Death at Swaythling Court Read online

  The Colonel examined his companion curiously.

  “You’ll never get anyone to take you seriously, Jimmy. They say you’re sound on the scientific side; but you’re not impressive.”

  “True bill, Colonel. The flesh-and-blood scientist is very human, most disappointingly unlike Sherlock Holmes. But with all my failings I manage to impress some people. Why, the other night at the “Three Bees,” old Summerley was boasting that he could ‘p’ison a man so that nobody, no, not even young Master Leigh at the Bungalow, could find it out.’ That’s a tribute of respect that even your favourite Sherlock never got. James Leigh, the great detective of Sleepy Hollow!”

  The Colonel winced slightly. Fernhurst Parva was very dear to him; and he hated to have fun poked at it, even by one of a family that had been as long on the ground as his own forbears. Twenty years ago he had settled down on his small estate, determined, as he put it, “to do his duty by his tenantry”; and in the doing of that duty, as he saw it by his simple lights, he had considerably impoverished himself, and had captured the difficult affections of the slow-moving country-folk of Fernhurst Parva. To them, the Colonel’s least word was more than law, not because he could put the screw on them, but because they trusted him to do his best for everybody. He had gradually become a minor Providence in the district. To him, Fernhurst Parva was very important; and he disliked to hear it described as “Sleepy Hollow.”

  “Fernhurst Parva is a very decent place,” he rapped out. “They’re not a lot of half-baked, semi-educated townsfolk, anyway. They stick to the old ways; and that’s uncommon in these times.”

  “True,” Jimmy conceded, thoughtfully. “By the way, one of your favourite old traditions has bobbed up again lately. There’s talk in the village that the Green Devil’s reappeared. Somebody’s ‘for it’ this time, it seems.”

  The Colonel glanced uneasily at his companion, suspecting another attempt at leg-pulling. The Green Devil at Fernhurst was a local superstition of which he was archasologically proud, but which he was rather ashamed to find cropping up at the present day. The phantom’s manifestations were supposed to be a portent of sudden and violent death in the neighbourhood; but its last recorded appearance had been far back in the nineteenth century; and the Colonel had believed that the legend was almost dead.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked, suspiciously.

  “Broadcasted by Local Information Bureau—Flitterwick.”

  “Who saw it?”

  “Somebody who told a boy who told a girl who told a man who repeated it to Flitterwick who gave it to me. Sounds a bit like the House that Jack Built, doesn’t it? But Flitterwick never had any notion of sifting evidence. All’s grist that comes to his gossip-mill, you know.”

  The Colonel was inclined to pursue the subject; but by now they had reached the first tee, and he dismissed all minor matters from his mind.

  “You can have the honour,” he said, pulling out his driver.

  For three holes, Jimmy Leigh respected his host’s silence; but as they came to the next tee, his irrepressible loquacity broke out once more.

  “There’s young Mickleby—the locum that Crabtree put in when he went off on holiday—driving Crabtree’s old Ford along the Bishop’s Vernon road. I envy Mickleby. He can look dignified even driving a tin Lizzie. Some lad, that. Sainted liver-flukes! Here comes the Micheldean Abbas Express with the fat proprietor at the wheel. See ’em pass each other. Mickleby’s dignity won’t allow him to give anyone else much of the road. I wish I were near enough to hear old Don Simon’s remarks; they must be fruity.”

  “Your honour,” said the Colonel, testily.

  He hated Simon: pestiferous fellow, setting up a motor-omnibus service to Micheldean Abbas, and bringing all sorts of new ideas into Fernhurst Parva. Always against constituted authority, was Simon; a man with no respect for territorial connections, next door to a Socialist. But what could one expect from a townsman? The fellow was for ever trying to stir up trouble in the village; one couldn’t have a quiet meeting on local affairs without him getting on his feet, making would-be acute comments and trying to rouse dissatisfaction in the country-folk. If Colonel Sanderstead had not been capable of immense self-restraint he might have foozled his drive, so much irritated was he by the mere name of the motor-bus proprietor. There was no further conversation between the players until the end of the round.

