Head of a Traveller

by Nicholas Blake

  Since dead bodies do not come to the surface and float in less than 8–10 days from the time of death, the victim must have been put into the river at or near the spot where he was found. Because of the weir not far upstream, there was a strongish current, which might conceivably have rolled the body some little distance along the river-bed: the police might conduct experiments with a dummy to test this. But, to sum it up, everything pointed to the body having been put into the river not later than the night of Friday–Saturday, or earlier than the previous Tuesday, at some point between Ferry Lacey and the reed-bed where it was found, if it was not actually placed in the reeds. No attempt had been made to weigh the body down, which was unusual in cases of this sort. Search of the river banks for traces of the corpse’s disposal had been rendered almost hopeless by the trampling and debris of the members of a London Angling Club, who had been fishing this reach all Sunday. But the local police had found no suspicious marks on the section of the bank nearest the reed bed. The possibility that the corpse had been conveyed to this point by boat, and dumped into the water, was likely enough; inquiries were being made on these lines too.

  The Superintendent reeled off these particulars, then stopped short and applied himself to his whisky with a somewhat leery look at Nigel.

  ‘So how was he murdered?’ Nigel asked.

  ‘There were no marks of violence—e-eh—on the body.’

  ‘Poison?’

  ‘No trace of poison in the organs,’ replied Blount, evidently enjoying Nigel’s mystified expression.

  ‘He wasn’t drowned. He wasn’t poisoned. He wasn’t shot, stabbed, or beaten up. What sort of a corpse is this?’

  ‘He was wearing a mackintosh—no other clothes at all. Faint traces of bloodstains were found on it, in spite of the immersion,’ continued Blount with stolid complacence.

  ‘But how the devil—?’

  ‘Mostly on the outside of the mackintosh. The deceased was judged to be about five feet, eight inches in height.’

  ‘What d’you mean, “judged to be”? Haven’t the Oxfordshire police got a tape-measure?’

  Blount’s climax, for which he’d certainly worked hard enough, now arrived. He said:

  ‘Well, e-eh, ye’ll no’ judge precisely of a man’s height when his head is missing.’

  The Superintendent sat back and savoured Nigel’s amazement.

  ‘Just so,’ he went on, after a pause. ‘The head had been hacked off the neck, verra clumsily; amateurish work—’

  ‘T’ck, t’ck, t’ck.’

  ‘—and they can’t find it anywhere, what’s more. Inspector Gates has had the river dragged for a mile either way, and—’

  ‘But if the body was brought by boat, the chap might have been murdered and his head disposed of hundreds of miles away.’

  ‘Aye, just so. But there was a tear in the mackintosh, and the wee piece of stuff torn from it was found on a barbed-wire hedge on the edge of Foxhole wood, about a mile from the footbridge at Ferry Lacey.’

  ‘Well, what’s your trouble, then? The chap must have been a local. Who’s missing in the neighbourhood?’

  ‘Nobody’s missing,’ replied Blount. ‘And what’s more, my boy, we’ve had men working through the list of missing males for the whole of Great Britain, and so far the body does not answer satisfactorily to any of the descriptions given.’

  ‘Then why was his head cut off?’

  ‘Exactly, Strangeways! You’ve put your finger right on the spot,’ exclaimed Blount, with as near an approach to excitement as Nigel had ever seen in him. ‘You cut off a man’s head, or batter his features, to prevent your victim being recognised. You remove his clothes so that tailor’s labels and laundry-marks shall not be identified—the mackintosh was a cheap one, by the way, from the Universal Tailors—could have been bought at any of several hundred branches—we’re trying to trace it, but—’ the Superintendent shrugged. ‘Now, why should the murderer go to all this trouble, if the victim was an absolute unknown anyway? Of course, it’s early days yet. But this body seems to have turned up simply out of the blue. It just doesn’t correspond with any of the descriptions of missing persons. I tell you, it’s no’ canny. Well now, what do you make of it?’

  ‘Perhaps he did. Turn up out of the blue, I mean,’ said Nigel meditatively. ‘From a far country. Was he wearing leather boots?’

  ‘Leather boots? I’ve just told you that, except for a mackintosh—’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ murmured Nigel. ‘But—’ he began to quote:

  ‘“O suitably-attired-in-leather boots

  Head of a traveller, wherefore, seeking whom,

  Whence, by what way, how purposed art thou come

  To this well-nightingaled vicinity?”’

