Unholy Writ

by David Williams

  Treasure suddenly halted and pointed ahead. ‘Look, the floor of the cenotaph, it’s been blown wide open.’

  The only cenotaph known to PC Morgan stood in Whitehall, but his lack of familiarity with architectural terminology was no hindrance to his understanding of Treasure’s exclamation. It was clear enough that the base of what looked like a small bandstand a few yards ahead had recently acquired a hole in the middle. Chunks of concrete and flagstone littered the immediate area, and the air was still heavy with dust and the reek of what the policeman recognized as explosives.

  ‘I wouldn’t stand under that roof, sir.’ But Treasure ignored the admonition. He had too much faith in the structural principles employed by the designer of the cenotaph to believe that the blowing of the relatively neat, square hole he was examining in the centre of the floor would bring down the rest of the edifice if it had not done so already. Even in the circumstances, he was unable to resist a spontaneous mental tribute to the genius of the cenotaph’s designer. He then applied a good deal more thought to the likely identity and the professional skill of whoever it was had arranged such unconventional access to whatever lay beneath the floor without damaging or even apparently endangering the rest of the unique little edifice. Before his calculations on this score reached their inevitable conclusion – but only just – both Treasure and Constable Morgan swung round to look in the direction of the Hall and the source of a thunderous noise easily identified as the merciless revving of a motor-cycle engine.

  ‘My bike!’ cried the patrolman, racing back along the path toward the gate. Treasure fell in behind him, offering up a silent prayer that the stealing of a police motor-cycle was not now to be the latest bizarre supplement to the inexplicable behaviour pattern that day of General Sir Arthur Moonlight, late of the Royal Engineers.

  Nine hours in a cold, damp tunnel had done little to assuage the fear in the heart and mind of tiny Fred. Apart from the unsuitable clothing he was wearing, his discomfort was increased by the fact that he had eaten nothing since midday. The situation would have been more bearable had he not been aware of his close proximity to abundant supplies of food. He was not without a certain native cunning, and he had determined to return to the Filipino dormitory in the basement of the Hall at daybreak, relying on his older brother Johnnie to provide whatever protection might be required against further assault from his fat tormentor. It was possible also that at the start of a new day the boss-man would have found other people to persecute, since the object of his attacks seemed to be governed more by proximity than by provocation.

  In all this, Fred had discounted the likelihood of calls from the inner man. Quite simply, he became very hungry. Without upsetting his major strategy, there seemed no reason why he should not slip into the Hall through an open window, take some food, and return to his tarpaulin-shrouded hiding place. On arrival at the Hall, he was thwarted in this aim by his failure to find a window open or capable of being opened. Worse than this, peering into that lower part of the building that had been the home of himself and his compatriots for nearly two weeks, he saw that it was empty – not only of people, but also of sleeping bags, trestle tables, and all the impedimenta they had brought with them. His brother and the others had gone, vanished, disappeared without word or trace. Fred began to weep, silently, but his whole small body heaved with grief. He was alone, deserted, left perhaps as the singular object for further harassment by the demon Englishman.

  In a mood of deep despair Fred made his way back towards the tunnel where he could consider his plight in familiar and safe surroundings. It was during this progress that he witnessed the awful act – a scene that heaped terror upon existing misery. He saw a man struck down by another with such ferocity as to make him wish he had never left his native Mindanao where at least such things were expected and where a man comported himself accordingly – self-protected and on his guard.

  It was then that Fred made his mistake. Circling the swimming pool with the same stealth he had employed throughout this nocturnal perambulation, but with the return to the haven of his hiding place uppermost in his mind, he fell over a wheelbarrow. It was because he had been watching the movements of the man who had carried out the assault that he had been careless about his own actions. Picking himself up, he quickly realized there was no further point in attempting to hide his presence. He had been heard, and now he had been seen by the man at the northern end of the swimming pool who a moment before had dispatched his first victim with a violent blow on the head into the bottom of the excavation, and with the club he was still holding in his hand.

