Here Comes a Chopper

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Does she get a shilling from everyone?’ Dorothy asked.

  ‘Mostly. She’s got a bull, you see, and as people have to get out of their cars to open the gate if she isn’t doing it for them, they mostly pay up, and let her do it.’

  ‘You’re a long way from home,’ said Roger, having digested and approved of the farmer’s wife’s thrift and sagacity.

  ‘Yes. I’ve been turned out,’ said George. ‘Mr Lingfield hasn’t come back, and they’ve sent to the police about him. I’m not supposed to know, but, of course, I do. I think I’ve been got out of the way.’

  ‘Mr Lingfield? Not——’

  ‘Yes, the man who was missing from the table. He’s a sort of uncle of mine. He owns the house. Aunt Mary and Great-aunt Catherine and I just live there. Anyway, he hasn’t turned up. I expect he’s gone off to Central Africa. He does that when people annoy him. I think Mrs Denbies annoyed him yesterday. I say, I was awfully glad you came along last night. Great-aunt Catherine wanted to ask Miss Pigdon or Mr Bookham to have dinner alone, but I couldn’t agree to that, as I like them better than anyone else in the house, and, after all, it was my party. So we were stuck, until you two came. I do thank you very much. I didn’t have a chance to speak before you went.’

  ‘We had a jolly good time,’ said Roger. ‘The thanks are all on our side. I suppose we can’t give you a lift?’

  ‘You’d better not, thanks. I shall hang about here for a bit, and the farmer’s wife will give me my dinner. Then, at three o’clock, I’ll go home.’

  ‘But surely it’s more than ten miles?’

  ‘Not by the way I shall go. Back her, if you’re ready. I’ll shut this gate, and then the farmer’s wife will open the other one as soon as you’ve given her the shilling.’

  ‘You seem jolly keen on this shilling business,’ said Roger. ‘Do you and the farmer’s wife divvy up, by any chance?’

  The boy laughed, and then asked suddenly:

  ‘Did Sim pick you up last night? We forgot we’d be thirteen if Mr Lingfield came in. I wanted to be first up to see what would happen, but Great-aunt Catherine wouldn’t let me. I think superstitions are silly. Besides, it’s awkward when she will insist that there are the wrong number present. I don’t like it. After all he didn’t come in.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he found us,’ said Roger. ‘I wished at first he’d missed us, but it was worth a lot to hear Mrs Denbies play. How is her back this morning?’

  ‘Oh, just the same, I think,’ replied the boy. ‘She’s worried about Mr Lingfield. I think they all are. Rather silly, really. I’m sure he’s simply gone off exploring again.’

  ‘I suppose he didn’t go by train?’ asked Roger. The boy looked at him intently for the moment, and then said he did not know. Roger was tempted to follow up this question and ask whether the boy had been a witness to a quarrel between Lingfield and Mrs Denbies, but he knew that it was not his business, and regretfully abandoned the idea. ‘By the way,’ he added, ‘what did he do with his horse?’

  ‘His horse? Oh, he sent it back to the house, I suppose. He had Strawberry, and Strawberry is certainly in his stable this morning, because I saw him there myself.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Roger. ‘Well, so long! Oh, I didn’t get a chance yesterday to wish you Many Happy Returns.’

  Dorothy echoed this wish, and George, acknowledging their congratulations, observed:

  ‘I’ve come of age, you know. We do, in our family, at thirteen. That’s why Great-aunt Catherine wanted me to have a decent party. And it wouldn’t have been a decent party without Mr Bookham and Piggie, so I really am glad you turned up.’

  ‘Talking of turning, I think the farmer’s wife is waiting for us,’ said Bob, who, for some reason not understood by himself, felt irritated by this conversation.

  ‘I think she is,’ George agreed. ‘I say, I think I’ll come back to lunch after all. I suppose you couldn’t give me a lift?’

  ‘Hop in,’ said Bob, making room.

  By using the farmyard gate, the motorists found the turn a simple matter, if rather muddy, and, having gained the end of the Roman road, Roger drove southward until a side-turning, half a mile long, brought the car to the station approach.

