The New Sonia Wayward (16 page)

It seemed probable that Mrs Williams shared with Ambrose a liking for good quality fish. By insincerely professing a new-born fondness for the dog, Petticate was thus able plausibly to frequent the fishmonger’s and so provide himself with bait for the cat. After a number of vain attempts, in which the fish was sometimes totally scorned and sometimes eaten only after Petticate had abandoned it and left the place, he did at last begin in some measure to make Mrs Williams’ acquaintance.

Eventually Mrs Williams came to realize that it was worth while to keep a rendezvous with the gift-bearing Petticate every evening. After that, it looked as if it ought to be plain sailing. While feeding, the creature appeared to have no objection to being stroked. A cat that you can stroke, you can pick up and pitch into a basket. Petticate was in fact sitting on an upturned pail in the lane, stroking Mrs Williams, and reflecting that with one full dress-rehearsal he would be ready for his bold bid for freedom, when he became aware of a phenomenon best to be described as a large warm breathing in his ear. He turned his head and found himself gazing into the eyes of Johnson; he raised his head and found himself gazing into the eyes of Johnson’s – and Mrs Williams’ owner. It was an awkward moment.

It appeared that Mrs Gotlop was even more amused than usual. Her laughter had a note that was submarine and profound. When she spoke, it was to address Petticate by her customary appellation.

‘Blimp!’

Petticate jumped up, so that the pail clattered under him. Disturbed by this, Mrs Williams bounded away. Johnson put his head into the pail and made horrible snuffling noises. A scuffling in the undergrowth suggested the even more objectionable vicinity of Boswell.

‘Blimp the animal-lover,’ Mrs Gotlop expanded. ‘Well, well, well!’

‘Good evening,’ Petticate said. ‘It’s very mild. How are your Keswick Codlins, your Ribston Pippins, your Warner’s Kings?’

Mrs Gotlop, who had no particular reputation as a keen orchardist, ignored this random attempt at rural converse. Instead, she pointed towards the ground.

‘Blimp, what in the devil’s name is that?’

Petticate frowned – partly because he disliked profanity or imprecation in women, partly because he resented the suggestion that the devil was at all involved in the matter, and partly because he found nothing convincing to say.

‘That?’ he managed. ‘A bit of fish, you know. Our Ambrose likes fish. And I’ve discovered that your Mrs Williams likes fish too.’

‘You come out and
feed
my Mrs Williams?’

Petticate tried to manage an easy laugh.

‘Yes, indeed, I hope you don’t mind. Just from time to time, you know. Delightful creature, Mrs Williams.’

There was a moment’s silence. Johnson, who had sat down on his massive haunches, glanced at his mistress and mournfully shook his head. Both were clearly convinced that Colonel Petticate was out of his right mind.

‘And
that
?’ Mrs Gotlop asked.

Petticate saw that she was now pointing to the plate which he had taken to keeping in the barn for the purpose of serving Mrs Williams with her fish. He now realized that it was rather an impressive plate. The Hennwifes having taken to presenting Ambrose with his meals upon the best porcelain in the house, he had been unconsciously following their example.

‘Quite a pretty piece,’ he said feebly. ‘Just a single odd plate. Found it up on a shelf.’

‘On the shelf yourself, aren’t you, Blimp?’ Mrs Gotlop roared with laughter at her own humour. ‘I saw Gialletti the other day, by the way. He’s looking for Sonia. He’s looking for her hard. But I don’t suppose he’s asked
you
.’

‘Well, no – he hasn’t.’ Petticate found himself continuing to cut the most wretched and unready figure before this confounded woman.

‘Ah! By the way, I’ve heard what Ambrose Wedge has told Rickie Shotover about Sonia’s new book. I’d never have believed it.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ Petticate had the uneasy feeling of one who suspects himself to have been left in the dark about pertinent matters. ‘But why not?’

Mrs Gotlop looked at him keenly. So did Johnson. So, suddenly breaking cover, did Boswell as well. It was an alarming inquisition.

‘I see,’ she said, ‘you know nothing about it. More surprises, I suppose. Well, well!’

And, with a final roar of mirth, Mrs Gotlop marched off.

