Here Comes a Chopper (32 page)

‘Pretty nearly dished the whole issue, though, not foreseeing as the yokel would have his revenge,’ said the inspector with a chuckle. ‘One thing, thanks to the trip-wires and Mr Hoskyn—I shouldn’t care to meet
him
on a dark night if he was feeling kind of tough, mam, for all he looks like a minor poet or something——’

‘He
is
a minor poet,’ said Mrs Bradley.

‘——well, as I say, mam, be that as it may (and my sergeant writes poetry, too, and at the end of his official notebook at that!) the fact remains that he handled his man a treat, by all accounts, and we ought to be able to find the marks if only we can nab his lordship—I refer to Lingfield—soon enough!’

‘The little boy who bit the hand was quite clever, too,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I suppose Mr Hoskyn trained him.’

‘We’ve tracked the two cars, mam, and your idea worked out correct again,’ said the inspector, handsomely spoken as usual. ‘It was Lingfield’s own car that had the bloodstains. The wrecked car he bought off a dump-heap just to try and throw dust in our eyes. If he’d had the sense to get some of the blood on it we might have bothered more
about it in the first place, when Mr Hoskyn spotted it was in the place of that old burnt-out one. The garage where he bought the wrecked car gave a description that tallied nicely with Sim. Of course, it was the wrecked car—but it wasn’t wrecked then—Lady Catherine saw on the gravel. It’s the same make as Mrs Denbies’.’

‘You’ve worked out Sim’s programme on the day and night of the murder, I suppose?’

‘Pretty well, thanks to you, mam. But we can’t see when he managed to substitute the wrecked car for the burnt one. There’s witnesses to prove the burnt one was there the day before the murder. Mr Hoskyn saw it, too.’

‘Lemons,’ said Mrs Bradley. She explained. ‘It was risky, of course, and Lingfield had to get rid of Mrs Denbies to go and render assistance.’

‘The quarrel, mam!’

‘Exactly.’

‘I’ve got it all now, mam, I think. Sim took the burnt-out car to bits. He thought Mr Hoskyn had spotted him, I suppose, that day Mr Hoskyn and the young lady stopped there on their, way to Whiteledge. That’s why he laid for young Hoskyn. I see it now. A bit of luck, Mr Hoskyn meeting those two women. I suppose Sim blarneyed them into going for the lemons instead of him.’

‘Then Harry Lingfield went along to help with the finishing touches and stow the pieces safely in the holes and behind the bushes of the Common.’

‘Then, when Sim was sent to the station with Miss Woodcote and Mr Hoskyn, he made an opportunity
to tow the wrecked car into position on the way back to Whiteledge. But, mam, I don’t see why they went to all that trouble to take the burnt-out car to bits so thoroughly.’

‘I have the glimmering of a notion,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Have you still got the pieces of the burnt-out car which the holiday-makers found?’

‘Oh, yes, mam. They’re up at headquarters.’

‘Have you had them looked over for bloodstains?’

‘Nothing doing, mam. Not a trace of blood.’

‘There’s a bit missing, then. You had better put your people on to finding a piece with a very sharp edge capable of being struck very heavily with a wooden mallet or a stone-breaker’s hammer.’

‘You mean, mam——?’

‘They’ll find it, but they may have to drag ponds, comb woods and look in hollow trees.’

‘Quite a proposition in this county, mam.’

‘Yes, but this particular kind of murder could scarcely have been so successful in another type of country, perhaps.’

‘As long as it doesn’t put ideas in people’s heads,’ said the inspector.

‘By the way,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘there might be another explanation of the murder of Sim besides blackmail.’

‘Blackmail wouldn’t appeal to a gentleman of Lingfield’s kidney, mam. He’d soon put a stop to that!’

‘I agree. But we don’t
know
that Sim was blackmailing him. We do know, however, that Harry
Lingfield was in love with Mrs Denbies, however violently they quarrelled. It is unlikely, therefore, that he would take kindly to the knowledge that Mrs Denbies had been arrested for the crime which he had committed, although he tried to implicate her at the time.’

‘You’ve got something there, mam, I think. You mean he murdered Sim deliberately to take our mind off Mrs Denbies’ being out of the house that night.’

‘Yes. It’s only a theory, of course. First catch your hare——’

‘I believe you, mam. You think he’ll stay in England?’

‘Until Mrs Denbies is safe, yes. Now that you have set her free we shall soon know whether he has a confederate in this house.’

