The Deadly Joker
By
NICHOLAS BLAKE
For
J. And J.
Contents
1. The Nocturnal Cuckoo
2. The Unlucky Cards
3. The Orient Pearl
4. The Cruel Letters
5. The Riding School
6. The Mills Bomb
7. The Gipsy Boy
8. The Scissors Man
9. The Security Officer
10. The Poor Puppy
11. The Flower Show
12. The Angry Tycoon
13. The Elder Brother
14. The Younger Son
15. The Joker and the Pack
A Note on the Author
1. The Nocturnal Cuckoo
Jenny and I were staying for a week at the Quiet Drop, while the builders finished work on the extra room we were adding to Green Lane to accommodate my books. We should then move our furniture from the Oxford house and settle down, I hoped, to enjoy each other’s company for the remaining years of my life. It was a week early in May, the start of that glorious summer of 1959—glorious, but for Netherplash Cantorum a dreadful one.
We had discovered the village two years before, while motoring in Dorset during our honeymoon. Dorset has always been my nonpareil of English counties, and I had resolved to settle somewhere there on my retirement from the Inspectorate. Jenny and I both fell in love with Netherplash Cantorum at first sight. I was then not due to retire for several years. But Jenny’s grievous trouble, which set in six months after our honeymoon, compelled me to alter my plans. My job as an Inspector of Schools took me away from home a great deal; and since these absences may well have contributed to her phase of mental instability, I felt it my duty to throw up my job there and then, so that I might see dear Jenny through her convalescence.
By a fortunate chance, I noticed in my Sunday paper an advertisement for a house to be sold in Netherplash: it seemed the ideal place for Jenny’s recovery, with its charm, its seclusion, and the happy memories it held for us both. My negotiations for Green Lane were successful. The Ministry proved exceedingly kind over my resignation: I should have my modest pension; I could do some examining for the Oxford and Cambridge Board, and possibly take a private pupil now and then in the vacations—I should say that I was for some years classical sixth-form tutor at Amberley; and there was the edition of the Aeneid which I had always promised myself to undertake when my leisured years should begin.
I hope to resume it shortly. But I feel I must first write my account of what happened last summer, if only to get its horrors out of my system.
But I see I have been discourteous in not introducing myself to any possible reader of what I am about to record. My name is John Waterson. I am a Master of Arts in the University of Oxford, and I am now rapidly—too rapidly—approaching my sixty-second year. I have two children by my first wife, who died in 1946. Sam is twenty-two, a journalist working on a paper in Bristol. Corinna is now seventeen. I count myself extremely fortunate in them both, and their relationship with their stepmother is an excellent one. This is all the more gratifying, since Jenny is twenty-five years younger than myself.
As for my dear Jenny, I find it impossible to write about her with any degree of objectivity. She was a music teacher at a famous girls’ school. Chance and our professions threw us together. I fell in love with her. She, like me, was lonely at that time. I could not for some while believe that my feelings were returned; but Jenny, quite shamelessly, overcame my incredulity. What more can I say? She has given me back my youth—or the illusion of youth. The ordeals we have been through together, and survived, have surely proved the strength of our marriage. Jenny has emerged triumphantly from the strain which last summer’s events placed upon her mind—a terrible strain which, I fear, was increased by my own unworthy doubts and suspicions. After it was all over, I asked her if she would not like to leave Netherplash Cantorum; but she said that, since those events had failed to send her cuckoo, nothing could induce her to leave the lovely place—“cuckoo,” I may say, is a word I still flinch from, for reasons I shall soon relate. Jenny is unwilling, in view of her previous history, that we should have a child; but we have Sam and Corinna, and in each other all the happiness that the most sanguine of human beings could rationally expect.
