Ellis Peters - George Felse 13 - Rainbow's End (11 page)

‘Right, now tell me one good reason,’ said George gently, ‘why anyone in the world should be lying in wait for
you –
specifically you! – with murderous intent?’

‘Because,’ said Bossie, taking the plunge, ‘I was hanging about in the churchyard the night Mr Rainbow was killed, and he’s afraid I may be able to identify him.’

He was relieved to observe that there was going to be no out-and-out disbelief, no exclaiming, no time wasted in casting doubts on his memory or his veracity. George merely asked at once: ‘And can you?’ Bossie approved that. First things first.

‘No, that’s the hell of it, I don’t know a solitary thing that would pick him out from anybody else. But
he
can’t be sure of that, can he? Because I did see him, if you’d call it seeing, when it was among the trees there, and pitch-dark.’ He gazed rather deprecatingly at George, and said apologetically: ‘It’s a long story. I ought to have told you before, but we were scared. But it was only a leg-pull to start with, we never meant to do any harm.’

‘Suppose you tell me now? Do you want to wait until your parents come? They’ll be in to collect you in an hour or so, you can hang on until then if you like. Or we can have in Sergeant Moon and listen to it now, if that’s what you want.’

Bossie scorned the idea that he needed his hand held while he trotted out his confession. ‘They won’t mind you and Sergeant Moon,’ he assured George generously. ‘I’d rather you heard it first.’ The protecting arm of the law might be valuable in more directions than one.

‘All right, then, that’s what we’ll do.’ And George went to summon the sergeant, who came in placidly nursing a notebook, and greeted the patient with a cheerful lack of condescending pity. He had known him from birth.

‘A fine how-d’you-do you set up for us last night,’ he said accusingly, and against all regulations made himself comfortable on the bed. ‘You can tell the docs aren’t worrying about you, or they wouldn’t turn us loose on you. All right. I’m set. Get on with it.’

Bossie squared himself sturdily back against his pillows, and got on with it.

‘It started with an idea I had, when nobody seemed to know what to do to get rid of Mr Rainbow.’ The infelicity of this opening, luckily, did not strike him. ‘Nobody liked him, everybody wanted him to up-anchor and go away somewhere else, but nobody was doing anything about it, and the longer he hung on, the harder it was going to be to shift him. So I had this idea. I thought if we trailed some bait for him, some sort of an antique, and made a fool of him in front of everybody, that was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to stand. Like these art critics, after they’ve been had for suckers by fake pictures. Well, I had a thing I thought might do the trick. It was a leaf of real parchment, with bits of at least one lot of writing on it in Latin, only I think it had been cleaned, but not very well – you know, to use again. It was pretty faint, anyhow, but it was really old, and I did it up for him specially. I borrowed one of Dad’s books for a copy, and cooked up just a few words in Latin here and here, sort of half faded out, so you could just read a bit about some land with its ’purtenances, and I got in the word “gold”, I knew that would fetch him. And at choir practice I stayed behind and showed this to him, and told him where I’d found it, and asked him what it was all about, and if it was important…’

‘And where did you find it?’ asked George, as Bossie paused for breath. ‘You told him. You haven’t told us.’

‘In one of those old chests up above the bell-ringers’ room,’ said Bossie without hesitation. ‘I was up there with Mr Llewelyn, you know, when he went to take the swarm that got in there.’

‘Why hadn’t you shown it to the vicar, or your father?’

‘I never thought much about it, I just kept it as a trophy. I still don’t think it’s anything much,’ said Bossie, shrugging it off with disdain, ‘but I made it look good for him. And he bit like anything. He behaved very offhand, but I knew he was interested. He said he’d take it home and study it properly, and he asked me if I’d shown it to anyone else, and when I said no, he said better not, until we found out whether it was of any importance, but he doubted if it would be. So I knew if it looked good to him he was going to keep it for himself. It didn’t really matter, though, whether he went rushing to the vicar to boast of a great find, or hung on to it and never said a word, because either way we could show him up for a fool or a thief, and either way he’d be the laughing-stock of the place. He’d never stand that, he’d pull up his roots and go right away. That’s what everybody wanted,’ said Bossie simply, ‘but they left it to us to do something about it.’

