Groaning Spinney

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘But it isn’t in danger.’

  ‘Not as long as it is perfectly certain that she isn’t going to give any evidence away. But what if Tiny Fullalove thought she would?’

  ‘Oh, I see. You mean …?’

  ‘I mean that the bleating of the lamb would tend to excite the tiger, particularly this tiger. And, as I think I said before, five thousand pounds isn’t so very much when it’s shared among three people.’

  ‘You think the woman will claim two-thirds of the money?’

  ‘Why should she not? She is in a position to point out to Tiny Fullalove that she may be the means of saving his neck. If Tiny had been the obvious claimant (which, as things stand, he most certainly is not) his position might have been awkward…. Can’t you hear her saying it? She’s not a courageous type, but money is an amazing stimulant.’

  ‘But we should still have to prove that Bill Fullalove was murdered, and that is just exactly what we can’t prove, and, in my opinion, never shall be able to prove. We can’t trace his movements after lunch on December 29th. We know he went out after lunch because Anstey said so, but, after that, we know nothing.’

  ‘Except that the dogs and cats have disappeared. And, of course, Tiny must have misled Anstey into thinking that Bill had gone to Gloucester.’

  ‘Yes, I know … or it may have been a genuine mistake on Anstey’s part. People do get ideas into their heads. By the way, do you think it was a genuine mistake?’

  ‘No. But what I think isn’t evidence.’

  ‘It probably will be,’ said the Chief Constable, who, beneath a curmudgeonly manner, cherished an affection for Mrs. Bradley’s gifts and was rather put out of countenance at what seemed to be her negative results in this particular case. ‘Smack it about, my dear, and let’s get action. The papers are beginning to be shrill.’

  ‘If that that bears all things bears thee,’ quoted Mrs. Bradley in solemn and sonorous Greek, ‘bear thou and be borne.’

  ‘That’s all very well. But fair words butter no parsnips.’

  ‘Do you like parsnips?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Would you agree that it does not matter to you, therefore, whether parsnips are buttered or not?’

  ‘Oh, but look here——!’

  ‘We want Mrs. Robert Emming’s evidence.’

  ‘We shan’t get it. She’s as guilty as the two men are, and she’ll be as hard as a hammer over the money. You said so yourself.’

  ‘Heads fly off hammers.’

  ‘To the devil with your metaphors and quotations. I can’t pull the woman in and give her third degree methods!’

  ‘No. And I would not agree with your doing so, even if you could. But a friendly call…’

  ‘Friendly?’

  ‘Certainly, and we’ll hope, for her own sake, that she has enough common-sense to beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts.’

  The Chief Constable shook his head and returned rather sadly to earlier matters.

  ‘What did you expect that we could do, even after Ed Brown confessed to having identified the deadly nightshade for Emming and Tiny, about Mrs. Dalby Whittier’s death?’

  ‘All sorts of things. For one of them, I thought that you might possibly resurrect Ed.’

  ‘Resurrect him?’

  ‘Yes. I think that if Mr. Emming saw Ed’s ghost at the top of Groaning Spinney his reactions would be interesting.’

  ‘I can’t risk Ed Brown’s life.’

  ‘Of course not. It was just an idea.’

  The Chief Constable regarded her with the deep suspicion he retained for her foxier suggestions.

  ‘Hm!’ he said non-commitally. Mrs. Bradley cackled and gave him a poke in the ribs.

  ‘It would be something constructive, at any rate,’ she remarked, ‘and might save you a good deal of trouble.’

  ‘You’ll have to fix it, then. I wash my hands of it.’

  ‘Oh, quite. I will let you know the results if I attempt it.’

  ‘I accept no responsibility, mind.’

  ‘No, no. I hear there is a meet at County’s Green to-morrow. My nephew has offered to mount me. Shall I go?

  ‘Good heavens, yes! We’re not like the Cotswold, of course. Just the local farmers, and ourselves, and so on, with plenty of push-bike adherents, as a matter of fact. But you ought to get quite good fun.’

  ‘You are not going to the meet?’

  ‘How can I, with all this on my hands? Anything may break loose at any minute.’

