GFU04 - The Cornish Pixie Affair

by Peter Leslie

  "Oh, now really!" April protested with a laugh. "We already have genuine sabotage and espionage, genuine murder, hypothetical attempted murder, blackmail and dope rings! Surely you can't —"

  The door slammed open with a crash. The young man standing there with his hair plastered to his forehead was soaked from head to foot. But the old-fashioned revolver in his hand was dry—and it was steady.

  Over the steady pelting of the rain, his voice climbed the scale in near hysteria. "Who are you?" he demanded. "And just what the hell d'you think you're doing in my brother's caravan?"

  CHAPTER TEN: THE JEALOUS YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE

  FOR a long moment there was complete silence. April Dancer, seated at the table in the act of raising a negative, froze with her hand in mid air. Only her eyes flicked upwards, to stare steadily at the man with the gun. Mark Slate hovered by her side, slightly crouched, his hands, with the fingers extended, held away from his body. And the young roan himself stood with his feet planted apart, regarding them both with blazing eyes.

  Then a sudden gust of wind outside hurled an unusually heavy scatter of raindrops on to the caravan roof; the door slammed shut again; and the tension was broken.

  "All right then," the young man cried hoarsely. "Over there, both of you — up against that wall. Put up your hands…"

  He advanced another pace towards the table, gesturing menacingly with the revolver. Warily, Slate inched back, his eyes never leaving the boy's face. April could sense the restraint within him, suppressing energy like a coiled spring. She herself, however, continued to sit calmly at the table. The hand holding the negative fell naturally back to the surface. Otherwise she did not move.

  "I said over there," the boy repeated. "Get moving."

  "You must be poor Sheila's fiancé the youngest Bosustow. Ernie, isn't it?" the girl asked conversationally.

  "What if I am? What is it to you? Get up!''

  "Now let's not be melodramatic," April soothed. "You know perfectly well that you won't use that gun... that you can't use it..."

  "I know nothing of the sort. If you don't get up and move over there, I warn you, I will use it." The boy' voice was shrill with hysteria. The gun had begun to shake slightly in his hand. As the knuckle of the forefinger whitened imperceptibly on the trigger, Mark gave an involuntary cry of alarm and warning.

  "It's all right, Mark," April said quietly. "Don't worry. He won't shoot. He can't... That's a revolver from one of the sideshows. I recognised it at once. He must have been passing by, seen that there was someone here and dashed back to the booth to get it. Even if it was loaded, it only fires a kind of superior airgun pellet — but I happen to know it can't be loaded because the girl always takes the ammunition home with her. He's just bluffing, that's all."

  "It is not a sideshow gun! It's loaded with... I... I'll show you..." The boy was inarticulate with fury.

  "Oh, come now!" April's cool voice, laced now with asperity, cut across him. "What kind of fools do you think we are? Of course it's a sideshow pistol. Look at the plate on the butt." She raised a hand and pointed.

  Involuntarily, the young man dropped his eyes to the weapon in his hand — and in that instant the steel spring that was inside Mark uncoiled..

  Arrowing across the caravan with one forearm extended, he caught the boy under the chin and forced him backwards as April leaned over the desk and plucked the revolver from his hand.

  Bosustow slammed back against the door, made as though to punch at Mark's face, and then dropped unexpectedly to his hands and knees and jerked at the agent's ankles. Slate came down with a crash, back-somersaulted with the momentum of his fall and regained an upright position on his own knees as the boy scrambled to his feet again.

  He ran in lightly and aimed a vicious kick at Slate's face. The agent swayed back on his heels and let the shoe whistle past his chin. By the time the boy had arrested his run and turned round, Mark was on his feet, waiting.

  He stood stock still as the young man feinted to the left, darted to the right and then advanced, ducking easily under a roundarm swing which was telegraphed all the way. Then, as Bosustow's impetus carried him past, he stepped aside, swivelled on one heel and planted a single, scientific, short-arm jab carrying all his weight squarely in the boy's solar plexus.

  Instantly, the fight was over. The boy doubled up as the breath whooshed from his lungs. For an instant he hung in the air like a question mark, then he dropped to the floor.

