Adders on the Heath

'And what did your team think of the new arrangement?'

'Oh, the blokes didn't mind. In cross-country running you go for the fun of it. At least, I always do. I think everybody thought it was quite an idea. Of course, if it ever became the usual thing, you'd need to seed your runners if both teams were to get the ultimate out of it.'

'The best against the best, the weakest against the weakest, I suppose?'

'That's it. But, as I say, we didn't really mind what the arrangements were. They were the hosts, you see, and I must say they did their stuff nobly afterwards.'

'You imply?'

'The drinks and the supper, and so on.'

'Is the other team based on Winchester?'

'Oh, no. Somewhere near Southampton. I went there-yes, I went there once, I remember, with other of our officials.' His voice tailed off, but Dame Beatrice appeared not to notice this. She went on:

'And your team? Where do all of you come from?'

'We come from all over the place. Berks, Bucks and Oxon mostly. Our secretary lives in Surrey and the treasurer hangs out in Kent. A representative body, one might say, take us all in all.'

'Do you have many outside competitions?'

'As many as we can get. We don't do much on the track, because we haven't got a ground, so it's mostly cross-country. Anyway, most of us like it that way. It's cheaper than golf!'

'How did your club come to be formed?'

'I don't know, really. Chaps knew other chaps, and, before we came down, there was a sort of meeting and some of us agreed to join.'

'It sounds very casual.'

'Oh, yes,' said Richardson earnestly, 'it is. That's the beauty of it. Nobody's bound to turn out. You get the notice-usually at some dashed awkward time when you've already fixed up to do something quite other-and you don't have to answer. You just roll up or not, exactly as you please.'

'And the result of this idyllic arrangement?'

'Curiously enough, quite a lot of people do roll up. There's some sort of psychological explanation, I shouldn't wonder. Oh, dash it! I forgot! You're a psychologist, aren't you?'

Dame Beatrice cackled, and Laura remarked that she herself had noticed that where there was no compulsion there was often a better response than when a press-gang was at work.

'You say that you took care not to be seated near Mr Colnbrook at the supper,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Could you tell whether he still felt animosity towards you?'

'Well, he wasn't very pleased when, on the run-in, I beat him, but I did make the distance between us as narrow as I could. I had to win, of course, because of scoring for the team, otherwise I'd have let him beat me to it.'

'You did not know whether your team really needed your help, I suppose?'

'Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Those who had finished in front of us were howling their heads off, particularly the opposition, so I thought I'd better pull it off.'

'Well, I should think you're in the clear, all right,' said Laura. 'You couldn't have had any reason at all to wish Colnbrook out of this world. You won the scrap and you won the race. It was for him to wish you to hell, not vice-versa.'

'Exactly my opinion,' said Denis.

'I shall be interested to hear what is said at the inquest,' said Dame Beatrice, 'but, like Laura, I cannot see that you have anything to fear provided that you have related all that you know about Mr Colnbrook.'

'Oh, I say, are you really going to attend the inquest?' said Richardson, ignoring the insinuation. 'That's most awfully good of you. I'm not looking forward to it much. It's rotten in the middle of a holiday. Oh, look! They're taking down the shutters. That means the bar's open. Now, Dame Beatrice, what can I get you?'

Nothing serious was said or done until after lunch, but, when the party left the dining-room, Dame Beatrice took her grand-nephew aside, leaving Richardson to escort Laura.

'Why is your friend so nervous about all this?' she asked. 'Can he be involved in any way? After all, he tried to tell the police about the exchange of bodies, it appears. He could do no more if they refused to allow him to explain.'

'I think he got wind-up when we came upon Colnbrook's body in those woods,' said Denis. 'It really was the toughest kind of luck that we should be the people to stumble on it like that. It's as though some malignant fate is dogging Tom down here, and the worst of it is that I really was responsible for suggesting we had a look for Colnbrook.'

'Yes?' said Dame Beatrice doubtfully. 'You have no reason to think that Mr Richardson knew perfectly well where Mr Colnbrook's body was, and deliberately led you to its discovery?'

'Good Lord, no, of course not! That's a fantastic suggestion, darling great-aunt. Besides, the forester said they'd moved it from where they found it. It was in their way.'

'Very likely,' his great-aunt agreed. 'But, as Laura would say, it is as well to explore all avenues. What made him pitch a tent up there on the heath when he would have been far more comfortable sleeping here in the hotel? I understand that he took all his meals here, including his breakfast.'

'Well, he's a solitary sort of old lunatic, you know. I doubt whether he's got a close pal in the world besides myself. I gather that he wanted to do a bit of badger-watching and so forth, and, of course, I did let him down. I couldn't help it, but there it was. He had two days more on his own than we'd planned. It was damned bad luck that this business of two dead men should have cropped up.'

'Yes. One might argue that one dead man was enough. Two...'

'Overdoing it? I agree. But what's the answer?'

'That is what we have to find out, dear child.'

'In the old days, I got half a crown when you called me that. Do you remember?'

'I hardly think that you are in dire need of half a crown in these days.'

'You never know,' said Denis.

'What is this athletics club of which Mr Richardson is a member? And what kind of people are the other members?'

'They call themselves the Hen-Harriers-a sort of play upon words, if you take me, although they don't have women members. They're a casual bunch, as he indicated. They're the sort of chaps who ran as second strings for their colleges in the three miles when they were up-third strings, most likely-plus a sprinkling of hockey players who turn up for cross-country running when they haven't a fixture, or, more likely, when a fixture falls through at the last minute. Happy-go-lucky types, I should say, on the whole. I only know what Tom tells me about them.'

'You would not call them a desperately keen band?'

'Lord, no! They really do run for the fun of it, and, if nobody bothers to finish, well, nobody bothers!'

'It sounds an ideal arrangement.'

'Oh, it is, and old Tom enjoys it. He has to be pubbable and clubbable, you see, and it's jolly good for him, otherwise he'd probably turn into every kind of hermit.'

'Girls?'

'He's a bit like the hero of She Stoops to Conquer-good with barmaids, but otherwise, I fear, not even a spent force, although I did hear a rumour that he might be getting engaged. I haven't met the girl.'

'What does he do for a living?'

'Oh, prep-school master, as long as he can stick the school, and then a bit of private tutoring while he works up steam to apply for another post. Lives with a widowed mother who, I gather, has plenty of dough. What Tom really ought to do is to write, but his first novel was turned down by the only two publishers he sent it to, and that seems to have soured on the boy. He's by way of being Shelley's original sensitive plant.'

'Interesting.'

'You can tell the sort of chap he is by the way he's taking these deaths. They can't possibly be anything to do with him, but his attitude is that the black cap is already on the judge's head. It gets fatiguing. It will be a jolly good thing when the inquest is over and he can breathe again.'