The Scarecrow (17 page)

Probably can’t walk by this time, I thought bitterly; but, in the main, my mind was busy piecing the odd scraps of overheard conversation together. First, the old lady this morning had said Channing Fitzberbert had looked in death as beautiful as a little girl, and now I had heard Angela’s appearance described as that of an old man. With all her hair torn out. It added up, by God, it added up. As I moved off after the hearse I wondered wildly if perhaps my homage was not being paid to old Channing Fitzherbert, after all.

That Angela’s mother was nearly out of her mind with grief was not only a local topic, but also obvious to all with eyes to see. In his misery and concern, it was more than probable that Mr Potroz had left final arrangements in the numb hands of Charlie Dabney, himself, in person.

There was no gauging the drunken folly of Charlie Dabney and his lieutenant, Uncle Athol. If the coffins had been confused in the chapel and relatives conducted to and shown the wrong corpse perhaps the farce had been carried out to the bitter end. There was no telling now; and I knew, right then, trudging along in silence, there never would be an answer.

I will confess that I shied at including this account of that Tuesday in my little narrative, as I feel it to be in the worst taste. On the other hand, its omission would have left me feeling guilty of withholding some aspects of Klynham’s dark hour and, when all is said and done, it is to these moments in the town’s history my recording pen has inexorably led me.

The Hupmobile hearse never reached the graveside.

With a grinding crash it collided with the left-hand pillar of the great ornamental stone gates of the cemetery. The pall-bearers had a long walk. Charlie Dabney and Uncle Athol were
conspicuous by their absence at the graveside, too. They slumbered peacefully in the cab of the wrecked Hupmobile.

So it came to pass that the next court day at Klynham was not marked by any sensational unmasking or preliminary trial of Angela’s killer, but only by the usual crop of people who had ridden bicycles without lights, and Uncle Athol who was charged with being drunk-in-charge and in consequence lost his driving licence for twelve months. The shame of it all.

Detective Inspector Peterjohn became a familiar figure around Klynham, as familiar as the posters on the corrugated-iron walls of the cinema for ‘Palmy Days’ and nearly as tattered. The Airflow Chrysler came and went. Between police and reporters it was as if Klynham had become a tourist resort. The papers— city papers and weeklies—were beginning to clamour for retribution. ‘What were the police doing?’ they asked. It was a question we were all asking.

Les and I were anxious to play detective, but we lacked the nerve to go down into the quarry. We ventured down one afternoon when there were a few other people poking around and we had the actual spot, where Angela’s body was found, pointed out to us; but, after that, whenever we returned it was a dark deserted place, a place of horror, and, as I said, our nerve failed us.

There was nothing superficial about the grief of Prudence.
Like Rachel she mourned and would not be comforted. She went daily with flowers to the cemetery and it was this more than anything, I think, which kept my trap closed concerning my deep suspicion about which grave harboured who.

For the first time since Pop and Ma had married, we were shot of Uncle Athol. Prudence saw him each day, working as she still was at the Federal, for Uncle Athol had found himself living quarters somewhere in the rambling building which belonged to Charlie Dabney and such time as he did not spend there, he spent leaning over the bar in the hotel.

There was no actual romance springing up between Les and Prudence, but at least he saw more of her now than any of her other admirers. The others still hung around of course, in fact, in greater numbers and with more persistence than heretofore, but Prudence seemed to have no patience with them. Les and Prudence and I spent quiet evenings at home, talking around the fire and making up a scrapbook. We went to the flicks together and on Friday nights we tried to roller skate. This was a new craze in Klynham, started by the proprietor of a bicycle shop who had rented an old hall, was hiring out skates and charging sixpence for admission.

It was just a month after the murder of Angela when Les and I, one Friday night, called for Prudence at the Federal Hotel to take her skating and were told she was not there. We were known at the pub by now and had gone straight down to the kitchen. The cook told us Prudence must have gone.

‘I’ve just been upstairs,’ she said, ‘and she’s not there. She was hanging out clothes on the annexe verandah line after tea, and I haven’t seen her since.’ She looked out the kitchen window. ‘She’s not out there now.’

Les and I looked out at the backyard but it was dark and deserted. I could see the white, ghostly shapes of sheets and pillow slips hanging from the clothesline on the annexe verandah.

