Here Comes a Chopper (8 page)

‘My brother,’ Dorothy explained. ‘He’s sprained his ankle.’

‘So I heard at dinner last night. Down, Fido!’ she added, addressing, apologetically, the dog.

‘Is his name Fido? Isn’t he a darling?’ said Dorothy.

‘His name is not Fido, and he is not a darling,’ Mrs Bradley responded. ‘He is good-looking and a villain. I hope, however, that he may be useful to the police. Or, if not to the police, perhaps to me.’

‘George mentioned the police,’ said Roger. ‘I say, I do hope there’s nothing seriously wrong.’

‘We don’t know what to think. Mr Lingfield left Mrs Denbies at about five o’clock last evening, and since then nothing has been seen or heard of him. Mary Leith thinks he may have met with an accident, as his riderless horse galloped back to its stable at six. I have decided to go out on to the moor with the dog, and see whether he can pick up a trail. He is young and undisciplined—he belongs to Miss Clandon—but he may do something. He was always petted by Mr Lingfield, and would try to go everywhere with him.’

‘Do let us give you a lift,’ said Roger at once. Mrs Bradley accepted the offer. The dog, which apparently had followed the conversation, got into the car as soon as Bob opened the door. Having been prevented from lying down on his feet, it then jumped up beside him, buried its nose in his coat and lay perfectly still.

‘Bob’s good with dogs,’ said Dorothy, turning her head. Roger, who was not good with dogs, accelerated rather viciously. The drive to the burnt-out car took twenty minutes.

‘This is where we got lost, I should say,’ he observed, as he brought the car to a standstill. ‘At least, I felt yesterday that we were on the right track until we reached this car. After that, I didn’t quite know. We walked on, and trusted to luck, and certainly were glad to see your house.’

‘We were glad to see
you
,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘And, speaking for myself, more glad to see you upon your second appearance. The fun of sitting at table long after the meal is over can wear thin.’

‘I can imagine it,’ said Roger. ‘By the way, what made Lady Catherine appeal to the police quite so promptly? I understood from George that Mr Lingfield has a habit of popping off to Central Africa when things don’t please him here.’

Mrs Bradley caught his eye in the inside driving mirror, for she was sitting in the back with Bob and the dog.

‘What makes you ask that about the police?’ she enquired. ‘As you’ve stopped the car, let’s get out, and then we can talk.’

‘Well,’ said Roger, when, except for Bob, they were all standing out on the common, ‘on the way home we had a strange experience. The first time we went, I mean. It seemed that the driver had some sort of seizure or hallucination or something, and swore he’d seen a headless corpse on the line. The guard and the fireman got down and searched, using lanterns, and then came along the train to ask for a doctor. There wasn’t a doctor on the train, as it happened, so, as I know a fair amount about accidents—I’m a prep. schoolmaster and take some jerks and games—I offered to give any help I could, and went along.

‘Well, of course, there wasn’t any corpse, and no sign of anything—blood, I mean, or anything like that—so we soothed the driver, and the train went on again, and that was all about it. It was rather a curious experience, all the same.’

‘Curious, indeed!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘What was the engine driver’s name?’

‘MacIver.’

‘Ah! Of course, that might account for lots of things. May I ask what the time was when this happened?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Somewhere about a quarter past ten, I should think.’

‘Ah, yes. Too bad, of course.’

‘The driver wasn’t tight, if that’s what you mean,’ said Roger. ‘I said so to Dorothy at the time.’

‘Are you a judge of tightness, child?’

‘Well, near enough. I mean, I’ve been tight myself, and I’ve seen other blokes tight, and I’d take my
oath the driver hadn’t had a drop. I even went so far as to smell his breath—at his own request, that was—and there’s no doubt about it.’

‘Interesting,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Let us follow the nose of this hound, who appears to be remarkably restive, and see where his instinct leads us.’

‘To the nearest rabbit-hole, 1 expect,’ said Roger grinning. ‘I say! This does look a bit of a blasted heath!’

He led Mrs Bradley and Dorothy towards the burnt-out car which they had examined the day before.

The dog, calming down, cocked his tail and hung out his tongue. He sniffed round the car for a bit, found it boring, and set off very soon in pursuit of rabbits.

