The Otterbury Incident

by C. Day Lewis

  ‘And if I don’t –?’

  ‘We’ll put you in the river and hold your head under water till you do talk.’

  ‘How can I talk with my head under water?’

  ‘Don’t try to be funny. It doesn’t suit you … Well? … We’ll give you five seconds to open your stinking mouth. Five. Four. Three. Two. One – GET HIM!’ Toppy hurled himself at the Prune, knocked him over, and sat on his chest. ‘Ted, gag him with your handkerchief. The rest of you, tie up his arms and legs.’ Toppy very deliberately looked at his watch and said, ‘The first time we’ll only hold you under water for twenty seconds. The next time it will be thirty. After that –’

  But the Prune, by frantic gestures, made it clear that his nerve had cracked. We unstoppered him, and the story poured out.

  8. Shadows and Shocks

  Our deductions had been correct. The Prune had met Johnny Sharp and the Wart that day as he sloped off from our meeting, and told them what we were planning. According to his story, Johnny Sharp had been very interested: he took the Wart aside a moment, and muttered something in his ear, which the Prune thought was ‘Skinner’s workshop’. The Wart went off into Skinner’s yard – I suppose we were all too excited planning Operation Glazier to notice him – and presently returned with a wooden box, which Johnny Sharp gave the Prune to pass on to us: he also gave him five bob to keep his mouth shut, telling him he must on no account let us know where the box came from. Closely cross-questioned, the Prune denied that he had suspected anything fishy about all this, though I’d bet a 5-lb. iced cake against a stale rock-bun that he had a pretty good idea what was going on, if indeed he wasn’t in the plot as an accomplice, because he’d certainly have done anything to get even with Ted after Ted had knocked his block off during the tank ambush.

  Anyway, Toppy told him we’d cut his throat if he breathed a word to Johnny Sharp or the Wart about his confession – not that he’d be likely to – and gave him a boot which lifted him well into the middle distance. Then we retired into the shack for a conference. The atmosphere (which was compounded of the smells of creosote and bone manure, incidentally) fairly buzzed with bright ideas. I won’t relate them all – only the ones we finally adopted. Viz.:

  (i) to send out the fiery cross and summon all of Ted’s and Toppy’s companies who weren’t away for the day with their parents. Rendezvous, the Incident: time 14.15 hours.

  (ii) to shadow the criminals for the rest of the afternoon, and if possible to drive a wedge between them, metaphorically speaking; the Wart was obviously the soft underbelly of their axis, and we might be able to break his nerve somehow if we could detach him from Johnny Sharp.

  (iii) hold everything now, this is the big bang coming – to get into Skinner’s workshop! From the revolting Prune’s evidence, it was clear that the original box had come from there. So, we argued, there was every likelihood that the duplicate one also had; and that the criminals had brought back the original box there, after getting it off Ted, to open it and share out the cash. We might find evidence of the boxes having been made in Skinner’s workshop. We might even find the first box still there, because Johnny Sharp and the Wart wouldn’t have been likely to take such an incriminating object back to their own homes, which might well have been searched by the police if Ted had told them about his meeting with the criminals in the alley. On the other hand, they could feel pretty safe at the workshop, since Johnny had gone out of his way to conceal his connexion with Skinner.

  It was vital that we should try to recover the original box, for it would be a conclusive piece of evidence against Johnny Sharp and the Wart. Without it, our case might fall to the ground. But to break into Skinner’s workshop was a difficult and dangerous project. All of us in the shack volunteered, of course. But I must say I was j. relieved, being an historian rather than a man of action, when Ted and Toppy said they would form the Commando unit for this operation themselves, just the pair of them.

  They would certainly make a good team. Toppy has the dare-devil spirit more than anyone I know, and he could bluff his way out of an alligator’s jaws; Ted is slower, but more obstinate and reliable. If Toppy is tops at spur-of-the-moment tactics, Ted is a born strategist. This had come out at the ambush in Abbey Lane; and it came out again now. It was he who worked out in detail the plans for shadowing and separating the two criminals, and for getting into Skinner’s place: he seemed to think of everything, including the pieces of chalk and the bogus telephone call – but read on and you’ll see what I mean by these cryptic remarks.