‘We’re running a bit late, Neddy,’ said Les. ‘Maybe she’s gone down to the skating.’

We stood in the front doorway of the hotel for a few minutes, looking up and down the main street and it was while we were there that we saw Herbert and Uncle Athol go in through the front door of Charlie Dabney’s furniture shop.

‘That brother of yours is getting to be nearly as big a hophead as yer uncle,’ observed Les. ‘C’mon, let’s get along down.’

The first people to pounce on us at the skating were the Headly sisters, Marjorie and Beth. They were well-known hard cases in Klynham, short-skirted, gum-chewing, full of fun, precocious. They must have had Les and me marked down, we never had a chance. We forgot all about Prudence. We walked the sisters home after the skating, both of us quite incoherent and with our hearts pounding deliriously. At last we had graduated from the outside-looking-in class. The sisters were far from incoherent. When they were not smooging up to us and teasing us for being shy they danced along the narrow footpath and sang scatty songs.

He doesn’t look like much of a lover

But cha don’t judge a book by its cover.

In a taxi-cab—hmm hmm

Or in a Morris chair—hmm hmm

Yoo-hoo-ud be surprised.

At the garden gate we received the most wonderful kiss of all—the first. Not only that, but Beth stuck her tongue in my mouth. I thought it was her chewing gum at first. Marjorie had done the same to Les, he told me.

‘Looks to me,’ he said, as we walked back, ‘that these two sheilas are gunna be the ones to learn all about you-know with.’

‘I wonder what it is like?’ he said, just before we parted at the corner.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘You-know,’ he said.

‘Accordin’ to Herbert,’ I told him, ‘it’s like bluebirds flyin’ outa yuh backside.’

‘Is that really what Herbert said?’ Les seemed greatly impressed. I know now that these were not my big brother’s own words at all, but those of some mute, inglorious Milton; in fact, I knew then, but, because it seemed to put Herbert up a peg or two in Les’s eyes, I let it ride. After all blood is thicker than water.

‘Ziz flush,’ said Charlie Dabney. ‘Flush beats straight every friggin’ time. Great Scott, Athol, you old scoundrel, I’ve headed you off you ole reprobate.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Uncle Athol. ‘Not friggin’ flush at
tall
, not even hand of any sort, four friggin’ hearts anna diamond, not even a friggin’ pair.’

‘Well, I’ll be frigged.’

‘And I’ll tell
you
something, Athol,’ said Herbert. ‘Hate to menshun this and all that, but nine, ten, Jack, King, ace, aren’t friggin’ straight either. Where’s friggin’ Queen?’

Charlie Dabney cackled long and loud as Uncle Athol examined his cards. He brushed a tear from his eye. ‘Great Scott, never laughed so much in all muh friggin’ life. Haftu have a lil’ drink on that. Liesh won’t go out all night. No flush, no straight, wouldn’t read about it. Strordinary affair.’ He groped around for
the brandy bottle. He looked behind the box he was sitting on.

‘Athol,’ said Charlie, sternly, ‘where’s the brandy? Have you flogged my brandy bottle, you old rapscallion?’

‘Havva beer,’ said Herbert.

‘Stick it,’ said Charlie. ‘Brandy bottles vanishing rightnleft lately ‘round here. Very mysterious. Maybe not so friggin’ mysterious after all. Maybe perfectly logical explainaesh. Same explainaesh as food vanishing rightnleft all the time. Same explainaesh as cigarette lighter vanishing. Very simple, logical explainaesh. Traitor in camp. Viper in bosom. Great Scott, biting the hand that rocks the cradle.’

‘Just what—’

‘Bottle was over there a minute ago,’ said Herbert. ‘Saw it muhself. Yuh left it on that bench there. No one’s been near that bench.’

‘Perfectly simple, logical explainaesh. See it all now. Viper in bosom. Name of viper, Athol Claude friggin’ Cudby.’

‘I beg your bloody, friggin’ pardon,’ said Uncle Athol, haughtily.

‘Just wait a minute,’ said Herbert, arising somewhat unsteadily from the box he was sitting on.

‘I’ll have you know—’

‘Perfectly simple, logical—’

‘Shurrup,’ hissed Herbert. He held up his hand for silence.

