Died in the Wool (28 page)

‘He was putting it back.'

‘He never was!' Markins cried out, with almost ladylike incredulity.

‘Albie's admitted it. The boy was saving his disgusting face for him.'

‘Then why the hell couldn't he say so?' Markins demanded in a high voice. ‘I'd better stick to valeting and cut out the special stuff,' he added disgustedly. ‘I can't pick petty larceny when it's under my nose. Come on, sir.'

It was pitch dark outside and bitingly cold. Markins, using Alleyn's torch, led the way up a steep path. Grass was crisp under their feet and frost scented the air. Ice seemed to move against their faces as they climbed. The sky was clear and full of winking stars.

‘Where are we going, Mr Alleyn?'

‘To the annexe.'

‘This path comes out above the buildings, but we can cut across to the track. It's not too rough, but it's steepish.'

Clods of earth broke idly under Alleyn's shoes. He and Markins skated and slithered. ‘Kick your heels in,' Markins said. A sense of urgency, illogically insistent, plagued Alleyn. ‘Where's this cursed track?' he grunted.

They mounted a rise and a dim rectangular blackness showed against a hillside that must be white with frost. ‘Here we are,' Markins said. ‘There's a wire fence, sir. No barbs.' The wire clanged as they climbed through. The flashlight played on frozen cart tracks.

‘There's no light in the annexe,' Alleyn said.

‘Shall we call out, sir?'

‘No. If he was about he'd have heard us. We don't want the men roused up. Is this where the branch track goes down to the shearing-shed? Yes, there it goes. Downhill.
Wait a moment
.”

Markins turned quickly, flashing his light on Alleyn, who stood facing towards the shearing-shed. ‘Give me the torch, Markins, will you?'

He reached out his hand, took the torch, and flashed it down the branch track. Points of frost glittered like tinsel. The circle of light moved on and came to rest on a sprawling mound.

‘My God!' Markins said loudly. ‘What's he bin and done to 'imself?'

‘Keep off the track.' Alleyn stepped on the frozen turf beside it and moved quickly down towards the wool-shed. The torchlight now showed him the grey shepherd's plaid of his own overcoat with Fabian's legs, spreadeagled, sticking out from under the skirts, Fabian's head, rumpled and pressed face downwards in a frozen rut, and his arms stretched out beyond it as if they had been raised to shield it as he fell.

Alleyn knelt beside him, giving the torch to Markins.

Fabian's hair grew thick over the base of his head, which, like the nape of his thin and delicately grooved neck, looked boyish and vulnerable. Alleyn parted the hair delicately.

Behind him, holding the torch very steadily, Markins whispered a thin stream of blasphemy.

‘A downward blow,' said Alleyn. He thrust one hand swiftly under the hidden face, raised the head, and with the other hand, like a macabre conjurer, pulled out of Fabian's mouth a gaily coloured silk handkerchief.

‘He's not—?'

‘No, no, of course not.' Alleyn's hands were busy. ‘But we must get him out of this damnable cold. It's not more than twelve yards to the wool-shed. There are no other injuries, I fancy. Think we can do it? We mustn't go falling about with him.'

‘OK, OK.'

‘Steady then. I'll get that sacking door opened first.'

When they lifted him, Fabian's breathing was thick and stertorous. Little jets of vapour came from his mouth. When they reached the open door and Alleyn lifted his shoulders to the level of the raised floor, he groaned deeply.

‘Gently, gently,' Alleyn said. ‘That's the way, Markins. Good. I've got his head. Slide him in. The floor's like glass. Now, drop the door and I'll get some of those bales.'

The light darted about the wool-shed, on the press, the packed bales, and the heap of empty ones. They bedded Fabian down in strong-smelling sacking.

‘Now the hurricane lamp and that candle. I've a notion,' said Alleyn grimly, as he hunted for them, ‘that they'll be in order this time. Wrap his feet up, won't you?'

‘This place is as cold as a morgue,' Markins complained. ‘Not meaning anything unpleasant by the comparison.'

The lantern and home-made candlestick were in their places on the wall. Alleyn took them down, lit them, and brought them over to Fabian. Markins built a stack of bales over him and slid a folded sack under his head.

