Bones in the Barrow (20 page)

“Possibly it could, last time. Not this.”

“That remains to be seen, and proved.”

“Certainly it does.”

They sipped their drinks in an amiable silence, each confident of the validity of his own reasoning. Presently Johnson said, “Though I think Hilton is my man I'm pretty sure he hasn't acted yet. From what Mr. Symonds told me.”

He described how bad the weather had been in Duckington on Thursday and Friday and how Hilton had spent the whole time indoors at the White Hart.

“Mr. Symonds can't know that,” said Jill.

“On the contrary, the parson had it from the proprietress there when he was at the hotel waiting for Hilton this morning. I saw Mr. Symonds before I came on here, and he was only just back from a day at Flitton Marsh, where they've found some old building or other. Hilton drove him to this place, together with two more of the party that went over, and he brought the same men back. He'd been with them since ten this morning, and when they walked over to the White Hart to join him before starting he'd only just left the breakfast table. That was when Symonds spoke to Mrs. Norbury.”

“Couldn't he have gone out during the night?”

“Very unlikely, unless he climbed out and back through his bedroom window. It's only a small place, the White Hart. Mrs. Norbury locks up at eleven-thirty unless one of the guests wants to come in late. But that isn't often. Her clientele is chiefly tired Londoners down for long nights, and days in the open.”

“How delightful that sounds,” said Jill. “I think we ought to stay at the White Hart sometime, David.”

But her husband was not listening to her.

“All right,” he said to Johnson. “Then we're all agreed that my theory will be tested tonight or not at all. How are we going to work it?”

“I shall walk up,” said Johnson, “and I advise you to do the same. We don't want any cars in the road near the track to the downs. I'm staying with a retired sergeant from the county police who lives about three miles from here. I don't need to say anything to the local chaps at this stage. Mr. Symonds is going to meet me in the road where the track leaves it.”

“We've got a map,” said David. “We thought of walking up, naturally. Did you get the detail of the barrows from Symonds?”

“Yes. We can check it now, if you like.”

The vicar's large-scale chart of the barrows on the down was not very easy to correlate with an ordnance survey map, one inch to the mile, which was all the Wintringhams had been able to get hold of. But they copied the chart on a separate piece of paper, and as the important barrow lay at one end of the group they felt sure they would not miss it. The only cover thereabouts was provided by the other barrows. They would have to wait in their shadow, Johnson said, and trust to luck. The whole thing was a matter of luck. There might be nothing in it at all.

“It is very unscientific to say so,” said Jill. “But I
know
there is something in it. The reasoning may be scatty, but we hope we are following a murderer's mind, and that always
is
scatty.”

“See you at the barrow, then,” said Johnson, as calmly as if the appointment were at Scotland Yard. “Wear something dark, Mrs. Wintringham, won't you? And keep down when you've done your bit.”

“Are you afraid he'll be armed?” asked Jill solemnly.

“They often are,” said Johnson, as he turned to walk away.

David and Jill went up to their room a few minutes later. So they missed a new visitor who passed through the lounge hall on his way to the men's cloakroom. But a few minutes later Joe, in the public bar, did not miss him. The man was wearing crumpled jeans pushed into thick grey socks, and a dirty fawn-coloured windcheater. The thick oilskins were absent, and the leather balaclava. But Joe recognized him as soon as he caught sight of a pair of goggles set on a forehead above cold grey-blue eyes. He served the motor-cyclist with a pint of bitter, and watched him pour it down his throat with a steady hand. He said nothing, however. If he had not been tied to the bar he would have gone out to look at the stranger's machine, and any luggage fastened to it, but as it was, he could not even get to the telephone until after nine. By which time the vicar had gone out. Mrs. Symonds knew he was with Colonel Wetherall, but she did not know where they had gone.

It was dusk when David and Jill came out on flat ground at the top of the path leading up the down. Below them a light mist hung over Duckington; in front the hills rose and fell in smooth waves towards the coast, while far to the west, in the gap of a valley, a small straight line of indigo showed them where lay the sea.