‘Accuse me of friggin’ stealing would—’

‘Perfectly straiford, simple, logical—’

‘Shrrup,’ hissed Herbert. He began to tiptoe away on a tour of inspection of the vast, shadowed room. The only light came from a very tiny electric globe suspended by a flex and hanging very low above the scattered playing cards.

Herbert told me that he now received the biggest fright of his whole life. I am sure I am the only person he ever confided in. He had a very good reason for this reticence, i.e. the shadow of the gallows.

Herbert tiptoed around the end of a great pile of old furniture and timber and came face to face with Salter the Sensational. His heart, as near as dammit, stopped.

‘There’s your thief,’ he yelled, staggering back. ‘There he is. There he is.’

Salter advanced, brandy bottle in hand. Herbert backed away.

‘Great Scott,’ babbled Charlie Dabney. ‘You, you villain. Thought you’d robbed my till and decamped weeks ago, you distardly bastard. All the time still here, robbing ole Charlie, causing trouble between me and dear ole frien’ like Athol. Cause of wild accusaesh against dear ole frien’. Nev’ forgive, nev’ forgive.’

‘Qui’ awright, Charlie, qui’ awright, forget whole affair, qui’ understan’—’

‘Very noble, Athol, heart of gold, episode definitely not closed. Too much altogether. Ring police immediately. Ring friggin’ police. Get Smith, hah.’

In high dudgeon, Charlie Dabney set off for his little office, but he covered very little distance before Salter had him by the throat. He arched the fat, little undertaker back and sank his thumbs deep into the jugular vein. It would have been all up with Charlie in one minute flat, but Uncle Athol and Herbert between them managed to tear Salter loose. At close range he stunk like a polecat.

Purple in the face, Charlie fell to the floor. Salter felled Uncle
Athol with a murderous blow. Herbert retreated. Snarling like a tiger, Salter began to stalk him. Herbert backed into the pile of timber and, reaching behind him, tried to wrench loose a plank. Salter stopped and groped under his armpit. His hand emerged empty, but not a muscle of his freak-ugly face twitched. He charged and pounced. Only mad terror gave Herbert the strength to wield the plank and even with this boost he only swung it high enough to wipe Salter’s long, flying legs from underneath him. Salter’s temple hit the edge of a coffin lid, jammed firm in the pile of timber. He lay still.

Herbert helped his uncle to his feet. They both lifted up Charlie Dabney and lowered him into a sitting position on a box.

‘I’ve knocked the bastard out,’ said Herbert. ‘We better tie him up or something. This guy is dangerous.’

Uncle Athol had found and picked up the brandy bottle. They all had a suck at it.

‘Great Scott,’ said Charlie Dabney, massaging his throat. ‘Nearly lost my ticket for soup that trip. What a scoundrel! Gimme another drink and I’ll ring the jondomerohso. Ring Smith, hah.’

‘Yuh better hurry,’ said Herbert, eyeing the recumbent form of Salter the Sensational.

Uncle Athol went over and examined Salter. After a while he turned around, cold sober, and said, ‘There isn’t any hurry.’

I slept blissfully all night, emotionally intoxicated with a few kisses and Beth Headly poking her tongue down my throat. I was ever a person of simple tastes.

Herbert arrived home hours later than usual, but his arrival did not awaken me. In the morning I woke him up, not intentionally, but by roaming the sunlit bedroom singing, ‘There’s a War in Abyssinia, Wontcha Come. Go Getcha Peanuts andya Gun’, to the tune of ‘Roll Along Covered Wagon, Roll Along’.

Herbert rolled over and yawned languorously. Then he sat bolt upright. Even his hair stood up on end.

‘What’s wrong?’ I queried.

‘Whas wrong?’ repeated Herbert. ‘Jesus, did you say whas wrong?’

‘That’s what I said, man.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Herbert. He tottered across the room,
smacking his forehead.

‘Well, what is wrong?’

‘Nothin’,’ he muttered. ‘Nothin’. Gotta lot to do, thas all. Gotta get the truck off Pop and pick up some junk from a joker’s place. Promised I’d run it down to the tip.’

‘Well, it’s early yet.’

‘Promised I’d be early. Hell! Where’s muh shirt? Where’s muh fags?’

‘Yuh better cut out smoking,’ I told him. ‘You’re shaking like an aspro leaf.’

