by T E Kinsey
Lady Hardcastle ignored her. ‘How do you suppose we get in now?’ she said. ‘The vestry door, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Although I’d keep it locked if I were the vicar.’
‘You could never be a vicar, dear. You’re too short to see over the lectern.’
‘I would stand on a box.’
Miss Caudle let out an exasperated ‘Argh’, and pushed her way back into the crowd to try to get a better view.
Lady Hardcastle made to set off in the other direction towards what I always thought of as the ‘rear’ of the church, where the vestry door might afford entry. She drew up short when we heard a collective gasp from the small group of onlookers who were still outside the gate and could see more of the church building than we could.
Looking up, we just about managed a glimpse of Aaron Orum at the top of the church tower, silhouetted against the full moon. We went back out of the gate and on to the road with the others to get a better view.
Orum leaned over the parapet and paused for a moment, apparently scanning for signs of his Mephistophelian pursuers. It seemed as though he had calmed down and that he finally thought himself safe from whatever hellish beasts had chased him from the pub.
And then, with a sudden, soul-wrenching scream, he lurched away from the parapet and launched himself towards the other side of the tower. Out of sight now, he screamed again, but this time the sound was behind the church. Abruptly, it stopped.
We stood for a moment, transfixed by the shock of what we all knew had just happened. The spell was broken by a scream from one of Hughes’s retinue. As one, we all took a step towards the church gate, but once again our progress was halted, this time by a blast from a police whistle.
‘Stay where you are, please, ladies and gentlemen,’ barked Sergeant Dobson in his most commanding parade ground voice. ‘Constable Hancock and I will deal with this.’
There were mutinous mutterings from some in the small crowd, but, despite the understandable urge to find out what had happened, they seemed inclined to obey the authoritative voice of the policeman. Or perhaps it was the dawning realization of what they might find were they to go round to the other side of the church. I doubted many of them had seen a body broken by a fall, but I credited them with enough imagination to know that it wasn’t something they would want to witness first-hand.
Sergeant Dobson, with Constable Hancock trailing obediently behind, pushed his way through the crowd and took up position in front of the lych gate.
‘Go on, lad,’ he said quietly to the constable. ‘Take a look and report back.’
I couldn’t make out the constable’s expression in the dim moonlight, but from the sound of his timorous ‘Right you are, Sarge’, I guessed it wasn’t a happy one. Nevertheless, he pushed open the gate and cautiously disappeared from view behind the church.
‘I say! Sergeant?’ Lady Hardcastle had to raise her voice above the growing hubbub.
‘Lady ’ardcastle?’ replied the sergeant. ‘Are you here?’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘And Armstrong, too.’
He turned towards us. ‘Make way there, if you please,’ he said. ‘Let them through.’
The crowd parted obediently and we made our way forwards to where he stood under the cover of the church gate.
‘Thank goodness you got here so quickly, Sergeant,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I shouldn’t have liked to try to control even this small a mob on my own.’
‘We was . . . nearby when the commotion started,’ he said. I took this to mean that he and his colleague had been celebrating the end of their shift with a swift one in the Dog and Duck.
‘Were you near enough to see what set him off?’ I asked.
‘As far as I know, he was eatin’ his supper in the snug and then just went doolally. Screamin’ and shoutin’, wild-eyed and rantin’.’
‘About demons,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Sommat like that,’ said the sergeant.
‘What was he eating?’ I asked. ‘I believe Old Joe said it was a pie. Do you know what sort?’
‘Joe was servin’ his famous chicken and mushroom pie this evenin’. Lovely bit of grub, that. I was lookin’ forward to a bit of pie meself, later.’
‘Mushrooms again?’ I said.
‘You don’t think . . . ?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Well, he wasn’t being chased by actual demons, was he?’ I said. ‘Something drove him over the edge. Aren’t there mushrooms that make you hallucinate?’
