A Bedlam of Bones Read online

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  Later that day I was ambling along the High Street, minding my business and trying to look as anonymous as a vicar ever can, when I was pulled up short by a sharp tug at my sleeve. I looked down and was confronted by the intent face of Mavis Briggs.

  ‘Canon,’ she breathed, ‘can you spare a moment? I was about to have a coffee, and perhaps you would care to join me – there’s something rather urgent I need to discuss.’

  I did not care but was caught nevertheless. And having no ready excuse, dutifully followed her into Mrs Muffet’s Tea Room. Mavis ordered only coffee, but stung by the hijacking I compensated with a jam doughnut.

  Mavis does not hang about. That is to say, when she has some point or request to make she cuts to the chase and gives her victims little time to collect their wits.

  ‘I am really very concerned, Canon,’ she began earnestly. I bit into my doughnut, looking impassive. ‘You see, I can’t help thinking that that new librarian is getting above himself.’

  ‘How far above?’

  ‘What? … Oh, I see. Well in my opinion, much too far.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You may not have noticed, but it has become fashionable for authors to be invited to the library to give readings from their books, answer questions and discuss literary matters with their readers.’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I’ve heard about that. Rather a good idea I should have thought …’

  ‘Indeed,’ she agreed, ‘but it rather depends on what sort of author! After all, a library does have certain standards to maintain, one can’t have just anyone. I mean,’ and here she lowered her voice, ‘some might be a corruptive influence on the young! Mr Hoylake would do well to bear that in mind.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I agreed uneasily, wondering who on earth Mr Hoylake had invited that was to exert such a malign influence on the local youth … Frank Harris was rumoured to be ill, and I doubted whether Henry Miller would see Molehill as a lucrative trading post for his books. ‘So who are you talking about?’

  ‘Haven’t you read today’s Clarion? It’s that woman crime writer, Mary Tubbly Pole. She’s coming in a fortnight’s time!’

  ‘Maud,’ I said mechanically.

  ‘Well whatever her name, I don’t think she’s at all appropriate.’

  ‘But she’s very popular,’ I protested. ‘Probably be quite a draw.’

  ‘She may be popular, but is she literary?’ Mavis squeaked sententiously.

  I wondered whether we were to embark on an exploration of what constituted literature and whether entertainment and intellectual stimulus were mutually exclusive. If so I should need to be fortified by another doughnut. On the other hand, such a course would surely lengthen proceedings and prolong the agony. Thus I decided to forego the doughnut and say nothing. ‘Hmm …’

  However, it became clear that Mavis’s question had been largely rhetorical, for in the next instant she rushed on: ‘You see, Mr Hoylake has been more than negative about my own little publications. After all, it is not every Surrey town that has a poet in its midst, and yet whenever I broach the idea of holding a series of readings with a chance for the public to ask me about my philosophy of life he clams up and says nothing. Or at least, he did until yesterday.’ She paused pointedly and I felt that I was supposed to say something.

  ‘And, er, what did he say yesterday?’

  ‘Well,’ she twittered, ‘it was the third time this week that I had approached him, and I was just about to enquire if he would care to reconsider my useful offer, when he swung round and said that he had no intention of permitting his library to provide a platform for pappy piffle, and would I kindly move out of the way as I was making a barrier between Colonel Dawlish and the Hank Jansens! I may say, Canon, I was more than shocked, but I stood my ground, oh yes!’

  ‘Good for you, Mavis,’ I said, awed by Hoylake’s nerve and his alliterative zeal. ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘I told him that although he might not possess literary discernment, a number of people did, including Canon Oughterard who was only too eager to write the introduction to my third volume. That gave him pause for thought!’

  It also gave me pause to wipe the smug smile off my face; and I emerged into the High Street wondering how on earth I was ever going to summon the nerve to enter the library again.

  6

  The Dog’s Diary

  He was in a right old bate this evening! Muttering and spluttering and yanking my lead as if he was dragging rocks out of a well. I can tell you, I wasn’t having it. No thank you! And to quote the cat, I made my position clear – i.e. crouched on the pavement outside the organist’s gate and did the business. Tapsell saw from his window and came hurtling out cursing the vicar up and down dale. There was an awful row and F.O. looked a bit sheepish. Generally he gets the better of Tapsell but this time he was short of ammunition. Serves him right – a dog like me deserves a bit more POLLY TESS, as Pierre the Ponce says.