  ‘What is all this tommy-rot?’

  ‘First lines of Housman’s parody of a Greek tragedy. Very apt. Asks all the questions we’ve got to answer. Ferry Lacey’s a quiet, peaceful place; a dead end. You wouldn’t go there on your way to anywhere else. Small population—two or three hundred perhaps. If a stranger turned up there, he’d stand out like a black sheep on a snowfield. The whole village would be talking about him.’

  ‘We’ve had no reports of any stranger being seen in the village last week.’

  ‘Which implies that he didn’t want to be seen. Arrived at night, perhaps. And why was he walking through that wood where he got caught up by the barbed wire? Perhaps because he had a rendezvous there: perhaps because he wished to avoid the roads. Both explanations involve secrecy. You know, Blount, there’s one class of missing persons your lists won’t altogether cover. Deserters from H.M. Forces. Add in returned prisoners, displaced persons, all the flotsam and jetsam of war.’

  ‘Is that all?’ said Blount dryly.

  ‘A little tactful gossiping in the neighbourhood should discover whether there are any families with dubious relatives—any skeletons in cupboards or black sheep or prodigal sons. How old was this corpse of yours?’

  ‘Fifty-five to sixty, the doctors reckon.’

  ‘Not a deserter, then. But—’

  ‘Rather ill-nourished. But tough and sinewy for his age; had done hard manual work recently: also been living some time in the East—pigmentation of the skin,’ Blount went on, poker faced.

  Nigel threw up his hands. ‘As you know all about him, why come to me?’

  ‘Just to admire the trained theoretic mind exercising itself on inductive thought. Aye, “head of a traveller,” verra good, Strangeways, verra good,’ said Blount, slapping his own bald head enthusiastically. ‘But let’s have some more induction.’

  ‘Well, then, clothing of corpse. Mackintosh left on because label of British outfitters would give nothing away. Rest of clothes removed because they bore signs, in their cut or material or on the labels, what foreign parts our traveller had come from, and might lead to the discovering of his identity.’

  ‘Just so. We’re making inquiries at the ports and the shipping and airway offices of course, but it’ll be a terrible long tedious affair. Anything else?’

  ‘I find this mackintosh business rather odd, don’t you?’ Nigel said slowly. ‘Why bother to put it on again after removing the rest of his clothes? Was it his blood on the mackintosh?’

  ‘Same blood group, anyway.’

  ‘But mostly on the outside. You’d think that, if he’d been battered to death, or had his throat cut, a lot of blood would have trickled down inside the mac.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Which suggests it may not have been his mac at all. It may have belonged to the murderer, who put it on to keep the victim’s blood off his own clothes.’

  ‘Aye, that’s possible. But it still doesn’t account for his putting the mac on the body afterwards. Much safer for him to burn it, or hide it, together with the victim’s clothes. Not that it’s ever safe to try and hide or burn articles of clothing. Remember the Lakey case in New Zealand?’

  Nigel had opened a drawer in his bureau. He took out a la
rge-scale ordnance map and opened it on the table before them.

  ‘Here’s Ferry Lacey. Let’s see, now. There are three railway stations within about five miles of the village. Redcote and Chillingham Junction on the main G.W.R. line, Hinton Lacey on a small branch line. But Redcote’s the wrong side of the river—the opposite side from this wood you say he came through. That leaves Chillingham and Hinton Lacey. But a chap wishing to avoid notice would never get out at a small branch-line station. So my bet is Chillingham Junction. Quite a busy place. Station on outskirts of town. He could take this road, walk four miles, then strike off the road, into Foxhole wood, and it’s a short cut to Ferry Lacey. He must have known this part of the country pretty well, to know about the short cut.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Blount. ‘But the only evidence we have, so far, that he came through the wood is that wee bit of mackintosh on the barbed-wire. And you’ve just suggested it may not have been his mackintosh at all.’

  ‘Oh, hell! Tripping me up on my own words! You solve it, then. It’s all yours, this ruddy mystery.’

  ‘I’ll look after the routine investigation. But, e-eh, you wouldn’t be thinking of taking a holiday in Oxfordshire yourself, would you?’

