Bones in the Barrow

by Josephine Bell

  Johnson crawled to the end of the barrow and put his head round it. When he crawled back he whispered: “There’s something down the path. I think it’s the bike; I can’t hear the engine now. No lights. I’m going over to warn the others. If I haven’t time to get back—I mean if someone comes this way—I’ll stop there with them. Don’t make a sound till you hear him going away, and only if he’s been messing about with the end barrow. And you get down and stay down, Mrs. Wintringham, if there’s any trouble.”

  “I’ll see she does,” said David.

  They heard Johnson moving until he passed the end of the mound against which they lay. Then they heard nothing more.

  Suddenly Jill clutched at David’s arm. There were sounds on the path, a faint clatter, a slight scuffling, and little panting noises, very light and breathy. Jill’s hand clenched more tightly. Something was approaching the barrows out of the darkness, but what? Surely not a child, or children? Something strange, something not of this world?

  “Sheep,” breathed David in her ear. She choked on a laugh, and instantly his hand came to cover her mouth. “Someone started them up. Listen.”

  The unseen sheep rustled past, pushing into one another, their little hard feet clicking on the occasional chalk stones in the grass. Another sound came to her ears: the regular faint thud of feet moving rapidly. Abruptly, the sound ceased. Someone had reached the barrows. As all the watchers pressed close to their protecting mounds, a thin wavering shaft of light played past them. Whoever had come was using a torch to light his activities.

  These were not long in doubt. The stranger began to dig, and under cover of the noise he made David whispered to Jill triumphantly: “The millionth chance. It’s come off!”

  “When do I—”

  “Not yet. I’ll tell you when.”

  The digging went on for about fifteen minutes, then there was a pause, during which they heard a petrol lighter click on, and presently a faint smell of tobacco floated to them across the barrow. Soon after there was some scuffling, some deep breathing, and then the sounds of digging began again.

  “Now,” breathed David. Jill rose to her knees, her face level with the top of the mound.

  The torch had been put out when the stranger took his rest, and had not been relit. The whole scene lay in darkness; there was not even the light of stars, for the sky was overcast. Though her eyes were by now well accustomed to the gloom, Jill could scarcely make out the shape of the barrow where the noise went on, still less the outline of the moving form on the other side of it.

  Into the dark a thin sound cut, clear and high, like the crying of a far-off bird.

  “Pe-ter!”

  There was a crash as a tool dropped to the ground.

  “Pe-ter!” the cry came again, louder this time; and again, with a sob between the words, “Oh—Peter!”

  A despairing shout, so hoarse with terror that it startled even David, burst from the gloom beyond the mounds. In the next instant the stranger was running, stumbling, panting, swearing, as he fled from his guilt.

  The silence gave place to pandemonium.

  David, Johnson, and Colonel Wetherall sprang in pursuit; Jill and the vicar, following their instructions, trained torch beams on the flying figures. But the fugitive was nimble, and he appeared to know his way better than the others. Moreover, the whole pack of hunters and hunted was soon out of range of the light, with nothing much to guide them. They were making too much noise themselves, particularly the colonel, to be able to hear the footsteps of the quarry.

  Jill and Mr. Symonds moved slowly after them, not very sure how to help, and both hoping to miss the capture. But shortly afterwards a blood-curdling yell made Jill seize the vicar’s arm, while he stopped and even drew back a little towards the barrows.

  “They’ve got him,” said Jill, in a shrinking voice.

  “I’m afraid not,” said the vicar, whose ears were keen. “I’m afraid the detective has only got Colonel Wetherall. Poor John, his second mishap tonight! He will be so upset.”

  As the colonel, only slightly winded, was by now rising to his feet, and displaying his remarkable virtuosity of speech, Jill was ready to agree with Mr. Symonds. They were all too preoccupied to hear the splutter and roar of the motor-bike starting up—all except David, who had been ahead of the others.

  Chief-Inspector Johnson, much mortified, bent to the storm. The arrival of Jill and Mr. Symonds started its decline, and presently David, coming panting back up the path, brought it to an end.

