Lord Peter Views the Body · The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention (5/8)

Wimsey said he would be delighted.

Mrs. Hancock interposed and said, wouldn’t Lord Peter come to tea at the vicarage first.

Wimsey said it was very good of her.

“Then that’s settled,” said Mrs. Burdock. “You and Mr. Pym come to tea, and then we’ll all go over the house together. I’ve hardly seen it myself yet.”

“It’s very well worth seeing,” said Mr. Frobisher-Pym. “Fine old place, but takes some money to keep up. Has nothing been seen of the will yet, Mr. Burdock?”

“Nothing whatever,” said Haviland. “It’s curious, because Mr. Graham⁠—the solicitor, you know, Lord Peter⁠—certainly drew one up, just after poor Martin’s unfortunate difference with our father. He remembers it perfectly.”

“Can’t he remember what’s in it?”

“He could, of course, but he doesn’t think it etiquette to say. He’s one of the crusted old type. Poor Martin always called him an old scoundrel⁠—but then, of course, he never approved of Martin, so Martin was not altogether unprejudiced. Besides, as Mr. Graham says, all that was some years ago, and it’s quite possible that the governor destroyed the will later, or made a new one in America.”

“ ‘Poor Martin’ doesn’t seem to have been popular hereabouts,” said Wimsey to Mr. Frobisher-Pym, as they parted from the Burdocks and turned homewards.

“N-no,” said the magistrate. “Not with Graham, anyway. Personally, I rather liked the lad, though he was a bit harum-scarum. I dare say he’s sobered up with time⁠—and marriage. It’s odd that they can’t find the will. But, if it was made at the time of the rumpus, it’s bound to be in Haviland’s favour.”

“I think Haviland thinks so,” said Wimsey. “His manner seemed to convey a chastened satisfaction. I expect the discreet Graham made it fairly clear that the advantage was not with the unspeakable Martin.”

The following morning turned out fine, and Wimsey, who was supposed to be enjoying a rest-and-fresh-air cure in Little Doddering, petitioned for a further loan of Polly Flinders. His host consented with pleasure, and only regretted that he could not accompany his guest, being booked to attend a Board of Guardians meeting in connection with the workhouse.

“But you could go up and get a good blow on the common,” he suggested. “Why not go round by Petering Friars, turn off across the common till you get to Dead Man’s Post, and come back by the Frimpton Road? It makes a very pleasant round⁠—about nineteen miles. You’ll be back in nice time for lunch if you take it easy.”

Wimsey fell in with the plan⁠—the more readily that it exactly coincided with his own inward purpose. He had a reason for wishing to ride over the Frimpton road by daylight.

“You’ll be careful about Dead Man’s Post,” said Mrs. Frobisher-Pym a little anxiously. “The horses have a way of shying at it. I don’t know why. People say, of course⁠—”

“All nonsense,” said her husband. “The villagers dislike the place and that makes the horses nervous. It’s remarkable how a rider’s feelings communicate themselves to his mount. I’ve never had any trouble at Dead Man’s Post.”

It was a quiet and pretty road, even on a November day, that led to Petering Friars. Jogging down the winding Essex lanes in the wintry sunshine, Wimsey felt soothed and happy. A good burst across the common raised his spirits to exhilaration pitch. He had entirely forgotten Dead Man’s Post and its uncanny reputation, when a violent start and swerve, so sudden that it nearly unseated him, recalled him to what he was doing. With some difficulty, he controlled Polly Flinders, and brought her to a standstill.

He was at the highest point of the common, following a bridle-path which was bordered on each side by gorse and dead bracken. A little way ahead of him another bridle-path seemed to run into it, and at the junction of the two was something which he had vaguely imagined to be a decayed signpost. Certainly it was short and thick for a signpost, and had no arms. It appeared, however, to bear some sort of inscription on the face that was turned towards him.

He soothed the mare, and urged her gently towards the post. She took a few hesitating steps, and plunged sideways, snorting and shivering.

“Queer!” said Wimsey. “If this is my state of mind communicating itself to my mount, I’d better see a doctor. My nerves must be in a rotten state. Come up, old lady? What’s the matter with you?”

Polly Flinders, apologetic but determined, refused to budge. He urged her gently with his heel. She sidled away, with ears laid back, and he saw the white of a protesting eye. He slipped from the saddle, and, putting his hand through the bridle, endeavoured to lead her forward. After a little persuasion, the mare followed him, with stretched neck and treading as though on eggshells. After a dozen hesitating paces, she stopped again, trembling in all her limbs. He put his hand on her neck and found it wet with sweat.

“Damn it all!” said Wimsey. “Look here, I’m jolly well going to read what’s on that post. If you won’t come, will you stand still?”

