‘Took bad I was when Mr Middleton died. Ah, and no other time till now. That’s funny, that is, you know. Ain’t that funny, now?’
Jones returned to his cottage, to find Mrs Passion standing beside a kettle which, she informed him, had been on the boil and over for the past twenty-five minutes good.
Jones looked at her, but her heavy pallid face was expressionless, as usual, and her dull eyes gazed unseeingly into his. Jones turned and walked away, and, after a minute or two, Mrs Passion followed him into his sitting-room, bumped down the tea-tray beside him on the table and, leaving him to milk, sugar and pour out the tea—a task she generally insisted on performing for him—she stood with arms akimbo looking out of the small casement window on to the cultivated field beyond.
Jones followed her gaze, half expecting to see old Mrs Fluke at her hoeing, but nothing was in sight save a gigantic raven. Mrs Passion, gazing earnestly upon the bird, said solemnly:
‘Ah, there you be, then, be you? You old devil, you! Just like Satan, so you be, going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it.’
Scarcely had she apostrophised the bird when Jones was aware of a considerable tumult. It sounded a cross between a Spanish fiesta and an English cattle sale, and it waxed in volume as he listened.
‘They be going along to burn out parson,’ said Mrs Passion, still without a change of countenance, but with a note of indulgent approval in her voice which caused Jones to glance at her sharply as he asked:
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Give un a taste of his own fire and brimstone, like,’ continued Mrs Passion. ‘Happen I’ll go along and see the fun, maybe.’
Jones grabbed his hat, and, before the astonished woman could say another word, his long legs were carrying him in great strides down the village street ahead of the advancing noise.
He reached the vicarage to find Nao, armed with a shot gun, being ordered sternly by Hallam to lay it aside.
‘What’s all this?’ demanded Jones, hurdling over the low gate with a grace and style that he thought had long deserted him.
‘Do go, my dear fellow,’ said the vicar. ‘I’m in for trouble, I think. Do go.’
‘Not I,’ said Jones. He removed his hat and hung it on a bush, passed a hand through his sweat-damp hair, adjusted his flannel trousers, and listened to the approaching sounds.
‘What’s the matter with them?’ he inquired.
‘They’re getting short of water. I’ve told them they may come up here and draw water from my well, but that won’t satisfy the worst of them. They blame me because it doesn’t rain, and that wicked old woman Fluke quoted part of the story of Elijah at me this morning in a screech that would have done credit to Jezebel herself.’
‘Did Jezebel screech?’ asked Jones, interested. But the promising conversational opening was rendered void by the appearance of a procession round the bend of the road. Prominent among the noisiest of the band, Jones observed the half-wit Passion who had stretched a reeking ox-hide over a small barrel, and was beating upon it tom-tom-wise with muffled drum-sticks. The vicar groaned.
‘I wonder who taught that wretched fellow a rhythm as complicated as that?’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have thought—but there! I am always being surprised in some way by these people.’
‘Cheer up,’ said Jones. ‘I’ll address them in my capacity as justice of the peace.’
‘But you are not a justice of the peace, my dear fellow.’
‘Never mind,’ said Jones. He raised his long arms above his head, and, in the glittering hexameters of Homeric heroic verse, he thundered forth the story of Aphrodite’s intervention on behalf of Paris.
The villagers, who had ceased their noise, waited until he had finished. Suddenly Nao knelt upon the ground. At this a panic appeared to catch the villagers and suddenly, for no reason that occurred to Jones, they scrambled and pushed past one another to get out of his sight, and in a few moments the street was empty save for an enormous black cat which had appeared from nowhere and which now lay down in the road and commenced to wash itself.
Its nonchalance delighted Jones. He watched it for some time. Then he tackled the vicar.
‘You’ll have to ask for police protection, Hallam, you know.’
Hallam shook his head.
‘They feel that they have a grievance. I pray for rain, and the rain does not come.’
They both looked up at the empty sky. Jones shrugged, and shook his head.
‘It’s serious. Very serious. Are they capable of causing trouble, do you think?’