‘He's not losing blood,' he said. ‘What about his breathing, Mr Alleyn?'

‘All right, I think. The handkerchief, my handkerchief it is, was only a preliminary measure, I imagine. You saved his life, Markins.'

‘I did?'

‘I hope so. If you hadn't called out—perhaps not though. Perhaps when this expert fetched the bag in here and had a look at—It all depends on whether Losse recognized his assailant.'

‘By God, I hope he did, Mr Alleyn.'

‘And, by God, I'm afraid he didn't.'

Alleyn pushed his hand under the bales and groped for Fabian's wrist. ‘His pulse seems not too bad,' he said presently, and a moment later, ‘He'd been to the annexe.'

‘How do you get that, sir?'

Alleyn drew out his hand and held up a flat cigarette case. ‘Mine. He went up there to fetch it. It was in the pocket.'

‘What's our next move?'

Alleyn stared at Fabian's face. The eyes were not quite closed. Fabian knitted his brows. His lips moved as if to articulate, but no sound came from them. ‘Yes,' Alleyn muttered, ‘what's best to do?'

‘Fetch the Captain?'

‘If I was sure he'd be all right, we'd fetch nobody. But we can't be sure of that. We can't risk it. No, don't rouse them yet, down at the house. Go first of all to the men's hut and check their numbers. What they are doing and how long they've been at it. Be quick about this. They'll probably be in bed. Then go on up to the cottage and tell them there's been an accident. No more than that. Ask them for hot-water bottles and blankets, and something that will do as a stretcher. Ask Mr Johns—and Cliff—to come here. Then use their telephone and try to get through somehow to Mr Losse's doctor for instructions.'

‘The bureau won't open till the morning, Mr Alleyn.'

‘Damn. Then we'll have to use our common sense. Away you go, Markins. And'—Alleyn raised his head and looked at Markins—‘just say an accident. I want Cliff to come with his father and with you. And if he's there when you go in, watch him.'

Markins slipped out of the door.

Alleyn waited in a silence that seemed to be compounded of extreme cold and of the smells of the wool-shed. He sat on his heels and watched Fabian, whose head, emerging like a kernel from its husk of sacking, lay in a pool of yellow light. Portentously he frowned and moved his lips. Sometimes he would turn his head and then he would make a little prosaic grunting sound. Alleyn took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and slid it under the base of Fabian's skull. The frosty air outside moved and a soughing crept among the rafters. Alleyn turned his torch on the press. It was empty, but near it were ranged bales packed with the day's crutchings. ‘Was there to be a complete repetition?' he wondered. ‘Was one of them to be unpacked, and was I to take Florence Rubrick's journey down-country tomorrow?' He looked at Fabian. ‘Or rather you,' he added, ‘if you'd been so inconsiderate as to die?' Fabian turned his head. The swelling under his dark thatch was now visible. Very delicately, Alleyn parted and drew back the strands of hair. He shone his torch light on a thick indented mark behind the swelling. He rose and hunted along the pens. Near the door, in its accustomed niche, was the branding iron, a bar with the Mount Moon brand raised on its base. Alleyn squatted down and looked closely at it. He had a second handkerchief in his pocket, and he wrapped it round the shaft of the iron before carrying it over to Fabian.

‘I think so,' he said, looking from the iron to Fabian's scalp. He shifted the lantern along the floor and, groping under the bales that covered Fabian, pulled out the skirts of his own overcoat, first on one side, then on the other. On the left-hand skirt he found a kind of scar, a longish mark with the rough tweed puckered about it. He took out his pocket lens. The surface of the tweed was burred and stained brown.

‘And where the devil,' said Alleyn, addressing the branding iron, ‘am I going to stow you away?'

Still muffling his hand, he carried the iron farther along the shed, spread his handkerchief over it and dropped a sack across the whole. He stood in the dark, looking absently at the pool of light round Fabian's head. It seemed a long way away, an isolated island, without animation, in a sea of dark. Alleyn's gaze turned from it and wandered among the shadows, seeing, not them, but the fork in the track, where it branched off to the wool-shed, the frosty bank that overhung it, the scrubby bush that cast so black a shadow behind it.