‘How so, mam? Oh, yes, I see. One of those you told tonight will tip him the wink she’s free, and then he’ll try to communicate with her, and then we’ve got him!’

‘If it works out, yes. But I’m bound to tell you, Inspector, out of the depths of my psychological experience and knowledge, that I am very doubtful whether any of the people who know of Mrs Denbies’ release are in league with Harry Lingfield or have the slightest idea where he is.’

‘Mrs Dunley and Miss Pigdon or the little chap are the only likely ones, mam, I take it. But—wouldn’t Lady Catherine know?’

‘No. I am quite confident she does not. If she knew, I should have found it out by now owing
to the nature of the treatment I have been giving her.’

‘Talking of psychology, mam, it strikes me as very queer about that engine-driver, especially as the body could never have been placed on the line.’

‘Very odd, and very, very interesting.’

‘Can you explain it, mam?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I’ll say good night, mam. We must just see what happens, that’s all.’

Weeks passed. Roger returned to school and the term passed into the limbo of Sports Day and cricket, with the promise of the long vacation to come.

Early in July, just before school broke up, Roger was sent for by the headmaster, and entered the presence in some trepidation. Matters had been going well with him. Mr Simmonds, his hated rival, had left for a public school post, and Roger had been promoted (temporarily, he presumed) to the sole charge of athletics and cricket, and had been relieved of his most tiresome classes. He was greatly enjoying the change, and got on well with the boys, for he was a good athlete and an enterprising although by no means a first-class batsman.

With the headmaster was a lady, a handsome woman with a haughty yet adventurous eye. She smiled very sweetly at Roger.

‘This is Mr Hoskyn, Princess,’ said the headmaster.

‘So you are the man who is responsible for the wonderful improvement in my son!’ said the lady warmly. Roger felt too much embarrassed to catch the headmaster’s eye.

‘I—we do what we can,’ he mumbled.

‘Mr Hoskyn, Princess,’ said the headmaster unblushingly, ‘is quite the most valuable of my younger men.’

‘Well, the endowment is for him,’ said the Princess. She held out a firm white hand. ‘Do kiss it!’ she said. ‘I love having my hands kissed, and hardly anyone does it except foreigners, and really they hardly count. Don’t, of course, if you’d rather not!’

Roger obligingly rested the hand on his, bowed over it as gracefully as he could, and, pressing the finger-tips slightly, as that seemed to be expected, too, he kissed the smooth knuckles by brushing them slightly with his lips.

‘Divine!’ said the lady. ‘I
must
tell Lousy. He will be so frightfully amused. And his little friend Basil, too. Do you know Basil Kirby, Mr Hoskyn?’

Light dawned on Roger. He had heard, in casual gossip let fall by Parkinson, that Healy-Lunn’s mother had recently married into exiled but apparently wealthy royalty, and he realized that Healy-Lunn’s gratitude for being saved from expulsion had taken a practical form.

That night he wrote with careful nonchalance to Dorothy:

‘A funny thing happened today. One of the mothers rolled up and endowed the school with a
new house. Her son and a few selected devils—have I ever mentioned one Kirby?—are to be transferred to it. She’s even got a building priority permit! And the queerest bit is this:
I’m
to be housemaster! I can’t think what Healy-Lunn could have told his mother. She thinks I have a kind heart and a very nice influence! Let me know what
you
think about that, will you? Better still, could you meet me and come for that walk again? I somehow feel——Oh, well, it wouldn’t interest you to know what I feel. I seem to have behaved like an ass, but will you come?’

The day was sunny and fine. The pines smelt pleasantly and the heather was warm to the touch. In place of violets and wood anemones were the long, untidy summer grasses and the hedge flowers—wild rose and bryony, pink convolvulus and the early hops, the trailing clematis and the honeysuckle. The ground was firm underfoot, the clay like stone and the stony paths loose and dry.

Roger and Dorothy were walking hand in hand—the loose, finger-tip conjunction of mutual friendliness and ease. Along the narrow path to which the woodland walk ascended, the hawthorns had lost their may-blossom and showed thick leaf and small, hard, inconsiderable bunches of berries.

The cow-byre came in sight. Its odour, less pronounced than in the spring, still greeted the
wanderers with a pristine, nostalgic scent, and as they approached the notice-board with its ineffectual, battered and slightly pathetic hand, they saw a man at the cow-byre and called out a greeting as they passed.

