Authors: Colin Forbes
Paula clutched his sleeve. On either side of the tall gates
was a massive stone pillar. She pointed to the top of the right-hand pillar, her voice expressing distaste.
'Look at the top of that pillar. It's really rather awful.'
Perched on top of the pillar was a stone sculpture of a cat.
It was crouched down but its head was twisted round the
wrong way, twisted through an angle of a hundred and
eighty degrees. There was something horrible about the
distortion.
Turning a corner in the lane, Paula stopped. A freshly
repainted sign board carried the legend 'Crooked Village'.
What lay beyond was extraordinary. With little space
between each very un-English one-storey cottage was a
scene which reminded Tweed of Provence.
The walls, and the steeply angled roofs above them, were
painted with white paint, piled on thickly. Some had spike-
like rafters protruding beyond the roof-line. Each cottage
had only a few small windows and the doors were painted,
again thickly, in blue.
Tweed stared. The sunlight gave the brilliant colours a
powerful blinding effect. A mass of cacti were placed close to the front walls. They turned a corner and now the steeply
slanted roofs were painted red. It was not like England at
all. They felt they had been transferred to another world.
'Someone round here likes Van Gogh,' Tweed observed. 'This village is like one of his paintings.'
'There's someone working inside this one,' Paula pointed out.
'So we can ask about the General,' Tweed said and
walked inside, followed by Paula.
Another surprise. The large room was a potter's working
area. The potter, working a wheel, was a small heavily built man with a crooked face, one side of his jaw lower than the
other. He stopped working and gave Paula the pleasantest of smiles. His gnarled hands were enormous. He wore a
white smock, woollen leggings and suede slippers smeared
with white paint.
'Welcome to France,' he greeted them. 'I am Francois. I hope you like our village. The General paid all the costs.
General Lucius Macomber. He loves France.'
He sat on a three-legged stool, indicated for them to sit in
wicker chairs. Tweed lowered himself gingerly but the chair
was solidly constructed. He introduced himself and jumped
in with a reference to the General.
'I was intrigued by the sculpture of a cat on one of his pillars. The cat with its head the wrong way round. Rather
unusual.'
'The story behind that is unusual, even macabre. The
General has three offspring, Nelson, Benton and Noel. This
goes back to when they were boys, approaching their teens.
There was a cat the General worshipped, called Tommy.
An old name for army privates. The General used to feed
Tommy - no one else could give it milk or food. I had better
demonstrate . . .'
Francois picked up a large chunk of malleable clay from
a table. Paula watched, fascinated, as he used his large
hands skilfully, moulding the clay until, quickly, it became
a cat. He held it up so they could see how lifelike it looked.
He then did something which horrified her. He took hold of
it by the neck, slowly twisted it until the head was the wrong
way round.
'That,' he said quietly, 'is what one of the offspring did to
the cat.'
'How beastly,' Paula exclaimed.
'The General went almost out of his mind with grief and
fury. He did everything possible to find out which of the
boys had committed this atrocity. He never did. So, to
punish the culprit, he asked me to create that sculpture in
stone, to fix it to the top of the pillar. His idea was that every
time the culprit walked out of the grounds they would see
this aberration.'
'I think that too is quite horrible,' Paula muttered. 'So he
never knew who was responsible?'
'Never.'
'What about his relationship with his three sons now?' Tweed asked.
'Not all is as it seems.'
'I don't understand.'
'The General is a virile man, even now when he is eighty.
His wife died three years ago. Years before that he had an affair with a woman called Horlick. She became pregnant.
He told his wife, a remarkable woman. She agreed to tell
the neighbours she was pregnant and went on to the main
land. When Mrs Horlick gave birth to Noel the General's
wife came back with the baby and everyone thought that it
was hers.'
'So Nelson and Benton never knew the truth?'
'Not then. When they were grown up they did find out.
I'm not sure how.'
'So how did they react to having a half-brother instead of
a real one? Not pleasantly, I imagine.'
'You're wrong there,' Francois told him. 'First, Noel
turned out to have a brilliant brain, especially on the
planning front. He also took wrestling lessons at a specialist
gym on the other side of the island. Nelson is pretty tough
but he wouldn't mix it with Noel. If he did he'd end up with
a broken arm. When none of them would own up to
screwing the cat's neck the General took his revenge.'