She thought for a while. ‘I think so,’ she said at length. ‘Though not round here. I recall reading accounts of religious ceremonies among the Indian tribes in America. I’m sure they use some sort of mushroom in their rituals. But that’s in the southwestern United States, I think. The . . . No, it’s no good, I can’t remember the tribe. But it can’t be that – I think we’ve just got mushrooms on the brain.’
‘It might be worth letting Dr Gosling examine the pie, though,’ I said. ‘We lose nothing by being thorough.’
‘If Joe hasn’t thrown it away already,’ said the sergeant, ‘I’ll lock it up as evidence.’
‘Good man,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
Constable Hancock reappeared from behind the church.
‘You’d better come and look, Sarge,’ he said.
‘Is he . . . ?’ said Dobson.
The constable nodded weakly. ‘I didn’t want to get up too close, like. I . . . umm . . . I didn’t want to disturb the body. I threw my greatcoat over it to save anyone from ’avin’ to see.’
To save himself from having to see, more like, I thought. Not that he’d have been able to see much in the pitch dark without a lantern.
‘I don’t want nothin’ goin’ wrong with this one,’ said the sergeant. ‘You keep guard over the body and I’ll take care of this lot here.’
Constable Hancock retreated reluctantly to his new post.
There was a kerfuffle at the front of the crowd and Dinah Caudle pressed her way through.
‘Is he . . .’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
The sergeant regarded her kindly. ‘I’m afraid so, miss,’ he said. ‘But it would have been instant. If it’s any comfort, he wouldn’t have suffered.’
‘It isn’t,’ she said.
I heard her sniff quietly, but she said no more. When I looked back towards where she’d been standing, she was gone, melted back into the crowd.
Sergeant Dobson returned to practical matters.
‘Might I beg a favour of you, m’lady?’ he said.
‘Anything, Sergeant, you know that.’
‘It’s just that there’s only the two of us and we’d both better stay here to keep things under control. I know you gets on well with Inspector Sunderland – would it be too much trouble for you to telephone him and let him know what’s happened, please? I think this might well be somethin’ that would interest him, given the circumstances.’
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ she said.
‘Thank you, m’lady. The station’s unlocked and the telephone . . . Well, you knows how to use the telephone.’
‘Leave it to us, Sergeant. Come on, Armstrong. Let’s give the inspector the bad news.’
We set off towards the small village police station.
Inspector Sunderland wasn’t available. The desk sergeant who answered the telephone told Lady Hardcastle that he had left the station on ‘important business’ and wasn’t expected back before morning. She left a message outlining the evening’s events and we returned to the church.
With the village policemen on guard and preventing access to the churchyard, there was nothing to see. With nothing to see, there was little for the small crowd to do but speculate wildly about what might have driven the flamboyant visitor to jump to his death from the top of the church tower. And wild speculation was just as easy in the warmth and comparative comfort of the Dog and Duck. Easier, perhaps, with Old Joe’s finest beer and cider to loosen the speculation muscles.
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br /> We arrived to find no one but Sergeant Dobson at the church gate.
‘Where did everyone go?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘To the pub,’ said the sergeant wistfully.
‘Even Hughes and the protesters?’
‘I’n’t nothin’ to protest about,’ he said. ‘The picture show’s been cancelled. Whatshisname . . . that Cheetham fella . . . He came out and told ’em it was all off. Didn’t take ’em all long to work out they’d be better off over the road with a roarin’ fire at their back and a pint in their hand.’
‘Where did Mr Cheetham go?’ I asked.
‘Back to your place, far as I could make out. Him and that lovely Zelda woman. I lost sight of ’em in the gloom but they was headin’ that way.’
‘We’ll catch up with them in a moment,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I’m afraid Inspector Sunderland wasn’t in the office but I left a message with the sergeant there. I suggested we take the body to Dr Fitzsimmons’s surgery for safekeeping, but he was insistent that the new mortuary was the only place for it and that he’d send the wagon without delay. You shouldn’t have to wait too long.’
