The Longer Bodies (11 page)

He turned again to the hutches and went on with the work of hygienic importance. From the kitchen, and pursued by the maledictions of the cook, came Timon Anthony. He was eating a large and rather unmanageable slice of game-pie. With him was Richard Cowes.

‘Hullo, Joe,' said Anthony, as he came up with Herring. ‘The old lady been round here this morning?'

‘It's a funny thing, sir, but she 'as.'

‘Why funny? Thought she often came along to have a look at the bunnies and make sure you didn't sneak one for the Sunday dinner!'

‘Mister Anthony,' said Joe sorrowfully, ‘she do come round to see 'em pretty often. But what I notice, sir, is this: she always chooses 'er time.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning, sir, as I've suffered another misfortune with these 'ere rabbits. Takes me all me time to think out quick enough what to say to 'er, because, once she got wind there was anything wrong, I'd get the sack without any manner of doubt at all. It's cruel, the lies an honest working man 'as to tell to keep 'is head above water and the wolf from the door.'

‘Why, what's happened now?'

Anthony put the last piece of pie-crust into his mouth, leaned against the bole of an apple tree, and prepared to listen to a long tale of woe. The tale was not long.

‘Why, somebody's pinched one of them Belgian 'ares.'

‘What, again?'

‘What d'you mean—again?'

‘Thought you lost one before—a few days ago. Why, it was the day of the murder, wasn't it?'

‘Ah, that wasn't a Belgian 'are. That was a Flemish Giant. They're nothink alike, nothink. Look for yourself.'

Timon solemnly investigated. So did Richard.

‘And now you've lost one of the hares,' he said. ‘When did it go?'

‘Well,' said Joe, rubbing his hands on a wisp of straw, ‘if I knowed that, I might make a guess at who took it. But one thing I do know. And that is—none of this 'ere thieving used to go on before the old lady 'ad this last dotty turn of 'ers.'

‘How do you mean?' asked Anthony.

‘Well, sir, you oughter know bettern anyone, I should say. What can you call it but dotty, this athletics business?'

‘Oh, that!'

‘Yes, sir—that. And d'you know what I think? I believe that there Kost knows all about my rabbit. I reckon 'e eats 'em.'

‘Oh, come,' said Timon Anthony, laughing, ‘you couldn't prove that, you know, Joe. Besides, the chap's a vegetarian. And, if you couldn't prove it, you shouldn't say it. By the way, didn't my grandmother spot that one was missing?'

‘No, sir. I was give an idea, and I won through on it. If I'm lucky she won't bother me again today. But if she asks a lot of questions tomorrow I'm liable to slip up, so before then I got to replace him with a her.'

‘With a her?'

‘A doe, sir.'

‘Oh.'

‘Yes. This very night that job 'as got to be done.'

‘Where will you go? Market Longer?'

‘I might. And I might slip up to London on the quiet.'

‘I should make it London for safety's sake. How about cash?'

‘I got what me ferrets makes. More than enough.'

‘Oh well, look here,' interpolated Richard Cowes. ‘Ten bob. All I've got on me. You take that.'

‘If my grandmother didn't keep me so beastly short, I'm hanged if I wouldn't go up to Town myself tonight and have a look round. I'm fit to die of doing nothing down here,' said Anthony, peevishly. ‘Even raking round to get evidence against Hobson's murderer bores me stiff.'

He strolled off, following the trail of old Mrs Puddequet's bathchair. Joe looked after him thoughtfully, and then rubbed the top of his nose with the back of his hand. Richard went back to the house.

In his perambulations Timon encountered Amaris Cowes. She had set up her easel near the bathing hut and was painting a group of pollard willows on the opposite bank of the mere.

For some time Anthony stood and watched her. Then he said abruptly:

‘Joe's lost another rabbit.'

Amaris, one brush between her teeth and the other daubing away busily, nodded.

Undaunted by her preoccupied air, Anthony pursued the subject.

‘Funny thing, what?'

Amaris nodded again, laid down the one brush and removed the other from between her teeth.

‘Expound,' she said.

Timon expounded. When he had finished she nodded again.

‘Wonder whether he's right,' said Anthony.

‘Right about Kost?'

‘Yes.'

‘No.'

‘Eh?'

