‘Is he?’ said Mrs Bradley. She grimaced in a terrifying manner and added grimly:
‘I am not addicted to the making of wagers, but I am prepared to stake any sum short of fifty thousand pounds that Tebbutt is not at Neot House.’
‘But the doctor attends there daily.’
‘He does not attend Tebbutt.’
‘You can’t prove that.’
‘Have you noticed how badly the vicarage paths need weeding?’ inquired Mrs Bradley with apparent flippancy. ‘Or you could consult Birdseye. Anyhow, as soon as Tom Tebbutt bursts into the guarded room where his father is supposed to be lying dangerously ill of an infectious disease, and reports to me that his father is not in the room, I am going to have the police search the house. If Tebbutt still does not materialise, I am going to have Middleton’s body exhumed and re-identified.’
‘But you don’t think——’ Jones exclaimed in horror.
‘Oh, yes, I do,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘I’m lost,’ said Hallam. ‘But I would like to ask one question. You mean to imply that the dead man was Tebbutt, and not Middleton, don’t you? Well, how did he come to be murdered?’
‘The blackmail, of course,’ said Jones. ‘But, look here, Hallam! You can’t have looked at the time. I came to you here at half-past nine that night to tell you about my talk with old Doctor Crevister. Don’t you remember the fearful neuralgia you had?’
Suddenly he broke off, and they stiffened, listening. From the ruins came extraordinary sounds of tumult.
‘We ought to see what’s happening,’ said Jones.
‘They’re certainly up to mischief,’ Hallam observed. As though by previous arrangement, both men started forward.
‘Stop!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You can do nothing that will help matters, and you may do harm.’
‘But they’re hunting something, and they’re cruel people,’ said Hallam.
‘Be still,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You would only break your necks if you went over there now. It’s a very dangerous place at any time, and especially so this morning.’
‘But what can it be?’ asked Hallam, very pale. Jones himself was sweating with nervous fear.
‘I must go,’ said Hallam. ‘There’s something being done to death out there. And where on earth is Nao?’
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Enter a Devil.’—(Stage direction.)
ROBERT GREENE
The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
‘WE SHALL KNOW very soon whether the man they buried was Tebbutt,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘The Chief Constable was sufficiently impressed to have applied for an exhumation order.’
Jones was pleased; Hallam horrified.
‘They’re not going to disturb my churchyard?’
‘I wonder what the deuce that noise in the castle ruins was?’ said Jones, to change the subject. They argued about it, on and off, until the middle of the morning. Then Jones, who was at the window, called for silence.
‘Here’s a deputation come to ask for water I expect,’ said he.
The water shortage in the village had become acute. Even the dewpond on Guthrum Down was nothing but a disheartening patch of thick wet mud, and the village pumps had long since given up work. Most people had been going to the Long Thin Man or up to Neot House for water, and once a week a lorry came in from Stowhall and the people bought from it. But the water was soon used up, and a week was a long time to wait for more.
Besides, not only the people, but the animals, needed water. The parched grass, heavy-headed crops, and the brownish leaves (already falling from the trees although it was still high summer) were dying under the unfailing, dry, fierce, unaccustomed heat of the sun.
Jones put his head out of the window as the procession of villagers reached the vicarage gate. In his right hand he held a small automatic pistol, and in his left a white handkerchief. He surveyed them as they came to a halt before his quizzical and critical gaze. They were too numerous to be called a deputation and they did not like the look of Jones’ automatic. There was a certain amount of embarrassment and scuffling, and an apparent universal desire to let someone else get within range of it.
They did not look a very fearsome lot. Nearly all were women, for the men had not dared to absent themselves from work. Foremost among the crowd there was certainly old Mrs Fluke, kept in the place of honour, Jones suspected, by repeated proddings from the rear, and near her were Mrs Pike and the water diviner, Thomas Part. Of Mrs Passion there was nothing to be seen, and Mrs Tebbutt did not appear to have joined the muster.
Jones raised his voice and spoke cheerfully but with decision.