‘That's funny,' someone said loudly.

Alleyn's skin jumped galvanically. He stood motionless, waiting.

‘
And what the devil are you up to? Running like a scalded cat
.'

There was a movement inside the island of yellow light. The heap of bales shifted.

‘Hurry! Hurry!' An arm was flung up. ‘All right when I'm up. Sleep,' said the voice, dragging on the word. ‘To die. To sleep. Go on, blast you. Up. Oh, dear. Oh, God,' it whispered very drearily. ‘So
bloody
tired.'

Alleyn began to move quietly towards Fabian.

‘You would butt in,' Fabian chuckled. ‘You won't be popular.' Alleyn stopped. ‘Funny old thing,' said Fabian affectionately. ‘Must have found the damned object. Hallo,' he added a moment later and then with disgust and astonishment, ‘Terry! Oh, Lord! I do wish I hadn't got up here. Silly old man.'

He sat up. Alleyn moved quickly to him and knelt down.

‘It's all right,' he said, ‘you can go to sleep now, you know.'

‘Yes, but why run like that? Something must have happened up there.'

‘Up where?'

‘Well, you heard what she said. You will be unpopular. Where was it?'

‘In the lavender walk,' Alleyn said. Fabian's eyes were open, staring past Alleyn under scowling brows.

‘Who found it?'

‘Uncle Arthur.'

‘Well, you must be pretty fit. I couldn't…I'm so hellish tired. I swear I'll drop off into the sea. It's that damned piano. If only he'd shut up. Excelsibloodyor! Up!'

He fought Alleyn off, his eyes on the wall with its cross beams. ‘Come on, chaps,' he said. ‘It's easy. I'll give you a lead.'

Alleyn tried to quieten him, but he became so frenzied that to hold him Alleyn himself would have been obliged to use violence, and indeed, stood in some danger of being knocked out.

‘I'm trying to help you, you goat,' Alleyn grumbled. ‘Think I don't know a Jerry when I get one,' Fabian panted. ‘Not yet, Fritzy darling. I'm for Home.' He lashed out, caught Alleyn on the jaw, flung himself forward and, clawing at the beams on the wall, tried to climb it. Alleyn wrapped his arms round his knees. Without warning, Fabian collapsed. They fell together on the floor, Fabian uppermost.

‘Thank God,' Alleyn thought, ‘his head didn't get another rap,' and crawled out. Fabian lay still, breathing heavily. Alleyn, himself rather groggy, began to cover him up again.

‘Oh, Ursy, you celestial imbecile,' Fabian said miserably and, after a moment, sighed deeply and, turning on his side, fell sound asleep.

‘If this is amnesia,' Alleyn muttered, nursing his jaw, ‘yet, there's method in it.'

He went to the doorway and, pulling aside the sacking, looked out into the cold. His head buzzed. ‘Damn the fellow,' he thought irritably and then: ‘Not altogether, though. Do they hark back to a former bout? And is it evidence? Up the side of a ship. Up a gate. Up a companion way. But up
what
in the vegetable garden?' He stared down at the dark bulk of the house. Beyond it, out to the right, a giant lombardy poplar made a spearlike pattern against the stars. ‘That can't be far from the marrow patch,' Alleyn thought. ‘He said his pants were dirty. He was under a tree. Oh, Lord, what's the good of a pair of pants that were dirty over a year ago?'

The thrumming in his head cleared. He shivered violently. ‘I'll catch the thick end of a cold before the night's out,' he muttered, and the next second had shrunk back into the shadow of the doorway.

The night was so quiet that the voice of the Moon river, boiling out of its gorge beyond a shoulder of the mountain and sweeping south to a lake out on the plateau, moved like a vague rumour behind the silence and was felt in the ear drums rather than heard. Alleyn had been aware of it once or twice that night, and he heard it now as he listened for the nearer sound that had caught his attention. Down the main track it had been, a tiny rustle, a slipping noise, followed by a faint thud. He remembered how he and Markins had skidded and fallen on the icy ground. He waited and heard a faint metallic clang. ‘That's the fence,' he thought. ‘A moment, and whoever it is will come up the track. Now what?'