Adders on the Heath (9 page)

'Well, if you say so,' said Richardson, but his optimism had faded again and he spoke despondently. They were traversing Keeping's Copse. Denis deliberately slowed, and then stopped.

'So you have thought better of it, Mr Richardson,' said Dame Beatrice, as disconcerting in her own fashion as her grand-nephew was in his. 'You are prepared to make shocking disclosures. I shall be very glad to hear them. Shall we make what, in modern parlance, I am informed, is called a date?'

'Well,' stammered Richardson, taken back by this display of omniscience and conscious also of Denis's triumphant yet tolerant smile. 'It's very good of you. Perhaps there are one or two things...'

'Of course there are. It would be extraordinary and inhuman if people told the
whole
truth at once. It might even be very dangerous. Let us now drop the subject and concentrate our thoughts on Beaulieu Abbey. What are your opinions on jazz, trad, twist, squares, cats and those delinquents who follow Siva the Destroyer without knowledge of the obverse of his medal-if, indeed, a metaphor in this connection be not entirely out of place?'

'The Preserver,' said Denis. 'Well, the refectory at Beaulieu seems to have been preserved, and something of the cloisters and a few extra bits of wall.'

Three arches of the Chapter House, too,' said Laura, 'and, of course, there's always the collection of lizzies.'

'Lizzies?'

'Vintage cars, dear.'

'Oh,' said Richardson, 'vintage cars. I see. Very interesting, I should think.'

'For good measure, the cloisters are haunted,' pursued Laura. 'Come on. Let's step it out. I want something to eat. Looking at people on boats always makes me feel hungry. You, Tom, had better walk with me, so that Dame B. and Denis can get together for a bit. They're by way of being buddies. Besides, you can confide your troubles to me as we go. I know Denis. Always sees the bright side. So fatiguing. Now you just tell me the worst, and I'll be as lugubrious as you like. Rely on me
not
to point out the silver lining.'

'I say, that's just what I want! How did you know?'

'Oh, Dame B. isn't the only psychologist among those present,' said Laura, waving a shapely hand. 'Now, then, fire away. Why are you all of a tremble about these deaths? You didn't bring them about...or did you? Speak slowly, distinctly and to the point. Did the
vendetta
begin at the cross-country rally, or do we seek to re-enter the womb of Time?'

Richardson did not answer until they had covered another couple of hundred yards. Then he turned his head and observed that Dame Beatrice and her great-nephew had halted to watch a sea-going cruiser which was making its way down-stream. He said,

'Well, it's a silly sort of story really.'

'So is
Alice in Wonderland,
if you care to think about it in that sort of way.'

'Well,' said Richardson, relieved and encouraged by this surprising analogy, 'I suppose it began when I, as secretary of our lot, accepted their lot's challenge.'

'Did they want preferential treatment in some way?'

'No, no, far from it. They invited us over to their ground-we haven't a ground of our own, as, no doubt, you know-to see them in action and fix up the final details of the cross-country run.'

To see them in action? Was that necessary?'

'I shouldn't have thought so. Anyway, our president, our treasurer and a chap named Evans came with me. Evans is our best long-distance man-a marathon runner, actually-and we stayed to tea. They have women members, so the tea was a good one. The girls' mums turned up and put on no end of a spread. There was only one jarring note.'

'A-ha! So here we come!'

'Well, it's where we went, actually. When tea was over there was a concerted move to the local. I had a bit of time to spare before I caught my train. I hadn't brought the car because it was in dry dock having the brakes adjusted and being given a general "once-over" at the garage, so I saw the other three off in Evans' Morris and strolled along to find a pub. I didn't know which one was favoured by the local lads and it was quite by chance that I happened on one which was enjoying the custom of Colnbrook and a couple of girls. He had dodged the column, it seemed, to sport with Amaryllis and there was a lot of giggling and a spot of slap and tickle going on under the benevolent eye of the barman. As it was not much past six, the bar was empty except for the above-mentioned and a couple of old fellows smoking pipes and getting outside a pint each in a far corner, so in I barged.