‘I have a loaded gun here and I will fire it if anyone advances beyond that gateway without my permission. If you have anything to say to the vicar you are to send forward a small deputation when I wave my handkerchief.’
‘We wants some water, and parson knows it,’ shouted a voice.
‘Why don’t he let us help ourselves?’ queried another.
‘Water be free to all, beant it?’
‘What call have he not to pray for rain, then?’
‘We ain’t sending no deppitation. Us reckons you got the police up there along of ee.’
The last came from the water diviner, who carried his hazel wand. Jones made no reply. The others were out of sight of the crowd. Suddenly a stone smashed against the wall of the house near the window, so he fired the pistol, but high above their heads. Some of the women screamed; some retreated. The boldest shook their fists at him, and one of them shouted:
‘You dursn’t do that if our chaps was here, you dirty Londoner!’
‘Who brought Old Satan walking from Godrun Down?’ another screamed.
‘Stealing other folks’ little ’uns!’
‘Who killed Middleton?’
‘Who slep’ along of witches and harlots?’
‘Who ruined doctor’s serving wench?’
‘They’ll rush the house in a minute,’ Jones said, over his shoulder. He was wrong. After a short colloquy and a shower of stones and opprobrious remarks and epithets, the little mob moved off.
‘We may expect them back this evening when the men come home from work,’ said Hallam. But he did not seem perturbed. Instead, it was as though, his blood mounting to battle fever, his mind and spirit were gaining in temper and resolution. Although not essentially a man of action, he had the power of dramatising himself and of willing himself into a frame of mind at once victorious and serene.
The time was now almost mid-day. During the early part of the morning Lily Soudall had joined the party at the vicarage, but of Tom Tebbutt there was no sign at all. Jones found himself wondering whether the lad had broken into his father’s sickroom, and, if so, what he had discovered there. Suddenly he found Lily at his elbow.
‘Oh, sir,’ she said, ‘that Japanee!’
‘Nao? What about him?’ asked Jones.
‘He’s burying Mrs Fluke, and if she rot away, I’ll never be quit of dreaming about her, sir.’
‘Stay here a minute and keep your eyes skinned. If you see anybody coming, even if it’s only the postman, yell blue murder. Understand?’
‘Supposing it’s my mother, sir, come to see what I be at?’
‘Yell just the same. Don’t fail us. Where is Nao?’
‘In the garden.’
‘What in hell are you up to?’ asked Jones, when he had found him.
‘Rotten tree, big magic, and that old Fluke, denizen of above, shall be seized by a demon and translated,’ replied the Japanese.
‘Oh, rot. I thought you had shed all those ideas. Didn’t Mr Hallam convert you?’
‘Mr Hallam, yes. But that old Fluke, I have concocted her from the wood of the guelder rose, and may she rot away with this tree which fortune has bestowed upon this garden.’
‘Look here,’ said Jones, exasperated, ‘is it something in the air that makes witchcraft flourish here? You’d better not let Mr Hallam catch you at thi
s, you know, so near the churchyard.’
Instead of replying, Nao began to walk towards the wall which separated the vicarage garden from the churchyard. He looked round once to make certain that Jones was following him.
‘You make Middleton body not to be Middleton, I think?’ he said quietly, when they reached the gate in the wall which was the vicar’s short cut to the church.
‘Who told you that?’ asked Jones, for he had supposed that Mrs Bradley would keep that one of her theories a dead secret until the exhumation order had been put through. Nao inclined his head in the direction of the house.
‘The small wise woman said it to me. Has thought of body-snatchers tonight or some time very soon.’
‘Body-snatchers?’
‘Should said body not be Middleton,’ the Japanese patiently explained, ‘certain persons unknown would have interest in keeping same dark.’
‘Good Lord! Of course they would!’ said Jones. ‘I wonder what we ought to do?’
‘Said honourable woman refuses to telephone police. Desperate and highly illegal act can only be performed under cover of all-enveloping night, I think.’
‘That’s right,’ Jones agreed. A thought struck him. ‘I say, Nao, what really happened here on the night of the murder?’
