Death of a Busybody

by George Bellairs

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Gormley, and get on with it,” said Mr. Claplady and passed on.

  There was a scuffling in the ditch and the angry face and then the indignant body of Isaiah emerged. No furriner was going to tell him what was right or wrong about prevailing winds and odours in his native village, not even the vicar. In dudgeon, he covered up the sewage-hole with its metal plates, stamped angrily on them, left the job half finished and stumped off in the direction of the village pub. He was going on strike!

  Mr. Claplady, unaware of Gormley’s defection, passed on to his pastoral duties. He had a call to make at the church and then sick visiting to attend to. He was ruffled at Gormley’s impudence and to clear his mind, adopted a mental device which he erroneously thought he had invented himself, of concentrating on and reciting aloud the first piece of poetry that came into his mind.

  I remember, I remember

  The house where I was born…

  muttered Mr. Claplady as he moved to the centre of the village of Hilary Magna.

  Sick missioning did not take Mr. Claplady long that day. His principal client was Mr. Allnutt, grocer and vicar’s warden, now laid low with lumbago. The shopkeeper was cantankerous and gave his father-confessor short shrift, for he was champing at the bit in his bedroom over the shop, listening to the ceaseless tinkle of the bell over the door below, wondering whether his assistant was relaxing in matters of weights and measures and slacking or indulging in dalliance with the girls of the village. Mr. Claplady made a speedy exit, overcome by the reek of liniment and rubbing-bottles.

  In the High Street, the parson encountered the daughter-in-law of Isaiah Gormley, a lazy, prolific woman, five of whose six children had been removed to the isolation hospital, suffering from the prevailing epidemic of scarlet fever. She was standing in the doorway of a small cottage, suckling her latest arrival from a copious breast. She wore a glazed, ecstatic look, her hair was unkempt, her face dirty and her house filthy. Lutulentus sus came wilfully into the good man’s mind as he remembered the reference being made to his own untidy desk and copy-books by his Latin master in student days.

  Mrs. Gormley, junior, was chattering.

  “It’s an ill wind, I allus sez,” she clattered on, half choking her infant by pressing the flowing fount over its face. “A perfect ’oliday fer me, it is. I doan’t know I’m alive with the five of them away…not that I doan’t miss ’em. But I ’ope they doan’t come back too quick. An ’oliday it is for them, too.”

  Mr. Claplady retreated feeling depressed. All his efforts to improve conditions of life and thought in the village by lectures, literature and sermons, seemed to fall on stony ground. But he must not despair. No, he must cast despond from his mind. Again, he applied his little remedy of reciting to himself the first line of poetry that entered his head.

  They say the Lion and the Lizard keep

  The Courts where Jamshid gloried and drank deep,

  And Bahram, the great Hunter, the wild Ass

  Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

  Suddenly realizing with horror, this scrap of infidelity flung up by his mind, the vicar turned his thoughts elsewhere, to Gormley, whom he thought still engaged in his noisome labours.

  Isaiah was not far away. As the parson left the cottage of his son, his dirty, bearded face appeared round the side of the house. His daughter-in-law’s complacency left her.

  “Wot you doin’ ’ere this time o’ day?” she yelled. “Ain’t you got a full day’s work along o’ the vicar’s drain…?”

  Old Gormley quailed. He was afraid of his son’s wife.

  “I bin an’ gone on strike, I ’ave. Nobody, not even parson, be goin’ to critikize the work I be doin’. I give it up and left ’un to do it ’isself.”

  He bared his toothless gums at this idea of a joke. Mrs. Gormley, junior, shrieked, but not with mirth. The smell of ale was on the air around the old curmudgeon, too.

  “Strike, did yer say, yer hidle, lazy, boozy old gufernuttin. As if I ’adn’t enough mouths to feed on Joe’s wage, without you spongin’ on me fer meat and drink. Get you back to work an’ quick about it, an’ doan’t you go playin’ and gossupping on the way. Either you pays me the five bob vicar promised when you comes by it to-night, or else you finds bed and board elsewhere. No room fer scroungin’ old dodgers at this ’ouse. So be off with yer…”

  Before the tirade subsided, Gormley was off across the field to the vicarage again. Anywhere for refuge from the searing tongue. The squealing of his barrowwheel died away in the distance. Gormley had another reason for hurrying. Ahead of him he recognized the figure of the vicar, making for the short cut to his house through the churchyard, over the wall of which lay the cesspool. He must have the lid off and be making a show of working before Mr. Claplady reached him. Otherwise, he might get the sack and then, no five shillings and…He broke into a shambling trot, his barrow leaping over stones in the field-path.

