“You won’t object to a bit of company, I daresay,” he observed peaceably, hauling out a pack of cigarettes. Mr. Matthews didn’t permit his drivers to smoke on duty—disrespect to the dead, he called it. Besides, future corpses might notice and leave instructions for their future interment with a rival firm.
“You can’t let up for a moment when you’re in business, Mr. Wilson,” Mort always said.
Still, the circumstances were unusual and Dendy was unlikely to object to a whiff of the weed. More likely to put his head out of the coffin and demand his share, decided Tig Wilson. He stopped thinking about Dendy and concentrated on his own dilemma. First, there was no chance of his reaching Ullerton in time for his charge to make a third in the churchyard. The only landmark he’d been able to distinguish was a faint giant finger against the snow-filled sky, that he identified as the spire of St. Anselms, the Parbury Parish Church. If he was right that meant he had twenty miles to go and approximately thirty minutes in which to achieve them—a not impossible task on good country roads in normal weather, but isolated in a snow-field, with the hearse stationary and with no likelihood of rescue, it looked rather as though he and Dendy were going to spend Christmas together.
Suddenly Tig felt enormously sorry for himself. “Have to make trouble even from the grave, don’t you?” he demanded of the corpse. He got up and looked out of the door. Now he was sure it was Parbury in the distance, a very go-ahead place, warming up for Christmas since the beginning of the month. You saw the ads everywhere.
Come to the Grand Hotel, Parbury, for the best Christmas you ever had, including a visit to the famous Milton Circus. Lions-Seals-Elephants.
Mr. Wilson didn’t approve. Animals should be considered the same as humans, and who likes being made to look silly?
He came back and seated himself on the coffin. There was really nowhere else to sit. A minute later he was aware of a knocking and he sprang up hopefully, anticipating some other lost soul marooned in the snow. He’d even have welcomed the kind of person Dendy Watt had been in life. But there was no one outside, no one in sight. Me imagining things, Tig decided, closing the door against the bitter wind.
The knocking, continued.
Suddenly Tig’s heart fell into his boots, because now he realized that the knocking came from inside the hearse, and, knowing its scanty furnishings there was only one place from which it could emanate.
Mr. Wilson had never believed in ghosts—people did a hard enough stint in life, let ’em rest afterwards. So it didn’t occur to him that it might be Dendy’s ghost come to keep him company. Similarly, he knew it couldn’t be Dendy in the flesh, not the way he’d been when they found him and a Coroner’s Jury sitting on him after that.
So there remained only one explanation. Mr. Matthews, that model of propriety and self-protection, had for once in his life confused two coffins. Dendy must have been buried in St. Peters Churchyard with all the panoply of wealth and respectful patronage, and the occupant of this coffin—at that instant the frozen snow was no colder than the blood freezing in Mr. Wilson’s veins. Because it so happened there’d been only one other funeral from the Matthews Parlor that morning, that of the Honorable (and ineffably haughty) Mrs. Grubb.
“Coming, madam,” said Mr. Wilson humbly, falling off the coffin as if it had been a hot seat and going to look for the chisel he always carried in a corner of the hearse. All his life this had been his private dread—that one day they would seal up a cataleptic; and should such a thing happen when he was in charge he liked to know he could find a quick way out—for himself as well as the corpse.
The knocking increased in vigor. Still whispering incoherencies Tig dropped to his knees. The coffin must have been fastened in a devil of a hurry, screws just jammed in any way and not even tightened. Mr. Wilson’s meticulous soul was shocked. Even if it was a pauper’s funeral and there wasn’t much profit to be made out of it, these affairs should be done decently and properly. Still, it helped him now. He had removed most of the screws when a thick unrecognizable voice inquired, “Blast you, why are you taking so long? Do you want me to suffocate?”—which caused the little man to think he’d prefer the company of a vampire bat to this old battle-ax in her eternal nightie.
“Very sorry, madam,” he mouthed and heaved up the lid. And almost dropped it again. Because it wasn’t the Honorable Mrs. Grubb at all, but a man he had never seen before in his life, a big redhead, with a wicked brown eye and hands big enough to choke a little chap who chanced to put a foot wrong. The corpse put out an immense arm and knocked the coffin lid to one side.
