Death on Allhallowe’en (8 page)

He had a feeling from the first that he was expected, but not welcome. In the yard he met a young man, tall, rather handsome and friendly in manner, whom he took to be the son, George.

‘The old man's in the sitting-room,' George said. ‘Why not go straight in if you want to see him? Go by the back door—we never use the front. If I took you in he probably wouldn't see you. He's like that.'

Carolus soon realised what he meant. William Garries was not a friendly man. At first sight he looked, as someone had said, like the traditional farmer and into Carolus's mind came an old verse learned in childhood—

The farmer sat in his big armchair

Smoking his pipe of clay,

While his buxom wife with right good cheer

Was clearing the dishes away

There was no buxom wife, but Willian Garries wore gaiters and on his heavy lined cheeks were white side-whiskers. He had had quite a lot to drink.

‘Who are you?' he asked, in a surly voice.

Carolus told him his name.

‘What do you want?'

'I want your permission to go up to the Beacon. I understand it's on your land.'

Garries knocked out his pipe.

‘You don't need my permission,' he said angrily. ‘At least, it seems not. There's scores of people go up there—trampling down my crops. Come in cars and talk about archaeology. I'd like to get rid of the bloody thing.'

‘But then there would be nowhere to meet on Allhallowe'en, would there?'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Rumours, Mr Garries.'

‘What do you mean, rumours? Old wives' tales in the village? You're staying with Stainer, aren't you?'

‘Yes. He didn't say much about the Beacon, but it's common talk.'

‘Common talk! And you're supposed to be an intelligent man.'

‘An intelligent man can learn a lot from common talk. It's common talk that a little boy died through going up there last year. Think there's any truth in that?'

Garries looked across with evident hostility.

‘Shouldn't think so.'

‘Where were you that night, Mr Garries?'

‘Are you asking me where I was that night? As though you were a bloody policeman taking a statement? You bloody impudent monkey! Get out of here before I knock you down!'

‘And where was Matchlow?' Carolus continued coolly. ‘Were you two together?'

‘George!' shouted Garries. ‘Turn this bastard out before I do him an injury.'

‘What I mean is,' Carolus continued, ‘did you go up to the Beacon of your own free will, or had Matchlow the means of making you?'

Carolus was playing it by ear, but with every moment he felt on safer ground.

Garries sat down.

'No one makes me do anything,' he said. ‘Now get out or I'll take a bloody dog-whip to you.'

‘No one?' persisted Carolus. ‘Then hanging that crucifix upside down in the church was your own idea? It doesn't seem like it to me. More like the act of a madman, and whatever you are you're not mad.'

‘Better come on,' suggested George after a glance at his father.

‘Is Matchlow mad?' asked Carolus. ‘Madder than the rest of this village, I mean?'

‘I'll tell you who
is
mad,' said Garries furiously. ‘Mad as a March hare.
You
bloody are, whatever your name is. Talking about crucifix upside down and God knows what. You ought to be locked up. And don't talk to me about Matchlow!'

‘You mean he will be more intelligent when I meet him than you have been. That's quite possible. Because you haven't been very intelligent, Mr Garries. You've told me an awful lot you don't want me to know.'

‘Oh, I have? I've told you to get out of my house, if that's information. Now GET OUT!'

George seemed embarrassed as he ushered Carolus out.

‘I told you the old man was like that,' he said. ‘What did you want to bait him for? You'd have learned a lot more if you had been civil.'

‘Perhaps. But it would have been what he had prepared to tell me, not what came out spontaneously.' Carolus stopped and faced George Garries as they walked across the yard to his car. ‘I don't know much about your father, George, but I think he is mixed up in something uncommonly like murder.'

George apparently could not believe his ears—or wanted time in which to consider what he should do.

‘You
what
?' he shouted.

‘And the same goes for you,' said Carolus quietly.

