Archie's Battleflat Adventures: The Harriman Mystery (20 page)

Refusing
to be tricked, Archie slowed his pace to a steady run, all of his
senses tuned to any sign of movement from the trees up
ahead.

His
limbs trembled but he refused to allow them to cave in. His heart
hammered madly for him to stop and rest for a while, but he refused
to succumb to exhaustion. Instead, he locked on the steady thump,
thump, thump of his feet hitting the dirt track. Quick glances back
every now and then assured him that nobody was following, and with
each step he took, he relaxed just a little bit more.

Unfortunately, he was lulled into a false sense of security.
He was within six cart lengths of the first house at the edge of
the village, when the cloaked figure appeared out of the trees
before him and moved to stand in the middle of the track. Archie
glanced behind him, unsurprised to find the track empty.

Spinning
back around, this time he did stop running, and simply stood,
panting heavily as he tried to work out what to do.

“
What do you want with me?” Archie yelled, holding his arms
wide and glaring at the ominous looking figure a few feet away. He
hated having to face forward, and was aware that anyone could creep
up behind him, but he couldn’t risk keep checking over his shoulder
and give the man opposite any opportunity to attack.

“
I just want to talk to you, that’s all,” a different voice
reasoned.

Archie
felt cold. This voice was very different to the sing-song voice in
the woods. The man standing before him was the man who had stopped
him in the road on his way home the other afternoon. He was
certainly not the man who had just chased him through the woods –
or was he? Beginning to feel confused, Archie felt his stomach
churn with a mixture of fear and exertion.

“
I don’t know anything,” Archie protested loudly, wondering
when the other man was going to appear behind him, and more
importantly, if Edward had managed to get home yet.

“
Your friend is at home, Archie. If you want to get there too,
you must listen to me,” the voice dropped to a warning whisper.
Archie stayed where he was, uncertainty gnawing at him.

“
I know you are scared,” the man continued. “I also know you
know more than you are letting on. You need to trust me,
Archie,”

“
Ha!” Archie spat, shifting from one foot to the other. “You
killed Mrs Humble and Mr Harriman. Why should I trust
you?”

“
I didn’t kill them, but I know who did, and so do you, don’t
you, Archie?” The voice dropped conversationally, but Archie still
wasn’t going to be duped, and remained quiet.

He
watched as the man lowered the cloak hood to reveal his face. It
wasn’t the macabre, twisted face of the man who had murdered Mr
Harriman.

“
Who are you?”

“
I am your friend, Archie. I can help you.”

Archie
shifted uncomfortably.

“
Together, we can bring the murderer to account for his
crimes.”

Archie
moved from one foot to the other as the man moved imperceptibly
closer. A quick glance behind him assured him that he was safe from
attack for now, if only the man approaching didn’t get too close.
He began to shiver from cold and fright, and wondered why his dad
wasn’t coming to find him. Had Edward managed to get home? Or had
the man before him stopped him?

“
Just tell me what you have found.” The man’s voice was reason
personified, but it did little to gain Archie’s trust.

“
I didn’t find anything,” Archie snapped. Desperation to get
out of the cold, and away from the looming menace around him made
his voice sharp. He felt rather proud of himself for standing his
ground, despite the risk to his safety.

“
Why were you running, then?”

“
You were chasing me.” The words were out of his mouth before
he could stop them.

The man
shook his head and frowned. “It wasn’t me.” He glanced cautiously
toward the trees, clearly looking for anyone who was nearby. “What
did he look like?”

Archie
stared at him for several moments. “You!”

The
man’s brows shot skyward.

The moon
chose that moment to make a brief resurgence, lighting the area in
a hazy glow for several long minutes. It was enough to light up the
edge of the trees, and clearly outlined the solitary figure
standing at the base of a tree, watching silently.

Archie
gasped, and watched in amazement as the man standing opposite
suddenly lunged toward the figure, which in turn took flight.
Within seconds, both men had vanished, leaving Archie standing cold
and alone in the middle of the track.

He
wasn’t sure what to do. Should he go after them? The thought of Mrs
Humble’s still and lifeless body lying amongst the twigs and
branches gave him the quivers, and he immediately dismissed the
thought of going after them to see what was going to happen. He had
seen quite enough of late to last him for quite some time, and had
no interest in who was going to win any particular skirmish between
a murderer and a stranger.

With a
shudder, he began to run down the track toward home. As soon as he
turned down the lane that would take him toward home he quickened
his pace, seeing no reason to try to hide away from prying eyes. He
had a feeling that the man he had just spoken to was the same man
who had been watching the house, although it could have been the
man who had been hiding in the trees.

He could
see the soft glow of the sitting room window in the darkness of the
night. It was like a beacon of welcoming warmth to his chilled
flesh, and with his eyes firmly locked on the end of his ordeal, he
quickened his pace. Driven by the need to get out of sight, and
quickly, he didn’t bother to hide behind the stone wall at the rear
of the house and instead stepped over the obstacle and walked up to
the front door as though calling for an afternoon visit. Only this
time, he didn’t knock. He was surprised when the latch lifted and
the door swung silently open. A quick glance up and down the road
confirmed that nobody was around, and it was all Archie needed to
know before he slipped silently into the front room of
home.

He was
almost smothered by Edward’s hug as the door closed behind
him.

“
Where
have you been?” Edward gasped,
shaking him roughly by the shoulders.

“
You wouldn’t believe it.” Archie shook his head and gave his
friend a rueful look. “Is he still snoring?”

“
I didn’t know whether to wake him or not. Did you get caught?
What happened? Did you see the man?”