  As though to prove the truth of these words, the telephone bell rang, and a calm voice at the other end of the wire announced that the typewriter submitted to Scotland Yard for examination had been purchased in Islington on the twenty-eighth of December. There was no clue to the purchaser, however, who had paid outright for the machine and had taken it away with him.

  ‘No address, you see. But definitely a man,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Now to find out whether Emming went to London on that date.’

  ‘You will find that he did,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘Moreover, when you do find out that he was in London on that date, it will not help you very much. He wouldn’t have gone for the typewriter himself. He would have sent a special messenger.’

  ‘Well, we must trace the messenger and get him to describe Emming,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘But it still comes back to the same thing. We can prove, if we stick at it long enough, that Emming typed those letters, but I’m hanged if I see how to pin murder on him.’

  ‘The woman is the key,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘We must find some way of getting her to talk.’

  ‘That must be a legitimate way, then.’

  ‘I agree, and I already have an idea.’

  ‘If you mean your ghost-gate theory …’

  ‘Partly, I do.’

  ‘Look here, you’re not to land me in the soup!’

  ‘You have no fear, and I will have no scruples.’

  ‘Lady Macbeth in person!’

  ‘No. I have no ambitions.’

  ‘Not even to be in at the death?’

  Mrs. Bradley cocked a bright black eye at him.

  ‘I shall know about that to-morrow,’ she replied.

  20. A View to a Death

  *

  ‘Nor hedges, ditches, limits, narrow bounds;

  I dreamed not aught of those,

  But in surveying all men’s grounds

  I found repose.’

  Thomas Traherne

  * * *

  ‘IT WILL BE the last run of the season,’ said Jonathan, I swallowing scalding tea. ‘I’m glad you’re coming.’

  Mrs. Bradley, correctly attired in habit and top hat, grinned mirthlessly.

  ‘I don’t suppose I shall see much of it,’ she observed. ‘I’m too old for these capers.’

  ‘Oh, rot!’ said her nephew. ‘The old man used to say that you rode straighter than he did. Besides, you’ll like our country, and we’re a most democratic hunt, you know.’

  The horses were already in the yard. Jonathan put his aunt neatly into the saddle, mounted his bay mare and led the way at a walk out of the muddy yard and into the wood.

  They were in good time, and left the horses to choose the pace up the long woodland ride, now quickened into life by the appearance of the first wild daffodils. At the edge of the wood the gorse was in honey-scented flower, and the sinuous treachery of blackberry sprays was as quick as the green of the hawthorn. The leaf-mould underfoot was as soft as a feather bed and about as resistant, and the horses took matters easily, walking delicately on through the woods until they came to the open country.

  Here Jonathan jerked the bay mare into a trot until they reached the road. There the horses sobered again, and walked in single file on the grassy boundary.

  The meet was at a place called County’s Green, and the small local hunt was gathered in front of a white-painted Georgian house with a semi-circular lawn now in process of hoof-printed destruction.

  Jonathan i
ntroduced his aunt to the people he thought she ought to know, and it was not long before the riders moved off.

  The country around County’s Green was less wooded and not so steeply hilly as some of the Cotswolds, but it was good, broad, undulating land, and, except for the inevitable stone walls, free from unprepossessing obstacles.

  ‘No wire round here,’ said Jonathan, as the hunt moved off across a billowing field, ‘and the country’s wide open. We ought to get a good run. There are plenty of foxes. As long as the hounds can be kept to one only, we should have a glorious time. Hullo! Look at him! Cheeky rascal!’

  A brown hare was occupying the middle of the field. Suddenly he became aware of hounds and dashed away, staring anxiously behind him and almost running into a gate. The Huntsman reminded the hounds that their business was with foxes, and suddenly the hunt was inspired by the thrilling music of a find.

  Mrs. Bradley was a light-weight and was on a rather high horse. It was a gentlemanly creature, but it wanted to be up with the foremost. It got into its stride, its elderly rider nothing loth, and, grinning with pleasure, Mrs. Bradley went past her nephew with a thunder of hoofs and a devil’s dance of thick-flying clods, as the ten-couple pack fled on.

