The Murder of Busy Lizzie

‘Nonsense. That was a black magic pentagram.’

‘How do you know so much about it?’

‘I don’t, but a fellow on my staircase was talking about it, an American. Interesting chap. Got on to Voodoo and what-have-you.’

‘Some little lunatics in the third form at school started a witches’ coven, but they soon got into trouble about it.’

‘Why? The last of the witchcraft acts was repealed in England in 1951.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t the witchcraft the Head objected to. It was because they broke out at night to dance in their nudery on All Hallows Eve and caught the most dreadful colds. Anyway, they were kept in bed all over the half-term holiday. That put paid to the coven, I expect’

They made their way to the shop, but no turpentine was procurable and it was not even possible to get a drink, for the pub, although it did not recognise the statutory licensing hours, was closed.

‘So that’s that,’ said Sebastian.

‘No, it isn’t. We’ll call at Ransome’s cottage and ask for a drop of turps there.’

‘You can. I’m not going to. I’ve something better to do on holiday than clean up other people’s tombstones. It’s the business of the parish, anyway. Look, there’s the monthly service in the church next Sunday. Somebody will see the muck then and arrange for action to be taken. You’ve no need to concern yourself. Besides, if you’re spotted cleaning up, somebody may think you did the job yourself in the first place.’

‘Oh, nonsense! I’m going to talk to Ransome about it, anyway.’

‘He won’t thank you. He’s bound to be busy. A smallholding doesn’t run itself, you know. Let’s do as we said we would—trace the river to its mouth and then go back along the west cliffs.’

‘They’re bound to be crawling with bird-watchers. I was out of our chalet at six this morning and they were setting off in their hundreds, all armed with ropes and rock-climbing things and telescopes and binoculars and cameras.’

‘Hang it, there are only forty of them all told. They can’t be everywhere.’

‘I bet they are,’ said Margaret. ‘Anyway, that’s what it will seem like. Well, let’s just go and look at the churchyard again. It’s more or less on our way.’

Arrived at the church, Margaret, followed slowly by her brother, sought out the desecrated tomb-stones. The staring red paint was still in evidence, but was smeared and smudged as though somebody had made an attempt to clean it off. She approached the graves more closely. It was now possible to make out the inscriptions. In each case the head-stone bore the name of Chayleigh. No other graves had been touched. There was something else which the Lovelaines had not noticed on their previous visit. Somebody had attempted to deface one woman’s name and substitute another. The work had been done very roughly, but there was no doubt about the result. On the stone which had borne (and still faintly bore) the capital s and the word murder, the name of Gwendolyne Chayleigh had been chipped out and the name Eliza Lovelaine crudely substituted.

‘Well!’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘Somebody doesn’t like Aunt Eliza!’

‘Not very nice,’ said Sebastian, ‘but not terribly significant of black magic. More like plain malice, I’d say. I think perhaps we will go and see Ransome. Hullo! There’s somebody coming out of the church.’

The person who emerged from the south porch was a woman carrying a bucket and a broom. Sebastian, leaping over the intervening graves, caught up with her.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but do you know about some tombstones on which somebody has been at work?’

‘At work? How do you mean, at work?’ she asked, looking at him with deep suspicion.

‘Painting them—daubing them with red paint—and altering the inscription on one of the headstones.’

‘Done it yourself, like enough.’ She eyed disparagingly his towelling shirt of sailcloth red and his very brief, bright-blue shorts.

‘No, no, really, I assure you! Do please come and look. I think there ought to be a witness, somebody who has to do with the place. I mean, the Vicar, or the Churchwardens, or some such, ought to know, what?’

‘Well, what?’ said the woman, putting down the bucket, retaining the broom (as a weapon, Sebastian fancied) and accompanying him to the grave by which Margaret was standing. ‘Be you having me on?’ But when she saw the altered inscription and the traces of paint, her attitude changed. ‘Well, that’s a nice thing, that is!’ she exclaimed. ‘You come with me.’ They followed her into the church. It was plainly furnished and ugly. ‘Mind how you step. Floor’s still wet and tiles might be slippery,’ she advised them. She led the way to the back of the nave to the space under the tower and, taking a key from her overall pocket, she unlocked the small door which led up to the belfry. ‘Just you take a look up there,’ she said, ‘and tell me what you see.’

‘I’ll go. You stay here,’ said Sebastian to his sister.

‘I want to see what it is, too,’ she said.

‘You may, when I come down.’

‘Don’t trust me not to lock the door on you both, is that it?’ asked the cleaner ironically.

‘Something of the sort may have crossed my mind,’ said Sebastian. ‘I don’t care for the look of those grave- stones.’ He mounted the stone steps and found that, after the first turn of the narrow staircase, the treads were made of open-meshed ironwork and were treacherously slippery. Beyond the bell-chamber the rest of the ascent had to be made by means of a latter. Wound in and out of the rungs of this ladder was an elaborately woven one made of strands of rope into which were twisted some black feathers. Sebastian did not touch it. He knew, from what his college acquaintance had told him, what it was. He descended to the foot of the tower steps and nodded to the cleaner. ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Who, on the island, goes in for black magic?’

The woman shook her head.

‘There’s only one on the island as was born wrong side of the blanket,’ she said. ‘Oh, well, him being churchwarden, the less said about that the better. I’m your witness and you be mine, and best neither on us meddle with what we’ve seen. You go your ways now, while I lock up.’

‘Do you always keep the church locked?’ asked Margaret. ‘Do wait just a minute while I climb the tower.’

‘Nothing much to see,’ said Sebastian. ‘Come on. We’re keeping this lady waiting.’ He hustled his sister towards the south door.

‘Us keep it locked, certainly,’ said the cleaner, producing a large key when they reached the porch. ‘Oh, yes, us keep it locked, but them as knows where to look can always lay hands on the key. Go you before me. No call for strangers to find out where I put it.’

Ransome was lifting shallots. He straightened up and smiled at his cousins.

‘What-ho!’ he said. ‘Any news of my mother?’

‘They’re expecting her back today,’ Sebastian replied. ‘There’s something else we want to talk about.’

Ransome stuck his gardening-fork into the soil.

‘I was going to knock off for my elevenses, anyway,’ he said. ‘Can you drink home-brewed cider?’ He led the way into his cottage. It was simply furnished and in peasant fashion except for a long wall of bookshelves which must have held several hundred volumes, for the shelves went from near the floor almost up to the ceiling and were so crammed with books that many of these were lying on their sides on top of those which were right-way-up on the shelves. Marius had a considerable library and Sebastian and Margaret had been allowed the run of it—subject to a certain amount of supervision when they were very young—but Ransome appeared to possess more books than Marius. He followed the direction of Sebastian’s eyes and smiled. ‘I must say I like a bit of a read,’ he said. ‘What did you come about, then?’

While they drank his cider and ate delicious fruit-cake which, Ransome told them, the farmer’s wife had supplied, they told him all about the tomb-stones and Sebastian described the black magic rope ladder which he had seen in the church tower.

‘I thought the church was always locked,’ said Ransome.

‘The cleaner took us inside.’

‘Chief witch of the local coven, you know.’ He appeared to be about to add to this information, but checked himself.

‘No, really?’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Perfectly serious. She’s a white witch, of course. No black magic or satanism about her—well, not so far as I know. However, she’s head of the coven.’