‘I’m not alarmed, but I am sure they are. Still, I shall go to Neot House, where, I understand, the other Mr Middleton is in residence, and see what he’s prepared to do about his well.’
‘Who told you he was there?’
‘Old Mrs Fluke. Has she told your fortune yet?’
Chapter Six
‘Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.’
Nursery Rhyme.
SOME DAYS LATER Mrs Passion brought to Jones three news-items, the first with his breakfast, the second with his mid-day dinner, and the third with the high tea which she had suddenly and unaccountably introduced in place of the cooked supper with which she had been accustomed to regale him.
‘Better for you,’ she announced with finality, and her face had been a shade less pallid and her expression a trifle more alert than usual.
The first piece of news was that Mr Carswell Middleton had been in the village some days, and was already installed in two rooms of the Big House, although no one had set eyes on him except the Tebbutts, husband, wife and son, who had come to mind the house for him.
‘So the baby business comes unstuck,’ said Jones.
‘Sir?’ said Mrs Passion vacantly. Jones grinned and began upon his eggs and bacon.
The second was that the pump in the back yard had refused its office and was rendering the foulest of slime instead of water. Jones had been expecting this, and merely grunted.
‘So you’ll have to give over washing your chest, sir,’ said Mrs Passion austerely. ‘A lick and a promise is all that any of us has any right to expect, the famine being very grievous in the land.’
‘Better still, I’ll give up drinking tea,’ said Jones obligingly. ‘Beer is best, as the advertisements would say.’
The third was in the nature of a complaint. She stood over Jones, breathing audibly, whilst he consumed reluctantly a plate of dark, rich, heavy stew—of the type, he surmised sorrowfully, which had upset Passion’s digestion and had made him sicker than two dogs—and three thick slices of bread and butter, the last slice topped with the strawberry jam which she had made that same afternoon ‘for him alone’ as she informed him with a simpering smile. At last he was moved to demand of her what it was she wanted.
‘A word of gentlemanly advice, Mr Jones, if you please, sir,’ Mrs Passion answered.
‘Oh?’ said Jones, unaccountably surprised by the modest request. (After all, he reflected, he had several times been asked by servants to give them some advice. If the woman was in doubt, and her moron of a husband could not assist her, it was natural that she should appeal to him.)
‘Yes, Mr Jones, if you please, sir. That wicked old mother-in-law of Passion’s been and put a spell on me.’
‘Oh, yes. I heard about that at the vicarage, didn’t I?’ said Jones, somewhat amused at her elaborate avoidance of the recognition of consanguinity between herself and Mrs Fluke.
Mrs Passion shook her head, picked a lump of sugar out of the bowl, dipped it, without any apology except a slightly hysterical giggle, into Jones’ second cup of tea, and crunched it with enjoyment.
‘Not that spell, Mr Jones. Another one,’ she said. ‘A nasty smell.’
‘A what?’
‘Yes, Mr Jones, a nasty smell,’ repeated Mrs Passion f
irmly.
‘Nonsense, Mrs Passion! It’s the drains!’
‘There aren’t no drains in Saxon Wall, sir,’ Mrs Passion reminded him morosely.
‘Well, you know what I mean. It’s a result of the water shortage. There are smells everywhere. Abominable smells. We shall be lucky to escape an epidemic. You understand? There are no such things as spells.’
‘Yes, Mr Jones,’ said Mrs Passion. Jones was reminded by her voice and expression of a group of negro students to whom he had lectured in America. The same polite, lip-service acceptance of his statements together with the same obvious, instinctive repudiation of them as facts was to be observed in both cases. He decided to improve the hour with a little rationalistic propaganda.
‘There is no such thing as magic, Mrs Passion, you know. All that stuff about charms, spells and curses is simply moonshine.’
‘Yes, Mr Jones. Like the Witch of Endor raising up Samuel.’ Her voice was still agreeably respectful. Jones looked at her reproachfully. Mrs Passion seized another lump of sugar, dexterously wetted it as before, and crunched it. This time she did not giggle, but looked at Jones with such an unmistakably ogling glance that he coughed aggressively and hurriedly left the table so that she could clear it. But Mrs Passion had not done with him.