When I got out to the washhouse, Herbert was leaning over one of the tubs being sick.

‘Thas booze for you,’ I jeered. ‘Yuh better lay off the booze, as well as smokes, or yuh just gunna be Uncle Athol the second.’

‘Shut up, willyuh!’ Herbert screamed at me.

‘I’m sorry, kid,’ he said a moment later. He was sweating like a pig. He went out of the washhouse and I shrugged my shoulders. He poked his head back in and said, ‘Tell Pop I’m taking the Dennis to pick up a load. Tell ‘im I’ll be back before any time at all to speak of.’

When I came out on the verandah he was cranking the truck. Every two or three spins he had a rest and leaned on the radiator. As I went inside, the old girl fired.

‘You’re up early,’ said Ma to me as I entered the kitchen. ‘Whas got into everybody? Herbert out of bed at the crack of dawn. Prudence gone—’

‘When did she go?’ I asked.

‘I dunno, I didn’t see her. But she’s gone.’

‘Oh.’ That was all I said, but I went cold from head to toe. Oh no, please God, not Prudence.

‘Yuh want some porridge?’ Ma asked.

‘I’ll have some soon,’ I said. ‘Yes, soon. I’ll nip down the street first.’

‘Look Eddy,’ said Ma, ‘venturing forth on an empty stomach is just about the surest way in thuh world to pick up every germ known to science, and then some. The atmosphere we breathe aboundinates in the vilest germs, as Grandma Cudby would be the first to tell yuh, and nothing looks like a good landing place to the above-average germ more than an empty gutz at the crack uv dawn.’

‘See yuh,’ I muttered. I ran all the way to the Federal. Prudence had not put in an appearance. None of the kitchen staff had seen her. They looked at me curiously. Out on the street I paced up and down biting my nails. To my surprise I saw our old Dennis parked up the alleyway by Dabney’s chapel. I glimpsed Herbert and Uncle Athol. They seemed to be loading the tray with a lot of old timber and junk. I figured that in an old building like Dabney’s there would be enough junk to sink a boat. I wondered if Herbert was putting one across Pop. Probably owed more money, I thought. To hell with him anyway! I began to jog-trot in the direction of the police station. Sun before seven, I thought crazily, rain before eleven. Great isolated drops of rain were falling, hitting me on the head hard, thudding into the ground around me as I jog-trotted. The sky was greying over. The huge raindrops were like a pup’s pawmarks. I had an all-alone, desperate, melancholy feeling. I was incapable of running any faster, or doing anything more than just jog-trot. My heart thumped louder than my feet. Sun before seven, sun before seven.

Len Ramsbottom, heading for the police station also, pulled
up just ahead of me out on the road. Through a hole in a celluloid side-curtain of the Austin, I gabbled my fears out to him.

‘Get in,’ he snapped.

As we puttered out on to the main street our old Dennis, its radiator steaming, chugged past in the opposite direction. Herbert was driving. It looked like Charlie Dabney’s fat face by Herbert’s shoulder and, I guessed, the third figure in the cab was that of Uncle Athol. It was hard to see clearly in the driving rain, but the three of them looked miserable and unusually pale, almost grey. They were staring straight ahead with set faces.

Constable Len Ramsbottom and I stood out in the slashing rain in the middle of the backyard of the Federal Hotel and stared around hopelessly at the big oil drums, which served for trash cans, and the heaps of empty crates and casks. Everywhere the raindrops spurted and bounced, and everything (us included) was sodden wet. Faces, masked by windows and the curtains of upstairs rooms, watched us.

We had explored every inch of the yard. We had prowled along the annexe verandah, ducking under the sheets and pillow slips which Prudence had pegged on the line. We had examined all the rooms opening off the verandah, turning everything over, even looking under the tubs in the washhouse. It was while we were in the washhouse that I must have seen it first, but my meter had failed to register. I must have thought it was a beltbuckle or something of that nature.

By now, the early daylight had been so throttled by the evil clouds that we could have been abroad in a winter’s dusk. I looked up wretchedly at the tall young policeman’s face and he looked down just as wretchedly into mine.

‘Go up on the verandah outa the rain, Neddy,’ he said. ‘Oi
won’t be long.’ He removed an improvised latch, a short length of 3 × 2 timber, and opened an iron gate in the high fence. It opened up on the alley between the hotel and the funeral parlour. Now I knew where he was going. The quarry! Oh no, please God! I stood in the rain paralysed by the realisation of what the simple words ‘too late’ could mean.

