“Here!” called back the third child, drawing a small foot out of the ooze and splashing himself as he vigorously lowered it again. “I’m nearly standin’ on it.”
Laura sat down on the bank, removed shoes and socks and took off her skirt. Under it, as she had foreseen that she might have to paddle, she had taken the precaution of wearing a tennis dress whose top had acted also as a shirt. Rake in hand, she stepped down into the water, doing no good to the tennis dress, for the bank was fairly steep and she slid down it rather than walked.
The bottom of the river was slimy and her feet sank several inches into the ooze. She joined the small boy.
“O.K.,” she said. “Move over. I don’t want to get your toes with this rake.”
There was certainly some foreign body in the water near where the child had been standing. He was so wet and so muddy that she concluded he had been trying to obtain possession of the object (whatever it was) by bending down and struggling to lift it. Poking about with the rake, Laura soon decided that the “treasure” was certainly neither a chunk of old iron nor (another guess of hers) an old tin can weighted with stones. She handed the rake to the child and stooped down. She could see nothing except the muddy water, for her feet had stirred up the ooze, so she plunged a sleeveless arm into the slime and made contact with, and jerked to the surface, a heavy, foul-looking bag roughly made from what seemed to be sailcloth.
“Got it!” she thought; and wondered how to square the excited children. She took the rake from the third boy and splashed her way to the bank. The other boys, who had been watching and cheering, clutched eagerly at the treasure. Laura let them have it, confident that their small fingers would never be able to deal with the tarry twine and the length of fine wire with which the top of the bag was very securely fastened.
She was not mistaken. The third child scrambled up the bank to join the others, and in turn the three tried valiantly to cope with the recalcitrant fastenings. In the end they handed the heavy bundle over to Laura.
“Can you undo it for us, missus?”
“No, I’m not going to tear my fingers to bits,” replied Laura. “Besides, anything found like this has to go to the police.”
“Cor! What, the ruddy coppers?”
“Why, you’re not afraid of them, are you?”
“No, course not. But they always finks you’re up to somefink. My big brother told me.”
“They won’t think you’re up to something if you go with me. I know the Inspector. He’s a friend of my husband’s. Look here, I’ve got my car back there at the pub. Why not let me run you down to the police station?”
“My mum said not to go in strange cars,” said the first boy.
“Mine never,” said he who had been in the river. “Besides, there’s free of us. I bet she only meant if you was on your own.”
“Well, p’raps she did.” He hesitated, looked longingly at the foul and dirty bundle which had been dredged up, and then capitulated. “All right, then, seein’ there’s free of us. I reckon,” he added to Laura, “as free of us could settle your ’ash, missus, if you tried any funny stuff, couldn’t we?”
“I’m sure you could,” said the Amazonian Laura gravely. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”
“If it is treasure, will the coppers let us keep it?” asked the second boy, as he trotted to keep pace with Laura’s long strides.
“We shall have to see,” she replied. “But it may not be treasure, you know. We can’t tell until we get the bag open.”
“My dad could open it, easy.”
“Yes, but if he did—well, you wouldn’t get into trouble with the police, but he might.”
This seemed to dispose of the matter. When they reached the public house, Laura slung her rake and haversack into the boot of the car, lowered the bundle on to the floor and went into the bar. She returned with soft drinks for the boys, whose taste in these matters she had ascertained, and a glass of beer for herself. They sat on the bench outside and refreshed themselves, then Laura reclaimed her car and drove to Brayne high street and the police station. The boys declined to go inside, so she took the malodorous bundle and asked to see the Inspector. He came out, greeted her with polite astonishment, and invited her into his office.
Laura took the chair he offered and told her story, giving her reason for searching the bank of the little river.
“Oh, well, we’ll soon see whether you’re right, Mrs Gavin,” he said, when she had finished. He left her and went into an inner room with the bundle. It was some time before he returned. When he did, he nodded to her and said briefly,
“Well, it’s a head, all right, well weighted down with lumps of stone. We’ll have to get it identified, but, personally, I don’t think there can be any doubt.”
“What can I tell the small boys?” Laura demanded.
“Well, not the truth, of course.”
“Suppose I said it’s a bit of statuary stolen at some time from Squire’s Acre and dumped by the thief because it was too heavy for him to cart away?”
“Fine. That ought to satisfy ’em. Anyway, much obliged, Mrs Gavin. I’ll ask your husband to let you know how we get on. I’m in hopes that if the thing turns out to be what we think it is, the doctors will be able to tell us the cause of death, which was not, I’m dead certain, by beheading.”
Laura returned to the small boys, who were seated hopefully on the steps of the police station. She looked solemn, and shook her head sadly.
“Ain’t it treasure, then, missus?”
“Not the kind you thought.”
“What kind, then? Ain’t it valuable at all?”
“That remains to be seen.” She repeated the fiction she had outlined to the Inspector. Then she added, “Anyway, the police are pleased to have it, and I am to give you half-a-crown each for finding it. The Inspector says you’re three very smart lads.”
“If it belongs to Old Batsy, will ’e give the coppers anythink for giving it back to ’im?” asked one child.
“I don’t think so. It’s their duty to return stolen property,” said Laura, deducing, from the use of his nickname, that Colonel Batty-Faudrey was not the most popular landowner in the district. She drove the boys back to the recreation ground, where she parted from them on excellent terms, and then returned to Dame Beatrice, who professed herself enthralled by the tale of (in Laura’s words) the hunch that had paid dividends.
“The police don’t think there’s any doubt about whose head it is,” Laura added. “I’m thankful I didn’t have to see it, though. The Inspector has gentlemanly instincts and dealt with the bundle out of my sight.”
“I am glad of that. Horrid sights have a way of remaining in the mind’s eye. I wonder how Mr Perse is getting on with the preparations for his pageant?”
They soon knew. On the following morning Laura received a letter. Might Julian send along his ideas for the pageant to Aunt Laura? His aunt had told him that she—might he go on calling her simply Laura?—that she was an authority on Eng. Lit., and therefore he would be eternally grateful if she would not mind just glancing over the beastly thing and giving it her O.K. (or not, as the case might be) and if she thought it foul beyond words, could she—would she—offer some constructive criticisms? Julian was sorry if he was being a nuisance, but, etc., etc.
“Oh, Lord!” said Laura, dismayed. She handed the epistle to Dame Beatrice. “He doesn’t really want criticism, constructive or otherwise; he wants me to tell him how wonderfully clever he is, and I suppose I’ll have to do it. I can’t throw the poor youth down, whatever his stuff is like—and I don’t mind betting it’s gosh-awful.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Second Pageant, Part One