The Dancing Druids

‘Do you think Mike’s fat man was murdered?’

‘I have very little doubt of it, child.’

‘You don’t think that’s him in the iron box?’

‘I have very high hopes of it, I confess.’

‘You really think that’s not treasure?’

‘I really think that the iron box contains the corpse of the painter Toro.’

‘Toro? Oh, but…’

‘If the rest of my deductions are correct, I do not see who else it can be but Toro, child. When we have concluded our present business, which is to see that the head and hands in the wagon come into the possession of the police so that the dead man can be identified, we will persuade my picture-dealer in Cuchester co describe Mr. Allwright for us.’

‘But why shouldn’t it be Mr. Battle? Why do you say so definitely that it’s Toro?’

‘I don’t say it definitely, child. It may not be a body at all. But if it is a body, then I say it is Toro. It could not possibly be Battle, because Battle, to the best of my belief, is not only alive, but is in constant touch with his son David.’

‘Then all that story of David’s is a lie?’

‘Most of it, I think, is untrue. Its own internal evidence is against it.’

‘And he doesn’t really hate his father at all?’

‘I think he hates his father as deeply as he says he does.’

‘Then… But why do you think his father is still alive?’

‘Because I think we have seen him this morning.’

‘This morning?’ Laura was almost shouting in her excitement.

‘Of course, the horse may have thrown him and broken his neck for him by now,’ said Mrs. Bradley.

Chapter Eighteen

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‘… so at last he let them come in, and they bespoke a handsome supper, and spent the evening very jollily.’

Ibid. (Chanticleer and Partlet)

« ^ »

There was a saloon bar at the side entrance to the hotel at Slepe Rock, and thither Gascoigne and O’Hara went to drink beer and pass the time away until the hour should come to carry out the instructions they had received from Mrs. Bradley. They discovered that it was the barmaid’s night off, and that the proprietor, a genial man (now in his waistcoat), was doing her work for the evening.

‘Quiet here to-night,’ said O’Hara.

‘Yes,’ the host replied. ‘People are going home from their holidays now. We shall be very quiet indeed until about the end of May. Then visitors start trickling in, and by July, of course, we’re full. Then they fall away in the first two weeks of September, and by the end of the month we’re practically clear. Funny thing happened this evening…’

‘No permanent guests?’ enquired Gascoigne.

‘Permanents? No. Don’t encourage ’em. My experience of permanents—not here, but when I was in Welsea —is that they get a wrong sort of vested interest in the place. They get to thinking they can always take the same seat in the lounge, and the same place by the fire or near the windows or in the garden, or wherever it might be. Why, some of them even look upon the hotel servants as their personal lackeys and chambermaids, and make all sorts of demands on them which no servant to-day will put up with. And not much in the way of tips or presents, either. No, when I took this place I said to Mrs. Cooke—that’s my wife—I said to her plainly: No permanents. So we don’t encourage them. I suppose Mr. Cassius and his ward are the nearest, but I don’t mind men. It’s the ladies… God bless ’em!… that make all the trouble in hotels. And talking of Mr. Cassius, that reminds me. Funny thing happened here this evening…’

‘Mr. Cassius?’ said Gascoigne. ‘Has he gone?’

‘Well, more or less. Said he might be back for a fortnight, later on, without the boy. The boy will be at school, no doubt, next week or the week after. Then Mr. Cassius will be down again, I daresay. But it will only be his usual short visit. We generally see him for the last fortnight in September, and then no more until May. But I was going to tell you…’

‘He’s a regular visitor, then?’

‘Regular enough, the last ten years.’

‘Don’t you mean nine years?’ asked Gascoigne. The landlord, who had accepted a half-pint of beer and was about to light his pipe, paused with the match already aflame. He shook it out as the flame reached his fingers, and scratched his head with the matchstick.

‘Funny you should ask that,’ he remarked. ‘Now let me see…’

‘Like to bet on it?’ asked O’Hara of Gascoigne, quickly taking up his cousin’s lead.

‘A pound,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Done. Come on, Mr. Cooke. The bet’s made.’

‘Let me just serve these three gentlemen, and I’ll get my book,’ said the host.

The three gentlemen wore padded overcoats, hats pulled well down, beautiful shoes, and indulged in almost no conversation. Their hands were in their overcoat pockets, but whether for warmth, or because they carried guns or knuckledusters, it would have been difficult to say.

‘Doubles,’ said the first of them, slapping a pound note upon the counter. ‘Serve yourself one.’

‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ The host, abandoning his custom of serving nothing but single whiskies, poured the drinks and placed them in front of his customers. He then raised his half-pint of beer. ‘I have a drink on, thank you all the same.’ He turned and placed the pound note in the small black japanned cashbox on the shelf behind the bar, took change from the till, placed it neatly on the counter, and resumed his conversation with O’Hara and Gascoigne. The three men drained off their whisky and went out.

‘Spivs,’ said Gascoigne. ‘How come, Mr. Cooke, in this part of the world?’

‘That’s just what I was wondering,’ replied the host. ‘I haven’t seen gentry of that kidney since I was in Brighton last. We certainly don’t see their like around here, and glad of it I am. I’ll get my book now, gentlemen, and you can settle your bet.’

Regardless of a prominently-displayed notice above the inner door of the bar which forbade any form of gambling on the premises, he departed.

‘Good for you, Gerry,’ said O’Hara. ‘That was very neat.’

‘You weren’t bad yourself at catching on and following my lead,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I say, he’s trying to tell us about this fellow Cassius getting knocked out, you know. I suppose we must give him his head. We can’t keep on fobbing him off. Oh, here he comes!’

The hotel register, to the great interest of two of the hotel guests, showed that the oddly-named Mr. Cassius and his ward Ivor—Sisyphus to Laura Menzies and Mr. Cassius-Concaverty’s son to Mrs. Bradley—had been regular visitors to the hotel at Slepe Rock during the past nine years, war or no war. Their permanent address, it seemed, was London.

‘Alias Cottam’s, alias Nine Acres,’ observed Gascoigne to O’Hara later.

An influx of thirsty customers prevented the two young men from hearing the story the host had been anxious to tell them. They were not at all sorry about this, although both, from valuable experience gained at school, were able to keep their countenances when their sins were mentioned in their hearing.

Having finished their drinks, they strolled down to the shore at Slepe Rock. Several of the guests at the hotel had done the same thing, so they lighted meditative pipes and discussed the business of the evening.

‘How are we going to get out to-night without being seen?’ enquired O’Hara, as they stepped on to the spit of dirty sand. ‘It seems to me absolutely necessary that we should manage without being spotted, but I don’t see how it’s to be done.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I think the best way will be to seem to go to bed at our usual