by John Burke
They went back through the trees and down the slope to the cottage. Harry noticed that Franklyn had a pronounced limp, but it did not seem to impede him at all: he strode out at a pace that even Harry found it hard to match, not knowing the lie of the land as well as the Doctor did.
In the sitting-room of the cottage Franklyn looked round arrogantly and nodded at Valerie in the merest sketch of formal politeness.
On the floor, the white tablecloth was humped up into an unnatural shape. Harry looked down at it and at Mad Peter’s feet pitifully sticking out from one end.
“We’re too late?”
Valerie nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Harry bent over the body and pulled the cloth back. Peter’s head was twisted to one side, the features frozen into a mask of agony. The foam was dry on his lips and his eyes stared unseeingly from mottled pouches of puffed-up flesh.
Franklyn’s impassivity was shaken. He suppressed a gasp. A spasm of revulsion shook him, and then he turned away and fought for control of himself.
“Have you any idea what it could have been?” asked Harry.
“He was an epileptic.” The answer was snapped out authoritatively in spite of Franklyn’s earlier protestations that he was not a medical expert. “He must have had a seizure.”
“But the blackening of his face . . . the swelling . . .”
“I only know,” said Franklyn violently, “that this man was subject to fits. I suggest that this was the result of one of them. Please don’t force me to express professional opinions I am not qualified to hold.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. When he turned to Valerie his manner was once again pedantic and rather fussy. “Although the matter is, strictly speaking, no concern of mine, I shall be prepared to see to . . . ah . . . all the distressing arrangements.”
Harry decided it was time to take the initiative. “It’s kind of you, but I’m sure that if you tell us who we should get in touch with first thing in the morning—”
“I know the people here,” said Franklyn. “I know the procedure. Please leave it in my hands.”
Valerie looked at the wretched huddle of death on the floor, and then at Harry. He could see that she longed only to be free from this pitiful but terrible intruder. If Franklyn knew what to do, she would be only too glad to let him take charge.
He nodded faintly. Valerie turned to Franklyn and whispered: “Thank you.”
The doctor went to the door. “I shall not wish you goodnight, as you are scarcely likely to have one after your experience. However, I will express my regret that your arrival here should have been so . . . unpleasant. Mrs. Spalding . . . Sir.”
With a little bow, he had gone.
Harry and Valerie moved towards each other, and then realized that the mound of the corpse lay between them. Harry edged round it. He had seen death before, and although his experiences had not hardened him he prided himself that he could face up to the reality of it when necessary. But never before had he seen anything so disturbing, somehow so obscene, as this stricken creature at his feet.
“Darling . . .”
Before Valerie could rush into his arms, they heard a faint rustle from the doorway. The door had opened silently, and the only sound was that of the breeze sighing into the room. But framed in the opening was a dark-skinned man with the deep yet expressionless eyes of a Malay. For him to have come out of the rural English night was the most incongruous thing in a day and night of insane fantasies.
Valerie gripped Harry’s arm. The Malay bowed to each of them in turn and then advanced into the room. He stood above the corpse and lowered his gaze slowly in what might have been reverence or no more than a languid curiosity.
Abruptly he stooped and slid his arms under the corpse.
Harry stepped forward to assist. The Malay shook his head once. With a neat twist he flung the body across his shoulder and padded soundlessly out into the night.
5
There were only three mourners at Mad Peter’s funeral. Valerie and Harry stood on one side of the grave, Tom Bailey on the other. They watched the earth drop on to the simple wooden coffin. Valerie stooped and sprinkled a few crumbling fragments over it, and then stood back as the Vicar, hardly appearing to notice their presence, turned and doddered back towards his church.
Tom Bailey came round the dark new hole in the ground. Valerie had been introduced to him briefly by Harry when they arrived for the ceremony, and had at once liked his square, reliable face and the firmness of his handshake. As soon as Tom joined them now she said:
“Surely he must have had some friends—I mean, other than yourself, Mr. Bailey?”
“He had, ma’am. A lot of friends, spite of his funny ways.”
“Then where are they all?”
“They wouldn’t come here. Not today.”
“Why not?”
Tom Bailey lagged behind for a moment, letting Valerie and her husband walk ahead. He was heavily shy and uncertain. He scraped his feet along the path like a horse pawing the ground.
“Because of what he died of,” he muttered.
“But what did he die of? There’s no doctor here to tell us.”
“No, there’s no doctor. But the coroner comes round to fill in his report every month. And he knows better than to ask any awkward questions. Heart failure’s what he’ll say.” Tom drew level with them again, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder. He nodded towards the village, locked in its secretive trance. “But they’ll say he died of the Black Death.”
“The what?” said Harry incredulously.
“The Black Death.”
“But what’s that?” asked Valerie.
“What he died of, ma’am,” said Tom artlessly.
They crossed the road in front of the inn. It was late morning and one would have expected some sign of activity around the houses; but nobody stirred. They must he all out in the fields, Valerie assured herself. It was logical enough yet she didn’t quite believe it.
