Adders on the Heath

'Hi, you there! Stop a minute, will yer?' A forester with an axe appeared in the clearing. There be a dead man hereabouts. Us had to shift un out of our way. You'd best go and fetch the police. Us haven't got time,' he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

SACRED STATUS OF GREAT-AUNT

'It would be unfaithful to nature, and, therefore, unworthy of my pen, were I to represent my young hero as totally guiltless of those common failings to which inexperienced youth is, for the most part, liable.'

'Nimrod'-The Life of a Sportsman

Laura Gavin (nee Menzies) was singing a hymn. Her son Hamish was joining in with more enthusiasm than tonal quality.

'See here hath been daw-aw-ning another new day,' bawled Hamish, out of tune but enjoyably. He broke off. 'But it rains, all the same,' he added, in his ordinary voice.

'So it does,' said mother's employer, Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, coming into the morning- room of the Stone House, Wandles Parva.

'Good morning, Mrs Croc, dear,' said Laura.

'Good morning, Mrs Dame, dear,' said her son, minding his manners.

The post,' said Laura, producing several letters. 'There's one in Denis's handwriting. You'd better read it for yourself at breakfast. I haven't opened it.'

'At breakfast,' said Hamish, with deep meaning. The party took seats at table and Hamish, proud of this accomplishment, poured himself out some coffee. 'And then I have to get along to the vicarage. Latin, mathematics and English literature.' He paused to consider this programme, sighed and then announced that he would have 'grapefruit, porridge, bacon - and - eggs - and - kidneys - and - sausage - and - mustard - and - toast - and - butter - and - marmalade - and - a - second -cup of coffee.' He drew breath.

'That's what Daddy has,' he explained, in a confidential aside to Dame Beatrice, his devoted and trusted ally. 'Actually, I don't really like kidneys, but I eat them, just the same. When I go to school after Easter I suppose I shall always be carnivorously hungry.'

Breakfast proceeded smoothly, but Laura cocked an interested eye, from time to time (and in the intervals between the courses of her son's outrageously enormous meal), on her employer. Automatically dealing with a mushroom omelette which Laura was convinced she did not know she was eating, Dame Beatrice was reading and rereading her grand-nephew's letter. She finished the omelette in an absent-minded way and took a piece of Melba toast.

'Denis is always anxious to help lame dogs over stiles,' she observed, 'although why lame dogs should wish to climb stiles I have never been able to determine. One would think they preferred to find a way through a hedge.'

'What's Denis got to say?' enquired Laura, ignoring her son's attempts to float a small piece of bread on the coffee he had poured on to an empty plate. 'Is he going to Spitzbergen?'

'No, he is in the New Forest, or so he says, and there is no reason to disbelieve him, for the postmark bears him out. He seems to have uncovered a murder or so.'

'Atta-baby!' said Laura warmly.

'What does it mean?' asked Hamish. His mother took no notice of him, the only effectual way she had ever discovered of blocking difficult questions. Dame Beatrice gave him an answer, however. She believed in being courteous to children.

'It is your mother's way of stating that she has taken the bit between her teeth, dear boy.'

'Is my mother a horse?'

'No, not even a mare-except in French, of course, when the word is spelt a little differently-but soon she will be riding a horse and for you we shall hire a New Forest pony when you come down at the week-end.'

'Atta-baby!' said Hamish, convinced that this must be a magic word, for he was an observant child and had noted that his mother's use of the expression always seemed to preface something pleasant and adventurous. 'But couldn't you take Peggy? I'm more used to Peggy, you see.'

'No, because we do not possess a horse-box. Besides, all boys should learn to manage more than one pony. Think of the broncho-busters. They can ride anything.'

Hamish digested this conception of his future and was so entranced by it that he remained silent and ruminative for nearly three minutes. Then he said a rapid grace and slid down from his chair.

'May I leave the table?'

'Certainly. And thank goodness!' said Laura, the first word aloud and the rest sotto voce. 'Now, then, Mrs Croc, come again. What murders, how committed and by whom?'

'Denis has joined a friend named Tom Richardson for a fortnight's holiday. He was late getting to the hotel and the friend slept in a small tent until Denis arrived. A dead man was found in the tent one night. Richardson recognised him, but did not tell the police so. However, by the time the police arrived at the tent, the body had been exchanged for another which Richardson did not recognise. Now he and Denis have discovered the first body. They want us to go along and look into the matter.'

'Well, we're on the border of the New Forest ourselves. What's stopping us?'

'Nothing, child. Are you content to leave Hamish with Henri and Celestine?'

'They'll spoil him, as usual, but it will be fine to escape from his clutches for a bit. I call him a demented, demoniac child.'