  Meanwhile, the vicar, meditating and serene again, had reached God’s acre and was almost within the range of the savoury smell of the roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and apple-dumplings cooking for his lunch, when a thought struck him. In unconsecrated ground by the churchyard hedge, overlooking the terminus of the vicarage drainage-system, stood a gipsy’s grave, marked by a large stone erected by the Romanies in honour of their lost queen. Prior to Mr. Claplady’s arrival in Hilary, it bore, unchallenged, a strange inscription.

  Darker and darker the black shadows fall.

  Death and oblivion reign over all.

  On entering his new field of labour, the good man had been shocked at the dark, hopeless sentiments allowed to exist in the memorial rhyme. He made up his mind to remedy the evil at once, but pressure of other things had deferred it. Last week, however, he had, at his own expense, instructed the stone mason to carve a remedial line on the slab, which now stood out, white and clear, in contrast to the old lettering. “Till the day break and the shadows flee away.” The vicar read his handiwork with relish. It lifted his thoughts from the commonplace difficulties of the present and pinned them on the future. His soul seemed to take wings and soar.

  A wild cry brought Mr. Claplady to earth. It was a mixture between the bellow of a bull isolated from his herd, and the groan of a boxer punched in the wind. The vicar peered over the hedge whence the sound had come. Old Gormley stood there, rooted to the spot, beside the tank, the cover of which he had just removed. Perceiving the head of the parson poking over the bushes, he pointed a horny finger at the object he had laid bare. It lay like a sack in the cesspool, face downwards, arms outspread. No need to tell Mr. Claplady what or who it was. The ill-fitting, knitted costume was enough. The vicar uttered a choking scream, which he stifled half-way by putting his hand over his mouth.

  “Stay there, touch nothing and let nobody come near,” he squealed at Gormley. Then, gathering up his cassock, he ran to the village by the nearest route, stumbling, gasping and clutching his skirts, like an eager entrant in the sack-race at the sports of his Band of Hope.

  Chapter II

  The Policeman’s Fun Is Spoiled

  P.C. Sam Harriwinckle, representative of law and order in Hilary Magna and Parva, made quite sure that his duties of “keeping an eye on things” took him past the big field of Foxholes Farm when Mr. Wheelwright, the owner, cut the wheat there. It was always a bit of a Derby Day when the event came round. Not only was there a goodly assembly of workers on the job, stooking the sheaves as they were flung from the rattling, thrashing binder and gleaning and tying the loose stuff; there was a shooting-party in attendance as well. The rabbits, hares, wood-pigeons and other brigands of hedge and spinney, which had hitherto enjoyed food and lodging among the golden crop, bolted for cover as activities in the surrounding corn alarmed them. Four local gentlemen of leisure arrived with their guns at the invitation of the farmer and, stationed one at each corner of the diminishing
rectangle of wheat, blazed away at the fleeing vermin. They brought lunch baskets, too, and bottled beers, which they immersed in the cool water of a spring under one of the hedges until required. P.C. Harriwinckle was partial to veal-and-ham pie, cold chicken and good ale and the sportsmen, flushed with the forenoon’s victories over fur and feather, were generous in sharing at mealtime.

  As the constable crossed the fields leading from his cottage to Foxholes Farm, the banging of guns and the clatter of machinery announced that operations had begun. Sam walked sedately, as though conducting an ordinary routine patrol, but he was all agog to be reaching his destination. He drew out a watch like a turnip and gravely consulted it.

  “H’m,” he said to himself. “Nice time. Ha’ past eleven. Knock-off for dinner at twelve-thirty or thereabouts. Mustn’t look as if I’d come cadgin’. Gimme time to walk around, be a bit sociable-like, and then be inwited to a bite o’ lunch.”

  And he nodded to himself at the cunning of his strategy and passed a red handkerchief across his mouth, which was moist from thoughts of the good things to come.

