The Burry Man's Day (17 page)

‘You have to have the milk and starch first, you goose,’ I told him. ‘You should have had a pint of porridge for breakfast. It’s far too late now to do you any good. But what did you find out?’

‘Apart from the limits of my constitution?’ said Alec. ‘Very little. Nothing. Only that the Burry Man had a sizeable nip at each of the pubs and that most of the “right ferry folk” also gave him either a penny or a nip, a penny if they have children most usually and a nip if they don’t. Except that some of them give both, but the incomers and some of “those and such as those” do neither, or if they do it’s more likely money than drink. But all in all, he could quite easily have had more than enough whisky to kill him. Just as the doctor said.’

‘Is that what you were trying to prove?’ said Cadwallader, looking hurt. ‘Do you still not believe me that something fishy is going on here?’

‘Oh certainly, we believe that,’ I told him. ‘More definitely all the time. Only I’m not convinced that the mystery is a
murder
mystery, that’s all. Now Alec, here’s a thing. I had forgotten this until Mrs Dudgeon was organizing the funeral feast this morning, and the bad news is that if you forgot too you might have to go round again and pump the publicans for more details.’ Alec groaned. ‘Unless,’ I went on, ‘on your travels did anyone own up to the ham sandwich?’

‘Is that a code name?’ said Buttercup.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember? The police surgeon said that Robert Dudgeon had nothing in his stomach except a great deal of alcohol and a ham sandwich.’ There was a chorus of disgust at my choice of topic for the luncheon table, Buttercup spluttering with dainty squeamishness and Alec clearly on a knife-edge after all the beer.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but some of our sensibilities must be set aside. Alec and I have learned that to our cost in the past. So darling, did anyone mention a sandwich?’

Alec shook his head.

‘Isn’t it all part of the bravado of the Burry Man,’ said Buttercup, ‘that he can’t eat a thing once he’s in his little green suit? The ham sandwich must have been waiting for him when he disrobed at the end of the day. Mrs Dudgeon must have brought it from home.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘After all, he must have eaten it fairly late on for it still to have been identifiable as –’ Alec gulped and I stopped. ‘But there’s something not quite right there. Something that occurred to me on the very first night when we went round to the cottage, Buttercup.’

‘Which cottage is that?’ said Cad.

‘Oh Lord, can’t we just tell him, “Freddy”?’ I said. ‘I’ll never remember to stop.’

‘You dare,’ said Buttercup. ‘I know things about you I can tell as well, my dear.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Cad. ‘What are they talking about, Osborne?’

‘No idea as usual,’ said Alec. ‘But the drink has made it much less annoying.’

‘That very first time we went there,’ I resumed, ‘that awful fierce woman was banging around washing all manner of pots and pans, wasn’t she?’ Buttercup shrugged. ‘Well, she was. I was reminded of it the next day when all the sisters were fighting over a little teacup to wipe. Now here is the question: what meal was that the washing up of?’ No one responded. ‘From what meal sprang those pots and pans? Do you see?’ Alec gazed at me owlishly, with his mouth slightly open and Cad and Buttercup looked expectant and polite, but blank. ‘If Robert was out Burry Manning all day, they couldn’t be luncheon pots. And if Mrs Dudgeon packed a sandwich to take to him so that he could go straight from his rounds to the greasy pole competition then they’d hardly be supper pots, would they?’

‘Well then, they must have come from the night before’s supper, then,’ said Buttercup. ‘But I can’t see that they matter.’

‘The night before?’ I said. ‘My dear girl, Mrs Dudgeon would have you up for slander if she heard you. Dirty pots sitting overnight and all day in a decent woman’s cottage kitchen? And at Ferry Fair time too. Impossible! No, the only explanation is that Dudgeon had indeed meant to go home after discarding his burrs and that Mrs Dudgeon had supper ready for him. Someone in the crowd at the greasy pole expressed surprise that he was there – I overheard it – and apparently Mrs Dudgeon had refused to shift her pony and her sweet little trundle-cart from where it stood waiting, saying that she was going to take Robert home. But . . . he doubled back. And . . . at some point he ate that pesky sandwich.’

‘Which . . .’ said Cad, trying to catch up, ‘. . . you’re saying might have been poisoned?’ I sighed in exasperation.

