Untimely Death

by Cyril Hare

  “If I may venture to say so,” said Mallett, “I had rather taken it for granted that you would be of the party, madam. I have packed a snack for three.”

  On the back seat of Mallett’s car, Pettigrew could see a vast picnic basket bulging at the seams. Remembering of old Mallett’s reputation as a trencherman, he realized that his idea of a snack for three would be hopelessly beyond the capacity of any four normal persons. He submitted with what he hoped was a good grace.

  There was not room for more than two in the front of the car, and Eleanor shared the back seat with the picnic basket. Her plea that there was more room for her husband’s long legs in the seat beside the driver was perfectly true on the face of it, but the tactful way in which she thus indicated that her presence in the party was only on sufferance was not lost on Frank. It was, he reflected, characteristic of her that having captured the citadel she should allow the defeated garrison to march out with the full honours of war.

  Once more, it was a beautiful day. The sun beat down between the high banks, crowned with beech hedges, that closed in the narrow road on either side. On just such a day Pettigrew could remember toiling on foot behind a wagonette drawn by two sweating horses up the incline which the car was now effortlessly climbing. He decided that in the interests of boys and beasts alike there was a lot to be said for progress after all. They overtook a police constable, pushing his bicycle up the hill, and sweating in his thick uniform almost as much as the horses had done; and he wished for his sake that progress could have gone a little further.

  Mallett gave a friendly wave to the policeman as they passed, and then glanced at the clock on the dashboard before him. Pettigrew noticed a puzzled frown on his face.

  “Is that clock right, Mr. Pettigrew?”

  “I think so, yes. Is anything the matter?”

  “Nothing the matter that I know of, sir. It’s a little odd, that’s all. Unless this clock’s wrong, which you tell me it isn’t, or unless the local Superintendent’s altered his timetable, which I don’t see why he should, that constable’s three-quarters of an hour early on his beat.”

  “Oh,” said Pettigrew, for want of anything better to say.

  “If you mean by that, sir, that it’s none of my business, I respectfully agree with you. It’s just habit, noticing these things, and——”

  They had reached the junction with the new main road, the presence of which on the moor had distressed Pettigrew so much three days before. As Mallett slowed down before turning to the right, in the direction of Bolter’s Tussock, a car coming at great pace shot across their front from left to right. Mallett had to slam on his brakes abruptly to avoid a collision.

  They took the corner soberly and followed up the slope behind the other car, now a hundred yards ahead and increasing its distance every moment. It vanished from their sight round the bend at the crest of the hill, beyond which the road levelled out to cross the comparatively flat Tussock.

  “That fellow is in a bit of a hurry,” observed Pettigrew.

  Mallett said nothing, but the frown had returned to his face and he took one hand off the steering wheel to administer a tremendous tug to the end of his moustache. About fifty yards below the top of the hill, he seemed to come to a decision. He slowed down, changed into low gear and swung left-handed off the highway onto a narrow, rutted track which came into the road at that point.

  The car bucketed violently on the rough surface. Pettigrew, Eleanor and the picnic basket were flung from side to side as Mallett remorselessly drove his car onwards and upwards across the flank of the hill on a course more or less parallel with the road below them. Then, at a comparatively level spot, he stopped the car and switched off the engine.

  Pettigrew was the first to speak.

  “I thought we were going to Bolter’s Tussock,” he said in an aggrieved tone.

  “So we are, I hope, in a minute or two,” said Mallett. “It’s just an idea I’ve got, Mr. Pettigrew, if you’ll excuse me. Do you see anything down there?”

  From the windows of the car there was a good deal to be seen “down there”—a large slice of Exmoor, the whole width of the Bristol Channel and several miles of the coast of Wales. The one thing that was invisible from this particular point was the part of Bolter’s Tussock for which they had been making, as it was hidden from them by the bank lining the road immediately beneath their position. Pettigrew said as much, and Mallett nodded placidly.

  “Just so,” he said. “Just so. But we can see the road where it leaves the Tussock to go down the hill. You can follow it half the way to Whitsea. Do you see anything on that?”

  “Yes,” said Pettigrew. “There’s a bus, or a coach—I’m not sure which—and a motor bicycle overtaking it.”

  “Quite right, sir. The coach coming back from taking the children into school at Whitsea. And a motor bike, as you say. Both coming up to meet us. But nothing going our way—away from us, I mean?”

  “No.”

  Mallett sighed.

  “I was afraid so,” he said.

  It was Eleanor who saw the point first.

  “That car in front of us,” she said. “It ought to be somewhere down the road by now. We should be bound to get a view of it if it had gone on. It must have stopped on the Tussock.”

  “Just so, madam.”

  “All the same,” said Pettigrew, “I don’t see why——”

  “It’s the divisional detective inspector’s private car, sir. With the inspector in it.” He looked back along the way they had come. “And here comes the constable on his bike,” he added. “He’s made pretty good time up the hill. What do you make of that, Mr. Pettigrew?”

  “I’m reminded of a text from the Bible,” said Pettigrew.

