Bone Idle

by Suzette A. Hill

  ‘What counters?’ I exclaimed sharply.

  ‘The ones found in the shed that the police were interested in.’

  ‘I didn’t know about those!’

  ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ he said vaguely.

  ‘No, you did not.’

  ‘It was when they interviewed me the second time – after I first reported finding the body. “Mr Savage,” they said, “can you account for these here three plastic counters we found on the floor by the potatoes? Because if you can’t it’s our belief that they may be a crucial lead to the murderer. He may well have dropped them in his haste to get away. Follow these up and I think we’ve got our man!”’

  ‘Good Lord!’ I gasped. ‘Whatever did you say?’

  ‘I said they were mine.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Well, the nipper’s really; said I had given him a set of tiddlywinks for his birthday and the little tike would never put the things back in the box but insisted on keeping them in his pockets.’ He chuckled. ‘Anyway, they seemed to swallow it all right … Just as well really, otherwise your friend would have had a bit of explaining to do, wouldn’t he? ‘

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed grimly, ‘he certainly would. Thanks, Savage, you’re a brick.’

  After he had gone I lay back on my pillows, closed my eyes, and meditated upon bishops and their quirks and carelessness … Where would they have come from, for God’s sake! His trouser turn-up?

  * * *

  Fortunately I was kept in only briefly, though in a way it had been a pleasant interlude – hospital life, even in passing, inducing a liberating sense of aimless coma.

  Once home, I was greeted by both animals with attentive approval, Maurice going so far as to present me with his woollen mouse. However, I was just getting used to the gift when it was briskly retrieved. Bouncer’s offering – a freshly chewed bedroom slipper filled with macerated Bonio – was of longer duration for unlike the mouse it seemed on indefinite loan. My shoulder was still painful but fairly bearable, and my knee considerably helped by my father’s old walking stick. I recalled ruefully – and perhaps a little nostalgically – that the last time I had had recourse to that particular prop was after the belfry expedition with Mrs Tubbly Pole and her impossible bulldog.

  What did unsettle me, initially at any rate, was confronting the chair in the sitting room where Crumpelmeyer had fatly sat on that dreadful evening. It was where I would normally sit myself, and the idea of resuming my usual place was distinctly unnerving. I toyed with having it re-covered, or better still, thrown out; but I quite liked it, and the combination of habit and idleness ensured it remained, and eventually we became reacquainted.

  As to Crumpelmeyer himself, March’s prediction of his being unfit to stand trial proved correct, and, as I learnt from the police officer who came to interview me, moves were afoot to send him to Broadmoor for an unspecified period. That was certainly a relief – both his fate and the fact that I should not be required to give evidence in a public court of law. In my situation a low profile has much to commend itself.

  Less welcome was the confirmation that, handy though Savage’s shed had been as a place of concealment (and possibly a means of implicating some random allotment owner), the victim’s end had indeed been elsewhere: Foxford Wood to be exact – a few yards distant from the spot where Elizabeth had lost her own life. Much was made of this fact, and the Clarion wrote excitedly about the ‘mother-daughter scenario’ and the ‘dramatic properties’ of the crime. However, it was not a subject that I personally cared to pursue.

  Thus, after the general hue and cry and the topic of ‘The Canon’s Ordeal’ finally exhausted, life in Molehill and at St Botolph’s reverted to its placid norm, and I was able to resume my parish duties with a modicum of ease.

  Primrose had shown great solicitude, and while not actually inviting me down to stay (the damaged shoulder being clearly unsuited to grass cutting), she had generously sent a case of her excoriating sherry. Eric had telephoned with renewed invitations to avail myself of the sea front at Brighton. However, feeling insufficiently strong to face the full brunt of his raucous good cheer, not to mention the fearful prospect of encountering Aunt Lil, I thanked him warmly and made my excuses. Still, it was nice to be asked. Of Ingaza nothing was said and, deeming myself too fragile, I refrained from enquiring. Presumably he was either still languishing from the nervous strain of foiling the Customs as Eric had hinted, or (the more likely) living it up with his smuggled funds in the Bournemouth casino.

