by Joyce Porter
Chapter Four
‘That broken-down rabbit-hutch?’
In spite of the fact that he was drenched to the skin, Mr Pinkham could feel his face burning. To hear the luxury, jumbo-sized caravan, which had been specially hired at great expense for the occasion, sneeringly disparaged as a rabbit-hutch was really more than flesh and blood should be expected to endure.
Dover, still ensconced in the back seat of the car which had been placed at his disposal, elaborated gleefully on his original observation. ‘ Or a chicken-coop! Yes, that’s it – a chicken-coop that some stupid idiot’s dumped down in the middle of a bloody bog!’ He glared pointedly at the Chief Constable who was standing with MacGregor by the car door. They had both been standing there for some time as they tried to entice Dover into getting out and braving the elements.
Had Mr Pinkham been in a more amiable frame of mind, even he would have been forced to admit that the prospect before them was not an inviting one. In the middle distance lay Bluebell Wood, its woebegone, dripping trees hiding the fatal Donkey Bridge and the stream it spanned from view. Between the wood and the narrow private road on which Dover’s car stood was a spacious, grassy meadow and it was in the middle of this meadow that the Chief Constable had established his temporary murder headquarters. He had been guided, perhaps, more by romanticism than by an appreciation of what was practicable. The meadow was a picturesque spot, much favoured by visitors to Beltour for alfresco meals and carefree frolics. The picnickers, however, only flocked to deposit their litter about the sward on fine, warm days in the height of summer. On wet, cold days in the depths of winter nobody but a dedicated masochist who got his kicks out of wet feet would have dreamed of venturing there.
‘I’ve got a spare pair of gum boots for you,’ said the Chief Constable.
Dover curled his lip eloquently and pulled his overcoat collar up round his ears.
The caravan stood in the middle of the meadow with the rain beating a relentless devil’s tattoo on the plywood roof. A large number of thick cables, already sinking deep in the mire, snaked away to the edge of the meadow where they disappeared into the undergrowth. Human interest was provided by a couple of uniformed constables who were sheltering as best they could under the canopy of some bare trees and squelching miserably from one muddy boot to the other. Even further off, under another clump of trees, a handful of very lowly representatives of the mass media were sullenly cursing their luck and passing a hip flask round. They knew that, miracles and extensive bribery apart and notwithstanding Lord Crouch’s hopes, nobody was going to print or screen anything more about the Beltour murder mystery. It had had all the marks of a dead duck, newswise, from the very beginning and it was only the unexpected arrival of Scotland Yard that had revived this last flicker of interest.
Members of the general public, supposedly so avid for ghoulish sensations, were noteworthy only by their total absence but on the horizon some spectators were approaching. Beltour was famous (in certain admittedly restricted circles) for its herd of the rare Grevy’s zebra and a scattering of these animals now came slowly over the hill. Known to local wits as the Beltour United, they were doubtless recalling happier and sunnier days when potato crisps and iced lollies were to be scrounged for the asking.
‘That might make a good picture,’ one of the TV reporters observed to his cameraman. He tried it out. ‘A weirdly exotic note is struck …’
‘Oh, balls!’ said the cameraman and sneezed for the tenth time without benefit of handkerchief. ‘Jesus, do you think the fuzz are going to stand out there all effing day?’
No, they weren’t. Dover had finally succumbed to the blandishments and, under the solemn promise of a scalding hot cup of tea with fruit cake, was graciously allowing MacGregor to put the gum boots on for him. Another few minutes and Dover was actually embarking on the hundred yard walk to the caravan with his two companions supporting him on either side. The TV cameraman withdrew back to the trunk of his tree and lowered his camera. ‘If I shot that,’ he remarked righteously, ‘the confidence of the British People in the police forces of this country would be permanently undermined.’
A nearby sound engineer agreed. ‘Always provided that they didn’t mistake that old pig-in-the-middle for a cow elephant on her way to the labour ward,’ he said and chucked an empty cigarette packet at the leading zebra which was coming far too close. The zebra ate the cigarette packet and stood hopefully waiting for more.
Back on the front where it was all happening, things had ground to a halt once more while Dover examined the little flight of wooden steps up which he and his seventeen and a quarter stone were supposed to mount.
