The Scarecrow (16 page)

Never ask me how we got around into that lane.

There was no room for two cars to pass without mounting one of the dirt footpaths at the side, so that is precisely what we did, at sixty miles an hour, to hurtle past a preposterously tall old Model T Ford chugging along with the Rev. Higgins at the wheel. I hope and trust he was at his most resilient. I was scared stiff as we whipped along the narrow, winding lane, my eyes glued to the circular glass dial of the temperature gauge, perched up like a mascot at the end of the long, shuddering bonnet. I had to spin around and cling on to the back of the seat as the next corner swept up to meet us and I saw Prudence pitch clear across the back seat on top of Les. Never again was I to sneer at young Constable Ramsbottom. That old Huddy had been designed to glide along, while some very sedate citizens reclined on velvet and surveyed the landscape through lorgnettes, and now here she was lurching around the bends as if all the devils in hell were an inch behind the exhaust pipe. Any loiterers on
Klynham’s main street must have gawked that night as we went scorching past. We lurched and skidded to a standstill outside the lofty shed, which had once been stables, but now housed the fire brigade.

Les leaned over from the back seat and breathed heavily and hotly down my neck.

‘Boy,’ he said. ‘What a night! This is the real thing. This has got “The Fire God’s Treasure” stuffed all along the line.’

The Dennis lumbered out on to the road, belching smoke out of its exhaust. Len turned the police car around.

‘Now Oi want you young people to stay in the car,’ he said. ‘No running around and getting in heverybody’s road. We still haven’t found the girl Potroz and we won’t be staying at the fire very long, so stay right where you are in the car.’

Shame on us, we had all but forgotten Angela. This time Len drove to the front of the old mansion. We wasted no time, but, compared to the first ride, it was like getting off the chair-o-plane and onto the merry-go-round. Fitzherbert Street was already jammed with sightseers.

‘Confounded idiots,’ muttered our driver, blasting his way through the excited throng which swarmed across the road.

‘Now, stay in the car,’ was his final injunction, as he slammed his door and strode off in the direction of the blazing building. We obeyed him, although we were as fidgety as if we were in a dentist’s waiting room. Next thing, we were unceremoniously evicted from the car by the sergeant. As we clambered out we saw, to our horror, Len Ramsbottom and Mr Potroz approaching with Miss Fitzherbert held firmly between them. Her head was flung back, the long scrawny throat arched back, her mouth foaming. The glimpse I had of her eyes as they bundled her into
the car was to haunt my dreams for many years.

‘Gee zuz,’ said Les.

‘Hold on, Mr Potroz,’ said Len Ramsbottom. ‘We won’t be long.’

The police car backed around and drove off through the excited mob, leaving Mr Potroz with us. Speculation was at fever heat among the bystanders.

We heard the muffled crash of heavy beams caving in and a section of roof disappeared down into the shell of smoke and flame that was the great Fitzherbert house.

A man approached Mr Potroz.

‘The old girl must have fired the place,’ Mr Potroz told him. ‘Channing Fitzherbert has passed away and the shock sent her over the edge. They’re getting the old man out now. They should have let him burn down with his castle.’

I remember him saying that, and I am in wholehearted agreement. The whole history of Klynham criss-crosses the history of the Fitzherbert family whose might and wealth made the family name a word to conjure with in those parts. No one seemed to know now whether they were millionaires or paupers; they were only shadows glimpsed against the mullioned windows of a mighty house, a house shrouded in decay and mystery. As I said, I agree heartily that the blazing mansion should have been Channing Fitzherbert’s funeral pyre. It would have been a fitting end to an epoch but not only that, I have information (or I
think
I have) which would cause a bit of a furore in certain circles. I knew no one would believe me, so I have only mentioned it to one or two. It is my opinion that the impressive tombstone erected to the last of the Fitzherberts in Klynham cemetery marks the grave of a much humbler, if more tragic, traveller
through this vale of tears.

Horror upon horror. A clearing was made at the side of the road. A pitifully small bundle, draped in a blanket, was laid reverently down. I realised what was under the blanket; not so Prudence. I was shocked to see her in the forefront of the gazing circle around the little bundle. I made my way to her and took her arm.

‘Come away,’ I said, but I was too late. Some clot flipped back the blanket and we saw the shrunken features and domed, wizened pate of the late master of the house of Fitzherbert. There was a chorus of screams and grunts. Prudence buried her face in my coat.

The police car pulled up beside us.

‘Oi ham sorry, Mr Potroz,’ said Len, ‘but your daughter has not put in an appearance. It may be advisable to hinstigate a full-scale search.’

White as a negro’s eyeball, Mr Potroz climbed into the car. We three crawled into the back seat again.

