They reached the Butts at a quarter to six, Laura having indicated that they ought to give Julian time to “get the thing nicely warmed up” before they arrived on the scene to observe and criticise his efforts.
The Butts presented a very different spectacle from that which Laura and Kitty had seen on the morning of the first pageant. Instead of lorry-loads of milling children, a full turn-out of the pony club, a dozen or so gleaming cars, some self-conscious men and sumptuously-costumed women, the broad Butts this time contained nothing more spectacular than a couple of wooden platforms, one at either end of the street. Each platform supported a table and a backless bench and was flanked by roughly-made wooden steps, one set, as Laura remarked, on the O.P. and the other on the prompt side.
One platform was labelled Mr George Cooke; the other, Mr Fraser Honeywood. An audience mostly composed of schoolchildren filtered irresolutely between the two. The adult population of Brayne was represented by a smattering of bovine-faced women, a couple of policemen on duty, two coalmen, pausing after having delivered the last load of the day, three collarless dogs, a telegraph boy, a girl doing an evening paper round, Mr Giles Faudrey seated in his sports car, and one or two of the Butts residents who had come to their front gates to find out what was going on. Julian Perse was seated at one table, presumably acting as polling clerk for Mr George Cooke, and his headship-hunting friend lolled on the platform dedicated to Mr Fraser Honeywood. A succession of sheepish-looking boys took it in turn to mount each platform, mutter a name to the master in charge and cross over to leave the platform by the opposite flight of steps.
“Poor Julian!” said Kitty. “What a ghastly fiasco! Even some rough stuff from the yobs would be better than this!”
“More in keeping, too,” observed Laura. “If there was one thing more than another which these junketings provided, it was a glorious free-for-all, including the beer. We’d better attract Julian’s attention, so that he knows we’re here to support him. I’ll go up and vote, shall I?”
Kitty held on to her coat-sleeve.
“Don’t be an ass, Dog!” she said. “Look, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll make sure that he’s seen us, and then we’ll walk about a bit and look interested…”
“How do we do that?”
“And look interested, and then we’ll go to The Hat With Feather. Their saloon lounge is most respectable, and it does quite decent snacks. What do you say?”
They returned from The Hat With Feather to find that, during their absence, the scene at the Butts had changed. The yobs had had their tea and were not yet ready for the coffee-bar, the breaking-up of the Youth Club, the Mods and Rockers brawl on the canal bridge or even a visit to The One-Eyed Pig, their chosen local. To fill in time before tasting these more delectable dishes, they had looked in on the eighteenth-century election in the Butts. The melee, so earnestly sought after by Laura, appeared to be in full swing. It was concentrated around the two hustings, the wide open spaces of the Butts being inimical to the use of broken bottles and flick-knives as giving too much opportunity to the Grammar School adversaries of employing evasive measures. Not that the Grammar School appeared to be in any mood for these. For too long, was the general feeling, had the school been compelled to put up with gibes, insults, stone-throwing and being pushed off pavements or having their school caps twitched off and flung in the path of heavy traffic. Now, out of school hours, forty or fifty strong (and armed, as part of their costumes, with cudgels in the form of rounders sticks borrowed privately by Julian from the girls’ school), they were giving a good account of themselves.
The two policemen had leapt into the fray, but were making little impact upon the milling youths. Julian, dancing about on the platform, was apparently shouting his head off, but whether to urge on reluctant voters or in encouragement or denunciation of the battle, it was impossible to say, as his voice made no impression on the din.
“Here,” said Kitty, “let’s get out of this. There will be police reinforcements along in a minute and we don’t want to get mixed up in anything.”
“All right,” said Laura. She seized a passing arm and smacked down hard on a hand which was holding a knife. There was a yell of pain, and the knife tinkled on to the roadway. Laura kicked it into the gutter. As its owner, with hideous curses, bent to pick it up, she kicked him and sent him sprawling. “I’ve always wanted to do that to one of them,” she said, as they left the field of battle, “so home, James, and don’t spare the horses. I noticed that Giles Faudrey did not stay to see things through.”
“I expect he was bored, and left soon after we did,” said Kitty. “Tell me all about the Town Hall show this afternoon.”
Laura obliged with a succinct account, and added, “I found out that Falstaff’s murderer could have lurked in that room labelled Bouquets until he saw his chance to do the job. It looks as though it must have been somebody in the cast. You know that door at the back?”
“Yes, the two comedians left by it.”
“I know. But it’s got a Yale lock. Nobody could have come in that way. The murderer, therefore, was already on the premises.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Death of Edward III
“From the date of this deplorable event until the middle of the…century, history records little concerning local matters…”
« ^ »
It had been laid down as a command by Dame Beatrice that Laura was to stay the night in Kitty’s flat. From what she knew of young Mr Perse, Dame Beatrice had added, Kitty might be glad of a girlhood friend with whom she could share her woes.
Twigg was at home when they arrived. He produced bottles and a shaker and informed Laura that dinner would be ready at half-past eight. When the in-coming tide of relaxation had set in, he ventured to enquire whether the pageant had been a success.
“Well, it has, from Laura’s point of view, but I don’t know yet about Julian,” Kitty replied. “Laura made a yob yell, and he dropped his knife, and then she kicked him. After that we skedaddled.”
“Retreated in good order,” amended Laura. Twigg put his head on one side. “We did, you know,” said Laura. “No panic. Just a strategic withdrawal. You see, old Kitty, with her usual omniscience, deduced that police reinforcements were on the way, so, as we didn’t want to get our names in the papers…”
“Let’s have it from the beginning,” suggested Twigg. “One of you at a time, if possible.” He settled down for a cosy twenty minutes or so, having taken the precaution of pouring himself a second cocktail before he left the sideboard. At a nod from Laura, Kitty began the tale. There was not so very much to tell.
“Julian got his elephants all right,” said Kitty. “I made Dog come away before they began to stampede or something. The Roman costumes were good, and he’d made some poor boy learn yards and yards of Latin—cruelty to children, I call it—and there wasn’t a smell of the Mayor from beginning to end of the pageant. At least he didn’t boycott mine.”
“He’d hardly dare to, surely. Didn’t he approve of Julian’s project?”
“I don’t think it was that, because the Mayoress turned up to the Chapter of the Garter, during which Dog…”
“Only during the first scene,” put in Laura.
“During which Dog sneaked away behind the scenes and cowered there until the interval.”
“Doing a spot of detective work. Sneaking and cowering didn’t come into it. Strike those words from the record,” commanded Laura.
“Well, anyway, after the Romans—oh, I forgot to mention Domesday Book. It was terribly dim, but the Batty-Faudreys gave us coffee and then Julian went back to school to round up his boys for the afternoon idiocy—this Garter business and the election stuff in the Butts—and we had some lunch and Laura went along to the Town Hall. The rest of it you know.”