  “Got away, I’m afraid,” he said. “Listen. That’s his bike in the village now. But I’ve won something. I found it on the path.”

  He flourished an old green deer-stalker hat.

  “I’ve been waiting for this to turn up,” said Johnson, taking it in his hand.

  “Part of the burglary at Boxwood.”

  “Part of the fake job there. This proves it.”

  “Why? I should have thought not. In the sense you mean.”

  They moved back to the barrows, Johnson walking ahead, alone, the colonel, limping slightly, in the rear. Johnson’s torch was directed to the ground. He stopped short at the first barrow.

  “Don’t come any closer, Mrs. Wintringham,” he ordered sternly.

  “Then it is— You have found—”

  David went on to join the inspector. The others waited. They could see, in the light of Johnson’s torch, a bundle lying on the ground, and they had no wish to look at what it contained. It was enough to watch the change on the faces of the two men.

  “A single blow, but a savage one,” said David. “The bone is split for three inches and splintered besides. You should be able to identify without too much trouble.”

  “Is it—” Jill said, and hesitated. “Is it—what you expected?”

  “Yes,” said Inspector Johnson. “It is what we hoped. And taken together with the hat he dropped, and this paper in the wrappings, I have no doubt we know who did it.”

  “You don’t mean Hilton, do you?” said David, sharply.

  “I do mean Hilton. And I mean to act.”

  “You can act, if you feel you must,” said David. “It might be the best thing to do in the circumstances. But Hilton didn’t kill his wife. Tonight has proved, if we needed proof, that whoever murdered Felicity Hilton, her husband was not the man.”

  III

  A dead silence followed David’s assertion, then Johnson said curtly: “We’re wasting time. I must get back to the White Hart and send out a general call. You approve, Colonel?”

  “Let’s hear what Dr. Wintringham has to say,” said the chief constable. Having been the victim of a very painful mistake on the part of Scotland Yard, he was feeling distinctly cold towards the inspector.

  “Only this,” said David. “I happen to know that Hilton has a diseased heart. For years he has never moved at a faster rate than a moderate walk. If he had gone off in a sprint like the one we saw, or rather heard, just now, it is doubtful if he would have got as far down the path as his motor-bike. He would almost certainly have given up before he got away on it. Therefore it was not Hilton, but the shadowy customer we have been trying to catch up on from the start. And were never nearer to it than tonight. Moreover, he answers to the name of Peter. Jill scared the daylights out of him with her performance of Felicity’s ghost.”

  “I think a good many of my parishioners would be scared of something they believed to be supernatural, guilt or no guilt,” said the vicar, mildly. “But of course the head lies there: you have proved the guilt.”

  “If you say Hilton’s heart is bad, I’ll have to take it as true,” said Johnson, unwillingly. “But I’m not convinced he couldn’t run, a short way, anyhow. The man is no invalid. He comes down here to Duckington, and thinks nothing of spending a day digging up prehistoric remains. I’m going straight back now. And I’d like a warrant, sir, if you agree.”

  “I agree with Dr. Wintringham,” said the colonel stubbornly. “Go down to the White Hart and s
ee what Hilton has been doing all afternoon and evening, since he got back from Flitton. If the man has not gone, and has a proper alibi, you’d better wait until you get back to London, and Hilton to Boxwood, before you start talking about warrants.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Chief-Inspector Johnson. He picked up the grisly parcel, still lying at his feet, and walked rapidly away into the distance.

  “Will he really go to the White Hart?” said Jill anxiously. David understood the thought in her mind.

  “Police station first, probably. If he tries to get Hilton to identify that head in its present condition, he’ll most likely kill the man,” he said. “We’d better go down there ourselves as quickly as possible. But I think Johnson only wanted to go there because it is the nearest place to phone from, nearer than the police station, and he wants to put out his call to pick up the motor-bike, if it left Duckington.”

  “I shall go straight home,” said Mr. Symonds. “I can be of no use now, and I have not got your hardened nerves. I feel sickened by the whole ghastly business. Are you coming with me, John?”

