Twelve Horses and the Hangman's Noose (Mrs. Bradley) Page 6

  They went into the house after taking turns under a pump whose bitter cold water made even the hardened Laura flinch. Then Merial, whose extreme poverty never prevented her from keeping rum in the house, produced a squat bottle, a jug of water, and a half-empty bottle of orangeade.

  “I shall go over to Grinsted’s,” said Laura, presently. “I’d like to make the acquaintance of that stallion. Not that I really think…” She took a refreshing gulp of the mixture in her glass, and did not finish the sentence.

  “Jed Nottingham might be able to help you there,” said Merial, gently swigging her glass as she studied the liquid in it. “Why don’t you try him first? Ask him whether Cissie Gauberon is fixed up yet.”

  “Cissie?”

  “She’s supposed to be riding in a point-to-point for him.”

  “Oh, is she? Many thanks. Yes, I ought to be able to work the conversation round from there, I should think.” She finished her drink. “Well, thanks for the snort. I’d better be off. I’ll let you know how I get on.”

  “Don’t ride for a fall,” said Merial. “Don’t forget the coroner thinks it was accidental death, and that it might be as well to leave it at that, don’t you know. Personally, that Jenkinson could do with a bit of watching. He’s the one who saw the blood on Percheron’s hoof.”

  “A point which had not escaped me,” said Laura crisply. “What the soldier said isn’t evidence.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Merial, with a very grim smile.

  “I appear to have misjudged Merial Trowse,” said Laura to Dame Beatrice at tea-time. “She doesn’t seem such a bad sort, after all. Are you satisfied with your speech for the Boatman’s Institute?—I mean the Seahampton Grammar School?”

  “As I have no idea who will be listening to me, I find that question impossible to answer. The only thing I can say about the speech is that it is calculated to offend nobody, as it contains two or three alternatives to every compliment, every homily, and every joke, according to audience-reaction.”

  “Very painstaking,” said Laura approvingly. “When do you want to try it on the dog?”

  “Whenever your detective fever abates, child, and you feel able to give it your undivided attention.”

  “You’d better do it before dinner, then, I think. I want to ride over to Jed Nottingham’s tomorrow morning, and then, if there’s time, I’d like to visit Grinsted’s farm. There’s a horse there which Merial Trowse indicates pretty roundly could be a killer. Decent of her to mention it.”

  “Beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts.”

  “It wasn’t a gift. I helped her to muck out her stables—an onerous task which doesn’t get done as often as it should, in my opinion, and one which, but for my timely presence, would not have been attempted today. Of course, she’s dreadfully short-handed. She was there on her own, so I suppose young Sally Pearce had gone out with the string. A middle-aged woman and a girl of sixteen aren’t enough to manage those stables. Anyway, it seems that among the people who might conceivably have wished John out of the way, Merial can scarcely be numbered.”

  “Were they thinking of marrying one another?”

  “She says not. A business partnership only, according to her. But that makes my argument all the stronger. You don’t do in a prospective business partner. You wait until he pinches the takings or double-crosses you over a deal.” With this Sibylline utterance she went out.

  She left immediately after breakfast next morning. To get to the Elkstonehunt stables she had to walk along a country road and through the village, and would have enjoyed the walk but for the fact that she was taking it in breeches, boots, a black jacket of impeccable cut, a stock, and a bowler, for she had decided to tackle Jed Nottingham in full war-paint.

  Cissie Gauberon was superintending the mounting and deportment of her riding class. This consisted of three young children Ursula, Dick, and Sarah May, grandchildren of Colonel May of the manor house. Their governess, Miss Temme, was with them. Nobody was mounted when Laura arrived, and deportment was notably at a discount. Miss Temme was shouting; Sarah, aged six, was crying with temper; Dick, aged eight, was cutting at the fence of the paddock with his riding gloves; and Ursula, aged ten, eldest of the trio, was sulking visibly.

  “I tell you, Ursula!” bellowed Miss Temme. “It is Dick’s turn to ride Shan. Now, Sarah,” she continued, modulating her strident tones to Bottom’s probable conception of those of a cooing dove, “you know you love Connemara, so don’t be a naughty little girl.” She switched on the volume again. “And you, Dick, stop spoiling your gloves on that fence. Miss Gauberon doesn’t put up fences for you to hit them and spoil your nice gloves, do you, Miss Gauberon?”

