The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

ancestors who came over with William One –’

‘Who?’

‘Billy the Lad. Also ran, Harold Godwinson. Don’t you know any English history?’

‘Idiot! Go on.’

‘Yes. Well, if you say your people didn’t come over with Bill, she wants to know whether you collected your meaty handle with the assistance of letters patent for making bully beef in the Great War, daddy, or what? Especially what. I say, I wonder whether there are cucumber sandwiches for tea? Of course, if you answer to the name of Snooks, you’re damned.’

Felicity sat down in the middle of the court and shaded her eyes with a slim sun-kissed arm.

‘But he isn’t a reverend gentleman,’ she said, narrowly observing Theodore Grayling, who was being personally conducted from garden bed to other garden beds by the majestic Mrs Bryce Harringay. Her loud, juicy voice came clearly across the grass, although the words she said were indistinguishable.

‘How twiggee he isn’t a padre?’ asked Aubrey, sitting beside Felicity and clasping his white-flannelled knees.

‘Hasn’t a dog-collar. Use your eyes, little boy. I’m going in now to get washed before tea. Coming?’

‘Let’s go in through the library. The windows are open. I expect old Jim is in there. I say, he’s got the hump to-day or something. Have you noticed?’

‘I don’t think he is very well,’ returned Felicity, as the boy hauled her to her feet. ‘He looks so dreadfully white and tired. And he is rather a jolly man usually, isn’t he?’

‘Don’t know him frightfully well, you know. His mater and old Rupert’s mater never hit it off or something, and my pater, who was the brother, got himself cut off with the proverbial bob for hectic proceedings with the lasses during his youth – the mater jolly well reformed him, though, after they married – and he couldn’t stick either of his sisters, so I’ve hardly ever met Jim until this holiday.”

‘You like him, though, don’t you?’ asked Felicity, as they strolled towards the house.

‘Oh, he’s all right.’ Aubrey tucked her racket under his arm with his own, and she passed before him up the steps and in at the open French windows.

Jim Redsey, still weak from the shock of his aunt’s remark, sat up as the two entered.

‘Hullo, Jimsey,’ said Felicity. ‘I say, are you all right? You look dreadfully white.’

‘Touch of the sun, I expect,’ returned Jim, with a sickly grin. ‘Both want your tea, I expect. Ring for it, Stick, will you? Your mater jolly well handed me a kick in the ribs just now, so you owe me something for that. I thought something serious was up, but it seems she has only heard about a woman named Lestrange Something-or-other who has taken the Stone House on the far side of the village. Your mater seems to loathe the dame pretty freely.’

The brown-faced boy grinned.

‘Well, I don’t know what she said to give you a nasty knock,’ he said, ‘but you do look as though something’s got you in the gizzard, old lad.’

‘You don’t feel sick, Jimsey, do you?’ asked Felicity, pursuing the subject with motherly interest. ‘You are a horrible greenish-white colour, you know. You look simply beastly, poor old thing.’

‘As though you’re going bad, you know,’ contributed Aubrey sympathetically but not very happily. ‘Sure you’re fit?’

‘Quite sure, thanks,’ replied Jim shortly. ‘What about tea?’

‘On the lawn?’ suggested Felicity. ‘It’s lovely out there. Come along and wash, Aubrey darling.’

‘You can’t say that as Yvonne Arnaud said it in Tons of Money,’ said Aubrey, grinning, and pressing the bell as he passed by it in following Felicity out of the room.

Having ordered that tea should be served on the lawn, Jim Redsey hoisted his feet over the arm of his chair and closed his eyes. As, however, his thoughts behind closed lids seemed even more wearying, worrying and confused than when his eyes were open, he stared absently at the glass doors of the bookcase opposite. The figures of his aunt and the lawyer were reflected in these glass doors. They were deep in conversation, or, rather, in a dissertation on roses, emphatically delivered by Mrs Bryce Harringay in a peculiarly penetrating voice, as they crossed the lawn in front of the library windows.