He dropped the bridle. The mare stood quietly, with hanging head. He left her and went forward, glancing back from time to time to see that she showed no disposition to bolt. She stood quietly enough, however, only shifting her feet uneasily.

Wimsey walked up to the post. It was a stout pillar of ancient oak, newly painted white. The inscription, too, had been recently blacked in. It read:

On This Spot
George Winter
Was Foully Murthered
in Defense of
His Master’s Goods
by Black Ralph
Of Herriotting
Who Was Afterward
Hanged in Chains
on the Place of His Crime
9 November 1674

Fear Justice

“And very nice, too,” said Wimsey. “Dead Man’s Post without a doubt. Polly Flinders seems to share the local feeling about the place. Well, Polly, if them’s your sentiments, I won’t do violence to them. But may I ask why, if you’re so sensitive about a mere post, you should swallow a death-coach and four headless horses with such hardened equanimity?”

The mare took the shoulder of his jacket gently between her lips and mumbled at it.

“Just so,” said Wimsey. “I perfectly understand. You would if you could, but you really can’t. But those horses, Polly⁠—did they bring with them no brimstone blast from the nethermost pit? Can it be that they really exuded nothing but an honest and familiar smell of stables?”

He mounted, and, turning Polly’s head to the right, guided her in a circle, so as to give Dead Man’s Post a wide berth before striking the path again.

“The supernatural explanation is, I think, excluded. Not on a priori grounds, which would be unsound, but on the evidence of Polly’s senses. There remain the alternatives of whisky and jiggery-pokery. Further investigation seems called for.”

He continued to muse as the mare moved quietly forward.

“Supposing I wanted, for some reason, to scare the neighbourhood with the apparition of a coach and headless horses, I should choose a dark, rainy night. Good! It was that kind of night. Now, if I took black horses and painted their bodies white⁠—poor devils! what a state they’d be in. No. How do they do these Maskelyne-and-Devant stunts where they cut off people’s heads? White horses, of course⁠—and black felt clothing over their heads. Right! And luminous paint on the harness, with a touch here and there on their bodies, to make good contrast and ensure that the whole show wasn’t invisible. No difficulty about that. But they must go silently. Well, why not? Four stout black cloth bags filled with bran, drawn well up and tied round the fetlocks would make any horse go quietly enough, especially if there was a bit of a wind going. Rags round the bridle-rings to prevent clinking, and round the ends of the traces to keep ’em from squeaking. Give ’em a coachman in a white coat and a black mask, hitch ’em to a rubber-tyred fly, picked out with phosphorous and well-oiled at the joints⁠—and I swear I’d make something quite ghostly enough to startle a rather well-irrigated gentleman on a lonely road at half-past two in the morning.”

He was pleased with this thought, and tapped his boot cheerfully with his whip.

“But damn it all! They never passed me again. Where did they go to? A coach-and-horses can’t vanish into thin air, you know. There must be a side-road after all⁠—or else, Polly Flinders, you’ve been pulling my leg all the time.”

The bridle-path eventually debouched upon the highway at the now familiar fork where Wimsey had met the policeman. As he slowly ambled homewards, his lordship scanned the left-hand hedgerow, looking for the lane which surely must exist. But nothing rewarded his search. Enclosed fields with padlocked gates presented the only breaks in the hedge, till he again found himself looking down the avenue of trees up which the death-coach had come galloping two nights before.

“Damn!” said Wimsey.

It occurred to him for the first time that the coach might perhaps have turned round and gone back through Little Doddering. Certainly it had been seen by Little Doddering Church on Wednesday. But on that occasion, also, it had galloped off in the direction of Frimpton. In fact, thinking it over, Wimsey concluded that it had approached from Frimpton, gone round the church⁠—widdershins, naturally⁠—by the Back Lane, and returned by the highroad whence it came. But in that case⁠—

“Turn again, Whittington,” said Wimsey, and Polly Flinders rotated obediently in the road. “Through one of those fields it went, or I’m a Dutchman.”

He pulled Polly into a slow walk, and passed along the strip of grass at the right-hand side, staring at the ground as though he were an Aberdonian who had lost a sixpence.

The first gate led into a ploughed field, harrowed smooth and sown with autumn wheat. It was clear that no wheeled thing had been across it for many weeks. The second gate looked more promising. It gave upon fallow ground, and the entrance was seamed with innumerable wheel-ruts. On further examination, however, it was clear that this was the one and only gate. It seemed unlikely that the mysterious coach should have been taken into a field from which there was no way out. Wimsey decided to seek further.

The third gate was in bad repair. It sagged heavily from its hinges; the hasp was gone, and gate and post had been secured with elaborate twists of wire. Wimsey dismounted and examined these, convincing himself that their rusty surface had not been recently disturbed.

