After P.C. Denning’s departure, conversation became general. The forthcoming village fête was discussed at length, with Sir Arthur and Bill agreeing on Mr. Thacker’s general incompetence. The Vicar had, it seemed, further incensed Sir Arthur by proposing to hold a raffle.
“Raffle!” snorted the baronet. “Just another word for a lottery, which is just another word for plain gambling.” Amanda whispered something to Jane, and Sir Arthur—whose hearing was very sharp—wheeled around and said, “I heard that, young lady. All right, perhaps I do have a bee in my bonnet—but I’ve seen the misery that gambling can bring, and you haven’t. I’m glad to say nobody in this house has ever placed a bet—and I don’t intend to let the habit in through the back door with Thacker and his Church Restoration Fund.”
Amanda said, “Oh, really, Father. Sixpence on a raffle ticket—”
“That’s how it starts,” retorted Sir Arthur. “Next thing you know, it’s a hundred pounds on a horse.” He glared at his daughter.
The slight awkwardness in the atmosphere was relieved by Jane, who asked Amanda about her new venture—a small market-garden which she was cultivating in the old walled vegetable garden of Gorsemere House. Amanda replied enthusiastically that it was doing splendidly—selling fresh fruit, flowers, and vegetables not only to passing motorists from a stall at the gate, but also supplying the local general stores and a newly opened greengrocery at Middingfield.
Amanda’s home-grown produce was in evidence at the excellent lunch which followed—and then it was time for Emmy and the Spences to say good-bye, if they were not to be late in meeting Henry’s train.
***
Emmy and Jane were waiting on the platform at Gorsemere Halt when the London train pulled in. Bill had been dropped off at Cherry Tree Cottage, where he was now mowing the lawn, and his place in the car had been taken by the brindle mongrel, who had been christened Ginger.
“He did so want to come,” Emmy explained, with faint apology, to Henry. “He loves riding in the car, don’t you, Ginger?” The dog jumped up enthusiastically and licked Emmy’s hand.
Henry laughed. “You’d better keep an eye on my wife,” he said to Jane. “She seems to have designs on your dog.”
“He’s not my dog,” said Jane. She sounded amused. “Just a temporary lodger.”
“Oh.” Henry had stopped laughing. “He’ll soon be going back to his own home, then?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Jane cheerfully. “He hasn’t one to go to. But he’ll have to go somewhere. I can’t keep him.”
Emmy said nothing, but caressed Ginger’s head. Henry gave her a suspicious look, and was unusually silent in the car on the way back.
Later, relaxing in a deck chair on the lawn, with a cool glass in his hand and the comforting whirr of the lawn mower as background music, Henry said, “Sorry if I’m not being very conversational, Jane. It’s just so marvelous to sit here and do nothing.”
Jane grinned. “You should retire,” she said. “Not that we do nothing, but the tempo is different. Is Scotland Yard being particularly bloody?”
Henry closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t say that. Just dreary and busy at the same time, which is a bad combination.”
“I thought you were a fanatic about your work.” Jane was mocking, gently. “Dedicated and all that.”
“Hardly. I admit, interesting cases do fascinate me—but nothing seems to be coming my way at the moment except the most predictable and sordid affairs.”
“Poor Henry.” Jane sounded amused. “Well, we’ve got a perfectly riveting mystery for you, right here in the village.”
“No,” said Henry firmly.
“The Case of the Third Dog!” said Jane dramatically.
“The what?”
“Mystery Hound Vanishes Without Trace. Is International Gang Involved?”
“Well, is it?” His eyes shut, Henry leaned further back in his chair and turned his face to catch the last rays of the sun.
“That’s for the Wizard of the yard to find out,” said Jane.
“Seriously, though,” Emmy remarked, “I wonder what did happen to the creature? I mean, it certainly wasn’t there when we picked up Ginger and Tess.”
“You mean, there should have been yet another stray to add to your collection?” Henry was drowsy and gently amused. It was all a delightfully long way from Red Dicky Marsh and the Lawson gang.
“Tess isn’t a stray,” said Jane. “Harry’s had her for years.”
