The Curious Affair of the Third Dog

by Patricia Moyes

  “About an hour ago, sir.” The two men retreated into the blackness of a wooded copse. Denning propped his bicycle against a tree and whistled softly. A moment later, Hawthorn appeared as if from nowhere. He was wearing a sweater and an old duffle coat of Bill Spence’s, as well as the latter’s voluminous trousers, which were being kept vertical by faith and a stout leather belt.

  He greeted Henry deferentially, and, prompted by Denning, took up the story. “That’s right, sir. Just like you said it would be. About an hour ago, the van drove up and parked outside the gate, like it is now. P.C. Denning and I were keeping watch from here. A man got out of the van, a small chap, not much over five-foot-four, I’d say—”

  “Shorty Bates,” said Henry. “Direct from his success at impersonating a racetrack steward at Bunstead. He must have slipped away when the shooting started, lain low in the car park, and then nipped into the van and driven down here when he realized we’d got Pennington. That would fit in nicely. Well, what happened then?”

  “Like you said, sir, he rang the bell on the gate. We weren’t close enough to be sure, but I guess he gave some sort of signal by the way he rang. Anyhow, the dogs all started barking and yelping—nobody to hear them except us, of course—but they shut up right away. Somebody inside recognized the signal, quieted the dogs, and came to the gate within a matter of seconds. I thought it was a girl at first, but Mr. Denning here says it was the kennel boy.”

  “That’s right, sir. Young Tommy. Mr. and Mrs. Yateley leave him in charge if they’re both out of an evening,” Denning added. “I did notice he didn’t put any lights on, which I thought was a bit odd. Anyhow, he obviously knew the visitor—the short chap. They whispered together for a moment, and then Tommy opened the gate and they both went in.”

  “And they’re still there?” Henry asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Denning answered. “That is, I did like you said, sir. After ten minutes or so, I pushed my bike out onto the road and up the hill, like I was on an ordinary evening beat, and rang the Hilltop bell.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Well, nothing for a minute or two, sir. Then all the lights went on, and young Tommy come out. He didn’t unlock the gate. He spoke to me from the other side, like. Nervy, I thought he seemed. I said like you told me—that Mr. Yateley had asked me to keep an eye on the kennels, and that I’d seen this suspicious vehicle without lights—the blue van—parked at the gate, and thought I’d better investigate.”

  “Good work, Denning,” said Henry. “What did he say?”

  “Well, it was really comical, sir.” Denning was his usual genial self. “I could see the poor lad didn’t know what story to tell. Fair tongue-tied, he was. Didn’t know whether to admit he’d got a pal in there, or to deny he knew anything about the van. He’s only a lad, after all,” added Denning, always ready to give the benefit of the doubt. Then he looked quickly at his watch, and said to Hawthorn, “You’d better take the tale on from there, son. I’m off on my beat.” He wheeled his bicycle out onto the road, got it rolling with a few running steps, threw a nimble leg over the saddle, and pedaled off in the direction of Hilltop Kennels.

  As soon as Denning had gone, Henry said, “Well, did you bring the suitcase?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s here, sir.”

  “Then I’ll start changing,” Henry said, “while you regale me with the story of P.C. Denning and his beat. If I heard right.”

  Hawthorn grinned in the darkness. “That’s right, sir. Before the boy had decided what to answer the constable, this other character comes out from the kennels. Bates, I think you said his name was. ‘That’s all right, Constable,’ he says. ‘I’m a friend of Tommy’s and that’s my van. Just visiting my young pal for the evening,’ he says, smooth as you like. So P.C. Denning says—he’s not nearly so slow as he looks, sir—he says, quick as a flash, ‘Oh, is that so?’ he says. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it because there’s a lot of valuable dogs in here, and I’ve been tipped off about suspicious persons in the neighborhood, and I know as how Mr. and Mrs. Yateley is both away at a race meeting. So I reckon—’ he says, ‘I reckon I’ll just patrol around hereabout until Mr. Yateley gets back.’ Well, young Tommy and his friend didn’t seem to think much of that for an idea. Assured Denning it wasn’t necessary, and so forth, but he insisted and there wasn’t a lot they could do. So he’s been cycling past the gate every ten minutes or so, regular. Got them bottled up in there all right.”

