‘He swore at me – horrible, masculine sounds. I didn’t understand them, of course—’
‘Course not!’ said the captain, seething with indignation at the thought of it.
‘We fought,’ said Miss Graveley, looking away into the night, her face grim, her hands tightly clenched.
‘Then what?’
‘I won,’ said Miss Graveley, not without some pride. ‘My shoe had come off in the struggle. I hit him. I hit him as hard as I could – on the temple, where David hit Goliath.’
‘And you killed him!’ Looking at the middle-aged spinster, the captain found the fact difficult to assimilate.
The lady shrugged. ‘I must have done. I was annoyed, Captain. Very annoyed.’
‘Naturally,’ said the captain.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so annoyed. Consequently, I didn’t realise my own capabilities.’
‘Whew!’ murmured the captain, looking at her with a new admiration. ‘It seems to me that Mrs Rogers knocked him silly and you finished him off.’
Miss Graveley turned a puzzled stare on the little captain, who was now relighting his pipe. ‘Why would Mrs Rogers knock him silly?’
‘She was really his wife,’ the captain said.
‘Poor woman!’ Miss Graveley said. ‘I thought she had better taste.’
‘I think she can be exonerated,’ said the captain. ‘You see …’
The captain talked until Miss Graveley had all the facts and could see. When he had finished she said: ‘You know, Captain, when I ran away I decided not to tell a soul what had happened – it’s an undignified thing to happen to a woman of my years—’
‘Not at all—’ the captain began. Then: ‘I mean, you’re not at all old. I mean …’ He trailed off, his words miserably inadequate for expressing what he did mean. Then he lit his pipe and sat there saying nothing.
‘I was saying,’ said Miss Graveley, ‘when I ran away I decided not to tell anyone what had occurred. Then I met you and thought how convenient it was that you should think you had shot him – you must forgive me for thinking that.’
‘Only natural,’ said the captain.
‘And that’s why I felt so grateful to you,’ she said. ‘I felt – I still feel – under an obligation to you.’
‘Not at all,’ said the captain. ‘Let’s forget it.’
‘No, no!’ she exclaimed. ‘We mustn’t do that. It would hardly be fair to you – I mean for you to go through life knowing you’d buried a man you didn’t kill. You would have my crime on your conscience—’
‘It’s a pleasure, I’m sure,’ said the captain.
‘But no! Now I realise that man was out of his mind and that my action was justifiable, there’s no reason why we should not let the authorities know—’
‘The authorities?’ The captain looked at his companion in sharp alarm. The thought of digging Harry up again made him perspire.
‘Then the whole matter will be disposed of nicely,’ said Miss Graveley, ‘I’m sure the police won’t make a fuss about it when we all explain. Perhaps it needn’t get into the papers at all—’
‘Don’t you believe it, ma’am!’ the captain exploded at last. ‘They love it, the papers, this kind of thing. Murder and adverts, that’s what they live on. You let him be. Just forget it ever happened, same as what me and Sammy and Jennifer is going to do.’
‘Ah, but it isn’t your body,’ said Miss Graveley. ‘After all, I killed him, so it’s only fair I have the say-so—’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Don’t you agree?’
‘Yes—’
‘I thought you would! I tell you what, Captain Wiles, we’ll go and get a spade now—’
‘—but—’
‘And afterwards,’ said Miss Graveley brightly, ‘I’ll make you some cocoa.’
BIG THINGS, TREES
Above the bungalows in a small clearing in the thickest part of the wood stood an old barn with a thatched roof. This barn was seldom seen or visited by anyone for there was no real path leading to it and the wood was overgrown with brambles and thickets. The glade in which it stood was just large enough to allow the sunlight to green the grass and the moonlight to flood it with black shadows.
The barn had two windows, both of them clean and bright and thoroughly out of keeping with the old black timber which formed the walls. From the thatch a bent pipe came out at a silly angle; in the winter this pipe sent smoke up through the trees which crowded closely around. It was an ancient building which had been made fit for human habitation.