  For the second time that day, instant flight in the cause of self-preservation became Fred’s only consideration. Yet before he had time even to turn away from the figure as startled at discovery as he was himself, and happily separated from him by the length of a very deep hole, a great explosion rocked the ground on which he was standing and momentarily dazed as well as deafened him.

  Had Fred been of a contemplative disposition this would have been the moment for him to consider the evident absurdity of his having accepted to leave his unruly native land for the safety and rewards of working in Britain. In the course of less than one day he had been kicked in the stomach by a parson, shot by a golf-ball, narrowly escaped additional hurtful, and conceivably unnatural, bodily assault, had been forced to defend himself before being turned into a common fugitive, starved, and then deserted. Now, having witnessed a murder and qualified as the killer’s next victim, he had been close enough to an explosion reasonably to assume that it had been intended for his personal destruction.

  It was only a summation of these thoughts that went through Fred’s mind as the surprise of the blast jerked him off balance and toppled him one step backwards to the very edge of the swimming pool. His arms flayed the air in a useless attempt to avert the inevitable. A moment later he was free-falling through ten feet to the bottom of the excavation, involuntarily preparing himself for painful impact with the ground. Fortunately, the heavy rainfall earlier had resulted in the accumulation of nearly a foot of water at the deep end of the pool. Below this the ground was exceptionally wet and muddy so that while Fred could hardly have claimed the pleasure from his dive that future users of the finished pool would enjoy, his fall was nevertheless well cushioned.

  Caked in mud, very wet, but unhurt, Fred rolled himself over and grasped the edge of the tarpaulin sheet that shrouded the side of the pool, searching the while for the figure he had last seen hovering at the other end. The man was moving quickly down the long side of the pool furthest away from Fred, peering intently at the dark corner into which the Filipino had fallen. Fred calculated the man’s next action, and decided his own best move was to retreat behind the tarpaulin into comparative safety. It was at this moment that simultaneously a door banged somewhere in the middle distance, lights began to appear in the upstairs windows of the Hall, and the sound of Patrolman Morgan’s engine rent the still night air.

  Fred remained where he was and watched the advancing figure hesitate, then cast a backward glance to the upper storey of the Hall behind him. The man looked again in Fred’s direction as well as at the still form of his victim spreadeagled, face downwards, at the shallow end of the pool. The sound of the motor-cycle engine was coming closer. The man hesitated no longer. He turned and hurried into the shadow of the house as the sound of running footsteps became audible from the direction of the Dower House.

  Through an accident of fate, while Fred could boast very few accomplishments in life, he was more at home in the saddle of a motor-cycle than he was anywhere else. He and his brother had never had a home in the accepted sense, and the shanty they inhabited was more a workshop and shelter for their prized and only possession than it was a dwelling for themselves. That possession was a thirty-year-old motor-cycle that had begun life as a 150 c.c. BSA but which could now boast such an assortment of parts and patches as to make its real provenance a matter for conjecture, even by experts. Despite its decrep
itude, the machine provided the brothers with a livelihood better than they could earn as fishermen, employed, as it was, as the fastest and most efficient carrier of goods, messages, and often passengers around the island on which they lived. At least, this had been the situation until a few months earlier when even the ingenuity of the two self-taught mechanics had failed to revive the outworn engine after what both had recognized as a definitely terminal splutter. The object of joining the work-gang recruited for England had been to raise the money for a new, or at least newer, machine.

  Crouching in the corner of the swimming pool, three-quarters hidden by the tarpaulin, Fred had witnessed the encounter between Treasure and PC Morgan, and surreptitiously watched them both depart in the direction of the explosion. Left behind was a vision in gleaming steel and chrome, a purring, powerful, perfect example of the ultimate in the motor-cycle manufacturer’s art. Even had Fred been capable of rational action, then he might still have followed his natural inclination to seize upon the sure, familiar method of escape and salvation that presented itself. Hauling himself up by the side of the tarpaulin, Fred was astride the machine a few seconds after the owner had disappeared through the gate. It did not take him much longer to familiarize himself with the location of the essential controls. He had no idea where he was going except that the further it was from where he was starting, the better he would like it. He gave the throttle a twist and listened to the reassuring burst of power that came from beneath him. The headlight of the machine seemed to illuminate the whole area before him so that he could easily follow the track made in the soft ground by Patrolman Morgan’s entry.