  While Hawthorn had been speaking, Henry had not been idle. He had divested himself of his uniform jacket and trousers, and, with some help from the constable, had climbed into a pair of comfortable old gray flannel trousers and was halfway into a thick knitted sweater. In a muffled voice, he said, “Pull the sweater down over my head, will you, Constable? This blasted arm of mine…ah, that’s better.” Henry’s head appeared like a jack-in-the-box from the enveloping knitwear. He shook himself, and added, “They didn’t try to get a greyhound out and away?”

  “That they did, sir. After Denning’s first patrol, as it were. They must have been watching, and as soon as his bike disappeared down this way, out they come to the gate, with Tommy leading this dog. Well, of course, Denning hadn’t gone pedaling off on his beat like they thought—he was right here with me, watching—so straight away he’s on his bike and back again before Tommy can get the gate unlocked. So Denning greets them again, all friendly like, as if he’s no notion of anything being wrong—and Tommy says something about exercising the hound, and Denning says as how he can see it’s a champion dog and it wouldn’t do if it escaped, would it? So that puts a stop to that little lark, and they haven’t tried again.”

  “There’s just the one gate, I trust?” Henry said.

  “According to P.C. Denning, yes, sir. And anyhow the van is here and—well, have you seen that fence, sir? Solid iron mesh and about two foot of barbed wire on the top. No, they’re inside all right, and—ah, here comes Mr. Denning back, sir. Perhaps you’ll give him his instructions, sir?”

  “What instructions would those be?” Henry asked.

  There was a small, embarrassed pause. Then Hawthorn said, “Well, sir, you didn’t say anything on the telephone except what we were to do, up till the time you arrived. But now you’re here, I’d have thought it’d be the moment for P.C. Denning to tell the Hilltop lot that he’s knocking off for the night…give ’em the all clear, in fact…and then wait here and nab them when they come out with the dog.”

  “Hawthorn,” said Henry, “I couldn’t have put it better myself. Did I hear a rumor that you’re keen to transfer to the C.I.D.?”

  “You did indeed, sir. And if—”

  “I can’t promise anything,” said Henry, “but you can rely on me for a reference. Ah, here comes Denning now.”

  The whispered conference did not take more than half a minute, and then P.C. Denning was pedaling his way back to the formidable gate of Hilltop Kennels. From their vantage point among the trees, Henry and Hawthorn could not overhear what was being said, but they watched the pantomime as Denning rang the bell and Tommy appeared—no sign of Bates this time—and Denning announced his intention of retiring for the night. Even at that distance, it seemed to the watchers that Tommy relaxed, became less nervous and merrier. At least, they could see that he sped the constable on his way with a light-hearted wave of the arm. Denning mounted his faithful steed and directed it downhill, around the first bend in the road, and back through the copse to his waiting companions.

  “Right,” said Henry. “Come on, Hawthorn.” He linked his good left arm with the constable’s right one. “Here we go.” Raising their voices in unmelodious harmony, the two marched out unsteadily into the road.

  Inside the Hilltop compound, Shorty Bates was growing impatient. “Come on, for God’s sake. Simple Simon’ll be back in no time—the last race at Bunstead’s the ten o’clock.”

  “Gotta be sure the fuzz ’as gone,” Tommy whispered. His hand tightened on Griselda’s collar, and she n
uzzled his leg gently. They were old friends. Something in the pit of Tommy’s stomach turned over, and he felt sick. He said, “What’ll happen to her?”

  “To who? Miss Bloody Amanda? She’s had her chips.”

  “I meant…Griselda.”

  Bates sensed trouble. “Nothing. Nothing for you to bother about. She’ll be OK. Now, for God’s sake, get that gate open. I got to get out of here, and fast.”

  Tommy was just seventeen. Nothing that he had done up till now had worried him—what’s the difference, put a few extra quid in your pocket, what’s Yateley ever done for you, lad? Little bit of info here and there…what’s that to worry about, eh? That’s how you get on in life, boy. You’ll learn. Well, he was learning. He hadn’t bargained for the rough stuff, like that poor sod in the van yesterday evening, laid out cold. Shorty had explained…just the result of a business disagreement, had to rough him up a bit, he was all right. Well, Tommy knew he was alive—could hear him breathing. Just have to help me get him home, lad, Shorty had said. Leave him in his own garden shed, he’ll be OK. Tommy had recognized the man—he’d been at Hilltop, talking to the Yateleys while Black Prince was exercising. That’s right, Shorty said. Hanging round where he wasn’t wanted, sticking his nose into other people’s business. You take his shoulders, don’t let him see your ugly mug. And keep your trap shut.

