‘Oh, yes,’ said Bossie, with a superiority at once smug and desperate, ‘he does. It wasn’t till I got home I found I’d lost my copy of the anthem we’d been practicing. It was Locke – “Turn Thy Face from my sins,” ’
‘Very appropriate,’ murmured Moon, but Bossie was not to be soothed or diverted.
‘I had it folded and stuck in my blazer pocket, you see, and it was too long, and stuck out rather a way, and it must have fallen out while I was running. I looked for it the next day, after you’d all finished and gone away, but I never found it, and I bet you didn’t, either. Because I reckon he found it first. It had my name and address on it,’ said Bossie, between terror and triumph.’ That’s why he was waiting to come at me out of the farm lane, last night.’
CHAPTER SIX
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Well,’ said George later, when Bossie had been handed over to his parents, and they were comparing notes in sober retirement, ‘true or false? You’re the expert, you know Bossie better than I do. How much of that story are we to take absolutely seriously?’
‘All of it,’ said Moon. ‘We can’t afford not to. He isn’t a liar, he’s never had to be, not having had the slightest reason to be scared of telling all to his folks. But there are one or two things that bother me. I’d say it was the truth, but not necessarily nothing but the truth, and probably not the whole truth. Anyhow, Sam confirms that Bossie asked about early scripts, and borrowed a book from him, and was shut up with it over a couple of evenings, concocting this fake of his. He’ll have to come clean to his parents now, maybe they’ll get more out of him.’
‘He certainly had a genuine leaf of parchment, or Rainbow would never have been hooked. He told Rainbow he’d found it among the junk in the tower, and Rainbow shrugged it off as junk like the rest, but he didn’t give it back, and he discouraged further interest in it. It really looks as if he may have intended – even begun – searching through the rest of the stuff up there. Hunting for more of the same?’
Sergeant Moon shook his head dubiously. ‘Even if manuscripts weren’t his forte, he could hardly be taken in by Bessie’s little effort. I don’t believe it for a moment – even if it were a marvel in its way.’
‘Neither do I, Jack. But don’t forget this was a genuine leaf, with the incompletely erased traces of previous use on it. Maybe Rainbow saw through Bossie’s palimpsest in more ways than one, and saw something he thought might turn out to be very valuable indeed. Because it looks as if he went hunting where he was told this leaf had been found. What did he think he’d got hold of? One membrane of some church accounts? A leaf of a chronicle? A poem or a lampoon of the time? That sort of thing could send an antiquarian up the wall, let alone up the tower. It might even get him killed, if somebody else with the same acquisitive instincts nosed in on the scent.’
Sergeant Moon eyed him steadily in silence for some minutes, and thought about it. ‘It fits. But we’re back to the point that was sticking in my gullet. Bossie says he found that among the oddments in that chest. If what you’ve just suggested is anywhere near the truth, and that thing we’ve never set eyes on was a real find from centuries back, then Bossie never found it where he said he did. We’ve been through all that lot, interesting enough, but not a thing there goes back beyond seventeen-seventy, and most of ’em are Victorian. Why should one leaf survive there on its own? And how could the Victorians miss it, when they made the place over and dumped their own contemporary magazines? No, not a chance. That isn’t where he got it.’
‘Then where did he get it? And above all, why won’t he tell us where he got it?’
He had told them, George was sure, everything else. He might recall a few more details, or points that had escaped his first account, but basically he had come clean. So why this one evasion, when evidently his intent was to be as helpful as he could? Who had better reason? Another child might have accepted what happened to him as a real accident, and emerged merely shaken by the chance hurt, and more cautious thereafter. Bossie had come out of sedation wide-awake to the full implications, decided on confession, and almost certainly taken it to the limit. With this one reservation! Why?
‘At least he’ll be in bed for today, and home and watched even tomorrow,’ said Moon. ‘And Sam knows the score now, and we can lend a man now and then, short-handed as we may be, if there should be any need. As long as he’s going to and from school by bus with the whole gang, he’s as safe as houses. Joe Llewelyn will make sure he’s seen home from next week’s choir practice. We’ll manage to keep an eye on him, between us. And I take it there won’t be any headlines from this incident, not unless or until we’ve got our man. Just a random hit-and-run.’
‘That’s all it will be. I’ll see to that.’ So the would-be assassin would be left in the dark, assuming, it was to be hoped, that the child had neither dreamed of deliberate harm nor blurted out any reason for it. From which he might, with luck, deduce that his fears were baseless, and this intruding imp had nothing whatever to tell about him.
Even so, Bossie knew very well that everybody would be conspiring to keep a more or less constant watch on his welfare from now on. The most staggering thing about the whole interview had been his flourish at the end, when he knew his parents were outside the door, and was graciously saying goodbye to his police guard. He had been wide awake and sparking on all cylinders then, stimulated to such an extent that he was riding high above the danger of which he was, none the less, well aware. After all, it was his act that had set off this explosion wasn’t it? And his person that was at risk as a result!
‘I say, Mr Felse,’ he had piped after them, when they were halfway to the door, ‘what’s it worth if I let you use me as bait?’
George had replied without excitement, and without more than a casual turn of his head : ‘A thick ear, I should think, if your dad ever hears about it.’ And had departed, secure in his knowledge of the solidity of the family relationship involved, to relay the facts to Sam and Jenny, and assure them of his support whenever they might feel the need of it.
All the same, Bossie was a force to be reckoned with, like all unguided missiles, and George was not going to be the one to underestimate him, or take his quiescence for granted.
And the sooner this case was wound up with the murderer in custody, the better for the peace of mind of the Jarvis household.
‘Hang on to everything here,’ said George, making up his mind, ‘and I’ll be back. I’m going to see Mrs Rainbow.’
It was Sunday morning. The bells of St Eata’s were pealing for the eleven o’clock service, and Spuggy Price would be standing in for the star treble. Only three mornings ago, Arthur Everard Rainbow had been alive and intent, planning his evening’s activities at and after choir practice. And what had seemed worth pursuing to him then was worth pursuing now in fairness to his shade. Arid and unregretted, that ghost cried for consideration and redress. George turned in at the lion-guarded gates, and threaded the nymph-haunted drive.
He had wondered for a moment if the Land-Rover would still be parked on the gravel in front of the house, but then dismissed the idea, even before he emerged from the screening trees to see that the lunette of gold was empty. Openness might be the order of the day, but somehow he was certain that Barbara and Willie would find it uncongenial and unsuitable to be together here in this house. Up at the lodge, that was another matter. His next thought was that he might have to go there now to find her, but no, she was at home, she opened the door to his ring, and stepped back to welcome him in with evident pleasure.
‘How’s the Jarvis boy?’ she demanded at once.