Bone Idle (23 page)

The next day I was scheduled to attend the gathering of a newly formed sorority – the Guild of Christian Ladies. Actually the organization itself was not new, but it was the first time that a branch had been established in Molehill and they were eager to get things off to a good start by throwing an inaugural soirée. Despite the worthiness of the event, my current pressures put me in no mood for jollification, and I set off that evening feeling far from sociable.

However, to my surprise the Christian Ladies came up trumps. My gloomy mood was partially dispelled, and I found myself staying longer than I had expected. They had put on a magnificent spread which knocked the Mothers’ Union’s customary fare into a cocked hat. There were spectacular sandwiches, some peculiarly delicious corned beef and cucumber fritters, and the most inventive dessert concoctions which I had ever tasted: wonderful fabrications of nuts, nougat, British sherry and mock cream, all topped with pyramids of meringue and flakes of sticky toffee. The Ladies had also contrived to produce gallons of Blue Nun Riesling which, although very quaffable at first, did tend to pall after my fourth glass. In fact, quite a lot had started to pall by that stage and I was rapidly becoming in need of a soft pillow. Thus making tactful excuses and pleading copious paperwork, I slipped away into the dark and made my slightly uncertain way home.

To my irritation I noticed the front gate was flapping open. This was not the first time the evening paper-boy had been remiss, and I guessed that Bouncer would have seized the opportunity to stretch his legs and seek romantic adventure.

Clearly he had done just that for, so used was I to his excited barks of welcome, the house seemed strangely silent when I turned the key in the lock. Without bothering to switch on the hall light I took off my coat, visited the downstairs cloakroom and then went into the sitting room. I put on the reading lamp and was about to draw the curtains when I saw that they were already in place. This startled me as I was pretty sure that I had not bothered to pull them on my way out. Still, memory plays odd tricks and perhaps for once I had had a rush of busy blood to the head! I reached for the decanter … but my arm stopped midway. There was someone in the room – sitting in my chair in fact. I gaped thunderstruck at the fat face of Victor Crumpelmeyer …

He returned my horrified gaze with a deadpan look. And then his features slowly formed a sardonic smile and he raised a podgy hand in mock salute. I don’t know how I managed to stay calm: I was furious, and also deeply shocked. But there must have been some instinct at work which warned me not to vent my feelings. Instead I heard myself saying (with only the mildest sarcasm), ‘Ah … another visit, Victor. Can I offer you a drink?’

He nodded silently, and I poured a small glass of whisky and set it on the table in front of him, having no wish to place it directly in his outstretched hand.

He took a sip and then said conversationally, ‘I expect you wonder why I am here …’

‘I do rather,’ I replied with equal calm, ‘and I also wonder how you gained entry. I tend to lock my doors at night – unlike in the afternoons.’

‘Makes no difference,’ he said blandly, ‘there are always ways and means – skeleton keys specifically.’ And reaching into his waistcoat pocket he produced what certainly looked like a replica of my own.

Naturally this angered me further but I was determined to appear unruffled … though what I really wanted to do was knock his block off. In fact it was the prospect of doing just that which enabled me to retain a semblance of poise. It would, I thought, be quite easy: I was considerably taller than him and, judging from the pasty complexion, probably much fitter. Yes, if he started to be too impossible I would land him a swift upper-cut to the jaw (as Bulldog Drummond might have said). I contemplated the idea with some relish, imagining the impact of knuckle on flab, and trying to recall the bawled instructions of our boxing coach at school. But the only clear direction that came to mind was, ‘Idiot, Oughterard! Not that way, boy, the other!’ The reverie promptly vanished; and thinking that sympathetic tact might be the better course, I murmured a few words of condolence about the loss of Violet.

It was not a good course at all. He grimaced, gave a bitter laugh and then said petulantly, ‘No loss at all. An error of judgement: I slipped up there all right! She was supposed to have pots of money, the cow, but thanks to the grasping fingers of the Church the pots were fewer than they should have been. It was all a
singular
disappointment!’ He twitched with suppressed rage.

‘The Church?’ I said faintly. ‘Why the Church?’

‘Not it –
you
, you fool! I know your sort: righteous dogooders with an eye to the main chance. Prissy, smarmy, wheedling swindlers, that’s what you all are. You think you’re clever, but not half as clever as Victor Crumpelmeyer, oh no!’ And with another mordant laugh, he downed half the tumbler in front of him

I was incensed that my whisky should lend confidence to one so crude, and felt affronted at the insults being poured upon myself and the institution I represented … He would have to be told!