  Tommy had kept his trap shut, and the twin pressures of greed and fear had combined to help him rationalize his role in that particular caper. After all, he’d only seen the man once. A business rival of Shorty’s. These things happened.

  But this—this was different. This was Griselda. Tommy had been there when Griselda was born. He’d fed her and exercised her and helped to train her. He’d taken her up to Doblington for her first race, all on his own, as proud as a young father entering his offspring for a baby show—and he’d watched her lope in a bad last, with that endearing expression on her silly face. He knew she could have won if she’d wanted to. She just didn’t choose to. That was Griselda.

  In the excitement of the race, not many people had even noticed such a hopeless nonstarter as Griselda—all the attention had been focused on the winner, Marlene’s Fancy, a champion in the making if ever Tommy had seen one; so Tommy was one of the very few to notice the extraordinary similarity between the two bitches—the white star on the forehead, the white forepaws. When Tommy got back to Gorsemere, he’d happened to mention the curious resemblance between the two bitches to…well, that was when it all started.

  And now, it was ending. Ending with the ultimate betrayal. He, Tommy, was handing Griselda over to Shorty Bates, to be shoved into the little blue van and driven off to die. Tommy knew that very well, no matter what Bates said. Griselda was “hot.” Griselda had to disappear. They reached the compound gate, and Tommy began fumbling reluctantly in his pocket for the key. And then, with huge relief, he said, “Listen!”

  “Get that gate open, for Pete’s sake!” snapped Bates.

  “Listen—somebody’s coming. Better get back.”

  For a moment they listened. Then Bates said, “That’s nothing. A couple of drunks going home from the pub.”

  “You are my he-e-art’s desire…I le-e-rv you…Nelly De-ea-a-n!” warbled a couple of discordant male voices.

  “They’re coming this way—they’ll see you!” Tommy whispered urgently.

  “So what? They’re not capable of seeing anything, the state they’re in.” Bates stiffened. “But what I do hear is a car. Bloody Yateley, that’ll be. Get that gate open.”

  Miserably, Tommy produced the key. The iron gate swung open. The two drunks were lurching across the road, arm in arm, oblivious to everything. No help to be had from them.

  Bates opened the back door of the van and turned on Tommy. “Right. Help me get the bloody dog in the van. And look sharp about it.”

  He put a hand to Griselda’s collar and wrenched it savagely out of Tommy’s grasp. The bitch gave a yelp of pain and alarm, and something in Tommy’s brain snapped. He flung his arms around the greyhound’s neck and began to scream. “No! Leave her alone! No! Help! Help!”

  It was no good, of course. Bates sent Tommy sprawling with a well-aimed kick to the groin, and dragged the whimpering dog toward the van. So occupied was he that he did not even notice that the drunks had stopped behaving like drunks. In fact, Hawthorn had him handcuffed before he fully registered that something was wrong. Tommy was still rolling on the ground, clutching himself and moaning. And, as the powerful headlamps of the Rover came roaring around the corner to illuminate the strange scene, a beige and white greyhound bitch streaked away into the darkness of the trees, her tail between her legs. Lady Griselda of Gorsemere was going home.

  ***

  They found her sitting patiently as her namesake outside the shed in Harry Heathfield’s backyard. She had negotiated the fence without difficulty, and was now waiting for her master. She wondered vaguely what had happened to Ginger and Tess, but a dog’s brain is somewhat limited in capacity, and for some time now Griselda had had just one object in life—to return to the place where she had been so happy, until the day when her master went off in the morning and never came back, and a dark-skinned man had broken into her shed and dragged her away to a waiting car. Since then, life had been a nightmare of strange sheds, of uncomfortable rides in cars and vans, of unfamiliar voices and harsh treatment.