“Then why are you—?”
“Because poor Harry is in prison,” Jane explained.
Bill, who had finished his mowing, came across the newly cropped grass, mopping his brow with a large red handkerchief. “What’s this? Poor Harry? Don’t tell me you’re trying to enlist Henry in this ridiculous argument.”
“But Bill—”
“Now, you listen to me, Henry.” Bill poured himself a glass of beer and took a swig at it. “Jane maintains this man isn’t a criminal. I don’t know what women use for logic. If causing death by dangerous driving when drunk, uninsured, and without a license and in a stolen car isn’t…” He paused for another draught of beer. “Well, if that’s not criminal, just tell me what is.”
“Of course, people tend to take motoring offenses less seriously than other crimes…” Henry’s eyes were still shut, his voice lazy.
“My dear Henry, this wasn’t a question of speeding or parking in the wrong place. It wasn’t even a straightforward drunken driving charge. The man stole the car, for a start. If anybody ever richly deserved to be inside, it’s Harry Heathfield.”
“But he couldn’t remember anything about it!” Jane protested.
Bill snorted into his beer mug. “There! You see! Typically female reasoning—just because the man was kind to stray dogs, every sort of farfetched excuse has to be made for him. Of course he couldn’t remember anything—he was dead drunk! He’d been in the Bull since opening time—he didn’t attempt to deny it.”
“Those men from London—”
“I know, I know. Villains from the big city who plied him with drink. Well, he didn’t have to accept, did he? Good God, the man’s not a child or an imbecile. He’s responsible under the law for his own behavior—”
The conversation rolled to and fro across Henry’s semisomnolent form. Something about what the judge had said…a man who was a publican himself should have known better…Harry just wouldn’t have done a thing like that…if you could have seen him with his dogs… The voices blurred, retreated. Henry’s head lolled back against the deck chair. He slept.
After dinner that evening, the Spences’ telephone began its usual shrill series of summons. Sir Arthur Bratt-Cunningham wanted to consult with Bill over a matter relating to the horse trough on the village green, which was currently causing passions to run high on the parish council. A distraught lady—the wife of a newly arrived commuter from London—implored Jane’s assistance in coping with her cat, which was having a fit. Jane put her in touch with the local vet. A neighbor rang to invite the Spences to a coffee morning in aid of Oxfam, and the vicar to make sure they intended to support the Bingo Evening organized by the Red Cross.
For Bill, this was the last straw. “For God’s sake, can’t that man Thacker leave us in peace for two minutes?” He looked at his watch. “It’s only nine. Let’s go down to the Bull for a beer. At least we’ll be safe there from the Man of God.”
Jane protested that she had too much to do, what with the washing up and bedding down her menagerie for the night, and Emmy said that she would stay to help her sister and have a good old heart-to-heart. So it was only Bill and Henry who walked down the dark, May-scented length of Cherry Tree Drive and into the bar of the White Bull.
The saloon bar was delightful—as Bill pointed out, it had been used as the setting for a big color advertisement put out by the brewers, and one could see why. It was paneled in dark wood, with inglenook seats and a huge fireplace. Chintz and polished brass abounded, and the beer h
andles glowed with polish and years of constant use.
Bill and Henry moved slowly from the doorway to the bar, their progress hampered by the fact that Bill knew everybody and everybody knew Bill. By the time they arrived at the mahogany counter, Henry had been introduced to the village doctor, two of the local commuters and their wives, Tom Hayward the butcher, and P.C. Denning—the latter out of uniform and comfortably relaxed. Behind the bar, a very tall man with an impressive wingspan of gray mustache was busy pulling pints of ale. He looked up with a smile as Bill and Henry settled themselves on stools at the bar.
“Evening, Bill. Lovely weather, isn’t it? What can I get you?”
“Pint of bitter for me, Paul,” said Bill. “How about you, Henry? The same? Good. Make that two pints and one for yourself. And meet my brother-in-law, Henry Tibbett. Squadron-Leader Paul Claverton, our genial host.”
“Delighted to know you, sir. And less of the Squadron-Leader, if you don’t mind, Bill. Very much ex-RAF these days, thank God. Two pints it is.”