  Solicitously, Mark hauled him to his feet, lowered him into a chair, massaged the middle of his chest, and then allowed his head, shoulders and arms to flop forward on to the table. As the air wheezed back into the boy's lungs, Mark picked up the gun which April had dropped among the negatives and broke it open.

  A moment later he exclaimed in surprise. "Look here — he wasn't bluffing!" he said. "This is not a sideshow pistol! It's loaded in all eight chambers...the shells are .32 calibre, I should think!" He shook the deadly slugs into the palm of his hand and raised his eyes to hers. "You knew, didn't you?" he asked softly.

  "Of course I knew," the girl said coolly. "But there's more than one kind of bluff, isn't there? It was the only way I could think of to make him lower his eyes and give you an opportunity to do your stuff! I know how you love to make with the Superman routine."

  Slate grinned. "Every man's Mum, that's you," he said lightly. "Good on you, just the same, as the Aussies say." He dropped a hand to her shoulder for a moment and then walked over to the boy.

  The rasping sounds of returning breath had changed to a hoarse but more rhythmic noise. Ernie Bosustow was crying.

  "Come on then, mate," the agent urged, not unkindly. "It's not the end of the world to be beaten in a little fight. And, after all, I am as you might say a professional! Sit up and let's have a word with you..."

  But the boy kept his head buried in his arms, his shoulders continuing to shake.

  After a moment, April and Slate exchanged glances and the girl moved over to the sobbing youth. "Ernie," she said quietly, laying an arm along his shoulders, "pull yourself together, man. Maybe we can help you. We're not really on the other side, you know."

  He raised a red and puffy face and stared at her. "I'm sorry," he said at last in a low voice. "It wasn't the fight, you know. He beat me fair and square an' all, and I reckon I can take a hiding as well as the next man."

  "What is it then? What's the trouble?"

  "It's... it's... Oh, every goddam thing," the youth burst out. "Can't do right, can 'ee? Simply can't." He stared at the wooden wall of the caravan, blinking.

  "You mean about Sheila, and...and your brother, and everything?" April said sympathetically. "I know. You do seem to have had a rough deal."

  "Rough deal be... Never mind. No, it's just everything. Every rotten thing. It's not enough that they have to kill my girl..." He swallowed and then went on: "... It's not enough that they make her fall for some loud-mouthed swaggerin' slob first, and we have words about it. It's not enough that they kill my brother — but they have t' bother their great fat heads suspectin' me of the murders!" His voice, which had been rising with anger, broke suddenly.

  Mark Slate, mentally ticketing him as "Younger-son-with-chip-on-shoulder", reflected with an inward smile that he sounded for all the world like the pigeon who was afraid of serpents in "Alice".

  "But, Ernie," April was saying reasonably, "you can hardly blame the police, can you? After all, you were heard to threaten Sheila — by several independent witnesses, too."

  "Threaten her? I wouldn't have touched a hair on her head! Not me."

  "But you were heard to say —"

  "We had a quarrel. Sure we had a quarrel. I never said we never. Sure I said words to her — who doesn't have words when they're rowin'?"

  "What kind of words?"

  "Oh... You know I told her I'd break her ruddy neck if I as much as caught her lookin' at this popinjay again. I said I'd rather see her dead than go out with him..."

&
nbsp; "Then, surely...?"

  "But that's not threatenin', is it? God, there's a world of difference between a man who says — kind of between his teeth, Like — 'I hate you. I'm going to kill you', and a mum, say, who tells her little girl: 'If you don't shut up that row, so help me, I'll strangle you!'... I mean, she don't strangle the little girl, does she?"

  "Well, no. I see what you mean. But —"

  "So what's the difference? When I tell Sheila I'll strangle her — or I'll break her neck or whatever — if I catch her lookin' at loud mouth again, I'm speakin' like that mum, aren't I? Figure of speech, that's what it is; just a figure of speech. I don't mean that I'll actually put my hands round her neck and choke the life out of her; I mean I'll be ruddy furious... I mean I might even get cross enough to slosh her one. But that's all."