“I'd like to walk straight to it,” said Jill, “until we could stand on the cliffs and look down at it.”

“It wouldn't be straight,” said David. “Not walking.”

“Then I'd like to fly.”

“Yes. The hills make you feel like taking off, don't they? We can walk towards it for a bit. According to my map the barrows are southwest of our present position.”

They found them fairly easily, though in the fading light any large swelling in the turf looked as if it could have been made by man. They found the whole site corresponded exactly to their map, but it was not so easy to decide which of the two end barrows was the one they wanted. While they were discussing the problem they heard voices on the down behind them. David immediately pulled Jill down with him behind the nearest mound, where they waited in silence.

The newcomers, Mr. Symonds, Colonel Wetherall, and Chief-Inspector Johnson, approached in a leisurely fashion, with no attempt at concealment. They stood for a few minutes, talking in low voices.

“Mind you, it's most likely a wild-goose chase,” Johnson was saying. “We know the chap I suspect has been staying here for three days, and if he wanted to get rid of anything as incriminating as a head he'd have done it by now.”

“Incriminating and unspeakably gruesome,” said the vicar, with a shake in his voice. “Could anyone be so callous as to harbour such a thing in his room for three days before getting rid of it?”

“Callous, my foot!” said the colonel. “Man in fear of his life doesn't indulge in the finer feelings. Too bloody scared.”

“We'd better get off the skyline,” said Johnson. “It would be a pity to put him off if he really is coming “

“I doubt if anyone could see us now,” the vicar said nervously. “I'm afraid the Wintringhams will miss their way in the dark, if they have not already done so in the mist below the hill.”

“That's their pigeon,” said Colonel Wetherall, briskly stepping round the end of the barrow where David and Jill were crouching. “I'm going to take cover here, and there should be room for—death and damnation!”

David had rolled out of the way before the colonel trod on him, but his heel had caught the latter's ankle a smart blow, and now Colonel Wetherall was hopping to and fro, grating out curses in breathless jerks, while the vicar implored him to say what had happened, and Johnson stooped over the Wintringhams, who were trying to control their laughter.

“At any rate,” David told him, “we can't be seen from the path.” He struggled to his feet. “I'm terribly sorry, sir,” he said, peering through the dusk in the direction of Colonel Wetherall, who was now trying to recover his breath. “The barrows make very good cover, don't they?”

The colonel replied stiffly that they did, and after a more subdued conversation—the whole party seemed now to feel that whispers were preferable to full speech—they settled themselves behind two of the barrows and relapsed into silence.

“How long are we going to keep it up?” David whispered to Johnson, forty minutes later.

“Make a night of it, as we're here,” replied the inspector.

“It doesn't seem such a good idea as it did,” David answered. “But I'm sure you're right. Only, I never did get much kick out of negative experiments.”

“Better not talk,” said Johnson. “Voices carry at night.”

“So do other noises,” said Jill. “Can you hear that motor-bike? I think it's coming up the path.”

Johnson crawled to the end of the barrow and put his head round it. When he crawled back he whispered: “There's something down the path. I think it's the bike; I can't hear the engine now. No lights. I'm going over to warn the others. If I haven't time to get back—I mean if someone comes this way—I'll stop there with them. Don't make a sound till you hear him going away, and only if he's been messing about with the end barrow. And you get down and stay down, Mrs. Wintringham, if there's any trouble.”

“I'll see she does,” said David.

They heard Johnson moving until he passed the end of the mound against which they lay. Then they heard nothing more.

Suddenly Jill clutched at David's arm. There were sounds on the path, a faint clatter, a slight scuffling, and little panting noises, very light and breathy. Jill's hand clenched more tightly. Something was approaching the barrows out of the darkness, but what? Surely not a child, or children? Something strange, something not of this world?

“Sheep,” breathed David in her ear. She choked on a laugh, and instantly his hand came to cover her mouth. “Someone started them up. Listen.”