‘Nothing can be done here,’ said Len as we drove away. ‘Our first duty is to the living.’ A little further along he said, ‘Oi am driving you all, with the exception, of course, of Mr Potroz, to your homes where you will all remain. It is late and the toime has come for you to go to bed and leave the work ahead to the police and volun-tuh-heer searchers.’

‘No, no,’ wailed Prudence. ‘I wanna look for Angela. Angela’s muh best friend.’

‘Oi am sorry, Miss Poindexter,’ said Len heavily. ‘It does you credit, but home you must go. If your father would care to hoffer his services, it would be happreciated.’

So that was that.

In the end Ma got us to bed.

I have never believed in premonitions, or spirit messages or anything, but this is different. I must have heard something, maybe a shout or something drifted up to our corner from the town, a distance not great as the crow flies. Anyway I awoke. I lay in the dark listening. It was not very long before I heard mumbling voices and the board on the verandah creaked. I ran out to the kitchen. The clock on the mantelpiece said twenty minutes past three. Pop and Herbert entered the kitchen and stood like waxen dummies, staring at me. They looked dreadful. Ma came from behind me and next came Prudence, both triumphant over the shapelessness of their nightgowns, the one so indomitable, the one so svelte.

‘Well,’ Ma demanded. ‘Have you found Angela?’

Pop nodded and sat down and put his head in his hands.

‘She’s dead,’ Herbert blurted, his eyes starting out of his head. ‘Murdered. Strangled. Raped.’

Black Sunday.

The murdering and raping of Angela Potroz froze Klynham in its tracks. The grief of her family slit the tongue of every busybody. The very clouds in the sky were sombre. Prudence cut the top off a boiled egg and then collapsed weeping. Herbert and Pop sat on the back steps. Ma, grim-faced, drank a lot of tea. Dolly and Monica played quietly with a rag doll. Les and I crouched down by the rhubarb. Who? Who? Who?

Dear, pretty Angela with her heart of gold that would tick no more. No key known to wind her up again. The recollection of wishing to kiss Angela distressed me. That my shell could have ever harboured even a distant cousin of the frenzy which had raged in some murderous fiend seemed unbelievable. Les and I had very little to say. The memory of a thousand conversations about sex hung over us like a pall. We had found and
discussed with great animation a beautiful flower in a beautiful garden and now its stench had knocked us flat.

Drawn by the same macabre curiosity which affected everyone in the community as the moon controls the tide, Pop and Herbert and Les and I made our way to join the silent, horrified gathering outside Charlie Dabney’s premises and the Federal Hotel. The main street was jammed with groups of people who had made their pilgrimage up to the alleyway and returned to the main street again. All the back alleys behind the shops were thronged by grim-faced, watching people. The track down to the quarry was roped off. There was an out-of-town police car parked in the alley between the funeral parlour and the high fence along the backyard of the hotel. Nobody wanted to appear interested in cars at a time like this, but all the men and quite a few of the women were unable to resist peering into and around the strange police car. It was an Airflow Chrysler, the first anyone in Klynham had ever seen.

Les and I were peering through the windows of the car when Len Ramsbottom came up and bade us follow him. The local police car, the big Hudson, was parked in the main street with its motor running. Prudence was sitting in the front seat and a chalk-white Peachy Blair in the back. Les and I climbed in and sat with Peachy Blair.

Mr Lynch was standing on the steps of the police station when we arrived, but no one spoke. Prudence, Les and I were taken into one room, Peachy Blair into another. All the rooms seemed to be busy. Typewriters were tapping and through the doors came the sounds of deep voices.

Len found us seats and left us in the room. We stared at each other. Soon a big man, a city detective, entered and took our
statements. He kept them very brief and to the point.

‘I want you two to wait outside,’ he said to Prudence and Les. Now the whole story about how the Lynchites had beaten me up and how they had wanted to bring Prudence to the shed was unfolded in detail. I told the detective all about Don Butcher and Peachy Blair. Although I was scared stiff and my heart thumped, I was sorry when he dismissed me. I felt more important than I had ever felt and, at the same time, more humble.

‘I want you to keep this to yourself,’ the detective told me. ‘I don’t want you going around the town spreading this around. I’ll want to see you again later when Detective Inspector Peterjohn arrives.’

Following his instructions I told no one except Les and Prudence and, of course, Pop and Herbert and Ma. Ma absolutely gibbered upon finally hearing the truth about how my rib was broken. She put her arms around Prudence and stroked her hair and moaned to herself.

At about three o’clock in the afternoon Len Ramsbottom called for me in the little Austin and I knew I was being taken to meet the great man from the Criminal Investigation Department.

‘Who do you think did it, officer?’ I asked Len on the way to the police station.

