Fair Game

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘What is the condition?’ Although her voice was strained the accent never slipped, which confirmed Keith in his opinion that it was genuine.

  ‘The condition. Yes.’ Enterkin hesitated and took refuge in his notes. ‘You will appreciate that this was Mr Grass’s own idea. The condition is that you attend the funeral – or in this case I should say the memorial service –’

  ‘Oh, please hurry up!’

  ‘–dressed,’ Mr Enterkin said bravely, ‘only in the fur of rabbits which you yourself have shot and skinned.’

  Miss Wyper’s reaction to this revelation was all that Mr Enterkin had feared, outdoing those of all the other legatees together. She uttered a faint squawk, turned slowly green and then rolled up her eyes and fainted. Roach, entering with her lunch on a tray, found Keith Calder trying to uphold both Miss Wyper and her personal modesty, and not succeeding very well with either.

  *

  Brutus, to his disgust (for he was in danger of becoming spoiled) was fed on the same nourishing kennel-meal as was provided for the incarcerated champion, but Keith and Mr Enterkin lunched in some style in Mr Grass’s splendid dining room, all mirrors and polished wood. Keith never noticed that he was given the larger portions and the choicest morsels and Mr Enterkin, although indignant, was too well-mannered to protest but comforted himself with wine. Contrary to his prediction, an excellent claret appeared at the table.

  ‘I need a few minutes more with the papers,’ Enterkin said over the coffee cups. ‘You go and see to Miss Wyper. Then we’ll go and visit the police.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Keith said. ‘You don’t pass the buck to me. It’s you she’ll want to see.’

  ‘I’m not having her fainting all down my chest. And she knows about the will now. You,’ Mr Enterkin pointed out, ‘are the one who can help her to comply with its terms.’

  ‘I don’t think she approves of me,’ Keith said.

  ‘Who does? I ask the question,’ Mr Enterkin explained, ‘not unkindly but out of a genuine desire for knowledge.’

  Keith thought for several seconds. Of the first few people to come to mind, each had recently complained about some aspect of his conduct. ‘Brutus does,’ he said at last.

  ‘Not a wholly disinterested approbation, but it will serve. There is something slightly doggy – note that I do not say “canine”, nor yet “doggish” – about the lady’s unstinting loyalty and conflicting impulses. If you can get through to my disloyal hound, you can surely bring Miss Wyper to heel.’ Mr Enterkin was tempted to add flattery by alluding to Keith’s reputedly winning ways with the human female, but just at the moment he himself was feeling a certain self-satisfaction in that area, and was unwilling to share credit even where credit was due.

  Returning reluctantly upstairs, Keith found Miss Wyper recovered and picking at the offerings on her tray but now inclined to tears for which her features, and her usually hearty manner, were badly suited. She pushed the tray aside and dabbed at her eyes with an inadequate handkerchief. Out of unthinking courtesy Keith offered her his own, almost pristine, handkerchief. She took it and blew her nose violently. A feather from the morning’s pigeon was left clinging below her damp nostril.

  ‘How could he do such a thing?’ she asked in a shuddering voice. ‘After my years of service?’

  ‘It’s a generous legacy,’ Keith said feebly. ‘I’d jump at it.’

  ‘But that condition!’

  ‘It’s nothing really very –’

  She seemed not to hear him. ‘He knew what it would mean to us. I’d told him about our wedding plans. And then to have me type out the bequest . . . So when Mr Grass died and I knew that I had the money coming I cabled Bill and he cabled back, and I’ve made an offer for a house in the village.’

  Keith tried again. ‘But you still have the money coming. More, in fact.’

  But she broke down again, sobbing into his handkerchief so that he only caught her words in dissociated fragments. ‘He knew how I deplore . . . shedding blood . . . God’s creatures . . . little furry . . . nobody any harm.’ She blew her nose again, transferring the feather to her chin, and started again. ‘What you must think of me! But really, it’s too much. He knew just how I felt. I never let it interfere with my job. If he wanted me to, I could get the best price for pheasant feed, organise the whole of a shooting weekend or market a thousand poor little corpses. But I never left him in any doubt about my feelings. I hated that side of it. I can’t approve of killing things, and I could never bring myself to touch anything . . . dead.’