‘But for heaven’s sake,’ said George helplessly, ‘how could you hope to take him in? He can’t be an expert on everything, but at least he’d know a genuine membrane of parchment when he saw one – ’

‘But it
was
, you see! According to Dad’s books, the writing on it, what you could make out, was about thirteenth century. So I made my bits from a copy rather later, to be on top of the old one. It looked pretty good. Anyhow, he took it fast enough, didn’t he?’

‘Quite! He wouldn’t pass up the chance, however small, I suppose. But it wouldn’t take him long to see through it. Even the modern ink would give you away.’

‘It wouldn’t, you know. Oh, it wasn’t proper thirteenth century ink, but it was seventeenth – I got the recipe out of
The Compleat Houfewife
, with walnut-shells and skins and all, and oak-galls. It came up a sort of faded brown. He might think it a bit fishy, but he wouldn’t find it was modern, because it wasn’t. And I cut a proper quill to do the writing with. And he was taken in! He must have been, because the next week at choir practice— That was the night it happened,’ said Bossie, suddenly stricken at the recollection. ‘I asked him if it was anything special, and he said no, it turned out to be quite worthless. But he didn’t give it back! And after practice he stayed behind, and he’d asked me specially where these chests were. We were all going along home, and I heard the organ playing again, and I knew he was staying behind to have a look up there privately. So I went back. I was wary of going in, so I just waited among the trees, where I could watch the door. I knew I should hear when the organ stopped, and then I was going to creep into the porch and watch what he did. But I gave him a few minutes to come down from the organ, and I was just on my way to the door when somebody came walking out.’

‘Somebody came out? Mr Rainbow himself?’

‘No, it wasn’t him. I thought at first it must be, and after all he was just going home, quite innocently. But I had to duck out of sight myself round a corner, not to be spotted, so I never did get a look at whoever that was. But I realised at once it couldn’t be Rainbow, because he didn’t stop to lock up, he just walked out of the lych-gate and went away. Then I didn’t quite know what to do, but I hung around for a bit, and I was just making up my mind to go home and forget it, when he fell. Crashing down among the grave-stones. I didn’t even understand what it was that had fallen, I thought a piece of the parapet must have dropped off. I was even going round that way to have a look, when I heard somebody else coming along between the tombs from the church door. I was among the bushes, a fairish way off, and I lay low there, and saw this sort of dark, stooping shape hurrying along, almost running. But that’s all it was, just a shape. Then he stooped, and stooped down lower, and switched on a flashlight, and his other hand was just turning up something to look at it in the light. I knew the way it moved it wasn’t stone, and then I saw it was Mr Rainbow’s face. He was dead,’ said Bossie, flat-voiced and huge-eyed, ‘I knew he was dead. He couldn’t have been anything else.’

‘What about this chap standing over him?’ demanded Sergeant Moon briskly, deflecting the fixed gaze to a more bearable target. Bossie blinked and shook himself, and ceased to stare.

‘It was very dark, and the torch went out very quickly, and made it seem even darker. I just don’t know! I’ve been trying and trying to think of anything special about him, but I couldn’t even tell whether he was tall or short, he was stooping and running. I’m sure it was a man, but that’s all I’m sure of. Honestly, if he thinks I could recognise him again, he’s crazy. But he’d be even crazier to take the risk. wouldn’t he?’

‘Assuming he knew you were there at all, yes,’ agreed George cautiously. ‘But up to now there’s no reason to suppose that he did.’

‘Oh, yes, he knew. I was in the bushes, and I must have made some movement that made them rustle, because this man suddenly straightened up and seemed to be staring right at me, and I just turned and ran for it, and I knew he was coming after me, and then after all he stopped, and I just went like a bat out of hell for home.’

‘There you are, then,’ said Moon with monumental calm. ‘He may know there was
somebody
there watching, but he still doesn’t know who.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Bossie, with a superiority at once smug and desperate, ‘he does. It wasn’t till I got home I found I’d lost my copy of the anthem we’d been practicing. It was Locke – “Turn Thy Face from my sins,” ’

‘Very appropriate,’ murmured Moon, but Bossie was not to be soothed or diverted.

