“Message received, Mister Barking. I’m off to church.”
As I passed through the open doors of the church the tin cow was received by the snow with a dead thud. The snow caught it in a solid grip, no bounce, right-side up, so Hildy’s tin head was peeking above the surface with a sanguine, resigned countenance, as though she knew this was bound to happen, sooner or later.
Padget was vicaring about the front of the church with candles and hymnals and the like. When he saw me he set down his burdens and approached me like I was a bird that had been rejected by its mother.
“Why, Mister Boisjoly, what brings you out today of all days?”
“Seeking sanctuary from the storm,” I said. “There’s a rather larger than usual number of tin cows falling from the sky this afternoon.”
“I mean to say, I heard about your ordeal last night. It must have been frightful.”
“Worse for Cosmo.”
“Poor, poor Mister Millicent,” agreed Padget. “Who could have done such a thing?”
“Perhaps more tellingly, when could someone have done such a thing?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you recall what time you left the pub last night?”
Padget reflected. “I believe it was after ten-thirty. The constable came in then and reminded us that it was closing time.”
“And you and Cosmo came and left together, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Padget, but then, upon brief reflection, amended his statement. “We all left together, but I returned home alone. Mister Millicent said that he had some business to arrange with someone.”
“I don’t suppose he mentioned who, did he?”
“I regret not.”
“No matter, Mister Padget,” I said. “But for a few stylish flourishes, the case is all but closed.”
“That’s a tremendous relief. Has Inspector Wittersham solved both murders?”
“I doubt that very much,” I said. “I did. The turning point was when I realised that everyone in Graze Hill is harbouring a secret, and those secrets have managed to combine themselves into the perfect cover for murder.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t, actually, I mean to say the nearly perfect cover for murder. If I could figure it out, almost any over-educated fundi with heightened observation skills probably could. If you’d care to learn how, you’ll want to be at Herding House this evening at the cocktail hour.”
“Surely, though, you don’t mean to imply that everyone in Graze Hill has a guilty secret.”
“That’s exactly what I mean to imply, Mister Padget, and what’s more, I know what they are — even yours.”
Barking was standing in the snow with a forlorn sort of patina to his map, as though musing bleakly on how his lot came to be so tightly entwined with the tin cow industry.
“Can I be of any assistance with that, Mister Barking?” I asked.
“I’ll be getting the sleigh to bring it back to the smithy, thank you, Mister Boisjoly.”
“Heavy, is it?”
“More awkward than heavy — it’s hollow on the inside, but it’s still a weather vane in the shape of a cow.”
“What about its successor to the clocktower? That looked quite substantial.”
“Oh, that was heavy.” Barking nodded weightily. “Solid bronze.”
“Any idea how it was done?” I asked. “Exchanging the bronze cow for its tin predecessor? They’d have had to not only spirit this one out of the museum without anyone noticing, but climb the roof, as you’ve just done, but without using ladders nor leaving tracks.”
“No idea — and it’s not for lack of thinking on it. Have you had any thoughts?” asked Barking.
“Me? Oh, yes, I know how it was done, and what’s more, I know why.”
“You do? Really?”
“I do,” I confessed with the coy modesty for which I’m widely known. “If you’ll join us this evening at Herding House you can be there when I divulge every detail, including your dark secret.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Astray and Adrift in a Drift
Puckeridge was at his post to release me from the grip of a cold and unforgiving afternoon and into a warm and forbearing Herding House. I took the opportunity to pose some searching questions.
“Tell me something, Puckers, and feel free to speak your mind — if I were to say to you, ‘I know your secret’, how would you respond?”
“I expect that I would ask to which secret you refer, sir.”
“Jolly good answer, Puckeridge,” I said. “So would I. Well, have no fear, to me you remain a sublime enigma.”
“I’m most gratified to hear it, sir.”
“I do have a follow-up question, though, if it’s not too personal — do we have any dried fruit in the house?”