‘Everywheres I go I smell this smell. Horrible it is. And I wash myself all I know. I used scented soap the last time. Do I seem to you to smell when I come in here of a morning? Or of an afternoon? Or of an evening when I lays the high tea for you?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Jones.
‘Well, then! And yet this old smell follows me whithersoever I go. It do, surely. So what be I to do? They do say—’ She ogled him again—’that if only you can get a tall gentleman to go up along they ruins over by the vicarage, and say a verse of poetry for ee, like—but where be I to find such a fine, tall man?’
‘I couldn’t say,’ said Jones. He eyed his plate and then added:
‘And who’s Mr Carswell Middleton, anyway?’
‘Didn’t Passion tell ee?’
‘Why, yes, he said—’ Jones, suddenly remembering what he had said, allowed his voice to tail away, and waited for her to finish the sentence.
‘He said as Mr Carswell Middleton were own brother to Mr Hanley, that died so sad three weeks after his poor young wife was buried.’
‘Very sudden sort of occurrence, wasn’t it?’ asked Jones, carelessly. Mrs Passion looked at him suspiciously.
‘The poor young gentleman was tooken very ill,’ she said impressively. ‘Very ill he was tooken. Very, very sad, it was.’
‘I suppose the whole village was plunged into mourning,’ said Jones. Mrs Passion’s sombre eyes searched his face, but it did not betray his thoughts.
‘That’s the worst of educated gentlemen,’ she observed. ‘Their looks always belie them.’ She sounded disgruntled. Had she appeared just slightly less bovine, Jones would have said that she was nervous.
‘Come, come,’ said he. ‘Surely it’s usual for a village to be grieved when the local landowner dies suddenly?’
‘That’s as may be,’ replied Mrs Passion. ‘All I know is, there were those as were glad to see him gone, and there were those as wished him back again, and there were those as thought their own thoughts and kept their eyes to theirselves and the back door locked after dark.’
‘Magnificent,’ said Jones. After she had gone he sat there thinking, for an hour or more, while he gave himself time to digest the heavy stew. There was something odd about these Middleton deaths, he told himself. There seemed no reasonable doubt that Mrs Passion had changed over the babies, and that Mrs Pike, innocently or otherwise, was bringing up a child that was not her own.
He rose at last and went over to the vicarage. Hallam had not been in the village when the deaths occurred, but he might have heard rumours. He might be able to shed a little light on occurrences that seemed to Jones murky in the extreme.
‘Look here, Hallam,’ Jones said as soon as he arrived. ‘I suppose the deaths of Mr and Mrs Middleton were all right?’
‘All right?’ said the vicar, puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t know how I mean, and I don’t care to put into words what I mean, but—well, look here, Hallam, was the doctor satisfied?’
The vicar looked at him oddly.
‘I suppose he must have been. I never heard that there had been an inquest. That’s what always happens if a doctor isn’t satisfied, I think. Was there an inquest on the Middletons?’
‘There was no inquest,’ replied Jones. ‘That’s the extraordinary part of it.’
‘I don’t know much about their deaths, you know,’ said Hallam. ‘You see, I wasn’t here when it all happened. It seems to have been a very sad affair. They were quite young, I think.’
‘I know you weren’t here. The Corbetts weren’t either, and, in any case, they’re so frightfully prejudiced that one can’t accept what they say as evidence of anything. I’ve never known people so biased. And the two Miss Harpers weren’t living in the village then, either, bless their hearts, so all that they can supply is also the result of hearsay, probably from the Corbetts, which doesn’t get me any further.’
‘Birdseye wouldn’t be any good. His farmhouse is a good three miles from here,’ said Hallam slowly. ‘I don’t know who could give you information, I am sure.’
‘How about the chapel people?’ asked Jones.
The vicar shook his head.
‘The Methodist chap came here last year. They have a circuit scheme, you know. The Baptist minister came here after I did, and the Salvation Army officers are just as much birds of passage as the Methodist preachers. You’ll get nothing there, I think. Why don’t you go and talk to the present doctor? He wasn’t here nine years ago, when the Middletons died, of course, but he may be in his predecessor’s confidence. But what’s in your mind, man? What are you after?’