‘I’ll go first, shall I?’ asked Mr Pinkham, anxious to ensure that everybody inside the caravan was looking suitably happy and busy.
‘If I come a cropper,’ Dover warned MacGregor in a low, intense growl, ‘I’ll break every bone in your miserable body!’
MacGregor decided to take the risk and, by exerting himself above and beyond the call of duty, eventually managed to propel his chief inspector up the steps and get him poised in the open doorway. Dover was granted just enough time to appreciate the tableau vivant which had been so carefully laid on for him. Two young detective constables, heads together, were frowning in impressive concentration at the sheet of blank paper spread out over their football pools. A uniformed sergeant stood poised by a filing cabinet, into whose half-opened drawer he had just dropped his wad of chewing gum. Over in the far corner a rosy-cheeked police cadet thrashed away at a typewriter and wasted a perfectly good report form by pounding ‘a quick brown fox’ all over it. Strategically placed in the foreground was a policewoman, the prettiest in the force. She flashed a dazzling smile at Dover, threw her chest out and raised her teapot on high.
For a moment everybody stood and gawped at each other. Then the telephone began ringing and the Chief Constable who had been expecting it (and had personally arranged it) leapt forward eagerly to snatch up the receiver.
And that did it.
The caravan had never been designed to have the best part of half a ton of humanity milling around inside it and its somewhat flimsy foundations had already been seriously undermined by forty-eight hours of continual rain. Mr Pinkham’s enthusiastic plunge from one end of the caravan to the other proved to be the final straw which tipped the scales. There was a sudden lurch and, amidst some surprisingly hysterical screaming and shouting, everything and everybody began sliding down the slippery slope which fell away from north to south. There was much democratic mingling of tumbling bodies, much flailing of arms and legs, a great deal of cracking of heads. Desks, filing cabinets, trestle tables and typewriters crashed down into the pit. The large pot of freshly made tea, plus a trayful of cups and saucers went inexorably after them.
But what of our hero’s fate? Not actually being inside the caravan when it tipped, Dover was only thrown off balance and merely descended the little flight of wooden steps some-what more speedily and awkwardly than he had gone up them. Compared to the others, he came off very well. The meadow was a quagmire with the consistency of a rather milky rice pudding and Dover landed in it with a squelch. He was a little shocked and a little winded but, otherwise, quite unharmed. After a moment’s pause his indignant howls joined and overwhelmed the cries coming from inside the collapsed caravan.
MacGregor had simply stepped back on to the grass when he felt the caravan begin to go. Faced now with what might turn out to be quite a nasty accident, he swung into action right away and rushed to Dover’s prostrate form.
Away under the sheltering trees, the callous delight of the gentlemen from TV and the press was only slightly marred by them having the herd of zebras scampering away in panic through their midst. A young cub reporter from the local newspaper started forward eagerly, his notebook at the ready. The television cameraman hauled him back.
‘Save your energy, son,’ he advised.
‘But it’s the story of the year! That’s the Chief Consta
ble himself in there, never mind the top brass from Scotland Yard. Come on, Jacko,’ – he appealed to his pimply photographer – ‘we’ll make the front page of the nationals with this!’
The TV cameraman maintained his hold. ‘ You try splashing that, son, and your life won’t be worth living. They’ll lean on you so hard it’ll make a pile driver look like a bloody feather duster.’
‘But …’
‘Cool it, kid! The fuzz never did have much of a sense of humour.’
By now the police were starting to extricate themselves from the wreckage and there was much examining of bruises and licking of wounds. Nobody had been hurt but everybody, especially the senior ranks, felt that they had been made to look ridiculous. The Chief Constable in particular was not quite speechless with fury. He’d got the best part of the contents of the milk jug over his best tunic and his silver braided peak cap was a complete write-off. He rounded on the uniformed sergeant who was mopping at a bleeding nose and feeling sorry for himself. ‘I’ll have somebody’s head for this!’ he promised savagely and splashed off across the grass to see what had happened to Dover.
MacGregor had managed to turn the body over and Dover was reclining on his back. His eyes were closed but, with the rain lashing down on his face, it was obvious he was about to stage a swift recovery.
He stuck to the well-worn script. ‘Where am I?’ he groaned.
Mr Pinkham gazed down at him. ‘Well, at least he’s not dead.’
