The Old English Peep Show (15 page)

He was already in a sitting position when the next rush came. He leaned inward and pushed it away. His assailant was so light, so weak, so old.

“Worth trying,” panted the General. “Five years ago and I could have done it easy. Judith listened to a bit of your talk with your sawbones pal, you know. Told us about it at tea. Haven't a clue what it meant.”

Pibble didn't say anything. He stood down onto the flagstones and was about to move toward his bucket when he heard a new noise, a rattling scrape just outside the balustrade. He took a firm hold of the pillar and looked over, straight down into the lion's mask. Either the animal had done its thinking or it had been stimulated to a fresh idea by the sound of the fracas above it, and now it was working its way up the ladder of fretted stone which Pibble had used. The oval holes were not quite large enough for the big pads, but as Pibble stared it forced its right paw into another rung and the mask followed in a jerking six-inch rush. Pibble thought for a wild second of trying to shove the creature back; he might have done it if he'd still had his shovel, but that lay hopelessly down at the bottom of the pit.

The General was leaning over the balustrade beside him.

“Told you he'd think it out,” he said coolly. “We'd better be off.”

For an old man he achieved a lively scamper. Pibble ran for his bucket but saw as he came back that the extra few yards might now be fatal. A hairy blackness was scrabbling at the top of the stone, the moonlight striking a faint gleam off its claws. He ran desperately and caught up with the General just around the corner. Inexplicably the old man had slowed to a walk.

“Quick!” panted Pibble as he rushed past him. “He's almost there!”

And they'd been running the wrong way. The General, for all his apparent coolness, had led him in the direction which involved running almost three sides of the pit instead of one and a bit. He looked wildly over his shoulder across the diagonal of the courtyard and saw that the lion had vanished. It must be already under the arcading and leaping after them. He was balancing his run, awkward because of the wallowing bucket, for the final corner when a hand caught his back-flung shoe and wrenched him off balance. As he went down, he glimpsed amid the whirling shadows the General prancing past him. The old boy had led him around the long way on purpose, slowed on purpose to be overtaken.

Pibble let the twisting momentum of his fall roll him sideways into the blackness under the frieze. Against the arcaded sky he saw a jagged shadow whirl past him, heard the quick flutter of big pads taking the corner, then silence, then a brief barking cry which was not the cry of the lion, a thud, and then silence again.

PART III

THE DUELING GROUND

The ceremony he was in a hurry to have over: he was stopped at the gallows by the vast crowd, but got out of his coach as soon as he could, and was but seven minutes on the scaffold, which was hung with black, and prepared by the undertaker of his family at their expense. There was a new contrivance for sinking the stage under him, which did not play well; and he suffered a little by the delay, but was dead in four minutes. The mob was decent, and admired him, and almost pitied him …

—Horace Walpole
On the execution of Lord Ferrers, May 6, 1760

7:00 P.M.

T
he tower proved easier to climb up than it had down, even in darkness. From the arcading across the diagonal, Pibble could hear a busy snuffling, as of a terrier rootling in a compost heap. Intermittently the noise paused for a purring growl.

His heart was working with a dangerous bubbling beat as he stumbled through the tussocky grass around to the minaret with the door in it. The door was open, and the same snuffling and growling came up the black stairwell. Pibble shut it and slipped the hasp of the padlock through the latch, then allowed his tired legs to take him in a reeling career down the thin path to Miss Finnick's cottage. He cut the corner toward the forceable window, walking the last few paces to give his limbs a chance to work efficiently. A light glared at him from the black shadows of the porch.

“Something the matter?” said a man's voice.

“The lion's caught Sir Ralph,” said Pibble. “At the foot of the stairs. On the first story. I climbed one of the towers. There's a gun in here. I think it's too late. This is the easiest window to force.”

“Good God!” said Mr. Singleton, moving his gangling shape into the moonlight. “Don't waste time with the window—I keep a key.”

Electric light shone cozily from carriage lanterns and adapted paraffin lamps, twinkling off the polished brass of innumerable knickknacks.

“She keeps it in the grandfather clock,” said Pibble. “The key's in this snuffbox.” The barely suppressed panic of the last ten minutes was nudging his voice into hysteria now that he had someone else to carry the responsibilities, a job which Mr. Singleton seemed to have assumed without hesitation. For someone so clumsily put together, he moved very fast and neatly; already he was checking the gun over, and trying a couple of grips which would allow him to point the torch along the gun barrel.

“I'll come and hold the light,” said Pibble.

“The door doesn't shut on the inside, so I think it would be best if you remained at the top to latch it behind me, in case I mishandle the business. I trust you didn't lock it.”

“No,” said Pibble.

Mr. Singleton went up the path at an enormously fast controlled lope, which looked as if he would be breathing no faster by the time he reached the pit. Pibble followed at a weak-kneed trot. He was still sure that the General had been waiting for reinforcements during his long monologue. And how did Singleton know he had shut the door? Miss Finnick's porch seemed an odd place for him to be, too; she'd been long gone.

