The Devil at Saxon Wall

by Gladys Mitchell

  Mrs Passion’s pallid face went livid. She put up a roughened hand as though to ward off a blow, but, in doing so, performed a gesture which would have been recognised from China westward to Peru. Mrs Bradley laughed again.

  ‘I am not the devil,’ she said, ‘and I do not possess the evil eye.’

  Nevertheless she fixed her bright black orbs on Mrs Passion, nodded her head slowly, solemnly and rhythmically and stated calmly:

  ‘We know he killed Mrs Middleton in such a way that no one could swear it was deliberate and intentional,’ she said, ‘but murder it was, and you knew it. And what happened to Pike?’

  Mrs Passion threw her apron over her head.

  ‘It was nothing to do with me! I didn’t have any hand in any of it. He were the devil himself, that’s what he were, so be it, and he told me I must look in the coffin and swear it was himself that lay there, when it was Pike all the time.’

  Jones leaned forward.

  ‘What was the purpose of killing Pike?’ he asked. ‘We thought it was to provide Middleton with a means of escape in case anybody investigating the circumstances of his wife’s death, thought that he had killed her. Is that so?’

  Mrs Passion took down her apron and faced him.

  ‘I ought to tell you that Pike anyway would have died,’ she said, with dignified finality. ‘There wasn’t no doubt. So Hanley nipped up to the cottage with me as soon as we heared what he seemed like—all the pain and sickness and that—and mother and me fetched him out of the back door and laid him in a cart of turnips we’d come with, so no one would think aught of us being there at the back, and so with him up to the big house and a wodge of cotton wool across his mouth to stop him screaming. Mother was ever a one for the devil’s work, and me, I was angry with Pike that had called me a foul name.’

  ‘Yes, but it was murder,’ said Jones, ‘because the operation was performed by an unqualified man. Besides, Middleton had poisoned Pike after you had experimented on that poor wretch, your husband.’

  ‘It was done by Doctor Crevister, poor old man, and a young fellow from Stowhall hospital,’ said Mrs Passion dully, ignoring Jones’ remark about Passion’s illnesses.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You know quite well it wasn’t! Don’t you remember that Hanley Middleton sent a telegram to the hospital in Doctor Crevister’s name, declaring that the patient had died, and so the surgeon would not be needed?’

  Mrs Passion shook her head.

  ‘Nothing of that,’ she stated again with finality. ‘Hanley Middleton and me was in the little drawing-room together and he kept dancing up and down and saying:

  ‘“So perish all mine enemies!” I thought he was crazy. I’m dead sure he was.’

  ‘I say, Mrs Passion, who’s Richard’s father?’ said Jones with dramatic suddenness. ‘Will you tell me, please? I’d very much like to know.’

  She fingered her apron and smiled.

  ‘I’ll tell ee who it wasn’t, for I know what you be after.’

  (‘The devil you do!’ thought Jones.)

  ‘He anna son of Hanley Middleton. There anna any devil’s blood in Richard.’

  ‘This is important to me,’ said Jones, excitedly. ‘Tell me the truth! You will tell me the truth about this, won’t you?’

  ‘I be. Time I was whoring along of Hanley Middleton, I took up with a young theayter gentleman in London. Gentleman never knew, and Hanley, he purtended to think as how it wasn’t his’n, and so cast me off. And it wasn’t his’n neither! But he never knew that! He only purtended! But ’twas true! And I have the laugh of him yet. Ay, and you’ll have the laugh of him before you finished, won’t you, too and all!’

  Jones had never seen her look so animated. Then her face clouded over.

  ‘You won’t go telling of him, will you, Mr Jones?’

  ‘I don’t see how I can, now he is dead,’ said Jones.

  ‘Dead!’ said Mrs Passion. A gleam of amusement and scorn showed in her sombre eyes. ‘You don’t believe that, I know. More don’t that devil’s hag that hunts beside you.’ She pointed at Mrs Bradley, who was making rapid notes. ‘’Tis her I fears, not you. She sees first and she sees fur. Ay, further nor most she sees, and deeper, and now that old pond be dry on Godrun Down, we’ll see what’ll happen, us will.’

