Let's Kill Uncle (7 page)

Christie, opening the door to his knock, took a quick look at the beloved Mountie and guiltily claimed sanctuary in her loft.

‘Come in, come in,’ said the goat-lady, her broad face amiable. ‘Have some coffee.’

‘I’m afraid this isn’t a social call.’ His eyes roamed around the bright kitchen as he seated himself at the table. The goat-lady’s little house was the only one on the Island in which he felt comfortable. As he explained his mission and sipped his coffee, he saw a bright grey eye peeping down at him.

This time, he said, they had gone too far. They had killed Miss Proudfoot’s pet, a little bird. It went beyond the realm of childish pranks.

The goat-lady beheaded her own chickens with heartless efficiency and privately thought there was something odd about elderly ladies who made pets of small inedible birds. However, she gave a sage nod, apparently in agreement, and she sighed philosophically as she remarked that children would be children.

The changeling face peering from the attic disappeared.

‘Christie,’ called the goat-lady, ‘the policeman wants to talk to you. You come down.’

‘No,’ said Christie MacNab.

‘Christie,’ called the goat-lady, ‘it’s about Miss Proudfoot’s budgie. What do you know about it?’

The head appeared at the top of the ladder again.

‘Barnaby did it,’ said his loyal little friend, without hesitation.

‘Christie,’ said Sergeant Coulter, ‘I want to talk to you. You come down.’

‘No,’ said Christie, disappearing once more.

‘Christie,’ said the goat-lady again, ‘you come down.’

‘No,’ replied a tremulous voice muffled by bedclothes, ‘you come up.’

The goat-lady sat rocking and knitting.

‘Looks like she’s not coming down,’ she said. ‘Unless you want to go up and get her. More coffee?’

The dignified Mountie had no intention of dragging a screaming child bodily down the ladder.

He was getting in touch with Mr Rice-Hope again, he said, and another meeting was to be held in the store the following afternoon to discuss the children. Would she come?

Yes, of course she would.

Well, thank God there was one sensible, level-headed person on the Island.

‘Now I’ll have another coffee,’ he said. ‘This is the only place on the Island you can get a decent cup.’

When he rose to leave, he called up to the loft.

‘Listen, young lady, you and your friend’s shenanigan days are just about over. Do you hear me?’

There was no answer.

‘Well, thanks for the coffee.’ He carefully stepped over the tomcat on the porch and paused to pat old Shep’s head.

The goat-lady stood in the doorway, her arms folded across her pillow-sized bosom, and an expression of tolerant amusement on her face.

Without turning, she called, ‘You can come down now.’

‘Has he gone?’ came the piping voice from the attic.

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Sergeant Coulter.

The old dog thrust his cool black nose into Albert’s palm and tossed his head, begging for a caress. As Albert leaned down to him, there was a flurry in the doorway and a needle-toothed little bundle of rage flashed past the goat-lady.

The old dog took one look at Trixie and fled with his tail between his legs. Albert glared at the little dog and pushed it back into the house with the toe of his boot.

The tomcat, one foot poised heavenward like a ballet dancer as he groomed his bottom, paused with detached elegance, then calmly proceeded with his washing.

‘Well,’ Sergeant Coulter straightened up, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at the store.’

The goat-lady nodded. He hadn’t gone three feet when she called him.

‘Sergeant,’ she said, then paused and looked at him shrewdly, ‘Sergeant, that boy - ’ She stopped again, choosing her words carefully, ‘That boy, he’s not a bad boy.’

No, thought Sergeant Coulter, just a nice, clean-cut little sadist. He nodded and left her standing in the doorway.

When he reached the lane, he found Shep waiting, his half-blind, milky eyes pleading for a kind word.

Albert laughed and pulled the dog’s ear affectionately.

‘All right, old man, you can walk home with me.’

The dog’s hindquarters were shaky from age and rheumatism, but he bounded gamely and happily by Albert’s side.

