‘Yes, but what do we do about Mr Lingfield?’
‘Mr——?’ He lowered the match, it burnt his fingers and he flung it down and stamped on it, cursing a little.
‘That was Harry Lingfield,’ said Dorothy, affecting calmness. ‘I only said—what do we do? I expect he waits there, hoping to see Claudia Denbies.’
They walked on, and came to the gate which seemed to close the path. They took the side turning which led to the heath, and to the slope upon which they had rested. Roger sat down, and pulled the girl down beside him.
‘Say it slowly,’ he said. ‘And tell me how you know.’
There was no time for this, however. It was Dorothy who heard the twang of the bowstring. She thrust Roger down so that he crashed flat on his back. The arrow sped past, and grazed her cheek in its flight. Roger, whose head had bumped down hard upon the turf, sat up, feeling his skull. Then he caught with a glance the bright blood streaming from the snick on his companion’s delicate, slightly sun-tanned skin. He got up.
‘Oh, don’t!’ said Dorothy. ‘I’m not hurt! Don’t go!’
He shook her off with berserk impatience, disregard and strength. The bow twanged again as he began to run towards the archer. Without slackening speed, Roger swung out to the right in the beautiful, graceful swerve which had often served him on the Rugby football field. He was in flannels, and had been carrying his jacket, but he had flung it down on the turf. He was therefore at an advantage compared with his muck-encrusted, heavy-booted antagonist. He used this advantage to the utmost, and, with a magnificent flying tackle, of a sort which would have earned stern comment on the field of play, he got his man round the knees and brought him down.
The next moment they were fighting on the ground. Dorothy ran forward. She had not been brought up to believe man to be the master of her fate as well as of his own, and her view was that Roger might well be in need of assistance against an opponent who was already a double murderer.
Roger, however, was not in need of help. A temperamental man and a poet, he had an artist’s single-minded thoroughness. His aim was to twist his opponent’s head off, and he set to work with a grim zest which had something of religious fanaticism about it.
Had he been informed, as a matter of cold fact, that the sight of a smear of blood on a young girl’s cheek would have turned him into a compound of Richard Lovelace and a Commando, he would have accepted this reading of his character with reserve and modest caution. He did not even realize how much he had relished the fight and how much good it had done him, and how many problems it had solved, until it was over.
He got up, wiping mud out of his ear, caught sight of Dorothy’s horrified eyes and, limping a little, came, at ease with himself, towards her. He had almost detached a tooth which he presently discovered and spat out.
‘That’s that,’ he said contentedly. The girl recoiled. Roger, who felt like the English equivalent of a million dollars, although rather sore, observed the instinctive reaction, and nodded towards his opponent, who was lying perfectly still upon the turf. ‘He’ll be all right. He fell soft.’
‘You’ll—we shall have to get a doctor,’ said Dorothy, who wanted to cry.
‘You’ve got one,’ said a rich, amused and incomparably beautiful voice. Mrs Bradley, accompanied by the sergeant and followed closely by the inspector, came out of the copse of hazels through which the woodland ride led on to Whiteledge, and walked towards them. She smiled horribly and knelt to examine Roger’s handiwork.
‘Did you bite him on the Mount of Venus?’ she demanded.
‘No. That was Healy-Lunn,’ said Roger, grinning.
‘Better make direct for the station,’ said Roger, ‘if they’re going to take him up to the house. Don’t want to barge in there. I can get a wash and brush-up in the waiting-room or somewhere, I expect. I say, you aren’t sick with me, are you? I mean, I had to have a go at him, and, having taken him on, to make a do of it. You do see that?’ He spoke anxiously, misunderstanding his companion’s silence.
‘I know,’ said Dorothy. ‘It was—a bit frightening, that’s all. You see, I didn’t know you could fight.’
‘I can’t. Not in the ordinary way. Don’t go getting wrong ideas. I mean, I’d be no good on the domestic hearth, poker in hand, versus wife.’
‘But—it was so horribly scientific.’
‘I know. I’m teaching the kids. I think I’ll teach you. It’s really quite handy to know how to make a proper mess of people.’
She managed to laugh. They walked on again.
‘How do you think old Bob will take it?’ asked Roger, at the end of half a mile.
‘Take what?’ But a tell-tale flush completely gave her away.
‘Us, chump. Now I’ve got a house, what’s stopping us? You’re not going to back out now, are you?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Good enough.’ They walked on amid the gold-green gloom of the hazels. Suddenly Dorothy said:
‘I thought you were a poet. I hoped you were.’
‘Oh, I am … Oh, I see! Well, this is too serious for poetry—my kind of poetry, anyway.’
‘Is it? That’s rather a pity.’
‘I’m sorry. What can we do? Hullo! Who’s coming now?’ They looked back across the open stretch of the Common. The thunder of hoofs came nearer, and into the space before them swept a horseman. It was the child, George, riding like a Centaur, boy and beast all one. To add to the illusion, the great horse was barebacked except for the boy, and the boy was bare to the waist. His carriage and poise were god-like, and his hair was blown in a breeze of his own creating.
Dorothy gave a slight sigh.
‘There you are, then,’ said Roger. ‘There’s the omen. Eros on the wings of the wind.’ He turned and took her in his arms. ‘But it isn’t my poetry we need.’
‘Whose, then?’ She freed herself. Roger kept one arm about her, still faced her, smoothed her cut cheek with a long, strong thumb, leaned forward and kissed her and said:
‘To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love revealed may look;
Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.’
‘But Harry Lingfield, who thought so, is to die,’ she said, soberly, giving the statement all its due.
‘Yes, but he had his fun.’
‘Killing people, and being hunted and afraid, and perhaps hungry? And not getting what he wanted in the end?’
‘Life’s like that. Our generation ought to know it.’
‘I don’t want my children to know it.’
‘You wanted poetry, and see where it’s led us!’
‘I know. Do you still—like—Claudia Denbies?’
‘In a way, yes, I do.’ He did not hesitate. Dorothy did not hesitate, either. She gave him a long look and then put her hands on his shoulders.
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Copyright © The Executors of the Estate of Gladys Mitchell 1946
Gladys Mitchell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph in 1946
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