“I say,” said Cosmo meditatively. “I know the major had a solicitor in Steeple Herding. Chap named Boodle.”
“Couldn't hurt to pay him a visit. Make sure that your verbal agreement with Flaps is worth at least the paper it’s written on.”
“Oh, rather. Sound advice, thanks Anty.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “That’s my vocation. And I have another pearl to bestow. You know, Monty was in your uncle’s squadron. Why don’t you ask him to fill in the few holes in your copious notes?”
Cosmo raised an eyebrow to the vicar who replied with silent censure. I’ve seen, in my days, many dark secrets pass wordlessly, and this looked a ripe one.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is he writing a book of his own?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just...” began Cosmo in that way people begin when they hope to be interrupted.
“It’s not for us to repeat scurrilous rumour,” spake Padget, expressing the wisdom of his vocation.
“I fear I must differ with you there, Vicar,” I said. “Rumour, particularly of the scurrilous variety, thrives in backhanded whispers. It’s from hushed exchanges between feckless chatterboxes that it draws its strength, its venom. Let daylight shine upon these charges, Vicar, and watch them shrivel and die before you. Verily.”
Padget eased himself into the role of the easily convinced. “This is entirely groundless, you understand. He finished the war with multiple honours. Stayed on, in fact, while the Royal Flying Corps became the Royal Air Force, and was elevated to Flight-Lieutenant.”
“Most admirable. What’s the dirt?”
Padget looked furtively about the parlour for spies. “According to the major, there was some question, during the war, of Monty’s loyalties.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Yes, Mister Boisjoly,” said Padget earnestly. “A spy.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Curious Comportment of the Common Cuckoo
Directly out the front door of the vicarage was the profile of the church and the southern face of the clock, indicating a yawning gap of an hour until lunch time. Also before me was the road home, to my left, and to my right the footprints in the snow of the newly dodgy Flight-Lieutenant Hern-Fowler, winding into the woods, accompanied by the circular impression of a walking stick. My heretofore dormant spy-catcher instincts awoke with a start and off I went in hot pursuit.
I had been tracking my prey across the frozen tundra for about five minutes when I was distracted by a snow owl and my hunt became a pleasant walk in a silent winter wood. The thing about your pleasant walks in silent winter woods is the unblemished symmetry of it all — one old-growth spruce with a coat of winter white looks very much like the next. Consequently, once I was out of view of the village I wasn’t so much following Monty’s tracks in the snow as relying on them to keep from getting hopelessly lost. In time, I reached the treeline and a familiar view of cows in a snowy meadow, and from there the suspected mole tracks led directly to Herding House.
“Is Flight-Lieutenant Hern-Fowler on the premises, Puckeridge?” I asked as I blew in with a stiff wind.
“He is,” said Puckeridge, very nearly cracking a smile. It was gratifying to see the effect the sudden uptick in callers was having on the career butler. “He is in the library with Miss Boisjoly.”
“To which Miss Boisjoly do you refer, Puckeridge? I ask, because you certainly can’t mean my Aunt Azalea, who would rather stick hot needles in her eyes than entertain strangers in her own home.”
“Your aunt relaxed her normally vigorous policy when the flight-lieutenant made it known that he was an old and dear friend of Major Fleming.” Puckeridge spoke in proud, confiding tones, as though relating to me some milestone in the development of a toddler of our mutual acquaintance.
“Extraordinary. Is the flight-lieutenant staying for lunch?”
“I believe so.” Puckeridge cast an eye almost imperceptibly over my damp tweeds. “But you have plenty of time to change, sir.”
“Quite right,” I agreed. “Send me the very first Vickers you encounter, will you?”
Minutes later Vickers was fitting me out with a warm and dry herringbone suit over a tan waistcoat.
“Did you happen to see Monty Hern-Fowler sneak aboard, Vickers?”
“No, sir. Mister Padget informed me of his arrival.”
“Well, be on your guard if you’re introduced,” I warned. “Be particularly vigilant about receiving coded messages or being pressed into transporting microfilm.”
“I shall keep a keen eye open, sir.”
“See that you do. According to the Reverend
Padget and the Writer Cosmo, Flaps Fleming claimed that there were whispers that Monty’s sympathies were, let us say, divided.”
“I find that difficult to believe, sir,” said Vickers, flatly. “My understanding is that Major Fleming and Flight-Lieutenant Hern-Fowler were brothers in arms.”
