Part 1 (2/2)
”So Miss Charlotte says, sir.”
”And armed, you say. A shot-gun?”
”Seems it was, sir.”
”Poachers,” announced the Superintendent with profound conviction. He knew his district and its besetting sin, which was an inordinate love of pheasants and coneys. As in so many other towns surrounded by large estates, poaching in Smedwick had achieved the dignity of a profession, diligently pursued, night after night, by
17.
”There, there,” he said, trying to comfort her, not knowing that it was for him that she feared. They were interrupted by a cry, as the cook, following cautiously into the light, caught sight of the blood flowing from the wound on his shoulder where a few scattered pellets from the charge had struck.
”Only a graze. Surely you've seen blood before. Be a good sensible woman,” the Rector admonished her in a firm voice. ”I'll take no hurt. Are you sure you're all right, my dear?”
”Quite sure, Father.”
”The scoundrels!” the Rector said as she began to lead him into the drawing-room, where the bandages were kept. ”They fired on us. There were two of them, you saw that?”
”Yes.”
”Have they taken anything?”
She glanced around her, not really caring, for the blood seemed to be coming faster now and she feared that at any moment he might discover it. The room was in turmoil: the desk rifled, drawers open, papers strewn everywhere. Something was missing; she sensed it even before her eye detected what it was; and she said: ”They've taken my watch. The one with the seal. From the mantelpiece.”
”The one poor Davey gave you?”
”Yes.”
”My dear!”
”It's all right, Father. It's no matter. Now stay still while I cut away the cloth from your shoulder.”
Working deftly, she soon had him bandaged and dosed and tucked up in bed with a hot-water bottle. From the pillows, with his long beard straggling down over the sheets, he watched her anxiously as she bent down to kiss his forehead under the white woollen cap. ”Are you sure you're all right, dearest? You look so pale. You're sure they missed you?”
”Of course. Now lie down and try to go to sleep like a good papa.”
”Don't you go out,” he said suddenly with anxious awareness of what she would do.
”I'll behave sensibly, you can be sure.”
”But you'll go running out. I know you.”
”Only to Tom's dear. We must have the doctor fetched from Smedwick. And the Police must be told.”
Avoiding his gaze, so filled with dismal forebodings for her safety, she kissed him again before going to her room, where she stood in THE CRIME: l8gi.
front of the mirror in the candle-light and let down her gown. The s.h.i.+ft beneath it was soaked in blood. Calmly, with the detachment of a nurse, she examined the wound and dressed it with linament. It was not as bad as she had feared. Then she threw on some clothes and ran down the stairs to the front door.
Outside, the moonlight shone down on the Rectory in its garden among the bare trees, with the one straggling street of the hamlet on rising ground behind it under the rim of the moor. Below her, as she hurried down the hill, she could see young Merrick's cottage, set in the narrow valley beside the church and ruined castle, and beyond it a bracken-covered fell topped with a line of crags, along whose face lay pockets of snow glittering with a silvery brightness.
She felt no fear. It never occurred to her to think that the men who had broken in on them might still be lurking in the hedgerows. She came to the cottage in a mounting clamour from the dogs, and knocked loudly at the door. When young Merrick came she gave him her message and walked back up the hill, refusing all help. Only when she had reached her own room and got herself tidily to bed did she faint clean away.
II.
Superintendent Blair, stationed in Smedwick, six miles off across the moor, was awakened at half-past three on the February morning. He came downstairs muttering to himself, fastening his belt and tunic b.u.t.tons, a burly, square-jawed man with an iron-grey moustache that drooped round the corners of the mouth, giving to his face a petulant and disapproving expression.
At young Merrick's news, however, his eyes kindled and he nodded his head several times portentously.
”Two men, eh, Tom?”
”So Miss Charlotte says, sir.”
”And armed, you say. A shot-gun?”
”Seems it was, sir.”
”Poachers,” announced the Superintendent with profound conviction. He knew his district and its besetting sin, which was an inordinate love of pheasants and coneys. As in so many other towns surrounded by large estates, poaching in Smedwick had achieved the dignity of a profession, diligently pursued, night after night, by groups of men and dogs roaming as silent as shadows in the woods and straying sometimes, when game was scarce, to the scattered farmsteads on the fells. Only a few months earlier a police constable by the name of Luke had been shot and killed by gentlemen of this kidney who had never been brought to justice, and the memory of that crime was still fresh in Blair's mind.
”Let's see now,” he mused, stroking his moustache with the back of his hand. ”It was done about two, you say. And you'd heard by half-past and rode straight over here.”
”I went to Doctor first, sir.”
”You went to the doctor first,” the Superintendent repeated, though it could be seen that this was not a commendation. ”And now it's three-forty. Those beggars could be home across the moor and safe and snug by now. And they could still be out of their bolt holes and in the haughs. Well get the nets down.”
No sooner said than done with so efficient a machine. The Headquarters staff was alerted, constables were sent running to every outlying officer, and within half an hour the roads into the town were guarded and patrols had begun the rounds in the Bewley and Pelegate sectors where all the more notorious poachers were known to live. Having thus galvanised his force to deal with what he saw as a heaven-sent chance of smiting the Amalekites, the Superintendent got into his gig and drove by the Deeping Road to Ma.s.singham which he reached about half-past five, while darkness still lay over the countryside.
He found the villagers swarming in the Rectory and its grounds in a pleasurable state of ghoulishness. No doubt it was felt that after thirty years the Rector and his family had at last edified the neighbourhood. ”Can't have this, now can we?” the Superintendent reasoned with them as he began to shoo them out. ”Destroy the clues you will, if any, and then wherell we be?” With tact and good humour he got the place cleared of all but the Verneys, who were under sedatives in their bedrooms, and the household staff, which consisted of a cook, two daily maids and a general handyman by the name of Bell who did not sleep on the premises.
”Now see here, Jane,” the Superintendent said, waylaying his quarry in her kitchen, ”you're the one to help me, you are. Did you see or hear anything?”
”Just a noise like, and the gun going off-and then the master hollering.”
”I want you to show me where they got in.”
Preceded by a constable carrying a candlestick, they went into the drawing-room. One of the sash windows had been forced with some instrument and panes of gla.s.s had been broken. The window stood open. The Superintendent leaned through it over the flower-beds, but it was still too dark to see anything out there, so he turned back into the room, following the trail of damage that led towards the central table lying on its side and the bureau against the far wall, all its drawers open and littered with paper.
”Seems they couldn't have found much,” he said. ”Anyways, they went next door.”
”That's right, sir. Into the dining-room.”
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