‘Now look here, Crumpelmeyer –’ I began.

‘Oh no,
Reverend
, you just listen to me,’ he sneered. ‘First you sweet-talked the mother, then robbed the daughter. Legacy, bracelet, deeds – you’ve snaffled the lot. I suppose you think you can get your hands on that château and its buried gold. Well, you can think again! Except that the old girl was too addled to know what she was doing, those deeds should have gone to my wife – so they’re mine by rights. I’ve come for them and the rest of what’s owed me. If it hadn’t been for your interference Violet would have had at least a million. So you’d better pay up if you’ve got any sense!’

The idea of my ‘sweet-talking’ Elizabeth was preposterous, not to say distasteful; but I was even more indignant at the allegation of having appropriated the daughter’s wealth. I had never asked to be involved with the Fotheringtons, merely wanting a quiet parish and an untroubled life. Instead here I was in my own vicarage being accused of greed and duplicity by one of their demented in-laws eager to get his hooter in the family coffers. It was appalling! But what on earth was I going to do? Clearly nothing constructive, for when I took a deep breath and began to explain that I had never considered the Fotherington riches let alone had access to the deeds of the French estate, my guest crashed his fist on the table and launched into a rant of monumental egotism and mania.

In the course of this he made it clear that marrying Violet had been an act of great faith and substantial sacrifice, neither of which, thanks to me, had borne fruit. ‘You cannot imagine,’ he whined, ‘how awful it was being her consort!’ (I could actually, but had no intention of showing fellow feeling with that little crook.) In one of his few pauses I observed mildly that surely he was exaggerating his deprivation, and that most people would be more than content with the large Godalming property and the doubtless perfectly adequate capital that went with it.

He glowered at me. ‘I was not born for adequacy. Neither was I born to be pipped at the post by some slick-handed sodding vicar. You won’t get away with it!’

This was really too much, and I was just thinking that despite my youthful blunders in the boxing ring, I might after all try clocking him one, when he said in a suddenly casual tone, ‘Got my letters all right, did you?’

I froze. Such had been my shock at finding Crumpelmeyer stuffed into my own armchair that the question of the anonymous notes had been driven from my mind. But now of course it all made sense. Yet even as I recoiled from his increasingly patent lunacy – and thus the very real implications of ‘You are next’ – I also experienced an immense surge of relief: evidently the ‘Nemesis’ of the second letter referred
not
to the mother’s murder, but the daughter’s assets and Crumpelmeyer’s crazed belief that I had stripped them bare.

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I got your letters. And now would you kindly leave my house or I shall be forced to call the police.’

‘How?’

‘What do you mean, “how”?’

‘How will you call them?’

‘By telephoning of course!’ And I started to move towards the hall.

‘Oh, I don’t think so, Reverend,’ he said softly. ‘You see, I’ve cut the wires with this.’ And from down the side of the chair he drew a knife whose long and lethal blade glinted malevolently in the lamplight.

My mouth was suddenly sand-dry and I could feel sweat in my hair and on my neck. As a young soldier in the war one had been under dreadful bombardments from enemy shell-fire and aircraft. But those had been collective threats, and unlike some of my companions I had never experienced hand-to-hand fighting. Thus I found the close intimacy of this personal, solitary encounter terrifying. However, as from a distance, I heard my voice saying sternly, ‘For God’s sake, pull yourself together, man! You’ll kill us both!’

He leaped up, knocking the table over and brandishing the steel wildly. ‘Not me, Oughterard – only you!’ he rasped. It would have been madness to try to wrest the thing from him, and I realized that my only hope was flight. I made a rush for the door, tripped over one of Bouncer’s bones, and fell headlong. He loomed over me, eyes and knife flashing, and fat cheeks explosive with fury.

‘You thieving bastard!’ he shrieked. ‘I’ll rip your guts, I will!’ And he made a lumbering lunge which, had he been more adroit, would have got me square in the stomach. As it was, he missed by about a foot and fell against the wall, while I was able to roll myself to the scant protection of the upturned table. I had watched such scenes in the films and recalled that invariably the intrepid victim would get the upper hand by reasoning, even wisecracking, with his assailant. Wisecracking has never been my forte – besides I wasn’t in the mood. But I might try a little light conversation …

‘For Christ’s sake back off, you raving maniac!’ I gasped. ‘What the hell are you up to, you effing oaf!’