‘No, Cad, for heaven’s sake, which I’m
not
saying might have been poisoned. Please will you get untraceable poison out of your head once and for all. All I’m saying is that we need to find out where they got to on this aborted journey homewards; where it was that he was taken in and fed.’

‘And what will that tell us?’ said Buttercup. Alec showed no sign of having registered anything; his head had sunk until his chin was on his chest.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘But it might be significant. If Dudgeon was being threatened by someone who wanted to stamp out the Burry Man, perhaps this same someone waylaid the cart on Friday evening and subjected Mr and Mrs Dudgeon to a tirade on the subject of their broken agreement.’

‘With light refreshments,’ said Buttercup, drily. I had to laugh.

‘I admit it sounds a little odd. But look at Alec here.’ We all looked at Alec, who gave a gentle snore. ‘If one were determined to have a serious talk with him at the moment one might well start by shovelling in some sustenance. I’d go for strong coffee rather than sandwiches, but still.’

‘I still don’t see what any of that will tell us about the actual death,’ said Cad, sounding rather sulky.

I refused to rise to the bait again, but I mollified him a little by saying: ‘At the very least, if someone did harangue Dudgeon on his way home on Friday night, and if he thought they might follow him all the way back to his cottage to carry on haranguing him there, and because of
that
he decided to go back to the Fair instead of sleeping it all off at home, then to my mind that person has a great deal to feel guilty about. I mean, the strain of the day and the drink might be the main culprits but any upset or worry added to the mix had to have played a part. And if Dudgeon was as keyed up then as Mrs Dudgeon is now I would quite happily say that his state of mind was what tipped the scales. After all, he did the parading and the drinking every other year and they didn’t kill him. It was this year, with the mysterious worry, that he died.’

Cad nodded and seemed satisfied with this to be going on with.

‘We’ll have coffee upstairs,’ said Buttercup to a maid who had come to clear the table. ‘Lots of strong coffee.’ She reached under the table to nudge Alec with her foot and he stirred, grunting. The maid smirked and left.

‘After which,’ I said, ‘I’m off back to the Dudgeons’ place to poke around at the back and see if I can work out what Miss Joey Brown was up to this morning.’

‘Do you suspect her?’ said Cad.

‘I’m not sure,’ I answered. ‘There’s something slightly off about her, but it might be quite separate from our concerns. Worth checking, though.’

‘And can we do anything?’ said Cad.

‘You could try to come up with a reason that Mrs Dudgeon should be out wandering the woods in the middle of the night with a bottle of ink,’ I said. ‘Or actually, more usefully, do you have a Post Office Directory in the house?’ Cad and Buttercup looked at each other and then shrugged in unison. ‘If you do you could try to work out the Dudgeons’ most obvious route from the Rosebery Hall towards their cottage and see who lives along the way that might be of interest.’

‘Of interest in what way?’ said Buttercup, screwing up her face as she used to do when asked questions in class at our finishing school. I knew exactly what I meant, but it was impossible to explain to someone who did not catch on to it automatically.

‘Or,’ I said, scooting down in my seat as Buttercup had done and giving Alec a sharp kick on the front of the shin, ‘you could see what you can do with this sorry case. Try holding him under in a water-butt perhaps and then get him to do the detecting. It’s what he’s here for, after all. And, finally, tell me where I can lay my hands on a dog.’

Chapter Eight

One of the stable boys, it transpired, had a dear little dog and was only too happy to loan it out for the afternoon – it was usually condemned to spend its days tied to a ring in the yard except when he could spare a few minutes. It was a typical Scottish villager’s dog, about spaniel-sized, with a bit of whippet and a bit of shaggy terrier in it somewhere, no carriage to speak of, bandy in the rear legs, with an extravagantly fringed tail curving over its back. In local parlance: a wee black dug, and I felt a pang of longing for Bunty, who would have been coming back on the train with Grant and the extra clothes that very minute, except that now was not a time for her to be out in society, poor thing. I hoped fervently that Hugh was doing a good job of keeping her confined, because sweet as this little fellow was, I would not like Bunty’s children to have another like him as their father.