  Jonathan shook loose the bay mare and soon caught up with his aunt. At a stone-faced bank he lost her again, for the mare pecked, whereas Mrs. Bradley’s nobleman, deciding that the bank was negligible, soared over it with a terrific lift of his haunches but as neatly as a ribboned jumper at a horse show.

  The sun rose higher, the clods continued to fly, everyone was warm, and the first fever-heat of enthusiasm settled to a tattoo of hoof-beats.

  ‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable,’ yelled Jonathan, catching up with his aunt again as the hounds streamed into a sandy road and checked for an instant at the turn.

  ‘Rubbish,’ responded Mrs. Bradley. ‘The tushery in pursuit of the brushery is far more applicable.’ She waved her whip towards a rather precious young man who was obviously clinging on for dear life and who was doing so badly that the motion of his tall, heavy horse resembled that of a Bactrian camel.

  ‘Lor!’ said Jonathan, awe-stricken. ‘Do you think he learned to ride like that in a circus?’

  His aunt by-passed this uncharitable remark, and the course soon changed. The hedge at the roadside was broad and could not be leapt from the difficult, low-lying track. The hounds found a gap, but the riders, except for the Huntsman (who discovered a thin place and pulled his horse through and over) were forced to jog-trot behind a milk-van until they came to a gate.

  ‘Lost touch,’ said Jonathan, for there was now no sign of the hounds. ‘This way. Come on. I know it here. We’ll soon pick up again.’

  The way led along a path worn during the summer by picnic-parties, goats and marauding boys. In the foreground there was a wood. Skirting this, and guided by the sound of the horn, Jonathan and his aunt soon found themselves on a downhill slope and heading towards a wicket-gate into the woods. In front of them was the circus equestrian.

  ‘Damn!’ said Jonathan. He pulled up. ‘Sorry. I’ll get off and open it.’

  The camel-rider, however, had no such scruples. He made a dash at the gate, had the salutary experience of a rightly-refusing horse, and landed on the top of his head.

  ‘Job for you,’ said Jonathan to his aunt. Mrs. Bradley abandoned her horse, opened the gate and knelt beside the stricken and unconscious egoist. Gently she felt for the injury. This was not very severe. The man had been wearing a top-hat with his pink, and this had acted as a crash helmet. In a second or two he sat up, shaky but in possession of his faculties.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Silly trick.’

  ‘You might have spiked your mare,’ said Jonathan severely; but his aunt thought better of the young exquisite than she had supposed she would. She and her nephew helped him up.

  ‘You had better trot off home,’ said Mrs. Bradley kindly. ‘You’ve had a bad shaking. Which way do you think we should go?’ she asked her nephew when the young man had gone, for, beyond the wicket gate, the woodland rides diverged.

  ‘Let’s follow this one,’ said Jonathan, leading the way. ‘If the fox has gone towards Gracebarrow we’ll probably catch up with the others. The woods there are full of foxes. In fact, there’s a legend, which is certainly borne out by my experience, that when a fox heads for Gracebarrow you may as well give up and go home. It’s very bad going, for one thing, all scrub and uncleared woodland and overhanging branches and bogs and tussocky grass. Still, I think we’ll press on and investigate.’

  The narrow path they were following would only allow them to ride in single file. It mounted steadily and surely, and wove in and out among the trees and then through a carpet of bluebell plants.

  ‘Glorious colour next month,’ said Jonathan, pointing. After about half a mile the character of the woodland began to change. The ride became as wide as a road, the bushes had been cut back, and there was a border of wild anemones and a carpet of dog violets.

  Jonathan reined in his mare and his aunt drew level with him. Raising his whip he pointed onwards and upwards, for the slope was still uphill, although now it was very gradual.

  ‘Let’s gallop,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a mile and a half of this, and it’s simply grand.’

  After the sauntering pace at which they had been walked, the horses were ready for a change. The ride became almost level, and the going was better than good. For half a mile the riders thudded along on ground which was soft and easy and yet firm enough to resist the pressure of hoofs.

  Jonathan reined in again. The trees had thinned. The riders were on the sky line. Below them, field upon field, was undulating arable and pasture, two or three winding roads, wooded hills and the sun on the beeches.