It was the night of 10th May. The Quiet Drop had just closed down. Jenny and I were having a nightcap with the Kindersleys, who own the pub, before retiring to bed. The windows were open, and a gentle south-west wind blew in to dissipate the fumes of beer and cigarettes. Sipping my whisky and water, I watched Jenny, perched on a stool at the bar, as she talked to Dorothea Kindersley. They made a charming contrast. Mrs. Kindersley is tall, dark, with a kind of pale, still beauty that reminds me of a tobacco-flower at dusk, and with a grace of movement which gave dignity to the simple chore of washing and drying the beer mugs. Jenny, small and vivacious, her blonde-feathered head reflected in the bottles behind the bar, talked and laughed in little, trilling bursts like a wren: her square, stubby-fingered pianist’s hands were, I was glad to notice, relaxed—the days were over when they had been so piteously tense and restless.
“And who lives at the Manor?” Jenny was asking.
“Mr. Paston. Ronald Paston. He’s a business man,” Dorothea replied.
Fred Kindersley turned from tidying the cases of empties behind the bar. “If you can say ‘lives’,” he remarked in his dry way. “We don’t see much of him in Netherplash except at week-ends.”
“An absentee landlord?” said Jenny.
Fred lifted his glass of beer from the counter, gave it the publican’s automatic, appraising look as he held it to the light, and took a swallow of it. His movements and his north-country voice were deliberate: here is a man, I thought, who will take his time about making a decision, and then will stick to it.
“He bought up most of the village when he came here two years ago. Not this pub, though; or your house. Mind you, he’s not a bad landlord. He’s done a lot of repairs and improvements the Cards couldn’t have afforded.”
“The Cards?”
“The people he bought the Manor from. Two brothers. It’d been in their family since 1620, I believe.”
“But you don’t like him.” Jenny flashed her prettiest smile at Fred.
“Now, now, Mrs. Waterson. Publicans can’t afford to dislike their customers—not in a small village,” Fred replied with a quizzical look.
“Ah, but you’re not an ordinary publican, you can’t pretend you are.”
What Jenny said was true enough. Fred Kindersley is a cultivated man, and his appearance—the almost white flaxen hair, the clear-cut features, the straight gaze of his blue eyes—is one of remarkable distinction: it matches the gentle dignity of his wife. They had come to Netherplash Cantorum four or five years ago, charmed like us by the beauty of the village and the surrounding countryside; having rented the Quiet Drop, they transformed it from a rather decrepit though picturesque beer-house into a first-rate small inn, fitting out a few guest rooms of admirable taste and comfort, and providing meals which had already become something of a legend in the county.
“And what about the Cards—the old squire and his brother?” I asked. “They must have felt it a great wrench leaving the village.”
“Oh, they didn’t,” said Dorothea. “They moved out of the Manor into that house on the green—it’s called Pydal—you can see it if you look left through the trees.”
“Aye. Funny old boy, Alwyn. A card, you might say. Not that he’s all that old; right side of sixty still, I’d say. They’re both a very ancient Dorset family, you know. Run to Saxon names—Alwyn, Egbert.”
“That’s the brother?”
“Half-brother.”
“What’s Egbert like?” Jenny asked.
“Wild,” Fred laconically answered. I observed a slight flush on his wife’s pale cheeks: her eyes were cast down, so I could not see their expression.
It had certainly not escaped dear Jenny’s notice. When, five minutes later, we had retired to our bedroom, she said, “Do you suppose the wild Egbert has made a pass at Dorothea?”
“If he has, I’m sure she repelled it.”
“Yes. I couldn’t take seriously the advances of any man called Egbert.” After a pause, she sighed. “Oh, I wish I was beautiful like that. Really beautiful.”
“Like Egbert?”
“Don’t be so absurd, my darling old man. Like Dorothea.”
“I suppose there’d be no use telling you to take a look in that mirror.”
“No use at all. I know you think I’m pretty, but—”
“I don’t.”
For an instant she looked startled, miserable, as if I had hit her. I remembered how frail still was her self-confidence, and went on hastily to say what I’d been going to say. “I don’t think you pretty. I know you’re the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen.”
Jenny put her arms round my neck. “Go on thinking that. Please!” Her voice was urgent. Her arms tightened.