  In fact I was just reflecting upon that as I passed the Swan and Goose one evening on my way back from a parish meeting. Coming out from the pub’s doorway was the lumbering figure of Inspector March – this time not only minus the Whippet but also divested of his customary fawn raincoat. Without the po-faced Samson and wearing what might be termed his mufti outfit, he looked quite human.

  He greeted me warmly. ‘Good evening, Canon! Nice to see you out and about again. Shoulder getting on all right, is it?’ I told him it was behaving admirably and I would soon be as good as new. ‘That’s the ticket, doesn’t do to let the criminal fraternity get us down, does it! Up and at ’em, I say!’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I murmured.

  ‘Yes, sir, you handled that little business very well. Not the sort of thing a clergyman can expect every day, I shouldn’t think – a real credit to the Church Militant, one could say!’ And he chortled, amused by his own pleasantry.

  ‘Oh, I am afraid I wasn’t much use,’ I coughed, ‘it was Sergeant Samson who came to the rescue and –’

  ‘Ah, Samson. I was coming to him,’ he intoned with a note of pride. ‘He’s got promotion, you know … yes, our Sidney has gone to higher things. Up at the Yard, he is now. Just the place for him – doesn’t miss a trick, you know, sir, not a trick!’

  ‘Is that so?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes. Molehill doesn’t realize how lucky it’s been having Sidney in its midst. Sidney Samson has what you might call acumen – mind like a razor, nose like a ferret. Not much escaped him, I can tell you!’

  ‘No … not very much,’ I agreed. ‘And, er, what about you, Inspector? I suppose you’ll have to train up another assistant now.’

  ‘Oh no. Pension time for me, and a good thing too. I’ve done my bit for law and order, thank you very much. Time to hang up the handcuffs and attend to the dahlias. I’ll get that first prize if it kills me!’ He chuckled, and then added, ‘Tell you what though, with Samson and me out of the way, Molehill’s villains can rest easy in their beds at nights … Very easy, because I don’t think our Mr Slowcome is going to be much cop, if you’ll excuse the pun! Too fond of all these new-fangled courses and psychology seminars. Doesn’t like to get his hands dirty!’ He laughed wryly and we bade goodnight, he returning home to dwell on dahlias and glittering prizes, and me to sleep easy in my bed.

  In fact I didn’t go to bed immediately as I was waylaid by Maurice and Bouncer, both of whom seemed in matey mood and eager for my attention. The cat was showing rare good humour by wrapping himself around my ankles and toying daintily with my shoelaces, while Bouncer, determined to share one of his Bonios, lay sprawled on my lap chewing rhythmically. I settled myself further into the sofa, lit a cigarette and reached out an arm to switch on the nine o’clock news … It was good to be home. With Crumpelmeyer en route for Broadmoor, Samson stalking on the rarefied heights of Scotland Yard and March out to grass, possibly, just possibly, all would be well. I stretched contentedly and lent a languid ear to the reassuring voice of the Home Service.

  The voice was rudely interrupted by the jangling of the telephone. I winced: probably the verger. He had caught me earlier in the day, for some reason hell-bent on rearranging the pews in the side chapel. I had managed to fob him off but knew it was only a matter of time … Reluctantly I turned off the wireless and ambled into the hall.

  It wasn’t the verger. It was Ingaza – incandescent.

  Recovering from the torrent of blasphemy, whi
ch seemed to involve myself in some large measure, I asked him what the problem was.

  ‘The problem, Francis,’ he said in grating tones, ‘is that the American joker whom you so kindly introduced me to has turned out to be an unscrupulous thieving bastard who has cost me not only a hell of a lot of money but also a great deal of time and ingenuity. And it’s all your fault!’

  I was bewildered. ‘But surely you got the money, didn’t you? Eric told me you had clinched the deal before he was arrested. Flutzveldt had already paid up and you were returning with an attaché case full of dollar bills. What went wrong?’