‘We’ll soon nah-ho,’ he said. ‘There isn’t much doubt it was one, or even two of those louts. Probably those who tore the kid’s frock off. Blair seems to be in the clear, but they tell the same story so far. They won’t last long with Detective Inspector Peterjohn, Oi’m telling you.’

‘That means it was Skin Hughson, or Don Butcher, then,’ I said. ‘They’re the ones that chased her up the alley with Peachy Blair.’

‘It isn’t conclusive. There is hevidence the actual rape was committed elsewhere and the bah-hody taken to the quarry.’

‘It could have been any of them, or the lot of them,’ I breathed. ‘It could have been Lynch. The dirty sods, the dirty— filthy—’

‘We shall soon nah-ho,’ said Len Ramsbottom.

However, Len Ramsbottom was wrong. The truth was as infuriatingly beyond reach as a word on the tip of the tongue. The cards were face up on the table, but no selection made up a hand. The town crawled with detectives and simmered with fierce speculation, but no one knew anything. Hourly a fresh rumour was launched, only to founder. There was no other topic of conversation, except, perhaps a few digressions on the Fitzherbert fire.

The empty seats of the entire Lynch gang in the classrooms on Monday, when school re-opened after the May vacation, was felt to be sinister and most significant, but in the afternoon they were all occupied, except that of Peachy Blair. A rumour that he had committed suicide by cutting his throat and jumping under a train, and another that he was locked in a cell, wherein he had hung himself, expired with ill grace when teachers at school announced that they thought it better for us all to be told that Peachy was very ill and suffering from nervous prostration. Within the hour he had taken poison and died in the most awful convulsions. On Tuesday he was back at school.

The name Lynch began to have an ominous ring and secondary meaning. People stood in dark groups on corners and in doorways. It was rumoured that a voice had telephoned the police station demanding information. The rapist would never reach the gallows, the anonymous voice asserted. A hooded
company, said the voice, would show the police how it should be done. The only substantiation of these exciting rumours was vaguely embarrassing. In a deep drain, outside the farmlet owned by the Dalmatian who illicitly distilled the applejack, a local eccentric was discovered, a sack, complete with eyeholes, drawn over his head. He had been in the drain all night.

Tuesday was the day of the funeral. The entire roll-call asked for permission to attend. It was granted to everyone over the second standard. Some said the funeral would be at 11 a.m. Others said it was scheduled for 2 p.m. The headmaster telephoned Charlie Dabney and, on the strength of the answer he was given, the school assembled at 10.45 to march to town. It was an overcast day. The clouds were curtains, not quite drawn close enough together to keep out the odd shaft of sunlight. The shuffling footfalls of the school on the march brought people to their gates and windows.

Prudence was sweeping the footpath outside the Federal Hotel when she saw the procession approaching. She clapped a hand over her mouth and bolted inside, plucking at her apron as she went.

The teachers went around arranging us in a semicircle. The big puddle in the middle of the road mercilessly revealed us as a shock-haired, scraggy bunch. There was a little talk among the pupils, but it soon died away as our eyes became focused on the high bonnet of the vintage Hupmobile hearse, which was backed up the alley by the open doors of the chapel.

Prudence emerged from the Federal wearing an old black overcoat buttoned right up to her neck. She soon picked me out and came up to me.

‘I thought it wuz this afternoon,’ she muttered. ‘They told
me it wuz this afternoon. I thought this wuz Mr Fitzherbert’s funeral until I saw all you kids coming.’

‘No, it’s at eleven,’ I said.

‘I want tuh see Angela.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, patting her arm.

‘No, but I want tuh see her,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t let me come and see her before, but I think I should before it’s too late. I think Angela would want me tuh see her.’

‘Where’s Ma and Pop?’ I muttered.

‘It’s that ole fool, Charlie Dabney,’ said Prudence. ‘He’s messed everything up.’

‘Maybe they’re up at the service in the chapel,’ I suggested.

‘C’mon,’ said Prudence and, catching me by the wrist, pulled me after her. The teachers said nothing as we crossed the road and went up the alley. We stopped dead when Uncle Athol in a moth-eaten dark suit and bowler hat came out of the chapel and climbed into the hearse.

‘We’re too late,’ I said. A very old, very frail and slightly mad-looking little woman approached Prudence and me, and, when she saw we were holding hands, she began to cry.

‘So beautiful,’ she said. ‘So very, very beautiful. Never be afraid of death, my dear littul boy and girl. All sorrow and evil shall be washed away by the angels. All the suffering of life is transformed into beauty. It is ten years since I saw Channing in his misery and suffering, but death has made him as sweet and beautiful as a littul girl.’