  ‘Certainly not. I’m busy.’

  ‘Because you have friends there, and you’d pick up a lot more gossip than flat-foots like Gates and myself.’

  ‘Oh, talking of Gates,’ said Nigel, ‘what’s this about him getting into a free fight with Mrs Seaton?’

  Blount looked shocked. ‘Oh, well now, that’s a fearful exaggeration. Gates was merely inquiring, in the way of his duty, whether any members of the household had seen a stranger about during the last week. And it seems they have a wee dwarf creature as a servant—’

  ‘Yes. Finny Black.’

  ‘—and Mrs Seaton refused to allow Gates to question him; said he was dumb, or half-witted, or something. Gates persisted. And she slapped his face. Gates is new to the district, mind you: and maybe he was a thought tactless. But—’

  ‘Huh. The Gestapo hanging together.’

  ‘—but it’s a serious thing, assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty. Oh, dear me now, won’t do at all. Then the lady threatened to bring the Chief Constable and the Lord Lieutenant and the whole boiling down on puir wee Gates’ head. It seems she has a great deal of influence in the county. So Gates thought he’d better say no more about it.’

  Blount drained the last of his whisky and reached for his battered felt hat. ‘Will I be seeing you in the country?’

  ‘Well, I could stay with Paul Willingham: and I’d like to get some samples of Robert Seaton’s manuscripts for a monograph I’m writing. So perhaps—’

  ‘That’s the boy! I knew you’d not keep your long nose out of the business—’

  The door closed on Blount’s stocky figure before Nigel could find the apt reply. . . .

  ‘I thought you’d not keep your long nose out of—’

  ‘The next person who refers to my nose, in whatever terms, will be felled to the ground,’ said Nigel. It was the evening after his conversation with Blount: he and Paul were sitting in the bar of the Lacey Arms at Hinton Lacey. ‘And do try to use your loaf. I shan’t hear anything if the locals find I’m connected with the police,’ Nigel continued in a low voice.

  ‘I shall say you’re a man from the B.B.C. It always impresses my neighbours. God knows why. I shall say you’re the producer of one of those corny programmes—you know—“Here’s Wishing You A Jolly Good Bung-Ho”—you know the sort of twaddle. And you’ve come here to put them all on the air. They’ll eat it. Evening, Fred! Tom! This is a friend of mine, Mr Strangeways. He comes from the B.B.C. and he’s going to—’

  ‘I don’t come from the B.B.C. And I’m not going to buy you a drink, Paul. If you gentlemen would care—’

  ‘Thanking you, sir,’ said Tom and Fred in rapid unison.

  ‘The B.B.C.,’ began Tom presently. ‘That’s a remarkable organisation, look at it what way you will. Mind you, I don’t hold with that ’ere Light Programme. All bloody yup, to my way of thinking. But these symphonies—classical music, like—I’m partial to them myself. Sir Boult, now, there’s a fine conductor for you.’ Tom wiped off the ends of his ragged moustache. ‘You’re not by any chance associated with the Light Programme, sir, I hope, for I’d not wish to give offence.’

  ‘No. No connection at all,’ said Nigel, darting a poisoned glance at Paul. ‘In fact, I’ve nothing to do with the—’

  ‘Perhaps the gentleman is on the engineering side,’ suggested Fred. ‘’Tis all a mystery to I—these high frequencies and kilowatts and meggiecycles and such. But I suppose they’m an open book to you, sir. Come to think of it, my missus says to me, just as I was stepping out to come along to the Arms, “Fred,” she says, “this effing wireless of yourn have pegged out again, and I was set to listen to that nice Dickens serial while you was at the boozer,” she says. So to make a long story short, when Mr Willingham mentions as how you’re a gentleman from the B.B.C., sir, I says to myself—’

  ‘But—’ began Nigel.

  ‘—I says to myself, why Fred, I says, perhaps the gentleman could spare the time to step along to my humble abode, tomorrow morning, say, and have a look at my old wireless. Put it to rights in two shakes of a cat’s ass, you would, I’ll take my oath. Not that I wants to put you to no trouble, sir.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You just think it over, sir. Please yourself. Your very good health.’

  When the two old farm-labourers had edged back to the bar, Nigel turned on Paul.