“Of course I shall. Far too lovely to be thrown away on an old stick like myself.”
“Now you’re breaking the rule. You promised never to—to talk about our ages.”
“But you called me your darling old man just now.”
“Ah, but that was different. That was a term of affection, so you mustn’t quibble.”
When she had undressed, Jenny beckoned me to the window seat. We looked out through the small, low window at the village sleeping in the moonlight. In front of us, a hundred yards away to the west of the Green, there showed the whitewashed walls of Green Lane, almost ready now to be our home. High above it, a black edge clear cut against the sky, lay the line of the downs. The air was perfectly still now. A smell of dewy grass and wallflowers came up to us. The village seemed to be breathing peace.
Tears gleamed in Jenny’s grey-blue eyes. “Oh, my love, we’re going to be so happy here, I know we are. It’s our paradise. Paradise Regained. You’re so good to me.”
A few moments later, the cuckoo started calling—from somewhere in the row of trees on the edge of the lane to our left. At first, the thing was agreeably bizarre. Lying in bed, we debated the question whether this cuckoo calling so late at night might be a unique phenomenon. Neither Jenny nor I had heard of such a thing ever happening. Apart from the abnormal hour, its call was quite ordinary—six to ten cuck-oos, followed by a silence, each silence deluding us with a hope that the wretched bird had at last gone to sleep or flown away. But every time the call was resumed. I felt Jenny, in bed beside me, grow tense and rigid. I got out and, leaning from the window, shouted and clapped my hands. It had no effect: the cuckoo is a shy, furtive bird; but, like other birds, it is alarmed more by movement than by sound, and it obviously could not see my frantic gestures. When I turned back to bed, I observed in the moonlight beads of sweat glistening at the roots of Jenny’s feathery hair. I was appalled to hear her say, with the edgy tones I had hoped never to hear again:
“John. I—I’m not imagining it, am I? Can you hear it? Tell me the truth.”
“Of course I can, love. I should think everyone in the village can hear it.”
“Why doesn’t someone go and stop it then? I can’t stand—”
“I’ll go. Straight away.”
“No! Don’t leave me, John!” Her voice rose on a waft of hysteria. “You mustn’t leave me!”
“Very well, Jenny.” I decided to bring it out into the open. “It’s not a noise in your head, my dear, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
She stared at me, like a child only half reassured by its father’s presence against some nocturnal terror.
“Look, why not take one of your sleeping pills?”
Jenny shook her head obstinately. She had had some difficulty in breaking herself of the habit of sedatives, which had been a necessary part of her treatment, and she was determined not to start it again.
“I know. Cotton wool.” I found her wad of cotton wool, tore off two bits of it, smeared them with face cream, and plugged them into her ears. I had a moment of panic lest she should still hear the cuckoo and be convinced now that it was an idiot voice throbbing in her skull. But the tension went out of her face: she smiled, reaching for my hand.
“Oh, darling, what would I do without you!”
I sat on the bed’s edge, wakeful, watching Jenny go to sleep, hearing that damnable bird reiterating its tiresome, tireless notes. “O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice?” I had a strong inclination to call it an intolerable pest. If I could assure myself that Jenny was deep asleep and would not awake to find me gone, I’d slip out into the lane and toss a few stones at the brute. The noise seemed to come from those trees down the lane; but even in the daytime a cuckoo is difficult enough to locate—its song chimes mockingly all round one—and at night!—I could understand all too well how Jenny had felt it in her head.