  ‘What went wrong was that the sod short-changed me: the top two layers of notes were kosher, the rest frigging counterfeits, and I’ve only just discovered. I used some in America to begin with, and then when I was back here started to exchange them for sterling in batches and at intervals. Everything was fine. But yesterday when I took a small wad from the lower layer into the Eastbourne post office, the snivelling little clerk had the nerve to tell me they were fake. Naturally I evinced shock and horror (came quite naturally, I can tell you!), spun some yarn about my grandmother’s footsteps and got out sharpish before he could gather his wits. When I consulted with a colleague in the business he confirmed they were all as fake as a tart’s kiss.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ I said.

  ‘I should think it is “oh dear”! My total profit from the whole project is about two hundred quid, and if you think for one moment that you’re going to get a percentage of that you can think again. In fact, if anything, it’s you who should be paying me – it cost me a fortune taking Lil to Bournemouth, and now the old bat’s saying she can’t wait to go again. If you hadn’t been such a smart-arse none of this would have happened!’ He paused, presumably collecting his breath for a further onslaught.

  I tried to divert things by asking about Claude, and whether his hopes of appearing in Flutzveldt’s publication had also been dashed.

  ‘No such luck,’ Nicholas said bitterly. ‘Bought a copy of that magazine to read on the plane, and there was his smug face simpering out from the centre page along with a load of bilge about that bloody pig. I’m fed up with it all!’ He sounded deeply troubled.

  ‘Well,’ I said gently, ‘after all, you have made some profit – and I daresay something else will turn up in due course.’

  ‘Oh, it will, Francis, it will. In fact –’ and here his voice reverted to its familiar silken suavity – ‘that’s really what I am telephoning about. Those deeds which you were so kind as to lend me – I think it is time we put them to some use.’

  I had feared as much, and with sinking heart asked what he proposed.

  ‘What I propose, dear boy, is that you and I – and of course your delightful sister whom I’ve already approached – should embark on a little jaunt to the Auvergne, make an assessment of La Folie de Fotherington and then, all being well, stake our claim – that is to say, of course, your claim …’ (At least he had the grace to make the correction.)

  ‘But I thought you were going under your own steam anyway,’ I replied dully.

  ‘Yes, a passing thought; but on reflection and in view of recent events, I think it would be so much nicer if the three of us went together. After all, although the deeds are in my temporary possession you are the title holder; and were there to be any tiresome local difficulties it would be helpful to have the actual owner to hand. You know how bureaucratic the Frogs are. Besides, I could do with a little Gallic gaiety after all I’ve been put through.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I grunted, wondering ruefully what he imagined I had been enduring for the last eighteen months.

  ‘And I tell you what, while we’re there I can get old Henri Martineau to come down from Taupinière. Being both of the cloth you’ll have so much in common.’

  ‘Martineau!’ I yelped. ‘You surely don’t mean that maleficent French priest who hid your rotten paintings in his bell tower!’

  He coughed delicately. ‘Well, one of the two … the English counterpart made rather a mess of things …’

  It was a blow beneath the belt but I let it go, and instead demanded why on earth he thought that unsavoury cleric from the Pas de Calais would be remotely relevant to his scheme.

  ‘How’s your French, old man?’

  ‘What? Er … not too good really.’

  ‘Exactly. Doubtless mine is better than yours, but nevertheless it lacks refinement. Hence Henri. He could be very useful.’

  I very much doubted whether any use, let alone refinement, could come from that particular quarter; but it was obvious that Ingaza had the bit between the teeth and there would be no stopping him. Images of Foxford Wood on that fateful June morning came to mind: the bluebells, the rabbits – Elizabeth’s lolling corpse. And with a weight of resignation I knew then that I would be forever in his grasp …

  ‘At the moment,’ he continued blandly, ‘I am rather deluged with other considerations, but give me a month or so and I’ll be in touch – be assured, you can count on it!’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I murmured.