  ‘I’ll murder you if you involve me with any more of the local highbrows. How the devil d’you suppose I—’

  ‘Keep weaving, old boy. You did fine. It’s all in the build-up. Now we’ll try Jack Whitford. Jack!’

  A stalwart, curly-headed man—he had just come in with a lurcher, which had instantly curled itself up under one of the benches—strolled over. Paul introduced them.

  Nigel said: ‘In case Mr Willingham tells you I’m from the B.B.C., it’s a lie.’

  ‘Ah. Terrible bloody liar Mr Willingham is,’ said Jack, beaming amiably. ‘Seen you talking to those two old fools. You going to put them on the air, mister? Couple of quaint old country bumpkins nattering about how they used to mow the fifty-acre by hand in their young days? It turns me up, some of the stuff that B. bloody C. puts out about us country folk.’

  Nigel gave it up. ‘I’m not interested in that sort of thing,’ he said. ‘But this murder of yours—that’d make a good feature programme. The effect of a murder upon the neighbourhood, I mean.’

  He was aware that silence had descended upon the barroom of the Lacey Arms. Jack Whitford was gazing at him enigmatically out of those pale blue eyes, which had the sailor’s steady, distant focus.

  ‘’Tisn’t no murder of ours,’ he said. ‘’Tis they Ferry Lacey chaps. Proper wild lot of b—s they are at Ferry Lacey. We’re law-abiding folk at Hinton.’

  Paul Willingham laughed. ‘Especially at night.’

  ‘What the eye don’t see, the heart don’t grieve for,’ said Jack.

  Nigel said, after a pause, ‘I knew a chap, down in Devonshire where I used to live—he was a Somerset chap, actually—he used to take a long pole into the woods and fasten some sort of firework made of sulphur to one end, and light it, and poke it up among the branches. And the fumes stupefied the roosting pheasants. They just fell off their perches into his hands, like ripe apples.’

  Jack Whitford slapped his thigh. ‘That’s a good ’un! Never heard of that before. Stupefied the——s! Well, I’ll be—’

  The ice was broken. Presently Nigel asked the poacher if Foxhole wood was preserved. Jack Whitford gave him a wary glance.

  ‘Mr Strangeways is all right,’ put in Paul.

  ‘Ah. It is. And wired up. Now. But you can get in, and out, if you knows yer way,’ Jack replied, with his quick, ferocious smile.

  Nigel pumped him agai
n, cautiously. The wood, it seemed, had once been part of the Lacey property. James Seaton, father of the poet, had sold it to a London syndicate. The syndicate had installed a gamekeeper, and in general made things difficult for local enterprise. They had even, after a bit, wired up the gate of an immemorial right-of-way through the wood.

  ‘How long ago was that?’ asked Nigel.

  ‘Matter of eight or nine years. Old Mr Lacey now—the squire as used to be—he’d never have allowed them London b—s to get away with that.’

  ‘I wonder Mr Seaton doesn’t do something about it,’ said Paul.

  ‘Oh, reckon he’s all for a quiet life. We know who wears the trousers over to Laceys these days.’

  A contemplative silence fell. Presently Jack Whitford raised his face from his beer-mug.

  ‘I could have told that——of an Inspector something.’

  ‘He was on at you, too, was he?’ said Paul.

  ‘Ah. That’s a nosey-parker. I sent him about his business. Not even a local man. “You stick your nose in where it belongs,” I says to him, straight.’

  Jack took another swig of beer.

  ‘Can’t be too careful with that sort. “Had I seen any strangers about, any night last week?” “And me tucked up in bed with my missus?” I says; “don’t be daft, I don’t go out looking for trouble, like some. How should I be seeing strangers?”’

  ‘I suppose he was after the man who murdered the chap found in the river,’ said Nigel innocently.

  ‘You never knows what the coppers are after. Don’t bloody know, themselves, half the time.’ Jack paused. ‘Funny you should mention Foxhole wood. I saw a chap there last week—last Thursday night, it’d be.’ He lowered his voice confidentially. ‘Thought it was Mr Seaton at first. Wouldn’t have been the first time I’d seen him at night. Passed as near to me as you are, he has, many a time: composing his poems, I reckon. Ah, he’m another of us night birds.’