  Still, mustn’t grumble. He’s all right generally – pretty kind, really – but just now and again he gets ratty. I suppose it’s being a murderer that does it. Gets on his fins I daresay … Mind you, I don’t think that was the cause this evening. It was something to do with the Brighton Type and the bishop person. The vicar was on the blower, and after he put the thing down I heard him say, ‘That’s all I need – bloody Nicholas and bloody Horace!’ So for some reason they are at him – and we get the flak.

  I told all this to Maurice, but he didn’t say much. Just gave one of those God-awful miaows and then went silent and sort of huffy. Hasn’t spoken since. I’m not complaining, mind. Sometimes it’s quite nice not to have the cat’s pennyworth shoved under my nose all the time. Still, it won’t last. He’ll soon find his tongue again and start telling me what’s what. But in the MEANTIME I’m off to the graveyard for a bit of peeing practice. O’Shaughnessy has bet me his new ham bone that I can’t outdo him. We’ll see about that!

  So, I’ve had a nice little caper, emptied the old bladder at a rate of knots and discovered a shortcut through the big tombs by the side gate. O’Shaughnessy doesn’t know about that – or if he does, the rotter’s never mentioned it to me. So if everything goes to plan and I can keep up my pace and my peeing, that ham bone should be in the bag – or, better still, in BOUNCER’S BASKET!

  As guessed, Maurice has now crawled out of his huff and started to talk again. But before he got too carried away by the sound of his own voice I thought I’d give him a blow-by-blow account of my fun in the cemetery. And I had got halfway through this when he suddenly said, ‘Yes, yes, Bouncer, all very fragrant I’m sure, but there are issues of greater moment than bones and urine, and we need to discuss them.’

  Well, I didn’t know what he meant by moment and urine, but I understood the word bones all right, so I told him coldly that as far as I was concerned bones were JOLLY IMPORTANT and that I didn’t think many things mattered more.

  ‘Haddock and murder,’ he said.

  ‘Stuff the haddock,’ I said, ‘but what about the murder?’

  He looked sniffy, and then said in his best cat voice, ‘It has come to my notice that our master is more than worried about the Turnip villain, he—’

  ‘Well, yes of course,’ I said, ‘we guessed that when he rushed up to London with the Prim to meet him at that special place you were on about. So what’s new?’

  ‘What is new, Bouncer, is that one’s suspicions are now fully confirmed: he is indeed destined to see more of that dangerous ruffian.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve heard him talking.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘To himself, in his sleep.’

  ‘Huh!’

  ‘I can assure you it was very revealing. If you recall, when he returned from that London hotel he put on his slippers and collapsed into the armchair, and despite the racket coming from the wireless went straight off to sleep. You retired to your basket in the kitchen while I stayed on
the hearthrug. From there I could hear exactly what he was muttering.’ The cat stopped here and asked if I was listening. Well of course I was listening – no chance not to when he’s giving tongue! Just because I was having a bit of a scratch and a look down below didn’t mean I hadn’t got my ears cocked! Anyway, he went on to report that F.O. had said something like, ‘“Prim’s put her hoof in it now … Can’t face being caught up with Turnip again, slippery customer! Mrs T.P. nearly swallowed her teeth when she saw him, said he was murky. He’s that all right! Enough murk with Elizabeth – can’t stand any more following me around … Oh God!” So you see, Bouncer,’ the cat went on, ‘if this Turnip is skulking about and the Brighton Type and the bishop person are on his wick, then clearly there is more than a nip in the air and I fear storm clouds gather!’

  I didn’t really understand that last part because it seemed quite a nice day to me – and besides, I don’t know what the weather had to do with it … Still, like I’ve said before, the cat’s got a tricky mind. Anyway, I think we shall have to watch our rumps – not to mention the vicar’s … Funny that bit about the Tubbly. Sounds as if she must have been in that London place too – and I bet old Gunga was with her! So I expect we shall be seeing him before long … Probably just as fat – and tight. Soon find out I expect.