  “And that is——”

  “Do you mind awfully if I don’t tell you just now? I have a feeling it would be unlucky. Can’t we try to find out what this high-powered policeman is up to on the Tussock?”

  “Quite right, sir.” Mallett jumped from the car with a nimbleness Pettigrew could only envy, and opened the door for Eleanor to alight. “If you don’t mind a bit of a scramble,” he said, “I think the place for us is up there.”

  He waved his arm to where, a short distance ahead and above, the smooth sweep of the hillside against the sky was broken by an outcrop of granite rocks. Pettigrew and Eleanor set off with him in their direction, but they had not gone far before, with a muttered excuse, Mallett turned back to the car. Halfway to their objective he overtook them again, tenderly bearing the picnic basket in his arms.

  “Might want to be here for a little time,” he explained. “No reason why we should starve.”

  A solitary blackcock flew off as they came near the rocks. Apart from him, they had the place to themselves. Following Mallett’s lead they approached the rocks, keeping them between themselves and the skyline. The outcrop was in the form of a rough semicircle, and once within the perimeter it was possible to sit or lie in comfort and peer over its edge down the steep hillside on to the flat saddle below. Immediately beneath them ran the road, snaking across the Tussock before plunging down into the valley beyond. Midway along the road, perhaps two hundred yards away, a car was drawn up close into the side. Just beyond the car, on the opposite side of the road, was a small group of men. Pettigrew could distinguish the blue uniforms of two of them. One man seemed to be in a khaki shirt and shorts, the others in what are so quaintly called “lounge suits”. They were looking at something on the ground.

  Mallett dropped back from the rock on which he was lying to where he had deposited the basket, which he proceeded to open. From it he took a small leather case, and from the case a telescope. For some time he studied the group through the glass without speaking, then he handed it to Pettigrew. Pettigrew was not accustomed to a telescope. It took him some time to focus the instrument and even when he had done so, he found it almost impossible to keep it steady. But at last he conquered its difficulties, and the figures in the field of vision shewe
d up clearly and far larger than he had expected. When he had done, he proffered the glass to Eleanor, but she shook her head.

  “I can’t work a thing like that,” she said. “Tell me.”

  Still Pettigrew said nothing. He was rather pale, she noticed, and he had wrinkled up his nose in a way that always meant that he was puzzled or unhappy.

  “All right, then,” said Eleanor softly. “Shall I tell you? The text you thought of just now. It was: Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s what happened—literally?”

  “Not quite. The eagles are only metaphorical, unfortunately. But the carcase is literal.”

  “Well, it’s all very interesting, but it can’t be the one you saw on Saturday.”

  “That’s what you’d think, isn’t it?” said Pettigrew.

  In the brief silence that followed, they saw the motor bicycle that had been approaching from Whitsea come to a standstill beside the police car. It did not stay there long. The uniformed constable, evidently posted there for the purpose, waved it on, and the rider went on his way, looking dangerously back over his shoulder as he did so. Then came the coach, to be dealt with in the same fashion.

  “There’ll be a lot more eagles about in a minute, I’m thinking,” said Mallett. “There’ll be photographers and an ambulance and men to take casts of footprints. They’ll block the view as best they can with police cars until they’ve got enough hurdles and screens to keep the place private. By that time there’ll be a queue of cars and buses right across the Tussock, trying to stop and being moved on, and trying to move on and being stopped. It’s wonderful how even an out of the way place like this fills up when there’s a corpse involved. We only got here just in time to see anything.”

  “And what exactly have we seen?” said Eleanor.

  There was an awkward little pause, and then Mallett said, “Well, Mr. Pettigrew, as your good lady said just now, it can’t have been what you saw when you were having your little trip on horseback.”

  “It was exactly the same,” said Pettigrew flatly.

  “You told me he had on a bluey-grey coat, I remember. This one’s green.”

  “I was wrong, that’s all. I told you at the time my recollection was very vague. Now I’ve seen it again, I’m quite positive it’s the one I saw before.”

  “Well then, sir, it is the same man, and he’s been lying there ever since Saturday. You made a mistake about the place when you went back, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t make a mistake,” said Pettigrew stubbornly. “He’s in the same spot now that he was in when I first saw him—the place I went back to with Percy Percy when he wasn’t there. You can mark it by those boulders. They’re the only ones anywhere near the place.”

  “Well, then …” said Eleanor, and stopped abruptly. “Mr. Mallett,” she went on, with a hint of desperation in her voice, “what do you really think?”

  “I think,” Mallett replied, “that we should all be the better for a little snack, madam.”

  The snack, as Pettigrew had expected, turned out to be a gargantuan meal. Such time as they were able to spare from the food that was continually pressed on them they devoted to contemplating the proceedings on the Tussock below, which followed very much the pattern that Mallett had foretold. He, meanwhile, kept up a running commentary on the spectacle, blending appreciation with criticism as the procedure of police investigation took its course. The meal and its accompaniment came to an end at about the same time. In the circle of rocks, the full fed guests made their final refusals of another helping, and brushed the last crumbs from their clothes. On the moor, the corpse, having been photographed from all angles, had been removed to the mortuary, and behind their screens junior policemen were settling down to a routine search of the surrounding ground. There was nothing more to see and nothing more that they were able to eat. It was peaceful among the rocks—peaceful, and decidedly warm. For the second time since his holiday began Pettigrew began to doze after a picnic meal. And once more, it was his wife’s voice that jerked him awake.

