The Trouble With Harry (5 page)

Sam Marlow the artist and Albert Wiles the new captain sat down on the warm earth to discuss the unfortunate happening, while close by Harry the corpse lay bootless and silent.

According to the young artist, who was a realist, prepared for every eventuality and surprised by none, the affair was a simple one and there was no cause for alarm. Although the retired lighterman was old enough to be Sam Marlow’s father, the young artist spoke to him as though he, the captain, was the junior. He spoke with cool, clear reasoning, but the little captain remained unimpressed. This was to be
understood, since the artist could see only the captain and the fine landscape, whereas the captain could see the corpse, the gun, and a number of hanging nooses.

‘It stands to reason,’ Sam explained, ‘that they can’t touch you for it. It was accidental. An act of God, perhaps. In a way you should be grateful that you were able to do your share in accomplishing the destiny of a fellow being.’

The captain stared morosely at the hanging nooses and said nothing. Sam continued:

‘Suppose for instance,’ he said, ‘it was written in the Book of Heaven that this man was to die in this particular place and at this particular time. Suppose for a moment that in some manner the actual accomplishing of his demise had been bungled; that something had gone wrong. Perhaps it was to be a thunderbolt and there was no thunder available, say. Well, you come along and you shoot him and Heaven’s will is done and destiny fulfilled. Surely your conscience is quite clear? Why should
you
be unhappy?’

The captain licked his lips and, after a moment, he spoke. He said:

‘Now look, Sammy. You got the wrong end of the blooming stick. It’s not me conscience that’s worrying me. I haven’t got a conscience. If you’d been the places I’ve been and seen the things I’ve seen
you
wouldn’t have a conscience, neither. And it’s not Heaven that worries me, for I don’t suppose I’ll ever have to face it. And it’s not his mother or his father neither, which I don’t suppose he ever knew. And it’s not any of the fine things you’ve been talking about. It’s not nothing like that. It’s me. It’s me what’s worrying me. Me and my neck. I know the police and their suspicious ways. I had a brother in the police and he told me that everybody they has anything to do with is guilty till they’re proved innocent – and I don’t want nothing to do with ’em. Bury him, I say, and have done with him. He’s no good to no one now, not the way he is. Lay him to rest. Put him under the sod. Forget him. You never saw him and I never done it.’

Sam shook his head, sorrowfully. ‘And what about all those other people who saw him? How about the woman and the little boy? How about Miss Graveley? The tramp? The man chasing butterflies –
that’ll be Dr Greenbow. How about the man and the blonde – that’ll be Mark Douglas and Mrs D’Arcy. How about them?’

The captain waved his hand as if they didn’t mean a thing. ‘Nobody was interested,’ he said. ‘Nobody cared – except you.’

‘That’s what
you
think,’ Sam reasoned. ‘But suppose somebody starts to care after you’ve buried him? It would look bad for you then, I must say. Suppose this woman who called him Harry decides she loves him, after all?’

‘Not a chance,’ said the captain, remembering the look on her face.

‘What was she like?’ Sam asked.

‘Pretty as a picture,’ said the captain.

‘With a little boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mrs Rogers,’ said Sam.

‘So let’s bury him,’ Captain Wiles suggested.

‘I don’t like it,’ Sam said. ‘The authorities like to know when people die. This was an accident and you’ve got nothing to fear.’

The captain sighed. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You forget it. You
cut along. I killed him and I’ll take care of his remains.’

Sam regarded the little man distrustfully. ‘And you’ll go dragging him round the heath for the rest of the day. If you’re not careful you
will
get a murder charge lined up – damned if I don’t begin to suspect something myself.’

The captain wilted. ‘There you are then, see? If
you
think the worst what are
they
going to think? I don’t know him, I tell you. Nobody knows him.’

‘What about the envelope?’ Sam reminded him. ‘You’ve got his name and address. By rights you should send him back.’

‘I’ll bury the envelope with him.’

Sam thought. He knew now that he would never paint the picture he had started to paint. He knew that his afternoon was ruined. He thought he might as well devote the remainder of the day to clearing up this small mystery.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said.

Captain Wiles looked at him suspiciously.

‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ Sam said. ‘We’ll try to find out how Mrs Rogers knows this man and if she intends to notify the police of his death.’

‘What good will that do?’ asked the captain.

‘A lot of good,’ said Sam. ‘If she’s just a distant friend of his and she doesn’t intend to notify the authorities of what has happened then I, personally, will help you to bury the body.’

The captain pondered. He regarded the strong young frame of the artist and he thought of the work involved in burying a body on a hot day.