Archie
held up a hand to stave off Edward’s relentless questioning.
Bending over, he wearily toed off his muddy boots and shrugged out
of his jacket.

“
Do you still have the packet?”

At
Edward’s nod, Archie slumped down onto the blankets on the floor,
watching as Edward proudly produced the folded piece of cloth from
beneath his shirt.

“
Do you know what’s in it?”

Edward
hesitated. He had been dying to know what was inside, but didn’t
want to open it in case it was something gruesome, like a knife or
the cloth that was used to kill Mr Harriman. Shaking his head
slowly, he handed the object to Archie, who promptly placed it on
the floor between them like they had the night before.

Both
boys stared solemnly at the bundle for a moment. The door was
closed, and Edward had luckily had the foresight to light a single
candle, which sat on the floor beside them.

“
Unroll it then,” Archie said, trying to ignore the quiver in
his voice. He was still trembling from the mad rush across the
field followed by the meeting with the stranger in the track. He
was certain that Edward would be able to see his fingers fumbling
with the material if he tried to unravel the parcel.

“
You do it, Archie, this is your adventure,” Edward replied,
frowning at Archie’s pale face. He suddenly realised that Archie
hadn’t told him what had happened outside.

“
What happened to you in the woods? I wasn’t sure if you had
fallen over, or if the murderer had got you,” Edward murmured. The
minutes he had paced the floor waiting for Archie to appear had
been the longest in Edward’s life. It was only the thought of the
serious trouble they would be in if he told Archie’s dad, that had
kept Edward quiet for as long as he had been. He had been so close
to walking across the room and going into the sitting
room.

“
He almost did,” Archie replied with a sigh. He glanced
solemnly at Edward. “I fell over Mrs Humble.”

“
What?” Edward’s brows shot skyward.

“
I fell over Mrs Humble?”

“
Dead?”

Archie
rolled his eyes, and heaved a sigh of impatience. “Of course she
was dead. What do you think she was doing, lying on the forest
floor because she likes the sound the twigs make?”

“
What about the murderer?” Edward inched forward
expectantly.

“
He chased me, only I got confused in the trees with it being
so dark and all. I ended up coming out in Mr Smethurst’s field.” He
ignored Edward’s astonished gasp. “Anyway, I raced toward the hedge
and jumped it with the murderer giving chase, only to find another
cloaked figure further ahead.”

“
Who was it?” Edward gasped, his eyes round with a mixture of
horror and wonder.

“
I don’t know his name. I haven’t seen him around here before,
but he was the man who stopped me the other afternoon on my way
home. Do you remember?”

Edward
screwed up his face. “I can remember you asking if I saw him, but
there wasn’t anyone there,” he said hesitantly, clearly not wanting
to disappoint Archie.

“
He was definitely there, and appeared again tonight. Guess
what? He says he knows who the murderer is, and wants me to help
bring him to justice.” Archie finished in a flurry, and sat back
expectantly.

Edward
paused and considered that for a moment. “How?”

Archie
shrugged and frowned thoughtfully at the parcel. “I don’t know, I
didn’t wait to find out, but I do know the man who chased me
through the woods was watching us because the moon came out, we
could see him standing at the bottom of a tree, just like he did
outside here the other night.”

Edward
gasped. “Did you see his face?”

“
No, I didn’t, but the man saw him and ran after him
–”

“
Did you follow them?”

Archie
shook his head. “No. I don’t care if they kill each other, as long
as they don’t expect me to watch or see any more dead bodies. They
disappeared into the trees and I ran home.”

“
Good for you. I was worried,” Edward gushed, shaking his head
ruefully. “We should never have gone out there in the first
place.”

“
But then we wouldn’t have this, and I know that this is what
everyone wants.”

“
How?”

“
Because the man in the track asked me what we had found.”
Ignoring Edward’s startled look, Archie began to slowly roll it
over to unravel the cloth.

Both
boys gazed down in astonishment at what lay before them.

On an
old piece of gnarled and stained cloth lay an odd assortment of
items. A small scrap of parchment was the mate to the small piece
of parchment still tucked in his pocket. It lay next to a flat
piece of metal. It was the image on the coin that drew their
attention. There, in the middle, was a perfectly designed image of
the coin in Archie’s pocket. Beside that was a small bundle of
parchments that were rolled and tied with a black piece of cloth
similar to the one used to murder Mr Harriman.

Archie fingered the cloth absently and shuddered in distaste.
At first glance it
was
the cloth used to murder Mr Harriman, although Archie knew it
couldn’t be. That had been taken by Lord Brentwood as evidence of
the murder and had vanished. Lord Brentwood couldn’t have been near
this packet, or he would have taken the entire thing, and Archie
and Edward would never have found it.

“
What do you think it means?” Edward murmured, lifting the map
and studying the scrawl on it carefully.

Archie
dug deep into his breeches and pulled out the matching piece. The
boys laid them both side by side on the floor.

Sure
enough, a roughly drawn outline of the churchyard, including the
larger gravestones was etched in ink, along with the name of the
churchyard. Although Archie couldn’t read, he had seen the name on
the sign outside every Sunday and recognised the familiar
shapes.

Only on
this map, one of the graves was circled over and over again, as
though it was the point that was of significant
interest.

“
It’s a map pointing to something being hidden. Something that
involves this lot, that I am certain that Lord Brentwood, the
murderer and the man in the track are all looking for,” Archie
replied quietly.

“
Do they know we have it?” Edward gulped and glanced toward
the front door, jumping to his feet and sliding the bolt home with
a reassuring thump.