Come Away, Death

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Boat, child?’

  ‘We thought we could sneak round the coast by boat, and land at Eleusis without anybody knowing, and more or less leap on the rest of them and startle father into a fit. Into ten fits,’ he added, an innocent, ruminating expression upon his thin face.

  ‘The chief trouble, if we don’t let Megan in, and make her pay, is the hire of the boat,’ he added, underlining the chief trouble in what he hoped was a sufficiently ingenuous way. There was an awkward but illuminating pause.

  ‘Two pounds will buy my life and secure me from complicity, perhaps?’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘O.K.,’ said Ivor, smiling.

  ‘O.K.,’ said Kenneth, dancing about.

  ‘O.K.,’ said Stewart, nodding.

  ‘Are you proposing to disguise yourselves, or do you adventure in your own persons?’ Mrs Bradley inquired, glancing at her watch.

  ‘You know Iacchus? You know – that statue father had copied in wood so that it can be carried?’

  ‘Aha!’ said Mrs. Bradley, gazing at them in admiration.

  ‘We thought we’d steal it and – and get it there by sea – Stewart says that’s how they used to, you know, before old What’s-it bucked them up into taking it along by road again —’

  ‘It ought to be a jolly good rag,’ said Ivor. ‘Father will be sick when they come for it and it’s gone.’

  ‘A jolly good rag,’ said Kenneth. ‘Stewart thought of it. He mugs these things up. It comes in useful sometimes.’

  ‘It will put Sir Rudri’s back up,’ said Stewart, thoughtfully. ‘We don’t want to queer our own pitch. That’s the only thing. I didn’t realize, when I suggested it, that he was quite so apt to lose his wool so easily.’

  ‘You can’t back out,’ said Ivor. ‘After all, he’s my father. I shall be the worst off if he goes rabies.’

  ‘I’m not backing out. He can’t leave us behind, whatever we do, because there’s nobody in Athens to leave us with. I merely said, it will put his back up, and it will.’

  ‘We must chance that,’ said Sir Rudri’s heroic son.

  ‘Here is the money,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But where is Iacchus, my dears?’

  ‘We don’t know, but we’re going to pump Dish.’

  ‘We thought we’d pump him now, before breakfast. They’ve all come back to the house, the others, ready to walk to Eleusis again to-day. It’s the Torch Procession today.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Kenneth. He led the way down the hillside, skipping goat-like. Ivor followed him. Stewart walked sedately beside Mrs Bradley.

  ‘Do you know where Iacchus is?’ he asked.

  ‘No, child.’

  ‘You couldn’t very well have told me, anyway, could you? You know, to do it properly, we ought to have our own Iacchus, and let Sir Rudri keep his.’

  ‘Mr Armstrong could look like Iacchus if he chose.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do it, though. He’s a clouter of heads. Very vicious. I’m quite as used to a ciné-camera as he is.’ He brooded a moment, then added: ‘Personally, I’m in favour of raiding the Athens museum for something authentic – a real statue – we could easily get one. They’ve got dozens. But the others won’t entertain the idea.’

  ‘I think it might lead to unforeseen complications, child. Besides, a stone statue would be very heavy to carry. That is why Sir Rudri had his copied in wood.’

  ‘Do you know what struck me this morning?’ Stewart asked. ‘We shall be a party of thirteen. Do you think that’s altogether wise?’

  ‘Thirteen?’ Mrs Bradley made a calculation, envisaging, as she did so, the several members of the party. ‘Hopkinsons, four; Curries, three; yourself, myself, Mr Armstrong, Mr Dick, Dmitri, and our good Dish. To be sure; thirteen.’ She nodded. ‘I’m not superstitious,’ she added.

  ‘Cathleen and Kenneth are. Ivor is, too, I think. I’m not. We’re Maclarens, you know. We merely say: “The Boar’s Rock”, and annihilate people like the Buchanans of Leny.’

  With mutual interest they then discussed the history of the Maclarens, the Macphersons, and the MacDonalds of Clan Ranald until they reached the hotel.

  ‘We’ve got all day,’ said Ivor, who, with Kenneth, was already seated at table when they arrived. ‘To-day father and the other three go back to Eleusis with the torches and then, to-morrow, they’re supposed to take Iacchus.’