  “Have you considered precognition, Frank?”

  “Considered—what?”

  “Precognition. It’s a possibility, you know.”

  Pettigrew reluctantly forced himself to consider it.

  “You mean,” he said, “that I might have seen what wasn’t there at the time but was going to be there later?”

  “Yes. Like the man who wrote An Experiment with Time.”

  “I don’t think I’m a bit like the man who wrote An Experiment with Time. Things like that don’t happen to me. I’m simply a normal bloke, with normal senses.”

  “Perhaps. But you weren’t in an altogether normal state on Saturday afternoon. You were thinking about something you had seen on Bolter’s Tussock fifty years ago—something that had made a tremendous impression on you at the time. You found yourself more or less reliving that experience. Subconsciously—if that’s the right word—you were expecting to see it again. Nobody could have been surprised if you had seen it—or fancied that you had seen it, which is exactly the same thing. And all unknown to you, only just round the corner in time, something just like it was there, waiting to be seen. You took a jump forward three days, instead of backwards fifty years, and saw that instead. It seems a possible theory to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

  There are those who boast that they have second sight. There are even said to be families—mostly on the western fringes of the British Isles—in which any individual lacking it is regarded as eccentric. To Pettigrew, the idea that he might even for the space of a single afternoon, have been visited with the gift was utterly repellent. It was quite inconsistent with the character of logical formality that he had built up in a lifetime of hard work. The knowledge that deep down within him lurked a strong vein of fantasy made him all the more anxious to disclaim the possibility. But even as he opened his mouth to blast his wife’s ridiculous theory, the devil tempted him and he saw its manifest attractions. It was neat, it was comprehensive, above all it absolved him once and for all from the duty of taking any action. He had only to concede that for once in his life he had been “fey” and …

  He found himself looking at Mallett.

  “What is your opinion?” he asked.

  Mallett was engaged in strapping up the picnic basket. He pulled hard at a recalcitrant strap, and the effort made his face rather red.

  “You’ll excuse me, sir,” he said, “if I prefer not to have any opinion on that subject. It’s not in my line at all. I’ve never see anything before it happened. It would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had sometimes, I dare say. But I can guess what’s coming as well as the next man, and if that’s what precognition is, then I precognose that we shall find things rather badly upset when we get back to Sallowcombe.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Has it occurred to you, sir, that in all the questions we’ve been asking about the poor devil they’ve just taken away in the ambulance, we never thought to ask who he was? Well, it’s difficult to be certain at this range, but I had a good look at him through the glass, and it’s my belief that he’s none other than Jack Gorman.”

  CHAPTER X

  Sunbeam Cottage

  “I’m afraid it’s not very much to look at,” Mallett said apologetically as he stopped the car outside his house.

  Pettigrew said nothing but privately he disagreed heartily. Sunbeam Cottage—such was its regrettable name—was a lot to look at—one might say, a great deal too much. In a country of soft colours and smooth curves it stood out, vivid, angular and irredeemably ugly. Happily the distressing exterior was redeemed by a cheerful, comfortable interior. Mallett insisted on taking them all over it while the kettle boiled for tea. Back in the sitting-room he said:

  “Well, now, Mrs. Pettigrew, what do you think of it?”

  Eleanor murmured something that she hoped would satisfy an obviously house-proud owner, but
Mallett brushed it aside.

  “I’m speaking of the spare room, of course,” he said. “It’s not so large as the one at Sallowcombe, but do you think it will do?”

  “Do? For what?”

  “For you and Mr. Pettigrew. Unless, of course, you’ve given up the idea of an Exmoor holiday altogether. You’ll hardly get in anywhere else at this time of year.”

  “But why——?” Eleanor began. “Oh, I see. You’re assuming that Mrs. Gorman is—will be——”

  “I’m assuming that Mrs. Gorman is now a widow, that she’ll be too upset to be wanting to bother with boarders and that in any case you won’t care to stay in a house with that sort of trouble about. And I’ve gone so far as to assume that you and Mr. Pettigrew might care to stay with me for a few days. I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but as I told Mr. Pettigrew yesterday, I’ve lost my finesse living in the country.”

  “It’s extremely kind of you, Mr. Mallett.”

  “You’ll come, then? Good! As my guests, mind. I don’t want any nonsense about paying your way. You can leave a present for the housekeeper at the end of your stay, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”

  Mallett accompanied his words with a ferocious tug at the ends of his moustache. Thoroughly overawed, the Pettigrews agreed to his proposition, provided that his basic assumption proved to be correct.

  *

  It was correct. Mr. Joliffe’s little car was standing in the farmyard when they returned to Sallowcombe, and it was Mr. Joliffe who received them when they entered.

  “My daughter is in bed,” he said heavily. “She has had some news that has upset her. I was sent for from Whitsea.”

  “We have heard the news,” said Pettigrew. “I should like to express our deep sympathy.”