Head of a Traveller

by Nicholas Blake

  Nigel threw himself forward on to the ground—it seemed the only hope—trying to stun the dwarf with his weight. Finny grunted as he hit the ground, and his arms fell away. He was lying quite still now, apparently stunned. Nigel began to get to his feet. I hope to God I haven’t broken his neck, he thought. But he was still only on his knees when the dwarf suddenly came to life again, rolled furiously to one side, and before Nigel could grab him had bounced up on to Nigel’s back. Nigel was able to give one shout for help, then the fingers were gouging into his throat again. He staggered towards the tree, in a desperate attempt to knock Finny off against its trunk. But Finny clung to him like an adhesive bubble. Nigel was dimly aware of Janet Seaton hovering nearby, giving little distracted cries and sobs, then ineffectually trying to tear the dwarf off his back. The pain in his throat became appalling. There was a continuous thunder in his ears, but whether it came from the sky or from inside his bursting head, he did not know. I must fall backwards this time, he bemusedly thought. There were feet running—or was it the pounding of his heart? A voice called out sharply:

  ‘Finny! Stop it at once! D’you hear? Stop it!’

  Then Nigel, almost fainting, became aware that the steel fingers had gone from his throat, the midget weight from off his back. He sank down against the tree, harshly coughing and gasping.

  ‘My dear chap, I’m terribly sorry. What on earth happened?’ Robert Seaton was saying, out of the darkness.

  Robert and Janet bent solicitously over him.

  ‘I’ll be all right in a minute,’ he croaked.

  ‘I’ll go and get some brandy,’ said Mrs Seaton.

  ‘And bring a towel or something, soaked in cold water,’ her husband called out as she went towards the house.

  ‘I’m afraid it was my fault,’ Nigel whispered after a few moments, feeling his throat. ‘I alarmed your wife, and I suppose Finny thought she was in danger. Where is he?’

  ‘He ran away. I really can’t forgive myself for letting—It’s this thunderstorm. Finny always gets over-excited. I suppose Janet must have been looking for him. But he won’t always obey her when he gets like this.’

  ‘I’m glad he obeys you, anyway. Look, could you go and ring up the police straight away. We must have a man here.’

  ‘Is it really necessary?’ Robert Seaton’s voice sounded painful. ‘I mean, couldn’t we—couldn’t you give him another chance?’

  ‘I shan’t prosecute Finny, or anything like that. Of course not. But he’s got to be found. Quickly.’

  ‘Very well. Will it be all right if I leave you? Oh, here’s Janet.’

  It was Janet. And Lionel Seaton. And, a minute after, Rennell Torrance came up with his daughter.

  ‘I’m just going in to telephone,’ said Robert Seaton.

  ‘Who’s here? What’s happening?’ asked Torrance in a thick voice.

  ‘Didn’t someone shout?’ said Lionel. ‘It woke me up.’

  ‘Here’s your brandy, Mr Strangeways. I’ll put this towel round your neck. Don’t try and move yet. There. I came out to look for Finny,’ Mrs Seaton explained to the others, ‘and Mr Strangeways must have heard us, and he came out too and rather startled me. I didn’t realise who it was. Then Finny attacked him. I’m dreadfully—’

  ‘Is that Finny over there?’ said Nigel.

  As they all looked away, peering into the darkness, Nigel poured his brandy on to the grass. He had no reason to suppose there was anything but brandy in the glass; but he could take no risks just now. He must stay by the tree till the police came.

  ‘I always told you you ought to get rid of him,’ said Torrance grumpily. ‘It simply isn’t safe. Well, if there’s nothing I can do, I’m going back to bed. Jesus! What’s this?’

  The man’s foot, as he turned to go, had kicked against the clay head, lying forgotten in the grass. A sheet of lightning made an exposure of the scene—Mrs Seaton, fully clothed, the others in dressing-gowns, all wearing the dead, pop-eyed expression of diners caught by a photographer’s magnesium flash.

  ‘Christ! It’s the head!’ exclaimed Rennell Torrance. ‘In a string bag. It’s—’

  ‘Don’t panic, Father!’ came Mara’s cool, contemptuous voice. ‘It’s my head of Robert. And please don’t kick it around,’ she added, as Nigel’s electric torch was switched on to reveal Rennell Torrance gingerly turning over the head with his foot.