  ‘But if they can’t find Iacchus – I mean – if we’ve pinched him – they merely won’t go. We hadn’t allowed for that,’ said Stewart soberly.

  At this point the girls joined them.

  ‘There must be two statues – ours and his,’ Stewart continued.

  ‘Why?’ asked Megan. ‘Oh, Kenneth, haven’t you caught the sun!’

  The waiter came up.

  ‘He’s wearing an amulet,’ said Kenneth, to change the subject.

  ‘I bet you he’s wearing an amulet,’ said Ivor. Stewart turned to Mrs Bradley.

  ‘I have a theory that when the Greek Church finally declines, these Greeks will go back to the worship of Dionysus,’ he said. The waiter flicked imaginary crumbs off the cloth to draw attention to his presence, scratched himself irritably, and said, with some suddenness, directing the words at Mrs Bradley as though they were an ancient curse:

  ‘The bacon and egg.’

  ‘No, no,’ replied Mrs Bradley. She gave her order painstakingly, in Greek, and, having listened perfunctorily, the waiter bowed and expostulated. He brought fried pig and over-fried eggs for the rest of the party, went away, and returned shortly with a newspaper which he spread temperamentally in front of Mrs Bradley, jabbing his finger upon one of its columns and speaking rapidly and with obvious feeling.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Bradley regretfully, ‘I seem to have been misunderstood.’ She tried again. This time the waiter emitted an exclamation of satisfaction, snatched away the newspaper, and, after he had served her with bread, honey, and fruit, stood perusing it himself with every evidence of close and sustained interest.

  ‘Two what?’ asked Megan suddenly. The boys eyed one another.

  ‘Canoes,’ replied Kenneth, the rapid thinker. ‘We’re going to bathe and canoe.’

  ‘I expect you two will want to show Aunt Adela the shops,’ added Ivor, achieving what he believed to be a charming and sympathetic smile.

  ‘Look here, what are you infants up to?’ demanded his sister, immediately and justifiably suspicious of brotherly kindness. Three blank faces looked at her, stupid with bovine innocence. ‘You can’t start anything daft to-day! You’ll wreck all father’s plans if you aren’t in your places to do that herald stuff.’

  ‘Herald stuff? Oh, gosh!’ said Kenneth bitterly. ‘I’d forgotten all that rot! Oh, I say, dash it, Oh, look here, dash it!’

  ‘But we don’t have to be heralds until the sixth day,’ said Ivor. ‘There’s no need to sweat over there until to-morrow. And, even then, we don’t do that bit until dusk.’

  ‘Please yourself, then. You know what father is. I’m sure he’ll expect us to-day,’ said Megan, giving it up.

  Sir Rudri, in fact, came round to the hotel at half past nine to make certain that all of them were in readiness for the Ceremonies. But, to the concealed delight of the boys, he intimated, with a sour glance at Mrs Bradley, that he should not expect them at Eleusis until the morrow, since it was impossible, apparently, for them to sleep at the inn. He drew her aside, however, when the boys and the two girls had gone, and lowered his voice.

  ‘Beatrice, I don’t care for young Armstrong,’ he said. ‘He’s going to be rather a nuisance, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Stewart doesn’t care for him, either,’ said Mrs Bradley composedly.

  ‘He’s really a bit of a responsibility,’ went on Sir Rudri. ‘He got drunk last night, and had to return from Eleusis on a motor lorry. We couldn’t possibly have him on a public omnibus. Gelert accompanied him. He didn’t know how to behave, and Gelert very kindly assumed the responsibility. Dmitri and Dish we left at the inn. Of course, Armstr
ong seems very sorry for himself this morning, but I don’t know, I’m sure. I’ve been rather sharp with him. If he weren’t such a clever photographer I believe I’d try for somebody else, even at this eleventh hour. I suppose he won’t attempt to misbehave with the girls?’

  ‘Hardly. The girls are sensible,’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘Stewart says he’s a clouter of heads. That’s not a desirable trait. I don’t like heads to be clouted.’

  ‘He’d better keep his hands to himself,’ said Sir Rudri, scowling. ‘I don’t approve of young men clouting little boys. It is not the spirit. Not the spirit at all. Besides,’ he added firmly, ‘I can do any clouting that seems necessary. My children are not accustomed to be clouted. Nor Stewart. A delightful little chap. Really very intelligent. No, no. I won’t have it. Something will have to be done. He must mend his ways.’ Sir Rudri’s Viking moustache, always the most obvious index to his emotions, began to lift at the end.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘How fares Iacchus?’

