Let's Kill Uncle (12 page)

‘Well sir, the most eminent doctors in Europe gave Barnaby a clean slate. Naturally, being orphaned so early there was bound to be some slight emotional problem; for instance, Barnaby
does
tell lies. But I ask you, now, what healthy, normal boy doesn’t?’

Uncle stood up again, dwarfing Mr and Mrs Brooks.

‘That boy is as sound as a dollar,’ he said.

Sergeant Coulter, who believed that a prompt clip on the ear was worth a thousand child psychologists, also stood up.

‘I must be going, thank you for the tea. Glad to have met you, Major.’

‘Do come again, soon, Albert. We love to see Dickie’s friends.’

When Sergeant Coulter had gone, Uncle turned to Mr and Mrs Brooks. ‘Fine-looking, upstanding chap. Men like that are the backbone of the British Empire.’

Mr Brooks smiled proudly.

‘Sergeant Coulter was in a prisoner-of-war camp for three years.’

Uncle, about to light a cigar, started slightly and turned to Mrs Brooks.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Brooks. Does cigar smoke bother you?’

‘Oh dear me, no,’ cried Mrs Brooks. ‘I think they smell so much nicer than pipes. I’ve often wished Mr Brooks smoked them.’

Uncle lit his cigar and turned to Mr Brooks.

‘How very interesting,’ he said. ‘Do you happen to remember which camp he was in? You see, I was a POW myself.’

‘What an extraordinary coincidence,’ said Mr Brooks. ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t remember. You must ask Albert the next time you see him.’

‘It was Silesia,’ said Mrs Brooks. ‘I remember because I always get it mixed with Siberia.’

Uncle exhaled slowly.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we wouldn’t have run into each other. I was in Colditz. No, I don’t think I’ll discuss it with the good sergeant. It was a very distressing period of my life, which I must say I prefer to forget.’

Mr and Mrs Brooks quite understood.

‘And now, Mr Brooks, if you’ll just open the cottage for me, I’ll get settled in.’

T
HE LITTLE LOG CHURCH
, chinked with white mortar, stood on top of a grassy knoll, surrounded on three sides by trees, the fourth facing the ocean.

The interior was dim and smelled of lemon-oil polish, dust, incense and age. Mrs Rice-Hope had just decorated the altar with fresh, cream-coloured gladiolas, which looked incongruously vital and alive in the prism shadows cast by the stained-glass windows.

The children sat in a back pew, flanking poor innocent Desmond, who nodded dully in the almost stupefying quiet.

The children loved the little church; it was such a pleasant, peaceful spot in which to plan a murder.

A great weight had been lifted from Barnaby’s mind by Christie’s very sensible suggestion, but, as is usually the case, the little assassins had difficulty in deciding on the technical details of the murder.

They sat quietly discussing and discarding ideas, while poor Desmond, as harmless as a time bomb, dozed between them.

They sighed, for it was not easy. It was very simple to decide to commit a murder, but an entirely different and difficult task to execute one.

They racked their brains, going over every movie and TV plot they had ever seen.

Victims could be run over, but alas, they could neither drive, nor did they possess a car. Christie rather favoured drowning Uncle, but Barnaby assured her the Major was a powerful swimmer.

Knives were discussed at great length, but Uncle, a blackbelt judo man and ex-commando, would easily disarm them. Pitfalls and bear traps were out, it might take months before he accidentally trod on one, and they had only till the end of the summer.

‘Well,’ said Barnaby, ‘there’s one good thing, the time he’s really dangerous is when the moon is full, and it’s only in its first quarter now.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The moon’s got four quarters, in the first it’s just a little thin line, but it gets fatter and fatter all month and when it gets to the last quarter, it’s a full moon.’

Barnaby had become an expert on lunar phases.

‘You’re sure it’s okay now?’ asked Christie.

‘Pretty sure. He told me so himself, he says, ‘Watch out for the boogeyman the next full moon, Barnaby, maybe we’ll catch you then.’ I’ve watched him and he’s worse then, a lot worse.’