On reflection I think my words could have been better chosen for they seemed to inflame him further; and screaming, ‘I did for her and I’ll do for you!’, and pointing the knife like a bayonet while emitting the statutory yell, he rushed at me and plunged the weapon into my shoulder.

At such times, I discovered, shock takes precedence over pain, and it is the brain rather than the body which is the more sensitive. Thus as I lay paralysed less by agony than by amazement, my mind filled up with images of Elizabeth’s dead face framed by her rakish hat and Violet’s rearing jack-knifed legs. The two corpses and their contexts – the sunlit glade and the darkened creosoted shed – mingled and danced before my eyes, and I wondered what specific features of my own demise would haunt the demented memory of Victor Crumpelmeyer. In blurred confusion I awaited the fatal thrust that would surely come.

He bent down, and there was a rushing in my ears, excruciating noise – thudding, roaring, screaming – and his face came nearer and nearer … so near that I could feel my own face enveloped by his gulping breath. I shut my eyes. And then as I opened them for the last time saw that the flaccid white skin had been replaced by thick, shaggy grey fur and an enormous drooling tongue. Oh my God, a werewolf to carry me off …

What it is to be a cat in this madhouse! Really, one is subjected to the most vexatious indignities! Take that evening, for instance, when I returned from the graveyard eager for my milk and supper: instead of F.O. crashing about on the piano or smoking idly in his chair, what did I find sitting in his place but that whey-faced scoundrel whom Bouncer had once tried to devour! Not content with rifling the vicar’s desk, he now had the effrontery to sprawl himself in the sitting room! I can tell you, seeing him there gave me a very nasty shock. Indeed, such was my surprise that I marched straight up to the creature and with a loud hiss delivered a brisk claw to the ankle. The rasp of talon on unsavoury flesh is always agreeable …

Alas, such valour did me little good – for with a violent oath the intruder kicked me right across the room – from chair to door! Not since the outrageous attack by the Veasey twins have I been so affronted or discomposed.
*
But naturally, once recovered, my instinct was to retaliate with all claws firing. Then as I prepared for precisely that, it occurred to me that it would be more prudent to summon reinforcements. So I gallantly limped out into the front garden and set up a loud caterwauling. Within moments Bouncer had appeared from the potting shed followed by the gigantic shadow of Florence. I told them what was afoot and said that a three-pronged assault was required. And then just as we were racing towards the house, to my amazement I suddenly saw the weedy Samson crawling on all fours in the flower bed under the sitting-room window! I called the other two to heel and, pointing him out to Bouncer, asked what he thought he was up to. The reply of course was typical – ‘Bones, Maurice. He is burying bones.’

I was about to tell the dog exactly what he could do with his stupid ideas, when fortunately the wolfhound interrupted and said gently to Bouncer that in Samson’s case osseous pursuits of that particular kind were extremely unlikely, and that our best course of action was to sit quietly and assess the situation. So we sat and assessed …

And then suddenly F.O. appeared, walking up the path (a trifle unsteadily, I recall) and whistling under his breath. Huddled behind the garden roller, we watched intently as he went into the vicarage, and then listened to the ensuing silence. This went on for some time. And then glancing in the direction of the flower bed, I realized that the crouching Samson had disappeared. I was just wondering where he had gone, when there was a great commotion from within accompanied by a maniacal yelling. Florence bounded to the open window, and standing on her long hind legs peered in. ‘Well, I never!’ she exclaimed. ‘Just look at that!’

‘What?’ cried Bouncer.

‘It’s the loon,’ she barked, ‘he’s attacking the vicar!’

Before I had a chance to collect my wits, Bouncer had shot past me and was thrusting himself through the pet flap. As I followed I noticed Florence clambering over the sill, and then in the distance the hoot of a police whistle and the wail of an approaching siren.

I slipped through the flap and into the sitting room, and despite my poor bruised hip, sprang adroitly to the top of the bookcase. The scene that met my eyes was absurd and distasteful: the loon being mauled by Bouncer, Florence slobbering over a recumbent F.O., and Samson and his cohorts rushing around like flies in a jam-jar. The noise was insufferable. But not to be outdone I naturally added my own subtly orchestrated yowls.

Eventually things calmed down, and the Crumplehorn was handcuffed and hauled off, and the vicar bundled into an ambulance. As I later observed to Bouncer – all it needed was for Mavis Briggs to come drooping in spouting her verses! But fortunately we were spared that … Still, I suppose such theatricals all add to life’s rich cabaret! Other cats, I have noticed, lead less eventful lives than my own.