The Dancing Druids

‘Yes, but— ’

‘I always think the Copper Beeches is one of the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and, in my own profession, you know, we learn a good deal about parents from a careful study of their children.’

‘But I’m going to have a warrant, all the same,’ said Sir Crimmond suddenly. ‘I had to call on Beauchamp, anyway.’ He lay back in his seat, looking pleased. ‘What was that last “but” of yours?’ he asked suddenly.

‘No,’ said Laura decidedly. ‘I’m not going to be a decoy duck for anybody! If I sit for the bloke it’s to be because he wants to paint me, and not just to keep him busy while the police come along to arrest him. You can keep me out of it.’

‘I only asked! I only asked!’ said Sir Crimmond, annoyed. ‘What on earth a respectable young woman is thinking about to be painted like that by a fellow who is no better than a common criminal, I don’t know. If you were my daughter—!’

Laura put out her tongue at him, and went out, humming a tune.

‘Confound this new-fangled morality,’ growled the irate man. ‘Imagine a girl willing to be painted in the nude and yet not willing to assist the police in the execution of their duty by keeping the fellow busy until we can get along to arrest him!’

‘Speeches on morality from a man who is willing to persuade a girl to act like a Judas, and yet himself won’t do a simple, illegal little thing like arresting a man without a warrant, gives me food for thought,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I am on Laura’s side.’

‘Oh, you women always stick together!’ said the Chief Constable pettishly.

‘If we did, we should have ruled the world long ago,’ Mrs. Bradley retorted. ?Arrest the man, and don’t keep cackling about it. But, if I were you, I’d arrest the woman first. Send your police to Newcombe Soulbury, to Cottam’s and to the farm simultaneously. She’s sure to be at one of them, unless they’ve spirited her away.’

But Mrs. Battle—a name she confessed to as soon as she saw Inspector Fielding, who came (armed with a warrant), to arrest her, had not been spirited away.

‘She says she doesn’t know a thing about Battle,’ said the Chief Constable peevishly to Mrs. Bradley, later, ‘except that he belonged to a Fascist organization and had to “disappear” as a precautionary measure. She affects to believe that it’s in connection with pro-Fascist activities that we want to arrest him now, but swears she knows nothing about that side of his life. She says he’s been a good husband, and that’s all she cares about. She also reminded Fielding that we can’t use her evidence against Battle. So that’s your precious idea gone west, as I knew it would! Now what do you suggest?’

‘That you try your luck with David Battle,’ said Mrs. Bradley, unperturbed by these slurs upon her theories. But David Battle’s reactions were not more helpful than those of his stepmother. He would answer any questions the police liked to ask, he would go to prison, he would be hanged if necessary, so long as he was allowed to paint Laura Menzies as Atalanta, Hippolyta, or, as he now thought likely, Artemis Orthia.

‘Did he really say that?’ Mrs. Bradley immediately enquired.

‘What?’

‘Artemis Orthia.’

‘Yes, he did. The sergeant’s shorthand is impeccable. If he wrote Artemis Orthia, then that’s what the fellow said. ’

‘I’ll tell Laura,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘You may find her less scrupulous this time.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

—«¦»—

‘After some time, however, the old fox really died; and soon afterwards a wolf came to pay his respects.’

Ibid. (Mrs. Fox)

« ^

Artemis Orthia?’ said Laura. ‘But wasn’t she made out of a tree? Well, I take it as a mark of favour on David Battle’s part that he should give me a warning of my impending demise!’

‘So, you see,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘we want to know why the ice-cart came here that day.’

‘Ice?’ said the old man with the wheelbarrow. ‘Oh, ah. Ice. I remember.’ He ruminated, pulling at a small clay pipe the colour of the soil. ‘Ice, says you. And proper, too. But it were them fillum folks ordered it. Wanted to make a picture of the North Pole explorers, or summat of that, so they tell me. Photography, like. The ice all throwed out in a pond they dug in the garden. Show ee? Ah, I’ll show ee. It were over there where they planted them bits of pine trees.’

‘And who stayed here besides the film people and Mr. Concaverty?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired. ‘Did you ever see anyone else?’

‘Why, no, I dunno as I did.’

‘No one else was a stranger to you except the film people?’

‘Nobody else, without it might be some of the indoor servants. But such as them ’aven’t time for the likes of me.’

‘So that’s that,’ said the Chief Constable briefly. ‘Now, what? Or shall we go to the cave? Is that old man in the plot?

‘I was right to forbid Laura to go to David Battle’s studio,’ said Mrs. Bradley, following her own train of thought. ‘Behold the fifth dead tree.’

She went back to the old man. He had finished his pipe and was contemplating it before knocking it out against the ancient brick wall of the culvert.

‘What killed the trees?’ she enquired.

‘Ah!’ said the old man, making up his mind, and knocking the pipe out carefully. ‘Got a hairpin, I wonder?’

Mrs. Bradley produced one from among her shining locks and handed it over.

‘You know who killed them, I suppose?’ she asked carelessly.

‘Me? Oh, I knows. None better. It were that there expert they brought down. “Got to ’ave ’em dead,” says Mr. Concaverty to me. “Wanted for the fillum,” he says. “Can you kill ’em?” he says. “I can kill moles and that old water-rat, and chickens and pigs, and an old turkey gobbler or two. That’s me,” I says. “But trees! Nobody don’t kill trees,” I says, “without they’re daft,” I says. “Now if ’twere only that there old water-rat,” I says…’

‘Yes, but what did this expert look like? And how did he kill them?’ enquired the Chief Constable brusquely. The old man looked at him with rheumy, intelligent, blue eyes.

‘He were biggish,’ he said. ‘Ay, he were biggish. And he killed ’em with turps and resin, and with burnin’ at the roots, and with brimstone from hell, and with curses. Ay, how he cursed them there trees!’

‘So you’ve come!’ said David Battle.

‘Yes,’ Laura agreed. ‘But only to arrange terms.’

‘Terms?’

‘Sure. If I’m to sit to you for some kind of anonymous classical work, I must receive pay.’

‘Pay?’

‘Don’t keep up this Echo on Parnassus stuff. What sort of mutt do you think I am? I have to earn my living, don’t forget.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘But me no buts. What are the odds?’

‘Odds?’

‘Oh, Lord!’

‘Now, look here,’ said Battle, putting down the charcoal he had picked up and coming over to her, ‘nothing was said about fees.’

‘I know. I’ve come to say something about them now. Your rake-off from those faked pictures must have been fairly considerable. Where do I come in?’