Death in Devon (The County Guides) Page 13

  ‘Well, it was a pleasure meeting you, Mr Sefton. I should go and retrieve my husband – he’s doubtless bagged another innocent listener. I do hope you’ll be joining us this evening?’

  ‘This evening?’

  ‘At the fancy dress ball?’

  ‘The?’

  ‘Fancy dress ball?’

  ‘I didn’t realise there was going to be a fancy dress ball.’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s tradition, after Founder’s Day. A chance for everyone to let their hair down. Well, a recent tradition. Alex introduced it a couple of years ago, at the old school.’

  ‘He is a man of many talents,’ I said. ‘A party organiser also?’

  ‘Yes. Rousdon’s very own Trimalchio.’

  ‘Indeed. And you his Fortunata?’

  ‘Ha!’ At this she laughed.

  I was rather proud: it was a riposte worthy of Morley himself. (In fairness, it was a riposte of Morley’s. I had recently, fortuitously, been reading Morley’s Rome and the Romans for Beginners (1930). His appalled description of the feast in the Satyricon was one of the only parts I could recall.)

  ‘And you must come in costume. No excuses.’

  ‘I don’t have a costume with me,’ I said.

  She looked me up and down again as she departed, with what one might describe as a male gaze. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something. I hope to see you later.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find you, shall I?’ she said. ‘In your disguise?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘I wonder if you’ll be able to find me?’

  I escaped from the marquee and wandered over towards a group of boys who were gearing up for a game of croquet. Morley of course was in the thick of it, and was busy explaining to them the rules of a game called stoolball. ‘Think of it as a vigorous game of rounders,’ he was saying.

  ‘Stoolball, Sefton? You must know stoolball?’

  I was not in fact familiar with stoolball.

  ‘No, Mr Morley, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘We’ll maybe get it set up tomorrow. We need some sort of wooden boards, about ten inches square, fixed to poles. Make a note, Sefton.’

  I rather begrudgingly took out a notebook, while Morley dictated the rules of the game to me, and the necessary equipment.

  ‘… and then we set them facing each other about twenty yards apart. A bowler and batsman, the bowler attempting to hit the board.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘Mr Morley, could I—’

  ‘Anyway indeed, Sefton. We’re about to move on to croquet, if you don’t mind. We’re running our own amateur Olympics.’

  ‘Aren’t the Olympics already amateur?’

  ‘An amateur amateur Olympics then,’ said Morley. ‘Are you in?’

  ‘I think I might skip this actually, Mr Morley.’

  He had got hold of a croquet mallet.

  ‘Excellent mallet,’ he said, swinging it wildly. ‘Wood, brass, lignum vitae. A fine piece of Great British precision engineering, boys. Now, here’s a question for you: what wood would you say this is?’ He swung the mallet up aloft.

  ‘Willow?’ suggested one boy.

  ‘Ash?’ suggested another.

  ‘It’s not a cricket bat, sir,’ said Morley. ‘Sefton?’

  ‘Oak?’ I suggested.

  ‘Oak? Oak?’ said Morley. ‘Come, come. Hickory, gentlemen. The best wood for a mallet. Look at this. Quite marvellous. And all the more remarkable’ – he brandished the mallet now as though it were a club – ‘since croquet is in essence such a violent game. Much more so than most people realise. The aim, you see, is to destroy one’s opponent. To crush them utterly.’ At which he pretended to pound one of the young boys about the head with the mallet.

  After more monkeying around the game eventually began, and Morley, to my surprise, knocked his ball not towards the first hoop, but rather off towards the east boundary of the court. There was a reason for this, though for the life of me I cannot now remember what it might be. He tried to explain to me many times the rules and the sequences of roquets, croquets and hoops and I have since read his introductory book, Croquet: A Guide for the Perplexed (1938) which, frankly, left me none the wiser. Suffice it to say, the knocking of the ball off towards the boundary is a classic opening move. To quote Croquet: A Guide for the Perplexed: ‘The chances of running a hoop from six yards with a margin of error of only an eighth of an inch are very slight indeed. In croquet, it is by indirection that one finds out direction.’