George, not the most decisive of young men, looked hot and angry, but seemed unable to decide how he should reply. Go for Carolus? He was younger and stronger and quite unafraid.
Confide in him? Treat him with contempt? Leave him? Hi. decided on the last-named and without a word started to walk back to the house.

But he could not resist a last threat.

‘If you come round here again,' he said, ‘upsetting the old man with talk like that, I'll blow your bloody brains out.'

Carolus reflected that in this part of the world even the emptiest threats were of shooting.

On his way through Clibburn he drove to the only group of council houses, a chessboard of bright red brick, and asked where the Slomans lived. The door of a rather neglected semidetached house was opened by a little worried-looking woman who stared at him without speaking.

‘Mrs Sloman?'

‘Yes,' she said, as though doubtful about her own identity.

‘It was your son I wanted to see.'

‘Which one of them is it this time?'

Carolus smiled.

‘Drummer,' he said. ‘It's nothing very much.'

‘What's he been up to? There's always something.'

‘He can give me some information.'

Mrs Sloman seemed if anything more perturbed.

‘Information? What information? He doesn't know anything.'

‘Perhaps I could just have a word with him?'

It was notable that Mrs Sloman asked no question about Carolus's authority.

‘Come in,' she said. ‘He's out the back—feeding his ferrets.'

Carolus was shown into the front room and told to sit down. After a few moments Drummer, a frank-looking, smiling lad in his early twenties, came in.

‘Hullo,' he said. ‘You Mr Deene?'

‘Yes. And you're the famous Drummer?'

‘Don't know about famous, but that's what they call me. Have a cigarette?'

‘Thanks. I've already met your young brother. He told me that on the night when a shot was fired from the churchyard you were out ferreting in Kirby Woods.'

To his suprise Drummer grinned.

‘Is that what he said? Good for him.'

‘Were you?'

‘ 'Course I wasn't. I was in the White Horse most of the evening playing darts with Bert Gunning and them.'

‘Then why did Charlie say what he did?'

‘I expect he thought I'd get the blame for that shot. Anything to do with shooting it has to be me. All I can say is, if I wanted to take a pot at Horseman, I'd get nearer than Murrain's roof.'

‘So you weren't in the churchyard that night?'

‘May have passed through it. Can't remember. Why do you ask?'

Carolus smiled.

‘I'm doing what you're fond of—ferreting. Only for facts.'

‘You're not the law?'

‘No. Just an inquisitive friend of the Rector's.'

‘I see. Well, I don't know what I can tell you.'

‘I do, Drummer. Just why you took Charlie to the churchyard and let off a shot. Perhaps it was after a signal from Murrain, but I'm not sure about that.'

‘You know a lot.'

‘Not really. Young Charlie's very loyal to his brother. So loyal that he's apt to give the game away. He was positive it wasn't you. He did not see whoever fired, but he knew it couldn't have been you. How? Surely the only thing that could have made him so certain when we asked him about it was that it
was
you. If you see what I mean.'

‘Charlie's a bit simple,' reflected Drummer irrelevantly.

‘But it was you, Drummer?'

‘I'm not saying anything. All I say is that whoever fired that shot wasn't out to hurt anyone. It stands to reason, if you think about it. With Charlie around? You can cut that right out. I
don't see it matters, anyway. Horseman wasn't hit—not by a few yards.'

‘Perhaps it doesn't matter so much as things stand. But if there's any more shooting it will. It will be evidence.'

For the first time Drummer looked rather disturbed.

‘You mean, if anyone else was to be shot at, the one who fired that night would be suspected of both?'

‘That's what I mean. Even if it wasn't shooting, but some other way. A full investigation of events in this village would certainly include questions about that shot. So let's hope there are no more incidents.'

‘Like?'

‘Like murder,' said Carolus briefly.

‘You don't think there's going to be, do you?'

‘I've never known a more likely background for it.'

‘You could be right,' said Drummer. ‘The place is full of … well, you hear a lot of things. I've thought of joining the RAF myself to get away.'

Carolus said nothing.

‘There's too much gossip and hatred,' explained Drummer. ‘You don't know who you can trust.'