  It was not very far to the house. Dorothy realized, as soon as she saw it, that she had never expected to find it; yet here it was. The archery butts had been removed, but, apart from this, and the severe purity of the architecture of the house itself, nothing seemed exceptional. Nevertheless, she and Roger gazed at the house in silence, and even Bob sat without a word. George opened the door and got out.

  ‘Won’t you come in?’ he enquired. But Dorothy had packed up some food, and now proposed that the party should drive on to the common and picnic there. Bob was in favour of this, and Roger, who would have liked to accept the invitation to re-enter Whiteledge, said nothing and so was held to be in agreement.

  He backed the car away from the house, and, as he did so, an easily-recognized figure passed George and, descending the steps from the portico, began to walk towards the gate.

  ‘Oh, do stop!’ said Dorothy. ‘Look! It’s Mrs Bradley, and I think she’s waving to us.’ Mrs Bradley soon came up to them. She was wearing a tweed costume in which a remarkably lordly purple was the predominant hue, and had on a woollen jumper in another shade of purple. A bright yellow hat, which made her sallow complexion look muddy and tired, and a pair of wash-leather gloves completed her attire. Her black eyes were as brilliant as ever, and she held on the end of a lead a young Alsatian dog of exuberant disposition and inquisitive habits with which she seemed unable to cope.

  Dorothy lowered the window and wished Mrs Bradley good morning.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I thought it might be.’

  ‘What made you think that?’

  ‘When I was your age, dear child, wild horses would not have kept me away from a house into which I had been kidnapped; which I had left in a hasty and surreptitious manner following some (probably fatherly) advice given me by the butler; and to which I had been persuaded, or, shall we say, compelled to return.’

  Dorothy, who had seen most of the previous night’s proceedings in exactly this light, smiled appreciatively.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘but it’s serious.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dorothy. ‘We met George, and brought him back with us, as you saw.’

  ‘I thought you would. I posted him there to meet you and ask (I hope he did it tactfully) for a lift.’

  ‘But he wasn’t on any road that we ought to have come by! How could you think we might meet him? And does that mean—?’ She paused. It seemed pertinent but slightly impudent to ask whether Mrs Bradley had wanted to see them again.

  ‘Sim,’ Mrs Bradley explained, ‘had heard you ask for your tickets. I had a word with Sim when he had brought you back to the house. Then I drove you home. I did not imagine that you would repeat your long walk of yesterday to get to the house, and therefore it seemed feasible to suppose that you might come by car. I had gathered enough of Mr Hoskyn’s mentality and reactions …’ she grinned at the tall young man—‘to deduce that he would not come along main roads if he could avoid them, and I trusted to luck that our Roman road might appeal to him, and that neither you nor he would know that it petered out in a wood.’

  ‘Well, I’m dashed!’ said Roger. ‘Oh, by the way, Mrs Bradley, this is Bob.’

  ‘My brother,’ Dorothy explained. ‘He’s sprained his ankle.’

  ‘So I heard at dinner last night. Down, Fido!’ she added, addressing, apologetically, the dog.

  ‘Is his name Fido? Isn’t he a darling?’ said Dorothy.

  ‘His name is not Fido, and he is not a darling,’ Mrs Bradley responded. ‘He is good-looking and a villain. I hope, however, that he may be useful to the police. Or, if not to the police, perhaps to me.’

  ‘George mentioned the police,’ said Roger. ‘I say, I do hope there’s nothing seriously wrong.’

  �
�We don’t know what to think. Mr Lingfield left Mrs Denbies at about five o’clock last evening, and since then nothing has been seen or heard of him. Mary Leith thinks he may have met with an accident, as his riderless horse galloped back to its stable at six. I have decided to go out on to the moor with the dog, and see whether he can pick up a trail. He is young and undisciplined—he belongs to Miss Clandon—but he may do something. He was always petted by Mr Lingfield, and would try to go everywhere with him.’

  ‘Do let us give you a lift,’ said Roger at once. Mrs Bradley accepted the offer. The dog, which apparently had followed the conversation, got into the car as soon as Bob opened the door. Having been prevented from lying down on his feet, it then jumped up beside him, buried its nose in his coat and lay perfectly still.

