Chapter and Hearse (20 page)

‘And only him,' said the Sheriff.

‘I think I understand,' said the wounded man, passing his good hand over his brow. He was sweating now. ‘But why…'

‘Knowing that no one else can have got into it because only he has the key,' finished the Sheriff of Fearnshire. He stopped and picked up the noisome old bucket. ‘Now, wait you while I send Elspeth from the kitchen and her egg basket out here. The casket and the key'll be in there under some food and drink.' He paused at the door and added drily, ‘If you haven't got that business with the keys straight in your mind, Macrae, ask her to explain it to you. She'll tell you, right enough.'

Gold, Frankincense and Murder

‘Christmas!' said Henry Tyler. ‘Bah!'

‘And we're expecting you on Christmas Eve as usual,' went on his sister Wendy placidly.

‘But…' He was speaking on the telephone from London, ‘but, Wen—'

‘Now it's no use your pretending to be Ebenezer Scrooge in disguise, Henry.'

‘Humbug,' exclaimed Henry more firmly.

‘Nonsense,' declared his sister, quite unmoved. ‘You enjoy Christmas just as much as the children. You know you do.'

‘Ah, but this year I may just have to stay on in London over the holiday…' Henry Tyler spent his working days – and, in these troubled times, quite a lot of his working nights as well – at the Foreign Office in Whitehall.

What he was doing now to his sister would have been immediately recognized in ambassadorial circles as ‘testing the reaction'. In the lower echelons of his department, it was known more simply as ‘flying a kite'. Whatever you called it, Henry Tyler was an expert.

‘And it's no use your saying there's trouble in the Baltic either,' countered Wendy Witherington warmly.

‘Actually,' said Henry, ‘it's the Balkans which are giving us a bit of a headache just now.'

‘The children would never forgive you if you weren't there,' said Wendy, playing a trump card, although it wasn't really necessary. She knew that nothing short of an international crisis would keep Henry away from her home in the little market town of Berebury, in the heart of rural Calleshire, at Christmas time. The trouble was that these days international crises were not nearly so rare as they used to be.

‘Ah, the children,' said their doting uncle. ‘And what is it that they want Father Christmas to bring this year?'

‘Edward wants a model railway engine for his set.'

‘Does he indeed?'

‘A Hornby LMS red engine called “Princess Elizabeth”,' said Wendy Witherington readily. ‘It's a 4–6–2.'

Henry made a note, marvelling that his sister, who seemed totally unable to differentiate between the Baltic and the Balkans – and quite probably the Balearics as well – had the details of a child's model train absolutely at her fingertips.

‘And Jennifer?' he asked.

Wendy sighed. ‘The Good Ship Lollipop jigsaw. Oh, and when you come, Henry, you'd better be able to explain to her how it is that while she could see Shirley Temple at the pictures – we took her last week – Shirley Temple couldn't see her.'

Henry, who had devoted a great deal of time in the last ten days trying to explain to a minister in His Majesty's Government exactly what Monsieur Pierre Laval might have in mind for the future of France, said he would do his best.

‘Who else will be staying, Wen?'

‘Our old friends Peter and Dora Watkins – you remember them, don't you?'

‘He's something in the bank, isn't he?' said Henry.

‘Nearly a manager,' replied Wendy. ‘Then there'll be Tom's old Uncle George.'

‘I hope,' groaned Henry, ‘that your barometer's up to it. It had a hard time last year.' Tom's Uncle George had been a renowned maker of scientific instruments in his day. ‘He nearly tapped it to death.'

Wendy's mind was still on her house guests. ‘Oh, and there'll be two refugees.'

‘Two refugees?' Henry frowned even though he was alone in his room at the Foreign Office. They were beginning to be very careful there about some refugees.

‘Yes, the Rector has asked us each to invite two refugees from the camp on the Calleford road to stay for Christmas this year. You remember our Mr Wallis, don't you, Henry?'

‘Long sermons?' hazarded Henry.

‘Then you do remember him,' said Wendy without irony. ‘Well, he's arranged it all through some church organization. We've got to be very kind to them because they've lost everything.'