‘All right,’ he conceded. Then he had a sudden thought. ‘What’s the time?’

Sam looked at the sun. ‘Nearly teatime.’

‘I got a date,’ said Captain Wiles. ‘I got a date with Miss Graveley.’

‘Good God!’ said Sam, remembering Miss Graveley’s excitement and wondering why.

The captain looked at him enquiringly.

‘I think you’re setting a precedent,’ Sam explained.

‘I’m not setting nothing,’ said the captain. ‘I’m going round for a spot of char on her own invitation.’

‘You’ll be the first man ever to cross her threshold,’ Sam said.

‘As to that,’ the captain said, after giving the statement due consideration, ‘I don’t know. She’s a
nice, well-preserved woman, but you have to open preserves some day.’ He laughed and slapped the artist’s shoulder. ‘You trot along down and see what Mrs Rogers has to say, Sammy.’

‘How about hiding the body first?’ Sam suggested.

‘Crikey!’ said the captain. ‘I should say!’

They got to their feet and looked around. There were many hiding places and it was difficult to choose one. The heath was made of hiding places. A thousand bodies could be hidden in this heath.

‘Over there,’ said Sam.

‘Or over there,’ said the captain.

‘Or just here,’ said Sam.

‘Or down there,’ said the captain.

‘What’s wrong with the rhododendron where you were hiding?’ said Sam.

‘That’s the first place
I
thought of,’ the captain said.

‘It’ll be safe enough there till dusk,’ said Sam.

They dragged the corpse back towards the rhododendron, taking one bare foot each. As they passed beneath a wide-spreading oak tree somebody sneezed, and they knew it wasn’t them. They looked
up. At first they could see no one, but soon they discerned a man sitting amongst the leaves. He was trying to blow his nose without making a noise but when he saw he had been discovered he gave his nose a good, noisy clear out.

‘Here,’ the captain called up to him. ‘What’re you doing up there?’

The man looked down at the captain and the artist and the body. ‘What are you doing down there?’ he asked.

Sam and the captain looked at each other across the corpse.

‘What shall I say?’ whispered the captain.

Sam shrugged. ‘You should have minded your own business, then he would have minded his.’

The captain shouted up: ‘It’s a nice afternoon.’

There was no reply. It was obvious that the man in the tree had no interest in the two men with the body. He was staring at a patch of bracken some distance away which only he, in his elevated position, could see.

Just then the thin man with the butterfly net came crashing along between the shrubbery. Now his
face was set with second wind and his legs moved automatically. The same large, coloured butterfly still danced merrily ahead. This Doctor Greenbow was on the little funeral party before they knew it, and before the doctor knew it he was lying flat across the dead body again, while the butterfly trod the air beyond.

The doctor got to his feet, slowly and stiffly.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said to the corpse. ‘I am most frightfully sorry. Have I hurt you?’

The corpse made no reply, but just lay there, waiting for Sam and the captain to put it back under the rhododendron.

‘It’s quite all right, doctor,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll take care of him. You get along now – you’re keeping your butterfly waiting.’

The tall, thin man jumped to his feet, suddenly aware of the rest of the company. His face widened a trifle, in appreciation. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and was gone.

Sam and the captain bent again to their task, while the man in the tree gazed across the bracken.

Mr D’Arcy – Mr Walter D’Arcy – sat in the tree and watched his wife sporting with Mr Douglas, and when it had reached a certain stage he climbed down from the tree and went home, filled with a desire and a design for justice, for he was a solicitor’s clerk.

Walter D’Arcy was a man who lived beyond his capabilities. He took on more than he could manage, bit off more than he could chew, and leapt before he looked. As a result of this unfortunate trait he had got to forty slightly the worse for wear, with a permanently ruffled appearance.

He had married the blonde quite lately and in a
fit of bravado. He had become attached to her in the way a dog becomes attached to its mistress. He resented the intrusion of Mark Douglas as a dog resents the alienation of its mistress’s affection. He had stayed home that afternoon to spy on his wife. If his suspicions were well-founded he planned to give Mr Douglas a taste of his own medicine. He had watched the Douglas’s home for these past few weeks and from what he had seen he gathered that Mrs Douglas was no more pleased with Mr Douglas than Walter was. In fact, he gathered that the quiet little woman was in much the same frame of mind as he was.

Therefore Walter D’Arcy sat down when he got home and penned a short letter. And being a solicitor’s clerk the letter said:

When he had written this letter and sealed it, knowing Mr Douglas would not be home, he put on his cycle clips and free-wheeled down the woodland path to the Douglas’s bungalow, the ‘Love Nest’, which stood opposite to Mrs Wiggs’ cottage.

