Groaning Spinney

by Gladys Mitchell

  The sound came from the narrow, iron-railed verandah which decorated the first floor of the tall, old house. Mrs. Bradley stretched out a claw-like hand and pressed the starting-knob of the radio-gramophone which she had installed as a burglar alarm some months previously.

  There was a slight whirring sound from the apparatus, and then the most unearthly sound of seven dogs barking at once. She had never had occasion to use this record before, but there was no doubt of its efficacy now. There was a crash, then came cries and shouts from her rudely-awakened servants, and the sound of feet on the staircase. Her French cook, Henri, forewarned, came bounding in, flourishing his carving knife. There followed a Gallic screaming from his wife. This was Mrs. Bradley’s French maid, who, previously rehearsed, was issuing commands and injunctions to the ghostly and intangible dogs.

  Mrs. Bradley switched off the radiogram and switched on the light. The bedroom curtain stirred a little more freely than usual. She suggested to Henri that he should descend to the area to find out whether anyone was hurt. She herself dressed quickly and went into the tiny front garden to reassure the neighbourhood.

  Henri, threatening a fallen man with the carving knife, was blowing vigorously at the same time on a police whistle. To his subsequent disgust, his employer, having accepted a statement from the injured man, poured a glass of gin over the fellow’s waistcoat and explained him to the police as being drunk and having fallen down her area steps. She added that he was a guest and that he was still on enclosed premises.

  ‘He can’t do much more harm at present,’ she said, in response to Henri’s lamentations that the man was not to be charged. ‘I have another enemy who already has more than an idea, I fancy, that I am on his track. But you are a brave man, Henri, and I value your services beyond rubies.’

  Henri still wagged his head reprovingly at her, and then he shrugged and laughed.

  ‘The dogs on the record, they are magnificent, madame. The man might have broken his neck.’

  ‘I am rather sorry he did not. It would have saved trouble in the end,’ Mrs. Bradley responded. She returned to Jonathan’s manor house next day, taking her small revolver with her. The injured man had been carrying a Commando knife, and although he declared, probably truthfully, that he always carried it, and that it was a souvenir of the war, she had thought it best to deprive him of it.

  ‘I shall not keep it,’ she had told him. ‘That might seem dishonest. But if you want it you will have to get it.’ And she had given a flick of her supple wrist and lofted the handy little weapon on to her roof. ‘And only just in time,’ she had added severely, ‘for here come the police, and a nice thing for you if they found that on you and I charged you with breaking and entering! The next time you become my guest, Mr. Fullalove, I shall be obliged if you will leave your weapons at home!’

  ‘I’d forgotten the damned thing!’ growled Tiny. ‘And the police will have to call an ambulance. I’ve busted my knee again!’

  Mrs. Bradley took no special precautions on the journey down to Jonathan’s house, except the special precaution of going by car instead of by train. She drove by way of Maidenhead, Henley and Oxford, and told George not to hurry. The flat Middlesex fields faded into the sky. The landscape between Hounslow and Maidenhead was green-grey, blue-grey and brown with the promise of spring. There were, on both sides and in front, the ineffable width of the sky and right to the dim horizon the bright March ploughing.

  Maidenhead was a bridge across a river, a congested High Street, and the witchcraft of Maidenhead Thicket, all scrub and hawthorn bushes and muddy, secret little paths. Henley was old houses and a straight stretch of water, followed by a Roman fair-mile of slightly uphill road.

  Broad roadside boundaries of weeds and nettle, deep, straight-sided ditches, grass which would later grow as high as hay, woods through which the early spring sunlight was chequered and dazzled the eyes, accompanied the car to the bridge at Dorchester and past the long length of Dorchester Abbey. Soon the car passed the strange flat buildings of Littlemore, and so through Iffley and over Magdalen Bridge to the Mitre.

  Mrs. Bradley would have preferred to spend the evening in Oxford, and to have visited the theatre, (which was giving Great Catherine and Androcles and the Lion on the same bill), but she was anxious to reach Jonathan’s house at a reasonable hour so she compromised by visiting friends in North Oxford and staying to tea. She set out for Cheltenham at six.