‘Kost is a vegetarian,' said Amaris.

‘How do you know?'

‘Great-aunt told me so. It was the only thing, so far as they could discover, which singled him out from all the other trainers who applied, so Miss Caddick chose him on the strength of it.'

‘By Jove!' said Timon admiringly. ‘Quite the knack of it, haven't you?'

‘Of what?'

‘Winning people's hearts.'

‘Great-aunt confides in me about unimportant matters, if that is what you mean.'

‘Only in unimportant ones?'

‘I think so. She hasn't told me yet who murdered that wretched man.'

‘Hobson?'

‘Who else has been murdered here?'

‘But do you think she knows who did it?'

‘Oh, yes. Of course she knows. At any rate, she is very anxious that no one else shall find out anything.'

‘Well, I mean, she probably disliked the fellow.'

‘Yes. Pity anyone should be taken up for stamping on a crawling thing of that type. They'll arrest the wife in the end, I expect.'

‘The wife? Whatever for?'

‘Motive.'

‘Oh. Important thing, of course, the motive. She must have had a pretty good one. He led her the deuce of a life, they say.'

‘Poor creature.'

‘Yes.'

From the distant house a shrill whistle, blown three times in succession, announced that it was lunchtime. Amaris packed up her belongings, and, Timon helping her, carried them up to the house. On the way, Timon paused.

‘Faint with hunger?' asked Amaris.

‘No.'

‘What, then?'

‘I wish you'd marry me.'

‘Why?'

‘Oh, I don't know. I feel you'd buck me up.'

Amaris walked on again. After a fraction of a second, Timon followed her example. As they reached the sports ground and began to walk across it, she said:

‘I shouldn't have time.'

‘Time?'

‘To buck you up. My career, you know. I paint.'

‘Yes.'

‘No.'

‘Eh?'

‘No, I shouldn't have time, I meant.'

‘No, I'd be your life-work, wouldn't I?' He grinned self-consciously.

Amaris considered him with unflattering detachment, and then slowly shook her head.

‘I should hate to think so,' she said gently.

She stumbled as she spoke, and swiftly bent to pick up the object which her foot had touched. It was one of the sports javelins. Amaris held it at full length and shook it in a playfully warlike manner.

‘I say,' exclaimed Anthony in admiration, ‘you remind me of that goddess—what's-her-name?—you know who I mean!'

‘Artemis,' said Richard Cowes's Amazonian sister. ‘You are mistaken, though. My hips are too big. And I don't look a scrap “chaste and fair.” Don't trouble to deny it! I'm more like a picture by Augustus John than anything you ever saw in the Artemis line.'

She balanced the javelin carefully, the corded grip resting in the centre of her slim, well-shaped, grubby, paint-stained palm. Her fingers closed round the shaft. The metal point of the mock spear glittered in the April sunshine.

‘Oh!' cried Amaris. She drew back her arm and sent the long, straight, slender, finely balanced missile hurtling high and sure. At the termination of its swift and graceful flight, it came to earth true as a bird, its metal point embedded in the ground.

‘I say, I wonder whether there is blood on it?' said Anthony, running forward. He seized the long white shaft and jerked the point out of the ground. Feverishly he scraped the damp earth from the metal.

‘Hum! Difficult to say,' he said. ‘I'd better take it back to the gym., I suppose. There's been enough strafe over the beastly things already.'

‘Yes, so I heard.' Amaris regarded him queerly. ‘I won't wait for you. See you at lunch. I'll take my things now, if you're going to take the javelin.'

She stalked away towards the sunk garden, her painting materials hung about her until they looked like the paraphernalia of the White Knight.

‘And see whether you can find the gymnasium rope that the murderers took!' she shouted over her shoulder.

Timon Anthony, a singularly perturbed Alice, walked on without finding sufficient spirit to make any reply. When he did pluck up courage and glance back, Amaris had disappeared.

