Cynthia Manson (ed) (26 page)

Sir Leo nodded his white head.
“Horrible,” he agreed. “Now, let me get this clear. The man appears to have
been run down at the Benham-Ashby crossroads...”

Bussy took a handful of cigarettes
from the box at his side and arranged them in a cross on the table.

“Look,” he said. “Here is the Ashby
road with a slight bend in it, and here, running at right angles slap through
the curve, is the Benham road. As you know as well as I do, Sir Leo, they’re
both good wide main thoroughfares, as roads go in these parts. This morning the
Benham postman, old Fred Noakes. a bachelor thank God and a good chap, came
along the Benham Road loaded down with Christmas mail.”

“On a bicycle?” asked Campion.

“Naturally. On a bicycle. He called
at the last farm before the crossroads and left just about 10 o’clock. We know
that because he had a cup of tea there. Then his way led him over the crossing
and on towards Benham proper.”

He paused and looked up from his
cigarettes.

“There was very little traffic early
today, terrible weather all the time, and quite a bit of activity later; so
we’ve got no skid marks to help us. Well, to resume: no one seems to have seen
old Noakes. poor chap, until close on half an hour later. Then the Benham
constable, who lives some 300 yards from the crossing and on the Benham road,
came out of his house and walked down to his gate to see if the mail had come.
He saw the postman at once, lying in the middle of the road across his machine.
He was dead then.”

“You suggest he’d been trying to
carry on, do you?” put in Sir Leo.

“Yes. He was walking, pushing the
bike, and had dropped in his tracks. There was a depressed fracture in the side
of his skull where something—say, a car mirror—had struck him. I’ve got the
doctor’s report. I’ll show you that later. Meanwhile there’s something else.”

Bussy’s finger turned to his other
line of cigarettes.

“Also, just about 10, there were a
couple of fellows walking here on the
Ashby
road, just before the bend.
They report that they were almost run down by a wildly driven car which came up
behind them. It missed them and careered off out of their sight round the bend
towards the crossing. But a few minutes later, half a mile farther on, on the
other side of the crossroads, a police car met and succeeded in stopping the
same car. There was a row and the driver, getting the wind up suddenly, started
up again, skidded and smashed the car into the nearest telephone pole. The car
turned out to be stolen and there were four half-full bottles of gin in the
back. The two occupants were both fighting drunk and are now detained.”

Mr. Campion took off his spectacles
and blinked at the speaker.

“You suggest that there was a
connection, do you? —that the postman and the gin drinkers met at the
crossroads? Any signs on the car?”

Bussy shrugged his shoulders. “Our
chaps are at work on that now,” he said. “The second smash has complicated
things a bit, but last time I ‘phoned they were hopeful.”

“But my dear fellow!” Sir Leo was
puzzled. “If you can get expert evidence of a collision between the car and the
postman, your worries are over. That is, of course, if the medical evidence
permits the theory that the unfortunate fellow picked himself up and struggled
the 300 yards towards the constable’s house.”

Bussy hesitated.

“There’s the trouble,” he admitted.
“If that were all we’d be sitting pretty, but it’s not and I’ll tell you why.
In that 300 yards of Benham Road, between the crossing and the spot where old
Fred died, there is a stile which leads to a footpath. Down the footpath, the
best part of a quarter of a mile over very rough going, there is one small
cottage, and at that cottage letters were delivered this morning. The doctor
says Noakes might have staggered the 300 yards up the road leaning on his bike,
but he puts his foot down and says the other journey, over the stile and so on,
would have been absolutely impossible. I’ve talked to the doctor. He’s the best
man in the world on the job and we won’t shake him on that.”

“All of which would argue.” observed
Mr. Campion brightly, “that the postman was hit by a car
after
he came
back from the cottage—between the stile and the constable’s house.”

“That’s what the constable thought.”
Bussy’s black eyes were snapping. “As soon as he’d telephoned for help he
slipped down to the cottage to see if Noakes had actually called there. When he
found he had, he searched the road. He was mystified though because both he and
his missus had been at their window for an hour watching for the mail and they
hadn’t seen a vehicle of any sort go by either way. If a car did hit the
postman where he fell, it must have turned and gone back afterwards.”

Leo frowned at him. “What about the
other witnesses? Did they see any second car?”

“No.” Bussy was getting to the heart
of the matter and his face shone with honest wonder. “I made sure of that.
Everybody sticks to it that there was no other car or cart about and a good job
too, they say, considering the way the smashed-up car was being driven. As I
see it, it’s a proper mystery, a kind of not very nice miracle, and those two
beauties are going to get away with murder on the strength of it. Whatever our
fellows find on the car they’ll never get past the doctor’s testimony.”

Mr. Campion got up sadly. The sleet
was beating on the windows, and from inside the house came the more cheerful
sound of tea cups. He nodded to Sir Leo.

“I fear we shall have to see that
footpath before it gets too dark. In this weather, conditions may have changed
by tomorrow.”

Sir Leo sighed.” ‘On Christmas day
in the morning!’ “ he quoted bitterly. “Perhaps you’re right.”

They stopped their dreary journey at
the Benham police station to pick up the constable. He proved to be a pleasant
youngster with a face like one of the angel choir and boots like a fairy tale,
but he had liked the postman and was anxious to serve as their guide.

They inspected the crossroads and
the bend and the spot where the car had come to grief. By the time they reached
the stile, the world was gray and freezing, and all trace of Christmas had
vanished, leaving only the hopeless winter it had been invented to refute.

Mr. Campion negotiated the stile and
Sir Leo followed him with some difficulty. It was an awkward climb, and the
path below was narrow and slippery. It wound out into the mist before them,
apparently without end.