  There was daylight left. George, realizing that his instructions of the morning were now to be disregarded, accelerated as soon as Oxford was left behind. He had taken the Woodstock Road, and the landscape became ghostly. By the time they reached Chipping Norton it was dark. It had been the chauffeur’s own fancy to take the Woodstock Road instead of the shorter and more usual route westward through Eynsham, Witney and Burford, and Mrs. Bradley often wondered afterwards what had prompted his decision, for at just beyond Chipping Norton the car ran out of petrol.

  ‘I can’t think what’s happened, madam,’ said George, greatly distressed. ‘I filled up in Oxford while you were lunching at the Mitre. I thought we had enough already to take us through, but to make quite sure I saw the tank filled at the Long Wall Street garage. I can’t make it out at all. I’m very sorry, madam.’

  ‘Are we leaking?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  ‘No, madam. There seems nothing wrong. All the same, we’ve run dry. My best plan would be to walk back into Chipping Norton and bring back a man and some cans of juice. I’ve got coupons for more than we shall want. We’ve less than another forty miles to do all told. I can get the garage chap to help look for a leak if he helps me to carry the petrol. I’ll fix it, madam, don’t you worry.’

  ‘I should not dream of worrying, George. I have implicit faith in you. Such implicit faith that—never mind. Do as you suggest.’

  As soon as her man had gone, she took out her little revolver, inspected it, settled herself comfortably and awaited her chauffeur’s return. She was not seriously anticipating danger, but she could not help wondering what would have happened if the car had taken the Burford road and had stopped before it reached Northleach.

  She blamed herself for the theft of the petrol—for that was what it had been; she was clear about that. George had brought the car round to the house of her friends at just after four, and she, knowing that she was staying until six, had sent out to tell him to go and get some tea and not to hurry over it, but to leave the car where it was.

  It must have been during his absence that the petrol had been siphoned out of the tank. The street was a very quiet one. It would have been easy enough for anybody with sufficient nerve to have done the deed whilst the party inside the house were in the drawing room, which overlooked the back garden. Between four o’clock and five the chances were that not a soul had been about.

  It might have been the work of an ordinary petrol thief, but she could not help chuckling at the thought of a baffled enemy waiting to waylay her somewhere along the stretch of lonely highway beyond the Cirencester crossroads, and she was still conjuring up a picture of the scene when George, who had his own methods of persuading garage hands into action, came back with two young men in overalls and four gallons of petrol in cans.

  Mrs. Bradley did her part by rewarding them handsomely for their trouble. There was general agreement that the tank did not leak, and George, who had been informed by Henri of a cat-burglar whom his employer had deliberately shielded, took no chances, but drove Mrs. Bradley into Stanway, and almost to Beckford before turning south through Bishops Cleeve for Cheltenham.

  ‘And now for Mr. Emming,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘for it is our duty to protect the general public.’

  Once out of Cheltenham George hurried. But nothing untoward happened. Mrs. Bradley and her man were hungry, but as soon as they reached the manor house, where Jonathan and Deborah were awaiting them, Mrs. Bradley merely popped her head out of the car, greeted them, intimated that she would soon be back, and George drove on up the vi
llage street and stopped at Emming’s lodgings.

  The carpenter and his wife were in bed. Mrs. Bradley knew this from the absence of lights. She did not leave her car. She sat and waited. Emming turned up on a motorcycle two hours later.

  George closed in on one side and Mrs. Bradley on the other as he dismounted.

  ‘Well, and how did you find Oxford looking, cully?’ George enquired, in the over-familiar accents of insobriety. Emming, who, in the darkness, had not noticed Mrs. Bradley, drew away from George and said nervously:

  ‘You go to bed, old boy! Just you go off to bed.’

  ‘You were in Oxford,’ said George thickly. ‘You siphoned my petrol.’ Emming shoved him off.

  ‘You be damned for a liar!’ he said. ‘Of course I haven’t been in Oxford. Get out of here and go home!’

  ‘So that’s two of you,’ said Jonathan soberly, when he had heard the story of Tiny’s exploit on the balcony. ‘You twice, and——’

  ‘Two of us? Not Ed Brown?’

