I wanted to leap out and shout for them to stop, but by the time I had plucked up my courage, they had vanished into the mist again. The crowd fell silent. You could feel the anticipation. Then out of the mist came two figures—Monty and Darcy, still running neck and neck. As they reached the finish line Darcy seemed to slack off or Monty put on a surge and he crossed the tape first.
I made my way through the crowd to Darcy. “Well done, old thing,” I said.
He leaned on me, gasping for breath. “I wouldn’t want to do that again. These stupid saddles are heavy and the stirrups kept flying up and hitting me.”
“But you came second. That was wonderful.”
He looked up with a grin. “Well, I thought it was wiser that Monty should win. It is his home territory, after all. Only right that the locals should be able to cheer their landowners.”
I stared at him and had to smile. “Darcy, you’re a snob at heart after all, aren’t you?”
“Well, I am going to be Lord Kilhenny someday. I have to get used to the idea.”
I kissed his freezing cheek. “I’m very proud of you anyway.”
There were renewed cheers as the other runners staggered in, one by one. I found that I was breathing easier. The race was over and nothing had happened. Then somebody said, “Where’s old Johnnie?”
“Johnnie Protheroe?” another of the runners said. “He was with me last time I looked. Didn’t he come in yet?”
The feeling of doom returned. Several people started back along the course.
“Knowing Johnnie, he probably decided he’d had enough and he’s nipped across to the pub,” someone chuckled.
We passed one jump, then a second and a third. Then someone said, “My God—what’s that?”
One of the ridiculous helmets was lying to one side of the track. And there was Johnnie lying half concealed under the hedge that bordered the field. Hands dragged him out. Someone said, “He’s fainted. Get some brandy.”
Then someone else said, “He hasn’t fainted. He’s dead.”
“Someone run and get Dr. Wainwright. He’s over by the tent.”
A couple of younger lads ran off. I stood staring down at Johnnie’s dead face. He looked so normal, so peaceful, that I expected him to open his eyes at any moment and say, “Fooled you all, didn’t I?”
But he didn’t. The doctor arrived, puffing and panting, his black bag in his hand. He dropped to his knees beside Johnnie and started to examine him. After a while he looked up at the considerable crowd that had now gathered around them. “Heart,” he said. “Clearly a heart attack. The fellow was on heart medication, you know. I warned him that he should be taking it easier but he still acted as if he were twenty-one. Someone better call for the ambulance.”
He rose to his feet again. I went over to him. “Doctor, in light of all these strange deaths around here, don’t you think the police should be called in?”
He gave me a cold stare. “I’ve been practicing medicine for thirty years. Do you think I don’t recognize a heart attack when I see one?”
“But just in case?”
“An autopsy will be done, of course,” he said. “But I’d like to wager with one of these bookies here that I am right. The chap had a dicky heart. He overextended himself. Simple as that, young lady.”
The St. John ambulance boys were in attendance in case of accidents and they now arrived with a stretcher. As I watched the body being carried away, the increasingly familiar feeling of dread overwhelmed me. I now knew what the deaths meant and why they were happening to fit in with the Twelve Days of Christmas, but I was not one bit the wiser about why these people were chosen or who had planned this awful farce. Darcy had removed the saddle and helmet and was now dressed in his jersey and corduroys.
“Poor old Johnnie,” he said. “A bit of a cad, but I rather liked him.”
“In spite of everything, so did I,” I said. “And I’ve been trying to make the doctor see that his death was not a heart attack. At least they’re going to conduct an autopsy.”
“You think this was today’s planned murder, then?” he asked. “You are not going to budge from your belief that these are planned killings, are you?”
“Because I now have proof that they are,” I said. “Come over here.” I took his arm and led him away from the crowd. Then I told him exactly what I had figured out. He stared at me in growing wonder. “A partridge in a pear tree. Of course. Why didn’t we see that?”
“Because everyone referred to him as ‘old Freddie.’ I believe I did hear his last name once, but that was before I saw his death as any more than a freak accident, so it didn’t sink in.”
“Well, you cracked it now, haven’t you? Brilliant,” he said.
I looked past him to the happy revelers, the journalists taking pictures of the winner and copious amounts of either beer or cider being drunk. “But we are no nearer to solving it, are we? We know that some twisted mind is enjoying a little joke at the expense of people’s lives, but we have no way of knowing who or why. They are still such a strange assortment of victims and the killer has been clever enough not to leave evidence.”
“He has left evidence,” Darcy said. “Two people are still alive. Mr. Klein was apparently not harmed, and Mrs. Sechrest is going to recover. We have to contact the police right away and have them talk to the survivors. Maybe they will know why someone might have wanted them dead.”
“He didn’t want Mr. Klein dead,” I said. “He only took valuable jewelry from him.”
“Either he thought that would be an appropriate punishment for Klein or he had planned a murder that for some reason didn’t happen.”
“Let’s go see Mr. Klein right away, shall we?” I took his hand.
“We have to tell all this to the police first,” Darcy said.
“Since when were you so law-abiding?” I demanded. “You are the one who taught me how to crash wedding parties and who does all kinds of suspect things around the world.”
“Those are different. This is dealing with people’s lives, Georgie. And also it’s my aunt’s family. I have to do the right thing when I’m staying with her.”
“Very noble,” I said. “Well, all right. Let’s borrow Monty’s motor again and go find the hopelessly thick inspector. We can get away now, while they are all celebrating.”
I glanced across at Monty, now drinking something from a large cup while the crowd cheered. We moved silently toward the gap in the hedge, slipped through, then hurried across the village green, up the driveway and around to the garages. A few minutes later we were driving toward Newton Abbott at a snail’s pace, with Darcy peering forward through the mist. Luckily nobody else was foolhardy enough to attempt driving in this weather.
“So let’s think,” Darcy said, raising his voice over the considerable noise of the engine. “What does all this tell us about the murderer? Why did he wait until Christmas?”
“So that he could kill twelve people in twelve days?”
“But why? It’s clearly his little joke, isn’t it?”
“He’s punishing each of them for a reason. Maybe Freddie played one of his pranks on him. Ted Grover was committing adultery. Miss Ffrench-Finch—well, I’m sure old ladies can be annoying. Gladys Tripp listened in on private conversations and gossiped afterward. We don’t know anything about Mr. Klein or the butcher or the master of hounds or the farmer’s wife, but Sandra Sechrest and Johnnie Protheroe were carrying on together.”
“So someone who sees himself as the hand of God, striking down those who have sinned?” Darcy asked. “Obviously someone with a clever brain to carry out these things and make them look like accidents.”
“But not all that well educated,” I said. “Remember he mixed up ‘lay’ and ‘lie.’ His six geese were not a- laying, they were a-lying.”
“Poetic license, my sweet. He couldn’t make everything fit the poem exactly, could he?”
The cold wind stung my face as the Alvis flew along the lane. I shivered, partly with cold and partly with apprehension. “We have no proof that these were all intended victims.”
“Oh, I think we have to assume that they all were, because we know that some of them were. Freddie Partridge, for example. His death was not only planned, but planned elaborately to happen so that the twelve days would finish on New Year’s Eve.”
“Not the correct twelve days of Christmas, by the way,” I interrupted. “They are supposed to start on Christmas Day and finish on Twelfth Night.”