‘No,’ said MacGregor, who’d had his moment of hope.
‘Do you think it would be safe to try and move him?’
Provided the crane could take the weight, thought MacGregor unkindly. ‘ Oh, I should think so, sir,’ he said aloud. ‘Perhaps some of your chaps could help cart him over to the car?’
Dover waited until as many hands as could be mustered had raised him up before fluttering his eyelids. With a pathetic gesture he clutched at MacGregor’s sleeve. ‘Don’t take me back to Beltour!’ he begged, and the bowler hat some idiot had placed on his chest like an inverted chamber pot heaved with emotion. ‘Take me to the village pub! I’ll rest easier there.’ His eyelids slowly dropped again.
‘Funny thing to say,’ grunted the Chief Constable as the cortège staggered off across the grass. ‘I suppose he doesn’t want to put Lord Crouch and Lady Priscilla to any trouble. Very considerate!’
MacGregor, po-faced, agreed that it was.
The Bull Reborn was, as MacGregor had indicated, quite a nice little pub, but ‘little’ was the operative word. It only boasted three bedrooms and had been turning business away ever since those two village kids had discovered Gary Marsh’s body lying face down in the stream.
‘He’ll have to double up with you,’ the landlord told MacGregor as he served Dover with a hot toddy. ‘These reporter fellows don’t seem to know when they’ll be going and they’re already sleeping three to a bed. I couldn’t squeeze so much as a church mouse in till they’ve gone.’
MacGregor swallowed hard. ‘Couldn’t you possibly …’
The landlord shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, sergeant. Sorry. Besides, you’ll be all right! That old couch in your room is a sight more comfortable than it looks.’
Dover passed his empty glass back. ‘I may need a bit of nursing during the night,’ he pointed out weakly. ‘ Just for the first few days.’ He looked round the bar parlour with considerable satisfaction. A log fire crackling in the hearth, cosy chairs, a congenial atmosphere and ample supplies of booze just across the old oak counter. Who said everything didn’t turn out for the best?
He felt in such a good mood that he was even willing to let MacGregor go off and do a bit of detecting on his own. Owing to the difficulty of negotiating the stairs, Dover himself had decided to remain on the ground floor until he’d had his dinner – a treat to which he was looking forward with dribbling anticipation.
When MacGregor had taken his leave, the landlord – a man with a heart of pure gold and his own reasons for sucking up to the cops – brought Dover another steaming glass of the stuff that not only cheers but inebriates as well and settled himself down on the other side of the fireplace.
‘You’ll have found ’ em a queer lot, I’ll be bound,’ he said as a large ginger cat glided silently up onto his knees. ‘Up at Beltour. Lord Crouch and his sister.’
Dover cautiously agreed that queer was probably as good a description as any.
‘’Course, we’re used to ’ em,’ said the landlord. ‘Nothing they do would ever surprise me, specially since they opened the place to the public. Gone mad, I reckon. Bloody zebras in the park – well, I ask you! I did hear as how they was thinking of getting a couple of camels and a baby elephant for rides in the rose garden. They must be making a mint of money, what with one thing and another. Do you know how many set teas they sold last year? Thirty-six thousand! Just you think of the profit on that! And now they’ve had this blooming murder. That’ll put their takings up. There’s not many stately homes with their own murder, is there? There was a chap in the bar last night as reckoned old Crouch was going to set up a sort of Madame Tussauds thing down by the Donkey Bridge. You know – wax models. Gary Marsh being struck down by his murderer. ’Course, they’ll have to wait until your lot find out who did it, won’t they?’
‘Got any ideas?’ asked Dover, who didn’t mind picking somebody else’s brains just to be sociable.
The landlord shook his head. ‘ No, it’s a right mystery, believe me! I mean, young Marsh was such an ordinary sort of chap. Harmless enough, I should have thought. I can’t think what anybody’d get out of killing him.’
‘What’s the connection between him and Lord Crouch?’
The landlord shot Dover a sly glance. He’d need to watch his step with this one. Fat, thick looking lump the fellow might be, but there were no flies on him. ‘Well, now, that’s a bit of a mystery, too. Not that there hasn’t been a fair bit of speculation about it over the years.’ He chuckled. ‘That old bar there could tell a few tales out of school, believe me it could!’