The unseen sheep rustled past, pushing into one another, their little hard feet clicking on the occasional chalk stones in the grass. Another sound came to her ears: the regular faint thud of feet moving rapidly. Abruptly, the sound ceased. Someone had reached the barrows. As all the watchers pressed close to their protecting mounds, a thin wavering shaft of light played past them. Whoever had come was using a torch to light his activities.

These were not long in doubt. The stranger began to dig, and under cover of the noise he made David whispered to Jill triumphantly: “The millionth chance. It's come off!”

“When do I—”

“Not yet. I'll tell you when.”

The digging went on for about fifteen minutes, then there was a pause, during which they heard a petrol lighter click on, and presently a faint smell of tobacco floated to them across the barrow. Soon after there was some scuffling, some deep breathing, and then the sounds of digging began again.

“Now,” breathed David. Jill rose to her knees, her face level with the top of the mound.

The torch had been put out when the stranger took his rest, and had not been relit. The whole scene lay in darkness; there was not even the light of stars, for the sky was overcast. Though her eyes were by now well accustomed to the gloom, Jill could scarcely make out the shape of the barrow where the noise went on, still less the outline of the moving form on the other side of it.

Into the dark a thin sound cut, clear and high, like the crying of a far-off bird.

“Pe-ter!”

There was a crash as a tool dropped to the ground.

“Pe-ter!” the cry came again, louder this time; and again, with a sob between the words, “Oh—
Peter
!”

A despairing shout, so hoarse with terror that it startled even David, burst from the gloom beyond the mounds. In the next instant the stranger was running, stumbling, panting, swearing, as he fled from his guilt.

The silence gave place to pandemonium.

David, Johnson, and Colonel Wetherall sprang in pursuit; Jill and the vicar, following their instructions, trained torch beams on the flying figures. But the fugitive was nimble, and he appeared to know his way better than the others. Moreover, the whole pack of hunters and hunted was soon out of range of the light, with nothing much to guide them. They were making too much noise themselves, particularly the colonel, to be able to hear the footsteps of the quarry.

Jill and Mr. Symonds moved slowly after them, not very sure how to help, and both hoping to miss the capture. But shortly afterwards a blood-curdling yell made Jill seize the vicar's arm, while he stopped and even drew back a little towards the barrows.

“They've got him,” said Jill, in a shrinking voice.

“I'm afraid not,” said the vicar, whose ears were keen. “I'm afraid the detective has only got Colonel Wetherall. Poor John, his second mishap tonight! He will be so upset.”

As the colonel, only slightly winded, was by now rising to his feet, and displaying his remarkable virtuosity of speech, Jill was ready to agree with Mr. Symonds. They were all too preoccupied to hear the splutter and roar of the motor-bike starting up—all except David, who had been ahead of the others.

Chief-Inspector Johnson, much mortified, bent to the storm. The arrival of Jill and Mr. Symonds started its decline, and presently David, coming panting back up the path, brought it to an end.

“Got away, I'm afraid,” he said. “Listen. That's his bike in the village now. But I've won something. I found it on the path.”

He flourished an old green deer-stalker hat.

“I've been waiting for this to turn up,” said Johnson, taking it in his hand.

“Part of the burglary at Boxwood.”

“Part of the fake job there. This proves it.”

“Why? I should have thought not. In the sense you mean.”

They moved back to the barrows, Johnson walking ahead, alone, the colonel, limping slightly, in the rear. Johnson's torch was directed to the ground. He stopped short at the first barrow.

“Don't come any closer, Mrs. Wintringham,” he ordered sternly.

“Then it is— You have found—”

David went on to join the inspector. The others waited. They could see, in the light of Johnson's torch, a bundle lying on the ground, and they had no wish to look at what it contained. It was enough to watch the change on the faces of the two men.

“A single blow, but a savage one,” said David. “The bone is split for three inches and splintered besides. You should be able to identify without too much trouble.”

“Is it—” Jill said, and hesitated. “Is it—what you expected?”