  Colonel Wetherall shook his head.

  “No, Francis. I’m going to the White Hart. I want to see this fellow Hilton, if he’s still there. That damned detective isn’t going to bully anyone in the neighbourhood if I can help it. Clumsy—”

  David and Jill walked on ahead down the path, the others following; a progress marked by short bursts of profanity from the colonel whenever the uneven ground jolted the leg that had suffered in his two encounters.

  At the road they parted: Mr. Symonds went on down the main road to the vicarage near the church, while the other three crossed to a lane leading to the back of the White Hart.

  There they hurried into the saloon bar. It was two minutes to closing time. Jill and the colonel sat down while David went up to the bar. While he was paying for the drinks he said casually to the barmaid, “I think a friend of mine is staying here. A Mr. Hilton.”

  “Yes, sir,” the girl answered readily. “But I don’t know if he’s in. He’s been out most of the day.”

  “Do you happen to know if he is staying overnight, or going back to London?”

  “I don’t, sir. But I could ask Mrs. Norbury.”

  “I’ll go round and ask her myself,” said David. He left a tip on the counter and carried the drinks back to the others, intending to finish his own quickly and then to find the proprietress in her office in the residential part of the hotel.

  But he was forestalled by the arrival in the saloon bar of Mrs. Norbury herself, looking for Colonel Wetherall. She saw him at once, and hurried towards the table where all three were sitting.

  “You are wanted on the phone, Colonel Wetherall,” she said breathlessly. “It’s Mr. Symonds, and he says it’s very important.”

  While the colonel hurried away, David introduced himself and Jill as friends of both the vicar and Mr. Hilton.

  “We have been up on the downs with Mr. Symonds,” said Jill in her cool voice. “We had a long walk up there. We thought we would like to call here on our way back to—”

  She stopped. It might offend Mrs. Norbury to know that they were staying at the Royal Arms. But the latter had not listened to her last sentence.

  “On the downs,” she said. “There now! I wonder you didn’t meet him. He went up there for a walk himself.”

  “When?” said David harshly. Mrs. Norbury turned to look at him, and it seemed to both Jill and David that her eyes took on a wary look.

  “Just after dinner,” she said, and added, “He’s been back this last half-hour or so.”

  “Where is he?” asked David quietly.

  “Well,” Mrs. Norbury answered. “I think he’s in his room. He hasn’t been well lately, and—”

  “If he wasn’t well,” said David, “surely, after his day with the archaeological types, it was a bit unwise to go out again?”

  Mrs. Norbury made no answer to this.

  “If you’ll come with me,” she said, “I’ll show you the way to his room.”

  Her cheeks were unusually pink as she knocked at Mr. Hilton’s door, and pinker still when he opened it a few seconds later.

  “Some friends of yours,” she said. “They’ve been walking on the down. I told them you’d been up there, too, this evening.”

  “Up— Oh, yes, I was up there too,” said Alastair Hilton.

  When David had explained the situation he said, “So now you know what happened, would you care to tell me where you really were tonight between eight and ten-fifteen?”

  “No,” said Hilton quietly. “Not until I’ve thought it over.”

  “For God’s sake don’t say a damned silly thing like that to Inspector Johnson! He’s got it in for you already. In addition to the—main exhibit—there’s a hat of yours, found on the path, and some pages of that archaeological magazine you take. Both, I think, rather crude plants. Nobody in their senses would wear a deerstalker on a motor-bike, but Johnson may not look at it that way. On the other hand it explains your burglary. The murderer wanted something of yours to leave at or near the barrow to lead the trail there. No doubt he would have done something to promote another dig. In his curiously haphazard way he is drawing a net round you, Hilton. And you’ve got to break out before the police close it on you, and let him escape. So come along! Out with it! Where were you?”

  “He won’t say,” said Jill, forestalling Hilton’s refusal. “But it doesn’t matter, because I think I know. And I know how to find out, too.”

  Before David could ask her what she meant there was another knock at the door. Jill went to open it. The new visitor turned out to be Colonel Wetherall. He wanted to speak to Mr. Hilton.