  “Yours,” said the Colonel; and with that he put away his taciturnity until the first ball had been teed for the new round.

  “I’ve just been wondering,” he went on, dropping the flag back into the hole, “what relation you will be to me when that nephew of mine marries your sister. Her decree nisi will be made absolute in another three weeks or so, Cyril told me the other day; and then I suppose they won’t put off much time.”

  A cloud seemed to pass momentarily across Jimmy Leigh’s face; but it had gone before the Colonel could be sure that he had really seen it.

  “Mind if I smoke a cigarette before we start the new round, Colonel?”

  He pulled out his case and began to smoke as they stood at the teeing-ground. It was not until the cigarette was well alight that he answered the Colonel’s implied question.

  “They ought to have married eight years ago. Hilton was never her style. No girl ever seems to know a bad hat, somehow.”

  “The thing that passed my comprehension is why she did not get rid of him long ago.”

  “Because he was too smart for that. He’s a queer card, is Master Hilton. He’s not tired of Stella; he’s as jealous of her as a couple of Othello’s rolled into one: and yet he’s been after dozens of women in the last few years.”

  “Then I don’t see much difficulty,” said the Colonel. “He’s given enough away to establish a cruelty charge, all right. I’ve seen bruises on her wrists myself; and anyone could guess how they got there.”

  “Yes, Colonel, but you don’t begin to understand Master Hilton even yet. He’s a bright fellow, a nap hand when it comes to this sort of thing. He goes off—untraceable; we’ve had private ’tecs on his track often enough and he shakes them off every time, like water off a duck’s back. Then he comes back, the loving husband, you know, and tells Stella all about it—full details—except for names and places. That’s his way of being humorous. No evidence at all. It was the merest shave that we nabbed him once at his games, a pure fluke. And that’s why everything’s been staked on that single case. If it were to break down—any hitch of any sort—I doubt if we could get him again.”

  “Couldn’t he be thrashed into some sort of decency?”

  “Not by me. You forget there’s been a war and that I didn’t manage to pick all of myself off the stricken field when I had had enough of it.”

  “Why doesn’t Cyril do it, then?” growled the Colonel. “I’m not particular, Lord knows, but women are my weak point. I can’t stand seeing them hurt.”

  “Stella and I have kept Cyril in hand—difficult job at times, I can tell you. No sinecure. He was all for knocking friend Hilton into the next county. But Stella and I made up our minds there was to be none of that. We want no grounds for people sniggering and hinting that Cyril had staked out an illicit claim on Stella; things are bad enough without that complication.”

  “Well, perhaps you’re right.” Then Colonel Sanderstead’s simple code came out. “All the same, a man who treats a woman badly shouldn’t be allowed to go on existing. That’s my view; and if I were twenty years younger I’d like to take on Hilton myself, just on general principles.”

  He pondered for a moment or two in silence, as if brooding over the case. Then he seemed to dismiss the subject.

  “Your honour again, Jimmy.”

  They played the second round in silence; and ended up all square. Whatever the Colonel’s reflections may have been, he evidently decided to say no more on a sore subject; and when the last putt loosened his vocal cords, he opened a new line of conversation.

  “Have you seen much of our next-d
oor neighbour, Jimmy, the fellow who took Swaythling Court?”

  “Hubbard, you mean? I’ve come across him. Ardent butterfly-snatcher, I judge. His talk about Purple Emperors, Red Admirals, and Painted Ladies gives me a fine spacious feeling—as if I were being received at Court, almost. But apart from that, I don’t find much interest in his society. Greasy fellow, one of the kind that can’t talk to you without crawling all over you—putting his hand on your shoulder and spraying saliva into your physog.”

  “The country-side’s getting infested with undesirables. First of all we have that damned fellow Simon with his stinking motor-omnibus coming in and trying to stir up discontent in the village; and now, instead of poor old Swaythling, there comes this fellow Hubbard—not our sort—and plants himself right down in the middle of us. Never spends a penny in the village, of course, though he seems to have plenty of money. I wonder what brand of profiteer he was in the war?”