  A boy, attempting to imitate Morley, then promptly knocked his own ball so hard it flew out of the boundary, and rolled away down the steep lawn leading towards the woods and the cliffs.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I said, bored already, and went off to retrieve the ball. I thought I might also take the opportunity for a smoke.

  It had rolled away quickly into the undergrowth, but I soon spied it, along with a group of boys busy making mischief.

  Two tall, stout boys stood in silence apart from the group, scoffing party food – one of them a brace of sandwiches, the other what appeared to be an entire game pie. The poor things reminded me rather of Morley’s dogs back in Norfolk: the way they took sharp, sudden bites, snapping at their vittles, all the time looking around as if they might be discovered. Beyond them, deeper in the undergrowth, and with their backs turned to me, was a larger group of boys, who seemed to be poking with sticks at something or someone lying on the ground. The two scoffing boys had clearly been appointed as lookouts, but in their frenzy of eating they had forgotten to do much looking out, and so were shocked and terrified when I suddenly approached them from amid the dense vegetation. I had picked up the croquet ball and as I walked towards them I held it aloft as a sign of peace, and put my finger to my lips. They stopped chomping, and stood with eyes and mouths wide open – pie and sandwiches momentarily suspended, a look a terror upon their faces.

  I went slowly and quietly towards the larger group and stood at the shoulder of one of the boys who was vigorously prodding with a stick.

  ‘Stay here,’ I said, in the sternest voice I could muster. ‘All of you. Understand?’

  The boys nodded in mute agreement.

  And then I went to fetch a policeman.

  CHAPTER 13

  BASIC PSYCHOLOGY

  ‘WELL, THIS IS RATHER DISTRESSING,’ said Morley. ‘Photographs, Sefton?’

  ‘We have requested your assistant not to take any photographs, sir,’ said one of the two policemen who had arrived to investigate the death of Michael Taylor, and who had now taken charge of events. They had indeed requested me not to take any photographs, though the request had been couched in rather more direct – shall we say Anglo-Saxon – language.

  ‘My assistant is a professional photographer, Officer,’ said Morley. This was, in fairness, something of an overstatement: I was then and remain now at best an enthusiastic amateur. Morley sometimes jokingly referred to me as his ‘Cartier’, but I was alas no Bresson and anyway I was not particularly inclined at that moment to take any photographs – particularly not photographs of a mutilated cow.

  The poor thing seemed to have had its stomach split from top to bottom, and its head had also been brutally removed: it was the head that the boys had been vigorously prodding with their sticks, making quite a mess of it in the process. The bloody head sat staring at us now, set apart from the carcass, as though bizarrely illustrating some complex Cartesian point about the division between mind and body: the kind of illustration indeed that Morley himself might have included in one of his books on philosophy for children. (All Cretans Are Liars: Philosophical Puzzles, Conundrums and Quizzes for Use in Schools, Colleges and at Home, for example, published in 1932, includes a rather odd, jumbled appendix of diagrams and doodles – featuring teapots, razors, lions, tooth fairies – all apparently intended to illustrate Zeno’s Paradox, the Gordian Knot, the Problem of Evil and etcetera, though in fact, to my mind at least, they simply confused ma
tters further. It was not perhaps his most successful book.)

  ‘Hmm,’ continued Morley, surveying the scene of butchery. ‘Distressing. But very interesting.’

  Thankfully, by the time I had alerted the police to the mystery of the poor dead cow, Founder’s Day was coming to an end, parents were drifting away, boys bidding them farewell, and so this latest All Souls’ scene of distress – down in the bushes, beyond the croquet lawn – seemed to have gone unnoticed by those not directly involved. The two policemen had quickly and efficiently taken statements from the boys who were present at the cow-prodding, and I had explained to them the matter of the disappearance of the chickens – and the goat and the donkey – from the farm.

  ‘Disgusting,’ said one of the policemen, who was in possession of an extraordinary pair of jug ears and a menacing stare. ‘Should be ashamed, the lot of them,’ he said, raising a fist towards the boys, who remained gathered around as though awaiting their own horrible execution.