“Doubtless something could be found, sir. Have you any further specifications apart from it being dried and fruit?”
“I’m not particular. Candied apricots, currants, or even the humble raisin will do nicely,” I said. “How about cinnamon?”
“Miss Boisjoly is fond of a cannelle râpée on her porridge.”
“Is she now?” I said. “She’s a woman of hidden depths, is my aunt. Finally I’ll need a young-ish Merlot or Cabernet-Sauvignon. Or, rather, you will. We’re going to be requiring an economy-sized pot of mulled wine. Four bottles should be plenty, so make it eight.”
“Very good sir.”
I settled the programme for the evening with Puckeridge, from whom I learned that Ivor was still on the premises, asleep by the fire. I therefore noiselessly skulked to the drawing room and gently coaxed him awake with the soft crash of a heavy pewter salver allowed to flutter gingerly onto a granite hearth from about shoulder height. He was as amenable to my plan as could be expected of a man with a morning-after head like a damp cricket pitch on the sixth day of a five-day test.
The last and most vital part of my strategy lay ahead — I retired to the Heath Room and hardened the sinews with a carefully mixed tincture of Scottish craftsmanship and the legal minimum of soda water.
At the cocktail gong, some hours later, dressed and fortified for an evening’s entertainment, I danced down the stairs to the foyer, where Puckeridge stood sentry at the door.
“Everything as arranged, Puckeridge?” I asked.
“All but the guests, sir.”
“Not a one?”
“Only Miss Boisjoly is in the drawing room, sir.”
“Well, early days,” I contended. “Beguile my aunt with stories of your tempestuous youth, will you, while I call order to the proceedings.”
Evening had stolen the hour and the steely mist of morning had hardened, thickened and finally broken into giant snowflakes which joined forces to form even more giant snowflakes. As I made the familiar journey to the Sulky Cow they fell from above like a slow, soft bombing raid, obscuring the night in a billowy haze and filling in my tracks as quickly as I made them.
The pub door was locked, which corresponded with expectations, and so I continued deeper into the village until I encountered Soaky Mike, alone, standing point duty at the entrance to Hildy’s little pied à terre.
“Good evening Mike,” I called. “Have you seen, just as an example, anyone at all?”
“Off in the woods, ain’t they?”
“I don’t know, ain’t they?”
“Arum,” confirmed Soaky Mike with a grim nod. “Hildy’s gone missing.”
“What? When? Where?”
“After last milking, into the woods. That’s why everyone’s gone looking for her.”
“Well, this is monstrous. Why would she do such a thing and, perhaps more within the immediate scope of affairs, how do we know she went into the woods?”
“Tracks,” said Mike, nodding at the freshly installed layer of undisturbed snow. “They’re gone, now.”
“So I see. And you’re left here, in case she returns.”
“Arum.”
>
“And to keep you from being left alone in the pub.”
“Arum” Soaky repeated, this time with much pathos.
“I’ll join the search party then.” I took my leave with high strides through the deep snow, calling back, “Listen carefully for my signal, it strongly resembles the sound of a little girl crying for help.”
Employing the exact strategy which failed to get me killed the night before, I endeavoured to navigate a straight line through the woods. Conditions were similar, too — the night was dark, the flurries were dense, the snow of the forest floor was deep, and I was sharing the woods with a murderer.
At what I optimistically estimated to be midpoint between the village and the other side of the wood, my left foot found a tangle of undergrowth that it liked, and I fell face-first into the snow, like a tin cow falling off a clocktower. There’s a reflex that follows falling on one’s face that, no matter how remote and isolated the events, causes one to look about to see if anyone’s laughing. In that moment I heard a footfall — a crunch in the snow and the snapping of a twig — which was all perfectly normal but for what followed. Nothing followed. A footfall in a dark wood followed by silence suggested, at least to me in my heightened awareness of the fragility of life, that I was being clandestinely pursued.