  ‘Panic? What d’you mean? Don’t talk to me like that, you little bitch!’ said her father shockingly.

  ‘We all seem to have heads on the brain,’ said Lionel. ‘What’s it doing out here, anyway? This place is turning into a madhouse.’

  ‘I think it’s just going to rain.’ Janet Seaton was in control again. ‘We’d better all go to bed. Mr Strangeways, d’you feel well enough to walk in?’

  Nigel groaned, in what he hoped was a convincing manner, half rose to his feet, and collapsed again.

  ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘Lionel, you help him. And Rennell, please. We can’t have him getting wet after the shock. Mara, run along to bed now.’

  ‘No,’ said Nigel. ‘We’ve got to find Finny first.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Robert Seaton, who had just come out of the house. ‘The Superintendent will be over here in a few minutes.’

  ‘The Superintendent?’ said Janet. ‘But—I said, go to bed, Mara! And do button up that dressing-gown. It’s positively indecent!’ Her voice seemed full of a suppressed rage.

  ‘Here’s Mr Strangeways been half strangled, and Janet has eyes for nothing but my bosom,’ retorted the girl, with an edgy laugh.

  ‘I do really think you’d better come in, Mr Strangeways,’ said Janet. ‘You see, I put a little sedative in your brandy. You ought to have a good sleep. The police will look after things now.’

  ‘I must just have a word with Blount before I pop off, though.’

  And Nigel did, in private, a few minutes later. The Superintendent had driven over, with his Detective-Sergeant, from the Hinton Lacey pub where he was staying.

  ‘Look, Blount, I’m supposed to have swallowed a sleeping-draught, so I’d better go to sleep. Anyway, I’ve just been strangled, and that takes it out of one. Did Bob Seaton tell you what happened?’

  Blount nodded.

  ‘Well, I want you to do two things. I’ll explain tomorrow, when I wake up. Put Sergeant Bower under that chestnut tree and tell him not to stir an inch from it, not if it’s struck by lightning. And to let no one else near. I may be wrong, but—The second thing is, if Finny Black is found, don’t let him come back into the house.’

  ‘Will he be dangerous still?’

  ‘He might be. But he might also be in danger here.’

  The admirable Blount, perceiving by the frayed thread of a voice in which Nigel spoke, that he was almost exhausted, asked no more questions but promised to do what Nigel had suggested.

  ‘One other thing. Bob Seaton is the only person who has any control over Finny in his present condition,’ whispered Nigel. ‘If you do start Inspector Gates on a man-hunt, I’d recommend sending Seaton with them.’

  ‘Oh, Seaton’s gone out after him already. With his son.’

  Nigel shrugged his shoulders. It would have to look after itself. He allowed Blount to support him upstairs and help him undress. Hardly had the bedroom door closed again when Nigel was sound asleep . . .

  The next morning Nigel was awoken by the sound of his door opening. Vanessa’s mop of tawny hair slid into view.

  ‘Janet wants to know what you’d like for breakfast. I say, have you got mumps?’

  Nigel’s hands moved involuntarily to his throat, which was tender enough indeed, and felt the towel still swathed around it.

  ‘Oh, this? No.’ His voice began as a painful croak. ‘I was a bit too sharp, and I cut myself.’

  ‘Cut your throat?’ Vanessa’s eyes opened wide. Nigel perceived she had an exceedingly literal mind. He said:

  ‘I was speaking metaphorically.’
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br />   ‘Oh, I see,’ replied Vanessa, with the informed air of a member of a household where metaphor was quite the legitimate thing. ‘There are two kinds of cereal, eggs, coffee or tea.’

  ‘I’d like coffee and a boiled egg.’

  ‘O.K.’ Vanessa teetered round the door, looking mysterious. ‘I shall bring it up myself. The household is thoroughly disorganised. Guess what has happened?’

  ‘The cook was struck by lightning last night.’

  ‘No. Finny has disappeared. And there’s a man under our big chestnut tree. I took him out some tea and toast.’

  ‘Good—I mean, I’m sorry to hear about Finny.’

  ‘I’m not. Of course, it’s very inconvenient, with servants so difficult to get nowadays. But Finny is rather gruesome. And besides—can you keep a secret?’ asked Vanessa, who obviously could not. ‘Well, he stole sometimes.’