  "There is one difference between you and your mum, though," April said gently. "As you said, that mum doesn't really strangle that little girl. But your little girl was strangled, as it were. Somebody did murder Sheila. And although I understand what you mean, when remarks like that are written down and read by someone who didn't hear the quarrel — well, they tend to appear just as bad, and just as menacing, as words from someone who speaks between his teeth and means it."

  "But I tell you I wouldn't have harmed a hair on her head. Oh, forget it. You're just like all the rest," the boy muttered. He stared at her angrily, the bright blue eyes glittering in the characteristic, florid Bosustow face.

  "There's one difference between us and what you call the rest," the girl said levelly.

  "What's that? As if I cared." He bad relapsed into sulkiness now.

  "Just this — that we're not interested so much in pinning the responsibility for the murder on somebody, as in finding out what really happened, in discovering just why she was killed — and who really did it."

  Bosustow stared at her again. Slowly, he turned and gazed at Mark. "That's it," he said. "I'd forgotten. Who the hell are you, then? What are you doin' in Harry's caravan? What have you got to do with all this? — You don't sound like ordinary burglars, somehow."

  For the second time, April Dancer exchanged meaning glances with Slate. Their eyes met, held, and then Slate imperceptibly nodded. The girl swung round and looked earnestly at the boy. "I'm going to take a chance on you," she said. "I'm going to let you in on something. But first, answer me a question: did your girl ever seem to be... well, a little odd, shall we say? I mean, was she like your other girlfriends? Or was she different in any way?"

  "I'd never met anyone like her, if that's what you mean. She was... she was a knock-out. There'll never be anyone like Sheil." He sniffed and swallowed noisily.

  "That's not what I mean exactly, Ernie. I meant... oh, things like punctuality, putting off a date, altering arrangements. That sort of thing."

  "Oh." He hesitated. "Well... yes, I guess she was a bit exasperatin' at times. How did you know?... I mean, she was forever changing the times we were to meet, and she did put off things, at that. I used to think she was maybe standin' me up, and that made me mad."

  "Exactly." April paused impressively. "She wasn't standing you up, Ernie. She had to alter things because she had special work to do; work that was quite apart from her sideshow here at the circus, important work."

  "You don't mean..." He stared at her unbelievingly. "You don't mean... secret work?"

  The girl nodded. How fortunate, she reflected, that the current fads in television and cinema entertainment had acclimatised people like Ernie to accept without question that to be a secret agent was to have a métier as commonplace — if perhaps slightly more glamorous — as that of postman, doctor or insurance salesman! "I can't tell you any more," she said. "I'm not allowed to. But we are colleagues of hers... And that's why we must find out who killed her and why... We should like it very much if you could help."

  "Well, of course. Anything at all..." The boy was obviously vastly flattered. "And to think my Sheil was working… And I never suspected a word! It was connected with the Tor, I suppose?"

  "Indirectly," Mark said, with a glance at April.

  "Ah. That accounts for it, then. She was always on about taking walks up on them blasted moors. Spent half her time up there, it seemed at times... That's where she met him up there."

  "Him?"

  "Sir Flipping You-know-who, Mister Blooming Right," the boy said scornfully. "Chatting her up with his blah voice; taking her to Falmouth and Truro and buying her expensive dinners; setting her against me, just because I don't have his crust or his arrogance!" He made as though to spit, thought better of it, and contented himself with a derisive shrug.

  "He took her out often?"

  "When it suited his book. When he wasn't living it up with every army and air force officer in every mess from here to Exeter."

  "Oh, he visited lots of army messes?"

  "All of 'em, Oh, very popular with the top brass, Sir Gerald was — and still is, for that matter. He was always being invited to this station and that camp. I suppose they thought he added tone...Tone!" he added scornfully.

  "Who else did Sheila see — when she wasn't with you, I mean?" April asked, "Did she have any special friends? Any girlfriends, for instance?"

  "I don't think so. She was quite chummy with Sara — my sister, that is — though of course Sara's much older. And I think she had a friend who used to be a nurse with her, over by Redruth. I never paid special heed."