The door was ajar when he reached it; he stood and listened. The silence stretched out from seconds to minutes, to a desert-wide agony of tense and suspicious boredom. His sweat- and dew-drenched trousers chilled against his legs. He watched a star vanish behind the black ridge of trees to the west. He felt cold, ill, the feverish aftermath of shock and action.

Suddenly a noise came up through the chilly blackness of the stairwell: gulping and whuffling and purring, all mixed together. Crippen, could the lion have finished with Singleton before Pibble had even reached the pit? Surely not. More likely, Singleton had disturbed the animal by opening the door, and since then they had been conducting a long duel of waiting. And what steps did you take, Superintendent Pibble, to rescue this great man from the creature that attacked him? You heard him cry out and assumed that he was already dead, so you ran away? You did not go to look? Thank you, Superintendent.

The whuffling modulated to a giant roar. The stairway bellowed with indescribable noise, the gun slamming its bullets out in a confined space. In the whining silence the roar came again, but strangled and gurgling. There was one last deep cough, then the thud of a falling weight. Another short silence before the gun clattered again, not quite so loud (further from the foot of the stairs, maybe) but a longer burst. Pibble felt his way carefully down into blackness.

Singleton was a tall shadow leaning in the first archway, his torch still burning, his attitude a little relaxed from its busy tautness.

“Are you all right?” said Pibble.

“I apologize for the delay, but he heard me coming down the stairs, and I had to wait him out. I must admit he damn near got me, even so. I advise you not to look at the General. The best thing would be for us both to go back to the house for a drink and then you can explain what has occurred.”

“Lend me your torch a minute.”

The door at the bottom of the stairs was held by three wrist-thick bolts, and when Pibble opened it he found it was four inches thick, studded with iron; no one had known, presumably, how strong a door had to be to keep a tiger in. He picked up his shovel in the far corner of the pit and, to save time, climbed the stone ladder he had used before. The bucket had spilt its nauseous contents in his fall, but he scooped up what he could find and walked on toward the stairs.

He came to the General first. The body lay on its back, its head flattened out of perspective like a plum which someone has trodden on. The lion had begun, just as Mrs. Adamson had described Elsa as doing, at the belly, treating the twill trousers and canary waistcoat like so much hide. It looked as if the body had been hit in the midriff by a small explosive shell.

The lion lay only a yard or two from the stair, its long flank stitched by a regular double series of bullet holes which did not seem to have bled at all; but the giant mask was a crimson tangle. There had been two bursts of firing—the first must have killed it, then Singleton, driven by some urge of violence, had sprayed the second burst along the animal's length.

“What's that?” said Singleton, from the shadows.

“Some evidence. How many keys are there to this place?”

“Two. The General had Uncle Dick's on him, and I suppose he has still, but I would prefer not to investigate his pockets. The other one is in my safe.”

“I'll leave this here, then. We can click the lock to and the lab team can pick it up when they come for the bodies.”

“Bodies?”

“With a bit of luck they'll be able to prove that the lion ate Sir Richard by finding human bone fragments in its intestines. The pistol ball may still be there, too.”

“It appears that you know all about our affairs,” said Mr. Singleton­ slowly.

“I've still got a fair amount of checking up, but first I must do some telephoning. And you will want to tell Mrs. Singleton what's happened.”

“Anty? Oh, yes, I suppose so. Naturally.”

They locked the door and Singleton led Pibble down the path toward the cottage, past it, and on toward the screen of trees.

“Where are we going?” said Pibble.

“I left my car in the car park; I consider it unsafe to go through the Lion Ground after dark.”

“What brought you out here?”

“I thought it my duty to look for the General. We have been perturbed, I do not mind confessing, by his behavior since Uncle Dick died. Anty, who has a vivid turn of phrase, observed to me that he seemed no more put out than he would have if a strong wind had stripped the tiles off the stables. It was she who asked me to come and investigate his whereabouts, and it seemed possible that he might be down at the Dueling Ground. But when I stopped my car I heard Bonzo roaring, and decided that I had better investigate.”

Pibble was silent, his scalp prickling with wariness as they dipped into the blackness under the trees. Judith told us, the General had said, and “us” must have included one of the Singletons. Suppose she'd told the General and Mrs. Singleton, and the General had come out to see what he could do alone, leaving a message for Singleton to follow. That would explain the long, bravura piece of spellbinding. But perhaps Singleton, though happy to camouflage the occasional murder inside the family circle, was not sufficiently imbued with the Clavering ethos to help in the obliteration of inconvenient strangers.

“Did Sir Ralph seem his normal self at tea?” said Pibble.

“I do not take tea.”

The car park was a small square of gravel, entirely screened by trees. It held the General's E-Type, open, and a Land-Rover.

“Do you feel capable of driving one of these?” said Mr. Singleton­.

“I'd rather not. I'm pretty shaken. He tried to kill me three times.”