To this barn, around ten-thirty that night, came Sam Marlow, Jennifer Rogers and Abie. Sam came first, holding the brambles above Jennifer’s head and lifting Abie through the darkest and scratchiest patches. At last they stood before the old building and Jennifer was glad there was insufficient light for the artist to observe her true reactions.
‘You can’t live here!’ she exclaimed. ‘I had no idea you were a hermit.’
Sam said nothing at once but strode forward and flung open the door. Then, looking back at her, he thumped the doorpost with his fist. ‘If your bungalow were half as good and solid as this,’ he said. ‘If your bungalow had stood for one tenth as long as this,’ he said. ‘If your lopsided little shed of a place had so much as a splinter of good English timber in it—’
‘Sam!’ Jennifer joined him in the doorway and laid a hand on his arm, preventing further damage to his fist. ‘I’m sorry. Honestly. I had no idea you were in love with the place.’
Sam said: ‘Was I shouting at you?’
‘A little,’ Jennifer said, ‘but I asked for it.’
Sam said: ‘No, it’s me, Jennifer. I’ve always found it difficult to be polite or sociable for more than ten minutes at a time. I was sent down for pulling the Dean’s nose.’
Jennifer waited to hear him laugh, but he didn’t. He maintained a sober expression that forced her into laughter. ‘How lovely! What a wonderful thing to do.’
‘Do you believe that?’ Sam said, looking at her almost eagerly.
‘Of course I believe it. There must be thousands of people going through life with a miserable repression just because they didn’t have the courage to pull the Dean’s nose.’
Abie forced his way between their legs and into the barn. Sam and Jennifer followed him: Sam lit a match and applied it to an oil lamp which stood with its tall glass chimney on a rough table.
The room was so large that the light would not go into the remote corners. On the floor, which was built evenly and scientifically of wooden blocks, was a fine and brilliantly coloured carpet. The rough table on which the lamp stood was the sawn bole of a gigantic tree which seemed to be growing out of the floor. Jennifer looked at the room while Sam looked at Jennifer and Abie went exploring.
‘What do you think of it now?’ Sam asked.
‘It’s wonderful – like Aladdin’s cave,’ she said. She looked at the high, beamed roof the walls smothered in a haphazard yet tasteful fashion with all kinds of paintings and drawings. There were dozens of carvings, too – ships, dogs, men, and women who stood without arms but quite complete in every other respect. ‘Wonderful!’ she said again. ‘You’re really awfully clever, Sam. You should make your fortune.’
Sam shrugged. ‘I think I have my fortune,’ he said. ‘Plenty of freedom; plenty of space and trees. Big things, trees. You can sing at the trees, and shout at them. You don’t have to be sociable or polite to them. They just stand there and listen and wait …’
Jennifer looked speculative. ‘But don’t you sometimes feel like eating gingerbread, Sam?’
Her question startled him. ‘Who, me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted.
Jennifer laughed shortly and ran her fingers through her small son’s hair. ‘It’s funny, but I feel awfully comfortable with you. It’s nice to be forthright with somebody as – as forthright as you.’
‘Who, me? Forthright?’
‘Yes. Talking to you I fee
l like a character in a novel – you know how forthright they have to be or they’d never get their story over before the last chapter. In real life people spend fifty per cent of their lives hiding what they want to say behind their vocabulary and the other fifty per cent trying to find out what other people are hiding.’
Sam returned her gaze, seriously. He said: ‘I like the way you talk and the things you say.’
‘Can I have some gingerbread, Mummy?’ Abie said, looking up at them and rubbing his eyes.
Jennifer laughed at Sam over the small boy’s head. ‘It’s well beyond his bedtime. I’d better get him home.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Sam said.
‘There’s no need,’ Jennifer said. ‘It’s quite late.’
‘I want a piggy-back,’ Abie said.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Sam said.
I’LL GET MY SPADE
After Abie had gone to sleep Jennifer made coffee. They were about to drink it when there came an urgent knocking at the door. It was the new captain and Miss Graveley. They came into the room blinking against the light. The captain was shirt-sleeved and perspiring and in one hand he carried a spade.
‘What’s happened?’ Sam asked.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ said Captain Wiles.