  ‘That’s what you were hinting at last night? The kleptomaniac?’

  ‘Mm. He can’t help it, Daddy says. And of course we generally find the things again. He has caches, like a magpie.’

  ‘What, in the house?’

  ‘In the garden or the orchard generally. But farther away sometimes. We found the last one in Foxhole wood. Lionel followed him there. He’d taken three of my china dogs, and Li saw him hide them in a bush. The funny thing, talking of magpies, is that just beside the bush there was one of those gamekeeper’s gallows things, with dead magpies and rooks and jays and squirrels hung from it. I think it’s very cruel, don’t you? Oh, lor’! There’s Janet calling. Coffee and a boiled egg, you said, didn’t you?’

  When Vanessa returned with the breakfast tray, she announced:

  ‘Superintendent Blount, of New Scotland Yard, is here to see you.’

  ‘Ask him to come up. What are you doing this morning, Vanessa?’

  ‘I shall go for a long ride on Kitty after I’ve helped with the housework. I find I can think best on horseback.’

  ‘What are you going to think about?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t tell that till I start thinking, can I? But Lieutenant says that Beautiful Thoughts are essential to a Rich and Fully Satisfying Life. So I’m practising hard this hols. Goodbye.’

  Nigel was gingerly swallowing his egg when Blount came in.

  ‘How are you feeling this morning, Strangeways?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. Tell me, Blount, do you ever have Beautiful Thoughts?’

  ‘E-eh, well now—’

  ‘I was afraid not. Perhaps if you’d joined the Mounted Police, it might have been different.’

  The Superintendent stared at him with some anxiety.

  ‘Are you sure you feel quite the thing? No pains in the head?’

  ‘Quite sure. Any sign of Finny Black yet?’

  ‘No. Gates has it in hand. He’ll not be long at large, not a wee dwarf like him. Too conspicuous. Now, tell me—’

  ‘What’s your form at tree-climbing, Blount?’

  ‘I was pretty handy at it as a bairn,’ replied the Superintendent, with the over-bright air of one humouring a lunatic.

  ‘Because someone has got to swarm up that chestnut tree. I suppose nobody’s tried to entice your Sergeant away from it?’

  ‘No. Everything’s been very quiet. Bower can climb the tree. He’s a younger man, and it’ll be a change from standing under it. What’s in your mind, Strangeways?’

  Nigel took another cautious swallow of coffee. Then, ticking the points off on his fingers, he said:

  ‘First: Finny Black is apt to go haywire in thunderstorms; there was a thunderstorm the night of the murder, another one last night. Second: when I was staying here in June, Robert Seaton said that Finny would copy any act he had seen done. Third: Finny is a kleptomaniac; he had a cache in Foxhole wood, near one of those gamekeeper’s gallows with vermin swinging from it. Fourth: last night Finny pinches a clay head of Robert Seaton, executed by Miss Torrance, puts it in a string bag—notice the string bag particularly—and swarms up the chestnut tree with it.’

  ‘A string bag,’ remarked Blount, his eyes sparkling now with sagacity, ‘because that would be the simplest way of suspending a clay head from a branch, like he’d seen the vermin suspended from the gamekeeper’s gallows?’

  ‘You’re really very good indeed, Blount,’ said Nigel warmly.

  ‘And—e-eh—you’re suggesting that there might be—eh-eh—other acts the wee dwarf would imitate, when the thunder had turned his brain?’

  ‘Exactly. He might copy something he’d seen done under similar conditions, or repeat some action of his own.’

  ‘It seems to me the sooner Bower gets up that tree, the better.’

  ‘Wait till Vanessa Seaton has left the house. She’s going out for a ride soon. We don’t want her about the place. It might interfere with her Beautiful-Thoughts curriculum.’

  ‘And what about the others?’

  ‘It might be helpful if they were present, including the Torrances. Can you think of some pretext for getting them all out there? Of course, it may be an entirely false alarm. It’s quite a long shot after all. But there’ve been other pointers. Tell you about them when Bower has done his stuff.’

  The village church clock had just struck eleven when they assembled round the chestnut tree. As he strolled out of the house with Robert Seaton, Nigel noticed Janet in earnest colloquy with the Superintendent.

  ‘I hope he’s not going to keep us long,’ said Robert Seaton. ‘I want to get back to my work.’