‘Or who can trust you. Say good-bye to your mother for me. If you decide to tell me any more, phone me at the rectory and I'll meet you where you like.'

‘I'll remember that.'

Carolus found John Stainer in his study with Judith Matchlow, that reputedly ‘down-to-earth' ‘thoroughly nice' woman who was not interested in her husband's odd hobbies. Carolus was quite willing to accept the descriptions he had heard of Mrs Matchlow, though he noticed that she talked freely of Xavier Matchlow during the short time she was with John and himself. She spoke of him affectionately, yet as though his oddities were a private joke she shared with John.

‘Xavier wants to meet you,' she said when she and Carolus were introduced.

‘You should consider yourself honoured,' said John. ‘Xavier Matchlow never seems to want to meet anyone.'

‘Don't you believe it!' said Judith. ‘Just lately he has become quite social. The Murrains were up at the house the other night—together. They make the oddest pair when they are dressed for visiting. And there's some kind of journalist named Poley Grant who has been around. I don't care for him. But Xavier particularly asked me to tell you, if I met you, that he would like to meet you and hoped you would drop in for a drink.'

‘I certainly will,' said Carolus.

‘I don't know what John has been telling you about him, but you'll find him really quite human. All this occult nonsense is really no more than a hobby. He met this man Crowley years ago and wrote for his paper
The Equinox,
and now collects
books on the occult as he might collect books on gardening. I think his interest is entirely what you and John would call academic.'

‘But it doesn't appeal to you?'

‘Oh, not in the least. I'm a Mrs Feather. Perhaps that's why we get on so well. But Xavier never ceases to surprise me. Know what he told me yesterday? He's coming to the dance in the village hall on Allhallowe'en! Can you imagine it? I've had to dig out his dinner jacket. He'll be coming to church next, John.'

‘I hope so. It would do a good deal to stop tongue-wagging.'

Carolus ventured a question, though he felt it somewhat presumptuous.

‘How does your husband get on with Major Horseman? They would seem to have much in common.'

‘Not well. Not at all well, in fact.'

‘That's a very sore point with us,' explained John. ‘We don't feel he has given poor Connor a chance. He resented his coming to Clibburn in the first place.'

‘Why?'

‘It's the Major's attitude to much that interests Xavier,' said Judith. ‘He calls Connor a charlatan and says the book he wrote about witches is “thoroughly ill-informed and superficial”. He thinks that Connor has what he calls a patronising manner to the occult.'

‘Do they meet often?'

‘They don't meet at all. They had a terrible row about a year ago and since then don't speak. I daren't mention Connor's name. What will happen at the dance, where Connor is the MC, I can't think. But after all they are both civilised men and will know how to carry it off, I suppose.'

‘Oh, yes,' said John, rather fatuously. ‘I'm sure they will.'

Judith Matchlow had been thinking over the prospect of Carolus visiting her husband.

‘Won't you come to dinner? I'm really quite a good cook and I don't often have an opportunity of showing off. Let's see,
the dance is on Saturday and today's Thursday. Why not tomorrow? And you, John?'

‘I should be delighted,' Carolus said.

But John cried off.

‘I'd love to, but I can't. What are called parochial duties. Besides, I think Xavier should have Carolus to himself. With two first names like theirs they are bound to get on.'

‘You could call yourself Johannes,' suggested Carolus.

John grinned. ‘No. Really not. Though it's sweet of you, Judith.'

‘Tomorrow at seven-thirty, then,' Judith said to Carolus as she rose to go.

And on the following evening, a dark and rainy one, Carolus drove punctually to the House.

It was called the House, not the Hall or the Park or the Manor, but it had been, for a century or so, regarded as the dwelling of the squire in that old-fashioned village and even now the older people thought of Xavier Matchlow as having some kind of precedence among them. There was no title in the family but there was considerable inherited wealth, and Xavier was the last of an eccentric family who had been able in the past to afford their eccentricities.