'Colnbrook spotted me as soon as I went in and bellowed to me to join the party and asked me what I'd have. I didn't want to join him and his doxies, but one has to do the civil thing, especially in pubs, where people are apt to take offence rather easily, so I went over. Colnbrook bought me a drink, and I bought him and the girls one, and then I said I had to be going. To my horror, one of the females elected to accompany me to the station and see me off.

'When we got outside, she confided to me that she liked me and that, anyhow, the other two wouldn't mind being left alone for a bit. When we got to the station, the wretched wench insisted upon coming on to the platform and she led me into the waiting-room. It was empty and she immediately indicated that she thought it an ideal spot for a bit of necking. I was just fobbing her off-physically, I may add-she was their woman shot-putt champion-when who should arrive but Colnbrook and his girl friend. They stated their opinion that I was endeavouring to compromise this ghastly female weight-lifter, and Colnbrook, his silly map one enormous grin, indicated that he should inform the other members of my club.
They'd
have laughed their heads off, but if my fiancée had got to know-'

Tell Mrs. Croc, all about it,' said Laura. 'Personally, your girl would be a perfect little chump,
I
think, to swallow a word of such a story, and I don't believe she would. If she does, be a man and chuck her.'

'You see,' said Richardson, ignoring this Spartan solution, 'although there's an understanding and so forth, we're not yet actually engaged and my position with her is a bit in jeopardy because I've twice stood her up in order to run.'

'I see. And you don't think she would take your word for the waiting-room episode?'

'I don't really know, but I certainly wouldn't want to chance it.'

'Well, be that as it may, how was the episode concluded?'

'That's just my trouble. Having fended off the female strong-arm, I threatened Colnbrook that if he breathed a word I'd do for him. At that he turned ugly and said, "You and who else?" Fortunately my train came in just then and I had to catch it, pursued by what the novelists call mocking laughter. Well, I didn't give the whole thing much more thought until these deaths took place. I've got wind up properly now, though, because, you see, those two dreadful girls heard me threaten him.'

'But you didn't threaten Bunt, chump! And, if there's one thing more certain than another, it is that those deaths are connected.'

'You haven't heard the worst of it,' said Richardson. He hesitated for a moment and then burst out, 'I haven't told anybody but Denis this, but the first day I was down here I saw both of them together. They were in running kit and jogging over the heath and on to the common. They had field-glasses and were planning a route or something.'

'So what?'

'So I knew they were in the neighbourhood. So, if I killed Colnbrook, I'd have had to kill Bunt to shut his mouth. Don't you see? The Superintendent will!'

INTERLUDE

'Women indeed are bitter bad Judges in these cases.'

John Gay-
The Beggar's Opera

'Murder is as fashionable a Crime as a Man can be guilty of.'

Ibid

It was Ladies' Training and Practice Night on the ground and the cinder track of the Scylla and District Social and Athletic Club. Aileen Crumb and Doreen Dodds, their frequent differences forgiven but not forgotten, were practising starts, assisted (or not) by the blistering comments of the club coach. Corinna May and Dulcie Cobham had put up a couple of hurdles on the opposite side of the track and were doing their exercises, sometimes by leaning on a hurdle and putting a knee on it, sometimes by taking a stylish couple of flights and sometimes by sitting on the ground and performing the heathenish contortions necessary to the perfecting of their art.

Keeping well away from all four or, (counting the coach), all five of the above, were a couple of distance runners named Judy and Syl. These were jogging round the track on the two inside lanes, deep in conversation.

'I can't help saying it,' observed Judy. 'Why two of them? It makes you think a bit. Somebody got it in for the club. Hope they stop at the men. It makes me nervous.'

'You can't count old Bobo Bunt. He resigned from the club a long time ago.'

'Got thrown out, you mean.'

'Now then, dear, no nasturtiums!'

'Well, he did get thrown out, too. Don't you remember...?'

'What about Bert and Carrie, then? You know, I reckon that was what touched everything off! Don't you remember that row in the station waiting-room?'

'We only heard Bert's side of it, remember. I must say I thought that posh Oxford boy was all right, and, of course, Penny the Putt would do anything for a laugh.'

'I know all about that, but there
was
something funny going on, else Bert wouldn't have got croaked. Personally, I don't believe it was murder. I reckon he done it himself, Oxford boy or no Oxford boy.'