There remained only two more gates before he came to the crossroads. One led into plough again, where the dark ridge-and-furrow showed no sign of disturbance, but at sight of the last gate Wimsey’s heart gave a leap.

There was plough-land here also, but round the edge of the field ran a wide, beaten path, rutted and waterlogged. The gate was not locked, but opened simply with a spring catch. Wimsey examined the approach. Among the wide ruts made by farm-wagons was the track of four narrow wheels⁠—the unmistakable prints of rubber tyres. He pushed the gate open and passed through.

The path skirted two sides of the plough; then came another gate and another field, containing a long barrow of mangold wurzels and a couple of barns. At the sound of Polly’s hoofs, a man emerged from the nearest barn, with a paintbrush in his hand, and stood watching Wimsey’s approach.

“ ’Morning!” said the latter genially.

“ ’Morning, sir.”

“Fine day after the rain.”

“Yes, it is, sir.”

“I hope I’m not trespassing?”

“Where was you wanting to go, sir?”

“I thought, as a matter of fact⁠—hullo!”

“Anything wrong, sir?”

Wimsey shifted in the saddle.

“I fancy this girth’s slipped a bit. It’s a new one.” (This was a fact.) “Better have a look.”

The man advanced to investigate, but Wimsey had dismounted and was tugging at the strap, with his head under the mare’s belly.

“Yes, it wants taking up a trifle. Oh! Thanks most awfully. Is this a shortcut to Abbotts Bolton, by the way?”

“Not to the village, sir, though you can get through this way. It comes out by Mr. Mortimer’s stables.”

“Ah, yes. This his land?”

“No, sir, it’s Mr. Topham’s land, but Mr. Mortimer rents this field and the next for fodder.”

“Oh, yes.” Wimsey peered across the hedge. “Lucerne, I suppose. Or clover.”

“Clover, sir. And the mangolds is for the cattle.”

“Oh⁠—Mr. Mortimer keeps cattle as well as horses?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very jolly. Have a gasper?” Wimsey had sidled across to the barn in his interest, and was gazing absently into its dark interior. It contained a number of farm implements and a black fly of antique construction, which seemed to be undergoing renovation with black varnish. Wimsey pulled some vestas from his pocket. The box was apparently damp, for, after one or two vain attempts he abandoned it, and struck a match on the wall of the barn. The flame, lighting up the ancient fly, showed it to be incongrously fitted with rubber tyres.

“Very fine stud, Mr. Mortimer’s, I understand,” said Wimsey carelessly.

“Yes, sir, very fine indeed.”

“I suppose he hadn’t any greys, by any chance. My mother⁠—queenly woman, Victorian ideas, and all that⁠—is rather keen on greys. Sports a carriage and pay-ah, don’t you know.”

“Yes, sir? Well, Mr. Mortimer would be able to suit the lady, I think, sir. He has several greys.”

“No? has he though? I must really go over and see him. Is it far?”

“Matter of five or six mile by the fields, sir.”

Wimsey looked at his watch.

“Oh, dear! I’m really afraid it’s too far for this morning. I absolutely promised to get back to lunch. I must come over another day. Thanks so much. Is that girth right now? Oh, really, I’m immensely obliged. Get yourself a drink, won’t you⁠—and tell Mr. Mortimer not to sell his greys till I’ve seen them. Well, good morning, and many thanks.”

He set Polly Flinders on the homeward path and trotted gently away. Not till he was out of sight of the barn did he pull up and, stooping from the saddle, thoughtfully examine his boots. They were liberally plastered with bran.

“I must have picked it up in the barn,” said Wimsey. “Curious, if true. Why should Mr. Mortimer be lashing the stuffing out of his greys in an old fly at dead of night⁠—and with muffled hoofs and no heads, to boot? It’s not a kind thing to do. It frightened Plunkett very much. It made me think I was drunk⁠—a thought I hate to think. Ought I to tell the police? Are Mr. Mortimer’s jokes any business of mine? What do you think, Polly?”

The mare, hearing her name, energetically shook her head.

“You think not? Perhaps you are right. Let us say that Mr. Mortimer did it for a wager. Who am I to interfere with his amusements? All the same,” added his lordship, “I’m glad to know it wasn’t Lumsden’s whisky.”

“This is the library,” said Haviland, ushering in his guests. “A fine room⁠—and a fine collection of books, I’m told, though literature isn’t much in my line. It wasn’t much in the governor’s line, either, I’m afraid. The place wants doing up, as you see. I don’t know whether Martin will take it in hand. It’s a job that’ll cost money, of course.”

Wimsey shivered a little as he gazed round⁠—more from sympathy than from cold, though a white November fog lay curled against the tall windows and filtered damply through the frames.