  But Blount did not hurry the proceedings. He took Sergeant Bower aside for a whispered conversation. Then he asked for a ladder, and there was a further delay while Lionel Seaton found the gardener and the gardener fetched the ladder. If Blount’s object was to strain the nerves of the little party at the foot of the giant tree, he was not unsuccessful. They stood about, fidgeting, finding little or nothing to say to one another—why should they, after living so close together all these years? Or they might have been strangers, met for the first time, with the ice still to break. To Nigel, standing apart, it was as if he observed the members of a house-party gathered for a photograph, kicking their heels, making self-conscious jokes and desultory conversation, half-excited, half-resentful while the host fusses with his camera, each of them preoccupied with his own ego, with an intention not to be caught out by the camera, to put his best face forward.

  In the fresh, robust light of this August morning, the air cleared by the thunderstorm overnight, the courtyard grass sparkling with rain, the five of them stilled into their final poses as the gardener approached with his ladder. Janet Seaton, planted bulkily there, arms folded, frowning, now moved a little closer to her husband, as if to protect or to receive protection. The poet, who had been standing with his hands behind his back, an abstracted look in his eyes, took his wife’s arm—a natural, homely gesture. The sun shone upon Lionel’s golden head and Mara Torrance’s dark one, close together: the girl’s face was a greyish-white, the colour of newspaper left out in the rain; the sunlight cruelly emphasised its haggard look. Lionel muttered something to her, and she glanced up at him with an expression of gratitude which made her seem younger, less raffish and defiant. A few yards away, Rennell Torrance fished in his pocket, pulled out pipe and pouch. His eyes, one might have thought, were studiously avoiding the rest of the group, the two policemen, the gardener, and the tree itself. His hand shook as he lit the pipe. He glanced at Nigel through the smoke, his heavy lower lip pouting; glanced, rather theatrically, at his wrist-watch, shrugged his shoulders and shifted his feet.

  Lionel Seaton stepped forward to help the gardener with the ladder. He was self-composed, alert, interested.

  There was another pause, while Blount conferred again with his Detective-Sergeant.

  ‘Are we going to be kept here all the morning?’ Rennell Torrance grumpily inquired of no one in particular.

  ‘Will you all step back a little?’ said Blount smoothly, heightening the illusion that a house-party was about to be photographed. />
  Plash Meadow watched the scene with all its windows, holding itself calmly aloof, as a house might which had seen two hundred years of good and evil.

  At last Sergeant Bower advanced the ladder, climbed steadily up and disappeared into the thick foliage. Mara Torrance was heard to inquire, in her most irritatingly casual voice, ‘Have we been summoned out here to watch a bobby climb a tree?’

  ‘I shall explain presently,’ said Blount. ‘It’s a little experiment of mine.’ His tone was paternal. His eyes sleepily scrutinised them all, standing where he had put them, outside the shade of the tree, the sun spot-lighting their faces.

  A hoarse shout came from half-way up the tree, then a louder rustling, as the Detective-Sergeant climbed faster to his now visible objective.

  ‘Now don’t worry, dear,’ said Robert Seaton to his wife. ‘He’s quite safe. It’s a very sound old tree.’

  ‘But he’s going so high up.’

  They might have been, discussing the exploit of an eight-year-old son.

  ‘I’ve got it, sir!’ called the Sergeant from high overhead. There were grunting noises as he started to descend. Then suddenly a muffled ‘Damn!’ and a louder ‘Look out below!’ Something was falling through the leaves, bumping and slithering down from branch to branch. Mara gave a little scream. Robert Seaton’s arm tightened on his wife’s. The next moment, like a giant chestnut, a roundish object dropped from the foliage, bounced upon the grass, and rolled to the feet of Rennell Torrance.

  ‘Clumsy ass!’ growled the Superintendent.

  Torrance glared down on the object at his feet. His pipe fell out of his mouth. He began to tremble all over; his hands made little blind fending movements in front of him: then he ran a few paces away and was violently sick.

  ‘Wh-what is it?’ cried Mara.

  The Superintendent strode over to the object on the grass, picked it up by its hair and dangled it before them—the severed and decomposing head of a man.

  ‘Does any one recognise this?’ he asked in the matter-of-fact tones of a clerk at a Lost Property Office.