he hadn’t noticed until the thing was cleaned up? But then it would be there for everyone to notice. Whatever was queer about it meant nothing to anyone but him.”
“And what discoveries can you make about a door, for God’s sake? There it is, a solid block of wood with a lump of iron attached, everything about it visible at a glance.” George stretched and yawned. “Well, I’ll see this Miss Trent tomorrow, and have another word with Mrs. Bracewell. Who knows, I may hit on the right question by sheer luck, and stir a recollection, or she may have thought of something on her own. We’ve no choice about pulling out all the stops now, Jack. It took some hard work to get the Old Man to leave it with us, we’ve got to justify it now or die trying.”
“Well, at least we found the camera. Not that I expect the lab boys will get anything off it.” And of course it had been empty, the film extracted, and no doubt burned long before this. “There’s just a chance he’d
The camera had been half-buried in the debris of dead flowers where old wreaths were dumped, in the most deserted corner of the graveyard. If Brian had not been tidying up the dump that morning, and happened to kick against metal, it might have taken them at least another day to work their way to it.
“It’s true, is it,” George asked, “that Robert Macsen-Martel—the late Robert, that is—left a trail of bastards all round these parts? Brian,” he explained wryly, “chose to account for himself. Quite frankly. According to him there are plenty more.”
“True enough. But the Jennings family, now, they’re a special case. Those three get on so well together, you wouldn’t believe. That’s what I call coming to terms with reality. You haven’t seen the mother, have you? She’s only thirty-nine now, and still as pretty as new paint. Linda Price, she was, went as maid to the Abbey—her old man must have been daft to let her. Nineteen, and a stunner, she was then. Exactly what you’d expect happened. Old Jennings, he’s twenty years older than her, he was a widower, and he had a soft spot for Linda. A sort of honourable bargain it was, and they’ve both kept it. He married her, and took on her boy—and gladly, I may say, his first wife never had any, and Linda’s never had any since, so it looks as if but for her slip-up he hadn’t a chance of getting a son. She’s never looked at anyone but old Eb since, she thinks the sun shines out of his high forehead. They got off lucky, all of ’em, they know how to value one another, even if they are a rum bunch. There’s many a family round here started off with a romantic love affair, and ended up with squabbling parents and problem children, and here’s the Jennings lot starting off with a business arrangement and ending as snug as old lovers, with an only child who hasn’t got so much as a complex or an inhibition to his name. Others,” said the sergeant sombrely, “weren’t so clever. There’s fathers round this valley that know their kids aren’t theirs, and make them pay for it, and what’s more, get it back off the kids with interest. And there’s others that don’t even know, and might very well do murder if they ever found out.”
“Not, however, this murder,” sighed George. “Plenty of reason for nursing grudges against the Martel clan, but what had this poor devil done?” He pondered for a moment, and human curiosity got the better of him. “Any special cases in mind? Locally?”
Sergeant Moon turned towards the window. Faintly through the wet trees beamed the distant lights of “The Duck”, and a mere murmur of music drifted in from the jukebox in the garden bar.
“Some time,” he said, “when you’re at leisure, go and take a good close look at Nobbie Crouch.”
“They’re taking the copper off guard tonight,” Saul Trimble said, flicking a beer-mat accurately in front of Joe Lyon and dumping a levelled-off pint of homebrewed on it without spilling a drop. He deposited his own pot carefully, for the corner table tended to rock slightly, but he knew his territory so well that it was no hazard to him. “Got to give the lads a few hours off in the end, and nothing’s happened so far, has it? I reckon even the spooks are bound to have a bit o’ respect for the English week-end. Back on duty a’ Monday.” He had an uncanny instinct for choosing the role that would most surely provoke whatever strangers he had hooked for the bar’s entertainment. Everyone had taken it for granted that the earnest researchers who had taken rooms at the hotel would carry their inquiries, after opening time, into the bar of “The Sitting Duck.” The natives did not use “The Martel Arms.” The reason was beer rather than caste, but the aliens were not to know that. They came slumming, and it was a wonder they didn’t bring their tape recorders with them, so quaint and primitive was Sam Crouch’s antiquated—and profitable—bar, and so renowned its characters. The visitors being believers, Saul had become a sceptic of the bleakest kind. He believed in nothing he could not touch, smell or drink. He deposited his lean rump in the red pulpit-cushions of the corner settle, and winked at Dinah Cressett across the crowded bar.
This was Saturday night, so everyone was there. The general hum of conversation—“The Sitting Duck” was never a noisy bar, they banished the young and loud into the garden pavilion—was constant, drowsy and warm, like the busy signature of a hive of bees. Over this background, dominant voices floated in emphatic moments like soloists in opera soaring out of the chorus, to subside again gracefully without breaking the continuous arc of rounded, communal sound. Not many pubs can command such orchestration and balance, these days.
“The mockers,” pronounced Eb Jennings, in an unexpected bass lead-in that seemed to emerge from the cellars under their feet, “the mockers may have blood on their hands by morning. Who took away the wreath that was meant to protect us all?”
On Saturday nights the Jennings family went their separate ways, each member with the family blessing on his choice: Eb to the bar of the “Duck,” Linda to the Bingo in the infant school, with her friend Mrs. Bowen, and young Brian, on his powerful pest of a motor-bike, to the weekly dance in Comerbourne, replete with beat groups blessed with incredible names, and heady with nubile girls. Brian was a heroic dancer and a Spartan motor-cyclist. His gear was stark, immaculately maintained and without insignia. In transit he looked more like one of Cocteau’s symbolic fates pursuing Orpheus than a modern, brass-knobbed, long haired, seedy enthusiast.
Within the memories of the regulars, however, Eb had never taken any active part in the entertainments staged impromptu at the “Duck.” Either something had got into him, tonight, or else this was the first occasion that had touched him nearly, and caused him to give tongue.
“In the midst of life,” he proclaimed, erect beside the bar like a prophetic angel, even his pint forgotten, “in the midst of life we are in death. Like our brother departed. No one should laugh who is not ready to go.”
For one instant he achieved such an impression that there was total silence in the bar. Then Saul said reasonably: “Well, nobody who’s ready to go is going to feel much like laughing, that’s for sure. And anyhow, you tell the police, Eb, lad, don’t tell us,
“Nor call the coppers off night watch,” confirmed Willie the Twig. “After all, they’ve kept a guard on the church for three nights, and nothing happened. And they need plenty of men during the day on these jobs, they can’t wear out a constable minding the scene of the crime indefinitely.”
“Anyhow,” said Eli Platt sententiously, “lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”
“Have it your way, then,” intoned Eb, “but I tell you we’re not finished yet with this evil. ’Tis in the air all about us. ’Tis lurking there on the scene where the murder was done. I feel my thumbs prick and my blood chill when I go
