Rainbow's End

‘I think he does. Even which night I go to music-lesson. It isn’t often I’m out in the dark on my own, he’d need to do his homework on that, wouldn’t he?’

The surprising child was actually becoming involved in this puzzle, even enthusiastic about it. From the safety of a bed in hospital the terrifying aspects were gratifyingly distant and vague. Sitting snugly here under police protection, he was beginning to feel like the hunter instead of the hunted.

‘Right, now tell me one good reason,’ said George gently, ‘why anyone in the world should be lying in wait for you – specifically you! – with murderous intent?’

‘Because,’ said Bossie, taking the plunge, ‘I was hanging about in the churchyard the night Mr Rainbow was killed, and he’s afraid I may be able to identify him.’

He was relieved to observe that there was going to be no out-and-out disbelief, no exclaiming, no time wasted in casting doubts on his memory or his veracity. George merely asked at once: ‘And can you?’ Bossie approved that. First things first.

‘No, that’s the hell of it, I don’t know a solitary thing that would pick him out from anybody else. But he can’t be sure of that, can he? Because I did see him, if you’d call it seeing, when it was among the trees there, and pitch-dark.’ He gazed rather deprecatingly at George, and said apologetically: ‘It’s a long story. I ought to have told you before, but we were scared. But it was only a leg-pull to start with, we never meant to do any harm.’

‘Suppose you tell me now? Do you want to wait until your parents come? They’ll be in to collect you in an hour or so, you can hang on until then if you like. Or we can have in Sergeant Moon and listen to it now, if that’s what you want.’

Bossie scorned the idea that he needed his hand held while he trotted out his confession. ‘They won’t mind you and Sergeant Moon,’ he assured George generously. ‘I’d rather you heard it first.’ The protecting arm of the law might be valuable in more directions than one.

‘All right, then, that’s what we’ll do.’ And George went to summon the sergeant, who came in placidly nursing a notebook, and greeted the patient with a cheerful lack of condescending pity. He had known him from birth.

‘A fine how-d’you-do you set up for us last night,’ he said accusingly, and against all regulations made himself comfortable on the bed. ‘You can tell the docs aren’t worrying about you, or they wouldn’t turn us loose on you. All right. I’m set. Get on with it.’

Bossie squared himself sturdily back against his pillows, and got on with it.

‘It started with an idea I had, when nobody seemed to know what to do to get rid of Mr Rainbow.’ The infelicity of this opening, luckily, did not strike him. ‘Nobody liked him, everybody wanted him to up-anchor and go away somewhere else, but nobody was doing anything about it, and the longer he hung on, the harder it was going to be to shift him. So I had this idea. I thought if we trailed some bait for him, some sort of an antique, and made a fool of him in front of everybody, that was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to stand. Like these art critics, after they’ve been had for suckers by fake pictures. Well, I had a thing I thought might do the trick. It was a leaf of real parchment, with bits of at least one lot of writing on it in Latin, only I think it had been cleaned, but not very well – you know, to use again. It was pretty faint, anyhow, but it was really old, and I did it up for him specially. I borrowed one of Dad’s books for a copy, and cooked up just a few words in Latin here and here, sort of half faded out, so you could just read a bit about some land with its ’purtenances, and I got in the word “gold”, I knew that would fetch him. And at choir practice I stayed behind and showed this to him, and told him where I’d found it, and asked him what it was all about, and if it was important…’

‘And where did you find it?’ asked George, as Bossie paused for breath. ‘You told him. You haven’t told us.’

‘In one of those old chests up above the bell-ringers’ room,’ said Bossie without hesitation. ‘I was up there with Mr Llewelyn, you know, when he went to take the swarm that got in there.’

‘Why hadn’t you shown it to the vicar, or your father?’

‘I never thought much about it, I just kept it as a trophy. I still don’t think it’s anything much,’ said Bossie, shrugging it off with disdain, ‘but I made it look good for him. And he bit like anything. He behaved very offhand, but I knew he was interested. He said he’d take it home and study it properly, and he asked me if I’d shown it to anyone else, and when I said no, he said better not, until we found out whether it was of any importance, but he doubted if it would be. So I knew if it looked good to him he was going to keep it for himself. It didn’t really matter, though, whether he went rushing to the vicar to boast of a great find, or hung on to it and never said a word, because either way we could show him up for a fool or a thief, and either way he’d be the laughing-stock of the place. He’d never stand that, he’d pull up his roots and go right away. That’s what everybody wanted,’ said Bossie simply, ‘but they left it to us to do something about it.’

‘But for heaven’s sake,’ said George helplessly, ‘how could you hope to take him in? He can’t be an expert on everything, but at least he’d know a genuine membrane of parchment when he saw one – ’

‘But it was, you see! According to Dad’s books, the writing on it, what you could make out, was about thirteenth century. So I made my bits from a copy rather later, to be on top of the old one. It looked pretty good. Anyhow, he took it fast enough, didn’t he?’

‘Quite! He wouldn’t pass up the chance, however small, I suppose. But it wouldn’t take him long to see through it. Even the modern ink would give you away.’

‘It wouldn’t, you know. Oh, it wasn’t proper thirteenth century ink, but it was seventeenth – I got the recipe out of The Compleat Houfewife, with walnut-shells and skins and all, and oak-galls. It came up a sort of faded brown. He might think it a bit fishy, but he wouldn’t find it was modern, because it wasn’t. And I cut a proper quill to do the writing with. And he was taken in! He must have been, because the next week at choir practice— That was the night it happened,’ said Bossie, suddenly stricken at the recollection. ‘I asked him if it was anything special, and he said no, it turned out to be quite worthless. But he didn’t give it back! And after practice he stayed behind, and he’d asked me specially where these chests were. We were all going along home, and I heard the organ playing again, and I knew he was staying behind to have a look up there privately. So I went back. I was wary of going in, so I just waited among the trees, where I could watch the door. I knew I should hear when the organ stopped, and then I was going to creep into the porch and watch what he did. But I gave him a few minutes to come down from the organ, and I was just on my way to the door when somebody came walking out.’

‘Somebody came out? Mr Rainbow himself?’

‘No, it wasn’t him. I thought at first it must be, and after all he was just going home, quite innocently. But I had to duck out of sight myself round a corner, not to be spotted, so I never did get a look at whoever that was. But I realised at once it couldn’t be Rainbow, because he didn’t stop to lock up, he just walked out of the lych-gate and went away. Then I didn’t quite know what to do, but I hung around for a bit, and I was just making up my mind to go home and forget it, when he fell. Crashing down among the grave-stones. I didn’t even understand what it was