  But right now I think I’ll go and do a bit of Frog-speak with Pierre the Ponce. I learnt a lot of useful stuff in France, such as merde, salope, and ne toochay par mon os. It’s a good thing to keep up with the old parlay-voo, but Maurice says he’s got better things to do with his time. Probably just as well – he talks enough in ordinary lingo (though being Maurice it’s not as ordinary as all that, of course). But perhaps I might practise in the crypt with those gabbling ghosts – I’ll ask after their crumbling osses. That’ll fox ’em!

  7

  The Vicar’s Version

  As threatened, Mrs Tubbly Pole did indeed install herself at the Gravediggers’ Arms, and her advent there was preceded by hue and cry both from the bookshop and the local library. Posters were displayed, flyers distributed, personal invitations circulated, and the reading public earnestly urged to drop everything and hasten to avail itself of ‘such exciting literary opportunities’. ‘A Rival to Agatha’, ran a headline in the Molehill Clarion, and even the normally snide Edith Hopgarden was heard to murmur she might grace one of the occasions with her presence. (Though I suspect this was as much to do with needling Mavis Briggs as with satisfying any particular enthusiasm of her own.)

  Personally I was delighted that Maud should receive such acclaim, but was still distinctly apprehensive that her diagnostic ramblings about her book, Murder at the Mole-heap, might in some way implicate me. But in this respect there was little that I could do other than to keep as low a profile as possible and hope for the best.

  As expected (and, in view of the promised Turnbull data, partially hoped for), I received a telephone call from the Gravediggers’ to alert me to an impending visit. ‘My dear,’ she bellowed, ‘all very cosy here of course, but nothing like having a drink with an old friend. What about tonight?

  Gunga could do with a little outing and I’m sure your beasts would so love to see him!’

  I looked at the ‘beasts’ sprawled comatose and snoring on the carpet, and rather doubting her words said I was sure they would like nothing better.

  ‘Six o’clock it is,’ she said briskly. ‘All news then. Line ’em up, Francis! Toodle pip!’

  Hastily I searched for my wallet and bustled out to the off-licence to replenish depleted stocks and buy extra crisps for the dog, recalling it liked a little blotting paper with its gin.

  Six o’clock approached and I made the necessary preparations: stoked the fire, plumped the cushions, rallied the animals, got out the glasses (plus a saucer for Gunga Din) and as instructed, lined up the hooch. There was a sound of a taxi drawing up, and a few minutes later the doorbell rang with clarion ferocity. Maud and companion were upon us.

  With a broad grin and grasping the equally broad drink I had poured her, she eased herself into the chair by the fire. Taking its cue, the dog too settled heavily on the hearth, and I was about to offer it the usual saucer when she forestalled me, saying, ‘Not just yet, Francis, he must mind his manners and say hello to his hosts first. Where are the little fellows?’

  I went into the kitchen, scooped up Maurice from the window sill and hustled Bouncer ahead to the sitting room. Here the due courtesies were enacted. The cat emitted two of its more gruesome screeches and Bouncer made a beeline for the bulldog’s bottom, sniffed liberally and then gave a matey bite. Gunga Din rolled on to his back, waved his stumpy legs in the air and let out a falsetto howl of what I took to be pained horror. I started to apologize and remonstrate with Bouncer, but the victim’s guardian cut me short, saying, ‘Oh don’t worry – that’s just his way of saying, “I’ll get you next time and what else shall we play?” Give him his gin now and he’ll be as happy as Larry.’

  I dispensed the statutory four drops. And from amidst the rumpled features and to the sounds of heavy breathing, a small and startlingly pink tongue emerged to toy with its evening cocktail. Mrs T.P. watched indulgently. Bouncer meanwhile had retreated to the far end of the room, and begun – rather ostentatiously, I thought – to worry his marrow-bone. I think it was his way of showing who was top dog and who the lounge lizard.