“The perfect cover. Anyway, that’s what they said. They went on to claim that suspicions were generously distributed by a captured German pilot, who apparently gave credible evidence that the Bosch were in regular receipt of friendly updates of the activities of the squadrons headquartered at Dunkirk.”
“Did the prisoner identify the flight-lieutenant by name?”
“Apparently nobody, even unto the court of Kaiser Wilhelm, knew the true identity of the agent known only as ‘Cuckoo’.”
“A very clever code name.”
“It is, yes. I thought so myself,” I agreed. “Just to be sure we’re on the same page, though, Vickers, why do you find it clever?”
“The Cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, who then unknowingly nurse their young.”
“Just as the Dunkirk squadron was harbouring a Hun in its bosom.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Rather convincing story, then.”
“Yes, sir,” conceded Vickers. “Far from conclusive, though.”
“No, I agree, but the chattering classes go on to point out that roughly half of Monty’s immediate ancestors hailed from the wrong side of history, and as a boy he spent many a happy summer fishing idly in the Danube and hiking in the Black Forest and, quite possibly for all anyone knows, learning spycraft at the Allgemeine Kriegsschule.”
“It’s hardly unusual to have a German branch in even the best of families.”
“Almost a requirement, but now we get to the intriguing part; when the Major related all this he cast Monty in the role of the dearly departed — so far as Flaps Fleming was concerned, his entire squadron, with the notable and obvious exception of himself, died during a heated exchange of views with a Zeppelin. And once Monty was dead — or at any rate presumed to be — the fortunes of the Dunkirk squadron leapt from success to success.”
Vickers took the position that any number of explanations could account for this turn of events, and I saw that the defence and prosecution were at loggerheads. I changed lanes.
“Incidentally, Vickers, there was a sheet of paper in the jacket of my swallow-tails. Did you happen to rescue it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Vickers with a glance at the little writing desk next to the fire. “I left it out to dry.”
“It was in my pocket when I was digging a cow out of a snowbank,” I explained. “Is it still legible?”
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Come come, Vickers, you must have glanced at it. It’s not like it was in a sealed envelope.”
“I may have inadvertently read a few passages,” admitted Vickers stoutly.
“Still comprehensible, then?”
“Regrettably, sir, it is.”
“That bad, is it?”
“I fear so. May I enquire who authored the piece?”
“Mister Padget,” I said. “You wouldn’t call it erudite?”
“I would not, no.”
“Nor would you contend that it flows, flies, nor inspires?”
“It is a very ambitious lyric, sir. It recounts the events leading to the death by stoning of Saint Stephen.”
“Cheerful.”
“It appears to be a Christmas carol, and is intended to be sung to the tune of In dulci jubilo.”
“You’re joking.”
“Would that I were, sir.”
“This is very disturbing, Vickers.”
“I’ll put it on the fire.”
“No, don’t do that,” I sighed. “Best hand it over. I’m afraid that I gave Mister Padget to believe that I’d read it, and furthermore thought it something just short of Byron’s She Walks in Beauty but a shade better than Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott”.
“I understand, sir,” said Vickers, though he plainly didn’t, because he followed up with, “Might I ask why?”
“Til you’re blue in the face, if it gives you any pleasure, but as I don’t know myself I won’t be able to provide you a satisfactory answer. Youthful indiscretion, perhaps? The man just sprung it on me. He’s quite canny for a country vicar.”
In that moment the dinner bell gonged an appetising, lunch-time tone, and I followed it to the dining room.
Puckeridge was standing at the dining room door like a sentry. He gave me an approving nod, then swept through the door before me and announced “Mister Anthony Boisjoly” as though he expected it to be followed by trumpets.
I took a quick census of the multitude and worked out that, counting Aunty Boisjoly and Monty Hern-Fowler, there were three of us. Monty was holding a chair for my aunt.
“Ah, there you are, Boisjoly,” he whooped, marching over to shake my hand and then take his place at the opposite end of the table.
“Hello Monty, Aunty.”
“Monty was a close friend of Flaps,” said Aunty Azalea. “He’s been entertaining me with some of the most remarkable tales of daring.”
“I don’t doubt it. Indeed, our mornings were similarly employed.” I addressed Monty. “Cosmo Millicent was recounting to me the fateful encounter with the zeppelins over Dunkirk.”
“Tragic waste of life.” Monty lowered his eyes and shook his head. “Ah! Devilled eggs.”
Puckeridge and Alice had returned and the cheerful kitchen maid was presenting a tray of appetisers.
“The way Cosmo tells it,” I said, “you didn’t survive the ordeal.”
“Well how would he know that? He wasn’t there. Couldn’t have been more than a boy at the time.”
“I mean, according to Major Fleming.”
“Curious. I have a very clear recollection of the event, and I distinctly remember seeing it through. Landed at Petite Synthe with my tail feathers on fire.”
“You’re not a ghost then.”
“Ahhh!” barked Monty with satisfaction. He had been hand-delivering a devilled egg to his mouth but abandoned the consignment and leaned forward. “If it’s a ghost story you’re after, let me tell you the most extraordinary tale to come from a period in history that spat out legends like they were watermelon seeds.”
“Oh, yes, please,” gushed Aunty. She also clapped her hands and, I believe, giggled.
“Christmas Day, it was…” Monty moderated his tone to a low, portentous roar. “...just a few weeks after the tangle with the Zeppelins. It was a cold, foggy morning over the channel. Silent. Still.”
The dining room, too, was silent and still, and even Puckeridge and Alice stood transfixed by the door.
“Flaps was recovered well enough to be evacuated, and it was decided to profit from the Christmas intermission to bring him home. We took a Parasol — little French, mono-wing surveillance plane. Two-seater. No weapon. Useless in combat but we weren’t looking for a fight. Just wanted to get the poor blighter home — all covered in bandages, missing an eye, out of his head on whatever they were giving him to kill the pain.”
“And you were flying on Christmas Day, under the cover of fog,” I added.
“Like pea soup,” confirmed Monty. “Something odd about that mist, though. Something unreal about it. It rose from the sea like a solid wall that dared not make landfall. Just hung there, like a beacon of fog, warning, ‘don’t fly, it’s too foggy’.”
“But fly you did.”
“Best time for it, under normal circumstances.” Monty pushed aside his plate and took up his fish knife as a joystick. “I flew directly into it and lost visibility instantly but then, not a mile out to sea, we came out the other side into the clearest, crispest, calmest day for flying you couldn’t have hoped for if you’d designed it yourself. Low winds, sun at my back.”
“Ah, so the fog misled you,” I guessed.
“On the contrary, the threat was far graver than I could
have imagined. Halfway across the channel, with Dover in sight, I saw them.” Monty eased up on the fish knife and squinted into the distance at a disquieting menace posed by the floral table centrepiece.
“Oh, dear,” shuddered Aunty Azalea. “Was it Jerry?”
“It was. Two red devils from the infamous Jasta Eleven. The most cold-blooded, precision predators in the air at the time. The rear guard of a bombing mission, as it turned out. Otherwise they’d no doubt have observed convention.”
“Which convention is that, Monty?” I asked.
“We were an unarmed observation craft, heading home. It was Christmas Day. As they approached, I gave them a smart salute, expecting it to be returned and for that to be the end of it. Instead they just buzzed by, dangerously close, on either wing, without so much as a nod.”
“How unforgivably Teutonic.”
“I learned later that the bombing mission was a bust — they were chased away from London and forced to jettison their payload in the sea. By an extraordinary turn of luck they scored a direct hit on one of their own U-boats.”
“And presumably they hoped to keep it between themselves,” I guessed.
“Precisely. Sure enough, I heard their engines accelerate and when I looked back they’d both climbed to twelve thousand feet and were banking back...” Monty looked over his shoulder to confirm the position of enemy fighters, “...positioning themselves to come at us out of the sun.”
“Rather unsporting strategy to take with a sitting duck, isn’t it?” I asked.
“I doubt they knew any other way, the blighters.”
“What did you do?” squealed Aunty Azalea, now quite literally on the edge of her seat and kneading her napkin with both hands.
“The only thing I could do.” Monty scanned the table for suitable cloud cover. “I ran for it. I spotted a raggedy bit of cumulus hovering at about five thousand feet, and I dove into it.” He struggled with the fish knife as the dining room table met unexpected crosswinds. “Immediately banked sharpish, hoping to double back on the sons of bachelors. But when I came out of the cloud, there they were, right in front of us and bearing down fast. I fancied I could see them taking aim.”
The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (Anty Boisjoly Mysteries Book 2) Page 10