As they passed Mr Duncan’s fields, Albert paused, as he always did, to admire the mighty and again spotless Iron Duke. The tethered bull stared back with gloomy hatred, but the two great Clydesdales ambled up to the fence companionably.

Albert drew back. Despite his shining spurs and beneath the impeccable military exterior, he had a shameful secret. Not only did he not like horses, he detested horses.

He still remembered his R.C.M.P. training days in Regina, and his instructor, a powerful, bow-legged Prairie Ukrainian.

‘You,’ the instructor said without malice, and the bananalike finger tapped Albert’s chest. ‘You. We can get dozens of you. You don’t count. But this horse,’ and his eyes lit up. ‘This horse, he’s important.’

As was required of him, Albert eventually became a competent horseman, but his heart was never in it.

Now, he backed away from the two gambolling Clydesdales and continued his walk, with the old dog loyally keeping pace.

They had nearly reached the path that provided a shortcut across the Island, when Shep suddenly let out a howl of anguish.

Albert looked down at him in surprise.

‘What’s the matter, old-timer?’

The dog laid back his ears and, baring his blunt teeth, he stiffened and trembled from head to foot. Then, with an even more ear-splitting yelp, he raced back the road toward the goat-lady’s house.

Albert watched the crippled old croup, with the twisted hocks, charging down the road. Shep’s coat stood on end and his coward’s tail was firmly tucked between his legs.

Albert shook his head in pity; the dog was senile and afraid of his own shadow. He was probably in pain and he should be destroyed, although Albert hoped he would not be called upon to perform the office.

He followed the path without turning around again.

Had he looked back, he would have seen, by the dusty side of the road, a large feline footprint. A print like a plaster cast, with the third pad of the right front paw conspicuously absent.

M
ISS PROUDFOOT
presided at the meeting. With a regal nod to Lady Syddyns, she barely acknowledged the obeisance of Mr Rice-Hope and completely ignored the goat-lady and the Brookses.

She sat like an Australian bushranger, with her felt hat cocked aggressively on one side. Even in the heat of summer her sharp-cornered frame was decently attired in a heavy tweed suit, and her feet were encased in stout laced gillies.

Her father, long deceased, had retired to the Island with the rank of admiral, and her four brothers had been killed in the First World War.

She eyed Albert with disapproval. All the rest had been called upon to make the supreme sacrifice. Albert had been called upon to allow himself to be taken prisoner. He had clearly shirked his military duty by returning alive from battle, and but for him they would have had a perfect score.

As Mr Churchill had said, it was blood, sweat and tears, in the fields and on the beaches, and Albert had ruined the Island’s unblemished record. It was inexcusable, a subtle, servant-class form of treason, but there he was, bold as
brass, an example of the chaos the lower orders introduced when given too much authority.

Albert, on his part, squared his hat, his shoulders and jaw. He was determined that the tenets of British justice would be scrupulously observed, despite the whole bloody lot of them.

Mr Rice-Hope, with a glance at Miss Proudfoot, opened the sessions.

‘We are gathered here today - ’ he paused and began searching nervously through his pockets.

While he fumbled for the slip of paper he had written that morning, telling him why they would be gathered together, Albert closed his eyes.

Lady Syddyns, seeing the minister’s familiar gesture and imagining herself to be attending either a wedding or a funeral, popped a peppermint in her mouth. With a smile she switched off her hearing aid, folded her hands on her silver-headed cane and dozed.

‘Yes, here it is.’ Mr Rice-Hope unfolded the paper. ‘The children. Ah, yes. They have been, I gather, rather mischievous again and there have been some claims to - uh- ’

He paused and looked at Sergeant Coulter.

‘Damage,’ said Sergeant Coulter.

‘Yes, damage. And, let me see now, Sergeant Coulter has suggested that we all get together and discuss the - uh- ’

Again he looked at Albert.

‘The most sensible way of dealing with the situation,’ said Albert.

Miss Proudfoot sniffed combatively.