  ‘What made you think of Ed? No, it was the gamekeeper, Will North, who nearly caught it. Lucky for him he’s an observant, cautious sort of bloke, otherwise he might have had his head blown off.’

  The essentials of the story, which Jonathan related with great liveliness, were that, on the second morning after Mrs. Bradley’s departure for London, Will North had been out on his rounds when he saw a shotgun leaned up against the haunted gate at the top of Groaning Spinney. Wondering who could have left it there, since neither Jonathan nor Tiny was likely to have done so, Will went up to the gun and had a look at it. He did not touch it at first because he thought he knew every gun on the estate and possessed six or seven of his own. He could not recognize the gun, so he went up to the fence, ducked through it to come out on the side against which the gun was leaning, and was just in time to hold up Ed Brown who was coming that way with a wagon. Ed had been about to get down to open the gate.

  It was Will’s sharp eyes which had spotted the thread tied to the trigger. He realized that the gun was at full cock. Then occurred a curious incident. Will had gone forward to warn Ed, and the carter had walked towards him to see the thread. At the same instant a bird which had accompanied Ed across three fields also saw the thread, and, apparently deciding that it would help in making its nest, it had pecked at the string. The gun went off, fortunately into the air, so that it did no harm to anybody, and the bird flew on to Ed’s shoulder and chattered complainingly of the noise.

  Ed was for picking up the gun, but Will restrained him. He himself remained on guard over the gun, and sent Ed for Jonathan.

  Mrs. Bradley listened with the most intense interest to this story.

  ‘Then, as I see it, Ed was the most likely person to have been killed or injured,’ she said. ‘I wonder whether it was known that he had to come that way?’

  ‘A good many people could have known it, but to my mind it leads back to Tiny Fullalove,’ said Jonathan. ‘And if it is Tiny, you’re not too safe here, are you? After all, he told you he’d hurt his knee again, but we haven’t any proof of it, you know,’

  ‘If you don’t mind having me, I should like to stay here again for a bit,’ said Mrs. Bradley. She looked extremely cheerful. ‘It is not an easy matter to break into this house, and in the open I am prepared to take my chance. As to Mr. Fullalove, I can soon find out from my good young friend Detective-Inspector Gavin of Scotland Yard whether he is in hospital, and, if he is, where.’

  ‘Could he give any explanation as to what he was doing on your verandah?’

  ‘Not a satisfactory one. He said he had mistaken the house.’

  ‘But you think——?’

  ‘I really don’t know what I think, child. One hates to think that one might be the corpse in the library!’

  15. The Gun

  *

  ‘Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

  And let the young Lambs bound

  As to the Tabor’s sound!’

  William Wordsworth

  * * *

  POLITICIANS WHOSE LIVES are threatened go about with a police guard but are expected to act as though assassinations are figments of the imagination. Mrs. Bradley behaved in this way, but she was not a politician and she had no police guard. Her nephew, therefore, insisted upon accompanying her wherever she went. This chivalrous conduct worried Mrs. Bradley because she knew how horribly scared Deborah must be all the time that Jonathan was out of the house.

  She tried to persuade him not to come, but he was determined to escort her. What was more, he always carried a gun.

  ‘The anemones are beginning to come out,’ said Mrs. Bradley on the third morning of her stay. ‘I shall go out to-day and gather them.’

  ‘Oh, no, not to-day!’ said Jonathan. ‘To begin with, they fade as soon as you pick them, and then I’m on the bench from ten o’clock onwards.’ Mrs. Bradley grinned triumphantly.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Just for once, I want to go out by myself.’

  Jonathan and (for his sake) Deborah protested, but Mrs. Bradley had an object in mind beyond wood anemones, so at just after nine she set off, accompanied by Will North as far as the village. At the lane by the inn she left Will, and turned up by the same way as the party had taken on a previous occasion when Mansell had been their guide.

  Her objective was the lonely bungalow, and her business was with the woman in the blue dress. How far she was justified in obtruding herself into this woman’s affairs she neither knew nor cared, but she was still intrigued by the theory that the woman was Tiny Fullalove’s wife and not Bill Fullalove’s widow.