'The stone sculpture, you mean?' Tweed suggested.
'More than that. The General is rich. His father was a
billionaire, left it all to him. The General used a top lawyer
in London to create three trusts. One for each of his off
spring. Every year the boys get a handsome amount which enables them to live well - but nothing like a fortune. They
were furious. Greed. The General never sees any of them
when he goes on one of his three-day trips to London.'
'You did say,' Tweed began, phrasing it delicately, 'that
the General is virile. Has he still an interest in women?
These trips to London.'
Francois stopped what he was doing. He stood up
suddenly and Tweed was surprised to see him standing
straight as a ramrod.
'That is personal. The General's private life is his own business.'
He stared hard to Tweed, cocked his head to one side as
though he couldn't quite make Tweed out. He sat on the
stool again, still gazing at Tweed.
'What is it about you, sir? I'm telling you things I've never
told another soul. I presume you will never repeat any of this to anyone. And my real name is Frank. The General
calls me Francois to fit in with the atmosphere of the
Crooked Village.'
'I give you my word I will never repeat anything you have
told me,' Tweed said firmly, his eyes fixed on Frank's.
'You didn't introduce me to the charming lady,' Frank
said, gazing at Paula.
'I'm sorry,' Tweed said quickly. 'My manners must be
slipping. This is Miss Paula Grey, my confidential
assistant.'
'May I call you Paula?' Frank suggested, taking off his
working gloves and extending his hand.
'Of course you may,' she said with a smile, shaking his
hand.
'I can tell,' Frank went on, 'that she is a trustworthy and
most able assistant. Tight-lipped, I am sure.'
He didn't seem bothered about Newman, who had been
standing a distance away by the open heavy door at the
entrance. Newman kept glancing outside. He had posted
Harry with his weapon at the entrance to the village to warn
of any intruders. He also had very acute hearing and had
heard every word.
'You're going now?' Frank said as Tweed held out his
hand. 'I was going to offer you some refreshment.'
'Thank you, but I want to have a word with the General.
Is it all right if I tell him we have been here, that we chatted
with you about your pottery and the village?'
'Of course it is. He is very proud of his village. When it
was built he brought over architects and workmen from
France. They advised me about the paint to use. The
colours are deliberately
exaggerated - the light in Provence
is so much stronger than here. Go well. . .'
14
In a daze, Paula turned to look at the village they had left.
The startling effect of being in France seemed stronger than
ever. She took out her camera, pressed the button three
times.
'That was a unique experience,' she said to Tweed with a
lilt in her voice. 'And I liked Frank.'
'He liked you. Otherwise he wouldn't have told us so
much. A shrewd old boy. And one of the happiest men I've
ever met.'
They walked quickly, Harry in the vanguard, his eyes
everywhere. Behind him Newman strode briskly along, also
very alert. He was worried about Paula. He hoped they
wouldn't have another grim experience. To Tweed's
surprise the wrought-iron gates guarding the General's
estate were swinging open. He stopped, listening.
Thud...
Thud...
Thud...
The sounds were coming from round a curve in the wide drive. For no reason he could fathom Tweed thought of the
trip to the mortuary, and what Professor Saafeld had said about the murder of Viola Vander-Browne.
Tweed walked round the bend. He was in the lead and
Paula was close behind him. He stopped abruptly. Newman
came up behind him.
'Trouble? You're disturbed.'
Tweed was staring at the stretch of drive leading up to a
large gracious mansion. Red-brick, Georgian in style, a long
terrace perched above a flight of stone steps.
The sounds were being made by a tall agile man swinging
a huge axe up and down, chopping large logs into smaller
pieces with the flat base of a tree trunk as the chopping
block.
The General, wearing a peaked army cap to protect his
face against flying chips, laid down the axe, took off his
gloves and turned to face Tweed. When he took off the cap
he revealed a sun-tanned face with a large hooked nose,
piercing blue eyes, a firm mouth, a strong jaw - all of which
reminded Tweed of paintings he'd seen of the Duke of
Wellington.
'Mr Tweed, I presume, with Miss Paula Grey and the
formidable Robert Newman,' he called out in his com
manding voice.
No suggestion of the pompous brass-hat in the voice.
Rather the voice acquired over the years when addressing officers. Despite his age his skin was leathery rather than lined and he moved briskly as he walked to greet them.
Upright as a telegraph pole.