‘Predecessor dead or retired?’ asked Jones, disregarding the vicar’s question.
‘Retired. Of course he may be dead by now. He went to live in Tunbridge Wells, I think.’
‘Cheerful, isn’t it?’ said Jones.
‘But what are you getting at?’ asked Hallam, determined this time to be answered.
‘I think the Middletons were murdered,’ Jones replied, and before the vicar could repudiate the theory, he added, ‘so that Mrs Passion could substitute her baby boy for theirs.’
‘But——’
Jones held up his hand.
‘What’s more, I think the present Mr Middleton was in deadly peril the moment he set foot in Saxon Wall.’
The vicar laughed at this. He seemed relieved. ‘Spoken like a man and a novelist,’ he said. Jones grinned.
‘I know you think I’m talking through my hat. But, look here, this is what I had from Passion only the other afternoon: First, he tells me that he’s been sick again, and blames his wife. Second, he connects the fact of his sickness with the restoration of the elder Mr Middleton to his inheritance. Third, he admits that Mrs Passion gave away their baby son. Fourth, he assures me that the Middleton baby died, a thing I believe to be untrue. Fifth, he declares that he and his wife are going to blackmail the boy who is now called Middleton as soon as he is of age. Sixth, most important, and therefore last he declares that he was taken ill in similar fashion just before the deaths of Mr and Mrs Middleton. Now, what do you say to all that? Doesn’t it seem to you about the fishiest lot of dirty work, one way and another, that you ever heard in your life? What do you think of it?’
The vicar stroked his jaw.
‘Inconclusive,’ he said cautiously.
‘But, honestly, now,’ persisted Jones, ‘don’t you think it just a little odd that Mr and Mrs Middleton died so opportunely?’
‘Opportunely for whom?’ asked Hallam.
‘Well, you admit that the evidence is in favour of Mrs Passion’s having changed over the babies, don’t you?’
‘I think there is a possibilit
y she changed them, but as for evidence——’
‘Well, she couldn’t have changed them if Mr and Mrs Middleton had lived. I’ll tell you what I think occurred,’ he went on, as the vicar began to speak. ‘I think Mrs Middleton died in giving birth to the child, and I think that Mrs Passion, who may have been called in to nurse the baby, saw her opportunity and took it. She poisoned Middleton—arsenic, I expect—and swapped over the kids. To make the thing slightly more complicated, she handed the stolen baby Middleton to Mrs Pike, whose little one had died, and buried the dead baby in her own name, Passion.’
‘The baby that died was buried in the name of Passion,’ Hallam answered. ‘There’s a wooden cross in the churchyard.’
‘Well, there’s my case against Mrs Passion, then. She’s a murderer, a kind of kidnapper, and a baby farmer as well. The thing is, what can be done about it?’
‘Nothing, my dear man,’ said the vicar slowly. ‘You’d need to have Middleton’s body exhumed before you could prove a word of this. And, in any case, it wouldn’t bring him back to life, murdered or not, you know.’
‘True enough,’ said Jones. He left the vicarage, still ruminating, and, on his way home, called upon Doctor Mortmain.
‘Crevister? Yes, I have his address if you want it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jones, writing it down.
‘Don’t take your custom out of the village, please,’ said Mortmain, smiling at him. Jones grinned. Suddenly he remembered what the vicar had said of Mortmain.
‘So the village people fear you,’ he said, with no diminution of the grin, which had, however, become slightly sardonic. Mortmain laughed aloud.
‘They don’t fear me a tenth as much as they fear you,’ he retorted. ‘What do I hear of your demoniac cursing of a deputation to the vicarage the other day? Is it true that none dared stay to look you in the face?’
‘They did slink off in a manner that struck me as being more than a little odd,’ returned Jones. ‘I thought it was Mrs Fluke who possessed the evil eye?’
‘She does; at least, rumour has it so.’
‘Well, one evil eye in a village is surely enough.’
‘It is surely enough,’ Mortmain agreed. ‘Incidentally, what’s all this about another Middleton coming to live at Neot House?’
The Devil at Saxon Wall Page 8