Untimely Death

by Cyril Hare

  CHAPTER V

  A Check

  Pettigrew was not seriously alarmed at first. He realized that the unpredictable creature between his legs was momentarily out of control, but it seemed impossible that a mere pony could so remain for long with the weight of a full-grown man on its back. He had only to keep his head—and his seat—and all would be well. He was soon undeceived. The pony’s first few strides carried it up a slight rise and nearly on to the road, which suddenly appeared from nowhere almost under its feet. Then for some inexplicable reason, instead of continuing forwards, it swerved away suddenly to the left, and plunged onwards across the Tussock, over the brow of the hill and down the other side.

  About half way down a slope that grew progressively steeper every instant, Pettigrew experienced real fear. He knew that he could not stop the pony. With a sudden qualm at the pit of his stomach he realized that the pony could now almost certainly not stop itself. At this speed and on this declivity, a fall was inevitable. Leaning back in his saddle, hauling till his arms ached at the iron-mouthed brute, he had a sudden, swift recollection of a drawing by Leech, depicting just such a scene as he must present—an incompetent rider being run away with down a steep incline. He could even remember the wording of the legend beneath: Our friend Mr. Noddy has a day with the Brookside Harriers. With his usual prudence he gets a horse accustomed to the hills. The vision of Mr. Noddy vanished in a spasm of sheer terror as he felt his mount’s hind legs sink beneath him. They slid for a yard or two down the hillside, in a miniature avalanche of earth and stones, and then the pony seemed to crumple up altogether as the descent ended abruptly on a piece of hard and level ground.

  In some extraordinary fashion Pettigrew had contrived to stay in the saddle up to the end, and in the saddle he remained while the pony scrambled back on to its feet. It was an open question which of the two was in the worse shape. Pettigrew was barely able to sit upright. His heart was thumping in the most alarming manner, and there was a strange roaring sound in his ears. The pony stood stock still, head down, its smoking sides heaving, the picture of exhaustion.

  A humane man, Pettigrew reflected, would have dismounted at once, to give the animal a chance to recover. But he was not feeling in the least humane at the moment towards this beast, for a great many perfectly sound reasons. Besides, he had grave doubts whether in his present state, if he once got off its back, he would ever be able to get on again; and tired though he was of riding, the prospect of walking appealed to him now even less.

  He looked around him. They were, he found, on a broad, level track, almost on the floor of the valley into which he had been looking from the heights above such a short time before. The roaring in his ears resolved itself into the sound of the stream, less than a hundred yards away. Straight ahead of him he could see what was evidently a ford. The track led directly to it and on the other side ran parallel to the stream until lost to sight in a wood—the same wood, he now realized, as that into which the deer and its pursuers had vanished not so long before. Then, quite suddenly, as he watched, the scene, already vaguely familiar, ceased to be anonymous. Place-names, long buried in some hidden recesses of his brain, sprang to life. The Ling Water, he told himself. And Martyrs Ford. Coney Wood, and—down the valley out of sight—Coneywood Mill, where he had seen his first stag killed.

  It was a comfort to know exactly where he was, because it helped him to determine what he was going to do. Of one thing he was quite certain. He was not going to try to return the way which he had come, even supposing there was a practicable way back up the hill. He had taken the pony on to Bolter’s Tussock to look for its rider. It was only too plain that he had found him. After his recent experiences, it was easy to imagine how that unfortunate came to be lying where he was. It was only sheer luck—or the mercy of Heaven, according to how you looked at it—that had saved him from becoming this horrible pony’s second victim of the day. But the discovery had left him with a certain obligation. He could not, this time, simply ride away and say nothing. Besides, he would have to explain his possession of the pony to somebody, and the sooner the better. He decided to be on his way at once. But which way?

  While he hesitated, the pony settled the matter for him by suddenly coming to life and walking stiffly but purposefully towards the ford. Pettigrew was content to let it go. In that direction lay civilization, as represented by Coneywood Mill, and there was always the chance of falling in with the hunt before then. It was taking him away from Sallowcombe but that couldn’t be helped. The problem of getting home must settle itself later on.

