“Ah,” said Fox. Mr. Juniper smiled archly. “Well, now,” he said, “I oughtn’t to give the young lady away, ought I? Professional secrets. Ha-ha! ”
“Ha-ha!” Alleyn agreed, putting Happy Families in his pocket. “Thank you, Mr. Juniper.”
“Thank you, sir. All well up at the Manor, I hope? Great loss, that. Loss to the Nation, you might say. Little trouble with the children clearing up, I hope?”
“On its way. Lovely afternoon, isn’t it? Good-bye.”
“I didn’t want any toothpaste,” said Fox, as they continued up the street.
“I didn’t see why I should make all the purchases and you were looking rather too portentous. Put it down to expenses. It was worth it.”
“I don’t say it wasn’t that,” Fox agreed. “Now, sir, if this woman Orrincourt took the Raspberry, I suppose we look to her for all the other pranks, don’t we?”
“I hardly think so, Fox. Not all. We know, at least, that this ghastly kid tied a notice to the tail of her Aunt Millamant’s coat. She’s got a reputation for practical jokes. On the other hand, she definitely, it seems, did not perpetrate the Raspberry and the flying cow, and my wife is convinced she’s innocent of the spectacles, the painted stair rail and the rude writing on Sir Henry’s looking-glass. As for the book in the cheese-dish, I don’t think either Panty or Miss Orrincourt is guilty of that flight of fancy.”
“So that if you count out the little girl for anything that matters, we’ve got Miss Orrincourt and another.”
“That’s the cry.”
“And this other is trying to fix something on Miss Orrincourt in the way of arsenic and the old gentleman?”
“It’s a reasonable thesis, but Lord knows.”
“Where are we going, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Are you good for a two-mile walk? I think we’ll call on the Ancreds.”
iv
“It isn’t,” said Alleyn as they toiled up the second flight of terraces, “as if we can hope to keep ourselves dark, supposing that were advisable. Thomas will have rung up his family and told them that we have at least taken notice. We may as well announce ourselves and see what we can see. More especially, this wretched old fellow’s bedroom.”
“By this time,” said Fox sourly, “they’ll probably have had it repapered.”
“I wonder if Paul Kentish is handy with electrical gadgets. I’ll wager Cedric Ancred isn’t.”
“What’s that?” Fox demanded.
“What’s what?”
“I can hear something. A child crying, isn’t it, sir?”
They had reached the second terrace. At each end of this terrace, between the potato-field and the woods, were shrubberies and young copses. From the bushes on their left hand came a thin intermittent wailing; very dolorous. They paused uncertainly, staring at each other. The wailing stopped, and into the silence welled the accustomed sounds of the countryside — the wintry chittering of birds and the faint click of naked branches.
“Would it be some kind of bird, should you say?” Fox speculated.
“No bird!” Alleyn began and stopped short. “There it is again.” It was a thin piping sound, waving and irregular and the effect of it was peculiarly distressing. Without further speculation they set off across the rough and still frost-encrusted ground. As they drew nearer to it the sound became, not articulate, but more complex, and presently, when they had drawn quite close, developed a new character. “It’s mixed up,” Fox whispered, “with a kind of singing.”
“Good-bye poor pussy your coat was so warm,
And even if you did moult you did me no harm.
Good-bye poor pussy for ever and ever
And make me a good girl, amen.
“For ever and ever,” the thin voice repeated, and drifted off again into its former desolate wail. As they brushed against the first low bushes it ceased, and there followed a wary silence disrupted by harsh sobbing.
Between the bushes and the copse they came upon a little girl in a white cap, sitting by a newly-turned mound of earth. A child’s spade was beside her. Stuck irregularly in the mound of earth were a few heads of geraniums. A piece of paper threaded on a twig stood crookedly at the head of the mound. The little girl’s hands were earthy, and she had knuckled her eyes so that black streaks ran down her face. She crouched there scowling at them, rather like an animal that flattens itself near the ground, unable to obey its own instinct for flight.
“Hallo,” said Alleyn, “this is a bad job!” And unable to think of a more satisfactory opening, he heard himself repeating Dr. Withers’s phrase. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.
The little girl was convulsed, briefly, by a sob. Alleyn squatted beside her and examined the writing on the paper. It had been executed in large shaky capitals.
“KARABAS,
R.S.V.P.
LOVE FROM PANTY.”
“Was Carabbas,” Alleyn ventured, “your own cat?”
Panty glared at him and slowly shook her head.
Alleyn said quickly: “How stupid of me; he was your grandfather’s cat, wasn’t he?”
“He loved me,” said Panty on a high note. “Better than he loved Noddy. He loved me better than he loved anybody. I was his friend.” Her voice rose piercingly like the whistle of a small engine. “And I didn’t,” she screamed, “I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t give him the ringworms. I hate my Auntie Milly. I wish she was dead. I wish they were all dead. I’ll kill my Auntie Milly.” She beat on the ground with her fists, and, catching sight of Fox, screamed at him: “Get out of here, will you? This is my place.”
Fox stepped back hastily.
“I’ve heard,” said Alleyn, cautiously, “about Carabbas and about you. You paint pictures, don’t you? Have you painted any more pictures lately?”
“I don’t want to paint any more pictures,” said Panty.
“That’s a pity, because we rather thought of sending you a box of paints for yourself from London.”
Panty sobbed dryly. “Who did?” she said.
“Troy Alleyn,” said Alleyn. “Mrs. Alleyn, you know. She’s my wife.”
“If I painted a picture of my Auntie Milly,” said Panty, “I’d give her pig’s whiskers, and she’d look like Judas Iscariot. They said my cat Carabbas had the ringworms, and they said I’d given them to him, and they’re all, all liars. He hadn’t, and I didn’t. It was only his poor fur coming out.”
With the abandon which Troy had witnessed in the little theatre, Panty flung herself face forward on the ground and kicked. Tentatively Alleyn bent over her, and after a moment’s hesitation picked her up. For a moment or two she fought violently, but suddenly, with an air of desolation, let her arms fall and hung limply in his hands.
“Never mind, Panty,” Alleyn muttered helplessly. “Here, let’s mop up your face.” He felt in his pocket and his fingers closed round a hard object. “Look here,” he said. “Look what I’ve got,” and pulled out a small packet. “Do you ever play Happy Families?” he said. He pushed the box of cards into her hands and not very successfully mopped her face with his handkerchief. “Let’s move on,” he said to Fox.
He carried the now inert Panty across to the third flight of steps. Here she began to wriggle, and he put her down.
“I want to play Happy Families,” said Panty thickly. “Here,” she added. She squatted down, and, still interrupting herself from time to time with a hiccuping sob, opened her pack of picture cards, and with filthy fingers began to deal them into three heaps.
“Sit down, Fox,” said Alleyn. “You’re going to play Happy Families.”