Let's Kill Uncle (26 page)

Barnaby thumbed through them, fascinated by the illustrations. Proud little girls swimming beneath big tam-o’- shanter hats and carrying muffs, their tiny ankles encased in fragile buttoned boots, and handsome boys wearing Eton
jackets or sailor suits, leading ponies and dogcarts. How good it must have been to have lived then, when everything was so comfortable and solid and so safe. Not one of those boys looked as if he had a wicked uncle, and if he had, Barnaby knew that the stalwart little Berties and Toms and Georges would have made short shrift of such villainy.

He began to read a story of a group of boys on holidays in Egypt. They were his age, and how brave! They went into the pyramids at night and found the treasure of an ancient king. Barnaby wondered if they would have been afraid if they had had to leave their warm beds, as he must, after Mr and Mrs Brooks were asleep, and go out alone into the dark and the storm, halfway across the Island to Desmond’s shack, to get the gun.

He had already decided where he would hide it. Under a pew in the church.

But how he hated to leave Mr and Mrs Brooks and the sanctuary of the little parlour. Only the thought of all those intrepid, splendid boys from
Chums
and
Chatterbox
helped him through the ordeal.

It was all very well trying to be brave with Christie, but it was terrifying. It could have been such fun if he had had Steems Major and Minor along, and Tubby Toffee and the peerless Baines who was in the sixth form and captain of the cricket team.

Arranging a murder wasn’t any fun on a dark night alone, with your only accomplice, a girl, probably sitting worrying if her hair would be curly tomorrow. He could almost see Christie, cosy in her flannel nighty, with Trixie and Tom, and the big black stove with the kettle bubbling as Auntie made hot cocoa for his partner in murder.

Trembling and miserable, he accomplished his mission so quietly that he did not even awaken Desmond.

The next morning poor Desmond began his third lesson. He was not an apt pupil, and the children were very discouraged. Fear, they discovered, put a slight edge to his wits, and it was reluctantly, but with a stern sense of duty, that Barnaby took the little grass snake from his pocket.

Desmond began to whimper and dived under the table, but the children dragged him out.

‘Gee, Desmond, I sure hate to do this,’ said Barnaby as he dangled the snake before Desmond’s glazed eyes.

Christie closed the door and turned with a sorrowing face.

‘Try and be brave, darling. It will only take a few minutes. Remember, it’s for your own good, so you won’t get hung. Now, you don’t want Sergeant Coulter to hang you, so please, dear, listen carefully.’

Desmond’s lesson began.

Five minutes later Christie sighed.

‘I see what my mother meant when she said children could try the patience of a saint.’

‘I think he’s got it straight now. Okay, Desmond, let’s hear it once more, that’s a good boy. I’ll put the snake away.’

Poor Desmond sighed with relief as the snake disappeared into Barnaby’s pocket.

‘I shot the uncle,’ he said. ‘I mistaked him for the cougar.’

‘Mistook, darling.’

‘All right, once more, Desmond.’

‘I shot the cougar, I mistook him for the uncle.’

‘No! No!’ Christie stamped her foot.

‘Don’t shout at him, that doesn’t help,’ said Barnaby, taking the snake out of his pocket again.

Desmond moaned and wrung his hands.

‘Only once more, Desmond.’

‘I shot the uncle, I mistook him for the cougar.’

‘Good boy, good boy. Now where did you get the gun, Desmond?’

‘I found it on the wharf.’

The snake went back to Barnaby’s pocket as the children hugged Desmond.

Barnaby went to the door, opened it, took the snake from his pocket again, patted its little head and gently set it free. It flipped its tail and slithered off the porch into the grass.

Christie shuddered with relief. She hated the snake treatment, as did Barnaby, but it was necessary for poor Desmond’s salvation and there was nothing they wouldn’t do for poor Desmond.

Christie’s conscience bothered her, and she tried to assuage it by stuffing Desmond with sweets and cookies. She kissed his empty brow as she offered him her day’s ration of licorice, plus an orange she had been saving for a week and some crumbly date squares. Barnaby gave him toffee, an apple and a wad of gum he had chewed for only half an hour.

