Death on Allhallowe’en (20 page)

Things had been difficult enough for Carolus before work started on the well called the Bottomless Pit; afterwards they became intolerable. Carolus, who was friendly and gregarious by nature, regretted this but understood the reason. Most of the villagers, who were not moved one way or the other by the death of Connor Horseman, resented this high-handed interference with local tradition. They might privately realise that no pit is bottomless, but they did not want the fact exposed to an unsentimental world. They felt as the inhabitants of Hindhead might feel if the exact depth of the Devil's Punchbowl was published in a Sunday newspaper. Or would have felt fifty years ago when there were inhabitants, in the true sense, of a Surrey village.

At the end of the first day's work a deputation, led by Ebby Smith, demanded to see John Stainer. They asked him to prevent further sacrilege at the well, and to do all he could to rid them of the presence of Carolus Deene.

This was not quite a ridiculous occasion, or one to be ignored, at least by John. He attempted to argue with Ebby and was met by floods of quasi-biblical rhetoric, and when he flatly refused both requests the men became offensive and threatening. They had never liked John, whom they regarded as an interloper guilty of papistical practices. They blamed him for bringing Carolus to Clibburn, and for allowing the work at the well, for which they held Carolus responsible. They left the
rectory after voicing threats of what would happen to Carolus if he remained in the village.

Carolus, who was out at the time, immediately offered to leave.

‘After all,' he said, ‘there is no earthly reason why I should stay here and be an embarrassment to you. I have already put my case, which is well advanced, to the police, and I can quite well see it out from Chilbury, or anywhere else within easy distance.'

‘There
is
a reason,' said John hotly. ‘I have put up with quite enough from Ebby and his friends, and if you leave now it would look like a complete surrender on my part. If there is any danger…'

‘There is, I suppose. Though not from that lot. But I take your point. You cannot be told who you are to have in your own house and you cannot be expected to interfere with the police.'

‘There is some real necessity for emptying the well, I suppose? You've told me so little of where your enquiries are leading.'

There was a touch of resentment in this.

‘I'm sorry, John. I couldn't confide in you. But I promise you that when the work at the well is finished, whether or not it leads to what I hope, I will tell you everything from the beginning. You won't like some of it, but you shall hear it all.'

‘I must be satisfied with that. But I think you ought to stay in tonight. I don't want to be melodramatic, but I really don't think you should make yourself a target.'

‘For gunfire? There
has
been rather a lot of shooting in this case, hasn't there? But I'm going down to the White Horse—as a gesture if you like. I'm a firm believer in taking any old bull by the horns.'

When he entered the bar of the White Horse it was fairly crowded. Probably those who had accompanied Ebby Smith were there, Carolus thought, and perhaps some others. He noticed Billy Trotter and George Garries together, as they
often were, and also saw Gerald Murrain sitting at the bar alone.

He ordered a whisky and soda and Harry Mason served it mechanically as though dumbfounded at his entry. But in a few minutes the bar was empty. Every man had walked out.

Mason was furious, and perhaps not only because of the loss of custom.

‘I'll thank you to finish that up and leave,' he said to Carolus.

‘That's all right. I don't want to deprive you of trade. I'll go over to Chilbury for a drink.'

He left the bar, expecting to see some of its recent customers waiting outside. There was no one, but as he drove away a stone hit the boot of the car with some force.

‘Damn,' he said, thinking of the paintwork. ‘What a childish thing to do.'

Returning an hour later, he found the village deserted, but it occurred to him that if there was any serious danger now was the time for it. The garage at the rectory was on the far side of the house and to reach the front door, of which he had the key, he had to walk along a gravel path in front of its windows. Old wartime instincts told him that he could be under fire from the garden wall and that there was a footpath on the other side of it.

He put the car away, locked the garage, and started to walk towards the door. Then he noticed that ahead of him a window on the ground floor, the Larks' sitting-room, was brightly lit. He thought of Horseman's account of noticing a light in a window of Chimneys just before the first shot.

It was a windy night and branches swayed around him. He had a distinct premonition of danger, attributing it to ‘nerves' brought on by the events of the evening, and as he reached the lighted area he dropped.

Absurd way to behave, he thought, but almost instantly there was a shattering explosion and an echo of broken glass. A rifle shot, he noticed. It had come from the wall only fifty yards away.

Carolus lay still. He was covered by the remains of an herbaceous border, but it would not rise high enough to protect him if he stood up. Then he saw Mrs Lark foolishly peering out of the window.

‘Get away from there,' he called. ‘And put that light out.'

In a moment there was darkness on his left and he went on his way.

John was waiting for him in the hall. He didn't ask what had happened. It was evident.

‘Shall I ring the police?' he suggested.

‘Must, I suppose. It won't do any good. Whoever it was is half a mile away by now and the police, like everyone else, need their rest. But we should be to blame if we didn't inform them at once.'

It was past two o'clock in the morning when Carolus finally got to bed and he did not sleep easily.

He woke next day to the same sense of impending trouble or danger. There was nothing he could do till the operations at the well were completed, and he mooched about restlessly all the morning, avoiding conversation with either John or the Larks. But early in the afternoon there was a phone call which he answered.

He knew at once who it was though his caller gave no name, not from any motive of secretiveness, but because he was fairly drunk and like many people in that condition assumed that his identity would be apparent to all the world. It was William Garries.

‘That Deene, you bastard? I want to speak to you.'

His voice was thick and angry. Carolus waited.

‘Did you put the police on to emptying the Bo'mless Pit?'

‘Yes.'

‘Dirty low-down cunning bastard, you are. You're trying to do for me, aren't you? Well, you won't bloody well succeed. No one's going to shut me up. Understand? Think I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison because
you
want it? Not bloody likely.'

'Listen, Garries…'

‘Don't tell me to listen to you. You listen to me. You come out here and you'll learn a bit more. Come on out, you snooping sneaking …' The rest of the epithet was lost. ‘I'll show you something you can run to the police with. I'll make you sorry you ever came to this place. I shall be in the Long Barn. So come on out and do a bit more invest'gating.'

The telephone was cut and when Carolus tried to ring back there was no answer.

After that he did not hesitate, but got out the car and drove to Garries. In the yard was a youth known as Ebby's Eldest, a gangling, staring fellow who worked on the farm.

‘Where's Mr Garries?'

Ebby's Eldest answered slowly. ‘Don't know. Haven't seen him this afternoon. In the house I expect.'

‘Where's George?'

‘Gone to the pictures over at Chilbury.'

‘To the pictures?' It was incredible that without some motive of his own George was sitting in a cinema at this point.

‘That's what he said,' replied Ebby's Eldest.

‘Which is the Long Barn?'

‘That one. Over there.'

Carolus walked across the yard and tried the heavy oak door. It opened quite easily. On the floor, a few feet in front of him, was the body of William Garries. The top of his head had been blown off and beside him lay a rifle.

In spite of his various sanguinary investigations Carolus had not seen anything so horrifying. He felt violently sick and giddy and made for the fresh air. The key of the barn door was in the lock and he turned it.

‘Don't let anyone go in there,' he said fiercely to Ebby's Eldest, ‘and don't try to get in yourself.'

The mouth dropped, but there was no reply.

‘How long had you been in the yard when I came?'

‘I'd only just come. Been down the meadow.'

‘Has anyone been round the farm this afternoon?'

'Not that I know. Might have been—I was down the meadow. There's no one else now.'

There was no one in the house, either, though the back door was open and Carolus could enter and look for the telephone. He found it and got through to Inspector Porritt. Quite calm now, he described what he had found. Porritt did not seem surprised, but then, Carolus remembered, he never seemed surprised.

‘Where's the son?' he asked curtly.

‘In the cinema at Chilbury. Trying to establish an alibi, perhaps?'

‘All right. We'll pick him up. I don't know what we're going to charge him with.'

Carolus spoke more urgently than he would have done to a CID inspector in other circumstances. This was no time for remembering that the officer knew and would carry out his duty while Carolus still ranked as an interfering amateur.

‘Anything! So long as you hold him and don't let him get out to this farm. Charge him with possessing an Army rifle—he can't have a licence for it. But for God's sake don't let him get to Garries, Inspector.'

Perhaps Porritt understood and forgave this outbreak.

‘I'll do what I can,' he said. ‘Where are you speaking from?'

‘From the farmhouse.'

‘Why don't you stay there till we come? We shan't be long.'

Why not? At first he had thought only of getting away from the place, but he realised that Ebby's Eldest was unreliable and there might be other callers.

‘I will,' he told Porritt, and hung up.

Ebby's Eldest was still in the yard.

‘Did you hear a shot fired this afternoon?' Carolus asked him.

‘No. Can't say I did. Not this afternoon. Why?'

‘You'll hear soon enough. You'd better wait here till the police come. They may want to ask you some questions.'

This took a few moments to digest.

'What for?' asked Ebby's Eldest at last. ‘I haven't done anything. What's going on? What's in the Long Barn?'

‘It's all right, Smith. You keep calm, my lad. We'll both hang on till the police get here.'

‘I've finished for the day. I want to get home. My tea-time.'

‘You shall. Just hang on a bit, there's a good fellow.'

It was, in fact, nearly half an hour before the police arrived and Porritt was with them. Carolus gave him a look of enquiry and received a nod. So they had found George Garries. Carolus pulled out of his pocket and handed the inspector the hefty iron key of the barn.

‘It's all yours,' he said. ‘I'm not going back in there.'

‘Turned you up, did it?' said Porritt. ‘Come down to the station later. They'll finish at the well this afternoon, and there may be some results.' The last words were called over his shoulder as he walked across to the barn.

Having nothing else to do, and not wishing to meet John Stainer or Margaret Lark at the rectory, he drove on to Chilbury. After having a much-needed cup of tea at the Gentle Ladies he asked the way to the cinema. There was only one in Chilbury and he went to it. He greeted the young lady in the paybox and asked a question about times of the evening shows. He was delighted to find that with no more encouragement the young lady, a platinum blonde with black eyebrows, was eager to chatter. Perhaps there were few cinema-goers that day and she was lonely.

‘We've had quite a scene here this afternoon,' she said. ‘The police were here, and everything.'

‘Oh. Someone misbehaving?'

‘Not here, he wasn't. I don't know what he had done, to tell you the truth, but they took him away. He wanted to see this picture
A Hatful of Dollars,
though no one else seems to.'

‘What time was that?' Carolus asked idly.

‘Just before the programme started—at two-fifteen.'

‘And when was he arrested?'

'Oh, not till getting on for five. It's a double feature. What makes you so curious?'

‘I was wondering if the poor chap had been able to see his picture.'

Leaving the blonde, he strolled round the back of the cinema. This was not his kind of investigation, but he had time to kill and was as ever inquisitive. Yes, there was an exit leading to the car-park so that George Garries could have, if he wanted, left the cinema, gone out the back way to his car, and been absent for at least an hour and a half without attracting attention.

It was time now to go to the police station. He was met by one of the two younger CID men.

‘The detective inspector had to go out,' he said. ‘He came back from Clibburn twenty minutes ago, but he's just run out again.'

‘Damn. I particularly wanted to see him.'

The plain-clothes man seemed to be enjoying a private joke.

‘I know you did. But he told me before he went that if you came I was to show you something in his office.'

‘From the well?'

This was too direct a question for the CID man, who smiled again.

‘He didn't say anything about that, but you can come and look at it.'

They went to the office upstairs in which Porritt had first interviewed Carolus. He looked about him, then saw lying on the table in front of Porritt's seat an object which he examined closely, without touching it.