Jim’s eyes narrowed. Was this the chance he had been waiting for all that long day? With the two youngsters up aloft, and the two older birds preoccupied with each other and even making off in the right direction, could he sneak out without being seen?

He crept to the French windows, concealed his large form behind the curtains and peered out. His aunt and the lawyer were walking away from the house towards a rockery covered with Swiss mountain plants with which Rupert Sethleigh’s late gardener had been making some experiments. Mrs Bryce Harringay was still talking, this time on the subject of the rockery.

‘Yes, very interesting, of course. No, I have never been in Switzerland. The Riviera, of course, but not Switzerland, no. Yes, Rupert has been looking after these himself since Willows was dismissed.

‘No, he doesn’t really care about gardening, but the Vicar of Crowless-cum-Boone is coming on Thursday – I think Rupert said Thursday – to look at these plants, and so Rupert felt bound to attend to them himself now Willows is gone. Oh, a nasty sullen fellow. Had no idea of his place. Of course, it was a pity Rupert struck him. I never think it wise to give these people a real grievance, do you? Oh, yes, the Vicar of Crowless is quite an authority upon Alpine plants – quite. He lectures, you know. And spends his life, they say, in Kew Gardens. Oh, his wife runs the parish. A most capable woman, most.’

‘Well,’ said Theodore Grayling, seizing upon this opening before Mrs Bryce Harringay could change the subject, and wisely deciding that if he was to obtain a hearing at all he had better be as dramatic as possible, ‘I do hope the Vicar of Crowless will not be disappointed when he arrives and finds that your nephew has gone to America. Not that there is any reason against going to America,’ he added, noting with satisfaction that Mrs Bryce Harringay was turning purple with amazement and emotion. ‘I have always longed to visit our great sister-country; I have an admiration for America which –’

In defiance of all the canons of good taste and correct behaviour, Mrs Bryce Harringay seized the lawyer’s arm and shook it violently.

‘What are you saying?’ she asked. ‘Rupert is not going to America! My younger nephew, James Redsey, a rather unsatisfactory boy, is trying to get a post out in Mexico, but Rupert would never dream of leaving England. He says he will never even cross to France again, because sea-travelling upsets him so much!’

‘But I have just received definite information from Mr Redsey that his cousin sailed for America this morning!’ cried the lawyer. ‘It is not a case of his dreaming of going! He is gone!’

Perceiving that his aunt and the lawyer had their backs to him and were absorbed in conversation, Jim Redsey stepped quickly out on to the gravel path and walked swiftly round the side of the house to a small gardening-shed which stood about fifty feet from the garage and stables. He unlocked the little shed, disappeared inside it, and shortly afterwards emerged carrying a heavy spade. Drawing from his pocket a large, dark, richly coloured silk handkerchief, he wound this about the shining edge of the tool, secured it with a natty piece of green twine, and carried the spade along to the stables. Here, after a hasty glance round him to make certain that he was not being watched, he kicked open one of the wooden doors and thrust the spade under a heap of straw in the far corner. Then, automatically dusting the palms of his hands one against the other, he stepped out into the sunlight again and walked briskly back to the house.

Felicity and Aubrey had not gone immediately upstairs after leaving Redsey in the library, but had loitered a moment in the fine hall. An idea struck Aubrey.

‘Tea won’t be ready for a little while,’ he said, ‘and you wanted to see the view from the top of the old Observation Tower. It’s great. You can see the sea and everything. Come on.’

The Observation Tower was the only portion of the original building left standing. It rose high above the roof of the house, and at the top of it was an outside platform surrounded by a stout iron railing. Up the tower Aubrey and Felicity climbed, and were standing on the platform admiring the fine view, when Aubrey drew Felicity’s attention to the stealthy movements of his cousin Redsey. They watched him with interest and amusement. Suddenly his movements became more interesting still.

‘I shall go immediately to the Vicarage,’ Mrs Bryce Harringay was announcing as Jim Redsey reached the little gardening-shed, ‘and find out what the vicar knows about this mad freak. The whole thing is most astonishing,