  To go back for a moment. A detective must show that his suspect has had (a) means, (b) opportunity, (c) motive for the crime. Our suspects had certainly had the opportunity. If we found the box it would prove they had had the means, though the bitten half-crown and the fact of Johnny Sharp’s presenting the original box would probably be enough to convince most juries. The only snag was the motive. Why should a chap like Johnny Sharp, who flashed wads of notes in one’s face, go to such trouble to pinch a few pounds from a gang of ‘kids’? Somehow it didn’t ring true to me. Peter Butts, who is a cynical type, said that if you were a natural crook like Sharp you’d bump off your grandmother for 6d.: big money, small cash, it didn’t matter, it was all grist to your mill. Well, honestly I don’t believe it.

  Anyway, as we walked back into the town, I was revolving in my mind all that I knew of the criminal mentality – which, I admit, comes chiefly from books, though Mr Robertson did say once that for a Rogue’s Gallery and Chamber of Horrors rolled into one, nobody need go further than the Upper Fourth at our school. Vanity is supposed to be a chief characteristic of the criminal. Now there’s no doubt that Johnny Sharp is vain: and it occurred to me, he may really be vain enough to believe that Rose Marshall would marry him: he always seems to be pestering her, anyway. Perhaps, in his warped mind, he had thought that, if he could get Ted into trouble with the police and then somehow save him – for instance by owning up to having taken the money himself and pretending it had been a practical joke – Ted’s sister would be grateful and look more favourably upon his advances. It sounds pretty childish, written down like this, I know: but the criminal, I read in one of my father’s books, often has a strong streak of infantilism. Certainly what I’d heard Johnny Sharp say to Rose in the shop this morning did seem to bear out this theory …

  Well, between the five of us, we managed to collect over a dozen of the two companies, and we left urgent messages for the rest to join us when they got home. At 14.15 we made our rendezvous. Ted outlined the plans for the shadowing, and everyone was pretty enthusiastic. While our meeting was still on, the double doors of Skinner’s yard were opened and Skinner himself drove out in a lorry. It seemed a good opportunity for getting into his workshop; but Ted and Toppy decided not to alter their plans for the Commando raid, which had been timed to take place later in the afternoon. As it turned out, if they had changed their plans, they would have escaped a hair-raising ordeal, but also they would have missed making the discovery which was to reverberate through Otterbury like a thunderclap.

  Shortly after Skinner’s departure, Charlie Mus-well came tearing up. He and Nick had been detailed to watch the Crooked Man, a pub near the station where Johnny Sharp and the Wart were often to be found at dinner-time. Charlie reported that the enemy had been observed drinking in the pub, and Nick was shadowing them. We all raced off in great spirits. It was a bit of luck, making contact with the enemy so quickly. But, when we got to the Crooked Man, the doors were shut and nobody in sight. It was after closing time.

  ‘Where’s Nick? Have they kidnapped him, d’you think?’ somebody asked.

  ‘Don’t be an ass,’ Ted replied. ‘Cast about for chalk-marks.’

  It was here that Ted’s forethought proved its value. He had arranged for everyone to carry a piece of chalk, so that if the main body lost touch with any of their scouts, they could pick up the trail through chalk-marks. Presently young Wakeley gave a yell. He had found two arrows in chalk on a pi
llar box nearby, pointing towards the station. Ted spat on his handkerchief and rubbed them out: it might be confusing if the enemy came back this way before we caught up with them, and Nick had to make more chalk-marks to guide us. Two arrows, by the way, meant that our quarry were still together.

  We hurried along towards the station, finding another pair of arrows on a wall in Station Road, and then a third on the pavement pointing straight at the level crossing. Here we had our first check, for the gates were shut, and it would have been suicide to go through the small pedestrians’ gate at the side, with the Devon Belle bearing down a hundred yards away at about 80 m.p.h. We waited, straining at the leash, while the West-country-class engine bellowed past, its crack train of pullmans swaying behind it like a comet’s tail, and the passengers gazing peacefully out from the glass observation car at the end, like fish in an aquarium. Then we rushed across through the side-gates. We spread out over the goods yard on the far side, looking for the next chalk mark. It was like looking for an albino on a snowfield because so many of the trucks had chalk writing on their sides.