  “Ask Flitterwick,” Jimmy suggested. “But you’re wrong about his distaste for spending money locally. He’s most anxious to finance me—only we don’t quite seem to be able to hit off the relative values of Bradburys and brains. Perhaps we’ll get to it yet, though.”

  “Look here, Jimmy,” interrupted the Colonel, anxiously. “Don’t get mixed up with these City fellows. If you want capital, I’d rather pinch a bit and find it myself for you. I think I could do it, if it’s a question of keeping you clear of that beggar. You can make the interest what you like—nothing, if it suits you. But don’t put yourself under an obligation to an outsider.”

  Jimmy Leigh frowned slightly.

  “Don’t you worry about obligations, Colonel. I can pay Hubbard any debt I owe him without sponging on my friends.”

  The brusqueness of the reply set the Colonel thinking; but he understood that Jimmy had given him a broad hint not to continue the financial discussion. Fortunately a chance occurred to change the subject without difficulty. As they turned away from the green, a curious figure approached them.

  “Sappy” Morton had an intellect considerably below par. Even the Colonel, with his affection for Fernhurst Parva, had to admit that one of its inhabitants was, as he gently put it, “hardly normal.” The rest of the population, blunter in description, referred to Sappy as “the village idiot.” Across that great moon-face there flitted a continual procession of expressions; but all that they revealed was emotion without a trace of intellect. And when the slack mouth opened, only the most rudimentary speech flowed out.

  At the sight of Colonel Sanderstead, Sappy’s countenance was overspread by a vacant grin which represented his highest expression of delight. He came down towards the players at an ungainly trot, pulled himself up, and gave a vague gesture which seemed to have some remote kinship with a military salute. The Colonel solemnly and punctiliously acknowledged the salute, much to Sappy’s evident joy.

  “Well, Sappy, been a good boy since I saw you last?”

  “Good. Good,” the idiot responded, eagerly.

  “And what are you doing with yourself, these days?”

  Sappy reflected for a few moments before he replied:

  “Sappy looking for pretty things.”

  The Colonel exchanged a glance with Jimmy Leigh. To both of them, Sappy’s peculiarities were a source of some astonishment. The search for “pretty things” was the one passion of the idiot. He would sit for hours at a time intent on some flower that he had picked, turning it over and over to bring some fresh aspect into view. Butterflies he would chase for half an hour at a time, merely for the pleasure of watching them; and, curiously enough, he never attempted to catch them. There was no strain of cruelty in Sappy’s disordered mind. So far as the Colonel had been able to fathom the shoals and channels of that vague intelligence, Sappy regarded all living things as his brothers. The creature was easily moved to emotion; and once Colonel Sanderstead had come upon him, intent upon the scarlet and gold of a sunset, with tears rolling unheeded down his cheeks.

  “I’m afraid most of your pretty things will be going to sleep for the winter, soon, Sappy. Autumn’s drawing on. No more butterflies or flowers for you then, you know. Never mind, perhaps we’ll have snow and you’ll see the trees covered with it.”

  “No more butterflies? No more flowers?”

  Jimmy Leigh broke in:

  “Mr. Hubbard’s put all the butterflies to sleep in glass cases, Sappy.”

  The idiot gaped at him unintelligently, so Jimmy patiently amplified his explanation.

  “Mr. Hubbard catches butterflies. He puts them to bed in a glass case. He shuts the case. No more butterflies till next summer, Sappy.”

  An expression of alarm flitted across the imbecile’s great face.

  “Hubbard bad, bad. Hurt Sappy.”

  “Eh, what’s that?” demanded the Colonel, sharply. Sappy was a protégé of his; and he had put down with a heavy hand any attempts on the part of the village boys to torment the idiot.

  But it was impossible to extract any information from Sappy. He repeated: “Hubbard, bad, bad,” several times; but beyond that nothing could be got out of him. The Colonel made a mental note that the matter was worth looking into. It was bad enough that this greasy beggar Hubbard should settle down in the district, without adding to his sins by tormenting a defenceless creature like Sappy; and clearly, from the idiot’s bearing, there had been trouble of some sort. Colonel Sanderstead gave up the task of eliciting information from the simpleton and bethought him of a way to restore Sappy to good spirits:

  “What’s the time, Sappy?”