Tom looked sheepish as they stopped at his door. He was evidently torn between remaining loyal to the people among whom he had come to live, though they would always regard him as a foreigner, and showing himself a civilized chap to these newcomers.
“Can I invite you both in for a little refreshment?”
“I won’t, thank you, Mr. Bailey.” Valerie was anxious to get back and do some more work on the cottage, as well as preparing a meal.
“It’ll be in my parlor,” said Tom anxiously. “All perfectly respectable.”
She laughed. “Even so, I think I’d better get back.” She touched Harry’s arm. “But you stay, darling. I can do without you under my feet for half an hour or so.”
“Like to borrow Tom’s cart? I’m sure he’d—”
“Please, ma’am, you just wait here while I bring it round.” Tom was eager to agree.
But she wanted to walk. She proposed to see all there was to be seen between here and the cottage, to soak up the atmosphere and, in return, to impose her own authority on it. A walk would do her good—a contact with reality after the strangeness of these disturbing events.
The day was mild and the countryside looked somehow less harsh than when they had come down to the village for the funeral. She reached the summit of the hill and looked out across the moors. Life here could be beautiful. She would learn to appreciate all that was best in the changing seasons.
A few feet from the verge of the road a clump of wild flowers burned with a pale glow in the middle of the bracken. She picked her way towards them and stooped to collect a few for the cottage. To her right was another gleam, shining more harshly.
Half hidden in the bracken was a wicked-looking trap with open jaws.
The hideous threat of those waiting teeth was too much for her. Valerie found a thick twig and sprung the trap, wincing as the jaws clanged shut.
She finished assembling her bouquet and went on towards the cottage.
The door was half open. Harry had not troubled to lock it,
pointing out that the windows were so rickety and easy to open that it was absurd to take precautions with the door. People who wanted to break in could do so without difficulty: that had already been proved.
Valerie went in. Then she stopped, dumbfounded.
The room was rich with flowers. Flamboyant, exotic blooms which put her own little posy to shame were flaunting their cerise, orange, and yellow heads from jars and vases and even from the dented shape of the battered kettle.
Valerie moved warily into the room. Too many things had happened in too short a time. She could not imagine what this new development might portend.
There was a step on the stairs. A girl came down, carefully supporting herself against the plaster wall with one hand while she carried a few flowers in the other. At the bottom she came face to face with Valerie, and stopped dead.
“Oh, dear! I had so hoped to be finished before you came back. It was meant to be a sort of welcome.” She was dark and slim, with an olive-tinged complexion which Valerie envied even at first glance. Although she was neatly dressed in a white shirt and a long grey skirt, in some inexplicable way she looked as exotic as the flowers she had distributed round the room so lavishly. “The door was open,” she said timidly.
“But how kind of you.”
“I heard all about your terrible experience when you got here. I thought perhaps these might help to take away an unhappy memory.”
There was assuredly a world of difference between that first welcome, if one could call it such, and this one.
“They will, of course,” said Valerie gratefully. “But . . . who are you?”
“I’m so sorry. Your neighbor. I am Anna Franklyn.”
“Then I’ve met your father.”
A flicker of fear twitched in the girl’s beautiful face. “Yes, I know.”
“He was searching for you. I hope he wasn’t too furious when he found you.”
The girl’s grip on her few remaining flowers slackened so that they curled over and dropped from her hand.
“No,” she said in a small voice.
“That’s good. Won’t you stay for a cup of coffee? I’m Valerie Spalding, as I expect you know.”
Everyone, thought Valerie ruefully, seemed to know: while she and Harry knew nothing of the community in which they had come to live.
Anna nodded. Her eagerness was very appealing: she must be in her twenties but there was something young and shy about her—something that yearned for friendship but feared a rebuff. It must be a lonely life for a girl of her age. Doctor Franklyn had not given Valerie the impression of being a man with many friends or a man who would encourage his daughter to make her own.
Valerie realized she was still holding her little bunch of wild flowers.
“I think these had better go in some quiet corner,” she said, “if there’s any room left.” She went towards the kitchen. Anna came demurely after her as though anxious not to let this new friend out of her sight. “Your flowers”—Valerie looked back from the kitchen door at the rainbow of blooms—“are really magnificent. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a gorgeous display.”
“Father grows them,” said Anna. Then, in a rush, she said: “I really came to ask if you and your husband would come to dinner with us.”
Valerie was surprised. She had not expected an invitation of this kind. She wanted to ask more, to make sure it was all right; but Anna was waiting on tenterhooks, hardly daring to breathe until she got her answer. Valerie said: “We’d like to.”
“Tonight?”
“Well, I . . .”
“Please,” said Anna urgently. “Tonight.”
“Yes. And thank you.”
“Oh, no. It’s I who have to thank you.” Before Valerie could question her, Anna raced on: “Can I do anything?”
Valerie nodded towards the large black kettle. It was pretty well the only receptacle in the place which had not been used for the floral display.
“If you wouldn’t mind—the pump’s in the yard outside.”
Anna gladly took the kettle and went across the sitting-room to the door. Valerie followed her at a more leisurely pace with cups and saucers on a tray, which she set down on the table.