“You deaf or something?” he demanded.
Mr. Wilson, his brain numbed by the snow, the vigil, and sheer terror, could find nothing better to say than, “What are you doing in that box?”
“Getting out,” retorted the other. Here, give me a hand.” He caught Mr. Wilson by the shoulder, almost compressing him up like a concertina. “You’ve got no consideration,” he went on accusingly “It’s bad enough being boxed up without some idiot parking himself over my air holes.”
Startled, Tig looked down at the lid and there, right enough, was a row of small holes clearly designed to enable the occupant to breathe. Oh, no wonder Mr. Matthews had put the coffin into the van before he let his driver see it! If the mutes hadn’t been in such an all-fired hurry they would have noticed something odd.
“I don’t understand,” Tig stammered. “Mr. Matthews—”
And then suddenly the penny dropped. “I know who you are—you’re Mr. Matthews’ nephew.” And that seemed to complete the horror. If it had been bad to be penned up with Dendy Watt, deceased, it was Paradise compared with finding yourself in a cramped space with a murderer—because that’s how the police had been describing him.
And even through the horror Tig knew a pang of admiration at the mind that had conjured up such a plot, The police might be on the lookout for the fugitive, but even they wouldn’t think to open every coffin that left the Parlor. Particularly as Mr. Matthews had never made any secret of the fact that he had no use at all for his sole surviving relative.
“Why did he do it?” Tig asked, having one of those simple minds that can only consider one problem at a time. “Your uncle, I mean.” Because it stood to reason that Mort had been in the plot.
“Ever hear of the Achilles’ heel?” demanded Stanley Matthews. “Here,
give me one of those cigarettes. You’re a hell of a good host, I must say. Well,
most people have them and Uncle Mort’s no exception. There are one or two activities of his he wouldn’t want the police to know about.”
“Blackmail!” stammered Mr. Wilson.
“That’s a harsh word. I prefer to call it mutual assistance.”
“But, look here,” protested Mr. Wilson, “how did you think it was going to work? You couldn’t guess I should come over the Downs.”
“And why the hell did you?” growled Stanley.
“No need to adopt that tone,” exclaimed Tig, plucking up courage. “It’s lucky for you I did. If I’d kept my appointment on time”—he glanced at the watch on his wrist, a nice one, Billy’s Christmas present last year— “you’d be in the churchyard by now.”
“Not me, little man,” said Stanley soothingly. “Not me.”
Tig shook a reproving head. “It doesn’t work, Mr. Matthews. I know about the films where a coffin filled with rocks, but that’s strictly for the birds. The bearers always know if there isn’t a body on board. Don’t ask me how. Instinct maybe.”
“You’ve got me wrong,” Stanley told him in gentle tones. “There would have been a body in the coffin, of course.”
The penny hadn’t only dropped by now, it was rolling about like a mad thing. Stanley’s meaning was unmistakable. There would be a body in the coffin and it wouldn’t be Dendy Watt’s. It would be Tig’s.
“But that’s murder,” Tig stammered.
“You do believe in calling a spade a spade, don’t you, Mr. Wilson? I
prefer to call it expediency. As for coming over the Downs, if it’s any consolation to you you’ve made a howling mess of my plans.”
“What were they?” Tig inquired. Not that he cared, but anything that delayed the moment when he’d be lying in the box was all to the good.
“Christmas is the season of good will,” Stanley explained. “Say you were bowling along and some chap hailed you, said there’d been a fearful accident, no telephone, must get a doctor, how about a lift—”
“Mr. Matthews doesn’t allow his drivers to give lifts.”
“Not even on Christmas Eve?”
“And there’d be other cars.”
“Not where my friends ’ud be waiting for you. In any case, there’s something called moral suasion.” He had shrugged himself out of an enormous shroud and revealed a suit of loud tweeds and suede shoes to match. He patted his pocket impressively. “Ever felt the nose of a gun in your ribs, Mr.