‘WELL,' SAID INSPECTOR
Bloxham, seating himself on the large roller at the western side of the sports field, ‘I don't say we progress, exactly. But at least we don't go backwards. And one thing I'm certain about, and that is, my lad, somebody in this place killed Jacob Hobson. I reckon that we are now exactly half-way through the investigation. I've heard seven yarns about what people were doing and why on the night of the murder, and, as I see it, I've got to hear seven more. I've now interrogated young Brown-Jenkins, Miss Yeomond, Mrs Hobson, all the Mr Yeomonds, Mr Anthony—a very suspicious bird, that one, I might say—Kost the trainer, and Miss Cowes. I must have another go at her later, I think. Clever as a cartload of monkeys that one, I reckon.' He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. Neither man was in uniform.

‘Oh, I don't know, Mr Bloxham,' objected the sergeant. ‘Them sort of large, blowsy females are seldom strong in the brain-line, sir. Sort of passionate and excitable underneath an otherwise placid exterior, if you get me, inspector, but real bright, no.'

‘Boy,' said the inspector, eyeing his henchman and supporter with grave concern, ‘those talkies are doing you no good. Take my tip, and spend your evenings at home. Help the missus wind the wool. It'll do your nerves good.'

A dark flush suffused the sergeant's bovine and ingenuous countenance; he changed the subject.

‘'Ave you ever thought any more of the bathchair business that Friday night or Saturday morning, Mr Bloxham?' he asked.

‘Bathchair business?'

‘Ah! As swore to by two independent witnesses, Miss Yeomond and Mr Jenkins, sir?'

‘The point is, were they independent witnesses? I've my suspicions of Mr Brown-Jenkins. I can't make up my mind how much of a liar that young man is.'

‘Liar, sir?'

‘Champion cyclist, sergeant. There are several advanced classes in the university of liars. Golfers and fishermen rank very high in the sporting grades, and champion cyclists run them close. Then come those Irish country lads who tell you the size of the fox that's just gone to ground, and the fellow who was Not Out l.b.w. After these comes the man from Maida Vale whose dog always outruns the electric hare; and, of course, right at the end of the list come the simple-minded souls such as water polo players who indulge in foul deeds with artless joy and complete lack of finesse, and then immediately and clamorously claim a free pass against the man they've just fouled. Luckily a competent referee can usually deal with humorists of that sort.'

‘You seem to have studied your subjick, sir,' said the sergeant with heavy irony. The inspector nodded.

‘I was not always a policeman, sergeant,' he replied sadly. ‘Time was when they destined me for Sandhurst and a career of death or glory. The war stepped in, however, and made another kind of soldier out of me. Then the family heirlooms went the way such trifles will, and I came out of the Army quite whole and extraordinarily tired, and with no money and no training to speak of, and joined the noble force of which we two are shining ornaments. And now, do you think you can defend me from an umbrella attack if I interview old Mrs Puddequet?'

‘Seems to me, sir,' said the sergeant as they walked along the cinder track towards old Mrs Puddequet's bathchair, which had just emerged from the opposite gateway and was being propelled at a dignified pace towards them, ‘as you ain't so serious over this 'ere murder as you was over the Merridale case fifteen months back.'

‘Sergeant,' said the inspector, ‘you're a good chap, and so I'll tell you something I wouldn't repeat, nor care for you to repeat, to anyone else. I'm doing my duty, in a sense, over this case, but my heart isn't in it. I know the police aren't paid to be sentimental, but it upsets me badly to know that through me some perfectly decent and humane person is going to be convicted for bouncing a brick on that filthy animal Hobson. If I had any guts in me, I'd throw up the case—at least, if it weren't for my insatiable curiosity I would. But I want to know who did it—and yet I don't! As soon as I know, duty compels me to pass on the information and make an arrest, you see, and that—'

The bathchair, accelerating its speed, now drew near enough for its occupant to overhear any further conversation, and so the inspector stopped short.

Great-aunt Puddequet, craning her head forward from the bathchair like a peculiarly malignant-looking tortoise, greeted the police with mild derision.

‘Well! Well! Here we come, with our notebooks and pencils! And what have we found out today?' she enquired, blinking her yellowish eyes at them. The inspector smiled politely.

‘We are depending upon you to assist us in our enquiries today, Mrs Puddequet,' said he. ‘To begin with—'

‘To begin with, attendant,' shrieked old Mrs Puddequet, glaring round at Joe the rabbit-fancier, who was her escort and propeller that afternoon, ‘leave the equipage and retire to a distance not exceeding ten yards. Deploy.'