‘Give them useful presents, you mean,' said Henry, decoding this last without difficulty.

‘Warm socks and scarves and things,' agreed Wendy Witherington vaguely. ‘And then we've got some people coming to dinner here on Christmas Eve.'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘Our doctor and his wife. Friar's their name. She's a bit heavy in the hand but he's quite good company. And,' said Wendy, drawing breath, ‘our new next-door neighbours – they're called Steele – are coming too. He bought the pharmacy in the square last summer. We don't know them very well – I think he married one of his assistants – but it seemed the right thing to invite them at Christmas.'

‘Quite so,' said Henry. ‘That all?'

‘Oh, and little Miss Hooper.'

‘Sent her measurements, did she?'

‘You know what I mean,' said his sister, unperturbed. ‘She always comes then. Besides, I expect she'll know the refugees. She does a lot of church work.'

‘What sort of refugees are they?' asked Henry cautiously.

But that Wendy did not know.

*   *   *

Henry himself wasn't sure, even after he'd first met them, and his brother-in-law was no help.

‘Sorry, old man,' said that worthy as they foregathered in the drawing room, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the dinner guests on Christmas Eve. ‘All I know is that this pair arrived from somewhere in Mitteleuropa last month with only what they stood up in.'

‘Better out than in,' contributed Gordon Friar, the doctor, adding an old medical aphorism, ‘like laudable pus.'

‘I understand,' said Tom Witherington, ‘that they only just got out too. Skin of their teeth and all that.'

‘As the poet so wisely said,' murmured Henry, ‘“The only certain freedom's in departure.”'

‘If you ask me,' said old Uncle George, a veteran of the Boer War, ‘they did well to go while the going was good.'

‘It's the sort of thing you can leave too late,' pronounced Dr Friar weightily. Leaving things too late was every doctor's nightmare.

‘I don't envy 'em being where they are now,' said Tom. ‘That camp they're in is pretty bleak, especially in the winter.'

This was immediately confirmed by Mrs Godiesky the moment she entered the room. She regarded the Witheringtons' glowing fire with deep appreciation. ‘We 'ave been so cooald, so cooaald,' she said as she stared hungrily at the logs stacked by the open fireside. ‘So very cooald…'

Her husband's English was slightly better, although also heavily accented. ‘If we had not left when we did –' he opened his hands expressively – ‘then who knows what would have become of us?'

‘Who, indeed?' echoed Henry, who actually had a very much better idea than anyone else present of what might have become of the Godieskys had they not left their native heath when they did. Reports reaching the Foreign Office were very, very discouraging.

‘They closed my university department down overnight,' explained Professor Hans Godiesky. ‘Without any warning at all.'

‘It was very terrrrrible,' said Mrs Godiesky, holding her hands out to the fire as if she could never be warm again.

‘What sort of a department was it, sir?' enquired Henry casually of the professor.

‘Chemistry,' said the refugee, just as the two Watkins came in and the hanging mistletoe was put to good use. They were followed fairly quickly by Robert and Lorraine Steele from next door. The introductions in their case were more formal. Robert Steele was a good bit older than his wife, who was dressed in a very becoming mixture of red and dark green, though with a skirt that was rather shorter than either Wendy's or Dora's and even more noticeably so than that of Marjorie Friar, who was clearly no dresser.

‘We're so glad you could get away in time,' exclaimed Wendy, while Tom busied himself with furnishing everyone with sherry. ‘It must be difficult if there's late dispensing to be done.'

‘No trouble these days,' boomed Robert Steele. ‘I've got a young assistant now. He's a great help.'

Then Miss Hooper, whose skirt was longest of all, was shown in. She was out of breath and full of apology for being late. ‘Wendy, dear, I am so very sorry,' she fluttered. ‘I'm afraid, the waits will be here in no time at all…'

‘And they won't wait,' said Henry guilelessly, ‘will they?'

‘If you ask me,' opined Tom Witherington, ‘they won't get past the Royal Oak in a hurry.'

‘The children are coming down in their dressing gowns to listen to the carols,' said Wendy, rightly ignoring both remarks. ‘And I don't mind how tired they get tonight.'