Miss Graveley gripped his arm. ‘No, captain. I have something to tell them.’
‘Make up your minds,’ Sam said.
Miss Graveley struck an impressive pose. ‘I killed Harry Worp,’ she said, ‘with my ice-calf brogue.’
Jennifer yawned. She said: ‘Oh, him.’
Sam looked at the captain and said: ‘Told you so.’
Miss Graveley looked around at them. ‘We’re on our way to telephone the police,’ she said.
Sam and Jennifer sat up and took a great deal of notice.
The captain made an apologetic face behind Miss Graveley’s back. ‘I keep telling her there’s no need. They’ve got plenty of bodies without this one.’
‘You’re right,’ said Sam. ‘It wouldn’t be decent. He’s dead and buried.’
‘He’s not, you know,’ said the captain, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve.
Sam almost gaped. ‘You haven’t dug him up again?’
Miss Graveley intervened. ‘I insisted, Mr Marlow. You have nothing to fear. It is my concern entirely. As soon as I heard the full circumstances of his being here I knew there was nothing for me to hide. Nobody could possibly gossip about a lady and a maniac.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Sam said. ‘I don’t think you realise, Miss Graveley, what murder involves – hours and hours of questioning; photographs; the whole of your private life spread indecently in the newspapers.’
‘And what makes you think my private life is indecent?’ Miss Graveley enquired acidly.
The captain smiled secretly at the artist’s embarrassment.
‘I didn’t mean that. It’s the way they pry that’s indecent. They’ll worry you to death. Policemen, news-reporters, detectives—’
‘I have made up my mind,’ Miss Graveley said. ‘It was the captain who persuaded me to call and tell Mrs Rogers what I proposed doing. After all, she’s most closely connected with the business. What do you think about it, Mrs Rogers?’
Jennifer poured two more cups of coffee. ‘I can’t think why you’re making such a fuss about Harry. If he was buried, then I can’t see why you had to dig him up. But since you’ve dug him up, I don’t see why you shouldn’t do as you think best.’ She added: ‘Frankly – have some coffee? – I don’t care what you do with Harry as long as you don’t bring him back to life.’
Miss Graveley accepted the coffee. ‘I have a free hand, then?’
‘Quite, so far as I’m concerned—’
‘Just a minute,’ Sam interrupted. ‘I think you’ve forgotten something, Jennifer. If this comes out, do you realise that all the details of your marriage will be public property? Including the origin of Abie?’
‘Oh,’ Jennifer said.
Miss Graveley looked concerned. ‘I must confess, I hadn’t thought of that, either.’
The captain sipped his coffee noisily and with relief.
‘Where have you put the body this time?’ Sam said.
‘Top of the heath – near that clump of silver birch,’ the captain said.
‘I’ll get my spade,’ Sam said, in a flat, resigned voice.
Miss Graveley sighed. ‘I’m afraid I’m causing you rather a lot of hard work. I’m sorry.’
‘Not at all,’ Sam said.
Jennifer said: ‘Let’s all go up there. I’ve never witnessed an unofficial funeral.’
‘This is my third.’ The captain got to his feet and glanced ruefully at the clock, which now stood at eleven-thirty. ‘All in one night, too.’
Presently the four of them were walking the moonlit paths of Sparrowswick Heath looking for Harry. The body was not as easily located as Captain Wiles had implied, there being many clumps of silver birch at the top of the heath. But at last the captain plunged away from them through the heather and bracken and small fir trees.
‘Here he is,’ he called. ‘Come on, you take his feet, Sammy; I’ll have his shoulders.’
Sam and the captain carried the body back towards the grave while the women walked behind like a pair of indifferent mourners.
‘How about a little service?’ the captain suggested, as they held Harry over the deep hole.
‘I can’t think of anything to say,’ Sam said. ‘Besides, my arms ache.’
‘Drop him in,’ Jennifer urged. ‘It’s too late to say prayers. Wherever he was going he must be there by now.’
THAT’S NOT A BUGLE
When they reached the main path on their way home, the still night was suddenly moved by a bugle blast that seemed to come from down beyond the woods.