Wilson? That’s what I call moral suasion. Well, in those circumstances, if a chap says, ‘Turn right,’ you’d turn.”
“I wouldn’t, you know,” said Mr. Wilson.
“A man of principle,” gibed Stanley. “That’s what my uncle said. You’ll be safe with Mr. Wilson, he said, you can always rely on him.”
“Won’t your friends be annoyed when you don’t keep the appointment?”
Mr. Wilson asked.
“Too right they will. Lucky for you, really, you won’t be able to hear them.”
“You’re going to have your work cut out explaining to my boy, Billy, what’s happened to me,” Tig warned him. “He was expecting me at four o’clock.
He doesn’t know about this extra job, so when I don’t show up he’ll start getting anxious.”
“And he’ll ring the old man and find out you took a diversion by way of Ullerton, and are on your way.”
“He’ll know that if I was going to be much later than promised I’d ring him and explain.”
“Then maybe the lines will be down, with all this snow.”
“You don’t know Billy,” said Mr. Wilson simply. “He’ll come out looking for me himself. When he finds no trace of the van on the road he’ll recall that I know the Downs better than many people know their own streets, and even in a snowstorm he won’t overlook something as big as a hearse.”
“So he finds the hearse?” Stanley still sounded untroubled, “He’ll take a peek inside and there’ll be the locked box with Dendy Watt’s name on it—it won’t bother you to be buried under the wrong moniker, will it? It’s not as though it makes any difference in the long run. And he’ll think—everyone will think—the driver knew he couldn’t shift it unaided, so he went out to look for help.”
Stanley continued, “Stands to reason there won’t be any footprints to guide them, and when they don’t find anyone they’ll remember the big bomb crater left by a dropped egg during the war—some of them go nearly
as far down as Australia, I’ve heard. Too bad, poor Mr. Wilson, such a reliable chap, but it happens to all of us. Uncle Mort will write to your son—a great loss, died in the execution of his duty, and how can man die better; and whatever name’s on the coffin you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’re lying in consecrated ground—sods crumbled, words of commendation, the whole lot. Mind you, I don’t say it’s not bad luck, but then it’s bad luck when a noncombatant in a war gets wiped out.”
Stanley pulled a bottle out of his pocket and offered it courteously to his companion. Mr. Wilson shook his head. “I’m teetotal.”
“The best whiskey, too.” He took a slug himself to prove his own words.
“Come now,” he urged, “I don’t suppose life with Uncle Mort is such a ball of fire. Probably won’t find the grave much different.”
“It’s my boy I’m thinking of. It won’t be the same thing not spending Christmas with him. And the children. I had a new animal imitation to show them,” Tig added in regretful tones. “That’s my sideline—a private entertainer, I call myself. No credit to me, of course, just a gift. Like this.”
A dog barked shrilly, a cat shrieked. Stanley Matthews nearly dropped the whiskey bottle. “Was that you?” he demanded.
“An old lady living next door came in one year and said she was going to report me to the Cruelty to Animals crowd, ill-treating a cat like that.”
“I can see you’re going to be missed, Mr. Wilson. Too bad. What was that new imitation you were following?”
“Well, a wolf call, a coyote really. I’d been practising for a long time.” He threw back his head and a loud bloodcurdling cry filled the air.
“You do that once more and you’ll get yourself roughed up before you go into the box,” Stanley warned him. “Enough to make your blood run cold.” “You wouldn’t believe the trouble I was at,” persisted Tig shyly. “One week-end I even went to the London Zoo—you have to do things right for children or they see right through you, you know. It’s not very easy to make wolves howl, but I managed it a time or two. Quite a bit of unpleasantness with the keeper, but it was all in a good cause, you know.”
“Started a riot, I shouldn’t wonder. Now make a noise like a giraffe.”
“They don’t make any sound,” Tig explained. “Dumb, they call them.”
“I see you’ve got the message.” Stanley took another pull at his bottle. “No sense hanging about,” he observed briskly. “I did hope you might be reasonable. I brought some pills—take them in a swig of whiskey and you’d be out for the count before you could say Jack Robinson. In your own best interests, really.”