  At last I discovered Nick’s arrow, on the side of a warehouse, pointing along the road which leads back over a railway bridge into the centre of the town. Off we dashed, picking up the trail of arrows more easily now, till they brought us to E. Sidebotham’s shop. And here, on a wooden board used for displaying posters, we saw Nick’s mark again: but this time it was a single arrow, with a W at the end, and very faint. The enemy had separated. The sign indicated the direction in which the Wart had gone. So far, so good. But our hearts sank when it became painfully apparent that the arrow trail had petered out. We went a hundred yards down this street, but there were no more of them to be found.

  ‘What on earth is Nick playing at?’ Peter Butts asked.

  ‘Chalk run out, I expect. The last mark was pretty faint.’

  This, we discovered later, was exactly what had happened. We were baffled. But Nick had acted in a resourceful way. Toppy had the bright notion of going into E. Sidebotham’s shop and asking if Nick had left any message for us.

  ‘He said to tell you to look on the windows.’

  ‘Look on the windows? Is that all he said?’

  ‘Well, young gents, that was all the message. After he’d asked me to oblige him with a strip of sticky paper.’

  Toppy let out a whoop. We tore down the street in his wake; and there, sure enough, fifty yards down, stuck on the bottom left-hand corner of a ground-floor window, was a strip of paper with an arrow pencilled on it. As we gathered round, sixteen or seventeen of us, the muslin curtains parted and an old dame was peering out at us, her jaws chumbling away silently as if she was chewing the cud. Toppy politely took off an imaginary hat, and said:

  ‘Forgive the intrusion, Madam, I had no idea this was the camel house.’

  Of course she couldn’t hear what he said, the window being shut. But she did look so like a camel, we yelled with laughter. Then off down the street again, following the trail quite easily now, till we came to a cross-road; and there, on the window of a scrubby little cobbler’s shop, we found the message ‘Heading for Recreation Ground’.

  The Recreation Ground was a few hundred yards away, over the cross-roads. When we got there, we found Nick at the gate. He pointed. The Wart was sitting on a bench, watching some kids playing on the swings.

  ‘Well done, Nick. Jolly good show,’ said Ted.

  ‘Now what do we do?’ Peter Butts asked.

  Speaking for myself, this simple remark came like a bucket of iced water poured over a sleepwalker’s head. A shock, a horrible chill, a feeling of what on earth am I doing here. You see, up to this point, our tracking had been a game, a sort of dream really: but now the trail had led us up to the edge of reality, up to a precipice with the quarry in view on a ledge half-way down, so to speak. And it wasn’t a game or a dream any longer. I felt empty and vague; a sense of anticlimax oppressed me. That comes of being an imaginative type, I suppose. Nick had no doubts.

  ‘Go in and scrag him,’ he said.

  ‘Sit on his head and tear his bags off,’ said Charlie Muswell.

  ‘No,’ Ted replied firmly. ‘This is where the war of nerves begins.’ He gave us certain instructions. Then we trooped into the Recreation Ground, walked over to the bench where the Wart was sitting, and sat down on the grass in a semi-circle, facing him. We said nothing at all. We just sat there, all of us staring at him. His eyes slithered round the semi-circle.

  ‘Hello, you kids,’ he said.

  We stayed dead silent, dead still.

  ‘Well, what d’you want?’

  Not a word or a movement from the semi-circle of watchers.

  The Wart passed his tongue over his lips.

  ‘Well, clear off, then!’

  He half rose, in a menacing way. Each of us half rose too. His eyes slithered over our heads, as if looking for help. He shrugged his shoulders, slumped back on the bench, and lit a cigarette. His fingers were shaking a bit, I noticed. We all sat down again.

  ‘Come on, chums. What’s all this about? Got nothing better to do? Why not have a go on the swings?’ he asked with a sickly smile.

  We said nothing. We just went on looking at him.

  Twice more he rose, as if to break through the cordon; then sat down again and pretended to ignore us. Minutes passed slowly as hours. The kids who had been playing on the swings gathered curiously round and added their stares to ours, gazing at the Wart as if he were a monstrosity or a leper.