The man, a shaggy fellow, tall, wide-shouldered and thin, hardly looked up at the sound of Roger’s voice. His hat was pulled over his eyes, for the sun was hot, his shirt-sleeves were rolled above the elbows and his trousers were hitched round a slim, taut, horseman’s waist with the remains of an old school tie.

‘Now, what do we do?’ asked Dorothy, walking on.

‘Do?’ Roger stopped to light his pipe. ‘I thought we’d agreed what to do. Aren’t we going to make the pilgrimage to Whiteledge?’

‘Yes, but what do we do about Mr Lingfield?’

‘Mr——?’ He lowered the match, it burnt his fingers and he flung it down and stamped on it, cursing a little.

‘That was Harry Lingfield,’ said Dorothy, affecting calmness. ‘I only said—what do we do? I expect he waits there, hoping to see Claudia Denbies.’

They walked on, and came to the gate which seemed to close the path. They took the side turning which led to the heath, and to the slope upon which they had rested. Roger sat down, and pulled the girl down beside him.

‘Say it slowly,’ he said. ‘And tell me how you know.’

There was no time for this, however. It was
Dorothy who heard the twang of the bowstring. She thrust Roger down so that he crashed flat on his back. The arrow sped past, and grazed her cheek in its flight. Roger, whose head had bumped down hard upon the turf, sat up, feeling his skull. Then he caught with a glance the bright blood streaming from the snick on his companion’s delicate, slightly sun-tanned skin. He got up.

‘Oh, don’t!’ said Dorothy. ‘I’m not hurt! Don’t go!’

He shook her off with berserk impatience, disregard and strength. The bow twanged again as he began to run towards the archer. Without slackening speed, Roger swung out to the right in the beautiful, graceful swerve which had often served him on the Rugby football field. He was in flannels, and had been carrying his jacket, but he had flung it down on the turf. He was therefore at an advantage compared with his muck-encrusted, heavy-booted antagonist. He used this advantage to the utmost, and, with a magnificent flying tackle, of a sort which would have earned stern comment on the field of play, he got his man round the knees and brought him down.

The next moment they were fighting on the ground. Dorothy ran forward. She had not been brought up to believe man to be the master of her fate as well as of his own, and her view was that Roger might well be in need of assistance against an opponent who was already a double murderer.

Roger, however, was not in need of help. A temperamental man and a poet, he had an artist’s
single-minded thoroughness. His aim was to twist his opponent’s head off, and he set to work with a grim zest which had something of religious fanaticism about it.

Had he been informed, as a matter of cold fact, that the sight of a smear of blood on a young girl’s cheek would have turned him into a compound of Richard Lovelace and a Commando, he would have accepted this reading of his character with reserve and modest caution. He did not even realize how much he had relished the fight and how much good it had done him, and how many problems it had solved, until it was over.

He got up, wiping mud out of his ear, caught sight of Dorothy’s horrified eyes and, limping a little, came, at ease with himself, towards her. He had almost detached a tooth which he presently discovered and spat out.

‘That’s that,’ he said contentedly. The girl recoiled. Roger, who felt like the English equivalent of a million dollars, although rather sore, observed the instinctive reaction, and nodded towards his opponent, who was lying perfectly still upon the turf. ‘He’ll be all right. He fell soft.’

‘You’ll—we shall have to get a doctor,’ said Dorothy, who wanted to cry.

‘You’ve got one,’ said a rich, amused and incomparably beautiful voice. Mrs Bradley, accompanied by the sergeant and followed closely by the inspector, came out of the copse of hazels through which the woodland ride led on to Whiteledge, and walked towards them.
She smiled horribly and knelt to examine Roger’s handiwork.

‘Did
you
bite him on the Mount of Venus?’ she demanded.

‘No. That was Healy-Lunn,’ said Roger, grinning.

‘Better make direct for the station,’ said Roger, ‘if they’re going to take him up to the house. Don’t want to barge in there. I can get a wash and brush-up in the waiting-room or somewhere, I expect. I say, you aren’t sick with me, are you? I mean, I had to have a go at him, and, having taken him on, to make a do of it. You do see that?’ He spoke anxiously, misunderstanding his companion’s silence.

‘I know,’ said Dorothy. ‘It was—a bit frightening, that’s all. You see, I didn’t know you could fight.’

‘I can’t. Not in the ordinary way. Don’t go getting wrong ideas. I mean, I’d be no good on the domestic hearth, poker in hand,
versus
wife.’