  “You here!” the colonel said, with some disgust, seeing David.

  “Sorry, sir, yes. This is Mr. Hilton and—hullo, where’s Jill?”

  “She went out of the door as I came in. Didn’t you notice?”

  “No. As a matter of fact I wasn’t watching her.”

  He had been looking at Alastair Hilton, but he did not see any necessity to say so.

  “Damned if I can see any sense in your profession mixing itself up in affairs of this sort,” said the colonel. “And I know bloody well I wouldn’t let my wife take a hand in them too.”

  “Times change,” said David, mildly. “But I agree that my two professions do sometimes appear to clash.”

  “You, sir!” said the colonel to Hilton. “That insufferable chap from Scotland Yard has the impudence to suggest you killed your wife. Not true, is it?”

  “No,” said Hilton.

  “Glad to hear it. Never thought his story held water. Been over at Symonds’ place. Might have settled this business sooner if I’d known before, but the message came after we left.”

  “May I know what message?” asked David.

  “From Joe at the Royal Arms.” He turned back to Hilton. “You stay where you are, sir, whatever happens. Your medical friend here can be responsible for you. Eh, Wintringham? See he doesn’t leave this room till I come back. Got that?”

  “Yes,” said David. “I’m sure neither of us wishes to move at present.”

  “Don’t care what you wish. It’s an order, if you don’t want to find yourselves in cells before morning.”

  Colonel Wetherall closed the door behind him, and they heard him stumping off along the passage.

  “I don’t understand a word that man said,” complained Hilton. “Who is Joe and what does he signify?”

  “Joe is a barman at the Royal Arms, who has a friend called Daisy employed here,” said David. “I think you know Daisy. I hope I am right in what I think Joe signifies, but I’d rather leave it to the colonel to explain to you.”

  “In the meantime,” said Hilton, “we may as well sit down and be comfortable.”

  They were not to rest for long, however. Voices in the corridor died away at Hilton’s door, and it was opened, without knocking, by Chief-Inspector Johnson, followed by two uniformed poli
cemen.

  “Alastair Hilton,” began Johnson, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Jill and Mrs. Norbury, who burst into the room together.

  “Keep those women out!” said Johnson, furiously, to his assistants.

  “You stand out of my way, Frank Parker,” said Mrs. Norbury, and was not impeded. She walked firmly to Mr. Hilton’s side. “Now,” she said, “what’s the meaning of this disturbance in my hotel, and after closing time, too?”

  “I am a police officer,” began Johnson, but he got no further.

  “I wouldn’t care if you were twenty police officers,” Mrs. Norbury assured him. “What do you mean, breaking into a guest’s room on false pretences?”

  “Obstructing an officer of the law in his duty is an offence,” said Johnson. “I am not going to explain my business to you. I am here to make an arrest.”

  “Oh, no, you aren’t,” said Mrs. Norbury. “And I don’t want your explanations. Mrs. Wintringham has given me the gen on your little performance up on the down tonight. I know what you think and I know you’re wrong. Because Mr. Hilton wasn’t outside the White Hart all the evening, and I’m ready to swear that in a court of law.”

  “But you said—” began David, and stopped.

  “He confessed to being out and had no alibi?” said Johnson. “Exactly what I thought.”

  “Both Hilton and Mrs. Norbury said he was out,” agreed David, “but I didn’t believe them.”

  “We told a lie,” said Mrs. Norbury. “He did it because I had, and he thought I didn’t want the truth spread about. As if I should mind, if it was something important. He was in my private sitting room downstairs, if you want to know. He was telling me the whole story, of his wife’s disappearance, and what Dr. Wintringham has found out about it.”

  She implied that the police had been perfectly helpless in the matter.

  “Now look here, Mrs. Norbury,” said the chief-inspector sternly. “I’ve been very patient with you, but I’m not going to be turned from my duty by a story invented for the occasion.”

  “Oh, but it wasn’t,” said Jill. “Was it, Daisy?”