  ‘Lovely!’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘What is more, I can see the hounds.’

  In the dale between a ploughed field and a dark little copse of firs, the white and tan hounds were speeding across the pasture.

  ‘Come on!’ said Jonathan. ‘I know a short cut to get down there.’

  Jonathan’s short cut did not play them false and was not a severe test for the horses, but by the time he and Mrs. Bradley had caught up with the rest of the followers, the hounds were at fault and the run was temporarily checked.

  ‘Can’t understand this,’ said Jonathan to his aunt. ‘It’s a very sudden check considering how well the hounds were going, and we’re nowhere near Gracebarrow yet.’

  ‘Gone to ground,’ said a stout farmer on a sweating chestnut. ‘Known ’em do that at this very place before. I reckon us can give up and trot along home. Lost him properly this time, us have.’

  But this dark view went unheeded, for in another moment there was a wild cry from a boy on a bicycle.

  ‘Hi! Mister! Mister! He come out in Parson’s Medder! Go you that way!’

  A cart-track led past a farm and there was a scurry of straying fowls. There were no casualties, and, once through the farmyard, the riders came to a shoulder of land that mounted to a sparse little copse. Avoiding this, the pack scrambled under a broken fence and were up and over the shoulder and lost to sight. The Huntsman and the Master put their horses at the fence. Someone dismounted and opened a gate. One or two followed the Master and there was a spill.

  Mrs. Bradley, whose medical training and social instincts took pride of place over her interest in chasing the fox, dismounted to attend to the damage.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said the sufferer, wincing under Mrs. Bradley’s sternly exploratory hands. ‘Nothing broken. Thought my collar-bone had gone, but it hasn’t—this time. Lucky the falling is soft. I was a fool to attempt the fence on a hireling and on an uphill slant like that. You shouldn’t have stopped. Look, please don’t trouble any further. I’m staying at a pub over there, about a couple of miles away. I shall be quite all right.’

  Mrs. Bradley, having assured herself that the fall, although heavy, had indeed broken no bones, told her nephew to ride on. Then l
eisurely she looped the reins over her arm, watched her patient and her nephew depart, and led her horse up the hill in the direction which had been taken by the hunt.

  At the top of the rise, she could see some woods, more blue than green except for a larch tree here and there, and some hawthorns just breaking into leaf, and between herself and the trees was a grim-looking wall of Cotswold stone, the kind of obstacle which, although it was common enough, had, so far, been avoided by the fox. She led her horse to a stone stile, remounted and then walked him alongside the wall in search of a gate.

  She soon found one. It was guarded by a young countryman who opened it for her at once, obligingly pointed out the route the fox had taken, and, wheeling an ancient bicycle from where he had propped it up, passed through the gate behind her, shut it carefully, and then mounted his machine and accompanied her, wobbling uncomfortably on the coarse grass. Together she and her bone-rattling escort rode across the next field and towards the woods.

  ‘Ah, they’ve got to hunt him again, the cunning old fellow!’ exclaimed the young man, as he and Mrs. Bradley caught a glimpse of a pink coat in among the trees. ‘This way, mam. There’s an easy way in for them as knows. You’ll be up on the old rascal as soon as any of’em. Come you along o’ me. Your ’orse won’t take no notice of my bike.’

  There was no doubt hounds were at fault. Mrs. Bradley’s escort dismounted, leaned his bicycle against a piece of chestnut fencing, swung away on foot to the right and introduced her into the wood by way of a bridle path guarded by a gate.

  ‘He’s dished us, I think,’ said Jonathan, as his aunt and her escort came up. ‘Headed back for his own country, I shouldn’t wonder, or else gone to ground in here. Never mind. It’s a lovely day. Shall we be ambling home, or will you wait to see whether we pick him up again?’

  ‘I’ve had enough, if you have,’ said his aunt, re-settling her hat, which a branch had knocked slightly askew. ‘What’s the matter with that couple of hounds?’

  Apparently the Master had the same desire for information. The couple had their muzzles inside a badger’s sett and were baying as though they were demented.