The landlord swept Bill’s money expertly from the bar and deposited it in the till. Henry’s memory stirred. Paul Claverton—“Crazy” Claverton, they had called him then: one of the great fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain, one of the few who had survived, to come at last to this peaceful haven of a country pub.
Bill said, “If you want people to forget the RAF bit, Paul, you’ll have to shake off the face fungus.”
Paul Claverton rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You’re quite right, of course. It’s often occurred to me—but somehow, I’ve had the thing for so long, I’d feel naked without it. Cheers.” He grinned. “Anyway, it does the business no harm. Mustn’t be hypocritical.”
Henry remarked that his wife had been a WAAF during the war, and for a few minutes conversation turned to those long ago days. Then Claverton said, “Well, I always swore then that if I came through in one piece, I’d buy myself a country pub. Not a very noble or original ambition, but at least I’ve achieved it, which is more than a lot of chaps can say. I’m very lucky. Especially as the Bull is a real country pub, not a tourist trap.”
“I noticed when we came in,” Henry said, “that everybody seemed to be local, and to know everybody else. It’s rather surprising, considering what an attractive place it is, and not too far from London.”
“Ah, but we’re off the main road,” Claverton pointed out. “The Fox and Pheasant on the Middingfield road gets all the passing car trade, and frankly they’re welcome to it.”
“You surely must get some outsiders as well as local people,” Henry said.
“Very few, sir. Very few. And most of them we could do without. You’ve heard about Harry Heathfield?” Claverton added to Bill, with an abrupt swerve of topic.
Bill groaned. “I seem to hear of nothing else,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re joining the whitewash brigade.”
“The what?”
“My wife and Amanda Bratt-Cunningham,” said Bill, “are convinced that because Harry was kind to dogs he should have been acquitted and awarded costs against the police. Women!” He buried his nose in his tankard.
“I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Claverton replied, “but I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for the fellow, all the same. Of course, I’d never have let him leave the pub in that state if I’d had the remotest idea he was planning to drive a car. In fact, I wouldn’t have let him get that way at all, but I never realized what was happening. That’s what I mean about outsiders. A couple of the most objectionable types I’ve ever had in my bar. Never seen them before and never want to see them again, I assure you. I didn’t realize that Harry was in the inglenook over there, and that they were plying him with Scotch. Mild and bitter was his usual tipple, and not much of that—couldn’t afford it. He came in every evening, regular as clockwork, had one pint or maybe two—made them last an hour or so. Then off home.” He took a drink of beer, and pulled thoughtfully at his mustache. “Funny. Can’t think why they did it. Just amusing themselves, I suppose—slumming among the yokels. One of them was a parody of a Colonel Blimp type, bogus as hell, and the other was a lah-di-dah smoothie with pointed shoes. Well-spoken and all that, but if you ask me—Yes, of course, Doctor. Two pints, coming up.”
As Claverton moved off down the bar to serve the doctor, Henry heard a rich, fruity voice behind his left shoulder saying, “My good friend Mr. Spence, if I’m not mistaken.” He turned to see a squarely solid man in a worn tweed jacket settling himself onto a stool on the other side of Bill.
“Evening, Simon.”
“Jane not with you?” the newcomer went on, and without waiting for an answer, added, “Pity. Wanted to talk things over with her about this bloody fête. You’ve heard Thacker’s latest idea?”
“No,” said Bill, “but nothing would surprise me. What are you having?”
“Large pink gin, if you please, Paul.” The man pulled out a pound note and laid it on the bar.
“No, no,” said Bill. “Have this one on me. And you’ll have another pint, will you, Henry? Two more pints and a large pink gin, Paul. Henry, this is Simon Yateley. Simon—my brother-in-law, Henry Tibbett.”
“Ah, yes—Jane’s sister’s husband. She told me you were expected. Welcome to Gorsemere.”
“Now,” said Bill, “tell me what the unspeakable Thacker has been up to?”