“In that case it would be advisable to put the Jaguar's roof up. This type of machine depreciates quite fast enough, without allowing the upholstery to be wet through.”

Pibble held the torch while Singleton flicked the roof into position; then they both climbed into the Land-Rover. Singleton drove in an odd, bolt-upright attitude, like an elderly lady at a tea party, but banged the car through corners on the very verge of skidding, so that Pibble lurched and grabbed. The lion-flanked gates were open—perhaps they were only shut when visitors were expected, so that Mrs. Chuck could scutter out and curtsy and collect, like Danaë, her shower of half crowns. Mr. Singleton stopped the car halfway up the avenue and switched off the headlights.

“I hope you will forgive what must appear unwarranted inquisitiveness,” he said, “but who were you proposing to telephone?”

“I ought to ring your Chief Constable,” said Pibble, “to keep him in the picture. He'll have to arrange for all the technicians—lab men and photographers, and so on—to come out tomorrow. I must ring my wife. I must telephone my own boss and tell him what's up. I must have at least one assistant—Sergeant Maxwell would do—up here tonight. That's the lot. Oh, no, I must telephone the local pub for a room.”

“Good Lord,” said Mr. Singleton with surprising warmth—no, not warmth, emphasis—“you must stay with us. As for the other matters, I wonder if you could be persuaded to leave contacting the local police until tomorrow morning. I ask because we will need time to organize our defenses against a horde of journalists. You must take my word for it, but they are bound to descend on us in swarms, and it is my duty to arrange my staff work so that everybody knows how they are to be handled. You may not be aware of it, but tomorrow is a busy day for us.
Queen Elizabeth's
in, and that involves four coaches in the morning and six in the afternoon.”

“Queen Elizabeth?”

“The boat, man!”

“Oh, of course.”

Um, nyum. Pibble stared through the windscreen. The lights of the Private Wing glowed warm and friendly between the tree trunks, but the rest of Herryngs brooded under the moon like a sullen fortress. Reasonable request, in a sort of way—tell a policeman any dirt, and it's all over Fleet Street in half an hour, like muck across plowland. Besides … besides … Pibble was not content with the solution presented him. It made sense, but it had been shoved at him. Why had Singleton selected two such spectacularly bad liars as Maxwell and Miss Finnick to prop up the General's ramshackle structure of deceit? And there were Miss Scoplow's three shots, when he'd heard only two during the duels while the Americans had been going through the mill; echoes, most likely, but it ought to be nosed into. And there was something else, something round and gray, nagging at a corner of his mind. Get the official machinery grinding and everything would suddenly become fixed in its present posture, like a bunch of kids playing musical statues.

And what had Singleton been doing, hiding on Miss Finnick's porch?

“I must certainly ring my boss,” he said, “but I'll ring him at home. He's very stuffy about journalists. I must ring my wife, too; but she doesn't know any. I'll ask my boss's permission to delay informing your local police till the morning, and I think he'll agree. That only leaves the problem of an assistant. Isn't there a member of the local force you can ring at his home, and—”

“Mr. Waugh,” interrupted Mr. Singleton. “He was a special constable, I believe. I am certain he would be more than willing to do his duty as a citizen by assisting you.”

“Well …” began Pibble. But why not? So many rules broken so far, what does one more matter? But give in and they'd think he was taking matters easy, accepting the solution which had been shoved at him. Only wanted a chap for a couple of things, nothing Waugh couldn't do.

“All right,” he said, “let's try him.”

“I am most grateful,” said Mr. Singleton, and drove on.

Mrs. Singleton was pushing a trolley of drinks along the hall as they came in.

“Just in time,” she said. “How'd … Oh, it's you, Mr. Pibble. Where's the General?”

“Perhaps you'd take the drinks into the study, Pibble,” said Mr. Singleton. “I'm sure you'll excuse us for a minute.”

He took his wife by the elbow and turned her around to walk her down the hall. Pibble wheeled the trolley into the study, where Miss Scoplow was sitting reading
Nova
with that tiny derangement of the eyebrows which showed she was concentrating on something a bit beyond her.

“Oh, I'm so glad you've come,” she said. “I expect you know a lot of Lesbians—being a policeman, I mean. Do
you
think Queen Elizabeth the First was one?”

“I was always taught she was really a man,” said Pibble. There seemed to be three sorts of whiskey, so he chose the palest.

“Oh, you mustn't put water in
tha
t
!
”
said Miss Scoplow. “The General will throw a fit. Are you all right, Mr. Pibble?”

“No,” said Pibble. He poured water into his drink and took two big mouthfuls. Normally he didn't like whiskey, but this was delicious. Miss Scoplow was watching him with her exaggerated wide-eyed stare.

“I do think you'd be better off with aspirin,” she said.

“No, I'm better with this, thank you. What can I get you?”

“I don't drink, thank you very much.”

“I think you should, this time.”

She looked at him again, a quite different gaze, remote and for once self-concerned.

“Something sweet, then,” she said.