They stopped. Miss Graveley said: ‘Whatever was that?’
‘Sounded like the trumpets welcoming Harry,’ Captain Wiles said.
‘You didn’t know Harry,’ said Jennifer, her head bent to one side as she listened.
Sam, watching her, said: ‘I’d like to paint you like that, Jennifer – you look wonderful standing there, listening in the moonlight.’
She straightened her head and smiled at him. ‘What would you call it, Sam?’
Sam considered. ‘Just … “The Listener”. Yes, “The Listener”.’
‘That’s the name of a magazine,’ said the captain. ‘Think of something original.’
Before Sam could think of anything more, the sound of the bugle notes came to them again.
‘I believe it’s someone actually up here on the heath,’ Sam said. ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’
‘I know what it is,’ Miss Graveley said. ‘It’s the call of the phantom stage coach that used to pass by each night two hundred years ago – the old road was right across the top of the heath, you know.’
‘Phantom coach?’ said the captain, looking at her with his face wrinkled and wondering.
Sam put his face to the sky and swelled his chest with an exultant breath. ‘Oh, to be a highwayman on a night like this!’
‘Listen!’ Jennifer exclaimed. ‘Running feet!’
‘Horses?’ Miss Graveley whispered.
‘If it’s a horse it’s learnt how to shout,’ Sam commented.
The voice came plainly to them. A voice as thin as the air, bleating out one phrase. A woman’s voice.
‘What’s she saying?’ said the captain.
‘You’ll know in a minute,’ Jennifer said. ‘She’s coming this way – there goes the bugle again!’
‘She’s calling my name,’ said Sam suddenly. ‘It’s old Wiggy.’
‘What, running?’ said the captain.
‘I’m sure it’s Wiggy,’ Sam said, his eyes now fixed on the pathway. ‘It is Wiggy – look, here she comes.’
A strange figure came trotting along the path in the moonlight. She wore a long nightdress which showed white bene
ath a dressing gown, and her hair was flying out behind her.
‘Mr Marlow! Mr Marlow! Where are you, Mr Marlow?’ she called.
Sam stepped into the middle of the path and held up his hand. ‘Wiggy! What on earth do you want? Change for sixpence?’
She stopped and looked at the four of them, too breathless, now she had finished shouting, even to talk. She held Sam’s arm and pointed back towards the woods. As she pointed the bugle call came as though at her bidding.
Are you having a nightmare?’ Sam asked kindly.
‘He’s a millionaire!’ she gasped at last. ‘He wants to buy your pictures, Mr Marlow! All of them and more besides. He says you’re a genius, Mr Marlow!’
‘This is a queer time to come buying pictures,’ Sam grumbled.
He looked at Jennifer and the others. Jennifer shrugged, the captain shook his head and Miss Graveley shivered slightly and said: ‘Let’s go and have some cocoa.’
They started walking towards the woods. As they walked, Sam said: ‘What’s he blowing a bugle for?’
‘That’s not a bugle,’ Mrs Wiggs said. ‘That’s the hooter on his car. A great big Rolls-Royce. He drove me right up the estate as far as he could. We’ve been to your studio, but we couldn’t find you anywhere.’
‘We’ve been digging,’ Sam explained, making his spade more comfortable on his shoulder.
‘It’s very good for you is digging,’ said Mrs Wiggs. ‘My Henry always swore it was that cured his rheumatics.’
‘What does this millionaire want to pay?’ Sam asked.
‘I asked him twelve and six for that bunch of grapes hanging on the swordfish,’ Mrs Wiggs said, ‘but he said he couldn’t think of it. Said they was priceless.’
‘Doesn’t sound priceless to me,’ Captain Wiles remarked. ‘Sounds like a pub sign.’
Sam looked down on the little captain. ‘That picture is symbolic of the beginning of the world – you know: “He made the earth and the sea and all that in them is”.’
‘Oh,’ said the captain.
‘Priceless,’ repeated Mrs Wiggs, tripping on her nightdress and clutching at Sam for support.
The Trouble With Harry Page 8