  ‘The men who take the money for admission to the Acropolis have the statue in their charge. They have strict orders to deliver him up to no one but myself,’ replied Sir Rudri. He smiled. ‘I have been the victim of practical jokes before now.’

  3

  ‘The thing is,’ said Kenneth, ‘that the idea was a wash-out from the first. Let’s admit it, and give it up. We can have plenty of jolly good rags which aren’t half the fag. Give Mrs Bradley her money back, and let’s go and annoy that old chap at the gate of the Stadion. You know, the one dressed in national costume. You’ve only got to call him Kora!’

  Mrs Bradley, informed, not of the pious object of the morning’s outing, but that they were prepared to give up all thought of attempting to obtain possession of Iacchus, went off by herself to spend a couple of hours in the museum. The day was even hotter than the previous day had been, and she was glad to think that the long walk to Eleusis would not take place until the evening. This time there would be torches and mystic songs.… She stood before the Stele of Aristion, contemplating, not only the greaved and kilted warrior with his curled locks and long, straight feet, but the imaginary spectacle of Sir Rudri walking with torches in the dusk of the Greek evening, chanting strange hymns and sorrowful litanies to the Eleusinian gods Iacchus and Dionysus, and to the goddesses Persephone and Demeter, and to the god-king Triptolemus. She could see him, dogged idealist and romancer, proceeding ploddingly the while along the petrol-haunted, dusty Sacred Way which now led, in the age of progress, the world no longer young, from one Greek slum to another. Absently, still gazing at the tombstone, she quoted Aristophanes, and regretfully clicked her tongue.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘Iacchus, O Iacchus.’

  1

  THE BOYS DID not appear at lunch. The waiter explained that at ten o’clock they had asked for food and had gone to bathe. Sir Rudri, Alexander Currie, and the nervous, spectacled Dick joined Mrs Bradley at the table. The two girls came late to the meal, but of the erring Armstrong and of Gelert Hopkinson there was still no sign.

  ‘And what,’ asked Alexander Currie, peering at the wine in his glass as though he suspected that his host might have poisoned it before it had been brought to table, ‘do you expect to gain from all this Iacchus tomfoolery?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sir Rudri replied. ‘I wish you could be a little more open-minded, Alexander. It does not help matters when you are so determinedly and obstinately prejudiced.’

  ‘I’m not prejudiced at all. I merely say what I think. If I think the whole thing is a lot of tomfoolery, I presume that nothing is lost by my saying so,’ retorted Alexander, who had suffered greatly already from the heat, the dust, and the flies, and was beginning to regret that he had ever consented to come.

  ‘You should keep an open mind,’ Sir Rudri responded. He turned to his daughter.

  ‘Where’s Ivor?’

  ‘Picnicking, father.’

  ‘Are those other little scoundrels with him?’

  ‘My son is not a scoundrel,’ observed Alexander Currie, ‘and neither is Stewart Paterson.’

  ‘Where are Gelert and Mr Armstrong, father?’ inquired Megan, adroitly entering the lists between the combatants.

  ‘Gelert is getting Armstrong into some sort of shape for tomorrow night, I presume. That young man has broken purification. I shall not attempt to let him take part in the Torchlight Procession to-night, and even to-morrow he had better not touch the Iacchus.’

  ‘Tight as an owl,’ said Alexander Currie, regarding his portion of ice-cream with exaggerated aversion, and pushing it to the side of his plate. As though it were hemlock, he raised and drained his glass. ‘Can’t think how he managed it on this stuff.’ He wrestled with a slender flask of whisky which had stuck fast in a long, narrow pocket of his shantung jacket. It emerged at last and he filled his glass. ‘Have some of this, Rudri,’ he said. Sir Rudri waved it aside, then suddenly changed his mind. ‘Yes, thank you, yes. Just half a glass, if I may. Thank you, plenty, plenty.’

  The party were to be provided with sleeping-bags for the night, which they must inevitably spend at Eleusis.

  Mrs Bradley had hired a car, and she, the three boys, the two girls, and the baggage were all packed into it.

