Enter Pale Death (31 page)

“You are not mistaken, sir. We are favoured by their presence in the nettle patches beyond the moat to the north in the direction of the Dower House. Lady Cecily so enjoys their music she refuses to allow a clearance of their favoured habitat. If you have sharp eyes, you may well note a yellow-hammer or two in the woods, perhaps even a woodpecker. And the dance of the dragonflies over the moat is matchless.”

“Excellent. I shall be on the front row of the stalls! Now I have you for a moment by yourself, Styles—a question or two. Just an eliciting of facts, you understand, carried out in privacy. But we’ll
wait until we’re settled in the parlour.” He nodded politely to two large ladies who glowered at him suspiciously as they helped each other to tie on aprons over their grey morning frocks. “I wouldn’t want to put the kitchen staff off their stroke. After that, we can both get on with our day.”

Styles smiled, put his head receptively on one side and picked up his tray. “The pot of honey on the dresser, sir? Would you be so kind? It’s off the estate. ‘Melsett,’ you understand … I suspect this part of Suffolk has been known for its honey since time immemorial …”

A good butler could sail through any adverse conditions, making polite conversation the while. Even an annoyingly early-rising guest who bossily insisted on breakfasting with him was taken in his unhurried stride.

“I’
LL TELL YOU
straight, Styles—I’m about to pay an early morning call on Mr. Goodfellow, your resident jester. Or Virbio, King of the Grove, as he calls himself. Tell me where I shall find him.”

“If that’s your fancy, sir, I recommend you step carefully. He will, as is his custom, be sleeping off the effects of an evening at the Sorrel Horse or some similar hostelry. You would be wise to establish that he is alone. It is not unknown for him—against the master’s wishes I needn’t say—to take a companion back with him for the night. A female companion. Occasionally loose ladies make the trip out from Ipswich on the omnibus.” Styles sniffed his disapproval. “He’s made his home in the so-called Temple to Diana. Our guests may expect to catch a glimpse of him flashing through the trees in costume should their rambles take them in the direction of the ancient woodland later in the day.”

“Is that the sort of thing that goes down well with Sir James’s guests?” Joe asked, not quite managing to iron the distaste from his question. He should have realised that no criticism of the house and its guests would be tolerated by the butler.

“In a state of unbuttoned ease, some visitors, especially those of a metropolitan background, are inspired to respond to the spirit of bucolic joviality and collude in fostering what they understand very well to be a medieval—possibly older—tradition. Those with a deeper education and a love of literature are pleased to combine it—as did our national bard—with an appreciation of the classical embellishments on display.”

Joe was beginning to wish he hadn’t asked.

“I’m familiar with the shrine to Jove’s daughter, chaste and fair, Goddess of the Triple Ways,” he said, feeling a riposte in style was necessary to uphold the reputation of the Yard in the butler’s eyes.

“Then you will be aware of the alleged divine powers which attract a following among the female guests?”

“The goddess has an ancient reputation for intervening in certain female conditions. She has the power to aid fertility and ease the pains of childbirth.”

“Always a fruitful topic for conjecture and risqué remarks among the gentlemen! Supplications from some of our more credulous lady guests are frequently made. Votive offerings are left at the foot of her statue and pleas for divine intervention in their medical conditions are made.”

“Good Lord!” Joe said, guiltily aware that he had himself fallen into the temptation of popping a token and a wish into the Maiden’s hand. “It’s not a parlour game! Have they any idea who might be reading their secrets? What might be made of them by an unscrupulous … um … high priest?”

Styles smiled and tilted his head to one side, indicating polite disagreement. “There have been no complaints. Indeed, sir, several lady guests have reported themselves highly satisfied with the outcome of their approaches to the goddess.” The twinkle was unmistakable as he confided, “Sir James has stood godfather to one or two infants bearing the middle name of Melsett or Diana in light-hearted acknowledgement of the intercession.”

“Crikey! No Virbios in the line-up I hope?” Joe spluttered into his coffee and watched as the humour faded in the butler’s eyes. Struck by the same unvoiceable thought, they both looked aside and Joe returned to the safer question of the temple architecture. “The temple building is not of white marble as one might expect but something more modern and comfortable I think. It looked to me more like an Alpine chalet than a Greek temple. Steep roof and curlicues.”