  Keith breathed a secret sigh. He was being confronted by an unusually clearcut example of the combination of squeamishness and double standards which was familiar to him. With a certain type of city-dweller, he had found attitudes entrenched and argument a waste of breath; but in these surroundings and aided by Miss Wyper’s motivation a few words might be worth a try.

  ‘Are you a vegetarian?’ he asked.

  ‘No. But I don’t see –’

  ‘I think you do. Can you cook?’

  ‘Certainly. Bill says that I’m an excellent cook.’ She lifted her chin, feather and all.

  ‘If I asked you to cook an oven-ready bird for me, could you do it?’

  ‘Of course. Don’t be silly.’

  ‘If I asked you to buy a bird from a poulterer and pluck it and cook it, could you?’

  This time she hesitated, but said that she thought that she could.

  ‘Imagine that you’re married to your Bill. He says that he’d just fancy a rabbit pie. The butcher has rabbits hanging in his window. Could you buy one, skin and clean it, and make him his pie?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then it’s only a matter of mastering a few simple knacks and overcoming some personal scruples which can’t be very deep-rooted.’

  She looked hopeful and then sagged again. ‘I couldn’t do it.’

  He nearly took hold of her and gave her a good shaking. ‘Think what some of the others have to do,’ he said. ‘If you typed out the conditions . . .’

  She managed a watery smile. ‘Some of them don’t seem to be minding very much. Old Mrs Mallison, for instance. She’s at least old enough to be my mother if not my grandmother, but she says that after four husbands and . . . and I think she’s exaggerating about her . . . her lovers,’ Miss Wyper said firmly, ‘she says that there can’t be many mature men in the area who haven’t seen it all before. Well, that’s what she says.’

  Keith suppressed a shudder. Mrs Mallison had made an appearance at the inn the previous evening. ‘She may be putting a brave face on it,’ he suggested. ‘Whatever you feel, don’t you think that your Bill might expect you to have a go?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I think it’s wicked!’

  ‘Rabbits have to be controlled. Working here, you must have seen how much damage they can do. If you were a rabbit, would you rather be controlled by being snared, or gassed, or subjected to myxomatosis, or chased out of your burrow by a ferret? Wouldn’t you rather be shot?’

  ‘But it’s a sport!’

  Keith gritted his teeth and decided on one last try. If this failed, she could throw her legacy down the drain and good luck to her when Bill found out. ‘It wouldn’t be a sport if you didn’t enjoy it. There’s an old story about a couple being married on a Saturday. The bridegroom explained to the minister that they wouldn’t be reaching their honeymoon hotel until after midnight. Would they be forgiven, he asked, if they consummated their marriage on the Lord’s Day? The minister thought it over and said, “It’ll be all right as long as you don’t enjoy it!”’

  Miss Wyper looked shocked, but as she thought it over the irreverent logic of it seemed to impress her. He could see the hockey mistress resuming command of her again. ‘Would you help me?’ she asked.

  ‘I think Mr Winter might be more suitable.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t go to him. Not after some of the things I said to him.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he minded.’
/>   ‘I said that he had blood on his hands.’

  ‘Well, he probably did have.’

  ‘He’s so unsympathetic. He’d say things.’

  ‘What about one of the farmers, then?’

  She shook her head.

  Keith was usually well paid for coaching, and he had more to do with his time than to teach a raw beginner with conscientious scruples and a nervous disposition, but there seemed to be no way out. ‘I’ll be needing your help over the guns,’ he said, ‘so I suppose I can’t grudge you a little help in qualifying for your legacy. Well, the sooner we get started the sooner we can get back to work. And you’ll need time to get the skins cured. You’ll need at least three skins for the most minimal bikini.’

  She looked at him along her long nose. ‘I am not turning out in a bikini,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You’ve nothing to be ashamed of in your figure.’