  The uphill walk seemed shorter than it had done on the previous occasion, and soon she was within sight of the long barrow. She had plenty of time on her hands and had told Deborah not to wait lunch, so she walked on up the hill to find out whether Mansell had been able to begin work.

  She could make him out from some distance away. He was certainly digging and he had two companions. One she recognized at once as Miles Obury. The other, when she came nearer to him, proved to be the young choirmaster, Emming. Of village helpers there was no sign at first, and then she noticed Ed Brown. He was on his knees pegging out a measuring string, and Mansell’s body at first had screened him from view.

  All four men were so much absorbed in what they were doing that they did not notice her until she spoke.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Can I be of any assistance? You all look extremely busy.’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ said Mansell, leaning on his shovel. ‘That’s far enough, Ed. It’s only for a first trial. If you can spare a minute, Mrs. Bradley, I wonder if you would mind climbing to the lower end of the barrow and planting this stick as soon as I ask you to stop?’

  ‘It would give me great pleasure,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘You wish to obtain an orientation, no doubt.’

  Mansell neither contradicted nor confirmed this view. He said:

  ‘It is just to test a theory. Now, Miles, you climb to the upper end of the barrow, and plant this stick. Then we shall have the angle we want, I hope.’

  ‘Do I stop when you call out to Mrs. Bradley?’ enquired Obury, taking the stout white stake which Mansell handed to him.

  ‘No. You are to plant your stick when you hear my whistle. I don’t know whether I shall sound that first, or call out to Mrs. Bradley. All right. Off you go. Please don’t hurry, Mrs. Bradley. We are not at all pressed for time. I don’t expect to attempt more than the beginning of my trench this morning.’

  Mrs. Bradley began her upward climb. She had further to go than Obury, but her walk was not as steep as his. She took her time, as Mansell had suggested, and was not at all surprised to hear his whistle before she had reached her objective. She looked to her right and saw Obury beginning to knock his stake into the turf with the small mallet with which he had been provided.

  Then, faint but clear, came the order to her to stop. She stopped obediently and knocked her stake firmly into the ground. Mansel
l had a theodolite. She saw him motioning first to Ed Brown and then to Emming. The two of them took up positions directly in line with the two points set up respectively by herself and Obury.

  Mansell cupped his hands and called to them to return to the dig. They did this leisurely, and, by the time Mrs. Bradley was back, two measuring lines at an angle of about sixty degrees, with a centre line bisecting them, had been pegged out by Ed and Emming under Mansell’s skilful directions.

  The men then began to dig three trenches and Mrs. Bradley noticed that Emming worked faster although not as skilfully as Ed. Mansell took no part in the actual digging and Mrs. Bradley, perceiving that there was nothing useful that she could do, walked onwards up the hill.

  As soon as she gained the further side of the barrow, she made a détour and crawled through a spiny gap between the hawthorns. Then she made a fairly long cast across a hilly field and so up from the east to the top of the barrow.

  ‘Unseemly curiosity of an elderly psychiatrist,’ she said to herself as she spread out her waterproof, lay on it and peered cautiously over the top of the ancient mound. The four men were still working. This time Mansell had taken up a shovel and was as busy as the others. When the men spoke she could hear quite clearly what they said.

  As she watched, Emming stopped work, wiped his face and then began to clean his tool with a stone which he had picked up. At this, Mansell consulted his wristwatch, and suggested that it was time to knock off for lunch. Emming went towards the village and the two friends struck off in the same direction, although soon Mrs. Bradley could see that their path diverged from his. Ed Brown sat down on a pile of sacks which the excavators apparently had brought with them, and took out his countryman’s bundle of food and a can of tea.

  Suddenly, from the woods to the right came Will North, as usual carrying his gun and with his gamekeeper’s bag slung over his shoulder, but without his dog Worry. He called out a greeting to Ed and came over to have a chat. The three men had quite disappeared. None of them had given so much as a glance towards where Mrs. Bradley was lying, and she, to preserve secrecy, had prudently withdrawn so that the slope of the barrow hid her.