Walter found Mrs Douglas in the garden. She came to the gate and took the letter from him. She was neither puzzled nor interested, for she had a cloud of gloom in her mind.

‘On holiday?’ said Mrs Douglas as she took the letter.

Walter pressed her fingers and winked at her. ‘I’ve been for a walk,’ he said.

Mrs Douglas blushed, for it was the first time in years that someone had pressed her fingers and winked at her. She was an attractive woman gone careless, like a rose with the old blooms hanging. Her husband had paid her no attention at all for so long that she had forgotten the reason for living. Once, in a fit of wit, he had said that housewives put up with the same thing day after day for the sake of the same thing night after night, and she had agreed with him. But now there was nothing to put up with, for Mark Douglas was continually freelancing.

‘Is there any reply to this?’ she said.

‘That’s up to you, Cassy,’ Walter said recklessly.

Mrs Douglas looked at him and began to wonder and as he rode away, on his bicycle she opened the letter.

Sam Marlow walked down to ‘Chaos’ carrying the baby hedgehogs wrapped in a piece of canvas.

Mrs Rogers met him at the front door, for she had seen him from the window. She smiled at him as she stood there in the little porch and the sun was on her face and hair.

She said: ‘Good afternoon.’

Sam stepped back to get a better picture. ‘You’re wonderful,’ he said softly. ‘You’re beautiful, too. You’re the most wonderful, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

Mrs Rogers inclined her head, accepting his praise but not letting it upset her. ‘Was there something you wanted, Mr … er … Marlow, isn’t it?’

‘You really are a lovely woman, you know,’ Sam informed her. He stepped forward and lifted her dress so that he could see her knees. ‘I would like to see you nude,’ he said thoughtfully.

She nodded. ‘Some other time,’ she said. ‘I’m just getting Abie’s tea.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ Sam said understandingly, dropping the skirt of her frock. ‘Of course. Perhaps I’ve come at an awkward moment?’

‘If you want to undress me, you have,’ Mrs Rogers said.

‘It wasn’t that,’ Sam said, trying to remember why he had called.

‘Well, come in,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you would like a cup of tea?’

‘I’d love that. Thank you.’

He followed her into the little bungalow and spread himself in a chair by the window. The small boy, Abie, came into the room carrying a dead rabbit. Sam looked at the rabbit and remembered the parcel under his arm. He unwrapped the little hedgehogs and placed them on the floor, where they tried to roll themselves into a ball but were not old enough to know how.

‘Hedgehogs!’ said Abie delightedly.

‘Rabbit,’ replied Sam, taking the dead rabbit and stroking it.

‘Fleas!’ exclaimed the young Mrs Rogers, and she took up the hedgehogs and carried them out into the garden, stopping to wash her hands at the tap on her way back. Abie followed her out and knelt down watching the baby animals. When Mrs Rogers came back into the room, carrying a steaming cup of tea, Sam said: ‘I’m sorry. They’re little orphans.’

She smiled at him again and he enjoyed it.

‘What’s your name?’ he said, when he was drinking the tea.

‘Jennifer,’ she told him. ‘Jennifer Rogers.’

He turned this name over in his mind and it satisfied him. ‘Who’s the man up on the heath?’ he said.

‘What man?’ she said.

‘You know – Harry. The dead man.’

She screwed up her nose a little. ‘Oh, him. That’s my husband.’

‘Your husband’s dead then?’ Sam asked politely.

She nodded. ‘Is your tea sweet enough?’ she said.

‘Yes, thank you,’ Sam told her.

Abie came in and took the dead rabbit out of Sam’s hand, then went out of the front door.

‘Don’t be long,’ Jennifer Rogers said. ‘Your tea’s ready.’

‘Is Harry Abie’s father, then?’ Sam asked.

She shook her head emphatically. ‘Abie’s father is dead,’ she said sadly.

‘So is Harry.’

‘Yes, thank goodness,’ she said. She said it as if she were saying grace. ‘He was too good to live.’

‘He doesn’t look as if he were very good,’ Sam remarked.

‘He was horribly good,’ she assured him.

‘I like your mouth, too,’ Sam said.

‘Will you have some more tea?’ Jennifer asked him.

‘Thanks,’ Sam said. Then he added: ‘Where’s Abie gone?’

‘He’s gone to see the new captain,’ she said. ‘He shot that rabbit this afternoon and Abie found it.’

‘I’d like to hear some of your life story,’ Sam said, ‘if you don’t mind. You see, we don’t know quite what to do with Harry. You may have some suggestions.’