  “I thought we’d be seeing the bobby about feeding time,” said Mr. Wheelwright, chuckling and pointing to a helmet bobbing over the hedge, as the constable made his way to the gate of the cornfield.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Wheelwright,” said Harriwinckle, sidling up and surveying the scene with a businesslike air, as if making sure that all present were honest and of good report. “You got a good day for your cuttin’ agen, and a rare crop you ’ave, to be sure. Thought I’d just call as I was passin’ this way and see how you was getting along. Makin’ good progress, eh?”

  “Yes. Everything going fine and the girls taking the places of the men splendidly,” replied the farmer, indicating three land-girls briskly at work. The sturdy shire horses clopped round and round the field, shying now and then as a stray No. 5 from one of the guns flew past ears or flanks. “Fine-bone! Captain!” yelled the girl on the seat of the binder, calling them to order.

  “Still stick to yer hosses, Mr. Wheelwright,” commented the policeman. “Now, wot I do like to see, is a good hoss. Better’n any tractor, to my mind, though not as fast, not as fast, you’ll ’ave to admit.”

  “No, Sam, but I can’t bring my mind to sellin’ that pair. When they’re past working, I guess I’ll not replace them. I use the tractor for ploughing and the like, but I do like to see a good team afore the binder. Old fashioned, I am. Well, I must be seein’ to things.”

  P.C. Harriwinckle began a round of formal visits to various parts of the field. He visited the men with guns, counted their victims, praised their aim and admired their dogs. They, with one eye on the field, returned his cheerful wishes and Stevenson, the best shot and most genial of the quartette, invited him to help himself to a drink, when so disposed.

  “Thankee, Mr. Stevenson,” said the bobby. “I’ll just wait till the binder stops. I like to watch the sport and wouldn’t miss it.” Which was as good as inviting himself to lunch. Stevenson, with a twinkle in his eye, suggested that a bit of pie might go well with the ale later and Harriwinckle’s heart grew glad under his tunic. Just then, Coleman’s gun banged, first one barrel and then the other. He was the poorest shot of the party and his quarry still survived, struggling, limping to the hedge. Either someone would have to make a run for it, or the poor, maimed thing would get away. P.C. Harriwinckle rose to the occasion. He was a heavy, florid man, but he could pick up his feet when the occasion demanded it. He set off like a charging bull after the rabbit, overtook it, drew his truncheon and finished it off. Work and shooting hung fire and the rest of the party watched the policeman’s progress with growing hilarity. There was a faint cheer and much laughter as he captured his prize. Mr. Wheelwright, who had first claim to the day’s bag, made no bones about giving the spoils to the winner.

  “It’s all yours, Sam,” he said to the sweating policeman, who now stood rather shamefacedly mopping his brow, neck and ears with his red handkerchief. Sam was feeling that, somehow, he had upset his dignity by his impulsive chase, but the goodwill of the spectators reassured him. Someone mentioned lunch and he quite recovered his poise. Stevenson sent one of the girls to fish out the beers from their cool cache, and lunch boxes and baskets were brought out. But poor P.C. Harriwinckle was doomed to have his fun spoiled.

  “Isn’t that your youngest running across the path there?” said Mr. Wheelwright, pointing to a small, sturdy figure, panting excitedly over the meadow adjacent to the cornfield.

  “Yes. That’s ’arry,” replied his father. “I wonder what he’s wantin’ at this hour. Sometin’ must ’ave ’appened.”

  Young Harry entered the field, brandishing a paper and gesturing to his father, who strode to meet him.

  “Wot you wantin’, Harry?” asked his parent sternly, still red and puffing from his own exertions. The boy was too breathless to answer and pushed his message into his father’s hand. The constable read it and whistled.

  “’Ere,” he added to his youngest, handing him the rabbit to which he still clung. “’Ere, take that straight home to your mother an’ no playin’ on the way. Now run along, like a good lad. Do you know wot’s in this note?”

  “Yes, dad. I saw Mr. Claplady write it in our house. Old Tither’s dead, ain’t she?”

  “Old ’oo?”

  “Miss Tither, dad.”

  “That’s better and don’t let me ’ear you say anythin’ so disrespec’ful of the dead agen. And, mind you, not a word about this to anybody.”