Dover settled back in his chair.
The landlord tossed another log on the fire. ‘What you’ve got to realize, Mr Dover, is that Beltour is a pretty compact little community. Oh, it’s beginning to break up now, I grant you, but we still all live very much in the shadow of the Big House. Why, I guarantee there’s not a single family in this village that doesn’t depend one way or the other on Lord Crouch for its living. I do myself! My bread and butter trade comes from the chaps that work for the estate and my jam comes from the visitors. And what are the visitors visiting? Beltour House, that’s what. They wouldn’t come within a hundred miles, otherwise. So, you see, we’ve got ties here and it’s not easy for people from outside to get themselves integrated, as you might say. Not that there haven’t always been plenty of strangers knocking around. French chefs and ladies-maids, Irish grooms, footmen with black faces and posh butlers from London. In the old days I reckon all the upper servants were foreigners of one sort or another. Now, Milly Marsh – that’s young Gary’s auntie – she came in that category. Personal maid to Lady Priscilla, she was, and a right pretty girl in those days. Milly Marsh, that is. Lady Priscilla’s never been much of a sight for sore eyes. Well, there was quite a few of the local lads as had their eye on Milly Marsh but, somehow, she just wasn’t interested. Stand-offish, they called her.
‘By gosh,’ – the landlord broke off and smacked his lips – ‘ but talking’s thirsty work, isn’t it?’ He gendy eased the ginger cat off his knees and got up. ‘I’ll not be a minute!’
He went behind the bar and the ginger cat attempted to climb into Dover’s lap. It got a smart punch in the whiskers for its presumption.
A moment or two later and the landlord was back again, two foaming tankards of beer in his hands. ‘There you are, sir! I trust you’ll find it to your taste. Good health!’
Dover raised his tankard in comradely salute. He was really beginning to take quite a fancy to the
hospitable licensee of The Bull Reborn. The landlord didn’t think things were going too badly, either. Only the ginger cat, sulking on the hearth rug, was less than satisfied with his lot.
Chapter Five
‘Aye, Milly Marsh,’ said the landlord, coming up for air with a burp Dover wouldn’t have been ashamed of. ‘Well, like I was saying, the general opinion round here was that she gave herself airs. Snooty, you know. Anyways, our home-grown Romeos soon remembered that there were more fish in the sea and gradually lost interest. Then, when old Lord Crouch kicked the bucket – drank like a fish, he did, without a word of a lie – and they shut Beltour up for a year, we all thought we’d seen the last of her. But, no – back she comes when they took up residence again and gets a nice bit of promotion into the bargain because that’s when they went public, you know, and young Milly stops being a servant and becomes a cashier, no less.
‘Well, life settled down again, though it took us a while to get used to the present Lord Crouch and all the cars and motor coaches that started streaming through the village. Milly Marsh hadn’t changed, though. She still kept all us muck-spreading yokels at arm’s length. Specially the men – and she wasn’t over-friendly with the women, either. Then this blooming baby arrives out of the blue. “My sister’s child,” says Milly Marsh. “Ho ho!” says us. “Now pull the other one!”’
Dover had finished his beer. He put his tankard down with a loud bang. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, always prepared to pinch somebody else’s punch line, ‘I’d heard a lot of people thought Miss Marsh was the kid’s mother.’
The landlord, who enjoyed quite a reputation as a raconteur, was justifiably annoyed and made a mental note to put both the toddy and the two beers down on this paunchy old bluebottle’s bill. ‘Well, yes,’ he admitted, ‘that’s what everybody reckoned at first. We all thought she’d pushed off up north or wherever it was, had a tumble in the hay and been left holding the baby. Of course, it’d have looked a sight too obvious if she’d brought the kid with her when she came back, so she waits a few months and then tries to palm it off on a sister nobody’s ever heard of. Well, nobody round here was going to have the wool pulled over their eyes like that and there was a fair amount of sniggering over how Miss High and Mighty had finally come a proper cropper. Then, as time went by, people found other things to gossip about and young Gary grew up like just any other kid, no better and no worse, if you ask me.’ The landlord took a long swig at his beer. ‘Mind you, all this happened a long time ago but I reckon it must have been round about the time Gary started going to school that the second batch of rumours started.’