  The imbecile’s face broadened out into the vacant grin which was his sole expression of pleasure. He caught the Colonel’s sleeve and pointed eagerly to where the church tower of Fernhurst Parva rose out of the trees.

  “Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong! Dong!”

  He paused for a moment, and then completed his count:

  “Ding-dong!”

  “Quarter-past one, eh?”

  The Colonel looked at his wrist-watch, which he had replaced after finishing his game:

  “It’s 1.25 p.m., Jimmy. He’s right again. Wonderful how he remembers these chimes. I’ve never known him to make a mistake.”

  He turned back to the idiot and pointed towards the church tower.

  “Another chime coming soon, Sappy. You listen for it. Good-day to you.”

  “Ta-ta, Sappy,” said Jimmy Leigh, as he followed his host towards the house. “You listen well.”

  “Sappy listen,” the idiot assured him, his attention strained on the distant tower among the trees.

  “You were boasting of your reputation as a detective, Jimmy,” the Colonel remarked, as they walked up the path, “I’ve often wondered how an ordinary man—say you or I—would get on, if he had to investigate a mystery. There’s no saying: we might manage quite well.”

  “Or again we mightn’t? It’s always best to state a case in full, you know.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t mind having a try,” Colonel Sanderstead confessed. “But in the ordinary run one never finds any cases to try one’s hand on. Our circle seems to be very free from murders and sudden deaths.”

  “Not so free as you’d think,” corrected Jimmy Leigh, his face clouding over at some recollection. “It’s not three months since young Campbell shot himself—Cyril’s sub., you remember. Cyril was badly cut up about it. So was I, for that matter. Young Campbell pulled me out of a tight place, once upon a time. A friendly lad.”

  “You needn’t try to pass it off as a joke, Jimmy. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in emotion of that sort. Have you any notion of what was at the root of it. It seemed a queer affair.”

  “Cyril suspected the cub was blackmailed; but there was no certainty about it.”

  “Blackmail! That’s a foul business. If I had my way, I’d make blackmail a capital offence and hang without scruple. Murderers are gentlemen in comparison to blackmailers.”

  Jimmy Leigh seemed to have recovered his normal spirits
.

  “All right, Colonel. If any blackmailer gets throttled in Fernhurst Parva, I’ll know who’s responsible. Don’t be afraid. I shan’t split on you. On with the good work, say I. I never was a sympathiser with vermin, myself. So you can count on me to keep it dark if I find the corpse of one of your victims lying about. Well, till next time; and thanks for the game.”

  He straddled his motor-cycle and pushed off abruptly.

  Chapter Two

  The Lethal Ray

  As Colonel Sanderstead passed the trim Vicarage on the following morning, the door opened and he paused for a moment to let the Vicar join him. The Reverend Peter Flitterwick was a shade older than the Colonel—a thin, clean-shaven man with a slight stoop, and spectacles which lent him an air of peering benevolence.

  “Good morning, Flitterwick. Pleasant day.”

  “Good morning, Colonel. Indeed a most pleasant day and a pleasant place also. Angulus ridet, as Horace has it; this little corner of the world smiles to me each time I cross my door.”

  “Oh, yes, quite so.”

  The Colonel, somehow, never cared to hear Flitterwick’s praises of his beloved village; for some obscure reason, he felt a suspicion that they arose more from toadyism than from any real appreciation of Fernhurst Parva. He glanced at his wrist-watch and struck into a smart walk.

  “You’re going to young Leigh’s, aren’t you, Flitterwick? We’ll have to hurry up, then. It won’t do to be late for our appointment.”

  The Vicar, who was not in good training, found that he had enough to do in keeping step with the Colonel; and conversation was broken off until they reached the Bungalow, which was precisely what Colonel Sanderstead desired. Somehow he never was quite sure of Flitterwick: he felt that the vicar was too soapy, even if it were mere mannerism; and he disliked that habit of quoting Latin and then offering a translation in parenthesis. Colonel Sanderstead had heard him astounding old Miss Meriden with a classical tag, once. Shocking bad taste, that.