  The car caught up Sir Rudri’s procession about seven miles out from Athens. The statue of Iacchus, Mrs Bradley was relieved to notice, appeared to be in its normal state – she had wondered whether the little boys’ sense of fun would have led them into giving it a red nose or some other crudely humorous embellishment – for in spite of Sir Rudri’s precautions, there had been just time for some such trick to be played when the statue had been surrendered by its guards – but all appeared to be well. Just after eight o’clock in the evening the car drew up at the ruins, and its occupants got out and waited for the little procession of walkers.

  Mrs Bradley looked at her watch and then glanced towards the ruined Hall of the Mysteries. The evening was darkening in. The stepped seats of the roofless Hall were almost indistinguishable. The little path which ran between the bits of ruined masonry, the stumps of slender pillars, and the treacherous floorings of stone, led upwards and then disappeared towards the sea. A faint gleam of water betrayed the Bay of Salamis, and looming mountain-tops, black-purple against the sky, showed where the rocky island lay across the water.

  ‘It’s really rather eerie,’ Megan said. ‘Oh look! What a queer-shaped boat!’

  It had no oars and one square sail, and it was coming up before the evening breeze, slowly and rather clumsily, nearer to the mainland than to the island, but even so, at some considerable distance from the watchers.

  Sir Rudri and his little party were nowhere to be seen, for Mrs Bradley glanced round to find out whether they had arrived. The three little boys gave a sudden, almost synchronized, squealing shout, and began to run towards the sea. Cathleen clutched Mrs Bradley’s arm, but it was Megan who said, in tones of excitement, and almost, Mrs Bradley thought, of relief:

  ‘It’s like the ship on the vase!’

  Mrs Bradley, who had field-glasses, directed them towards the ship. The ship sailed on. It was, in some ways, not unlike the usual sailing ship to be seen in Mediterranean waters, but the square instead of the usual lateen sail, a curious, high balustrading along part of the deck, and the ship’s deep waist and high three-ended prow, gave it a breath-takingly romantic, impressively archaic appearance which no modern ship unaided could achieve.

  ‘Well,’ said Ivor, coming back to Mrs Bradley when the ship had sailed past the ruins and appeared to be rounding towards Megara. ‘What do you think about that?’

  ‘What do you think, child?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He glanced over his shoulder as though he had begun to feel nervous. ‘It strikes me as being a bit queer. I mean, that’s what we’d thought of, only not the camouflage, which really was absolutely right. Is somebody ragging, do you think?’

  ‘What do you think, child?’ Mrs Bradley asked, tur
ning to Cathleen.

  ‘I suppose we all saw the same thing?’ was Cathleen’s quiet reply. Ivor stared. Mrs Bradley cackled, a weird sound at which Cathleen jumped and a bird flew up with a startling whirr of wings from the back of a hut near the ruins. Megan, stumbling on the rough, uneven path, came running back to them. She had followed the boys towards the ship.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘You don’t think father’s doings have started up something supernatural, do you?’

  ‘What?’ asked Ivor.

  ‘The men. They were dressed like Greeks.’

  ‘Well, we’re in Greece.’

  ‘Yes, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘We saw them, too,’ he blurted out. ‘But I think it must be someone ragging.’

  ‘So we did all see the same thing?’ said Cathleen, as quietly as before.

  ‘The whole idea is obviously intended for a joke. It has missed fire, though, because Sir Rudri wasn’t here. They misjudged the speed of their craft, I should imagine,’ said Mrs Bradley, who was interested to see the obvious alarm of Cathleen and the feigned discomfort of Megan, who was pretending an alarm she did not feel. Kenneth and Stewart just then came up, and the party walked back through the dusk to the gate which led from the road. It was now quite dark. Large stars came out, but that night there would be no round moon to shed its watery light on the quiet bay.

  It was Ivor who described the ship to his father, when, footsore, tired, and, it was soon apparent, not on the best of terms with one another, the Iacchus party, sick of the walk and of carrying the heavy wooden statue (a little larger than life-size) of the god, finally arrived at the ruins. Sir Rudri, not at all the man to be sceptical or incredulous, was immediately and immensely excited about the ship.

  “Who knows! Who knows! Oh, what a pity I wasn’t here! Who knows what it may mean? We may have set things moving already! This is wonderful! Oh, why was I not here to see it?’