  ‘And what do you think will happen?’ asked Mrs Bradley, not a bit put out. Mrs Passion put her hand in her apron pocket and withdrew five lumps of sugar.

  ‘Seven children by the long thin man,’ she muttered. ‘Ay, you can take Richard, and welcome, and let Henry Pike come into his own again.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘There resteth all. But if they fail thereof,

  And if the end bring forth an ill success,

  On them and theirs the mischief shall befall,

  And so I pray the gods requite it them.’

  THOMAS NORTON and THOMAS SACKVILLE

  Gorboduc.

  ‘GO HOME, CHILD,’ said Mrs Bradley to the Chief Constable when Lily, Tom and Mrs Passion had taken their separate ways to their own beds. The Chief Constable eyed her, and said, as he rose to his feet and knocked out his pipe:

  ‘No devilment, please.’

  Mrs Bradley was about to prod him in the ribs, but knowing her, he side-stepped, and, chuckling, walked into the cottage for his hat. Mrs Bradley followed.

  ‘You believe, then, that you can identify the murderer?’ he said, when they were out of earshot of Jones. ‘My people are only waiting for the doctor’s permission to arrest Tebbutt. That I suppose you know.’

  ‘What motive had Tebbutt for the murder?’ Mrs Bradley inquired.

  ‘Middleton slept with the wife. Didn’t you hear that? Some old woman spread it all over the village and when we put it to Mrs Tebbutt she admitted that it was true.’

  ‘The devil she did!’ said Jones, just behind them.

  ‘I wish they could bring it in as manslaughter,’ the Chief Constable continued. ‘You can see exactly what happened. Tebbutt lost his temper and smashed Middleton over the head. Any man might have done the same thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bradley, patiently, ‘that’s if the murdered man was Middleton, child, but I tell you he wasn’t!’

  ‘Well, he was identified as Middleton. You can’t get away from that.’

  Mrs Bradley sighed. Then she grinned. The Chief Constable went out to the front gate and started up his car. Out of the shadows in the parlour rose the Reverend Merlin Hallam. He crept to the window and watched the Chief Constable’s departure.

  ‘And now,’ said Mrs Bradley, returning briskly to the cottage, ‘“boot, saddle, to horse and away.”’

  ‘“Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,”’ said Jones, lighting the oil lamp and fiddling scientifically with its wicks. ‘“Meaning to say,”’ he added, blowing out the match and drawing the blinds, ‘“he did not choose to leave the oyster bed.” Also, “Watchman, what of the night?” Not to mention: “Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?” and also: “We are seven”—I mean three. Both are lucky numbers, fortunately.’

  ‘Tonight,’ said Mrs Bradley, with extreme relish, ‘we crawl over bog, bush and moorland to defend the vicarage against all comers. Have you given Nao all my instructions?’

  ‘Every single one,’ said Hallam. ‘Moreover, he left the vicarage (officially) at just after eight-thirty, and should have been in the castle ruins about a quarter of an hour ago.’

  ‘Good. And you can trust him?’

  ‘Utterly. He hates the villagers. What about the well at Neot House?’

  ‘Our first task is to put it out of action. That has been arranged. We are going to push about two tons of solid stone into it. They will never get it out again without a derrick,’ said Mrs Bradley briskly.

  ‘Two tons of stone?’ said Jones, completely fogged. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘And can we depend on the Corbetts?’ asked Mrs Bradley, utterly ignoring Jones, and continuing to address Hallam.


  ‘To the last ditch,’ replied Hallam, his voice confident and excited.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘good night, then. I am going to bed. “When my cue comes, call me.”’

  The two men sprawled in armchairs. Jones, in the midst of wondering how soon the vicar proposed to return to the vicarage and allow him to go to bed, dropped into an uneasy sleep. In the middle of a muddled dream he was awakened by a light tapping on the parlour window. He started up, drew up the blind and quietly opened the casement.

  ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘All the village. They are bringing wood. They will burn down the vicarage. Come at once.’ It was Hallam’s servant Nao. ‘There must be twenty or thirty people. All are angry, and the morning comes.’