“Soaky?” I called, remembering the last time this had happened. The reply was again the unmistakable sound of nothing at all, apart from the wind whistling through the trees and putting a wicked backspin on the snowflakes as they fell. I lay in the snow, listening to this eerie accompaniment, and then eased to my feet. Beneath me the snow squeaked, as very cold snow will, although my particular tract managed to trumpet across the land like an air-raid siren.
The only thing for it was to continue into the deep wood and, intermittently, stop and listen. Sure enough, I caught out the sound of someone failing to follow my rhythm. I tried the diplomatic approach, but there was no reply to my friendly “Hallo?” and several nonchalant calls of “Oh, well, I guess there’s no one there after all, is there Constable Kimble? You probably won’t be requiring that shotgun, then.”
By and by, an unearthly glow emerged between the trees before me, and I knew that I was approaching the barren, undiscovered other side of the wood. I’d feel safer, I knew, once out in the open, but as I approached the forest edge the wind dropped off subtly, exposing the muffled sounds of someone manoeuvring into position between myself and open country. The noises were little more than the shifting of snow and scraping of undergrowth, but to me they painted a vivid picture of an axe-wielding maniac, raising his weapon with mighty arms like tree trunks, held in hands the size of prize-winning yams.
I crouched and crab-walked a path parallel to the treeline. Finally, I could see a massive silhouette, contrasted against the grim twilight.
“Hildy,” I said and she turned on me an expression of existential woe. “What are you doing out here at this time of night? We’re missing cocktail hour.”
The elements had swept enormous dunes against the treeline and Hildy had found one of the most intractable and stuck right in. She was deeply embedded to the point of bearing an uncanny resemblance to her effigy where it fell into the snow in front of the church.
“I’ll bet you’re just wishing I’d thought to bring the shovel. I don’t blame you, I’m wishing the same thing myself, but I will point out that you’re in no position to criticise.”
In what appeared for only a short, happy, moment, to be a coincidence, Hildy and I heard a distinctly shovely sound, as of a ploughshare sinking into yielding earth, and we squinted into the darkness.
“Stand by,” I whispered. “We’re about to be joined by a murderer.”
Presently, a figure came into view. At first it was just a shadow cast against the swirling curtain of snow. It was made larger-than-life by layers of wool and fur, and it carried a shovel over its shoulder like an axe, as it stepped into focus.
“Everett,” I cried. “What exceptionally good fortune. And you’ve brought the shovel. Very foresightful.”
Everett stepped closer and then stopped. He smiled the cold, self-satisfied smile of the man who has explicitly not come to dig cows out of snowbanks.
“I’d propose working from the other side,” I said, gesturing toward the wall of snow, a good eight feet high, that separated us from the open meadow beyond. “I’ll stay here and comfort Hildy. Or, if you’d prefer, I’ll do the spadework. I have some on-the-job experience.”
“You couldn’t just leave it alone, could you?” said Everett. “Everything had neatly arranged itself — beyond all expectations, I might add. All details neatly slotted into place. Two nice, clean murders, no suspicion on me at all, done and sorted, and then you have to upset the works.”
“I say, I am sorry,” I said. “Perhaps if you’d spoken up. Or, if that wasn’t practical, and I can see how it might not have been, you might have chosen a different scapegoat than my Aunty Boisjoly. We have a code, we Boisjolys, when it comes to fitting our aunts up for murder.”
“I didn’t choose her, did I?” said Everett, visibly annoyed by my line of reasoning. “It was all happenstance, pure good fortune. The tracks in the snow, the time of the deaths…”
“I know, Everett. It was clear to me the moment I saw the scene of the first murder that I was looking for an impetuous, improvisational killer. It’s why I suspected you from the start.”
“You never suspected me.”