She made a series of passes at us as if she were blessing us and sprinkling us with holy water.

‘Death is beautiful,’ she said. ‘Channing, in death, is as beautiful as a littul girl. In his casket he looked like an angel. All
night I have seen his face as serene and lovely as a littul girl’s.’

‘We’re gunna get run over,’ I said sharply. Charlie Dabney in frock coat and top hat was rolling sedately (if it is possible to roll sedately on tubby, brandy-happy legs) down the alley towards us and the hearse was following him silently. The alley sloped to the street and Uncle Athol, perched at the wheel, was just allowing the hearse to coast. Whenever the high prow of the old Hupmobile seemed just on the point of flattening Charlie, walking in front with as much dignity as his small, rotund body could muster, the vehicle braked sharply. As soon as Charlie had a few yards start the hearse began to roll again.

‘Look out,’ said Prudence, and took the little old lady by the arm. Between us we hustled her down to the street. A moment later Charlie Dabney staggered past us and fell on his knees. It was easy to guess that Uncle Athol had lost his footing on the brake and caught his employer a nasty clip from behind. A loud snigger flitted through the ranks of assembled schoolchildren.

One of the teachers helped old Charlie Dabney to his feet. One of the pupils retrieved the top hat, put it on for a fleeting instant, and then returned it. The snigger was a guffaw this time. While the mortician adjusted the hat on his head the self-starter of the hearse whirred feebly. Charlie stood to attention, back to the hearse, and then walked slowly forwards. The self-starter continued to whirr. Charlie Dabney was quite a long way down the street before someone stopped him. The teachers, very red in the face, were doing their best to control their hysterical wards. I saw Miss McGlashan, our art teacher, stuff a little handkerchief into her mouth.

When Charlie Dabney was brought back he went around to the cab of the hearse. Uncle Athol handed him a crank-handle
through the window. Charlie bestowed on his driver a look designed to burn him to a cinder, then walked around the bonnet looking about him at his audience, and simpering apologetically.

First pull of the crank and the motor started, but the hearse was in gear and shot forward. Charlie vanished under the front fender and the top hat flew away on its travels again. By this time no attempt was being made to control the convulsions of the school. The headmaster had covered his eyes. Without warning, Miss McGlashan departed.

Charlie was extricated from under the hearse and dusted down. Someone put the top hat back on his head at a rakish angle.

Uncle Athol tried the starter again and this time the motor caught. The racket the motor kicked up was a great relief to those who were painfully bottling up their mirth. It began to appear that the disgraceful episode was ended and that the funeral would now proceed with some pretence of dignity, but right then one of the teachers came out of the alley and approached the headmaster. The news flew around like a stick in a party game. It was the wrong funeral. The school had lined up to watch the hilarious last ride of Channing Fitzherbert.

‘I am unable to find it in my heart,’ the headmaster said in his address to the school after lunch, ‘to punish anyone for their behaviour this morning. Laughter is a natural function and I think that not only the pupils, but the staff also found some of the mishaps this morning uncontrollably diverting. We can only be thankful that it was the funeral of an old man and that it was not attended by any of his kith and kin. This afternoon Angela is leaving us forever. I know we all loved Angela. Her heartbroken parents will be present and I want all of you to
understand quite clearly that no matter what may eventuate— I repeat,
no matter what
, anyone guilty of laughter will be severely punished.’

Miss McGlashan appeared to be chewing her cud. That handkerchief was surely getting a thrashing.

But no one laughed when we assembled outside Charlie Dabney’s at two o’clock. The sight of Mr and Mrs Potroz would have robbed any spectacle of humour. Prudence was with them, openly weeping, and soon all the girls were weeping too. I was not far off it myself. It was while I was standing there that I overheard a conversation which gave me a nasty turn. Two relatives of the Potroz’ were standing behind me.

‘My God,’ said one of them, ‘hanging’s too good for this swine. I’d gouge his eyes out. I’d roast the bastard alive. God Almighty, it makes you wonder if there is a God. When I saw her face in her box there, I nearly fainted.’

‘So did I,’ said the other voice. ‘One glimpse was enough for me, by God. He musta torn her to bits. He musta torn her hair out. Hell! it doesn’t stand thinking about.’

No wonder, I thought, they refused to let Prudence see poor Angela. I felt sick right through.

‘Christ,’ said the first voice, ‘I can’t credit some kid did anything like that. It’s the work of a fiend. I remember her as such a pretty little thing and Godstruth lying there, her face looked like an old man about eighty. She musta gone through hell.’

Everyone was moving away from the hearse, but I stood stock-still. Charlie Dabney was making no attempt this afternoon to walk in front of the hearse, but was propped up in the cab with Uncle Athol.