  Jones went to the door and opened it, and, as the Japanese entered, Mrs Bradley, fearful and wonderful in a bright blue silk dressing-gown on which great dragons, gold, and red-gold and bronze, sprawled in the insolent splendour of Chinese hideousness, came downstairs and observed in her mellifluous voice:

  ‘There’s only one thing for it, Jones, my friend. The long thin man will have to come to life on Guthrum Down. That leopard skin from the hearth. The shortest prop—no, the longest copper-stick. The blue-bag on your cheeks and arms and thighs. Quick, get your clothes off while I find the properties!’

  She darted into the kitchen. It took her three minutes to get Jones into his impromptu fancy dress. When he was dressed, he looked taller and thinner than ever. Mrs Bradley applied the damp blue-bag freely to his face to act as a disguise.

  ‘Now, up the lane with you, as though you were coming upon the vicarage from Guthrum Down,’ she said, ‘whilst we drive your car to the multitude, and cry the tidings of terror. Hurry! You’ve got your boots on for comfort, but take them off if you can before the crowd sees you.’

  Nao ran out to start up the car. Dawn was near. A greyness, in which their faces looked pale, unearthly and elfin, gave faery significance to the adventure. The car sped on its way, and Jones suddenly shouted in Mrs Bradley’s ear:

  ‘“Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!”’

  Mrs Bradley gave a yelp of glee and shouted in reply:

  ‘“If music be the food of love, play on!”’

  Nao trod on the accelerator, and the car leapt onward down the westward-running road. About a hundred yards from the vicarage he turned it sharply to the right up a lane that ended in a sheep-walk that led on to Guthrum Down. He stopped the engine, climbed down, and motioned Jones to get out. Mystified, a prey to a kind of nightmare excitement, but absolutely obedient, Jones sat on the dewy grass and pulled off his boots while the others drove away.

  As soon as the car had disappeared round the bend and the sound of its engine had faded, Jones became aware of the tumult of the besiegers. The English blood in his lean and ludicrously-decorated body turned dogged, however, at the thought of danger, and the Welsh blood which he inherited from his father thrilled to the thought of a fight against odds. He was amused at the idea of descending upon the village in the guise of an avenging elemental spirit and frightening it out of its life; the notion filled him with great gusts of invincible laughter. Putting his boots on again, and beginning to run because the early morning air, with its misty promise of another scorching, cloudless day, was at the moment chilly against his naked body, he made good time down the lane, and, swinging his copper-stick and singing a Welsh revivalist hymn, he came upon the assembled villagers like the Assyrian—a particularly masterful and imposing wolf upon a rather disorderly fold.

  The first person to become critically aware of his presence was a certain Elias Pibb. He was a loutish boy of two-and-twenty, and he had a flaming, crackling branch of apple wood in his left hand, and in his right a heavy stone.

  Jones had taken the impromptu torch from him and kicked him with a (by this time) bootless foot before the rustic was aware of his presence. The yell he gave when he turned and saw Jones clove through the general hubbub like the noise of a shell above the distant sound of rifle shooting, and caused a dozen heads to turn.

  ‘The long thin man! The long thin man!’ he yelled. Jones, who had stubbed his toe on the youth and was feeling proportionately savage, jabbed him in the ribs with the copper-stick and bellowed into his hair from the rear, ‘Lasst uns erfreuen,’ and then, at the top of his voice, as the lad, with a scream of terror, began to run from him, ‘Shule, shule agra! Shan von vocht!’

  Panic spread. The people had believed in the long thin man for so long that his manifestation and sudden incarnation were terrifying but not surprising. None questioned the reality of the apparition. All, after one horrified glance, turned and fled at the sight of it.

  ‘It’s the devil again!’ screamed one.

  ‘It be Judgment Day!’ yelled another. The women’s shrill, terrified voices had their usual effect of turning a sudden scare into an unreasoning, stampeding flight from the horror. They fled, not knowing why. Jones, thoroughly roused by the pain in his toe, leapt after them, brandishing the blazing branch in one hand, the club in the other, and yelling at the top of a voice which had always been masterful, and which now, under the mingled influences of mental stimulation and physical agony was sufficiently stentorian to do justice to a town crier:

  ‘Lero lero, lillibulero, Lillibulero bullen a la!’ he yelled. And, to complete the rout, he bellowed joyously (for he had come at last to a patch of yellowish sun-scorched grass by the side of the road and his feet were easier) ‘Quot estis in convivio! Na horo eile! Na horo eile! Rah! Rah! Rah!’