  "Who do you think killed her?" Mark Slate demanded abruptly.

  "Who?" The Bosustow face darkened suddenly in fury. "Who d'you think killed her? He did, of course! Who else could — or would — have killed her? Who else had the motive, the opportunity? Who was the last to be seen with her? Who else was that sort of dirty, rotten, stinking —"

  "All right, all right, all right," Slate cut in peremptorily. "That's quite enough of that. We understand you have cause to dislike this man. That's still no proof that he's a murderer, you know. What do you mean by motive?"

  "He wanted her out of the way. He ––"

  "Why?"

  "Why? Because he had tired of her, I suppose. He wanted to get rid of her. Once he'd had his way... he was afraid she'd spill the beans to his wife. He had to shut her mouth once it was over."

  "Oh, then there were beans to spill? His attentions were not — er — unwelcome?"

  "He'd dazzled her all right, if that's what you mean. There'd been some kind of an affair between them. I'm not denying it."

  "Did she deny it, though? And so far as the wife was concerned, do you know that she knew all about this friendship and didn't mind at all? She told me so herself."

  "Ah, yes," the boy sneered, "that's what she says now. Ask her if she knew about it a week ago, a fortnight! She's saying that to make it look better for her husband, to protect him."

  "But if she didn't know about the friendship, if in other words she might be expected to object when she did find out — then why should she wish to protect him anyway?" April asked reasonably.

  "Those kind of people aren't like you and me," the boy said. "Anyway, she'd do it because she wouldn't want to lose a good meal ticket, wouldn't she?"

  "Leaving the actual motive aside for the moment," Mark put in, "what's the strength of the opportunity bit? And how do we know he was the last to see her alive?"

  "Well, we had this blazin' row, see, her and me — and the upshot of that was that she walked out on me. We were in my caravan at the time. And then she met him: he'd called by her booth, the way he sometimes did. They left the field together and they arranged to meet later. Several people waiting for the bus heard them. Then he went off down the hill and she caught the bus. And that's the last...nobody ever saw her..." He choked on his words.

  "He claims she never turned up for their date. She stood him up the way she sometimes stood you up. That's what he says," Mark pointed out.

  "Well, wouldn't you?" the boy demanded. "What else could he say? And talking of excuses, I still don't see why you're
here. I understand who you are and what you're doin' — but I don't understand what you're doin' here... in my brother's caravan."

  "Finding out about Sheila, of course," April said smoothly. "Since your poor brother seems to have been murdered too, we thought that if we could find out something about that, it might help us solve the mystery of her killer."

  "No mystery about that, like I said." Ernie Bosustow paused. "He was a bit surly and he had his faults, but he was a good enough bloke, Harry. Me and the old man don't get on too well — it was Harry did the things for me that the old man should of done. Like a father, I mean... If you find out anything about who killed him..." His voice tailed away once more.

  "Don't worry," April said. "We'll pass on anything of interest that we find out — and for your part, you can standby and be ready to help us in our hunt for the murderer of Sheila, eh?"

  "Of course, of course. What do you want me to do?"

  "Nothing yet, Ernie. But keep alert. If we want you to help, it will be in a hurry and you must come running; okay?"

  The boy's eyes had brightened. "Anything you say," he replied.

  "There's just one thing more," Slate said. "When you're up at your hut on the moors, Ernie, working the Serpentine concession or turning up the souvenirs, how do you make the lighthouses?"

  "How do you mean 'How'?"

  "What way do you fabricate them? How do you do it?"

  "Well, I get a suitable piece of the rock, chip it roughly to shape and then fix it to the lathe spindles. Once she's spinning, I advance the cutting tool and take off more or less as required — for the gallery, you know, and the lantern, and the part where it swells out below."

  "You don't ever make them in two parts, with a top that screws into the bottom?"

  "Not even the big ones. I don't see the point. Costs more to make, it's more difficult to produce — and what's the advantage? No spindle scars, that's all... Kind of people buy these things, you must realise, couldn't care less about spindle scars. Even so, we usually fill them and polish over, just in case."