Lord Peter Views the Body Page 10

  Lord Peter expressed eager anxiety to see the spaniels, and in a few minutes’ time found himself squelching down the gravel path which led to the kennels.

  ‘Nothing like a healthy country life,’ said Mr Frobisher-Pym. ‘I always think London is so depressing in the winter. Nothing to do with one’s self. All right to run up for a day or two and see a theatre now and again, but how you people stick it week in and week out beats me. I must speak to Plunkett about this archway,’ he added. ‘It’s getting out of trim.’

  He broke off a dangling branch of ivy as he spoke. The plant shuddered revengefully, tipping a small shower of water down Wimsey’s neck.

  The cocker spaniel and her family occupied a comfortable and airy stall in the stable buildings. A youngish man in breeches and leggings emerged to greet the visitors, and produced the little bundles of puppyhood for their inspection. Wimsey sat down on an upturned bucket and examined them gravely one by one. The bitch, after cautiously reviewing his boots and grumbling a little, decided that he was trustworthy and slobbered genially over his knees.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Mr Frobisher-Pym, ‘how old are they?’

  ‘Thirteen days, sir.’

  ‘Is she feeding them all right?’

  ‘Fine, sir. She’s having some of the malt food. Seems to suit her very well, sir.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Plunkett was a little doubtful about it, but I heard it spoken very well of. Plunkett doesn’t care for experiments, and, in a general way, I agree with him. Where is Plunkett, by the way?’

  ‘He’s not very well this morning, sir.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Merridew. The rheumatics again?’

  ‘No, sir. From what Mrs Plunkett tells me, he’s had a bit of a shock.’

  ‘A shock? What sort of a shock? Nothing wrong with Alf or Elsie, I hope?’

  ‘No, sir. The fact is — I understand he’s seen something, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean, seen something?’

  ‘Well, sir — something in the nature of a warning, from what he says.’

  ‘A warning? Good heavens, Merridew, he mustn’t get those sort of ideas in his head. I’m surprised at Plunkett; I always thought he was a very level-headed man. What sort of warning did he say it was?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir.’

  ‘Surely he mentioned what he thought he’d seen.’

  Merridew’s face took on a slightly obstinate look.

  ‘I can’t say, I’m sure, sir.’

  ‘This will never do. I must go and see Plunkett. Is he at the cottage?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well go down there at once. You don’t mind, do you, Wimsey? I can’t allow Plunkett to make himself ill. If he’s had a shock he’d better see a doctor. Well, carry on, Merridew, and be sure you keep her warm and comfortable. The damp is apt to come up through these brick floors. I’m thinking of having the whole place re-set with concrete, but it takes money, of course. I can’t imagine,’ he went on, as he led the way past the greenhouse towards a trim cottage set in its own square of kitchen-garden, ‘what can have happened to have upset Plunkett. I hope it’s nothing serious. He’s getting elderly, of course, but he ought to be above believing in warnings. You wouldn’t believe the extraordinary ideas these people get hold of. Fact is, I expect he’s been round at the “Weary Traveller”, and caught sight of somebody’s washing out on the way home.’

  ‘Not washing,’ corrected Wimsey mechanically. He had a deductive turn of mind which exposed the folly of the suggestion even while irritably admitting that the matter was of no importance. ‘It poured with rain last night, and, besides, it’s Thursday. But Tuesday and Wednesday were fine, so the drying would have been done then. No washing.’

  ‘Well, well — something else then — a post, or old Mrs Giddens’s white donkey. Plunkett does occasionally take a drop too much, I’m sorry to say, but he’s a very good kennel-man, so one overlooks it. They’re superstitious round about these parts, and they can tell some queer tales if once you get into their confidence. You’d be surprised how far off the main track we are as regards civilisation. Why, not here, but at Abbotts Bolton, fifteen miles off, it’s as much as one’s life worth to shoot a hare. Witches, you know, and that sort of thing.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. They’ll still tell you about werewolves in some parts of Germany.’

  ‘Yes, I dare say. Well, here we are.’ Mr Frobisher-Pym rapped loudly with his walking-stick on the door of the cottage and turned the handle without waiting for permission.