  At last, Ted made a slight sign. Toppy came out of the semi-circle and sat down facing us, his back turned to the Wart. ‘I’ll tell you a story,’ he said. ‘Once upon a time a boy broke a window –’

  And he related all the events of the last week, how we collected the money, how Ted was met by two men (he did not mention their names) in the alleyway, how the boxes were changed, how the bitten half-crown turned up again, and so on. It was like Counsel for the Prosecution making his speech. All the time he was speaking, we continued to gaze, not at him, but at the Wart. And if ever there was discomfiture and guilt in a man’s face, I saw it in the Wart’s then. His cigarette went out. His fingers flickered nervously, like his eyes. He mopped his brow. At one point he muttered something to himself.

  The war of nerves

  When Toppy had finished, he came back and joined the semi-circle again. The Wart made one more attempt.

  ‘You making all this up?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go to the police about it, chums, if it’s true?’

  Silence.

  Another ten minutes passed. Then Toppy rose, came out in front of us, sat down, and said:

  ‘I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time a boy broke a window. He –’

  It was too much for the Wart. Like the window, his nerve broke. He swore a frightful oath, flung down his unlit cigarette, and plunged through the semi-circle. Nobody tried to stop him. We just got up and followed him in a mass, out of the Recreation Ground, up the street towards the Abbey, about ten paces behind, still not saying a word. Once or twice he looked round, then quickened his pace, then walked slower again as if he was trying to pretend to himself that he was just sauntering through the town in the normal way of business.

  As we approached the traffic-lights in West Street, we saw a policeman ahead. Toppy’s genius for tactics now came out again. He ran ahead, past the Wart, and spoke to the policeman. He was, in fact, only asking him the time. But the Wart was not to know this. Seeing Toppy go up to the policeman, he stopped dead in his tracks, turned, and dashed back through our midst, bowling young Wakeley over into the gutter.

  We pursued him down the street. He ran in an odd, wobbling way, with his heels and elbows flying out wide: but fear lent him wings, and he would have out-distanced us if people in the street had not got in his way. Of course, none of them was sure if he ought to be stopped or not, as we didn’t want to raise a hue and cry yet. He dashed round a corner, over the Abbey Green, glanced round, saw us converging upon
him from either side, and slipped in through the west door of the Abbey.

  Ted called a halt. He consulted rapidly with Charlie Muswell who, being in the choir, was familiar with the terrain. Then he directed six of us, in pairs, to watch this west door and the two smaller ones, which face the Abbey Green, with instructions to blow their whistles if the Wart slipped out again while we were searching for him inside, and to follow him. There is only one door on the other side of the Abbey, and this is the Vestry door, which Charlie assured us was always kept locked – only the clergy, choirmaster, and vergers having keys to it.

  The rest of us now filed into the Abbey. I don’t know about the others; but my own eyes turned automatically towards the altar, expecting to see the Wart clutching it, as in the olden days fugitives from justice did when they sought sanctuary. But there was no figure cowering by the great high altar, no figure at the altar of either of the side chapels; nowhere in the vast building, lit by sun-shafts which struck through the stained-glass windows and poured patches of blue and green and blood-ruby on the stone floor of the aisles, was the fugitive to be seen.

  We searched all over the building. The nave, the chapels, the choir; behind the altar; in the bell-ringers’ place and up in the organ loft. We searched the cupboards in the Vestry. We even split up and looked under the seats of all the pews in the side aisles (the main aisles have chairs instead of pews, so it didn’t take long to assure ourselves he was not there).

  Joseph Seeds, alias the Wart, had disappeared into thin air. We collected again near the west door, gazing at each other in wild surmise.

  ‘Perhaps he’s been taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot,’ said young Wakeley.

  ‘What a hope!’ said Peter Butts. ‘More likely gone below. Down amongst the devils and the toasting-forks.’

  ‘Taken up to heaven! Oh lord, I quite forgot!’ Charlie Muswell exclaimed. ‘The Abbey tower! He must have fled up there.’

  We followed him into the bell-ringers’ chamber again; and there, behind a curtain, he revealed a small door set in the stone wall. The door was ajar!