  Miss Gauberon knew better, from long experience, than to join in an argument in which one of the protagonists was a May child. She whistled between her teeth and adjusted the girths of Miss Temme’s own steed and pretended that she had not heard her name.

  “Miss Gauberon lets me call her Cissie,” said Ursula, stamping both feet. “So I can ride Shan! I can ride him whenever I want to. He’s nearly a horse, and I’m too big to ride Basuto! I look simply just silly on him! I shall ride Shan or else I’ll show you!”

  “Well, show us,” said Laura, strolling up. “But be quick about it. Here, up with you on Palomino and jump a couple of fences. That’ll show everybody.”

  “I can ride Palomino. I can ride anything on four legs,” said Dick, turning round. “Let me ride Palomino!”

  “Ridiculous!” shouted Miss Temme, glowering at the peacemaker. “Palomino is my horse.”

  “You’re too heavy-handed for him, Mr. Mapsted said so, and now he’s dead you can’t contradict him,” said Dick.

  “You have to respect the dead,” said Ursula, joining forces with her brother because of his promising gambit.

  “Nonsense!” shouted Miss Temme, to the horrified delight of both children.

  “Miss Temme!” shouted Dick, shocked. “That’s almost swearing!”

  “The dead aren’t nonsense. They’re in heaven,” said Ursula, in sickeningly reproachful tones.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” said Miss Temme, turning angrily on Laura.

  “Anything for a quiet life,” said Laura. “Come on, Ursula. Come and help me saddle up, and I’ll let you have a canter round the paddock, on Mustang.”

  They went off to the loose-boxes together. Cissie Gauberon hastily mounted the rest of the clan and when Ursula returned, leading Mustang, the party were moving off.

  “I can easily catch them up,” said Ursula. “Mustang is rather high in the leg, isn’t he?”

  “Up with you,” said Laura briskly. The child mounted readily and with almost no help. She was a thin-faced, straight-haired little girl, unattractive and bad-tempered where most of her acquaintances were concerned, but on horseback she became a different being. “Um!” said Laura, when the child at last drew rein. “Not bad at all. Off you get, and mount Basuto, and if you’ll not bleat at Dick when we catch up with the others, I’ll let you gallop.”

  “Oh, I’ve galloped before!” retorted Ursula. “It’s no treat to me.”

  “Good-oh,” said Laura unconcernedly. “Come on, then.”

  “I could tell you something if I liked,” said Ursula, pausing with her hand on her pony’s neck before she mounted.

  “Say on.” Laura mounted Mustang, who shook his head as he felt the familiar pressure of her knees. He began to move forward. Ursula mounted Basuto.

  “Swear double cross-my-heart you won’t tell anybody else, then,” she said.

  “Can’t.”

  “You can. It’s quite easy. Look, you—”

  “I don’t mean I don’t know how to do it. I mean I can’t make a promise like that.”

  “Miss Temme does—but she never keeps her word, so I suppose it’s the same thing.”

  “It’s not the same thing at all, you muddle-headed little sea-serpent!”

  Ursula giggled.

  “I
wish you were our governess,” she said, “instead of Miss Temme.”

  “You wouldn’t wish it for long.”

  “Oh, we should behave ourselves decently with you, Laura.”

  “You certainly would, but I couldn’t be bothered.”

  “Don’t you want to hear what I can tell you?”

  “I don’t suppose it matters whether I want to hear it or not. You can make up your mind whether or not you want to tell me. And don’t keep bothering. I want to think. Come on! Let’s canter and catch up the others, then you can talk to them.”

  “Oh, but, Laura, I do want to tell you. I’ll have to whisper, though, because, if anybody knew I knew what I do know, I might get killed.”

  Laura reined in.

  “Oh, well,” she said resignedly, “get it off your sickening chest, then.”

  The horse and the pony stood.

  “I heard somebody threaten Mr. Mapsted, and now he’s dead. Don’t you think that’s rather queer, Laura?”

  “Good gracious, no! Does your vocabulary include the word ‘coincidence,’ by any chance?”