‘I cannot tell. Clerical individual came on bicycle. Head cut. Hot and bothered. Must take out priceless stained glass.’
‘Oh, so that bit of the story is true?’
‘Quite true. Much concerned for priceless glass to save it from beastly people.’
‘And he had a ladder?’
‘No ladder,’ said the Japanese unhappily.
‘Come, come,’ said Jones. ‘Of course he had a ladder. And he said he was thankful it was a quatrefoil and not a trefoil, didn’t he? And with you a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, isn’t it?’
He walked off whistling. The Japanese gazed after him unresentfully, then shut the gate in the wall, and walked round the back of the house to the kitchen. An old-fashioned dresser, about eight feet long, stood against one of the walls, and underneath it was a space usually given up to several pairs of boots and shoes, which were placed there ready to be cleaned. These had been cleared away, and in their place was a long box covered neatly with the remains of an ancient plush curtain. Small cactus plants, spiny, goblin and distorted, decorated each end and the middle of the box, and the Japanese removed these and the curtain, and then lightly polished the exposed surface of the receptacle. A small brass plate in the centre informed him that Carswell Middleton was aged forty-three years.
Having finished his polishing, Nao replaced curtain and cactus plants, and set about preparing lunch.
‘A little knowledge,’ he said gravely to Lily Soudall, when she inquired why he did not put his cactus plants in the window as Christian people did, ‘is a dangerous thing. Therefore, youthful miss, I say to you that in my country—’ he delved into the box where the potatoes were kept, and settled down to peel them.
‘Oh, Japan!’ said Lily. ‘That’s different. Is it true they worship a mountain? Though, for the matter of that, Mister Nao, I wouldn’t say but what some of these people here aren’t no better than a lot of heathens, the way they talk about that there hump on the top of Godrun Down.’
‘That hump is a grave,’ said Nao. ‘Very, very old. Unquiet spirit lives there. Walks. Is restless.’
‘Lor!’ said Lily. ‘Give over that sort of talk! I shan’t dare go to bed! You know as well as I do it was Mr Jones and that Mrs Bradley having their little joke.’
Nao smiled.
‘You and I, Miss Lilian, we also.’
‘Also what?’
‘Also have our little joke.’
‘Not if I know it,’ said Lily, primly. ‘Not with a Japanee.’
‘You mistake.’
‘I’d better, unless you want Jasper Corbett’s fist in your face, he’s that hasty-tempered and jealous.’
The Japanese continued to smile.
‘He does not practise ju-jitsu, I think.’ He smiled. ‘I like him. But you mistake. The cactus plants. Our little joke.’
‘Oh, them!’
‘They will grow through the eye-sockets of dead men.’
‘Oh, do dry up. Give anybody the horrors!’
She backed away from the cactus plants, Nao, still smiling, continued to peel the potatoes.
After lunch, Jones decided to go to his cottage to bring back the books that he wanted, and the two beds. He walked to the Long Thin Man to borrow a conveyance, but before he got there he encountered old Mrs Fluke, who immediately offered him the loan of the two perambulators which had transported her furniture from her own cottage to that given up to her by Birdseye.
‘But how do you know I’m going to move any furniture?’ asked Jones, surprised. Old Mrs Fluke fingered the edge of the sackcloth apron she was wearing and then scratched the side of her nose with a forefinger the colour of the soil. She grinned. Her whole demeanour was that of one who finds herself mistress of the situation through her own wit and foresight and Jones felt, if not actually alarmed, rather uncomfortable. She gave the impression of one who held all the trumps when her opponents did not even know what the trumps were. He said:
‘Somebody left you a windfall, Mrs Fluke?’
She wagged her head. Suddenly she removed the old check cap she was wearing, and Jones observed that every hair on her head had been shaved off. She was as bald as the bust of Julius Cæsar, and her dirty white scalp was in unpleasing contrast to her earth-brown wrinkled face. She looked to Jones a cross between a picture of Gagool which had fascinated him in his youth, and the great condor at the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park. He looked at her in amazement. Mrs Fluke broke into a wheezy and unregenerate cackle.