  With characteristic gusto my guest started to hold forth upon her imminent book-signing session and plans for the talk in the local library. She was obviously keen that I should lend support, something I was perfectly ready to do were it not for my fear that in her zest for her theme, i.e. the murder of a rich and respectable local widow by person unknown, she would exaggerate my role in her earlier researches.* As the unsuspected subject of those researches, I had found those investigations a particular embarrassment. Thus I was reluctant to retrace old and painful ground and be quizzed yet again (least of all in public) about my ideas regarding the dispatch of ‘poor Mrs Fotherington’. Regretfully I pleaded a prior engagement but promised to look in on the book-signing and pledged the purchase of six copies. (A gesture not quite as cynical as you might imagine. I had become genuinely fond of Mrs Tubbly Pole and was happy to contribute, however scantily, to her literary success.) ‘That’s the ticket, Francis,’ she crowed, ‘generous to a fault! Knew I could rely on you.’ I blushed and hastily proffered some of Gunga Din’s crisps and started to refill her glass. ‘Bottoms up and here’s to crime!’ was the genial response.

  ‘Ye-es,’ I agreed, a trifle tentatively. ‘And here’s to yourself of course.’ I raised my glass.

  ‘And don’t forget Cecil, my dear!’

  ‘Cecil? Cecil who?’

  She wagged an admonishing finger. ‘Ah, you have forgotten. Cecil Piltdown of course!’

  Of course. Mrs Tubbly Pole’s alias and beloved literary doppelgänger: a name kept specifically for her more lurid flights of fancy, and which, I suspected, provided the greater part of her considerable bucks.

  ‘To Cecil,’ I acknowledged respectfully.

  She shifted her gaze to Bouncer, still absorbed in grinding hell out of his bone, and seemed about to launch into a spiel on the quirks of canine psychology. However, intriguing though dogs may be, it was another kind of psychology that drew me. ‘Maud,’ I said carefully, ‘the other day when we were having tea with Rupert Turnbull and his cousin, I think you recognized him, didn’t you? And you mentioned it briefly in your letter.’

  She gazed meditatively at her whisky. ‘Hmm, pretty well. It was a long time ago, so I couldn’t be entirely sure if it was the same Rupert Turnbull – he was a lot younger then – but I have a feeling I was right.’

  ‘You rather suggested that you knew somebody connected with him. Who was it?’

  ‘His housemaster.’

  I don’t know what reply I had expected but it certainly wasn’t this, and I felt a twinge of disappointment. My own housemaster had been so painfully dull and dry that it was dif
ficult to credit Turnbull’s with the slightest significance. And as an enlightening revelation, the statement seemed worthless.

  ‘Yes,’ she mused, ‘Freddie Felter, we knew him in India. My husband Jacko was governor of the school where he taught maths – St Austin’s, the British college in Jaipur. Some of the boys were being coached for the Civil Service exams, including Turnbull. Felter used to bring them to tea occasionally and Jacko would supply a few tips … Yes, Freddie Felter – probably the most unpalatable person I have ever met.’

  ‘Goodness,’ I exclaimed, suddenly interested. ‘Whatever was wrong with him?’

  ‘Most things,’ she said simply.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘For one, he had the most awful moustache, even worse than Jacko’s. It made him look like a thin walrus.’

  ‘But Maud,’ I protested, ‘you can hardly hold his moustache against him!’

  ‘Oh yes I can, it was dreadful.’ She grinned a grimace, and added, ‘But there were other things.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, to begin with, he was an inveterate liar. Tried to convince Jacko he took a double first at Cambridge and had turned down a Fellowship.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘One didn’t spin yarns like that to Jacko, he could spot a humbug from a hundred yards. “Holmes of the Civil Service”, that’s what they called him! Personally I called him plain nosy, but that’s another story. Anyway, Jacko soon sniffed out the truth: a diploma from a teacher training college. A paltry enough fabrication, I grant you, but there were so many others. The man was a walking falsehood – and nasty with it.’

  ‘In what way?’ I asked, replenishing her glass.

  ‘He was a manipulative bully, but not directly. He would get others to do his dirty work, Turnbull more often than not … there was something wrong with that boy, very wrong. Liked nothing better than to get out the knuckle-duster – figuratively speaking at least. A sort of Moseley thug in the making. The younger boys hated him, but he was always perfectly agreeable when he came to tea with us. Yes, a pretty smooth little sadist really.’ She broke off to water the dog’s gin. (‘Can’t have him boozy for his trot in the park, can we?’)