  ‘Bob’s good with dogs,’ said Dorothy, turning her head. Roger, who was not good with dogs, accelerated rather viciously. The drive to the burnt-out car took twenty minutes.

  ‘This is where we got lost, I should say,’ he observed, as he brought the car to a standstill. ‘At least, I felt yesterday that we were on the right track until we reached this car. After that, I didn’t quite know. We walked on, and trusted to luck, and certainly were glad to see your house.’

  ‘We were glad to see you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘And, speaking for myself, more glad to see you upon your second appearance. The fun of sitting at table long after the meal is over can wear thin.’

  ‘I can imagine it,’ said Roger. ‘By the way, what made Lady Catherine appeal to the police quite so promptly? I understood from George that Mr Lingfield has a habit of popping off to Central Africa when things don’t please him here.’

  Mrs Bradley caught his eye in the inside driving mirror, for she was sitting in the back with Bob and the dog.

  ‘What makes you ask that about the police?’ she enquired. ‘As you’ve stopped the car, let’s get out, and then we can talk.’

  ‘Well,’ said Roger, when, except for Bob, they were all standing out on the common, ‘on the way home we had a strange experience. The first time we went, I mean. It seemed that the driver had some sort of seizure or hallucination or something, and swore he’d seen a headless corpse on the line. The guard and the fireman got down and searched, using lanterns, and then came along the train to ask for a doctor. There wasn’t a doctor on the train, as it happened, so, as I know a fair amount about accidents—I’m a prep. schoolmaster and take some jerks and games—I offered to give any help I could, and went along.

  ‘Well, of course, there wasn’t any corpse, and no sign of anything—blood, I mean, or anything like that—so we soothed the driver, and the train went on again, and that was all about it. It was rather a curious experience, all the same.’

  ‘Curious, indeed!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘What was the engine driver’s name?’

  ‘MacIver.’

  ‘Ah! Of course, that might account for lots of things. May I ask what the time was when this happened?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. Somewhere about a quarter past ten, I should think.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Too bad, of course.’

  ‘The driver wasn’t tight, if that’s what you mean,’ said Roger. ‘I said so to Dorothy at the time.’

  ‘Are you a judge of tightness, child?’

  ‘Well, near enough. I mean, I’ve been tight myself, and I’ve seen other blokes tight, and I’d take my oath the driver hadn’t had a drop. I even went so far as to smell his breath—at his own request, that was—and there’s no doubt about it.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Let us follow the nose of this hound, who appears to be remarkably restive, and see where his instinct leads us.’

  ‘To the nearest rabbit-hole, 1 expect,’ said Roger grinning. ‘I say! This does look a bit of a blasted heath!’

  He led Mrs Bradley and Dorothy towards the burnt-out car which they had examined the day before.

  The dog, calming down, cocked his tail and hung out his tongue. He sniffed round the car for a bit, found it boring, and set off very soon in pursuit of rabbits.

  ‘Bother the dog,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘It looks as though we shall need to do our own exploring. Let’s go as far as the church.’ But before they moved on Mrs Bradley glanced inside the car. Roger followed her example.

  ‘I’ve a better idea,’ said Roger. At this moment he caught sight of a policeman who was patiently and rather painfully searching among the gorse. ‘I’d like to have a word with that bobby. Excuse me a moment, would you?’

  He shouted, and the constable looked up, and then came slowly towards him.

  ‘This car,’ said Roger. ‘What about it?’

  The policeman looked at the car, and then at Roger. He looked puzzled and not very pleased.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Well, only this,’ said Roger, beginning to wonder whether he had spoken too soon. ‘When I passed this car yesterday I could have sworn it had been burnt out. But this car hasn’t been burnt at all. It’s been wrecked. Not very badly, either.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of what you say, sir,’ said the policeman, ‘and report it to the superintendent. I don’t think there is anything in it. The missing gentleman didn’t travel by car, and, if he did, and this was his car, we should have found the body, but we haven’t.’

  ‘All right I expect I’m wrong, and this is the same car,’ agreed Roger. ‘Just thought I ought to mention it, that’s all.’

  ‘No harm done, sir,’ said the constable, recognizing Mrs Bradley and saluting her. ‘Good morning, mam. You’ve no other news, I suppose?’