“I did,” I counterclaimed. “In a single breath you address a dozen subjects, and they’re all superlative. You’re incapable of nuance, so I imagine you must have worshipped your father as a giant among men. He should have been the hero, shouldn’t he, Everett? And not the man you hold responsible for his death.”
“He would have been legendary.” Everett looked skyward at this, and his eyes glistened. “They’d have built statues to him in Trafalgar Square.”
“Instead, as a novel treatment for survivor’s guilt, he walked into a propellor.”
“Because Flaps Fleming wouldn’t let him fly.”
“Keen eyesight does seem rather a fundamental prerequisite for the job,” I pointed out.
“There was nothing wrong with my father’s eyesight,” insisted Everett. “Flaps couldn’t bear to share the glory — he knew that my father would have been the greatest fighter pilot in the entire flying corps. The entire war. The entire history of war.”
“I suppose that’s a good enough justification as any for cold-blooded murder,” I said. “And then when Cosmo figured out how you got away with it, you had to kill him too, once again profiting from an extraordinary confluence of circumstance to appear to be in two places at once.”
“Cosmo Millicent didn’t figure out a thing. I expect I could have confessed to him and he’d still have needed a diagram.”
“I daresay you’re right,” I said. “Nevertheless, he discovered something that, if made known, would prove that you were the only one who could have killed Flaps Fleming. I realised it, too, and have since told the police.”
“No you haven’t.” Everett said this with a disturbing confidence. He also raised the shovel and advanced menacingly.
“No, you’re right,” I confessed. “I haven’t. But they know, anyway.”
“How?”
“A lot of bother might have been avoided if you’d just followed this simple advice from the start, Everett — think it through. How did you find me this evening?”
“I followed you,” he said. “I knew that when Hildy went missing you’d join the search, and I’d have you exactly where I wanted you. And now if you’ll just hold that position…”
“In a moment, Everett. I knew that your impetuous nature would induce you to seize what you saw as yet another convenient opportunity for murder, and your compulsion to monopolise the conversation would cause you to confess. That’s why I had Puckeridge lure Hildy to the edge of the forest with a pot of mulled wine, for which she has a pronounced weakness.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were,” I said. “But we have to face the fact that Hildy is a slave to drink. We believe, though, that with time and compassion…”
“Shut up, Boisjoly, I’ve heard enough.”
“I think we all have,” I said, backing away and finding myself blocked by the snowbank. “You can come out now, I think, Inspector.”
For the briefest of instances I saw what Everett might have looked like if he weren’t the most recklessly self-assured man in England. His face fell. The weight of the shovel dropped onto his shoulder. His eyes searched the woods and the wall of snow. In due course, though, as Ivor continued to fail to present himself and I whiled away the moments reflecting on regrettable things I did as a child, the concrete certitude returned to Everett’s bearing.
I doubt that with a year’s specialist training I could reproduce the dodge that saved me from the first swing, which whistled just above my shoulders. I had by then exhausted whatever talent I had for late-night-forest-shovel-jousting, and on the backswing Everett caught be square on the bean. I must have spun at least a hundred and eighty degrees because my next sensation was of lying face-down in the snow. I rolled onto my back just as Everett raised the shovel like a spear, and then time seemed to slow, and henceforth unfold at an inexorable, protracted pace.
The blade of the shovel descended. It was a singularly fascinating movement, and I felt as though I could watch it for hours, but that I couldn’t possibly move out of the way. Simultaneously, with a howl like a Scottish infantry regiment, Hildy broke free of the snowbank. She leapt up and over like a thoroughbred steeplechaser, and bounded toward Everett, catching him just above the cummerbund on her stubby, heroic horns.
It was then that time returned to its midseason stride and provided the gratifying image of Everett reversing through the air as though struck by a cannonball, to come to rest against a tree with a satisfying ‘thock’.
“All right, Boisjoly?” Ivor’s disembodied voice drifted to us on the wind.
The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (Anty Boisjoly Mysteries Book 2) Page 18