Suddenly she heard Anna’s feet hurrying back up the path. The kettle swinging from her hand had obviously not been filled. She was pale as she came into the room, and the impulsive happiness had quite faded from her eyes. They looked dark, fathomless . . . as clouded as a poisoned pool.
Behind her, beyond the overgrown garden, Valerie glimpsed a movement. For a split second she thought she saw the Malay, but then there was only the tangle of briars leaning perilously over the doorway.
“What’s wrong, Anna?”
“I must go.”
“But—”
“I must.”
“Of course.” There was no point in trying to deal with the girl’s distress when there was no clue to its cause. “But . . . are you sure you’re all right? You look so pale.”
“I must go,” repeated Anna hypnotically.
“You’ll come again?”
“Yes, yes . . .”
Anna swept into the kitchen and put the kettle down with a bang. She came out again, hurrying towards the door. When she reached it she stopped in her tracks, staring.
Doctor Franklyn stepped from the path into the cottage.
“What are you doing here, Anna?”
“I’m sorry, father.”
“You did not have my permission to come here.”
His insulting indifference to her presence enraged Valerie. She said:
“Surely Anna doesn’t need your permission just to pay an ordinary social call, Doctor Franklyn?”
The bony structure of his forehead seemed to force its way upwards through the skin, tense with anger, strained to a bleached whiteness. “Do not interfere with matters which you don’t understand, Mrs. Spalding. Matters,” he added viciously, “which don’t concern you.”
“Father, please . . .”
“Anna!”
The girl bowed her head in submission. Franklyn stood to one side and she walked humbly past him. On the path outside she stopped and ventured a glance back at Valerie.
Franklyn said: “I realize the sort of image I have created of myself, Mrs. Spalding. But believe me, things are not as simple and straightforward as they may seem.”
“I’m sorry,” said Valerie stiffly. “Of course it is none of my business. It’s not my place to criticize.”
But he could be in no doubt that the criticism was there. Abruptly, to her amazement, he smiled and put out a hand towards her, then let it fall to his side. It was an appeal as pathetic in its way as Anna’s—and as baffling.
“I’m not really an ogre, Mrs. Spalding.”
Valerie plunged. If sense was ever to be made of this situation, she must go through with it to the end. She said as lightly as possible: “I’m glad to know it . . . as we are to have the pleasure of dining with you tonight.”
Franklyn’s face clouded again. He glanced at Anna.
“Please, father.”
“Very well.” The words were dragged out of him. He turned back to Valerie. “Until tonight, then.”
The rebuff of his coldness was almost enough to make her withdraw the acceptance. Obviously it would mean nothing but trouble for Anna when she got home. But the two of them were already on their way towards the lane.
Valerie watched them until they were out of sight. She wondered how a father and daughter could distress each other so; and wondered if she and Harry would find out this evening, and if they would be sorry. Perhaps unhappy people were best left to their unhappiness. For herself, she wanted only Harry and the joy he brought her.
But Anna Franklyn had appealed to her, in looks as much as in words. It was too late to turn back.
6
Tom Bailey poured two large brandies and passed one to Harry. They drank after a silent, companionable nod to each other. Harry looked round the snug little pa
rlor. It was more like the cabin of a ship than a private room behind an inn bar: there were three ships in bottles, a rough plaster cast of a mermaid, a heavy book with a stained cover which might have been a family Bible but suggested a ship’s log, and an assortment of shells and large iridescent pebbles along the window-ledge. Over the fireplace was a yellowing daguerreotype of a ship with two billowing sails and two belching funnels. If the floor had tilted slightly, Harry would not have been surprised. Perhaps if the skipper—or, rather, the landlord—gave him enough brandy, it would oblige.
He took another sip and then said bluntly: “How many have died from this . . . this Black Death? Before my brother, I mean. Because I’m assuming that he was one of the victims, just like Mad Peter?”
Tom frowned over his glass as though accusing Harry of a breach of hospitality. Then he said awkwardly: “A few.”
“And what do you think killed him?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Tom. Look—I’m a professional soldier, I’ve knocked about the world quite a bit and seen some pretty strange things. Some of them I couldn’t fathom out at all. But just because I couldn’t understand them—didn’t have the time to investigate, damn it—that doesn’t mean they didn’t have some perfectly logical explanation. And there must be a perfectly logical explanation to all this, too. You know there must be.”
Tom took his time. He looked round at his little treasures, seeking their support. “I was a professional sailor, Mr. Spalding. You can see that. And I’m like you—I knocked around the world. Right round, in fact—several times. And I’ve seen things so strange that no amount of your logic could ever explain them away.”
“Magic?” said Harry sceptically. “All that mumbo-jumbo? We’ve all seen that. Or what’s supposed to be magic—and witchcraft.”
“Well, then,” mumbled Tom.
“You’re not suggesting people in this village were killed that way?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t intend to try finding out.”
Tom’s gravity made it impossible to sneer at him. Harry changed his tack and said: “How well did you know my brother, Tom?”