  ‘Mr Lingfield’s riderless horse galloped home. It came back last night, it appears,’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘We knew about that, mam, thank you.’

  ‘In any case, he was the kind of man who, without a thought, would take himself off, I understand,’ Mrs Bradley went on. ‘The return of the horse would indicate no sinister circumstance.’ The constable agreed, and walked off to continue his search.

  Mrs Bradley cackled.

  ‘What were you going to suggest, Mr Hoskyn,’ she enquired, ‘before the wrecked car distracted your attention?’

  ‘I was going to suggest that we started from where Dorothy and I first caught sight of the three riders. Then we could try to find out what Lingfield did, and where he went.’

  ‘That seems a reasonable suggestion. Let us by all means adopt it.’

  They covered the distance in their own car, and soon reached the spot where Roger and Dorothy had rested. Roger caught Dorothy’s eye and smiled, remembering how he had kissed her. Mrs Bradley intercepted the smile, drew her conclusions and nodded benignly at him as though in benison. Roger grinned, and returned to the subject in hand.

  ‘This is the way they went,’ he said. ‘Not very easy to see hoof-marks, though, on this turf. Look, Dorothy, you go back and sit down again, and yell very loudly as soon as we’re out of sight. That might give some idea, don’t you think?’

  Mrs Bradley agreed. Dorothy returned to her seat on the grassy mound, and almost immediately called out. Then she got up and joined them.

  ‘No use,’ said Roger, speaking gloomily. ‘Looks as though they rode straight into gorse, and they couldn’t have done that, you know. The horses wouldn’t have faced those spiny prickles. They must have gone over in that direction, I think. But there’s really nothing to show.’ He pointed south.

  The dog, which at first had found most entrancing entertainment on the heath, but was tired of its own society, now came up to them and, without being asked to do so, went to heel, and followed meekly and soberly for more than a mile and a half.

  Suddenly it put its nose to the ground, sniffed, took a short cast to the right, came back to the trail, looked up and barked short and sharply. Mrs Bradley, who was carrying the lead, said:

  ‘Catch him!’

  Roger grabbed the dog, which whined and shivered, and Mrs Bradley affixed the lead to its collar. Suddenly it started o
ff away to the right again, checked, came back, went off, and then, like a bullet, tore towards a copse which was bordered by a light wooden fence.

  Here the dog scrabbled, whined and tugged. At a nod from Mrs Bradley, Roger, who felt certain that the copse held the man they were looking for, released the dog from the lead. The dog, with a beautiful bounding leap, surmounted the fence and disappeared among the undergrowth. Roger vaulted the fence and, to his great surprise, Dorothy also vaulted it (far more neatly and precisely) and immediately joined him. They were followed by Mrs Bradley, who climbed over in a manner suited (she imagined) to her years, and the three hastened in Indian file after the dog.

  Roger suddenly halted, and then turned round, holding out an arm as a policeman will hold up traffic.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ he said. ‘I think there’s—I think there’s something rather rummy here.’

  Dorothy obediently held back: not so much because an order had been issued as because the voice in which it was given seemed to hint at facts which she felt instinctively it would be kinder to Roger that she should not face. Mrs Bradley, it seemed, was of the same opinion, for she clutched the girl with a grip there was no gainsaying, and observed:

  ‘Go back, child, to the other side of the fence, and keep an eye lifting for gamekeepers. Don’t come back unless we call.’

  Dorothy retired to the fence, climbed it in sober fashion, glanced back, and saw Mrs Bradley and Roger step delicately into the underwood of the coppice which immediately hid them from view.

  Suddenly she heard an unpleasant belching noise, and her cavalier, green as the grass, came staggering back, his handkerchief pressed to his mouth.

  Conquering a feeling of sympathetic but otherwise unwarrantable nausea, she got down from the fence on his side of it, and ran towards him. Roger, with a deep groan, bent over and was horribly and spectacularly sick.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Dorothy, recoiling. He half-turned and waved her away, but she advanced resolutely, took his limp arm and dragged him towards the fence. Shaken and almost crying, he climbed over, and dropped full length on his face when he gained ground on the opposite side.