Sated, poor Desmond put his head wearily on the table and fell asleep. The children looked at him tenderly.

‘Well, we’ve done our best,’ said Barnaby, as they tiptoed away so they would not disturb him.

T
HE ALMOST TROPICAL DOWNPOUR
of rain replenished the water supply of the Island. The wells were filling, the gardens began to revive and dozens of little rills and streamlets again flowed bubbling and happy to the ocean.

The heavy rains subsided and were replaced by a grey drizzle. Eerie mists crept through the Island, a fog hung over the water, and the inhabitants of the Island, their blood thinned by almost three months of unremitting heat, were chilled to the bone. Dove-coloured plumes of smoke floated like gauze streamers from every chimney and overnight the atmosphere became autumn.

The children, who had no rain clothes, were outfitted haphazardly by their guardians. Barnaby wore a ragged Mackinaw which had once belonged to Per Nielsen. Auntie turned the sleeves back to the elbows, but they still reached his knuckles, and the tail of the coat dragged at his heels.

Christie was garbed in a rusty-looking Burberry cape which Mrs Brooks had bought before the First World War. They were far too concerned about Uncle to care much
about their appearance, but when Sergeant Coulter saw them he burst out laughing.

They looked for all the world like two pathetic little characters from
Oliver Twist
, bent on a handkerchief-snitching mission.

Sergeant Coulter, making arrangements for the cougar hunt, was almost gay. Clad in oilskins, he looked bigger and handsomer than ever to the two children when they met him on the porch of the store.

He chucked Christie under the chin and winked at her, then, ruffling Barnaby’s damp yellow hair, he said cheerfully, ‘Well, Dodger, what did you steal today?’

‘Today? Nothing, honest, Sergeant,’ he stammered.

Christie paled.

‘You’re a desperate-looking pair,’ said Sergeant Coulter, laughing. ‘Been plotting any dreadful crimes? Watch your
p
s and
q
s or Constable Browning and I will be after you.’

He reached into his pocket and brought them out a package of gum each. Turning to go into the store, he paused, then walked back to them.

‘Say, listen, when the hunters and dogs start arriving, you two will have to stay indoors. Understand?’

They nodded, but when he again turned to leave them, Christie stepped forward and grabbed him by his sleeve.

‘Well?’ he said, puzzled.

She remained silent and looked to Barnaby.

‘Sergeant,’ said Barnaby hesitantly, ‘when is it going to be a full moon?’

The questions children ask.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sergeant Coulter, ‘soon, I think. Why?’

Christie still clung to his sleeve.

‘With the rain,’ she said in a quavering voice, ‘with the rain and the clouds now, you can’t see the moon at night.’

‘Well, don’t worry, it’s still there.’

They nodded non-committally, thanked him for the gum and shuffled off toward the war monument.

He stood for a second watching them. What a pitiful-looking little pair of mugs they were in those clothes. Some-how and suddenly he felt terribly sorry for them. They looked so tiny and helpless and lost.

‘Hey!’ he called. ‘I’ll check about the moon in my tide book. You ask me later, okay?’

They gave him a wan smile, waved, and like two old pensioners, sat wearily on the step of the monument.

Christie examined her gum and tossed it to Barnaby in disgust.

‘Peppermint,’ she said.

Barnaby, as always, crammed the ten sticks in his mouth, and with a titanic effort, managed to chew them.

They sat watching Mr Duncan, laden with a pack of feed, walking up from the dock. He glanced grumpily at them as he passed, and once his back was to them Barnaby shoved the gum into one cheek in a hideous manner, while Christie crossed her eyes like an idiot and let her tongue hang on her chin.

Barnaby sighed and took the gum from his mouth.

‘Listen,’ he said finally, ‘you’re sure you remember all I told you about how to shoot the gun?’

Christie nodded.