“Mr. Goodfellow is known to enjoy his creature comforts, sir, and his quarters have been much admired. I believe the design and the fittings originated in a Scandinavian country. Norway perhaps. That is certainly where the pinewood came from. It sits well and discreetly in its surroundings. That was the opinion of Sir Edwin when he last visited.”

“Can you tell me when his employment began on the estate?”

“Indeed. Sir Sidney, it was, who took him on. Goodfellow had served in some menial capacity in the British Army in South Africa in a regiment where Sir Sidney was an officer.”

“The Seventeenth Lancers?”

“That’s correct. Prince George, Duke of Cambridge’s Own. A very smart company they were. There has been a soldier in most of the generations of the Truelove family. The old master played a bold part in the South African war against the Boers but bought himself out immediately afterwards, not wishing to go on with them to India which was to be the regiment’s next posting. He had a young wife and a family here in Suffolk by then and there was much to be done on the estate. Some five years later—1905, would that have been?—Mr. Goodfellow turned up at the Hall, seeking work. A man down on his luck would be sure of a favourable reception from Sir Sidney and a man who had fought alongside was welcomed with generosity. He was given a part time post out in the woods, where he claimed he was happiest. He declares that the noise and fury of war—along with the bullet
wound he claims to have picked up—rendered him unfit for a normal occupation among his fellow men or their close society.”

“Though he makes an exception to that on Saturday nights at the pub?”

“You have it, sir.”

“The present master, Sir James, appears to tolerate his presence in his woods?”

Styles’s face froze for a moment, his lips pursed. “He does,” was all he ventured in reply. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, got up from the table and began to open the window, murmuring about fresh air and the remiss parlour maid who had failed to air the room.

As the window went up Joe was startled to hear a shot ring out in the distance. Styles anticipated his question with a soothing and dismissive smile. “Bang on time! Not poachers! The rook-scarer, sir. It’s one of the master’s latest innovations. It’s automatic. Fires itself off in the orchards every half hour from before dawn for two hours. Saves sending the children out at an unearthly hour to keep the birds off the soft fruit with rattles. You have just heard the final flourish for today. A disconcerting noise if you’re not used to it but, after a while, it’s like the church bells—you don’t hear it any more.”

Joe was further startled by the sound of feet scurrying down the corridor and young Timmy’s face appeared round the door.

“Sir … Mr. Styles … Begging your pardons … There’s a lady on the telephone ringing from London. She wants to speak to the policeman. Says it’s urgent.”

Joe swiftly put down his coffee cup.

“L
ILY
! S
TILL ON
watch?”

He listened to Lily’s account, making no comment on the prospective arrival of Sir James with a mixed bag of three guests, not wishing to spoil her moment. Her identification of the three
was, however, news to him—and might be a surprise to Cecily also, he suspected. “Thank you, Lily!” He spoke with warmth. “You’ve just passed me a winning hand! For the first time in this wretched affair, I don’t feel I’m on the back foot. It may not make much sense to you down there in London but it certainly shines a light on things here. Things are coming to the boil. But knowing who’re on their way, I can begin to guess where the heat’s coming from. Even better—they have no idea they’ll see my grinning face on the front steps.”

He looked at his watch. He reckoned he had time enough to prepare for the arrival. And plenty of time to put the frighteners on the Wild Man of the Woods.

J
OE APPROACHED THE
ancient woodland with care, eyes scanning the bushes, ears alert for human sounds amongst the trees. The explosion he’d heard had not come from any rook-scarer. He’d not heard of a machine that boasted a dull echo a few seconds after discharge. It had been a sound he could not mistake—someone had fired off a shotgun moments before the rook-scarer had delivered its seven o’clock warning. As the blast had come from the direction of the Temple of Diana, Joe told himself that the Wild Man must have wakened and decided to pot a rabbit for his Sunday lunch. He was determined the second barrel was not going to be emptied into him.

The rubber-soled tennis shoes he’d chosen to put on made his approach soundless. He hoped no one was watching him but he rather thought someone was there, standing silently in the woodland, interpreting the unnatural care with which he eased himself through the trees as a state of fear or, at best, comical eccentricity. There was fear in his furtive movements, certainly. Fear had kept him alive; he did not disdain the natural emotion. He used it as a sixth sense but a sense moderated by reason and controlled by training.