‘We’ll fa-hind her,’ Len Ramsbottom had said to me, as we had driven along the street in his little car. ‘We’ll pull this town apart, board by board, stone by stone, until we do.

‘Ber-rick by ber-rick,’ he had added, as we picked up steam. My eyes had glittered when I heard him say these things.

I thought now: bone by bone. The thought was only a flick, but the drenching rain was neither wet nor cold enough to instantly revive me.

The formless faces in the Federal were still watching, so the nape of my neck told me. My mind moved in ever diminishing, concentric circles until finally the yard and the annexe and the rain and the piece of loose iron banging on a roof all faded from me and I could only see one small article, a piece of black cloth. Like a mad thing, I rushed into the washhouse. The washhouse was frighteningly dark and empty. There it was on the floor. Gingerly I picked it up. A shiver zig-zagged up my spine.

‘Len!’ I screamed. ‘Len! Len! Len!’

He met me at the top of the track down to the quarry.

‘Salter the Sensational,’ I babbled. ‘It’s his bow tie. It’s him that musta killed Angela. It’s him that’s killed Prudence. He hid in a shed in Smythe Street and waited for her one night, she told me. Because we laughed at him. He’s killed her! He’s killed her—’

Len began to run back down into the quarry. He stopped
and looked back at me. He looked demented.

‘Charlie Dabney,’ I yelled above the rain. ‘He’ll know where to find him.’

He blundered past me like a buffalo. When he started to kick in the chapel doors, I tugged at his arm.

‘He’s in our truck,’ I panted. ‘Just as we came along they drove away with a load of junk heaped on our truck—Uncle Athol and Herbert and Mr Dabney. They’re headed for the dump.’

‘The dump?’ said Len, stupidly. He had already kicked one panel of the stout door clean out. It was inch-thick, kauri timber. He must have had a foot like a battle-axe.

‘The rubbish tip,’ I howled, gnawing at my knuckles. ‘Let’s catch him up and find out where Salter is.’

We ran for the Austin.

It was uphill to the rubbish tip and the little car made hard work of the trip. I leaned forward as if to help the motor. My fist was jammed in my mouth.

‘Oi didn’t believe her,’ groaned Len. ‘Jesus forgive me. Oi didn’t believe her.’

So great was my horror of rats that I had resolved never again to revisit the tip. It was considered to be an honour to be invited by older boys, air-rifle owners, to accompany them to the tip on a rat-shooting expedition, but once had been more than enough for me. The rodent-infested gully, crammed with tins and paper and reeking filth was, for me, the stuff of nightmares. There was no need for me, as we scrambled from the car, to glance at the drunkenly leaning notice to glean what it announced. The signboard slanted at the same forty-five-degree angle as the driving rain. KLYNHAM BOROUGH RUBBISH
TIP. POISON LAID FOR RATS.

Our old Dennis tip-truck, resembling, beneath this lowering sky, some armoured, malevolent reptile of the past, was backed up to the gully and a great assortment of old timber and boxes and rubbish was noisily cascading off the tilted tray, down into the putrefaction below. The policeman and I ran across the squelching ground. Uncle Athol, Herbert and Charlie Dabney, stood aghast like the skeletons of lightning-devoured trees.

‘This Salter,’ rapped Len. ‘You know this man, Salter, Mr Dabney. Where is he? Where does he live? Quick now!’

‘He’s got Prudence,’ I gabbled. ‘He killed Angela. It’s him, I tell yuh. I found his bow tie. He might have killed Prudence, we gotta find him, we gotta. Prudence hasn’t been seen since last night. Where is he?’

Charlie Dabney sank down on the sodden ground. He was soaked through and through and he was ashen-faced. ‘Brandy,’ he croaked. ‘Athol, don’t leave me to die. Brandy.’

‘The shop!’ Herbert suddenly yelled. ‘That’s where the swine’s been hiding. In the shop. Hiding somewhere in Charlie’s shop.’

Again Len and I ran for the Austin. The little car turned for town as if it were chasing its tail. We hit every bump over the brow of the hill full steam ahead.