  The pony walked half way across the ford and put its nose down into the water. Remembering a cautionary chapter in Black Beauty, Pettigrew tried to restrain it, but he might have been pulling at the bed of the river for all the difference that his efforts made. The beast slaked its thirst thoroughly and then consented to splash its way to the other side.

  Once on the path again, the indomitable animal broke into a trot. Pettigrew, almost too weary to rise in the stirrups, let it jog on for what seemed an interminable distance on a very rough surface under trees with very low-hanging boughs. Presently the track was joined by another, larger path which came down the hill through the woods on their right. Evidently this was the way that the body of the hunt had come, for the imprints of their hooves were everywhere. The pony seemed to notice it also, for it lengthened its stride, making a gait already uncomfortable almost insupportable. Clearly it was as anxious for the company of its kind as Pettigrew himself. He was thankful when rounding a bend, he saw a man on horseback just ahead of him, moving at walking pace in the same direction. The pony consented to slow down as they approached and signalled their presence by bumping heavily into the stranger’s hindquarters. The rider looked round. He was evidently a native and not a visitor, which was all to the good. Pettigrew wasted no time in apologizing.

  “I want your help,” he said crisply. “There’s a man been killed up on the moor, and I’m on his pony.”

  “Eh?”

  The man was evidently very deaf. He had also, Pettigrew now observed, an absolutely villainous face.

  “Eh?”

  It is not easy to shout when one is as pumped as Pettigrew was, but he did his best.

  “There’s a man been killed,” he bellowed. “Killed!”

  The stranger gave a sudden hideous grin of comprehension.

  “Killed!” he said. “Oh, ay—they’m killed all right, I reckon. Down to Coneywood Mill, I shouldn’t wonder. You’d best hurry!”

  A stout stick descended with a crack just behind the pony’s saddle, and Pettigrew was carried helplessly away down the path at a smart canter, pursued by contemptuous laughter.

  Fortunately for Pettigrew, who felt that by now he had plumbed the depths of humiliation, his mount soon began to show that its stamina was not after all quite inexhaustible. It was the best part of a mile to Coneywood Mill, and before that distance had been covered the canter had been reduced to a rather weary and perfectly manageable trot.

  The fellow had been right. They had certainly killed. Pettigrew pulled up to find himself at a scene which had not altered in essentials since he had been ceremonially blooded at the same spot all those years ago. In the little meadow that here separated the wood from the stream a close knot of interested spectators marked where no doubt the huntsman was breaking up his deer. A short distance away the pack was impatiently awaiting the remarkably unattractive portion of the carcase that would shortly fall to its share. And all around, the members of the field, for the most part dismounted, ate their sandwiches, sipped at their flasks, lit their pipes, and explained to one another how singularly well they had gone that day.

  Pettigrew pushed his way on to the grass and looked round him, feeling suddenly at a loss. He had come there to report a violent death, and now he could see nobody to whom to report it. His immediate neighbour, a stout, self-satisfied young man, was holding a horse a good deal better bred than himself while he explained in penetr
ating tones exactly what had been wrong with the huntsman’s tactics. Neither he nor the sharp-featured girl to whom he was talking looked as though they would be in the least interested in the information. Pettigrew moved on and passed in succession three small girls in jodhpurs giggling in a group, an extremely handsome young woman who was running her hands down her horse’s off hind leg while addressing the creature in quite startlingly foul language, and two earnest young sportsmen who proved to be in anxious colloquy about the forthcoming ballet season. None of them seemed to Pettigrew appropriate recipients of his news. He glanced round at the pedestrian onlookers. Although quite a small crowd had collected, for once it did not include a policeman. None of the others stood out as the type of person to whom one should confide a delicate matter of this kind.