  ‘You there, Mrs Plunkett? May we come in? Ah! good morning. Hope we’re not disturbing you, but Merridew told me Plunkett was not so well. This is Lord Peter Wimsey — a very old friend of mine; that is to say, I’m a very old friend of his; ha, ha!’

  ‘Good morning, sir; good morning, your lordship. I’m sure Plunkett will be very pleased to see you. Please step in. Plunkett, here’s Mr Pym to see you.’

  The elderly man who sat crouching over the fire turned a mournful face towards them, and half rose, touching his forehead.

  ‘Well, now, Plunkett, what’s the trouble?’ enquired Mr Frobisher-Pym, with the hearty bedside manner adopted by country gentlefolk visiting their dependants. ‘Sorry not to see you out and about. Touch of the old complaint, eh?’

  ‘No, sir, no, sir. Thank you, sir. I’m well enough in myself. But I’ve had a warning, and I’m not long for this world.’

  ‘Not long for this world? Oh, nonsense, Plunkett. You mustn’t talk like that. A touch of indigestion, that’s what you’ve got, I expect. Gives one the blues, I know. I’m sure I often feel like nothing on earth when I’ve got one of my bilious attacks. Try a dose of castor-oil, or a good old-fashioned blue pill and black draught. Nothing like it. Then you won’t talk about warnings and dying.’

  ‘No medicine won’t do no good to my complaint, sir. Nobody as see what I’ve seed ever got the better of it. But as you and the gentleman are here, sir, I’m wondering if you’ll do me a favour.’

  ‘Of course, Plunkett, anything you like. What is it?’

  ‘Why, just to draw up my will, sir. Old Parson, he used to do it. But I don’t fancy this new young man, with his candles and bits of things. It don’t seem as if he’d make it good and legal, sir, and I wouldn’t like it if there was any dispute after I was gone. So as there ain’t much time left me, I’d be grateful if you’d put it down clear for me in pen and ink that I wants my little bit all to go to Sarah here, and after her to Alf and Elsie, divided up equal.’

  ‘Of course I’ll do that for you, Plunkett, any time you like. But it’s nonsense to be talking about wills. Bless my soul, I shouldn’t be surprised if you were to see us all underground.’

  ‘No, sir. I’ve been a hale and hearty man, I’m not denying. But I’ve been called, sir, and I’ve got to go. It must come to all of us, I know that. But it’s a fearful thing to see the death-coach come for one, and know that the dead are in it, that cannot rest in the grave.’

  ‘Come now, Plunkett, you don’t mean to tell me you believe in that old foolishness about the death-coach. I thought you were an educated man. What would Alf say if he heard you talking such nonsense?’

  ‘Ah, sir, young people don’t know everything, and there’s many more things in God’s creation than what you’ll find in the printed books.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Mr Frobisher-Pym, finding this opening irresistible, ‘we know there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Quite so. But that doesn’t apply nowadays,’ he added contradictorily. ‘There are no ghosts in the twentieth century. Just you think the matter out quietly, and you’ll find you’ve made a mistake. There’s probably some quite simple explanation. Dear me! I remember Mrs Frobisher-Pym waking up one night and having a terrible fright, because she thought somebody’d been and hanged himself on our bedroom door. Such a silly idea, because I was safe in bed beside her — snoring, she said, ha, ha! — and, if anybody was feeling like ha
nging himself, he wouldn’t come into our bedroom to do it. Well, she clutched my arm in a great state of mind, and when I went to see what had alarmed her, what do you think it was? My trousers, which I’d hung up by the braces, with the socks still in the legs! My word! and didn’t I get a wigging for not having put my things away tidy!’

  Mr Frobisher-Pym laughed, and Mrs Plunkett said dutifully, ‘There now!’ Her husband shook his head.

  ‘That may be, sir, but I see the death-coach last night with my own eyes. Just striking midnight it was, by the church clock, and I see it come up the lane by the old priory wall.’

  ‘And what were you doing out of bed at midnight, eh?’

  ‘Well, sir, I’d been round to my sister’s, that’s got her boy home on leaf off of his ship.’

  ‘And you’d been drinking his health, I dare say, Plunkett’ Mr Frobisher-Pym wagged an admonitory forefinger.