  “Yes. It was a coincidence when Grandpapa and Major Bangor both wanted to buy the same dining-table at Mr. Gantry’s sale, and was there temper when Major Bangor got it!”

  “Not sure that expresses it. Never mind. Let it go. What was this horrible threat? And how did you come to overhear it, you little snooper?”

  “I wasn’t snooping. Really I wasn’t. I was hiding in Connemara’s loose-box because Miss Temme was going to complain about me and I wanted her to think I had run away. I heard a man say, ‘You’d better watch your step, Mapsted. Your line of country is getting a bit unhealthy, you know.’ Then Mr. Mapsted said, ‘So what?’ And the man said, ‘So nothing, but you’d better see you have another think coming. I’m warning you for your own good.’ And Mr. Mapsted said, ‘Thanks a lot, and now get out before I kick you out.’”

  “Did you see the man?”

  “Yes. I was ever so interested. You don’t often have the chance to see two grown-ups getting mad at one another.”

  “The man wasn’t anybody you knew?”

  “Well, I think I’ve seen him before, but I can’t remember where. He was rather a tall man and looked spivvy.”

  “Clean-shaven?”

  “Well, he didn’t have a moustache or whiskers, but he could have done with a shave!”

  “I see. You’d recognise him if you spotted him again, I suppose?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, remember to keep all this strictly under your jockey-cap, and if you do see the man again, let me know and I’ll tell my policeman husband to get on his track.”

  “Then I could say I was working in with the Yard! Oh, Laura, thank you!”

  “A pleasure. Hullo, I see that Miss Temme and party are coming back to look for you. Good-bye, and, don’t forget, mum’s the word.”

  Laura rode thoughtfully over to Linghurst Parva to talk to Jed Nottingham. Jed, a coarse-looking young man in a disreputable pair of breeches, football stockings, suede shoes, and a very dirty polo-necked sweater, was exchanging banter with a couple of young women in riding kit. He cocked an impudent eye upon Laura’s faultless clothes, and said:

  “Hullo, Mrs. Gavin. How’s tricks?”

  “All right,” Laura replied.

  “Meet Miss Longton and Mrs. Gapp, Mrs. Gavin.”

  “How do you do? How do you do?” said Laura. The young women respectively replied:

  “Fine, thanks,” and “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Miss Longton and Mrs. Gapp are down from London for a week or two to learn to ride. They’re in a film,” explained Jed. “Anything special I can do for you, Mrs. Gavin?”

  “Yes. I want some advice. You know Cissie Gauberon?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “She’s offered me a partnership. John Mapsted’s place, you know.”

  “Take it. Cissie’s all right. It was poor old J. who mismanaged that show. How much does she want?”

  “I don’t know. Merial Trowse doesn’t think much of the idea.”

  “No initiative.” Jed took a battered packet of cigarettes from his breeches pocket, selected one, and lit it by striking a match on the sole of his shoe. He was returning the packet to his pocket when he affected to withdraw it again as he said, “Oh, sorry, girls. Anybody else like a fag? No? Good-oh. Yes, Mrs. Gavin. You cut yourself in with Cissie. Is she going to get rid of that brute that did for poor old John?”

  “I’ve no idea. I should hardly think so. Percheron is a valuable horse. He isn’t really vicious. Something must have frightened him that night.” When Jed was among her audience Laura usually proffered something less than her full opinion.

  “Somebody tried to nobble him is my theory. Thought of that?”

  “No.” Laura affected surprise. “No, I hadn’t. Why should anybody want to?”

  “Point-to-point next week. Prize of fifty pounds. Old John bound to win it as long as Percheron didn’t fool about.”

  “But—fifty pounds? It isn’t enough to be worth the risk of killing somebody, surely?”

  “Maybe not to you, but I heard that Merial Trowse will have to close down if she doesn’t get a break soon. It isn’t only the fifty. The horse that wins should fetch a pretty good price. If Merial could collect the fifty and sell the winner—supposing that to be her mare Topsy, you know—she could see her way clear for a bit longer, maybe. Maybe?”

  “I think that’s a pretty dud suggestion,” said Laura coldly. “And you’ve nothing to base it on at all.”

  “No?” said Jed casually. “Have it your own way, Mrs. Gavin. I don’t mind. I thought you’d like to know which way the cat jumped, that’s all, and Merial Trowse is near the end of her tether.”