  ‘It’s a church service. I want a proper dress. I’ll get it, too. I can be very determined.’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ Keith said. ‘Is Bert Hayes in charge of Mr Grass’s guns? Get him on the house-phone for me, please.’

  While he waited, Keith considered the advantage of starting her off with a two-two rifle. It would be the more suitable weapon for rabbits in summer, he thought, but the idea of letting a novice loose with a weapon that could kill at a mile was unappealing.

  Chapter Nine

  Before they left for their promised visit to the police, Keith had a few minutes in which to discover that, for all her vacillation in the face of her ethical doubts, Miss Wyper was not one to be bested by any mere contrivance. She showed an immediate grasp of the basic rules of safety – better by far than the general had managed in half a century – and, after Keith had made a temporary adjustment for her by building up the comb with layers of adhesive tape, she managed to knock a turnip off a fence-post and then to hit it again when it was bowled across the grass in front of her.

  At the door, Roach handed him the general’s gun. As soon as the door closed Keith, as an automatic gesture, slipped the gun out of its bag and dropped the barrels to check their emptiness. They were freshly cleaned. He stowed the gun in the boot of the Rolls.

  The big car, with Bert Hayes at the wheel, made light work of the thirty-mile journey.

  If Mr Enterkin had not taken Keith to meet Inspector Glynder, or the inspector had not received them with such a predisposition for dislike, or even if the two visitors had not still been in a mild glow from a vinous lunch, the true explanation of Mr Grass’s death might never have emerged. But the inspector, an intelligent and efficient officer in all other respects, was not without his blind spots, and it was unfortunate that the virtues of his visitors were obscured by no less than three of them. The inspector was city-reared, and his service with a predominantly rural force had not moderated his belief that the shotgun was an instrument of criminals and butchers. His experience of lawyers had led him to damn the whole profession as being dedicated to securing the acquittal of the guilty. And he saw the forthcoming memorial service as a flagrant breach of the peace. He chose to open the discussion on the last subject.

  Enterkin’s visit was aimed at no more than the collection of certain of Mr Grass’s property still in police hands and giving Keith a chance to enquire into circumstances surrounding his death. Enterkin was aware by now of the dislike and mistrust in which the inspector was held by the shooting community and he was offended by the distaste on the inspector’s face as, guardedly, they shook hands. The matters of the leases of certain police premises, and the legality of the memorial service, had been discussed long since and at much higher level, so that Enterkin was in no mood to listen to a lengthy tirade, half plea and half threats, aimed at inducing him to modify or even to abandon the service.

  The solicitor half-listened, but his real mind strayed. Perhaps it was an aftermath of his long sessions with Mr Grass over the will, but a touch of the late gentleman’s philosophy was laying wanton hands on him and for a moment he toyed with the idea of interrupting the inspector. “By the way,” he would say, “umpty pounds were left to you –” the exact figure would require delicacy of judgment “– on condition that you attend the service and lead the congregation in a rousing chorus of ‘For he was a jolly good fellow’. You are to be dressed as a member of the Greek Guard, and to ride a donkey which will be provided out of the executory.” The inspector seemed impoverished and none too happy about it. Five hundred pounds, give or take a few, would almost certainly persuade him. Even if the amount were lost from his own fee . . .

  Mr Enterkin pulled himself together, and sighed. Then, finding that his sigh had caught the inspector’s attention, he broke in. ‘My duty,’ he said, ‘is to enable the beneficiaries to qualify for their legacies, provided that there are, in my opinion, no infractions of the law. You and I may have differing opinions as to what may constitute a breach of the peace or conduct likely to cause it. But I am quite sure that your superiors have made it clear to you that any rash interference on your part will not only cost police charities some very large bequests but will leave your force in acute difficulties when your leases of certain properties run out over the next few years. If you intervene, Inspector, unless I have called you, you will have your head in a sling. Is that quite clear?’

  Inspector Glynder’s face, triangular over a thin, blue jaw, reddened and he pursed thin lips. ‘Quite clear,’ he said slowly. ‘The position seems to be as you state it. But I’ll warn you right now that if you let things get out of hand and do not call me, I’ll see to the prosecution of all offenders, including you personally.’