  At the main gate of Mitchell Hall Fred halted the machine. To the left the road was flanked by buildings on both sides – evidence of the existence of people, motor-cars and thus agents of pursuit. To the right lay what looked like open country and a clear road. Fred turned right – to the Golf Club, and a dead end.

  Chapter Eighteen

  George Scarbuck stood on the edge of his future swimming pool wringing his hands in anguish. A casual observer might well have assumed he was some lunatic preparing to dive, fully clothed, into the shallow end of the empty hole. Treasure and Patrolman Morgan raced into view through the churchyard gate.

  ‘It was Fred,’ cried Scarbuck, seeing the two men. ‘He’s pinched a motor-bike – I saw him – And there’s a body here in the pool. I think it’s Eustace Dankton. Oh Lord!’

  ‘Constable,’ said Treasure, assuming command, ‘you’d better see to things here and I’ll get after that maniac Filipino – my car’s handy. God knows how many more people he’s going to write off if someone doesn’t catch him.’

  Treasure began to move off in the direction of the Dower House just as Arthur Moonlight walked on to the scene. At the same time Trapp came through the gate at the double, clad in Royal Marine battledress, followed by a breathless Thelma Goodbody – in evening dress.

  ‘Come with me, Timothy,’ said Treasure, confident that he was recruiting wisely for a militant posse. He turned to Moonlight. ‘Arthur, we’ve got another body. Get Scarbuck to ring the police.’

  Constable Morgan suppressed the obvious protest that he was the police – humiliated by the disappearance of his high-powered charger and his means of instant radio communication. Coping single-handed with unexplained explosions, bodies in swimming pools, and surrounded by possible suspects, it was to his credit and relief that he accepted Treasure’s orders and priorities. The banker’s air of authority qualified him as the bystander best suited to render the police assistance in the circumstances, and Constable Morgan watched him disappear without misgiving.

  ‘The car’s over here,’ said Treasure, pointing to the near side of the Dower House. Trapp was abreast of him, Bach was ahead enjoying the race, while Miss Goodbody was making fair progress in fourth position. ‘Stop a second. Listen!’ Treasure grasped Trapp’s shoulder. The noise of the motor-cycle engine, which a moment before had diminished almost to the point of inaudibility, was suddenly increasing again, as though the machine was approaching rather than leaving the village.

  Fred had taken the only course open to him. His flight to freedom had come to an abrupt halt half a mile along the road when he very nearly collided with a stout steel gate, securely locked and spanning the whole thoroughfare.

  Some months before, the one hundred and nine affluent householders who comprised the membership of the Mid-Stoke Estate Residents’ Association had corporately decided that even if they had to suffer the increasing hazard of nocturnal robbery, they could do something to diminish the quantity and weight of possessions lifted, as it were, from under their somnolent noses.

  All five access roads to the golf-course had therefore been fitted with gates kept locked between the hours of midnight and six a.m. Nor was it possible to circumvent the obstacles with a machine as narrow even as a motor-cycle, a fact Fred soon discovered.

  Six-foot-high, thick-wire fences with concrete stanchions had been erected around the whole perimeter of the golf-course. Fred rode scramble-style on the uneven ground beside one of these for several hundred yards. Despite the weight of the machine, by standing in the saddle the diminutive but experienced Filipino was easily able to control his course. After a few moments of fruitless searching, though more confident of his mount, Fred gave up hope of finding a gap in the fence and turned back to the road. The tarmac regained, the rider made a full-throttled advance on Mitchell Stoke.