  41

  The Cat’s Memoir

  Needless to say, there were irritating repercussions to the Crumplehorn business, not least the vicar’s sister finding those Fotherington deeds which I had so carefully secreted in my litter tray. At first I did not think this would amount to anything very much: the sister would create a drama and F.O. curse and bluster – and that would be it. Foolishly I had overlooked the Type from Brighton. His interference has since caused the vicar endless perturbation, and I fear more is to come. From what I could make out the Ingaza person is intent on going to France to investigate the property to which the deeds belong. For some reason this induced in our master a state of pallid inertia, a condition which did not prevent the house reverberating to the sound of loud groanings and expostulations over the damaged shoulder. Anyone would think he was the only one to be so afflicted! After all, I too was a martyr to the gross one’s fury, as after the disgraceful episode of my being kicked the length of F.O.’s sitting room it has taken me considerable time to regain my usual agility. Naturally, unlike the vicar, I have borne this with reticent fortitude. So reticent, in fact, that Bouncer seemed unable to grasp why I was in no condition to play leap-frog with him in Mavis Briggs’s cabbage patch. However, I grow stronger daily and if that dog imagines for one minute that I have lost my skill sportif then he is in for a nasty shock!

  My convalescence had given me time to mull over the question of the Fotherington deeds and the French property – although I like to think that my own cogitations upon thematter were conducted in a vein rather calmer than the vicar’s. When I told Bouncer that I thought we might be faced with some sort of Gallic fracas, he launched into a disgusting rhyme which began, ‘Le chat crept into la crypte, shat et …’ It was of course one of his puerile variations on an old theme, and I told him that though doubtless that was the sort of low obscenity which O’Shaughnessy might appreciate, cats had superior tastes. He then had the nerve to reply that, given my propensities, perhaps I would prefer a ditty involving a ‘pauvre petty souris’. (Obviously Pierre the Ponce’s influence.) I retorted that if he did not curb his crude inanities I would sing him a ditty he would be unlikely to forget! However, my words had little effect, and he wandered into the shrubbery snuffling at the awful bell-jangling ball.

  Left alone I harried the hedgehog, unravelled the string securing a hollyhock to its cane, and scratched up a few shallowly planted bulbs in next door’s garden. I would have stayed longer but the baby was giving tongue and I cannot abide its caterwaulings. So returning to the vicarage I decided to indulge myself in a warming patch of sun, and thus jumped up on to the wide ledge beneath the study window and stretched my length. I was just beginning to melt into a doze when I was startled to hear thunderous snoring from within. Annoyed by the din, I glared through the glass and then poked my head round the frame.

  Lolling on their backs on the sofa, legs akimbo and eyes tightly shut, la
y dog and vicar dead to the world. I stared irritably – bone idle the pair of them! And then as I watched, unaccountably my mood began to mellow and I had to concede that on the whole I could do far worse than suffer a buffoon for a companion and a murderer for a master. After all, if it had not been for F.O. I should still be enduring the incessant cooings of Mrs Fotherington!

  And thus as I gazed, and perhaps mesmerized by their rhythm, I once more felt sleep coming upon me; and alighting from my perch joined the snorers on the sofa.

  42

  The Vicar’s Version

  Ingaza’s proposal had been the last straw, and I tentatively wondered about invoking St Jude, saint of hopeless cases; but feeling he had probably more than enough on his plate thought it unfair to add my woes to his burden. Instead I sought temporary refuge by trying to bury myself in the busy normality of parish life. Compared with Ingaza and his machinations even Edith Hopgarden seemed a welcome relief (initially at any rate). Indeed, so eager was I to resume the norm, that seeing her emerging from the vestry I seized the chance to pay fulsome compliments about the brilliance of the gilded eagle on the lectern. ‘Amazing what a good dose of Brasso does!’ I exclaimed jovially.

  She looked surprised. And then giving me a withering scowl, replied that it had nothing to do with Brasso and all to do with elbow grease. Duly admonished I smiled weakly, said it was jolly good anyway, and scuttled on.

  I didn’t get far, as at the south door I was waylaid by Miss Dalrymple evidently arrived to pursue her foraging for the choirboys’ chewing-gum deposits. She wore that avid expression which I rather imagine is seen on the faces of truffle hounds in the Dordogne.

  ‘Ah, Canon,’ she boomed, ‘I was just thinking about you!’