Mr. Wilson began to pray for a miracle; he knew pretty well where they
were. Even apart from holidays and snow you wouldn’t expect to encounter any people out here. It was grazing land, good for birdwatching in season—he’d hoped he might glimpse a long-tailed Barbary snipe in the spring.
There’d been rumours. Angels were all very well in their way, but he had a sneaking preference for the snipe.
Stanley took a gun out of his pocket and waved it purposefully toward the open coffin. “My, you’re going to rattle,” he observed; “still there’s always the shroud.” He stooped to lift it and at that moment a wild roar filled the van.
He swung round pale with fury. “I warned you,” he said. “Stop those damn tricks, I told you! It’s about time you did go underground.”
“But that wasn’t me,” protested Mr. Wilson. “I can only do domestic animals, except for the coyote, and had to work for weeks on that.”
“Green grow the grasses-oh!” entered Stanley, “I suppose you’d have me believe there’s a real lion out there.”
“I don’t know what else,” murdered Tig. “No, Mr. Matthews, don’t open the door. I’d sooner have the pills and whiskey. I never did fancy being mauled about by a lion.”
“And you so fond of animals! Well, I always had a fancy to meet a lion.” He laughed and opened the back door of the van, what a joke!”
Only this joke backfired, because there really was a lion there.
“Here’s your, opportunity,” murmured Tig courteously, giving him a shove. He slammed the door behind Stanley and bolted it.
* * *
Sometime later, when everything seemed quiet again, he gingerly unfastened the door. There was no sign of any lion, and except for what remained of Mr. Matthews, Tig might have wondered if he’d dreamed the whole affair. He hesitated a moment, then picked up the half-empty bottle. He thought the taste nauseating, but at least the spirits gave him the strength and courage to roll the wreckage of Stanley Matthews in the massive shroud and somehow lug it inside the van. Tig was a deft man at his job, accustomed to turning his hand at any bit of work required of him.
He covered the remains, folding the material neatly, replaced the coffin lid, and screwed it down tight. The Recording Angel might have a job getting that off, he reflected. The snow that had stopped for a while now started again in a half-hearted sort of way and soon covered the traces of Stanley’s encounter w
ith the king of beasts. Tig had no fear of the lion returning. Even wild specimens—and it stood to reason this one couldn’t be wild—only attack when they’re hungry, and this particular lion had just made a devilish good meal.
After that he supposed he must have slept for a while—a second tot of whiskey must have accounted for his unusual drowsiness; certainly, when the job was finished, he was surprised to find the bottle empty, so he threw that into the snow—it would never do for an empty whiskey bottle to be found in Mort Matthews’ hearse.
Then he thought he must be dreaming when he heard the voices singing a carol, the one they always sang at home on Christmas afternoon. Groggily he moved to the door and saw a string of lights bobbing along by the hedge. It was Billy and some of the neighbors come to look for him, just as his father had predicted.
“Rang Mr. Mathews,” Billy explained, “and he told me about this extra duty. Rang Ullerton and learned you’d never got there, so we thought—hearse has broken down, and no wonder.”
“How did you get here?” inquired Tig.
“Borrowed a jeep,” said Billy airily. “Nothing less would have got us up here. Luckily a chap in a pub remembered seeing Mr. Matthews’ hearse making for the Downs. We’d best be going,” he added. “Jo will be worrying. Can’t do much for him, I’m afraid.” He jerked a thumb at the coffin. “Still, no one’s going to run away with him and from all accounts he won’t be any lonelier here than he was in life.”
Mr. Wilson draped the rug over the coffin, pall-wise, “I’ll come and get him myself after the holiday,” he promised.
“Lucky you didn’t run across the lion that escaped from the Milton Circus in Parbury,” Billy told him on the way back. “Whole place is ringing with the story. A new acquisition and not quite settled down, by all accounts. Keeper opened the cage to give him his food and the lion bolted. Still, no harm done. He seems to have padded back docilely enough after having a snuff round. Great big world seems to have been too much for him and he went right off to sleep. Didn’t even want his grub.”
Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries Page 27