“Well, it’s just such a lunatic idea,” said Yateley. “He badgered and badgered me about this blasted fête until I gave in and agreed to put on some sort of training demonstration with a couple of dogs. You know how he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Do I not,” said Bill gloomily. To Henry he added, in explanation, “Simon breeds and trains greyhounds, you see. Has a big place up on the hill, beyond the Bratt-Cunninghams.”
“Well, that was bad enough,” Yateley went on, “but now he’s insisting that I get together with your good lady, and that we somehow put on a joint sideshow of greyhound training and RSPCA work. I told him, it’s just bloody impossible. The two things don’t go together at all. Unless Jane has some sort of brainwave—”
“Brainstorm, more like,” said Bill, peering morosely into his beer. “Why don’t you simply tell Thacker you won’t do it?”
Yateley laughed briefly and bitterly. “What, and have him on my doorstep morning, noon, and night for weeks? No, thank you.” He downed his drink in one gulp. “Tell Jane I’ll be in touch, will you? I suppose we can work something out. Is she as busy as ever?”
“Not unduly, as a matter of fact,” said Bill. “We have our usual assortment of waifs and strays, of course. Harry Heathfield’s dogs are the latest additions.”
Yateley looked interested. “Oh, you’ve got them, have you? Good. Bella will be glad to hear that. Here, drink up and have another. And you, Tibbett. Paul! Same again, if you please.”
The evening passed quickly and pleasantly. Henry, enjoying a delightful sense of relaxation and noninvolvement, was content to sit quietly drinking his beer and letting the tide of village talk swirl around him. The forthcoming fête was obviously arousing great interest, and Yateley snorted sardonically when Bill related Sir Arthur’s outburst over the proposed raffle. However, Bratt-Cunningham’s detestation of gambling was clearly a well-known foible, and Henry had the impression that the villagers were secretly not unpleased that their squire should display at least one harmless eccentricity. Other burning topics were the rearrangement of the railway timetable, which was greatly exercising the commuting contingent; the birth of twins to somebody called Maisie, who Henry only realized later was a thoroughbred mare; Amanda Bratt-Cunningham’s market-garden; and the threatened removal of the horse trough from the village green.
It seemed to Henry no time at all before Paul Claverton was calling “Last orders” and he and Bill walked out into the warm, lantern-splashed darkness of the pub’s courtyard, bidding cheery good-nights to their erstwhile drinking companions.
Walking back up Cherry Tree Drive, Hen
ry found himself engaged in an all-too-familiar mental struggle, a silent but acrimonious argument between his sybaritic self and that inconvenient instinct which his colleagues called his “nose.”
“Go on,” urged this relentless persecutor. “Ask him.”
“I’m on holiday.”
“You won’t be on holiday on Monday. You’ll have to face up to it sooner or later.”
“I’m damned if I’m going to ruin my weekend. Anyhow, it’s a ridiculous idea.”
“Are my ideas usually ridiculous?”
“No—but this would be stretching coincidence too far.”
“In that case, there’s no harm in asking, is there?”
“He may not know.”
“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
“If I do ask him, I don’t promise to follow it up.”
“All right. One thing at a time. Just ask him. Go on.”
“Oh, very well…”
Bill said, “You’re very silent, Henry. I hope you weren’t too bored. Our village society isn’t very lively.”
“No, no. Sorry. I was just thinking.” Henry took a deep breath. “Can I ask you something, Bill?”
“Of course.” Bill sounded surprised.
“You were on the bench which committed this man Heathfield for trial, weren’t you?”
“Yes. I told you so earlier on.”
“Well, then, you may remember. What was the name of the passerby who got killed? The man Heathfield ran over?”
Bill hesitated. “Wait a minute. It’s on the tip of my tongue. An ordinary sort of name Thompson…Dawson…no, I’ve got it. Lawson. Lawrence Lawson.”
“A local man, was he?” Henry was clutching at straws.
“No, no. He came from London. Was spending a few days down here on holiday, poor devil. Why are you so interested?”
“No reason,” said Henry. “No reason at all.”
“I told you so,” remarked his nose, complacently. “Now what are you going to do?”
The Curious Affair of the Third Dog Page 4