  The two men glared at each other. Enterkin was remembering a contingency sum, hidden in the will, which enabled him to disburse money, at his own sole discretion, if needed to ensure the success of the service. He wondered how far the inspector could be pushed by a thousand pounds.

  Keith, meanwhile, was quite unaware that the inspector held him in almost equal disdain and was horrified at the hostilities. ‘Could we get on?’ he asked. ‘We came over to recover any of Mr Grass’s property still in your hands.’

  Inspector Glynder seemed to draw relief from the change of subject. He spoke briefly into an internal telephone. ‘I asked for his bits and pieces to be brought over here. Though I don’t know why you should bother, except for the cash. He had almost a hundred and fifty pounds on him.’

  A uniformed constable entered, deposited a shotgun and a large cardboard carton on the inspector’s desk, and departed.

  Keith picked up the gun and broke it open. It was unloaded. He looked through the barrels. The left had been fired but the right was clean. ‘You haven’t minded his things very well,’ he said. ‘This gun’s all rusty.’

  The inspector bristled again. ‘It’s only an old gun.’

  Enterkin probed for a weakness. ‘What would you put it’s value at, Inspector?’ he asked.

  Glynder sensed danger, but it was too late to draw back. ‘About fifty pounds,’ he said.

  Keith had to smile. ‘This is a Churchill Premier,’ he said. ‘The pair, in good order, would fetch over six thousand.’

  ‘And,’ Enterkin said, ‘if you or your subordinates have reduced its value by negligence, you’ll have a lawsuit on your hands.’

  ‘It was hardly our responsibility that the gun was left lying out overnight,’ the inspector said angrily.

  ‘It seems to have been kept in a damp place ever since,’ Keith said. ‘But I dare say it’ll clean up. Did your men unload it?’

  ‘Of course. It would hardly have been safe to carry it around and into the inquiry still loaded. It was as you’d expect, a live cartridge in the right barrel and an empty one in the left.’

  Out of the carton the inspector lifted a pair of light but strong hand-made leather boots, followed by some clothing in a polythene bag. Through the plastic, heavy bloodstains could be seen on the clothes.

  Keith and Mr Enterkin stood up and looked down into the box, to
the inspector’s displeasure. Keith saw a cartridge-belt with two empty pockets, and a miscellany of smaller items. Enterkin picked up a watch. ‘You realise,’ he said, ‘that this is just about the most expensive make of wrist-watch in the world?’

  The inspector made a sound which could have been interpreted either way. Enterkin prepared to needle the inspector at length over his failure to recognise value when he saw it, but Keith’s eye was caught by something else in the box. He picked it up. ‘What’s this?’

  The inspector snatched it out of his hand. ‘Do you mind? This shouldn’t have come over with the rest. It is evidence, not property – the shot and so on which the pathologist recovered from the body.’

  ‘I’d like to see it, please,’ Keith said.

  ‘I don’t think –’

  ‘If you have closed the case,’ Enterkin said, ‘then it is no longer evidence. And if it came from Mr Grass’s own gun, then it was his property and reverts to his estate.’

  ‘But it has no value!’

  Keith was becoming as irritated with the inspector as was the solicitor. ‘Lead shot is an expensive commodity,’ Keith said.

  ‘How would you like me to apply for a court order?’ Enterkin asked.

  Inspector Glynder hesitated, grimaced and then almost threw the small bag at Keith. Keith looked at it for a few seconds, and stood very still. Out of the cardboard box he took the fired and the unfired cartridges and he helped himself to a small magnifier from the inspector’s desk. ‘How do you see the accident?’ he asked.

  The inspector sat up straighter, a little of his self-importance restored. ‘The body was lying on its back, feet towards the fence. Do you know the place?’

  ‘I’ve seen it.’

  ‘Then you know that there was a bank beyond the fence, and a path down the bank at that very point. We found the gun about ten yards down the bank, with its muzzles pointing up towards where the body was lying. Clear so far?’

  Enterkin said, ‘You forgot to ask him whether he was sitting comfortably.’