  Left to his own devices I rather think the jug-eared policeman might well have begun dispensing summary justice: I feared serious consequences for the boy or boys who were found responsible for the cow’s slaughter. But fortunately, having bid all the necessary farewells, the headmaster had also joined us: he looked grief-stricken, but was clearly a restraining presence upon the long arm of the law. Morley, meanwhile, and in contrast, seemed rather blasé about the whole thing.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Very very interesting. Gentlemen, might I make a suggestion?’ He drew the headmaster and the policemen towards him with a wave. I also gathered closer. ‘Talk among yourselves,’ he instructed the boys; and they did: he always had the knack of command. ‘Gentlemen,’ he continued, lowering his voice rather. ‘I wonder if we might … at least … attempt to make a silk purse out of our proverbial sow’s ear here, as it were – if you forgive the mixed metaphor.’

  ‘What?’ said one of the policemen.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘I think if we are rather practical-minded there might be an opportunity here …’

  ‘Practical-minded, sir?’ said the policeman.

  ‘Yes, I rather wondered,’ said Morley, hesitating, ‘I rather wondered if you might let me have the head?’

  ‘Which head?’ said the headmaster, clearly alarmed.

  ‘The cow’s head, sir?’ said the jug-eared policeman.

  ‘Yes. That’s right. I thought it might make an interesting lesson for the boys.’

  ‘A lesson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you planning to do, Morley?’ asked the headmaster.

  ‘To cook it,’ he said, staring at the cow’s head staring back at us. It did not look like a head that wanted to be cooked.

  ‘You want to destroy the evidence?’ said the policeman.

  ‘No. No. I want to use the evidence,’ said Morley, who was carefully watching the boys as we spoke. ‘To see if we can …’

  ‘To see if we can what?’ asked the policeman.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly not a lot of good to you or anyone else lying there, is it?’ He indicated the vast head, which continued to stare blindly up at us from the dirt, and which continued to look distinctly unappetising. ‘The carcass is the thing, surely, in terms of evidence, since it seems to have been rather particularly mutilated. The head has simply been hacked off. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘What on earth are you thinking, Morley?’ said the headmaster.

  ‘I’m thinking that what we really need is a gunny sack …’

  ‘A gunny sack?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For what—’ began the headmaster.

  ‘It’s an extremely odd request, sir, if you don’t mind my saying,’ interrupted the non-jug-eared policeman.

  ‘Not at all. I just thought it might be a useful distraction for the boys, in the rather distressing circumstances. And I wonder also if it might help us to flush out the culprit.’

  The two policemen glanced first at one another and then over at the nervous huddle of boys.

  ‘Flush ’em out, sir?’

  ‘Basic psychology, gentlemen. You’re familiar with Freud?’

  ‘Is it a place?’

  ‘I’m familiar with Croyde,’ said the jug-eared policeman. ‘My wife’s sister’s husband’s family come from Croyde—’

  ‘Freud, Viennese. Fashionable among my daughter and her friends.’

  ‘I have read The Interpretation of Dreams,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Not his best,’ said Morley. ‘I would direct you rather to The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: rather revealing. Anyway, gentlemen, in very crude Freudian terms I wonder if what we might be faced with here are certain forbidden wishes and desires being thwarted, as it were, going underground – subterranean, yes? – leading to unexpected but related outbursts of violence and sexual perversion, like hot springs bubbling up from a secret system of caves and conduits.’

  The two policemen looked at one another.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘Indeed. But this is the very nature of civilisation, according to Freud.’

  ‘Not as I know it, sir.’

  ‘No, perhaps not,’ agreed Morley.

  ‘Nor I,’ said the headmaster. ‘Thank goodness.’

  ‘Did you say he was from China, this Crude?’

  ‘Freud,’ said Morley. ‘Viennese, not Pekinese. So what we are witnessing with this spate of attacks is perhaps the surfacing of repressed emotions, guilt and what have you, that are literally bubbling up and popping out.’ He made a literal popping and bubbling noise.

