The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (4 page)

‘So long as he isn't among us, I don't see that it matters where he is,' said Aubrey, abandoning his perilous gymnastics and beginning to descend the stairs. He leapt down the last eight in a highly spectacular manner and then turned to finish his remarks. ‘Personally, I don't care a dime where Rupert is, as long as he isn't with me. I can't stick the chap at any price. Most frightful outsider that ever lived, I should think. Awful bounder – and his friends are worse. And it makes me jolly sick, I can tell you, young child, to be lugged down here by the mater, who's got the hide of a hippopotamus when it comes to saving money by sponging on other people.'

‘Really, Aubrey,' protested Felicity, rather horrified by the scalding candour of the young.

‘Yes, I know it sounds a bit thick about one's own people. But it's the truth. I'm fond of the mater, of course, but I can spot her weak points. She won't tip taxi-drivers, you know, and grouses because I do. And down here it makes me jolly well squirm to be forced to eat the chap's beastly grub and sleep in his rotten, over-furnished bedrooms, and be taken out in his putrid car and accept his greasy favours, and pretend I'm grateful!'

‘But I haven't seen him all day,' said Felicity, reverting to the original topic. ‘
Is
he out?'

‘Dunno. Cheer up, angel,' replied Aubrey, brightening visibly at the sight of the chap's beastly grub, which was tastefully and lavishly laid out on a table shaded from the sun by a brightly striped awning. ‘There
are
cucumber sandwiches!'

Midsummer Madness

T
HE
night was hot. Felicity Broome, tossing on her small single bed at the Vicarage, found sleep an impossibility. She counted imaginary sheep, she thought over the events of the day, she played an imaginary set of tennis, she visualized the top of her dressing-table and recalled to mind which aunt had presented her with each of the pretty but inexpensive adjuncts which reposed on it, and upon what festival, anniversary, or occasion she received the gift – but all was to no purpose. Hot and wide-awake she remained. She flung off first the coverlet and then the sheet. She sat up. She seized the pillows and banged and punched them. She lay down again. The pillows still felt as though they were filled with lumps of wood instead of soft down feathers. Felicity groaned and flung her slim body restlessly about.

A car went by along the main road. Somewhere in the house a man was talking interminably. Her father, she knew. The vicar seldom retired to bed before twelve.

A bat flew into the room, fluttered uncertainly round in a jerky, frightened fashion, and flew out again. Somewhere an owl was calling. Two men went by, their heavy boots ringing sharply on the road.

There was no moon, but through the wide-open uncurtained window she could see the stars clustered gemlike, remote and shining, in the clear night sky. Felicity slid out of bed and walked to the window. She leaned out into the glimmering faëry darkness.

Away to the left lay the thickly wooded park of the Manor House. The trees were like a drifting cloud, felt rather than seen. Mysteriously attractive they loomed, shadowy, awesome, and inviting.

Felicity ran a comb through her short dark hair; soft and shining was her hair, like silk. She gave it a toss to settle it into place, then she pulled on a pair of rubber-soled gymnasium-shoes, tightened the string of her pyjama trousers, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her old school blazer, and climbed cat-like down the porch on to the Vicarage flower-bed.

Her father's study was at the side of the house. Felicity was thankful for this. She felt instinctively that, broadminded as the vicar undoubtedly was, he could scarcely be expected to approve of his motherless daughter's present walking costume. Felicity slipped noiselessly across the lawn, vaulted the low stone wall which separated the Vicarage garden from the churchyard, and flitted like some slim, entrancing ghost in and out among the gleaming tombstones. She reached the ancient lych-gate, climbed profanely over it, and dropped down into the road. This was a mere sandy Jane which acted as tributary to the main Bossbury-London thoroughfare, which ran clean through the centre of Wandles Parva village.

Around her and above her head, beneath her feet, before her and behind, were all the scents and sounds and silence of night. Felicity breathed them in – breathed long and deeply. The firm, long, winding road, the quiet hedgerows, filled her with nameless joy. She longed to travel in their company to the world's end and into the fields of asphodel that grace the heaven of youth.