Fear was warning him now that all was not as it should be in these woods. He stopped and with his back to a tree trunk, took stock of his surroundings. An early morning walk in June should have been a joyous experience, all senses charmed by a fresh green welcoming Nature. He analysed what was missing. No birds were calling out a warning to each other, signalling ahead the presence of a stranger. The normally vociferous ring doves had nothing to say. No animals were moving thorough the underbrush. Even the breeze had surrendered and the treetops were motionless. A lugubrious cloud of silence hung over the wood. The shot he’d heard twenty minutes ago? Were even the woodland creatures holding their breath waiting for the second barrel?

The gleam of a white marble limb through the trees as he turned his head gave Joe his bearings. Diana was pointing his way. Peering through the gloom beyond the statue he located the outline of the wooden cabin where Goodfellow had established himself as the King of the Grove. A very unappealing place to pass your time, surely? Sir Edwin Lutyens might have expressed polite approval but Joe was not an admirer. The man must be more than a little mad to be content to lead an existence out here in this spooky spot. Possibly fearful too. Joe would not have wanted to spend a single night camping out here, alone.

Fear went with the job, Joe reckoned. He wondered if Virbio himself knew the story. The Guardian of Diana’s Grove was destined to reign in a state of constant terror. Not only of the goddess’s vengeful temper but also in apprehension of his own violent death at the hands of his successor. By tradition, he could be challenged by some younger, more aggressive aspirant waiting for his moment. Symbolically, the challenger would tear down a branch from an oak tree and then would begin the fight to the death. At the memory of the oak branch he’d reached up and tentatively tugged at, Joe shuddered and recalled Virbio’s strange question to him: “Are you here to kill me?”

Virbio had taken him for a challenger. A stalker intent on deposing him.

Poor chap! What a hideous delusion under which to live one’s life! Why in hell did he stay on? How could any man allow an ancient, irrelevant and decidedly unpleasant myth to take over his life? What reality was he fleeing from? Could it possibly be worse than the fantasy? Joe decided that if he was intending to take the inebriated Man of the Woods by surprise it might be a kindness to come at him in a tactful manner. He didn’t want to bring on a heart attack. Or provoke a fight to the death.

T
HE DOOR TO
the cottage was standing slightly open. Careful to stay out of aim of anyone in the interior, Joe crept close and put his ear to the jamb. He listened for a drunken snoring. No sound. Joe pushed the door open a further inch or two and almost fell backwards in surprise as a sound shattered the silence. An unnatural, inhuman sound. The squeal of a blocked organ pipe? The smothered screech of a strangled cat? Joe discarded both of his original impressions. This was some pitiful animal caught in a trap, he decided, calculating that the brief sound was magnified by the small dimensions of the wooden hut.

He breathed deeply and moved inside, steeling himself to deal with whatever creature was in distress.

A nightmare scene assaulted his wide-eyed stare into the gloom.

In the curtained interior, sprawled on the bed in what seemed to be the single room of the cottage, lay a corpse.

The body of Virbio, Joe assumed. Lying across his coverlet. With his woolly grey hair and gnarled limbs, bunioned white feet sticking out of his winceyette pyjama legs, cup of tea half drunk on his bedside table, he could have been anyone’s grandfather sleeping in on a Sunday morning. Had it not been for the copious streams of blood that covered torso and arms and the red splatter
staining the white-painted wall behind the bedhead. A double-barrelled game rifle lay beside the bed, having, to all appearances, dropped from his dead hand. Nauseated by the battlefield stench of fresh blood, stale alcohol, and cordite, Joe moved closer and peered down at the remains of the face.

Fired from below, the blast had caught him on one side of the neck and made its way upwards, smashing the jaw and deflecting sideways. The eyes were intact and open. Disconcertingly, they seemed to be staring back at him. In alarm, Joe moved sideways out of their range. The eyes followed his. Locked on. From the open mouth there came the same inhuman shriek Joe had heard from the doorway. Joe steadied himself with an effort. With his speaking mechanisms smashed to pieces, all the dying man could do was make a noise through one pipe or other that remained intact. Joe reckoned that he must have survived twenty minutes in this hopeless state of paralysis and that death would come very soon. He’d cradled dying men in his arms in the trenches, in disbelief at the amount of a man’s body that could be shot away and yet leave him for a few moments able to communicate.