'What makes you say that?'

'I reckon Bert suffered from remorse.'

'What about? Anyway, Bert wouldn't feel remorse. He was the dirtiest runner in the club. Only wish I had his technique.'

'What, crowding people on bends and using his elbows and his spikes and pushing people on the grass?'

'Well, he usually won, didn't he?'

'Oh, go on with you, Judy! That ain't what they learned you at school.'

'Oh, school! Still, I got me basic there, even if they made me be a sprinter and not a distance.'

'Well, the longest race at school was the two-twenty, and it put some pace on you, didn't it? Look at Adrian Metcalfe and that there Brightwell boy.'

'Wish I could-close to. Oh, Syl, what a Greek god!'

'A how-much?'

'They learnt us about them at school. We went to the British Museum.'

'So did we. Bloomin' rude, I thought them statues. Ever so interesting, though, I'm bound to admit. Anyway, Bert and Bobo wasn't any Greek gods, dressed or undressed,
I'll
bet.'

'But what makes you say Bert croaked himself? It don't make sense.'

'Why not?'

'He'd think the club would go to pot without him.'

'That's true enough, too, I suppose.'

'Of course it's true. So he didn't do
himself
. He was
done
.'

'By the Oxford boy?'

'Well, there
was
that row in the station.'

'Yes, but there's only Carrie's word to go on, and you know what
she
is. What I say, you never
can
trust long-jumpers, not even young Mavis,
or
Deirdre Bath.'

'No, it don't seem fair they get so many attempts, considering we only get the one.'

'Besides, it depends on the take-off judge. Some of 'em lacks their eyesight and some of 'em's biased in favour.'

'Still, Carrie done nineteen six.'

'Yes, with the wind behind her and her new boy friend doing the measuring.'

They jogged on.

'That row in the station,' said Syl, at the end of another lap. 'Think it was a put-up job?'

'Of course it was. That Oxford boy wouldn't have made a pass in a nudist camp.'

'Oh, but men don't, dear. One of the rules.'

'Well, you know what I mean. That Oxford boy, let Carrie say what she likes, he was framed. That idea's just come to me. He was framed!'

'As how and for what?'

'Everybody thinks these Oxford students got money. Course they haven't, poor little B's.'

'But he wasn't still a student. He'd left.'

'It's the same thing, dear. Without an uncle, or something, they leaves to be schoolmasters or something, and there's no money in schoolmastering. What about a couple of starts to the first bend? You start me and I'll start you. Don't suppose Dad will worry about anything but the sprinters. Not that he's a bad sort, mind you. He just don't agree with we girls doing the mile.'

'If I could win at anything else, he'd be dead right at that,' said Syl. They held the sprinters up while they practised starting and then trotted off to the dressing-rooms.

'I still don't get it how we got this ground and the showers and things,' said Judy. 'I thought the club was always on the rocks.'

'It's some Trust or other, dear.'

'Oh, I see. Fishy, these Trusts, I always think. Somebody trying to dodge the Income Tax, that's all there is to it.'

'I suppose,' said Syl, 'there couldn't be anything like
that
behind it?'

'Behind what?-Damn this shower! It won't turn off! Ah, that's it!-How d'you mean?'

'Well, Bert and Bob finding out something fishy and being bumped off before they could use what they knowed, so as to try and bleed this boy.'

'Oh, don't be romantic!'

'Still, they might have done.'

'What, enough to get themselves done in?'

'Well, you never know. Mum said you can come to supper, if you like. It's rissoles and chips.'

'Ta, then, I will. I'm supposed to be meeting Ted at nine o'clock, though. Think your mum will mind if I push off then?'

'Course not. One thing I'll say for mum, she does understand the problems of we girls. She says herself that, these days, if you ain't married by nineteen, you've had it.'

The supper at Syl's house was dominated by her mother, in the tradition that young women ballet dancers, swimmers, ice-skaters and other athletes are all dominated, protected, and have life made hell for them, by the female parent. To Syl's plea that potato chips automatically put her out of training, her mother replied that a bit of building up did not hurt nobody and that the family could soon sweat
that
off by
running
to work instead of going by bus. The girls enjoyed the rissoles and chips, and nobody mentioned blackmail.