Petticate found himself disproportionately unnerved by this awkward but probably insignificant encounter. He found himself contemplating an unbidden image of Mrs Gotlop in the witness-box, improbably flanked by her two canine familiars, and giving damning evidence in the sensational case of the murders in the barn. This was a senseless freak of imagination, and he saw that his nerves were getting out of control. If he wasn’t going to crack up, the time had come to act.

He went back to the barn and made a final examination of his handiwork. There was a good excuse, he reflected, for his being thoroughly nervous. The task he had achieved had been not only arduous but mountingly dangerous as well. The Hennwifes must have terrified him more than he knew in order to drive him to all this hazard. The tons of stone represented by the roof didn’t yet precisely hang by a thread. But they were supported by timbers most of which had now been adequately monkeyed with in their sockets and on their corbels. He had no doubt whatever that a single heave on his rope would bring the whole impending mass thundering down.

It was now almost dark in the barn, and bats were fluttering. His nervousness increased so that, like a child, he suddenly wished the place lit up. This put him in mind of something. There was electricity laid on to one corner of the barn, and he had noticed that there was still a bulb in the socket. He musn’t grope his way to it now – that would be far too dangerous – but he must remember to take it out in the morning. It wouldn’t do to have one of the Hennwifes switching it on. He didn’t, somehow, fancy the prospect of even a second’s naked glimpse of them as they advanced to their doom.

Petticate paused in the great wide doorway, listening. There wasn’t a sound. Although he was scarcely a quarter of a mile from the centre of Snigg’s Green, this part of his property was as remote as if it were buried in the country. The Hennwifes, he told himself with a satisfied chuckle, were going to be most peacefully accommodated. Within twenty-four hours now they would be sleeping as soundly as any of the rude forefathers of the neighbouring hamlet.

Petticate made sure of the position of the basket into which Mrs Williams was to be dropped. Then he returned in good heart to whatever dinner his victims had prepared for him.

Ambrose, although objectionable as a social anomaly, was an accommodating and indeed almost rational animal. In the following evening, as dusk fell, he was entirely amenable to being put on a lead by Petticate and walked through the garden and the orchard. When tethered to a post just beyond the barn, he settled down in a dignified acquiescence in whatever was going forward.

It was Mrs Williams who gave trouble. At what was now her accustomed hour she quite failed to turn up for her refection. Petticate began to fear that Mrs Gotlop, disapproving of the direction in which Mrs Williams had extended the circle of her acquaintance, had confined her to the house. This would be a disaster. The whole process of cat-hunting would have to begin all over again.

At length however Mrs Williams did arrive – or her eyes arrived, glinting in what was now beginning to approximate to darkness. It was some time before Petticate could make any more substantial contact. Mrs Williams was perhaps aware of Ambrose, although he was well in the background. Or perhaps some special animal instinct warned her that matters were not as they had hitherto been. Eventually indeed she settled down to her fish. But when Petticate, with his basket ready beside him and after a cautious preliminary caress, made a firm grab at Mrs Williams, the creature gave a quick hiss of fury, and Petticate instantly felt a sharp pain in his wrist. He had been badly scratched. He didn’t however let go, and after a further second’s struggle he had Mrs Williams safely shut up. He made his way back with her to Ambrose and the barn. The delay which had occurred was a little upsetting his calculations, and he realized that he had been foolish not to bring a torch. He had planned his operation as an affair of the twilight. Now it was going to take place – with an appropriateness that he didn’t altogether fail to feel – in darkness.

He walked back to the barn with his burden. It proved necessary to hurry, because Ambrose started barking before he had covered half the ground. Mrs Williams in her basket was also in a state of perturbation. Petticate was sure that he had only to set the basket down within a few feet of Ambrose’s nose for pandemonium to break loose.

The barn had a small door, commonly standing open, in the side facing towards the house, and a larger doorway, from which the doors themselves had vanished long ago, directly opposite. Petticate was arranging his cat-and-dog turn at what he judged to be a safe distance beyond this, so that it would be natural for the Hennwifes to make their way straight through the barn when hurrying to rescue Ambrose. The ends of Petticate’s stout rope lay ready to his hand; it ran in a simple loop round the vital beam he was going to bring down, and he had every confidence that he would be able to draw it clear of the wreckage. The only real risk was that of the rope’s getting pinned under the fallen roof and so having to be abandoned on the scene of the incident. If that happened, he would have to get it away later, under cover of the general confusion in which rescue operations would begin.