  It was an altogether absurd situation. After having endured so much to arrive at Coneywood Mill, he seemed to be still as far from his objective as ever. Short of making an exhibition of himself by shouting out his story at the top of his voice, he did not see what he could do. To whom should one refer the news of a casualty occurring during a day’s hunting? The Master of Hounds? Probably that was the right answer. After all, this was his hunt and he was in a way responsible. Pettigrew looked about for a commanding figure in pink coat and velvet cap and was relieved not to see him. A deeply conventional man, he felt that he was at the moment in no fit state to accost so important a functionary as the Master. It would be like going into Court without a wig. Even by modern standards, both he and his mount must look appallingly dishevelled. People were staring at them already.

  One man was staring, at all events. And not only staring, but speaking.

  “Here, you!” he said. “What are you doing on that pony?”

  “Is this your pony?” said Pettigrew. “Thank God!”

  He was a tall, heavy man riding a dun cob and he listened to the story with an impassive face. Pettigrew noticed that while it was being told he was looking, not at him but at the pony. When it was finished he said, “And which of you let the pony down—you or him?”

  Pettigrew murmured something to the effect that he wasn’t sure.

  “Dammit!” said the stranger. “Have you looked at his knees?”

  Pettigrew had not looked at the pony’s knees. He made up his mind there and then that he would avoid doing so if possible.

  “Well,” the man went on, briskly, “what have you done about this? Have you told Mr. Olding?”

  “No,” said Pettigrew, rather sulkily. “I have not. And who is Mr. Olding, anyway?”

  “Who is he? Good God, don’t you know anything? The Hunt Secretary, of course. I reckon this is his job if it’s anyone’s.”

  Why didn’t I think of that? Pettigrew asked himself. Of course there is a secretary, and of course this is his job. Everything is. Blessed be the name of secretary. Amen.

  “Mr. Olding! Mr. Olding, sir! Can you come here a minute?”

  Mr. Olding could and did. He was a wiry, middle-aged man with keen eyes and that expression of resigned tolerance for human folly, common to senior police officers and hunt secretaries.

  “Well, Tom, what is it this time?” he asked.

  “Mr. Olding, sir, it’s Mr. Percy. He’s been thrown on Bolter’s Tussock, and killed. This gentleman found him there, dead as mutton, and the pony with him. So he gets on the pony and rides down here to tell us.”

  Pettigrew was so impressed that even in his then condition he should be described as a gentleman, that he scarcely noticed the inaccuracy of this account of his adventures.

  “Very good of him,” said Mr. Olding. He turned to Pettigrew. “I suppose you know that pony’s got a shoe loose behind? I noticed it when you came through the gate just now.”

  “I—er——” said Pettigrew.

  “I don’t blame you. You must have had rather a rough ride coming down here.”

  “I allus told Mr. Percy he couldn’t hold the pony,” said Tom. “But he would have ’m.”

  “I suppose that’s why you let him have the animal with a plain snaffle—just to make sure you’d be proved right. It’s simply asking him to bolt.”

  “But he’s not a bolter, Mr. Olding—you know that. It’s simply that when he hears hounds——”

  “All right, Tom. We won’t waste time arguing. We’d better get back to poor Percy. Not that there’ll be much we can do for him now.” He led the way out of the field, talking over his shoulder as he went. “I shall have to break the news to his sister, I suppose. Do you know if she’s got on the telephone yet, Tom? I must remember to ask her if she’ll let me have that spaniel of Percy’s. I was only talking to him about it the other day. He was due to shoot with me next week, and I said to him …”

  Mr. Olding hit off a route back to Bolter’s Tussock that was little longer and a great deal easier than the way by which Pettigrew had come down. None the less, Pettigrew found it a very exhausting ride. He was by now extremely stiff. His legs, in their unsuitable thin flannel trousers, felt lacerated. He had arrived at Coneywood Mill bathed in sweat and the fresh breeze which sprang up as they emerged from the wood sent a chill right through him. The pony went quietly enough, and for this he was grateful. He felt that in his then condition he was liable to tumble off its back on the slightest pretext.

  “Well,” said Mr. Olding, drawing rein on the heathery top of the Tussock. “Here we are. Where does he lie?”