  CHAPTER 6

  TOO MANY CATS

  She did wish to learn, and she did learn. You shall learn tomorrow what she learnt. Meanwhile of course the prospect struck her as slightly grim.

  HENRY JAMES

  “Too many cats jumping, by the sound of it,” said Laura to herself when she had remounted and was riding over to Grinsted’s farm. “There’s the unknown man who threatened John. Wonder how reliable that ghastly little kid is as a witness? I’d better tackle Cissie Gauberon. If the man came to see John, Cissie probably knew about it. Then there’s this rotten idea of Jed Nottingham’s—and he is a rotter, if ever I met one—and then there’s the possibility of this stallion I’m going to interview. And maybe none of these particular cats will jump at all. Then, of course, there’s always Cissie herself to be considered. Suppose she didn’t want John to team up with Merial? Ah, but in that case she’d have gone for Merial, not John, unless—oh, I don’t know! Now, what am I going to say at Grinsted’s?”

  The farm was only about a mile and a half from Jed Nottingham’s stables. She got there to find the farmyard entrance completely blocked by a broken-down lorry full of bricks. A couple of sweating, blaspheming men had just begun to unload the bricks, and Grinsted, the farmer, stood watching them with a hint of irony about the twist of his bad-tempered, domineering mouth. He had a wooden mallet in his hand—a new one, Laura observed. Before he noticed her he had swung it twice at the leaning gate-post without taking his eyes off the carters. The lorry had apparently caught the gate-post as it turned in.

  “Good day, Mr. Grinsted,” she said. “Have you got the vet here still?”

  Grinsted raised his eyes at the sound of her voice. They were remarkable eyes, large, mournful, and of a peculiar cloudy blue; the eyes of a mystic, Laura always thought. Dame Beatrice, however, had once likened them to those of a sex maniac she had had under her care at her London clinic.

  “The vet?” Grinsted let his remarkable eyes rove over Laura’s spick-and-span riding boots and then over the points of her horse. “I haven’t got the vet here, Mrs. Gavin. No.”

  “Oh, dear! I’ve just come over from Jed Nottingham’s, and I understood you had Andrew Scott here to look at that stallion
of yours.”

  “Iceland Blue? God bless you, Mrs. Gavin, the horse is as pretty as pretty! I heard you were thinking of going into partnership with Miss Gauberon now poor old John Mapsted is…” He made a gesture and turned a black-nailed thumb towards the ground.

  “Rumour travels fast,” said Laura. “The point certainly has arisen, but I don’t know that I’m thinking of accepting the offer. What happened here?” She slanted her whip at the lorry.

  “Search me, I don’t know. When they’ve cleared the load, I’ll help ’em push the lorry clear of the gates, but they’ll have to man-handle the bricks to where I want ’em. It wasn’t my fault they broke down the gate-post, was it?”

  “Oh? Are you going into the building trade for a change?”

  “New piggeries.”

  “Really? Very interesting. I’ve rather an affection for pigs.”

  “Meaning you’d like to see mine?”

  “Very much, if it isn’t putting you about.”

  “Not at all, if you can wait until we’ve got this mess shifted. Tell you what. Have a ride round and get back here in half an hour. How would that suit?”

  “Admirably,” said Laura. She brought Mustang round and walked him until they came to a patch of common. Here they trotted and cantered, then Laura dismounted and led the horse. At the end of thirty-five minutes by her half-hunter—a wedding present from her husband—she was back at the farmyard gates. Not only the load of bricks but the lorry itself had disappeared. She rode round to the back of the Tudor farmhouse and discovered Grinsted seated on a pile of the bricks beside a deserted pig-sty.

  “Here I am, Mr. Grinsted,” she said. “What sort of pigs do you keep?”

  “Hampshire hogs,” said Grinsted with a slow and crafty smile. “No, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Gavin, I keep Large Whites and Berkshires mostly. Come on and have a look.”

  Laura duly admired the pigs, about which, thanks to the fact that Dame Beatrice Bradley’s nephew, Carey Lestrange, kept a large, up-to-date, and flourishing pig-farm in Oxfordshire, she could talk knowledgeably, and then she said: