The Tale of Holly How

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  “That gave Captain Woodcock and the constable something to puzzle over, you can be sure,” he added. “The question is, where did it come from?”

  “A clay pipe?” Tabitha lifted her head, blinking. “But why should that be puzzling? Lots of people smoke clay pipes. Maybe Ben was standing at the top of the slope, having a smoke, when he missed his footing and fell.”

  “But Ben didn’t smoke, you see,” Rascal replied. “At least, that’s what Mr. Jennings said. So they’re wondering—”

  “So they’re wondering if somebody was with him when he fell?” Crumpet broke in. She was beginning to feel the prickle of rising fur across her shoulder blades, a sure sign that something significant was under discussion. “Was he . . . pushed?”

  “Really, Crumpet.” Tabitha wrinkled her nose crossly. “You always imagine the very worst about every situation. You’re never happy unless you’ve conjured up some mystery or another to poke your nose into.”

  “Well, was he?” Crumpet demanded. Old Ben Hornby was known around the village as a difficult man to get on with. He’d alienated a great many people over the years and made enemies of several, some fairly recently. Crumpet herself could name names, if it came to that, and doubtless everyone in the village could, too. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if somebody had finally decided to take matters into his own hands. “Come on, Rascal,” she said urgently. “Answer the question. Was he pushed?”

  Rascal sighed. “I have no idea, Crumpet. The sheep are the only ones who might have seen what actually happened. I intended to talk to them and find out if they could tell me anything. But Miss Potter insisted on staying with old Ben’s body, and I felt I had to stay with her. And by the time Mr. Jennings got back with the constable and Captain Woodcock, the sheep were nowhere in sight. You know how those Herdwicks are, always on the move. They probably went over the top of Holly How.”

  “And you wanted to ride in the captain’s motorcar, so you didn’t go looking for them,” Crumpet said in an accusing tone.

  Rascal frowned. “I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly.”

  “Well, I would,” Crumpet muttered darkly, although she had to admit to herself that she probably would have done the same thing. There was no doubt about it, the first chance she got, she was going for a ride in that motorcar. For a moment, she forgot all about the matter at hand and began to picture herself whizzing along at the astounding speed of fifteen miles an hour, the horn tooting merrily, the wind ruffling her beautiful gray fur, the chickens fluttering out of her way, everyone in the village enviously watching her progress, just as if she were a Royal.

  “Oh, I wish,” she began dreamily. “I wish I could—”

  “And I wish,” Tabitha interrupted in a sharp tone, “that the two of you would stay with the subject, instead of flying off in a dozen different directions. Forget the motorcar. What we need to know is what really happened to Ben Hornby. So how are we going to find out?”

  “I suppose we could go back to Holly How and look for those sheep,” Rascal said. “Tibbie might know something, if we can get her to tell.” He frowned. “But I don’t know what good it will do for us to know. Even if we find out what happened, it’s impossible to tell the Big Folk. They can’t understand what we say.”

  “Be that as it may,” Tabitha replied in a lecturish tone, “it’s important to know what happened. It sounds as if there were no witnesses other than the sheep, so let’s go up to Holly How and find them. Come on!” And with that, she jumped off the step and onto the path.

  Stubbornly, Rascal shook his head. “I am not going anywhere until I’ve had my supper. Finding dead bodies is hungry work, and I haven’t had a bite to eat since—”

  “Well, go and do it, then,” said Tabitha bossily, tossing her head and switching her tail. “Crumpet and I will wait right here.”

  Crumpet sighed and rolled her eyes. Really, if you gave Tabitha Twitchit an inch, she would take a mile.

  12

  Miss Potter Makes Up Her Mind

  While Crumpet, Tabitha, and Rascal were having their conversation on the back steps of Belle Green, Beatrix had gone to her room to freshen up for supper. The motorcar ride—her first ever—had been highly interesting, but she had to comb and pin up her hair, which had been blown every which way, and wash the dust from her face. And, of course, her friends were waiting to be fed: Josey and Mopsy Rabbit, Tom Thumb the mouse, and Tuppenny, the guinea pig, all of whom lived in large, comfortable cages on a sunny shelf in her second-floor room.

  She filled their dishes with food and water, spoke gently to them as she stroked their soft fur with her finger, and knelt beside their cages as she watched them settle down happily to eat. She still enjoyed having little pets to care for and make stories about, and they were always good company and a relief from her mother and father, who were constantly telling her what to do and how to think and feel. Peter and Mrs. Tiggy and Benjamin Bunny and her other pets had brightened her life and made her smile during some very dark times, and she would always be grateful.

  These days, however, the Hill Top Farm barnyard animals—the pigs and cows and sheep and horses—called out for her attention. The sheep on Holly How, for instance. Her sheep, the ewes and lambs that had been bought and paid for, who had been grazing on the fellside when she and Mr. Jennings went to look for them, but who had disappeared by the time the constable and Captain Woodcock arrived. Tomorrow morning, she and John Jennings would have to go up to Holly How and see if the Herdwicks could be found and taken down to Hill Top, where they now belonged.

  She sighed. Also tomorrow, she had to talk to Mr. Biddle and try to get him to hurry up the work on the house, and most especially to do something to stop out the rats. And then she would have to find Tabitha Twitchit and get a few sketches for the new book, a very simple story about three naughty kittens who lost their clothes to a family of ducks. But simple or not, the drawings required time and attention, when there was Mr. Biddle and the house to worry about, and the missing sheep and—

  But downstairs, Mrs. Crook was putting supper on the table and it would soon be time to eat. Beatrix stood up, unpinned her curly brown hair in front of the mirror, and brushed it smooth again, thinking all the while. Her pets had been an enormous comfort to her, and she knew that Lady Longford’s granddaughter, who must be lonely in that huge, dark house, would benefit from having a quiet, loving companion. Tuppenny, for instance, who was well-mannered and always very cheerful. On her way to Holly How in the morning, she’d be driving right past the Manor. If she appeared at the door with Tuppenny and offered to lend the little creature to Caroline for a few days, her ladyship couldn’t really say no, could she?

  Beatrix didn’t usually do this sort of thing, appearing without invitation on somebody’s doorstep and handing in a guinea pig, as if it were fresh laundry or a cod from the fish man’s cart. But she knew she had something of a local reputation—“that lady writer from London who publishes ever so many of those sweet little books for children”—and she was willing to trade on it when there was good reason. Lady Longford was reputed to be an irascible old woman who liked nothing better than to have her own way, but surely she couldn’t be so mean and petty as to deny her granddaughter the pleasure of a quiet, clean little animal in a cage—especially if it was offered by a well-known children’s writer.

  Beatrix slipped the last pin into her hair and turned around. She had made up her mind. “Enjoy your dinner, Tuppenny. Tomorrow, you’re going to have an adventure. A young girl needs help, and you are exactly the right sort of creature to help her.”

  “The right sort of creature?” Tuppenny was not a very brave guinea pig, and he hadn’t had much experience of the world. Miss Potter’s announcement struck him as more than a little ominous. “What d’you suppose she means by ‘going to have an adventure’?” he whispered worriedly to Josey Rabbit, who was nibbling a fresh green lettuce leaf. “Who is this girl? What kind of help does she need? Where am I going?”

&
nbsp; Josey, who hated to be bothered with silly questions, especially when she was eating dinner, flicked her ears impatiently. “I couldn’t hazard a guess.”

  “An adventure, Tuppenny,” Mopsy Rabbit said, very seriously, “is something like a quest.”

  “What’s a quest?” Tuppenny asked, feeling that they might be going in circles.

  “An expedition undertaken by a knight to achieve something or other very important, such as slaying dragons, or rescuing damsels in distress.”

  “Slaying dragons?” Tuppenny repeated, dismayed. “The kind that breathe fire, you mean? That sounds . . . dangerous.”

  “Probably,” said Mopsy, in a practical tone. “Well, if there’s danger, you shall simply have to face up to it. Be as brave as possible and do the best that you can in the circumstance. We’re in the countryside now, and it’s not at all civilized, you know. We have to be prepared for anything.”

  “Anything, anything!” twittered Tom Thumb the mouse, who had a nervous disposition and was inclined to fly into hysterics at the slightest provocation. “Stoats, ferrets, badgers, weasels—all sorts of appalling anythings, and all appallingly fierce!” He flung his paws and his tail into the air and began to run in circles. “We’re doomed, I tell you, doomed! Oh my whiskers, if only we were back in London, safe, luxurious London, where I could comfort my poor soul with concerts and museums and champagne suppers and balls. Stoats and badgers! Weasels and stoats!”

  “Stoats?” Tuppenny asked, his nose twitching. “What’s a stoat? And what’s a badger? Are they creatures I’ll have to . . . to fight off?” His nose twitched harder, his fear almost overcome by the unhallowed imagination of battle, and a vision of himself as a Very Brave Guinea Pig, arrayed against a thronging crowd of badgers and stoats (whatever those were), with a fire-breathing dragon just on the other side of the hill. “Do you step on a stoat? Should I carry something to swat them with?” He suddenly brightened. “I suppose I shall need a sword, shan’t I? One can’t have a go at a dragon without a proper sword.”

  Tom stopped running in circles and stared at Tuppenny. “Step on a stoat?” he scoffed. “I’d like to see you step on a stoat. It would swallow you whole in one bite, it would. And what good do you think a sword would be against a dragon? Why, a dragon would breathe on you and turn you into a tuppenny’s worth of toast.”

  At that, Josey laughed. But Mopsy scowled at the mouse. “Tom is just trying to frighten you, Tuppenny. Dragons are entirely imaginary. And there are no stoats or ferrets or weasels anywhere nearby.”

  Tuppenny might not be the bravest (or the brightest) guinea pig in the world, but he was by nature an optimistic fellow, and he was determined not to lose heart, no matter how many weasels and badgers might be lying in wait for him. He swallowed his fear, sat up on his haunches, and began to comb his fur with his paws, brightening as he did so, and thinking how orange and sleek and attractive it looked, exactly the right sort of fur for a Very Brave Guinea Pig to wear when he went on a quest.

  “Well, well, well,” he mused, “perhaps there will be danger, and wild animals, and even a dragon or two. But never mind. A guinea pig must persevere, especially when there are damsels that require rescue.” He paused, and scratched his ear, and frowned.

  “Mopsy,” he said, “what’s a damsel?”

  13

  “Not an Accident?”

  Captain Miles Woodcock did not park his motor car in the Tower Bank stable after he brought Miss Potter back to the village. Instead, he drove on to Hawkshead, where he located Dr. Butters, the physician who served the area. The doctor, a tall, thin man with a gaunt face, reddish hair, and a gingery moustache, listened to his description of the situation, nodded twice, and said, “I’ll get my horse. But it may be a while, I’m afraid. I have to look in on Mrs. Rice, who will be delivering in another week.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s much hurry,” Miles said. “It’s not a criminal matter.” He pulled his brows together. “Although there is that puzzling bit about the tobacco pipe. He was holding it in his hands when he fell.”

  Frowning, the doctor picked up his black bag. “Ben? With a tobacco pipe? That’s odd. He left off smoking some while ago, on my advice. I’d be mightily surprised if he took it up again.” He sighed. “Anyway, I’ll see you there.”

  “There” was the large stone shed behind the captain’s stable where Constable Braithwaite and Mr. Jennings had brought Ben Hornby’s body. By the time the doctor arrived, dark had fallen, the bats were flitting out of the stable, and the nightjar’s eerie call (considered an ill omen by superstitious villagers) rattled through the meadow. Inside, the scene was illuminated by several lanterns and a half-dozen flickering candles. The old man, respectfully covered with a sheet from Dimity Woodcock’s linen cupboard, was stretched out on a wooden table.

  The doctor took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and went over old Ben’s body with great care and attention, humming between his teeth as he worked and making occasional quiet comments, which the constable dutifully wrote down in his notebook. The captain looked on, Mr. Jennings having gone home to his supper as soon as the body was safely delivered.

  The examination went on longer than might have been expected. When it was over, the doctor beckoned to both Miles and Braithwaite.