By now it was that darkest, devitalising time—the hour before dawn. Sleepless and exasperated, I sat on the window seat, while the cuckoo called and Jenny stirred uneasily in her sleep. I could not turn on a light to read by, for fear of waking her. And just then the powers of darkness, speaking through the cuckoo, assailed me with a horrible thought. Anyone imbued with the classics from boyhood is liable to be emotionally affected, however much his reason rejects it, by the concept of omens good and bad. I felt this was an ominous start to our new life: not because the cuckoo had frightened Jenny, but because of the old association of cuckoo and cuckold. Jenny loves me wholeheartedly, I said to myself; yes, but she is a young woman, I am an elderly man. So long as she needs me for a comforter, a father-figure as well as a lover, a support for her unstable temperament, all will be well. But how much longer will that dependence last, now she is almost restored to mental health? What right have I to expect that, with her loveliness, her vitality, her passionate interest in human beings, she should remain emotionally satisfied by a dry old stick like myself?
I heard an atrocious voice whisper in my mind, “So it would pay you to keep her unstable, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?”
The Devil, the Id—whatever one likes to call it—is remarkably vulgar in its advances. I smiled, knowing full well that I would gladly die to-morrow if my death could make Jenny whole. Yet a little drop of the poison had splashed me, and my mind kept smarting with it. Cuckoo … cuckold … youth … age.
I was still fighting against these obsessive thoughts when a gunshot startled me. It came from the darkness to my left. The shot was followed by silence, then by another outburst from the cuckoo in the tree there. A second shot rang out, and this time the marksman had evidently found his target. There was the rustle of something falling through leaves and branches, a plop, then I heard footsteps crossing the lane and presently the slam of a door. I judged that the cuckoo’s executioner must have come from the Manor, which is situated farther down the lane, some seventy yards from the pub and on the same side.
Now the bird had ceased to be a voice, wandering or otherwise, I could get back to bed. But I was still sleepless; and presently the dawn chorus tuned up and began its melodious shindy, dispelling any hope of sleep. In spite of my physical fatigue, my mind was active, fastening upon a certain anomaly I had noticed in the shooting of the cuckoo. I scribbled a note for Jenny and pinned it to the pillow beside her: “The cuckoo has been dealt with. I’m just nipping out to look for the remains.” Putting on trousers and a thick sweater over my pyjamas, I crept downstairs, unbolted the front door, and let myself out into the pale dusk of the morning. As I walked along the lane, I saw that I had been anticipated in my scientific curiosity. A man was poking about in the thick grass and undergrowth beneath the trees that border the village green
.
He was a small, tubby man, dressed in an old-fashioned Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, with a satchel slung over one shoulder. As I drew nearer, I saw that his face looked younger than the shock of white hair had suggested—a pink, chubby face, which reminded me of those india rubber faces one used to play with in childhood, squeezing them into different expressions. Had I met him in a London club, I should have put him down as a distinguished actor in the drawing-room comedy tradition that is so much out of favour now with the younger generation.
He waved cheerfully to me. “Good morning, sir,” he said. “Come to look for the corpse?”
“Was it you who shot the cuckoo?”
“No. I merely lay awake, ineffectually cursing it.” His voice was a pleasant, light tenor, rather fluttering, with the kind of head-notes we hear from British tenors in recitative. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Card. Alwyn Card. Are you staying at the Quiet Drop?”
“Till I move in. I’m John Waterson. I’ve taken Green Lane.”
He shook my hand warmly, his speed well-blue eyes twinkling.
“Splendid, splendid. Delighted to meet you. Welcome to Netherplash Cantorum. Heard you were coming. Sorry we couldn’t do better than that damned bird for a reception committee.”
“Did you find it?”
His eyes went vague for a moment. “Oh, the cuckoo? No.” He took another stab at the undergrowth with his walking stick. “So difficult to locate the sound exactly. You an ornithologist, sir?”
“No, I’m afraid not. But isn’t it freakish for a cuckoo to sing at night?”
“I should have thought so. That’s my house over there.” He pointed with his stick at a rambling, white-washed building visible, through the trees, on the left-hand edge of the green.
“We used to live at the Manor, y’know. But death duties and so forth. Come and have a cup of coffee. Damn’ chilly out here.”
I declined politely, saying I had a notion to go on looking for the shot bird. “You see,” I explained, “there was something odd about it—did you hear the shots?”
The Deadly Joker Page 1