  ‘No, sir, I don’t deny I’d had a glass or two of ale, but not to fuddle me. My wife can tell you I was sober enough when I got home.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Plunkett hadn’t taken too much last night, that I’ll swear to.’

  ‘Well, what was it you saw, Plunkett?’

  ‘I see the death-coach, same as I’m telling you, sir. It come up the lane, all ghostly white, sir, and never making no more sound than the dead — which it were, sir.’

  ‘A waggon or something going through to Lymptree or Herriotting.’

  ‘No, sir — ’tweren’t a waggon. I counted the horses — four white horses, and they went by with never a sound of hoof or bridle. And that weren’t —’

  ‘Four horses! Come, Plunkett, you must have been seeing double. There’s nobody about here would be driving four horses, unless it was Mr Mortimer from Abbotts Bolton, and he wouldn’t be taking his horseflesh out at midnight.’

  ‘Four horses they was, sir. I see them plain. And it weren’t Mr Mortimer, neither, for he drives a drag, and this were a big, heavy coach, with no lights on it, but shinin’ all of itself, with a colour like moonshine.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, man! You couldn’t see the moon last night. It was pitch-dark.’

  ‘No, sir, but the coach shone all moony-like, all the same.’

  ‘And no lights? I wonder what the police would say to that.’

  ‘No mortal police could stop that coach,’ said Plunkett contemptuously, ‘nor no mortal man could abide the sight on it. I tell you, sir, that ain’t the worst of it. The horses —’

  ‘Was it going slowly?’

  ‘No, sir. It were going at a gallop, only the hoofs didn’t touch the ground. There weren’t no sound, and I see the black road and the white hoofs half a foot off of it. And the horses had no heads.’

  ‘No heads?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Mr Frobisher-Pym laughed.

  ‘Come, come, Plunkett, you don’t expect us to swallow that. No heads? How could even a ghost drive horses with no heads? How about the reins, eh?’

  ‘You may laugh, sir, but we know that with God all things are possible. Four white horses they was. I see them clearly, but there was neither head nor neck beyond the collar, sir. I see the reins, shining like silver, and they ran up to the rings of the hames, and they didn’t go no further. If I was to drop dead this minute, sir, that’s what I see.’

  ‘Was there a driver to this wonderful turn-out?’

  ‘Yes, sir, there was a driver.’

  ‘Headless too, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, sir, headless too. At least, I couldn’t see nothing of him beyond his coat, which had them old-fashioned capes at the shoulders.’

  ‘Well, I must say, Plunkett, you’re very circumstantial. How far off was this — er — apparition when you saw it?’

  ‘I was passing by the War Memorial, sir, when I see it come up the lane. It wouldn’t be above twenty or thirty yards from where I stood. It went by at a gallop, and turned off to the left round the churchyard wall.’

  ‘Well, well, it sounds odd, certainly, but it was a dark night, and at that distance your eyes may have deceived you. Now, if you’ll take my advice you’ll think no more about it.’

  ‘Ah, sir, it’s all very well saying that, but everybody knows the man who sees the death-coach of the Burdocks is doomed to die within the week. There’s no use rebelling against it, sir; it is so. And if you’ll be so good as to oblige me over that matter of a will, I’d die happier for knowing as Sarah and the children was sure of their bit of money.’

  Mr Frobisher-Pym obliged over the will, though much against the grain, exhorting and scolding as he wrote. Wimsey added his own signature as one of the witnesses, and contributed his own bit of comfort.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry too much about the coach, if I were you,’ he said. ‘Depend upon it, if it’s the Burdock coach it’ll just have come for the soul of the old squire. It couldn’t be expected to go to New York for him, don’t you see? It’s just gettin’ ready for the funeral tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s likely enough,’ agreed Plunkett. ‘Often and often it’s been seen in these parts when one of the Burdocks was taken. But it’s terrible unlucky to see it.’

  The thought of the funeral seemed, however, to cheer him a little.

  The visitors again begged him not to think about it, and took their departure.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful,’ said Mr Frobisher-Pym, ‘what imagination will do with these people? And they’re obstinate. You could argue with them till you were black in the face.’