‘Right you are, m’lady,’ said the sergeant. ‘I reckon I’ll leave it to young Hancock. Don’t seem much point in my hangin’ about now that everyone’s dispersed. I’ll give him the good news about the mortuary wagon and then . . .’
‘Back to the Dog and Duck?’ I suggested.
‘Just for a quick one,’ he said. ‘Medicinal purposes.’
‘Very well, then,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’ll get back to the house and make sure that Mr Cheetham and Miss Drayton are being looked after. I’m sure we’ll see you tomorrow. This is a bad business and I aim to get to the bottom of it.’
The sergeant touched his fingertip to the brim of his police helmet in a loose salute and we left him to his duties.
We found Nolan Cheetham and Zelda Drayton in the kitchen, silently eating some of the cold supper left for us by Miss Jones.
‘I hope you don’t mind us starting without you,’ said Zelda. ‘For all the shock, it turned out we were starving hungry.’
‘Not at all,’ said Lady Hardcastle as we joined them at the kitchen table. ‘I’m just sorry that we can’t eat together in happier circumstances. I know you had all fallen out with Mr Orum, but the loss of a friend, even a former friend, must come hard after losing two even closer friends. You have our deepest sympathy.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cheetham. ‘But we soldier on.’
‘You do seem to,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I’m not certain I could find the strength.’
‘It shames me to have to admit it,’ said Zelda, ‘but I’m actually sort of relieved it wasn’t me. I fully expected to be next. Burned alive, I thought.’ She shuddered. ‘But we’re show business folk, I suppose, and the show must go on.’
‘We lived by that in the circus,’ I said.
‘You’re from the circus?’ she said.
‘My family,’ I replied. ‘My father was a knife thrower. My sister and I were born on the road.’
‘I thought I’d heard you say you were from Wales.’
‘I usually say it like that. It’s easier to explain. My mother was from Aberdare and we left the circus and returned to her home when my grandmother fell ill.’
‘Well I never,’ she said. ‘I did a stint with a circus show, you know.’
‘Did you really?’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I sometimes envy you show business types, you know. There are so many exciting opportunities. One would think it was just the stage, but here you are working in moving pictures and now we learn that you once worked in a circus. It’s all so glamorous.’
‘I worked in a circus,’ I said.
‘And it was as glamorous as can be,’ she said. ‘I often wonder how you put up with the mundanities of normal life.’
‘I enjoy looking after you,’ I said, without thinking. We were in danger of becoming far too mawkish if we carried on down that road, so I quickly brought us back to the original path. ‘What did you do in the circus, Miss Drayton?’
‘My sisters and me used to do a humorous tumbling act in the music halls. You know, pratfalls and the like. The set-up was that we were a straight act but we kept getting it wrong. It was all carefully worked out. One night a bloke comes up to us backstage and asks if we fancy doubling our money working in his travelling circus. So we gave the theatre a week’s notice and went off to seek our fortune.’
‘The freedom of the open road,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘The romance of the travelling showman. Show-woman.’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘I take it from your disconsolate tone that things did not turn out quite the way you had hoped.’
‘Sadly not,’ said Zelda. ‘There are wonderful circuses out there. I’m sure your memories are much fonder than ours, Flo. But “tawdry”, “shambles”, and “penniless” would be three good words for Harry Hopwood’s Cavalcade of Wonders. We stuck it for two weeks before running back to the music halls as fast as our legs could carry us.’
‘What a shame,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Still, no experience is wasted. I’m sure you gained something from it.’
‘Unfortunately, yes. I said we ran back to the halls, but in actual fact I hobbled. I caught my ankle funny one night when we were trying out a new bit for the act. What we did was fine for the theatre, but it needed to be bigger for the circus. I overdid it and haven’t been the same since. That was how I got into acting, see? Our tumbling trio became a daring duo and I picked up work here and there in comic skits and the like. Then one day, I just said, “Zelda, my girl, you can spend your days picking up crumbs from other acts’ tables, or you can make something of yourself.” So I auditioned for a repertory company down on the south coast, and never looked back.’