‘Don’t forget to hold it tight to your shoulder. If anything happens to me, don’t get scared and forget. Just keep calm and shoot him.’

‘Why are you so worried about me?’ asked Christie.

‘Oh, I’m not,’ he said, tossing the lump of gum up and down. ‘I just want to make sure if I get killed, he goes too.’

Christie nodded understandingly.

‘We haven’t much time,’ he continued. ‘I’m sure it’s either tonight or tomorrow night. I guess tonight would be the best time.’

Christie trembled. They were both terrified now that the actual commission of the crime was at hand, and if they had had any way of escaping from the Island to avoid the murder, they would have.

To make matters worse, during the last couple of days Uncle’s schedule had been most erratic. He was always buzzing off and on the Island, and he had also taken to rambling happily along the beaches and sprinting up and down the steep cliffs with the air of a large, friendly mountain goat.

‘We’ll hide in the bushes on the way to the cottage,’ said Barnaby. ‘With any luck he’s bound to pass by, and with all the hunters on the Island, nobody will notice the shot.’

How little they knew. Uncle had exactly the same plan in mind, except he was far too cunning to use a gun.

‘Do you think they’ll get One-ear?’ asked Christie.

Barnaby shook his head.

‘I don’t think so. He’s been hunted before and they never caught him. He’s too smart to sit around and wait to get killed. Once he hears those dogs, he’ll beat it.’

But One-ear had no intention of leaving. In common with Uncle and other wild animals, he also was affected by the moon, and he too planned a murder, a murder he had long wished to execute.

Barnaby stood up.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go over to Mr Duncan’s field and get some apples. Those hard yellow ones are ripe now.’

Christie shook her head. She was afraid of the Iron Duke who was tethered in that very field.

The rain drizzled quietly down on them.

‘Well, we can’t sit here all day. Let’s go and play with One-ear.’

‘All right,’ said Christie in a flat voice. All the verve and bounce of childhood seemed to have gone out of them.

Clad in their soggy, flowing vestments, they walked to the forest. The rain had stopped temporarily, but their legs were chilled by the water-laden grasses, and when they jarred against bushes, cool showers sprinkled down the backs of their necks.

It was a discouraged-looking pair that found One-ear.

Barnaby and Christie stopped and stared at him strangely. Something was the matter with One-ear. They looked at each other, then back to him.

What was it?

One-ear, for the first time since they had met him, was happy. He was extremely pleased with himself.

He purred when he saw them and rubbed his big head against Christie’s shoulder, knocking her down. He leaped into the air, swatting a drifting leaf, and chased his tail like a kitten. His creamy breast was stained with blood, and there were shreds of flesh between his claws.

A grouse, looking like a damp, cross dowager, skittered along the path, its tail outspread and its head held high.

One-ear purred louder than ever and sprang after it.

His eyes were no longer green; a hidden black demon expanded the pupils. His tail, usually so supple, was stiff, and his body was one line of deadly grace.

The children drew back. This was not the One-ear who crankily allowed them to maul him. This was a cruel One-ear whose sustained mirth frightened them.

One-ear leaped six feet in the air, and the startled grouse disintegrated into a puff of gory, blowing feathers. Rippling with feline humour and lazy ease, the cougar turned to the children.

They drew back even farther. They had seen murder, and the forest was full of apples and serpents. It was the end of innocence, for they knew now that One-ear would never, never like cinnamon buns.

With dragging feet and downcast eyes they arrived at the goat-lady’s for lunch. Because of the chilly rain, she had prepared a hot meal for them, with one of their favourite dishes, baked macaroni. She took it from the oven, bubbling with golden cheese, and set it before them, accompanied by the salad they liked best, chopped fried bacon, lettuce and onion, tossed with a tart dressing.

Instead of the usual ohs and ahs, they merely picked at the meal listlessly, and when she brought out the dessert, a creamy rice pudding, they shook their heads and pushed their plates away.

The change in the weather was affecting even them, reflected the goat-lady, and she did not urge them to eat more. After she had cleared the table, they sat staring at each other.