He would serve my afternoon’s purposes however, keeping my earlier shivers at bay and giving me, more importantly, an excuse to be walking through the woods. In the first of these roles, I have to say, he did not excel because far from snuffling on with his nose to the path and ignoring the phantoms which had so unnerved me on my first outing he began, as we advanced, to prick up his ears and lift his quivering nose into the still air of the forest and once or twice he looked up at me as though seeking reassurance instead of providing it, shrinking close into my legs with his tail down.

‘Do you smell rabbits?’ I asked him, in a hearty voice. ‘Rabbits are nothing to a fine fellow like you. Or is it a fox you hear? I won’t let a fox get you.’

He rolled his eyes at me and then faced to the front again as though to say: ‘Well, all right then, if you promise.’

So I was forced to stride out, bravely whistling, keeping up his spirits instead of he mine and all the while trying not to think that it was ghosts that were raising his hackles as they had done to me. It might be Lila and her band of brothers, silently stalking me, except I knew in my heart that they would never do anything silently. Well then, it must be a peculiarity of the wind in the trees or some other natural oddity. It was
not
ghosts. Ghosts, for one thing, did not exist and even if they did they would hardly haunt dogs. Who ever heard of a haunted dog? Cats, certainly – cats were eerie things at the best of times – and possibly horses. But never dogs.

At last my little path fell in with the lane and I forgot all about the possible supernatural inhabitants of Cadwallader’s woods as I planned the task before me. Thankfully for my purposes, all was tranquil at both houses; I was certain that if the holy terrors had been cooped up inside the walls would have pulsed with the effort of containing them. Their father was undoubtedly out at work, and there was no sign of their careworn elder sister either nor the mother, who had yet to appear. I supposed she might well be in confinement again, awaiting another addition to her brood, but I was glad that she was nowhere to be seen right now.

There were signs too that Mr Faichen had been and gone with his hearse. A trail of fresh horse droppings led along the lane before me and there were eight rosettes printed in the dust at Mrs Dudgeon’s gate showing clearly how two enormous horses had stood, shifting their hooves, waiting while the coffin was carried out. Now to my sleuthing. Luckily, there were no windows on the side wall of the cottage and so, knowing that I could not be seen by anyone inside, I bent down and untied the string from the collar of my little friend. He sat patiently while I did so and remained sitting, looking up at me, once he was free. Bunty would never have been so well behaved.

‘Shoo,’ I told him, in a whisper. ‘Go on with you. Run along and play.’

At last, with a look over his shoulder to make sure he had understood me, he trotted off along the front of the cottages. I turned a sharp right and made my way around the back. I would ‘realize’ shortly that I had lost him, and then would skirt the cottages closely in my ‘search’ and have a good look at whatever might have been Joey Brown’s object back there this morning. The stable lad had assured me that it was perfectly safe to let the dog off its leash – I was not being
that
cavalier with another’s loved one – and that he would come back when called by his name, which was Nipper. ‘Cos of how he was the wee-est one, mind,’ the boy had assured me. ‘Not cos he bites, cos he disnae.’

I strolled, whistling under my breath, along the tree-line at the back of the cottages, wishing it were autumn and I might pick up pretty-coloured leaves. (I should never actually be so soppy as to trip along in woodland picking up autumn leaves, of course, but Mrs Dudgeon or her neighbours weren’t to know that and I could have dithered about quite plausibly had the season allowed.) As it was I had to make do with walking as slowly as I could and shooting sideways glances towards the back of the cottages from under my hat.

There were coal bunkers and log stores along the back walls of the cottages under the scullery windows, axes and shovels hanging neatly from nails beside them. Between the cottages and the boundary of the gardens lay the washing greens, empty on one side and loaded on the other, and a pair of vegetable patches, both well-stocked and looking extremely lush in the current season. Then along the boundary closest to me were the usual little sheds and tool stores, rusting heaps of old wheelbarrows and rotten fence posts, as well as the midden heaps which I supposed had to go along with such bountiful-looking kitchen gardens. I knew rather more than I should have chosen to about midden heaps, their construction, their proper maintenance and management, and their invaluable contribution to a cropping scheme – they were another of Hugh’s mystifying enthusiasms, and at the crushing end of the spectrum of boredom, even for him. These he would have heartily approved of: two pairs, one of each pair open and one covered, as all good midden heap makers know is essential. They were neatly contained inside walls of sod and utterly revolting on this hot afternoon, buzzing with flies and reeking of elderly cabbage and grass.