The main road was deserted. Not even a car passed by. The lights of the village were out. The village itself lay behind her. Beyond was ecstasy. The solitude itself was adventure.

Less than five minutes' easy walking brought her to the little wicket gate which opened into the Manor House park. Felicity pushed at the gate. It was not locked, but appeared to be stuck fast. She pushed again. Standing at this portal which bordered the enchanted land she imagined so attractive, her courage failed her. The gloomy woods were black with heavy shadows. The place looked lonely, not with the loneliness and charm of quiet solitude, not even with the loneliness of death, but awesome with the loneliness of living things whose thoughts were not as hers. The true witch-magic of a wood on a midsummer night when the trees are heavy with leaves, and every leaf, however still the forest, has a voice and a secret all its own, affrighted and unnerved her. She was in half a mind to retreat; to leave the pagan temple for a safe and Christian pillow. The factor of the fast-shut gate decided her. To make it an excuse of cowardice was to condemn herself. Retreating a dozen steps, she darted forward, placed one hand upon the topmost rail, and vaulted neatly over it.

It was eerily dark among the trees. They whispered to Felicity their strange and awesome secrets. They were old. They had some mystery in their keeping, and they leaned towards her with their gloomy branches and brushed her cheek with their summer-heavy leaves, trying to attract and snare her – trying to tell her something which she could never understand. Felicity trembled, and her courage failed her. She remembered that in the centre of this great deciduous wood some bygone owner of the Manor House had planted a circle of pines. Tall, straight, and stark they waited, towering into heaven; and in the centre of their circle stood the Stone of Sacrifice. Felicity had heard queer tales about the Stone. It was a solid block of granite, roughly triangular in shape, and once, so ran the legends, it had been the altar of some prehistoric temple to the sun. Priests of a lost religion had sacrificed upon it to their god the flesh of rams or cattle or the blood of human kind. What dread ecstatic dances, what strange and awful sights, what deeds of violence and cruelty the Stone had witnessed, the girl could only guess. She turned, and began to retrace her steps.

Suddenly she stumbled upon the narrow pathway which led towards the Manor House, or, conversely, to the road. Irresolute, she halted and glanced round. All the blood in her body came racing to her head. In the near distance, and among the shadowy trees, she saw a steady gleam of light.

‘Aubrey dear,' said Mrs Bryce Harringay for the fifth time. She had commenced by saying it lovingly. She had continued by saying it coaxingly. Then she had proceeded to put it petulantly, and at length she resorted to command. This also having failed to produce the desired reaction on the part of her son, she had fallen back on a fond and foolish mother's last hope – entreaty.

‘All
right
, mater,' her heir returned, also for the fifth time. He sighed, thrust a picture postcard of Hobbs into a copy of
The Hairy Ape
, laid Mr O'Neill on top of the piano and followed his mother up the stairs.

‘Good night, Jim, old man,' he remarked as he passed out of the room. Jim Redsey looked up from his own book and nodded. He looked harassed and ill.

At the top of the stairs, Mrs Bryce Harringay paused.

‘Good night, Aubrey dear. Now do try to be down in time for breakfast to-morrow morning. Remember – “Punctuality is the politeness of princes.” So charming of them, I always think. So you will make a special effort, won't you?'

‘Righto. Good night, mater. Sleep well. Oh, do you want, me to come and goggle under the bed for you?'

‘Well –' said Mrs Bryce Harringay hesitatingly. It was a strong woman's one weakness, this fear of burglars under the bed.

‘Righto,' said Aubrey good-naturedly. He preceded her into the room and switched on the electric light, for the wealthy Rupert possessed his own electric plant and paid his own electrician to look after it. Having looked solemnly under his mother's bed, Aubrey stepped across to the window and, pulling back the edge of the blind which Mrs Bryce Harringay's maid had already drawn down, he peered out. Although the hour was late, it was not dark outside. He could perceive the outline of the summer-house, and some formless shadows which were the roses and the flowering garden-beds by day. Suddenly a shaft of light shone broadly out on to the gravel path, and, from the library below, a man stepped out and walked towards the stables. Aubrey watched him go, and in a few seconds observed that he returned and apparently switched off the electric light.