‘I am not a-running any risks,’ she said, ‘of being mistaken for a witch, Mr Jones. Folks is so ignorant hereabouts.’
‘You’re running every risk of catching your death of cold,’ said Jones, who found the sight of her scalp peculiarly nauseating. ‘You don’t want to get pneumonia, do you?’
‘“They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent: adder’s poison is under their lips,”’ said old Mrs Fluke, disregarding Jones’ contribution to the conversation and carrying on a monologue of her own. ‘Be you having my old prams, or beant you?’
‘Will you push one?’ asked Jones.
‘Ay. Surely I will. Sixpence in money, and my right o’ way through parson’s garden.’
‘No monkey tricks, then.’
‘I dunno what you mean. Oomen of my years knows how to respect themselves, I should have thought.’
‘Very good,’ said Jones, ‘but I shall keep my eye on you, so don’t you dare start any funny business when you get near the vicar.’
Mrs Fluke chuckled and put on her cap again.
‘Where are those perambulators?’ said Jones.
As they walked back to the vicarage with the rolled-up mattresses and the books, the sun was overcast with clouds. Old Mrs Fluke let go her perambulator, and, with a squawk of rapture, pointed to the sky.
‘Rain! Rain!’ she said. Jones glanced up indifferently.
‘Not on your life,’ he said. ‘It’s only heat haze.’
The perambulators were hastily unloaded, and, having been rewarded with a florin by Jones, Mrs Fluke took her departure, loosing a last fusillade of Hibernian blessings on him.
‘She’s a perfect old Tartar,’ said Jones to Mrs Bradley, ‘but, really, one can’t help liking her. When will the bobbies be here?’
‘Not this evening. No attempt will be made until after dark, I am sure. I don’t want the police here yet.’
‘There’s something worrying you,’ said Jones. Mrs Bradley would not admit to being worried, but confessed that she was puzzled over the non-appearance of Tom Tebbutt.
‘The boy should have been here by now to tell me that the sick room at Neot House is empty,’ she said.
‘But perhaps it isn’t empty. You
may be mistaken. Tebbutt may be ill in bed after all.’
‘Impossible,’ said Mrs Bradley finally.
‘But you think that somebody may make an attempt to remove the coffin containing the body of the murdered man?’ said Jones, who wanted to know why she supposed that this would be so.
‘Yes. But not necessarily tonight,’ repeated Mrs Bradley. ‘I am not certain that Hanley Middleton is in the village at present. I wish we could send a man up to Neot House to discover what has become of Tom Tebbutt,’ she added.
‘You’re uneasy about that boy. Let me go,’ said Jones; and at nine o’clock he set off for Neot House, alive, this time, to the risk he ran of sustaining another knock on the head. He imagined, however, that Mrs Bradley had not anticipated any such occurrence, or she would have insisted upon his being accompanied.
He walked up to the front door, knocked and rang; but before the bell had done pealing he was aware that he was trying to gain admission to an empty house.
Although it was not yet dark, bats were beginning to essay their jerking, feckless flight, swooping and darting round the eaves of the house, and a young owl was crying to the approaching night. Jones’ Welsh blood began to go chilly, and his imagination began to cause him to hear creeping footsteps about the empty house. The words “no living thing” suddenly came to his mind, and, for no reason, refused to leave it.
‘No living thing … no living thing …’ said Jones under his breath. He could feel the hair rising on his scalp and the gooseflesh crawling about his shoulders as he pronounced the words. Suddenly there was a rushing noise inside the house, the sounds of overturned furniture, and, with a crash that sent Jones’ heart up into his throat and the sweat starting all over his body, something came hurtling against the inside of the door.
‘Poltergeist!’ said Jones, gulping down his terror and trying to take a scientific view of the phenomenon. But he found himself retreating. The crash came a second time. How many more times it came he did not know, for he soon found himself at the end of the drive and in sight of the road.
He fell in at the door of the Long Thin Man and ordered a brandy and soda.
‘Why, what’s the matter, Mr Jones?’ inquired young Jasper, serving him.
The Devil at Saxon Wall Page 22