  The mob stayed not upon the order of its going, and when the last sobbing runner was out of sight round the bend, Jones, panting and sweating, entered the vicarage, helped Hallam, Nao, and, to his illogical amazement, Mrs, Passion, to put out the tongues of flame which were beginning to crackle on the woodshed roof.

  Hallam’s face was marred with gashes made by stones. His hands were blackened, and his clothing was wet and torn. But he pushed his hair from his eyes with his forearm and smiled at them.

  ‘He’s recovered,’ thought Jones. ‘Now they’ve shown their hand he’s relieved.’ He glanced down at his own bare shins protruding from the ends of a pair of the vicar’s trousers, caught Hallam’s eye, and grinned.

  The fire had not taken serious hold. When it was out they spent the next hour clearing away the piles of brushwood and kindlings which the villagers had piled against the house. The well was choked with rubbish of every description, but fortunately the first object thrown in had been an ancient sieve which had become wedged about five feet down, and the refuse which had been dropped on top of it had been caught and held.

  ‘Bit of luck,’ grunted Jones.

  Mrs Bradley chuckled.

  ‘Not luck, but foresight,’ she said.

  ‘You didn’t know they’d throw rubbish into the vicar’s well?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course I did. They were depending upon the water supply at Neot House. Nao’s orders were to commence the stopping up of the vicarage well himself so that nothing should foul the water. Then any rubbish anyone else shot in would rest on top of our carefully disposed rubbish, with the result that you see.’

  ‘And tomorrow——’ began Hallam.

  ‘And Doctor Mortmain will be in Southampton, and won’t know that in spite of our serious consultations about your mental health you are still at large,’ said Mrs Bradley, grinning.

  Jones, who had at last removed all traces of the blue-bag from his countenance, demanded suddenly:

  ‘I say, Hallam, what did happen here on the night of the murder?’

  ‘I went to Neot House to arrange, I hoped, that the new owner would supply the villagers with water should things become too desperate.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Jones.

  ‘I went on my bicycle and I arrived at the house at about a quarter to ten. I had been advised by Mrs Tebbutt that Middleton was not in the habit of going to bed before midnight, and that he disliked being
interviewed during the day.

  ‘I left my bicycle against the side of the house and rang the bell. The door was opened by Tebbutt, and I was shown into a room which was furnished sparely but comfortably, and in about a quarter of an hour Mrs Tebbutt came in to tell me that her employer was not, after all, disposed to see me, but would do as I pleased about the water.

  ‘Scarcely had she left me when young Tom Tebbutt put his head in at the door, and told me, in a whisper, to go as quickly as ever I could, because I was in grave danger.’

  ‘Good gracious me!’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘I thought Tom Tebbutt was mad,’ continued the vicar, ‘but, as there was nothing to stay for, I left the house and was just wheeling my bicycle on to the drive preparatory to riding home when the most dreadful hue and cry broke out behind me.

  ‘I admit that I was seriously alarmed, and that I acted under the influence of panic. My nervous system—but I won’t make all these wretched excuses. It’s enough for me to confess that instead of investigating matters and facing the consequences, I mounted my bicycle and made across the lawn to the gate and so down the road faster than I have ever ridden in my life. What the hue and cry was, and how it affected me, I have no idea whatever; nobody except Mrs Tebbutt knew that I was going to Neot House that night, and I believe my pursuers numbered, at the most, four or five persons, of whom some, I am convinced, were women. No one will ever know what I felt, when I realised that, but for my cowardly flight from a noise and a few stones——’

  ‘So that’s how you cut your head!’ said Jones, relieved.

  ‘I might have saved a fellow creature from being murdered in that house. Poor wretched man!’

  Mrs Bradley turned to Jones. ‘Has it never struck you that in this affair there is one obvious and unexplained phenomenon, dear child?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Jones.

  ‘Well, where’s Tebbutt?’

  ‘Tebbutt? Still at Neot House. Isn’t he ill in bed there?’