Having exhausted all other possibilities, they reluctantly concluded that shooting was the only foolproof method. Reluctantly, because they didn’t have a gun.

‘We’ll just have to get one, somehow,’ said Christie.

‘I know!’ said Barnaby, ‘Sergeant Coulter! Why didn’t we think of that before!’

Their beloved sergeant did have a gun but, as Christie pointed out, he always wore it strapped around his waist. They agreed sadly that the chances were negligible that they would be able to spirit it away from him without his knowledge.

And they had a very healthy respect for Sergeant Coulter.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Christie. ‘Lady Syddyns’s. There’s a big room across the hall from the living room. It’s got books all over one wall, and I’m sure I saw a bunch of guns hanging on the other wall.’

What could be simpler. They had an invitation to tea, they would pay the old lady a courtesy call and check the situation thoroughly.

A shadow fell across them, and both children started.

Sergeant Coulter stood in the doorway, looking down at them.

‘Hello,’ he said casually, glancing past them to the altar. When he saw the fresh flowers, he sighed. He had missed her.

‘Mr and Mrs Rice-Hope have gone, eh?’

‘Yes, half an hour ago. She put them there. They’re nice, aren’t they? He said we could sit here, any time we wanted, as long as we didn’t touch anything.’

Sergeant Coulter nodded and turned away.

‘She’s pretty, isn’t she?’ said Barnaby.

This time it was Sergeant Coulter who started.

‘Who?’ he snapped.

‘Mrs Rice-Hope.’

The Mountie’s bronzed face flushed darkly.

‘Mr Brooks wants you. Run along, both of you.’

Reluctant to part with him, they stood shuffling their feet and nudging each other.

‘You tell him,’ whispered Barnaby.

‘No, you.’

‘He won’t believe me, you know that.’

‘Well, what is it this time?’ Sergeant Coulter could look forbidding when he chose.

Barnaby stood silent, so, talking a deep breath, Christie began.

It was about Fletcher Proudfoot. They were sorry they killed him, they hadn’t meant to.

They had heard him singing ‘Rule Britannia’ in Miss Proudfoot’s garden. They never knew birds could talk, so they sneaked in to have a look at him.

He was so pretty, with those green and blue and yellow feathers, and he put his head on one side and called himself a dear little birdie.

All they wanted was to take him out and play with him for a minute. They had just got him out when they heard Miss Proudfoot, calling and asking who was there.

They were afraid of her, that’s why they ran away, but they didn’t have time to put Fletcher back in his cage.

They didn’t know what to do with him, so Barnaby shoved Fletcher down the front of his shirt.

When they finally stopped running and took Fletcher out, he seemed dizzy and staggered around in a circle. Then he fell over on his back with his little feet in the air and his mouth open.

They waited for him to get up and speak. He didn’t and they were afraid he was dead. They carried him back to Miss Proudfoot’s but Miss Proudfoot had taken the birdcage inside, and again they didn’t know what to do with Fletcher. Finally they put him on her front door step and again they ran away.

Sergeant Coulter stood staring over their heads.

‘You didn’t deliberately hurt him?’

‘No.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘I didn’t think you’d believe me,’ said Barnaby.

‘And you didn’t ask me,’ said Christie.

Sergeant Coulter put his hands on his hips and leaned down to them.

‘This is just another example of what happens when you don’t tell the truth and don’t do what you are told. You are not to go on other people’s property, and you are not to touch anything that doesn’t belong to you.’

They nodded.

‘Don’t you understand,’ he explained, ‘Fletcher died of fright. Tiny birds are delicate. Even the warmth of a person’s hand is enough to upset them, and being shoved down the front of your shirt-’

His finger tapped Barnaby’s chest, and he stopped himself only just in time from implying that Fletcher was important and Barnaby wasn’t.

‘ … Don’t you realise that being shoved down the front of your shirt was enough to kill him? He probably suffocated from heat and fright.’

The children looked sad.

Two pairs of loving eyes stared up at him.