  Her return to Hilltop and Tommy had delighted Griselda at first, but she could not understand why Bella never visited her, why she was not exercised or allowed to mix with the other dogs, but was kept by Tommy shut up in the damp darkness of one of the old kennels on the far perimeter of the compound. This, in Griselda’s opinion, was a poor exchange for her highly satisfactory life as the apple of Harry Heathfield’s eye.

  Consequently, she had come home.

  Of course, she could not be allowed to stay there, and of course it was Jane who offered to take her in, together with her old pals Tess and Ginger, until the majesty of the law had seen fit to extract Harry Heathfield from Middingfield Jail and send him home with an apology.

  At Cherry Tree Cottage, seeing her new charge for the first time under adequate lighting in the kitchen, Jane suddenly said, “Well, Marlene’s Fancy may not be in whelp, but Lady Griselda certainly is.”

  The conversation, which had been confused and unsatisfactory in any case, stopped abruptly as Emmy, Henry, and Bill turned to look at Griselda, who was sensibly getting her nose down into a bowl of biscuits.

  “But—how can she be? She’s been with Harry until just recently—” Bill began.

  “Yes,” Jane pointed out. “In the company of another bitch and a male.”

  “Oh, Ginger,” said Emmy. “Oh, Ginger, was it really you?”

  Ginger sat back on his haunches and scratched his ear. There was no mistaking the complacent smirk on his ill-bred face.

  “Ginger,” said Emmy. “I’m ashamed of you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “WWELL,” HENRY SAID, “they almost got away with it. I suppose I should have guessed sooner, but—” He leaned forward and caressed Marlene’s Fancy behind the ears, whereupon Lady Griselda, resenting this show of favoritism, pushed her muzzle against his knee, demanding equal attention.

  Seeing the two greyhounds together, it was obvious that they were not so much like identical twins as sisters; and, indeed, it transpired that they had been sired by the same dog, Lord Jim, and each bore a strong resemblance to her father. The differences between them—obvious to the eye but not to the identity card—were the shape of the head, the set of the ears, and, most importantly, the shade of beige in the overall coat color. Griselda was most noticeably lighter in color than Marlene’s Fancy, which was why only Tommy’s sharp eyes had spotted the similarity at Doblington; but on an identity card, beige is beige, and with their identical markings it was no surprise that racetrack officials, in all good faith, had accepted the one for the other.

  The grandfather clock in the Spences
’ hall had just struck two o’clock in the morning, but still Henry and Emmy, Bill and Jane, lingered over a nightcap. Henry would dearly have liked to go to bed, but he knew that he would be in a whirl of official proceedings the following day, and it seemed only fair to give his sister- and brother-in-law a rational explanation for the goings-on into which he had led them.

  “It’s hard to know where to begin,” he said. “At first, I was just mildly intrigued by the story of the third dog who was missing. Then, hearing about the Heathfield case, it reminded me of the so-called accidental death of one Larry Lawson, a notorious dog track gambler and petty crook. When I checked and found that Lawson had been the accident victim, I got really interested. Of course, coincidences do happen, but it’s highly unusual for a man like that to die a death that’s both violent and accidental…and what would he have been doing on a country road near Gorsemere late at night? Then, one of the chief witnesses at the Heathfield trial turned out to be an old enemy of mine—a shady publican from London who consorts with gamblers, keeps his own nose clean, but has a way of cropping up as a convenient witness in the courts. I can assure you, I didn’t want to get involved or to drag you in—but the smell of rats was too strong by then. I couldn’t let it drop. Besides, there was Heathfield himself.”

  “They’ll let him out of prison now, won’t they?” Jane asked.

  “Certainly,” said Henry. “The formalities may take a few days, but he’ll get a free pardon.”

  Bill Spence moved uneasily in his chair. “Look here, Henry,” he said, “that’s all very well, but don’t forget I heard the Heathfield committal proceedings. The thing may have been stage-managed—doesn’t surprise me to hear it—but you can’t get away from the fact that he was drunk and he was driving that car.”

  “Yes and no,” said Henry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was certainly drunk,” Henry agreed, “and probably drugged as well. After all that whiskey, it wouldn’t have taken much to knock him right out, and it was agreed that he ‘came over queer’ quite suddenly, just before he left the pub.”