  “I want both of you to look at this,” he said, pointing to a welt about an inch wide, across the whole of Hornby’s back, just below his shoulder blades. It was outlined on both sides by a large, dark bruise, the width of a man’s arm. “This bruise is fresh,” the doctor said. “From the degree of lividity, I’d estimate that it was inflicted immediately prior to death.” He paused, then repeated, “Immediately prior to death,” glancing at them to make sure they took his point. “In living tissue, bruises have a way of repairing themselves quickly. If Ben had been struck—oh, say, two days before he died, we’d see a different coloration.”

  Miles let out his breath in a slow whistle. “And what kind of instrument would inflict such a bruise? A walking stick?”

  “P’rhaps,” the doctor said. “It’s impossible to say. Show me the instrument, and I’ll tell you whether it’s a candidate for our weapon.”

  “Weapon!” the constable exclaimed in surprise, breaking his silence for the first time. “You’re sayin’ that this was not an accident?”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Butters replied grimly. He glanced at Miles. “Did you search the place where he fell?”

  “The constable and I went up there,” Miles said, “and had a good look around. Of course, if he was struck by a walking stick—”

  “It went home with whoever used it,” the doctor said, finishing the captain’s sentence. “I’m afraid that there are a great many uncertainties here, gentlemen.” He began to roll down his sleeves. “But one thing is clear. Faced with this evidence, I cannot certify Hornby’s death as accidental. Harry will have to convene an inquest.”

  “Harry” was Harry Lamb, the King’s Coroner for the district. “I agree,” Miles said soberly. “I’ll get word to him first thing tomorrow.” The coroner would summon a jury as soon as possible, and charge it to return one of three verdicts: homicide, suicide, or misadventure—and if the evidence warranted none of these, they would return an open verdict.

  The doctor pulled the sheet over Ben Hornby’s face. “Damn shame,” he said sadly. “Ben Hornby wasn’t everybody’s friend, p’rhaps, but he was a good man.”

  Miles nodded. Not everybody’s friend.

  And somebody’s enemy.

  14

  In Which the Professor Joins the Search

  The summer night had grown dark by the time Tabitha, Crumpet, and Rascal went trekking off to Holly How. The moon had not yet risen as they reached Holly How Farm and began their search for the sheep, but the stars were shining like tiny beacons in the heavens. Rascal led the way up the rough track, since he was a dog and got out and about a great deal more than the two village cats. And anyway, he knew the territory and was acquain
ted with the sheep and felt confident that, under his leadership, they would quickly find Tibbie and Queenie and the lambs.

  But their search was futile. Climb as high and call as loudly as they might, up one side of Holly How and down the other, even as far afield as the ominous edge of Cuckoo Brow Wood, where the dark trees rose up in an impenetrable wall of shadows, Tibbie and Queenie and their lambs were nowhere to be found. The moon had flung its silvery veil over the meadows by the time they gave up and started wearily back down the zig-zag path.

  “It’s all your fault, Rascal,” grumbled Crumpet, whose paws hurt from walking over the sharp stones. “You should have made Tibbie tell you what she knew straightaway.”

  “Crumpet’s right,” Tabitha put in sourly, pausing to catch her breath. “If you’d done that, we wouldn’t have had to come looking. And we’d know what really happened to old Ben.”

  “Oh, give it up, will you?” Rascal replied in a weary tone. “Even if I’d asked, she mightn’t’ve said anything useful. You know how sheep are, all dithery and doltish. Terrible gossips, and half the time, they don’t get their facts straight.”

  “Better than no facts at all,” Tabitha retorted stiffly. “Really, Rascal, you—”

  The rest of her words were drowned out by a great rushing sound in the sky above them, as a menacing shadow with outstretched talons sailed low over their heads.

  “OWL!” shrieked Tabitha hysterically, and dove for the hedgerow. “Run for your lives!”

  There was a thud in a nearby oak and the whole tree seemed to shudder as an enormous owl settled himself onto a branch, shook his feathers, and gave out a fierce, interrogative “Whooo goes there? Stop and declare yourselves immediately!”

  Taken completely by surprise, Rascal had flattened himself against a large rock with his paws over his eyes. Tabitha had gone headfirst under the hedge, so it was left to Crumpet to reply. She screwed up her courage, tried to steady her voice, and said respectfully, “Good evening, Professor. It’s Crumpet, Tabitha, and Rascal, from the village. I trust you are well, sir.”