‘All right,’ he reached in his pocket and took out a package of gum. ‘Here. Now beat it and see if you can stay out of trouble for the rest of the afternoon.’

He turned and walked slowly down the steep rock path. Old Shep, sleeping on the thyme- and wild-violet-strewn bank, awoke, ran to his side and thrust his cool nose into the policeman’s hand. Albert paused briefly, stroked the dog’s grizzled head and walked on.

The children watched the broad shoulders disappear around a bend of the road, then, scuffling their feet listlessly in the dust, they started for the store.

They both agreed it was a pity it was so easy to kill poor little Fletcher Proudfoot, whom they liked, and so difficult to do away with Uncle, whom they didn’t.

‘I wonder why Sergeant Coulter’s face got so red when you said Mrs Rice-Hope was pretty?’

‘Oh,’ Barnaby peeled the package and shoved his two and a half sticks of gum in his mouth, ‘I guess he thinks it’s sissified for a Mountie to like girls.’

‘What else could he like, silly. He couldn’t very well like boys. I wish he’d buy spearmint instead of peppermint gum. I hate peppermint.’

‘Give it to me then.’

Christie took the gum out of her mouth and handed it to him, watching with uncritical eyes as he managed to get the whole five sticks in his mouth.

She burst out laughing.

‘You look like a chipmunk!’

Linking arms companionably, they ambled back to the store.

Sergeant Coulter’s own speedboat, which would take him to R.C.M.P. headquarters, was tied up at the float.

He smiled as he climbed on board, relieved that the death of the bird had been accidental. Their other pranks could be dismissed, but Fletcher had seemed inexcusable. The children were still a nuisance of course, but the boy wasn’t quite the little monster he had appeared.

It was a shocking thing about the mother and with a family history like that, it was small wonder there was something odd about the child.

Sergeant Coulter had escorted prisoners to the hospital for the criminally insane, and even now the memory of it made him sweat.

Drunks, murderers, forgers or con men didn’t faze him, but the thought of
them
made his flesh creep.

One could almost believe in full moons, witches’ Sabbaths, black masses and silver bullets for the hearts of werewolves. The crimes some had committed were almost inconceivable, and yet they could not be brought to trial. Detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. It had a fine medieval ring to it.

Well, he was a policeman, not a psychiatrist, and as long as people didn’t break the law, they didn’t concern him.

Probably the uncle was right and Barnaby was as sound as a dollar. And for all the child was, orphaned, he was fortunate in having such a devoted uncle. Being custodian of that boy was not a job Sergeant Coulter coveted.

Uncle’s first night at the cottage was uneventful. He was weary from much travelling, and before the sun had set he was sleeping the sound sleep of those without conscience.

After dozing late, Uncle arose but did not breakfast. Punctilious, he puttered around the already spotless cottage, arranging things precisely.

Then he changed his clothes, donning a white silk kimono. He did some judo setting-up exercises, plus a few of his own specialties, such as flinging himself feet first against the wall, doing a back flip and landing neatly on all fours. He could now reach a height of six and a half feet. Seven was his goal.

At four o’clock in the afternoon he started preparations for dinner. In the corner of the kitchen was a large box of groceries he had brought from the city. He liked cooking
for himself; he liked living alone. It was hideous having to eat in restaurants while travelling.

He was a good cook and he planned his meal carefully. He lit the kitchen range, put the baron of beef in the oven, and while it was cooking made the Yorkshire pudding. He liked his pudding fluffy; a soggy pudding ruined his meal. As he stood dreamily staring out the window and stirring the white sauce for the cauliflower, he remembered with indulgent self-forgiveness that he had forgotten the grated cheese.

He made his own French dressing; the secret was not too much vinegar - restaurants never got it right. The lettuce was soaking in a bowl in the sink. He got a clean dish towel, dried each piece individually and tore it into bite-sized pieces by hand. One should never cut lettuce, for it bruised it and spoiled the flavour absolutely. He peeled and halved the potatoes, then left them soaking in cold water for a few minutes. They browned much nicer that way.