Adders on the Heath

'You can't count old Bobo Bunt. He resigned from the club a long time ago.'

'Got thrown out, you mean.'

'Now then, dear, no nasturtiums!'

'Well, he did get thrown out, too. Don't you remember...?'

'What about Bert and Carrie, then? You know, I reckon that was what touched everything off! Don't you remember that row in the station waiting-room?'

'We only heard Bert's side of it, remember. I must say I thought that posh Oxford boy was all right, and, of course, Penny the Putt would do anything for a laugh.'

'I know all about that, but there was something funny going on, else Bert wouldn't have got croaked. Personally, I don't believe it was murder. I reckon he done it himself, Oxford boy or no Oxford boy.'

'What makes you say that?'

'I reckon Bert suffered from remorse.'

'What about? Anyway, Bert wouldn't feel remorse. He was the dirtiest runner in the club. Only wish I had his technique.'

'What, crowding people on bends and using his elbows and his spikes and pushing people on the grass?'

'Well, he usually won, didn't he?'

'Oh, go on with you, Judy! That ain't what they learned you at school.'

'Oh, school! Still, I got me basic there, even if they made me be a sprinter and not a distance.'

'Well, the longest race at school was the two-twenty, and it put some pace on you, didn't it? Look at Adrian Metcalfe and that there Brightwell boy.'

'Wish I could-close to. Oh, Syl, what a Greek god!'

'A how-much?'

'They learnt us about them at school. We went to the British Museum.'

'So did we. Bloomin' rude, I thought them statues. Ever so interesting, though, I'm bound to admit. Anyway, Bert and Bobo wasn't any Greek gods, dressed or undressed, I'll bet.'

'But what makes you say Bert croaked himself? It don't make sense.'

'Why not?'

'He'd think the club would go to pot without him.'

'That's true enough, too, I suppose.'

'Of course it's true. So he didn't do himself. He was done.'

'By the Oxford boy?'

'Well, there was that row in the station.'

'Yes, but there's only Carrie's word to go on, and you know what she is. What I say, you never can trust long-jumpers, not even young Mavis, or Deirdre Bath.'

'No, it don't seem fair they get so many attempts, considering we only get the one.'

'Besides, it depends on the take-off judge. Some of 'em lacks their eyesight and some of 'em's biased in favour.'

'Still, Carrie done nineteen six.'

'Yes, with the wind behind her and her new boy friend doing the measuring.'

They jogged on.

'That row in the station,' said Syl, at the end of another lap. 'Think it was a put-up job?'

'Of course it was. That Oxford boy wouldn't have made a pass in a nudist camp.'

'Oh, but men don't, dear. One of the rules.'

'Well, you know what I mean. That Oxford boy, let Carrie say what she likes, he was framed. That idea's just come to me. He was framed!'

'As how and for what?'

'Everybody thinks these Oxford students got money. Course they haven't, poor little B's.'

'But he wasn't still a student. He'd left.'

'It's the same thing, dear. Without an uncle, or something, they leaves to be schoolmasters or something, and there's no money in schoolmastering. What about a couple of starts to the first bend? You start me and I'll start you. Don't suppose Dad will worry about anything but the sprinters. Not that he's a bad sort, mind you. He just don't agree with we girls doing the mile.'

'If I could win at anything else, he'd be dead right at that,' said Syl. They held the sprinters up while they practised starting and then trotted off to the dressing-rooms.