This was Saturday night, so everyone was there. The general hum of conversation—“The Sitting Duck” was never a noisy bar, they banished the young and loud into the garden pavilion—was constant, drowsy and warm, like the busy signature of a hive of bees. Over this background, dominant voices floated in emphatic moments like soloists in opera soaring out of the chorus, to subside again gracefully without breaking the continuous arc of rounded, communal sound. Not many pubs can command such orchestration and balance, these days.
“The mockers,” pronounced Eb Jennings, in an unexpected bass lead-in that seemed to emerge from the cellars under their feet, “the mockers may have blood on their hands by morning. Who took away the wreath that was meant to protect us all?”
On Saturday nights the Jennings family went their separate ways, each member with the family blessing on his choice: Eb to the bar of the “Duck,” Linda to the Bingo in the infant school, with her friend Mrs. Bowen, and young Brian, on his powerful pest of a motor-bike, to the weekly dance in Comerbourne, replete with beat groups blessed with incredible names, and heady with nubile girls. Brian was a heroic dancer and a Spartan motor-cyclist. His gear was stark, immaculately maintained and without insignia. In transit he looked more like one of Cocteau’s symbolic fates pursuing Orpheus than a modern, brass-knobbed, long haired, seedy enthusiast.
Within the memories of the regulars, however, Eb had never taken any active part in the entertainments staged impromptu at the “Duck.” Either something had got into him, tonight, or else this was the first occasion that had touched him nearly, and caused him to give tongue.
“In the midst of life,” he proclaimed, erect beside the bar like a prophetic angel, even his pint forgotten, “in the midst of life we are in death. Like our brother departed. No one should laugh who is not ready to go.”
For one instant he achieved such an impression that there was total silence in the bar. Then Saul said reasonably: “Well, nobody who’s ready to go is going to feel much like laughing, that’s for sure. And anyhow, you tell the police, Eb, lad, don’t tell us, we didn’t shift your parsley garland.”
“Nor call the coppers off night watch,” confirmed Willie the Twig. “After all, they’ve kept a guard on the church for three nights, and nothing happened. And they need plenty of men during the day on these jobs, they can’t wear out a constable minding the scene of the crime indefinitely.”
“Anyhow,” said Eli Platt sententiously, “lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”
“Have it your way, then,” intoned Eb, “but I tell you we’re not finished yet with this evil. ’Tis in the air all about us. ’Tis lurking there on the scene where the murder was done. I feel my thumbs prick and my blood chill when I go near that door.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” one of the visitors explained with kindly condescension, “if you approach these phenomena in a scientific spirit. From what you’ve told us of the past history of the Abbey, this is a very interesting case which ought to be investigated by someone trained in the proper research techniques. What’s needed is accurate and detached observation. That’s impossible if one is afraid.”
Everyone looked at him with the awed respect of the simple villager for the visiting expert. He was a large, slightly flabby man with an egg-shaped skull fringed with reddish hair, and his pale, probing nose was peppered with russet freckles. He was earnest and patronising, and none too free with paying for drinks; but so innocently impervious to all double meanings that Dinah felt it was a shame to take advantage of him.
“I intend,” he announced, having drawn all eyes upon himself, “to keep watch myself tonight. Alone!”
He declared himself with all possible ceremony. The effect was pleasing up to a point. Everyone gaped at him with curiosity, speculation, and—he was sure—admiration. He had hoped also for a degree of anxious solicitude, but of this he could be less certain.
“Sooner you than me, friend,” said Willie the Twig, with obliging (and quite mendacious) fervour. He lived alone in the back of beyond with his forests, his Land-Rover and a couple of setters, and habitually patrolled by night unarmed, even when he had reason to believe there were wood—or deer-poachers about; and so far no one had been able to identify anything in any real or imaginary world of which he could be said to be afraid.
“You’re venturing too far, ’tis daring the devil,” protested Eb, outraged. “You think you’re wise, my friend, but ’tis foolishness to walk too proud in the face of powers more than mortal.”
“Call it off till it stops raining,” offered Saul sportingly, “and we’ll make up a party. How about you, Hugh, lad?”
“Not me!” said Hugh, not without regret. “Sorry, but I’m driving in the Mid-Wales rally tomorrow. Got to get my sleep tonight, I shall be off about five in the morning. Any other time you plan a ghost-hunt, I’ll be delighted.”
“Oh, ah, that’s right, I forgot! Can’t afford to risk your chances in the hill run, that’s a fact. Anybody else game?”
Facetious offers of help and prophecies of doom came cascading from all directions in bewildering variety. The man from the research society was horrified. These attitudes were the outcome of ignorance, and did untold harm. How could extra-human forces be expected to manifest themselves and communicate where there was derision and noise and lack of understanding? Where no one believed except those who were afraid with the old panic terror, and no one at all had an open mind? He must and would be alone on his watch; it was an opportunity not to be missed. He had brought with him merely a raincoat, a notebook and a torch. His purpose was not to tape-record for his own glory, not to stand off an enemy, but to observe, to report truthfully, and to attempt to establish communication if the opportunity was offered.
“Pity, really, about the Mid-Wales being tomorrow,” Hugh whispered in Dinah’s ear, “we could have fixed him up with a set of phenomena he’d never forget.”
“Hush!” Dinah whispered back, smiling and frowning. “He really means it, you know. In a way there is something brave about it.”
“Brave nothing, love! Insensitive and big-headed! It would be gorgeous,” said Hugh, entranced with the prospect, “if he really did see something. I bet you wouldn’t see him for dust! Our Porsche wouldn’t keep his tail-lights in sight!”
That was what was really occupying his mind, Dinah realised, tomorrow, and the twenty-four-hour rally he had a sporting chance of winning. Ted Pelsall, who was Jenny’s brother and their best mechanic, had withdrawn the car a week ago to his own yard, in the ramshackle ex-farmhouse close to the Abbey, and had been working on it lovingly ever since. He always acted as Hugh’s navigator, and since they had to make such an early start to reach the muster-point on time, Hugh was sleeping at the Abbey tonight, where Ted would pick him up before dawn. At least his mother would be happy to have him in the house, even if she saw him for only half an hour before retiring to bed. Sometimes, since that strained evening in her company, Dinah thought of his mother with a curious compassion, detached and mature, surprising even to herself.