‘Bother the dog,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘It looks as though we shall need to do our own exploring. Let’s go as far as the church.’ But before they moved on Mrs Bradley glanced inside the car. Roger followed her example.

‘I’ve a better idea,’ said Roger. At this moment he caught sight of a policeman who was patiently and rather painfully searching among the gorse. ‘I’d like to have a word with that bobby. Excuse me a moment, would you?’

He shouted, and the constable looked up, and then came slowly towards him.

‘This car,’ said Roger. ‘What about it?’

The policeman looked at the car, and then at Roger. He looked puzzled and not very pleased.

‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ he said.

‘Well, only this,’ said Roger, beginning to wonder whether he had spoken too soon. ‘When I passed this car yesterday I could have sworn it had been burnt out. But this car hasn’t been burnt at all. It’s been wrecked. Not very badly, either.’

‘I’ll make a note of what you say, sir,’ said the policeman, ‘and report it to the superintendent. I don’t think there is anything in it. The missing gentleman didn’t travel by car, and, if he did, and this was his car, we should have found the body, but we haven’t.’

‘All right I expect I’m wrong, and this is the same car,’ agreed Roger. ‘Just thought I ought to mention it, that’s all.’

‘No harm done, sir,’ said the constable, recognizing Mrs Bradley and saluting her. ‘Good morning, mam.
You’ve
no other news, I suppose?’

‘Mr Lingfield’s riderless horse galloped home. It came back last night, it appears,’ said Mrs Bradley.

‘We knew about that, mam, thank you.’

‘In any case, he was the kind of man who, without a thought, would take himself off, I understand,’ Mrs Bradley went on. ‘The return of the horse would indicate no sinister circumstance.’ The constable agreed, and walked off to continue his search.

Mrs Bradley cackled.

‘What were you going to suggest, Mr Hoskyn,’ she enquired, ‘before the wrecked car distracted your attention?’

‘I was going to suggest that we started from where Dorothy and I first caught sight of the three riders.
Then we could try to find out what Lingfield did, and where he went.’

‘That seems a reasonable suggestion. Let us by all means adopt it.’

They covered the distance in their own car, and soon reached the spot where Roger and Dorothy had rested. Roger caught Dorothy’s eye and smiled, remembering how he had kissed her. Mrs Bradley intercepted the smile, drew her conclusions and nodded benignly at him as though in benison. Roger grinned, and returned to the subject in hand.

‘This is the way they went,’ he said. ‘Not very easy to see hoof-marks, though, on this turf. Look, Dorothy, you go back and sit down again, and yell very loudly as soon as we’re out of sight. That might give some idea, don’t you think?’

Mrs Bradley agreed. Dorothy returned to her seat on the grassy mound, and almost immediately called out. Then she got up and joined them.

‘No use,’ said Roger, speaking gloomily. ‘Looks as though they rode straight into gorse, and they couldn’t have done that, you know. The horses wouldn’t have faced those spiny prickles. They must have gone over in that direction, I think. But there’s really nothing to show.’ He pointed south.

The dog, which at first had found most entrancing entertainment on the heath, but was tired of its own society, now came up to them and, without being asked to do so, went to heel, and followed meekly and soberly for more than a mile and a half.

Suddenly it put its nose to the ground, sniffed,
took a short cast to the right, came back to the trail, looked up and barked short and sharply. Mrs Bradley, who was carrying the lead, said:

‘Catch him!’

Roger grabbed the dog, which whined and shivered, and Mrs Bradley affixed the lead to its collar. Suddenly it started off away to the right again, checked, came back, went off, and then, like a bullet, tore towards a copse which was bordered by a light wooden fence.

Here the dog scrabbled, whined and tugged. At a nod from Mrs Bradley, Roger, who felt certain that the copse held the man they were looking for, released the dog from the lead. The dog, with a beautiful bounding leap, surmounted the fence and disappeared among the undergrowth. Roger vaulted the fence and, to his great surprise, Dorothy also vaulted it (far more neatly and precisely) and immediately joined him. They were followed by Mrs Bradley, who climbed over in a manner suited (she imagined) to her years, and the three hastened in Indian file after the dog.

Roger suddenly halted, and then turned round, holding out an arm as a policeman will hold up traffic.

‘Stay where you are!’ he said. ‘I think there’s—I think there’s something rather rummy here.’