Actually, said Albert, most of the damage had been settled. On behalf of Mr Brooks and Mrs Nielsen, he had purchased glass for Lady Syddyns’s greenhouse, and Mr Rice-Hope had very kindly installed it, so that was all cleared up. The affair of the Iron Duke was closed. Mr Duncan had declined to
attend the meeting and was prepared to forget the incident,
if
Mr and Mrs Brooks would assure him that that boy would stay off his property.

That left only Miss Proudfoot and the question of her bird unsolved.

‘Only!’ Miss Proudfoot was on her feet. Fletcher might be dead, murdered, yes, murdered, but she was still very much prepared to enter the field on behalf of his memory.

With the death-stand courage of saints, Mr Brooks now leaped to his feet. It had been an accident. A regrettable accident, but an accident nevertheless, and she was not imprinting the brand of murderer on that innocent child. He and Mrs Brooks were quite prepared to buy Miss Proudfoot another budgie.

Sergeant Coulter stood up.

‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘Mr Rice-Hope and I talked the matter over this morning. More than money is involved, Mr Brooks. This sort of vandalism can’t continue.’

Mr Rice-Hope bravely took the floor.

He and Sergeant Coulter, after discussing the situation, thought a sensible solution would be for the children to work off the amount of money. Thus penalised, they would think twice before committing any more misdemeanors.

Sergeant Coulter leaned over and gently shook Lady Syddyns.

She switched on her hearing aid.

‘Do you agree that the children should work off the amount of their indebtedness? Some light jobs, several afternoons a week, to keep them out of mischief?’

Lady Syddyns nodded.

‘Keep them busy, keep them busy. Lovely children. Keep them busy.’

She switched off her hearing aid.

Sergeant Coulter touched her shoulder and pointed to his ear.

Click went the switch and Lady Syddyns was again in contact with the courts.

Did she have any suggestions?

Lady Syddyns turned her bemused old face to the ceiling and pondered.

Yes, she did. The graveyard. Sadly in need of weeding. She used to try to attend to Sir Adrian, but the walk from her house was long, and her roses took up more and more of her time. It was a bad year for aphides, consequently Sir Adrian was overrun with weeds.

Mr Rice-Hope looked pleased.

‘An excellent suggestion, if I may say so, Lady Syddyns.’

He himself had long been distressed with the condition of the neglected little Island graveyard.

But now the Brookses objected.

It was child labour, cried Mrs Brooks. Surely the day was past when children were punished by a cruel society? It was child labour, child labour, nothing less. Up rose visions of tiny hands mangled in cotton gins and stunted bodies pulling carloads of coal from the bowels of the earth.

Little Barnaby had played a childish prank and they were willing to foot the bill.

An anxious look passed between Mr and Mrs Brooks. How could the others be expected to understand? How could they know how difficult it was to have descended from all those lofty astral planes? Small wonder the child was unpredictable at times.

And with the adamant stubbornness of the meek, they refused to budge an inch. They would pay, but that child was not going to toil in the fields.

Sergeant Coulter’s patience was wearing thin. He took a deep breath, but before he could speak, the goat-lady, who had retained her usual unshakable calm, stood up.

‘I must be going. I have the bread to deliver.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Sergeant Coulter. ‘That’s ano ther job our little friends could take over. How about it, Mrs Nielsen?’

The goat-lady looked amused.

‘It’s fine with me. I’ll speak to them on my way home. They’re down by the war monument now.’

Sergeant Coulter had a satisfied expression as he watched that sensible body march from the room.

The Brookses were not so easily vanquished, nor were they giving in. They would write to poor little Barnaby’s uncle.

Looking thoroughly uncompromising, Albert stood up.

Their attitude would not do, nor was the answer merely to purchase Miss Proudfoot another bird. She had rights that had been violated and the children were going to learn to respect those rights. Mr Rice-Hope had already written to Major Murchison-Gaunt regarding Barnaby. Furthermore, if they did not cooperate, he, Sergeant Coulter, would get in touch with the juvenile authorities, have the boy removed from the Island and placed in the custody of some responsible foster home until his uncle arrived to claim him.