‘I say. Well done, you,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘And that’s when I saw her,’ said Cheetham. ‘I’d been ill and my doctor said as how a bit of sea air would work wonders. He recommended Blackpool but I’ve always been one for travel, so I went south. As it happened, Aaron and I were looking for a leading lady for one of our shows and when I saw this one in that little seaside theatre . . . well . . .’
‘How very splendid,’ said Lady Hardcastle delightedly. ‘I rather miss travelling, you know. We should take a trip, Flo.’
‘I’ve not seen nearly so much of the world as you seem to have,’ he said.
‘I don’t know about that. I’ve mostly travelled eastwards. With the exception of a few months at the embassy in Washington with Roddy, half the planet remains entirely Emily-free.’
‘Whereas I’ve only really been westwards,’ he said. ‘I was lucky enough to be able to visit America.’
‘How exciting. Did your work take you there?’
‘It did, yes. I wanted to see how they made moving pictures out there. It was an eye-opener, I can tell you, and New Jersey is going to be the moving picture capital of the world.’
‘New Jersey, you say? I should have thought New York City would be the place.’
‘No,’ he said with an indulgent smile. ‘Mr Thomas Edison’s company controls the moving picture patents and they’re based in New Jersey. It’s going to become the richest place in the whole of the country once cinema really takes off, you mark my words.’
‘Then we shall most certainly add it to our itinerary. Did you visit anywhere else?’
‘No. Sadly, I didn’t have the funds. But the cinema industry is attracting storytellers from all over the country. I met people there from California, from New Orleans, from Chicago . . . everywhere. You can sit in a bar in Fort Lee, New Jersey and hear tales that will make it feel like you’ve seen all forty-six states.’
‘It sounds marvellous. We must definitely go.’
‘If you’re interested in moving pictures, you most definitely must,’ he said.
‘But, in the meantime, I promise we shall get to the bottom of the dreadful things that have happened
to your friends.’
‘Until tonight I was sure it was Aaron trying to discredit us,’ said Zelda.
‘It certainly looks like someone is,’ I said. ‘All the deaths have been taken straight from your moving picture.’
‘Which means that I’m next,’ she said. ‘Burned at the stake.’
I frowned. That would be the next death in the sequence, certainly, but with Aaron Orum’s death, the victim could no longer be certain. In the picture it had been George, the handsome young lad from the village, who had run mad and thrown himself from the church tower. I said nothing, though.
Instead, Lady Hardcastle switched effortlessly into the role of ‘charming hostess’ and diverted the conversation to cheerier topics. It seemed the others were as keen as I to escape from the horrors of the past couple of days and we passed a pleasant hour discussing everything from village life to the best way to remove soup stains from a dinner jacket.
She offered the film folk brandy and a chance to relax in the drawing room while she played for us, but they declined. We all retired early, glad for the chance to bring yet another dreadful day to a close.
Wherever we had lived in the world for any appreciable time, Lady Hardcastle always took the local newspaper as well as The Times. The Bristol News was published twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday, and so it was delivered in time for breakfast the next morning.
Since we had guests, I toyed with the idea of ironing the newspapers to dry the ink, but I decided that that would simply be showing off. Instead, I placed both The Times and the Bristol News on the table in the morning room so that they might be available for everyone’s perusal. I noticed as I did so that recent events in the village were being reported on the front page of the local paper under the headline ‘Supernatural Murders in Gloucestershire Village’.
There followed several paragraphs of sensationalist prose ‘From Our Society Correspondent’ outlining the broad details of the three murders and their links with the events in The Witch’s Downfall. Dinah Caudle had her front page, and from the tone of the piece she was revelling in it.
Miss Jones arrived and set to work on breakfast at once while I went up with Lady Hardcastle’s tea.