Dorothy obediently held back: not so much because an order had been issued as because the voice in which it was given seemed to hint at facts which she felt instinctively it would be kinder to Roger that she should not face. Mrs Bradley, it
seemed, was of the same opinion, for she clutched the girl with a grip there was no gainsaying, and observed:

‘Go back, child, to the other side of the fence, and keep an eye lifting for gamekeepers. Don’t come back unless we call.’

Dorothy retired to the fence, climbed it in sober fashion, glanced back, and saw Mrs Bradley and Roger step delicately into the underwood of the coppice which immediately hid them from view.

Suddenly she heard an unpleasant belching noise, and her cavalier, green as the grass, came staggering back, his handkerchief pressed to his mouth.

Conquering a feeling of sympathetic but otherwise unwarrantable nausea, she got down from the fence on his side of it, and ran towards him. Roger, with a deep groan, bent over and was horribly and spectacularly sick.

‘Oh, dear!’ said Dorothy, recoiling. He half-turned and waved her away, but she advanced resolutely, took his limp arm and dragged him towards the fence. Shaken and almost crying, he climbed over, and dropped full length on his face when he gained ground on the opposite side.

Dorothy sat beside him and stroked his hair, pulling little tufts of it gently between her fingers. This treatment for shock proved effective. He sat up, his face very flushed, took her hand in both his, and said:

‘Thanks. Oh, my God! Where’s Mrs Bradley? I say, she ought to come out of there! Oh, Lord!’

‘What happened? Is it——? Did you find him? Is he——?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry to tell you, but I must. It’s frightful. It’s simply unspeakable. I’m a swine to tell you, but I must! He—his head—he—that chap on the line—’

‘Are you quite sure it’s him?’

‘Why the devil can’t you say “he”?’

‘I’m sorry. He, then.’ But she was far too much worried about Roger’s reactions to care anything at all for his manners.

‘I’m sorry, too,’ he said at once, gripping more tightly her hand. ‘You’re so nice and sane. And that isn’t sane—that in there. And I
don’t
know it’s Lingfield. It’s a big man and he’s naked. I suppose it must be Lingfield, but really there’s nothing to show. Oh, I
wish
I hadn’t seen it. I’ll never forget it!’

‘The war was much worse,’ said Dorothy. ‘Put your head in my lap. Don’t think about him any more. You needn’t if you don’t want to.’

Roger tried to pull himself together, but it was easier and pleasanter to hide his face in her skirt and feel her hard knees pressing into his cheek. At last he raised his head.

‘I’d better go back,’ he said. ‘Can’t leave her alone to cope. It’s true she’s a doctor, but, all the same—I suppose I had better go.’

‘I’d better come with you,’ said Dorothy.

‘Please don’t! I couldn’t bear that!’ said Roger at once. He pulled her up but kept firm hold of her hands. ‘Please don’t come! I’ll soon be back. Stay
just where you are! Please promise! I—I couldn’t bear it if you saw him. He—you see—oh, damn it! He hasn’t got a head!’

He let go of Dorothy and thrust the hair from his forehead. He took away a hand that was wet with perspiration. He wiped it and then wiped his brow, put the handkerchief back in his pocket, ran to the fence and vaulted over it. As he reached the soft leaf-mould soil on the other side, Mrs Bradley emerged from the coppice and blew three long blasts on a whistle. Then she held up her hand and waylaid him.

‘No, child. Stay where you are. The police will be here in a minute. They are not far away, as we already know. There is nothing we can do except wait and show them the place. Let’s go back to the other child, please.’

Not by word, look or inflection did she give the faintest indication that she was at all perturbed by the horrid sight they had seen, or that she remembered anything whatever of Roger’s unmanly conduct. The two of them returned very soberly to Dorothy’s side, and then all three sat down on Roger’s mackintosh to await the arrival of the police.

‘Where’s the dog?’ asked Roger suddenly. He whistled. The young dog came crawling out of the little wood, squeezed through the lower bars of the fence and crept towards them, his tail between his legs. Roger took him between his knees. The puppy whined and shivered, looked up in Roger’s face and absent-mindedly licked him.

‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ said Mrs Bradley, regarding the shivering animal unconcernedly. ‘At what time, I wonder, did your engine-driver see the body on the line?’