  As Treasure eased the Rolls through the stone-pillared gateway of the Dower House, Fred flashed past at sixty miles an hour.

  ‘There he goes,’ cried Miss Goodbody unnecessarily from the back seat. Treasure did not really approve her presence in the car, but there had been no time to argue the point as she had tumbled in beside Trapp. Bach had been permitted aboard for broadly the same reason.

  ‘Hold tight, this may be an exciting ride,’ said Treasure, gunning the accelerator and correcting the tail swing of the car as he centred it on the still-wet road. The rear lights of the motor-cycle were clearly in view. Fred had slowed to take the corner in the road beside the church. Although he had raked the machine ready to turn left, suddenly he braked hard, swayed to the right, then plunged straight ahead and was quickly lost to the beam of the Rolls-Royce headlights. Fred felt a good deal more at home on what looked like a dirt track than he did on a mechanized surface; he was also fairly certain that whatever was coming up behind him was too big to follow him further on the route he had chosen.

  ‘He’s taking the bridle way to the river,’ said Trapp.

  ‘Then we have to know whether he goes north or south when he gets to the towpath,’ replied Treasure, bringing the big car to a halt exactly where PC Morgan had been keeping vigil earlier. From here they could watch the motor-cyclist descend the short slope to the river bank. He turned the machine left, and although it was then almost lost from sight by a line of trees, they could judge the speed and ease of its progress by the flickering side flashes from its lights. They also became aware of one of the reasons why Fred had abandoned the road.

  Police Constable Humble, finally dressed for duty, was approaching from the opposite direction at a snail’s pace behind the wheel of his Panda car. Since the driver’s door was wide open and since Humble could hardly have been in so much of a hurry that he had not had time to shut it, obviously something was amiss. As though to confirm this point, Humble alighted from the car which, although it continued silently to make some progress down the centre of the road, was quickly left behind as its owner sprinted ahead toward the Rolls.

  ‘Battery’s flat,’ announced Mitchell Stoke’s resident enforcer of law and order through the window of the Rolls, his normally reedy alto approaching an anguished falsetto.

  ‘Well, it’s still moving,’ said Miss Goodbody in some surprise.

  ‘Oh, Mother’s pushing at the back,’ announced Humble casually and not, as it happened, quite accurately, for it was at that moment that the front wheels of the driverless
little car turned down the camber of the road. Gently, but inevitably, the vehicle rolled towards an unprotected ditch. ‘Put the brake on, Mother,’ screamed Constable Humble.

  Far from being in any position to execute this last directive – even if she had understood the mechanics involved – Mrs Humble was now revealed, standing on the crown of the road gasping for breath. Clad in a woollen dressing-gown over a flannel nightdress and bedroom slippers adorned with fluffy bobbles, she might have been an incongruous, fading apparition as she now sagged slowly to the ground. Meantime, the car she had been so gamely propelling rolled into the ditch.

  ‘Vincent, you idiot, your mother’s not well enough …’

  Treasure cut the Vicar short. ‘Thelma, nip out and get her home.’ Mrs Humble had rallied at the sitting position, demonstrating that her experience had not been terminal. ‘Humble, jump in the car.’ Treasure judged the policeman might own a better knowledge of local by-roads than either Trapp or himself.

  Miss Goodbody obeyed the order and was already at Mrs Humble’s side as the Rolls swept by. ‘Course I would ’ave me curlers in,’ was the older woman’s breathless but reassuringly normal comment at the sight of her elegant aide.

  Treasure quickly explained the situation to Constable Humble. ‘How far can the chap get along that bridle path on a motor-bike?’ he asked as he raced the big car along the road he knew ran roughly parallel to the river for some distance.

  ‘Well, by rights vehicular traffic’s not allowed …’

  ‘Vincent, don’t be a bloody fool,’ cut in the Vicar. ‘We’re not interested in the bye-laws. Are there any obstacles on the path he can’t get round with a motor-bike?’

  Humble considered the question. ‘Er, no … he can go all the way to Goring if he wants.’