‘For goodness' sake, Aubrey, come away from that window and let me go to bed,' said Mrs Bryce Harringay petulantly. ‘Here is Louise. Good night, dear.'

‘Good night, mater. So long.' And he slipped out. The maid bestowed upon his back the special smile she kept for every member of his sex, and turned to attend her mistress.

Aubrey shot into his own room like lightning, kicked off his pumps, pulled on a pair of rubber-soled gymnasium-shoes, flung off his dress clothes and climbed into shorts and a sweater, then tiptoed to the door, regardless of the wild disorder he was leaving in his bedroom. As quickly as he could manage to do without making a noise, he shot downstairs and into the library. It was in darkness, but a strong scent of roses with which the hot night filled the room informed him that the French windows were wide open. Fearful of being too late to see the fun, he stepped out on the gravel path, slipped quickly aside on to the short, friendly turf of the lawn which would deaden the sound of his footsteps, and ran towards the garage and the stables.

‘Elementary, Watson, you goop!' crowed Aubrey, as, coming within sight of the stables, the circle of light cast by a hurricane lamp met his gaze. ‘So there you are, Jimsey my buck! Now we shall find out what the spade is for. Perhaps he's robbed old Rupert's safe and is going to bury the spoils! I wonder what the little game
really
is, though?'

Seeking the shelter of a thick clump of laurels, he lay with his face as close to the ground as was possible, and waited patiently. He crushed a spider, which was tunnelling a panic-stricken way between his shirt and his body, by the simple expedient of rolling on it, scratched his left ear, which was beginning to itch maddeningly, and held his breath so as not to betray his presence. He had not long to wait. A muffled oath, in a voice unmistakably belonging to his cousin James Redsey, who had dropped the spade with a clatter upon the brick flooring of the stable, was followed by the appearance of a large black shadow looming against the starlit-scented dimness of the night, and Redsey passed by at a swift pace, carrying the hurricane lamp in his left hand and the spade across his right shoulder. He seemed in great haste, and was obviously bent upon some secret and important errand.

‘Got gymmers on, like me,' thought Aubrey, noting Redsey's noiseless footsteps. ‘Silly ass to tread on the very edge of the turf like that, though! Any idiot could trace him to-morrow.'

He allowed Jim about thirty paces' start, then, moving like the shadow of a cat, sinuous, gliding, and without a sound, he began to follow him.

When they were well away from the windows of the house, Jim abandoned the cover afforded by bushes and flowering plants, and struck out boldly across the park. On this open ground, Aubrey had need to exercise much care in order to keep his presence secret. At irregular intervals, Jim Redsey halted and looked round as though some sixth mysterious sense were warning him that he was being followed. Rejoicing at the absence of the moon, Aubrey, who was bending nearly double in his determination to avoid being discovered, sank down and lay full length in the dew-drenched grass of this open country and was soaked to the skin by the time they reached the outskirts of the Manor Woods. Here Jim made his last halt before plunging in among the trees.

He was immediately lost to sight, and a less venturesome person than Aubrey Harringay would have paused at this juncture and contemplated abandoning the chase. Such a thought, however, did not enter Aubrey's head, so, although the chances were decidedly in favour of his running full tilt into his cousin in the confusion engendered by the countless tree-trunks and the darkness, he plunged in after Jim and was immediately swallowed up among the trees.

Human curiosity is a strange and awe-inspiring thing. Felicity Broome's first impulse on beholding the gleam of light among the trees had been to turn and run. She was on the path; she could find the road. Inside ten minutes she could be safely between the sheets of her bed. The upbringing of the modern girl, however, can scarcely be said to encourage the instinctive adoption of first impulses. More powerful than this deterrent was the force of curiosity.
Who
was walking in the Manor Woods at night? Why was he armed with a lantern? Could it be poachers? But what was there to poach? The recollection of Jim Redsey's stealthy, strange manoeuvres with the spade flashed into her mind. Felicity, her fears forgotten, her curiosity lusting to be sated, crept cautiously along the path to get a nearer view.