  The two policemen looked at one another again: you could tell they were beginning to think that Morley was actually deranged.

  ‘So perhaps,’ said the headmaster, saving the day, ‘if we closely observe the boys’ reactions as we deal with the cow, we might be able to discern their innocence or guilt?’

  ‘Yes, the long and the short of it, Headmaster.’

  Again, the two policemen looked at one another. One of them nodded to the other and they took themselves off to huddle and converse, casting suspicious glances towards us.

  ‘It’s not a bad idea,’ said one of the policemen, returning.

  ‘It’s—’ began the other.

  ‘It’s just that we would need a gunny sack,’ said Morley.

  ‘A gunny sack, sir?’

  ‘Potato sack, grain sack. Something used for gardening or seeds, perhaps? And some clay. Wood for a fire. Get the boys to organise it.’

  The policemen conferred again.

  ‘Very good, sir. If you proceed as you suggest, we shall observe the boys’ reactions.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said Morley. ‘Excellent. By indirection we shall catch the conscience of the king, eh?’ This again perplexed the policemen rather, but Morley continued. ‘And also it is important that one learns in life that anything can be transformed. Waste not, want not, eh?’ He nodded back over towards the boys, who were looking at us expectantly.

  The jug-eared policeman gave a final consenting nod, accepting what was – I thought, and even by Morley’s standards – a ludicrous enterprise.

  ‘Excellent! Now, boys, boys!’ he called and the boys came hurrying over. ‘The police have given us permission to use the cow’s head here for an experiment.’

  The police stood by a tree and surveyed the wide-eyed boys.

  ‘What sort of experiment?’ said one boy.

  ‘That will emerge as we proceed, boys,’ said Morley. ‘Like the meaning of life itself. Now, first we need some good clay. Any ideas?’

  ‘We use clay in the art room, sir.’

  ‘Of course you do! Run along then, young man, and bring us back a good bucketful of clay.’

  The policeman looked for a moment as if he were going to protest.

  ‘I hardly think the boy is going to run away, do you, Officer?’

 
‘No, sir.’

  ‘Are you likely to run off, boy?’ asked Morley.

  The boy looked terrified.

  ‘No, Mr Morley, sir.’

  ‘Good. What’s your name?’

  ‘Shipman, sir. But the masters call me Captain.’

  ‘Well, Captain, my captain, we also need a gunny sack. Think you could pick something up on the way?’

  ‘A gunny sack, sir?’

  ‘Potato sack? Something similar?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I can get something from the kitchens, sir.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent. Run along then, Captain.’

  The boy ran off towards the school as fast as he could.

  ‘Good. Now, we also need a sharp knife.’

  The policeman now looked extremely disconcerted.

  ‘Come, come, boys,’ said Morley. ‘Sharp knife anyone?’

  One of the boys – a plump little thing – looked silently up at the tall, thin pale white boy standing next to him. The tall, thin pale white boy looked as though his features had been whittled from a tall, thin pale white whittling stick.

  ‘Knife?’ said Morley.

  The plump boy swivelled his eyes up at his tall thin pale companion.

  ‘Come along now, gents,’ said Morley, holding out his hand. ‘We need a knife. For our experiment.’ He walked up and down before them. And then again. And again. ‘Can’t proceed without a knife, alas.’

  The plump boy nudged at his companion and the tall thin boy sheepishly produced a long Bowie knife which he had concealed down his trousers.

  ‘Super,’ said Morley. ‘Thank you.’ The policemen looked on in astonishment. Morley took the knife and examined it. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Hughes, sir.’

  ‘Best keep it in a sheath in future, Hughes, eh?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Morley.’

  ‘Give you a nasty nick otherwise.’

  The policemen were now frantically making notes.

  ‘And finally, a shovel. Anyone got a shovel?’

  None of the boys had a shovel, obviously.

  ‘A shovel?’ said the policeman.

  ‘There’s the gardener’s shed over past the tennis courts,’ said the freckled, ginger-haired scrap of a boy, who had played Hippolyta in the little Founder’s Day playlet, and who looked as though he might at any moment float away.