‘I had it folded and stuck in my blazer pocket, you see, and it was too long, and stuck out rather a way, and it must have fallen out while I was running. I looked for it the next day, after you’d all finished and gone away, but I never found it, and I bet you didn’t, either. Because I reckon
he
found it first. It had my name and address on it,’ said Bossie, between terror and triumph.’ That’s why he was waiting to come at me out of the farm lane, last night.’

Well,’ said George later, when Bossie had been handed over to his parents, and they were comparing notes in sober retirement, ‘true or false? You’re the expert, you know Bossie better than I do. How much of that story are we to take absolutely seriously?’

‘All of it,’ said Moon. ‘We can’t afford not to. He isn’t a liar, he’s never had to be, not having had the slightest reason to be scared of telling all to his folks. But there are one or two things that bother me. I’d say it was the truth, but not necessarily nothing but the truth, and probably not the whole truth. Anyhow, Sam confirms that Bossie asked about early scripts, and borrowed a book from him, and was shut up with it over a couple of evenings, concocting this fake of his. He’ll have to come clean to his parents now, maybe they’ll get more out of him.’

‘He certainly had a genuine leaf of parchment, or Rainbow would never have been hooked. He told Rainbow he’d found it among the junk in the tower, and Rainbow shrugged it off as junk like the rest, but he didn’t give it back, and he discouraged further interest in it. It really looks as if he may have intended – even begun – searching through the rest of the stuff up there. Hunting for more of the same?’

Sergeant Moon shook his head dubiously. ‘Even if manuscripts weren’t his forte, he could hardly be taken in by Bessie’s little effort. I don’t believe it for a moment – even if it were a marvel in its way.’

‘Neither do I, Jack. But don’t forget this was a genuine leaf, with the incompletely erased traces of previous use on it. Maybe Rainbow saw through Bossie’s palimpsest in more ways than one, and saw something he thought might turn out to be very valuable indeed. Because it looks as if he went hunting where he was told this leaf had been found. What did he think he’d got hold of? One membrane of some church accounts? A leaf of a chronicle? A poem or a lampoon of the time? That sort of thing could send an antiquarian up the wall, let alone up the tower. It might even get him killed, if somebody else with the same acquisitive instincts nosed in on the scent.’

Sergeant Moon eyed him steadily in silence for some minutes, and thought about it. ‘It fits. But we’re back to the point that was sticking in my gullet. Bossie says he found that among the oddments in that chest. If what you’ve just suggested is anywhere near the truth, and that thing we’ve never set eyes on was a real find from centuries back, then Bossie never found it where he said he did. We’ve been through all that lot, interesting enough, but not a thing there goes back beyond seventeen-seventy, and most of ’em are Victorian. Why should one leaf survive there on its own? And how could the Victorians miss it, when they made the place over and dumped their own contemporary magazines? No, not a chance. That isn’t where he got it.’

‘Then where did he get it? And above all, why won’t he
tell
us where he got it?’

He had told them, George was sure, everything else. He might recall a few more details, or points that had escaped his first account, but basically he had come clean. So why this one evasion, when evidently his intent was to be as helpful as he could? Who had better reason? Another child might have accepted what happened to him as a real accident, and emerged merely shaken by the chance hurt, and more cautious thereafter. Bossie had come out of sedation wide-awake to the full implications, decided on confession, and almost certainly taken it to the limit. With this one reservation! Why?

‘At least he’ll be in bed for today, and home and watched even tomorrow,’ said Moon. ‘And Sam knows the score now, and we can lend a man now and then, short-handed as we may be, if there should be any need. As long as he’s going to and from school by bus with the whole gang, he’s as safe as houses. Joe Llewelyn will make sure he’s seen home from next week’s choir practice. We’ll manage to keep an eye on him, between us. And I take it there won’t be any headlines from this incident, not unless or until we’ve got our man. Just a random hit-and-run.’

‘That’s all it will be. I’ll see to that.’ So the would-be assassin would be left in the dark, assuming, it was to be hoped, that the child had neither dreamed of deliberate harm nor blurted out any reason for it. From which he might, with luck, deduce that his fears were baseless, and this intruding imp had nothing whatever to tell about him.

Even so, Bossie knew very well that everybody would be conspiring to keep a more or less constant watch on his welfare from now on. The most staggering thing about the whole interview had been his flourish at the end, when he knew his parents were outside the door, and was graciously saying goodbye to his police guard. He had been wide awake and sparking on all cylinders then, stimulated to such an extent that he was riding high above the danger of which he was, none the less, well aware. After all, it was his act that had set off this explosion wasn’t it? And his person that was at risk as a result!

‘I say, Mr Felse,’ he had piped after them, when they were halfway to the door, ‘what’s it worth if I let you use me as bait?’

George had replied without excitement, and without more than a casual turn of his head : ‘A thick ear, I should think, if your dad ever hears about it.’ And had departed, secure in his knowledge of the solidity of the family relationship involved, to relay the facts to Sam and Jenny, and assure them of his support whenever they might feel the need of it.

All the same, Bossie was a force to be reckoned with, like all unguided missiles, and George was not going to be the one to underestimate him, or take his quiescence for granted.

And the sooner this case was wound up with the murderer in custody, the better for the peace of mind of the Jarvis household.

‘Hang on to everything here,’ said George, making up his mind, ‘and I’ll be back. I’m going to see Mrs Rainbow.’

It was Sunday morning. The bells of St Eata’s were pealing for the eleven o’clock service, and Spuggy Price would be standing in for the star treble. Only three mornings ago, Arthur Everard Rainbow had been alive and intent, planning his evening’s activities at and after choir practice. And what had seemed worth pursuing to him then was worth pursuing now in fairness to his shade. Arid and unregretted, that ghost cried for consideration and redress. George turned in at the lion-guarded gates, and threaded the nymph-haunted drive.

He had wondered for a moment if the Land-Rover would still be parked on the gravel in front of the house, but then dismissed the idea, even before he emerged from the screening trees to see that the lunette of gold was empty. Openness might be the order of the day, but somehow he was certain that Barbara and Willie would find it uncongenial and unsuitable to be together here in this house. Up at the lodge, that was another matter. His next thought was that he might have to go there now to find her, but no, she was at home, she opened the door to his ring, and stepped back to welcome him in with evident pleasure.

‘How’s the Jarvis boy?’ she demanded at once.

‘Flourishing, I’m glad to say. His parents have taken him home. Give him a couple of days and he’ll be fit as a flea. Thanks to you!’

‘No word yet on the hit-and-run car?’

‘We’ve got a general call out for it, but there’s probably no noticeable damage, and Bossie could give no clear account of it, naturally enough. But there’s something you may be able to help me with.’

‘If I can,’ she said at once, and led the way into her small sitting-room. She was wearing slacks and a loose Chinese blouse, no trace today of the splendour she had thought appropriate for dinner in public with Willie the Twig. It was as if she saw the thought pass through George’s mind, for she smiled rather wryly, and said simply: ‘The first time I met him he said to me: “I don’t work my way round, I go straight across!” That’s good enough for me, too. If I had cloth of gold, I’d wear it for him. George – may I go on calling you George? – I’m sorry Arthur’s dead, I didn’t dislike him, and he was never unfair to me. But what we had was a business arrangement, understood if never stated. And my fidelity was not among the things he was buying. Not that I’ve handed it out freely up to now, but it’s mine to give. It was!’ she amended, and glowed briefly. ‘Just to put you in the picture!’

‘I begin to think you’re psychic,’ George admitted.

‘No, just sharp. I’ve had to be. I don’t mind being misunderstood by outsiders, but I like to get things straight with friends. Without prejudice to your job! You run me in whenever you think it justified. Go ahead, tell me how I can be useful.’ And this time she brought a drink for him without even asking, Scotch and water, to prove the quality of her memory.

‘We’ve learned,’ said George, ‘that a week before his death your husband got hold of a document purporting to be a leaf of parchment dating back to around the thirteenth century. Our information indicates that this was a genuine membrane, but deliberately faked up with some new traces of script to indicate re-use after cleaning. Now how capable would he have been of interpreting and valuing a thing like that? How scholarly was he? He knew Latin, for instance?’

Barbara’s eyebrows had soared into her hair. ‘Well, he’d
done
Latin, as you might say. I wouldn’t put it much above O level, though.’

‘This was a thing in which, I imagine, the surface fraud wouldn’t be hard to spot. At least to suspect. But what was underneath may have been quite another matter. He’d want to be sure before he either pursued or discarded it. For instance again, was he competent in unextended mediaeval Latin? They used a baffling sort of shorthand. Would he be able to fill out a code like that?’

‘No,’ said Barbara without hesitation. ‘He’d be interested, all right, he knew things like that could be pure gold, but what he really knew his way about in was pictures, china and furniture. You can’t be expert in everything. What matters is to know just where to go for the expertise in the lines that aren’t specifically yours. If he had got hold of something like that, he’d need help to assess it.’

‘And he’d take that risk? Consult someone else who might be fired with ambition at sight of the thing.’

‘He’d have to, wouldn’t he? It would be a far worse risk, from his point of view, to stake on it without being sure he was on to something good. He couldn’t risk being made to look a fool. You only have to lose your credibility once in his business.’

‘Can you suggest to whom he might go for an opinion?’

‘I can suggest to whom he wouldn’t,’ said Barbara with conviction. ‘Not to anyone in his own line. Not within the trade. Two reasons. Those would be the last people he’d risk exposing himself to, in case he was making a fool of himself. And those would be the first people he’d suspect of having designs on his find if it did turn out to be priceless.’

‘Who, then? A benevolent scholar, who’d look upon such a thing as an interesting study rather than potential money?’

‘I would say so. Helpful acquaintances like, say, Mr Jarvis, would never think of making capital out of a professional’s confidences.’ The thought made her look again at the possibility, and see more in it than immediately met the eye. ‘You don’t think he really did go to Mr Jarvis?’ She was thinking of Bossie, but of course she didn’t know that the membrane had come from Bossie in the first place. ‘You don’t think there could be any connection, surely, with what happened to that child? This is all getting a bit sinister and suggestive, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said George, ‘he didn’t go to Sam. We know that.’

Interesting, though, to think he might have done just that, Sam being the last person on earth to suspect of coveting somebody else’s discovery or taking advantage of somebody else’s request for help. ‘But thanks for the advice, I think you’ve put me on the right lines.’

For with Sam already eliminated, the supply of first-class classical scholars ready to hand in Middlehope, ruling out, possibly, the vicar, who would certainly not have been consulted in the circumstances, was narrowed down to one.

Professor Emeritus Evan Joyce lived in a rambling stone cottage a little way up the valley, with half an acre of garden, a few old fruit trees, about seven thousand books which lined the walls of all the rooms, and a handsome old desk of enormous proportions, situated in a large window and admirable for spreading out several files of notes, translations and authorities, without actually adding a line to the manuscript about the Goliard poets. The visual effect was impressive, the actual business of rambling among these fascinating properties was ravishing, and the fact that every line he pursued was a digression only added to its charm. He had lived with the fully-realised vision of his magnum opus so long that there was absolutely no prospect of his ever producing it in the flesh. There was no need, it already existed, complete and perfect in his mind.

‘Why, yes,’ he said readily, when George put the question to him, ‘he did come to consult me, in confidence. But that was the week before he got killed, on the Saturday evening. He brought a leaf of parchment, as you say, and wanted my views on whether it was of any importance. Somebody’d been monkeying with it, on the face of it it was a simple fake, but I think he knew that, even if he didn’t say so. But the original cleaning had been very cursory, and there was another script below. It looked highly promising. I thought the text could be recovered more or less complete, given a little effort and patience, and I suggested he should leave it with me and give me time to try and work it out.’

‘He didn’t, by any chance?’ asked George wistfully, but without much hope. That leaf of parchment was beginning to beckon like the missing link, the key to everything that had happened and was about to happen.

‘He did not! The suggestion made him jump, all right, but back, not forward. I must have looked a good deal too interested, and too eager, he changed his mind about trusting me. And from what you say, I suppose I’d told him what he wanted to know. I’d made it plain there was something genuinely promising there. He practically snatched it back, and thanked me, and said he’d like to try it himself first. I tried to get him to tell me where he’d found it, but he turned deaf, and I never did get to know. You haven’t found the membrane among his effects, then, I’m afraid? If you have, I wish you’d let me have a few days to work on it.’