  “It’s all over the village already, dad.”

  Which was true. Mr. Claplady, assisted by adrenalin poured into his blood-stream by his excited glands, had bounded over fields and ditches straight to the policeman’s cottage, followed by the eyes of a score or more villagers, whom he passed on the way. Mrs. Harriwinckle, a buxom, busy, broad-beamed woman, was draping the washing over the bushes in the garden when the parson arrived and for a minute after hearing the news stood petrified, holding her husband’s nightshirt like one wrestling with a ghost. Mr. Claplady hung suspended over the garden gate, recovering his breath whilst she informed him that her husband was not in.

  “He’s probably at Wheelwright’s big field along o’ Foxholes Farm. They’m cutting there to-day and he never misses that or the lunch that goes with it. He did say he wouldn’t be ’ome to his dinner, so like as not you’ll find him there.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” gasped the vicar. “I’m all in and don’t feel capable of hurrying another yard, Mrs. Harriwinckle.”

  Just then, young Harry hove in sight, coming from school, but manifested a disposition to take the path to the nutbushes rather than the way home. His mother spotted him.

  “Harreeeeee!” she shrieked. “Come you ’ere at once.”

  Young Harry Harriwinckle showed a tendency to deafness.

  “Harreee…come ’ere this minute, or I’ll tan the hide off yer,” yelled his mother. Whereat, the youngster made for home with leaden steps.

  “Perhaps he’d better take a note,” said Mr. Claplady, as the constable’s youngest gave him a baleful, disrespectful glance. “May I write somewhere?” Mrs. Harriwinckle showed the parson into the front room, where stood her husband’s desk and other official paraphernalia. She produced a sheet of notepaper, an almost empty bottle of thick ink and a scratchy pen, and passed her apron over a chair, removing all the dust that wasn’t there in a homely gesture. Mr. Claplady wrote with difficulty and in a jerky hand.

  My dear Harriwinckle,

  Come at once. Miss Tither found dead in vicarage ditch. Fear violence. Ethelred Claplady, Vicar.

  He folded the note and handed it to Harry, with a penny. The lad regarded the solitary coin in his palm without enthusiasm, whereat the vicar added another to it.

  “Now jest you be off, ’arry, and don’t play on the way. Else I’ll tell yer father to tan yer when he comes in,”
threatened his mother. The threat seemed effective and Harry cantered off, immersed in thoughts of how to get the most for his twopence, rather than those of violence, in the village. But others were deeply concerned.

  Old Andrew Pepperdy happened to be hedging just by the garden of the police station and overheard the vicar’s tale. He tottered off to the Bell Inn as fast as his old legs would bear him, for a pint and the glory of being first with the news.

  “Old Ethel Tither’s been murdered in vicar’s garden,” said he gasping from his efforts, “vicar’s just bin to p’lice station with the news. All of a tucker he be. Gimmeapint.”

  The baker’s boy from Evingdon, the nearest town, four miles away, happened to be at “The Bell” delivering bread at the time and, bounding into his van, tore along the road, hurling out loaves and the scandal to his customers.

  “Ethel Tither’s bin found strangled in the vicarage.”

  “Miss Tither’s bin found shot in vicar’s orchard.”

  “Owld Tither’s bin done-in. They say the vicar’s done it.”

  These and the like flew round the countryside like news from African jungle-drums. Women ran from house to house and from cottage to cottage. Telephones were busy among the better classes. Roadmen yelled it at passers-by. Schoolchildren took it home on their ways from school. The postman made a special round for the joy of sensationmongering. When P.C. Harriwinckle arrived at his house, he was surrounded by a curious crowd. Where? How? When? Who? They riddled him with queries and he, good man, now calm and bearing his responsibilities with portentous dignity, gave the same answer to each. “I am, as yet, in no position to make a public statement. Matters is well in ’and and I’ll trouble you all to go calmly to your ’omes and about your businesses, else I’ll ’ave to take a few names for h’obstruction and causing commotion.”

  The crowd regarded him with awe. He seemed to have grown in stature and importance. The guardian angel, the protector of them all against a similar fate to Miss Tither’s, the avenging hound who would see justice done. Only Old Pepperdy, fortified by his pint and disgusted because he’d had to pay for it himself, dared raise his voice.