This time Len put his shoulder to the front doors of Dabney’s shop. They flew apart with a splintering crack. The very first charge we were in. I followed him into the gloomy shop, rejoicing in his massive strength and giant outline.

‘Prudence!’ he called. ‘Come out, Salter! Don’t try to escape. Oi’m armed and Oi’ll shoot to kill.’

We listened. I knew Len carried as many arms as a harbour
dredge. I looked over my shoulder as if I were alone in the dark. The plate-glass window rippled with rain and the street beyond was a shadow-show. The door behind us banged brokenly and I jumped in terror. I remembered Prudence running out from the shop the night we had come with Herbert, the night she had reckoned she had seen Salter. I could see her beautiful big eyes bright as stars with fear, and I could hear her husky voice saying ‘Standing among the
coffins.
’ I whimpered. To be standing breathing this lily-sick air, in this musty hole among the waxen wreaths in those round glass cases, and to be thinking of lovely, sparkling Prudence, was horrible. Stealthily, Len began to advance. It was all I could make myself do to follow him.

Half-way along a narrow passage was a tiny office with a littered desk and a telephone. An empty brandy bottle stood beside the ‘phone. Half a cigar, well chewed, was on the floor. I ran after Len. We were in the big storeroom and cabinet-making shop. My heart nearly stopped as Len pounced forward and tore aside a grey velvet curtain. As a matter of fact, he ripped it beyond repair. We were confronted by a row of brandy bottles on a shelf. We saw the playing cards scattered on the floor. There were empty bottles everywhere.

‘Prudence,’ Len called.

Our only answer was the muffled thunder of rain.

‘Prudence,’ I called. My voice sounded cracked and feeble.

‘Prudence!’ Len bellowed.

We threw stealth away and began a frantic hunt. Ruthlessly, we tossed coffins over and pushed aside the obsolete furniture which cluttered the dark corners. Cobwebs reached for us. Along the echoing passages we stamped, smashing open creaking doors and peering into junk-stuffed rooms. Dust rose and
fell all about us like a ground mist. At the very back, up a few steps, was a particularly horrible and very dark passageway with grime-coated windows, overlooking, I guessed, the quarry. We stopped half-way along. It led nowhere. I stood behind him, sick with hopelessness. As we came back along the passage we stopped dead.

I can still claim my eyes were sharp, although I had missed the knife on our way along the passage. I can plead that the light, meagre as it was, had been against us. I saw the knife in time to prevent me banging my chin into the arm Len threw across the passage. As the building shuddered so did the hilt of the outsize knife, which riveted our vision. It was as if it had just thudded home into the wall above our heads. It was well over even big Len’s head and yet, it dawned on us after our first alarm had abated, it had been slammed up there, effortlessly, in passing. Each time the wind, having battled its way through the ranks of driving rain, shook the building, the hilt of the knife quivered realistically. An intrepid cobweb had already staked its claim on the wicked steel.

‘Listen!’ I hissed. ‘Listen!’ When I heard the stifled whimper again from behind us I had to clutch Len’s arm, or I would have fallen.

‘Prudence!’ he roared.

It is very easy to abandon effort just when triumph is at hand. In our despair, we had very nearly done just that. At the end of the passage was an enormous, ancient, very ornately carved chest of drawers. It had escaped our attention that it was not flush with the end wall and that there were several yards of floor space behind it. My chances of shifting the chest on my own can be discounted, but Len heaved an end up and staggered
backwards with it, nearly skittling me in the process. It was as if we had burst into the fetid, bone-strewn lair of a robber dog.

Les pushed me back. ‘Get out, Neddy,’ he said. He thought she was dead, and so did I.

‘No, no,’ I whimpered.

Prudence looked terrible lying on her back, half on a ruptured mattress, half on the filthy floor, among cheese rinds, empty fish and meat cans, chop bones, crusts, bottles, cigar ends, rat droppings. She was gagged with a blood-soaked handkerchief. Sash-cord, ripped tight across the gaping wound of her mouth, held the handkerchief in place. Her eyes were glazed with shock and suffering, but it is heavenly to recall the glint of recognition that refired them. The first word she mumbled when Len had eased off the gag was ‘Eddy’ and that, also, is heavenly to recall. Then she said, ‘Len!’ He would probably tell you it was the other way around, but she definitely spoke my name first.