There was the sound of light wheels on gravel and around the corner of the house came a policeman on a bicycle.
“Good evening, all,” said the policeman dismounting. “What seems to be the trouble?”
Julia walked up to him with outstretched hand.
“You say it!” she cried. “You really do say it! How perfectly super.”
“Beg pardon, madam?” said the policeman, sizing her up.
“I thought it was only a joke thing about policemen asking what seemed to be the trouble and saying ‘Evening, all.’ ”
“It’s as good a thing to say as anything else,” reasoned the policeman.
“Of course it is,” she agreed warmly. “It’s a splendid thing to say.”
Jasper intervened. “My wife’s had a very bad shock. She made the discovery.”
“That’s right,” Julia said in a trembling voice. “My name’s Julia Pharamond and I made the discovery and I’m not quite myself.”
The policeman — he was a sergeant — had removed his bicycle clips and produced his notebook. He made a brief entry.
“Is that the case?” he said. “Mrs. J. Pharamond of L’Espérance, that would be, wouldn’t it? I’m sure I’m very sorry. It was you that rang the station, sir, was it?”
“No. I expect it was Dr. Carey. I rang him. Or perhaps it was the ambulance.”
“I see, sir. And I understand it’s a fatality. A horse-riding accident?” They made noises of assent. “Very sad, I’m sure,” said the sergeant. “Yes. So if I might just take a wee look-see.”
Once more Jasper pointed the way. The sergeant in his turn tramped down the horse paddock to the blackthorn hedge.
“You could do with some of that coffee and grog yourself, darling,” Jasper said.
“I did take a sly gulp. I can’t think why I rushed at Sergeant Dixon like that.”
“He’s not Sergeant Dixon.”
“There! You see! I’ll be calling him that to his face if I’m not careful. Too rude. I suppose you’re right. I suppose I’m like this on account of my taking a wee look-see.” She burst into sobbing laughter and Jasper took her in his arms.
He looked from Ricky to Carlotta. “We ought to get her out of this,” he said.
“Why don’t we all just go? We can’t do any good hanging about here,” said Carlotta.
“We can’t leave Mr. Harness,” Julia sobbed into her husband’s coat. “We don’t know what he mightn’t get up to. Besides Sergeant Thing will want me to make a statement and Ricky, too, I expect. That’s very important, isn’t it, Ricky? Taking statements on the scene of the crime.”
“What crime!” Carlotta exclaimed. “Have you gone dotty, Julia?”
“Where’s Bruno got to now?” Jasper asked.
“He went away to be sick,” said Carlotta. “I expect he’ll be back in a minute.”
Jasper put Julia into the back of the car and stayed beside her for some time. Bruno returned, looking ghastly and saying nothing. At last the empty landscape became reinhabited. First, along a lane beyond a distant hedge, appeared the vet leading the sorrel mare. They could see her head, pecking up and down, and the top of the vet’s tweed hat. Then, beyond the gap in the blackthorn hedge, partly obscured by leafy twigs, some sort of activity was seen to be taking place. Something was being half lifted, half hauled up the bank on the far side. It was Miss Harkness on the stretcher, decently covered.
4: Intermission
i
Miss Harkness, parcelled in canvas, lay in the ambulance, her uncle was in his office with the doctor, and Julia and Bruno had been driven home to L’Espérance by Carlotta. Ricky and Jasper still waited in the stable yard because they didn’t quite like to go away. Ricky wandered about in a desultory fashion, half looking at what there was to be seen but unable to dismiss his memory of Dulcie Harkness. He drifted into the old coach house. Beside the car, a broken-down gig, pieces of perished harness, and a heap of sacks, a coil of old and discarded wire hung from a peg. Ricky idly examined it and found that the end had recently been cut.
He could hear the sorrel mare blowing through her nostrils — she was in a loose-box with her leg bandaged, having a feed. The vet came out.
“It’s a hell of a sprain, in her near fore,” said the vet. “And a bad cut in front, halfway down the splint bone. I can’t quite understand the cut. There must have been something in the gap to cause it. I think I’ll go down and have a look at the terrain. Now they’ve taken away — now — er — it’s all clear.”
“The police sergeant’s there,” Ricky said. “He went back after he’d seen Mr. Harkness.”
“Old Joey Plank?” said the vet. “He’s all right. I’d be obliged if you’d come down with me, though. I’d like to see just where this young hopeful of yours took off when he cleared the jump. I don’t like being puzzled. Of course, anything can happen. For one thing, he’ll be very much lighter than Dulcie. She’s a big girl but all the same it’s a pretty good bet Dulcie Harkness wouldn’t go wrong over the same sticks on the same mount as a kid of thirteen. She’s — she would have been in the top class if she’d liked to go in for it. Be glad if you’d stroll down. OK?”
In one way, there was nothing in the wide world Ricky wanted to do less, and he fancied Jasper felt much the same, but they could hardly refuse and at least they would get away from the yard and the ambulance with its two men sitting in front and its closed doors with Miss Harkness behind them. Jasper did point out that they were the width of the paddock away when Bruno jumped, but Mr. Blacker paid no attention and led the way downhill.
The turf was fairly soft and copiously indented with hoof prints. When they got to within a few feet of the gap the vet held up his hand and they all stopped.
“Here you are, then,” he said. “Here’s where they took off and here’s the mark of the hind hooves, the first lot with the boy up being underneath, with the second overlapping at the edges and well dug in. Tremendous thrust, you know, when the horse takes off. See the difference between these and the prints left by the forefeet.”
Sergeant Plank, in his shirtsleeves and red with exertion, loomed up in the gap.
“This is a nasty business, Joey,” said the vet.
“Ah. Very. And a bit of a puzzle, at that. Very glad these two gentlemen have come down. If it’s all the same I’ll just get a wee statement about how the body was found, like. We have to do these things in the prescribed order, don’t we? Half a mo’.”
He didn’t climb through the gap but edged his way down the hedge to where he’d hung his tunic. From this he extracted his notebook and pencil. He joined them and fixed his gaze — his eyes were china-blue and very bright — upon Ricky.
“I understand you was the first to see deceased, sir,” he said.
Ricky experienced an assortment of frissons.
“Mrs. Pharamond was the first,” he said. “Then me.”
“Pardon me. So I understood. Could I have the name, if you please, sir?”
“Roderick Alleyn.”
A longish silence followed.
“Oh yes?” said the sergeant. “How is that spelt, if you please?”
Ricky spelled it.
“You wouldn’t,” Sergeant Plank austerely suggested, “be trying to take the Micky, would you, sir?”
“Me? Why? Oh!” said Ricky, blushing. “No, sergeant, I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m his son.”
A further silence.
“I had the pleasure,” said Sergeant Plank, clearing his throat, “of working under the Chief Superintendent on a case in the West Country. In a very minor capacity. Guard duty. He wouldn’t remember, of course.”