Ambrose was now satisfactorily demented. His barking must have carried halfway across Snigg’s Green. Within another couple of minutes Petticate, straining his ears amid this clamour, thought that he could detect voices beyond the orchard. A moment later he was sure of it. The Hennwifes – both of them, which was so vital a point – were behaving precisely as planned. There was no flicker of light; they must have tumbled hastily out without pausing to find a torch; and the voices indicated that, despite this, they were coming through the orchard rapidly enough. They knew the ground, after all, as well as Petticate himself.

Mrs Williams was scratching and hissing in her basket. Ambrose went on barking. Petticate took up a light stick with which he had provided himself and gave the animal a couple of sharp cuts. Ambrose, utterly unused to this sort of discipline, at once contrived to mingle yelping with his barking as if it had been not one dog but two. Mrs Hennwife was now anxiously calling out his name. Hennwife himself gave a couple of angry shouts, presumably with the idea of scaring off whatever enemies Ambrose was beset by.

Petticate braced himself. The supreme moment had almost come. He ought actually to be able to glimpse the Hennwifes as they passed into the barn; but if he didn’t he would at once know that they were inside from the quality of their voices. Then he must act on the instant.

But now for a moment they had fallen silent, and Petticate had an answering moment of panic in which he felt that the whole thing might go wrong. He cursed the almost entire darkness, which he hadn’t in the least reckoned upon. If he mistimed that long, strong pull, and the Hennwifes were through the barn and upon him before anything happened, the resulting situation would be an extremely awkward one.

The silence – at least on the part of the human participants in the murky drama – had endured long enough to seem to Petticate wholly alarming when suddenly both the Hennwifes made themselves heard again. Hennwife was still bellowing angrily. Mrs Hennwife was still calling out Ambrose’s name. But the voices came from dead in front of Petticate, and had a resonance of which there could be only one interpretation. They were inside the barn and within seconds would be out of it again, since the direction of Ambrose’s clamour must now be clear to them.

The trap had worked. Petticate felt a sudden fierce exhilaration which he knew would prove concomitant with an equally sudden access of physical strength. He dug in his heels and heaved.

The roof came down with so shattering a violence that Petticate for a bewildered moment supposed himself to have become coincidentally involved in an earthquake, or rather perhaps in a mingling of thunderstorm and avalanche. The ground pulsed and vibrated against the soles of his feet. The crash of falling masonry made a din suggesting the collapse not of an old stone roof but of a city. And high above this he heard, for a split and awful second, a single agonized scream.

He felt suffocated, as if the horror and terror of his deed had been too much for him. So perhaps it had. But the physical sensation, he realized confusedly, was the consequence of a dense cloud of dust that must now be hanging in the darkness around him. He experienced panic as he had never experienced it before. He felt a wild conviction that after so seismic a shock there couldn’t be a window intact in Snigg’s Green, so that at any moment he expected to hear a tumult of alarm from the village.

What he did hear was utter silence. Ambrose was shivering at his feet. The basket might have contained a dead cat.

He remembered that he had to remember what to do next. There was the rope – the rope with which, so incredibly, he had brought this cataclysm about. He must grasp one end of the rope and haul it clear. He fumbled for it and pulled. At first it came away as easily as if the whole invisible length of it lay in a limp coil on the ground. And then it stuck. He heaved and heaved. The rope wouldn’t budge another inch. And this somehow told him in a flash that he hadn’t been quite sane about the whole thing. There had been a high probability that the rope would be pinned down like this. It could only have been a clouded mind that arrived at any other conclusion.

He dropped the rope, stooped down to the basket, and opened the lid. He felt the cat – he couldn’t remember its name – brush his hand as it leapt out and vanished into the darkness. He picked up the basket and threw it away. It was a battered old object, such as anybody might have abandoned in a ditch. He groped for Ambrose’s lead – he did remember that the dog was Ambrose – and hitched it off its post. The job was done. He must go back to the house.