The procession slid and scrambled on
in silence for what seemed a mile, only to encounter a second stile and a plank
bridge over a stream, followed by a brief area of what appeared to be simple
bog. As he struggled out of it, Bussy pushed back his dripping hat and gazed at
the constable.

“You’re not having a game with us, I
suppose?” he inquired.

“No, sir.” The boy was all blush.
“The little house is just here. You can’t make it out because it’s a bit low.
There it is. sir. There.”

He pointed to a hump in the near
distance which they had all taken to be a haystack. Gradually it emerged as the
roof of a hovel which squatted with its back towards them in the wet waste.

“Good Heavens!” Sir Leo regarded its
desolation with dismay. ‘Does anybody really live there?”

“Oh, yes, sir. An old widow lady.
Mrs. Fyson’s the name.”

“Alone?” He was aghast. “How old?”

“I don’t rightly know, sir. Quite
old. Over 75, must be.”

Sir Leo stopped in his tracks and a
silence fell on the company. The scene was so forlorn, so unutterably quiet in
its loneliness, that the world might have died.

It was Campion who broke the spell.

“Definitely no walk for a dying
man,” he said firmly. “Doctor’s evidence completely convincing, don’t you
think? Now that we’re here, perhaps we should drop in and see the householder.”

Sir Leo shivered. “We can’t
all
get in,” he objected. “Perhaps the Superintendent...”

“No. You and I will go.” Campion was
obstinate. “Is that all right with you, Super?”

Bussy waved them on. “If you have to
dig for us we shall be just about here,” he said cheerfully. “I’m over my
ankles now. What a place! Does anybody ever come here
except
the
postman. Constable?”

Campion took Sir Leo’s arm and led
him firmly round to the front of the cottage. There was a yellow light in the
single window on the ground floor and, as they slid up a narrow brick path to
the very small door. Sir Leo hung back. His repugnance was as apparent as the
cold.

“I hate this,” he muttered. “Go on.
Knock if you must.”

Mr. Campion obeyed, stooping so that
his head might miss the lintel. There was a movement inside, and at once the
door was opened wide, so that he was startled by the rush of warmth from
within.

A little old woman stood before him,
peering up without astonishment. He was principally aware of bright eyes.

‘Oh, dear,” she said unexpectedly,
and her voice was friendly. “You
are
damp. Come in.” And then, looking
past him at the skulking Sir Leo, “Two of you! Well, isn’t that nice. Mind your
poor heads.”

The visit became a social occasion
before they were well in the room. Her complete lack of surprise, coupled with
the extreme lowness of the ceiling, gave her an advantage from which the
interview never entirely recovered.

From the first she did her best to
put them at ease.

“You’ll have to sit down at once,”
she said, laughing as she waved them to two little chairs, one on either side
of the small black stove. “Most people have to. I’m all right, you see, because
I’m not tall. This is my chair here. You must undo that,” she went on. touching
Sir Leo’s coat. “Otherwise you may take cold when you go out. It is so very
chilly, isn’t it? But so seasonable and that’s always nice.”

Afterwards it was Mr. Campion’s
belief that neither he nor Sir Leo had a word to say for themselves for the
first five minutes. They were certainly seated and looking round the one
downstairs room which the house contained before anything approaching a
conversation took place.

It was not a sordid room, yet the
walls were unpapered, the furniture old without being in any way antique, and
the place could hardly have been called neat. But at the moment it was festive.
There was holly over the two pictures and on the mantle above the stove, and a
crowd of bright Christmas cards.

Their hostess sat between them, near
the table. It was set for a small tea party and the oil lamp with the red and
white frosted glass shade, which stood in the center of it, shed a comfortable
light on her serene face.

She was a short, plump old person
whose white hair was brushed tightly to her little round head. Her clothes were
all knitted and of an assortment of colors, and with them she wore, most
unsuitably, a maltese-silk lace collarette and a heavy gold chain. It was only
when they noticed she was blushing that they realized she was shy.

“Oh,” she exclaimed at last, making
a move which put their dumbness to shame. “I quite forgot to say it before. A
Merry Christmas to you! Isn’t it wonderful how it keeps coming round? Very
quickly, I’m afraid, but it is so nice when it does. It’s such a
happy
time, isn’t it?”

Sir Leo pulled himself together with
an effort which was practically visible.

“I must apologize,” he began. “This
is an imposition on such a day. I...” But she smiled and silenced him again.

“Not at all,” she said. “Oh, not at
all. Visitors are a great treat. Not everybody braves my footpath in the
winter.”

“But some people do, of course?”
ventured Mr. Campion.

“Of course.” She shot him her shy
smile. “Certainly every week. They send down from the village every week and
only this morning a young man, the policeman to be exact, came all the way over
the fields to wish me the compliments of the season and to know if I’d got my
post!”

“And you had!” Sir Leo glanced at
the array of Christmas cards with relief. He was a kindly, sentimental, family
man, with a horror of loneliness.

She nodded at the brave collection
with deep affection.

“It’s lovely to see them all up
there again, it’s one of the real joys of Christmas, isn’t it? Messages from
people you love and who love you and all so
pretty
, too.”

“Did you come down bright and early
to meet the postman?” Sir Leo’s question was disarmingly innocent, but she
looked ashamed and dropped her eyes.

“I wasn’t up! Wasn’t it dreadful? I
was late this morning. In fact, I was only just picking the letters off the mat
there when the policeman called. He helped me gather them, the nice boy. There
were such a lot. I lay lazily in bed this morning thinking of them instead of
moving.”

“Still, you heard them come.” Sir
Leo was very satisfied. “And you knew they were there.”

“Oh, yes.” She sounded content. “I
knew they were there. May I offer you a cup of tea? I’m waiting for my party...
just a woman and her dear little boy; they won’t be long. In fact, when I heard
your knock I thought they were here already.”