  Pettigrew had never prided himself on possessing a bump of direction, and he had wondered in the course of the ride whether he would be able to find the spot again without long search. But he need not have worried. The position was quite unmistakable. The road on one side and a conspicuous outcrop of rock on the other fixed it beyond doubt. He led the others to it without hesitation.

  There was nothing there.

  *

  After what seemed a long time, Pettigrew heard Mr. Olding say, “It looks as if you’d made a mistake.”

  Pettigrew shook his head miserably.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not mistaken. This was the place all right.”

  “You’re quite sure? You know what it is with a fallen bird. Unless you’ve marked it properly, you may be yards out when you go to pick it up.”

  Pettigrew did not know what it was with a fallen bird, but he remained positive.

  “Well, in that case …” Mr. Olding turned to look at the pony’s owner, and Pettigrew could see in his face a look of scepticism. “It’s a rum business. What do you think, Tom?”

  “Perhaps Mr. Percy wasn’t all that dead, sir?” Tom suggested. “He’d only have a couple of yards to walk to the road, and he would have got a lift home from there.”

  “H’m. A runner, and not a dead bird? It’s an idea.”

  “No,” said Pettigrew. “When I saw him, he wasn’t in a condition to walk a couple of yards, or any distance. And I’m pretty sure he never will be.”

  “You seem bloody positive about everything, sir,” said Mr. Olding. “Upon my word, I’m beginning to wonder——”

  “Mr. Olding, sir! Look behind you!” cried Tom.

  They looked round. Advancing towards them from the direction of Tucker’s Barrows was a small man in riding kit. His bowler hat had a dent in the crown, his face was flushed crimson with heat or emotion or both and he walked as a man will walk who has trudged some distance on a hot day, through thick heather, in top boots; but in all other respects he seemed to be perfectly hale, if not hearty.

  “Good God! Percy!” exclaimed Mr. Olding.

  CHAPTER VI

  At Fault

  “Are you all right, Percy?” asked Mr. Olding anxiously.

  Percy said nothing for a moment. He stood there, in the centre of the little group of mounted men, his red face twitching, his breath coming and going.

  “Am I all right?” he burst out finally. “My godfathers! What the hell do you expect me to be? All right! I like that!”

  He broke into what was evidently intended to be derisive laughter, but wh
ich turned into a fit of coughing.

  “This gentleman said you was dead,” said Tom.

  “This gentleman,” bellowed Percy, “stole my horse.”

  “I did nothing of the sort,” Pettigrew protested.

  “If you didn’t, I’d like to know what you’re doing on him now.”

  “That at least is easily remedied,” said Pettigrew in as dignified a tone as he could summon up. With an immense effort he lifted a leg which felt like solid wood over the pony’s back and got down to the ground.

  “Thank you,” said Percy in a voice heavy with sarcasm and took the pony’s reins.

  Pettigrew was about to say something further, but it was clear that for the time being any words would be wasted on Percy. He was fully occupied in trying to get into the saddle. Quite evidently, the pony, which had been meekness itself when Pettigrew mounted it, had a personal dislike to Percy. No sooner was his foot in the stirrup than it began a rapid circular movement with its forelegs for centre and its hindquarters for circumference, leaving a blaspheming Percy to hop uncomfortably after it. Olding came up alongside in an endeavour to help, but his own horse, hitherto perfectly staid, immediately began to plunge and rear, finishing the performance by kicking the pony smartly in the ribs. The spectacle came to an end only when Tom, who had dismounted, walked across and held the pony firmly by the bridle. It should have been funny, Pettigrew reflected, but he was beyond being amused. He could not even muster a smile at the spectacle of Percy, at last in the saddle, trying to control a restive animal with one hand while shortening his stirrup leathers with the other. Everything that had happened since he began his fatal walk towards Bolter’s Tussock had been so completely alien to what he normally knew as real life that he began to wonder whether the whole thing was not a bad dream. Only the aches and pains that now possessed his every limb were actual enough.