  ‘Yes. I say, let’s go down to the church and have a look at the place. I’d like to know how much he could really have seen from Where he was standing.’

  The parish church of Little Doddering stands, like so many country churches, at some distance from the houses. The main road from Herriotting, Abbotts Bolton, and Frimpton runs past the west gate of the churchyard — a wide God’s acre, crowded with ancient stones. On the south side is a narrow and gloomy lane, heavily overhung with old elm-trees, dividing the church from the still more ancient ruins of Doddering Priory. On the main road, a little beyond the point where Old Priory Lane enters, stands the War Memorial, and from here the road runs straight on into Little Doddering. Round the remaining two sides of the churchyard winds another lane, known to the village simply as the Back Lane. This branches out from the Herriotting road about a hundred yards north of the church, connects with the far end of Priory Lane, and thence proceeds deviously to Shootering Underwood, Hamsey, Thripsey, and Wyck.

  ‘Whatever it was Plunkett thinks he saw,’ said Mr Frobisher-Pym, ‘it must have come from Shootering. The Back Lane only leads round by some fields and a cottage or two, and it stands to reason anybody coming from Frimpton would have taken the main road, going and coming. The lane is in a very bad state with all this rain. I’m afraid even your detective ability, my dear Wimsey, would not avail to find wheel-marks on this modern tarmac.’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Wimsey, ‘especially in the case of a ghostly chariot which gets along without touching the ground. But your reasoning seems perfectly sound, sir.’

  ‘It was probably a couple of belated waggons going to market,’ pursued Mr Frobisher-Pym, ‘and the rest of it is superstition and, I am afraid, the local beer. Plunkett couldn’t have seen all those details about drivers and names and so on at this distance. And, if it was making no noise, how did he come to notice it at all, since he’d got past the turn and was walking in the other direction? Depend upon it, he heard the wheels and imagined the rest.’

  ‘Probably,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘Of course,’ went on his host, ‘if the waggons really were going about without lights, it ought to be looked into. It is a very dangerous thing, with all these motor vehicles about, and I’ve had to speak severely about it before now. I fined a man only the other day for the very same thing. Do you care to see the church while we’re here?’

  Knowing that in country places it is always considered proper to see the church, Lord Peter expressed his eagerness to do so.

>   ‘It’s always open nowadays,’ said the magistrate, leading the way to the west entrance. ‘The vicar has an idea that churches should be always open for private prayer. He comes from a town living, of course. Round about here the people are always out on the land, and you can’t expect them to come into church in their working clothes and muddy boots. They wouldn’t think it respectful, and they’ve other things to do. Besides, I said to him, consider the opportunity it gives for undesirable conduct. But he’s a young man, and he’ll have to learn by experience.’

  He pushed the door open. A curious, stuffy waft of stale incense, damp, and stoves rushed out at them as they entered — a kind of concentrated extract of Church of England. The two altars, bright with flowers and gilding, and showing as garish splashes among the heavy shadows and oppressive architecture of the little Norman building, sound the same note of contradiction; it was the warm and human that seemed exotic and unfamiliar; the cold and unwelcoming that seemed native to the place and people.

  ‘This Lady-chapel, as Hancock calls it, in the south aisle, is new, of course,’ said Mr Frobisher-Pym. ‘It aroused a good deal of opposition, but the Bishop is lenient with the High Church party — too lenient, some people think — but, after all, what does it matter? I’m sure I can say my prayers just as well with two communion-tables as with one. And, I will say for Hancock, he is very good with the young men and the girls. In these days of motor-cycles, it’s something to get them interested in religion at all. Those trestles in the chapel are for old Burdock’s coffin, I suppose. Ah! Here is the vicar.’

  A thin man in a cassock emerged from a door beside the high altar and came down towards them, carrying a tall, oaken candlestick in his hand. He greeted them with a slightly professional smile of welcome. Wimsey diagnosed him promptly as earnest, nervous, and not highly intellectual.

  ‘The candlesticks have only just come,’ he observed after the usual introductions had been made. ‘I was afraid they would not be here in time. However, all is now well.’

  He set the candlestick beside the coffin-trestles, and proceeded to decorate its brass spike with a long candle of unbleached wax, which he took from a parcel in a neighbouring pew.