‘Who's playing Father Christmas?' asked Robert Steele jovially. He was a plump fellow, whose gaze rested fondly on his young wife most of the time.

‘Not me,' said Tom Witherington.

‘I am,' declared Henry. ‘For my sins.'

‘Then when I am tackled on the matter,' said the children's father piously, ‘I can put my hand on my heart and swear total innocence.'

‘And how will you get out of giving an honest answer, Henry?' enquired Dora Watkins playfully.

‘I shall hope,' replied Henry, ‘to remain true to the traditions of the Foreign Service and give an answer that is at one and the same time absolutely correct and totally meaningless…'

At which moment the sound of the dinner gong being struck came from the hall and presently the whole party moved through to the dining room, Uncle George giving the barometer a surreptitious tap on the way.

*   *   *

Henry Tyler studied the members of the party under cover of a certain amount of merry chat. It was part and parcel of his training that he could at one and the same time discuss Christmas festivities in England with poor Mrs Godiesky while covertly observing the other guests. Lorraine Steele was clearly the apple of her husband's eye but he wasn't sure that the same could be said for Marjorie Friar, who emerged as a complainer and sounded – and looked – quite aggrieved with life.

Lorraine Steele, though, was anything but dowdy. Henry decided her choice of red and green – Christmas colours – was a sign of a new outfit for Yuletide.

He was also listening for useful clues about their homeland in the Professor's conversation, while becoming aware that Tom's old Uncle George really was getting quite senile now and learning that the latest of Mrs Friar's succession of housemaids had given in her notice.

‘And at Christmas too,' she complained. ‘So inconsiderate.'

Peter Watkins was displaying a modest pride in his Christmas present to his wife.

‘Well,' he said in the measured tones of his profession of banking, ‘personally, I'm sure that refrigerators are going to be the thing of the future.'

‘There's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned larder,' said Wendy stoutly, like the good wife she was. There was little chance of Tom Witherington being able to afford a luxury like a refrigerator for a very long time. ‘Besides, I don't think Cook would want to change her ways now. She's quite set in them, you know.'

‘But think of the food we'll save,' said Dora. ‘It'll never go bad now.'

‘“Use it up, wear it out.”' Something had stirred in old Uncle George's memory. ‘“Make it do, do without or we'll send it to Belgium.”'

‘And you'll be more likely to avoid food poisoning too,' said Robert Steele earnestly. ‘Won't they, Dr Friar?'

‘Yes, indeed,' the medical man agreed at once. ‘There's always too much of that about and it can be very dangerous.'

The pharmacist looked at both the Watkins and said gallantly, ‘I can't think of a better present.'

‘But you did, darling,' chipped in Lorraine Steele brightly, ‘didn't you?'

Henry was aware of an unspoken communication passing between the two Steeles; and then Lorraine Steele allowed her left hand casually to appear above the table. Her fourth finger was adorned with both a broad gold wedding ring and a ring on which was set a beautiful solitaire diamond.

‘Robert's present,' she said rather complacently, patting her blonde Marcel-waved hair and twisting the diamond ring round. ‘Isn't it lovely?'

‘I wanted her to wear it on her right hand,' put in Robert Steele, ‘because she's left-handed, but she won't hear of it.'

‘I should think not,' said Dora Watkins at once. ‘The gold wedding ring sets it off so nicely.'

‘That's what I say too,' said Mrs Steele prettily, lowering her beringed hand out of sight again.

‘Listen!' cried Wendy suddenly. ‘It's the waits. I can hear them now. Come along, everyone. It's mince pies and coffee all round in the hall afterwards.'

The Berebury carol singers parked their lanterns outside the front door and crowded round the Christmas tree in the Witheringtons' entrance hall, their sheets of music held at the ready.

‘Right,' called out their leader, a young man with a rather prominent Adam's apple. He began waving a little baton. ‘All together now…'

The familiar words of ‘Once in Royal David's City' soon rang out through the house, filling it with joyous sound. Henry caught a glimpse of a tear in Mrs Godiesky's eye and noted a look of great nostalgia in little Miss Hooper's earnest expression. There must have been ghosts of Christmases past in the scene for her too.