“Is this yours?” the huntsman had asked, opening the lid of the car’s trunk. He pointed with a short whip, slapping the thong against the corpse.
“The knife yes,” said Munday. “The dog no.”
“We want an explanation,” said the man.
“So do I,” said Munday, bristling at the man’s accusation.
“That dog was valuable.”
“The dagger’s worth something as well,” said Munday. “It was stolen from me several months ago.”
“Stolen you say?” The man flexed his whip.
“Yes, but how did you know it was mine?”
“I didn’t. This happened on your land—in the back. One of our whippers-in found him.”
“Bad luck,” said Munday. He reached for the dagger, but the man laid his whip on Munday’s arm. Munday glared at him.
“Not until we find out who did it,” the man said. “Quite obviously, one of your own people.”
“There’ll be fingerprints on it.”
“Of course. Fingerprints,” said Munday with as much sarcasm as he could manage. “I’d forgotten about those.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“I hope you do. Mind you, I want that dagger back.”
“What a vicious thing.”
“Purely ceremonial,” said Munday, who saw that the man meant his comment to reflect on him. “It wasn’t designed for killing. Africans don’t kill animals with knives. They can’t get close enough for that.” Emma came out of the house with a sweater over her shoulders. She shivered and tugged the sweater when she saw the dead dog; she said, “Oh, God, the poor thing.”
“My best hound,” said the man, and he gave it an affectionate pat on its bloody belly. “The rest of the hunt know about it—we’re all livid. It’s the first time anything like this has happened.”
“It’s terrible,” said Emma.
Munday said, “I agree, but I want you to understand that dagger is extremely important to my research.” My dog, my dagger: the two men bargained, as if haggling over treasures, pricing them with phrases of sentiment, insisting on their value, the dead dog, simple knife.
“Your knife, on your property.”
“You don't think Alfred had anything to do with it, do you?”
“I don’t know, madam. I’m reporting it to the police, though.”
“You do that,” said Munday.
“I’m not treating it as an ordinary case of vandalism.”
“I shouldn’t if I were you,” said Munday. “And I suggest you catch the culprit. It’s clear he had a grudge against me.”
“Really?” The man slapped his whip against his palm.
“One of these rustic psychopaths, trying to discredit me in some fumbling way. It's possible.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” asked the man.
‘Thaven’t the slightest idea.”
“There must be a reason.”
“Don’t look for a reason, look for a man. Munday’s law. Now if you’re quite through—”
“I was simply asking,” said the man. “If there’s a reason the police will know what it is before long.” He banged the trunk shut, said goodnight to Emma, and drove off.
Emma said, “Why were you so short with him?”
“I didn’t like his insinuations,” said Munday. tcl won’t be spoken to like that. Insolence is the one thing I will not stand for. I didn’t come here to be treated like a poaching outsider, and if that person comes back I shall refuse to see him. Do you find this amusing?”
“I’ve heard you say that before.”
“Not here.”
“No,” said Emma. “Not here."
In the house Munday told Mrs. Branch what had happened, and he deputized her: “Keep your eyes skinned and your ear to the ground, and if you hear a word about this you tell me.” The following day at breakfast he looked over his Times and said, “Well, what’s the news?”
And Mrs. Branch, who in the past had always responded to such a question with gossip, said, “Nothing.”
“No one mentioned it?”
“No sir,” she said. “Not that I heard.”
“I find that very hard to believe, said Munday. “You didn’t hear anything about the hunt?”
“Only that they caught a fox out back and blooded one of the girls from Filford way.”
Later in the morning there was a phone call from the vicar. He said, “I just rang to find out how you’re getting on. We haven’t seen much of you. I trust all is well.” Munday said, “I suppose you’ve heard about the dog that had his throat cut?”
There was a pause. Then the vicar said, “Yes, something of the sort.”
“That dagger was stolen in your church hall by one of your Christians,” said Munday. “If the police come to me with questions I shall send them along to you. You can confirm my story.”
“I didn’t realize it was a knife that had been stolen.”
“A dagger,” said Munday. “Purely ceremonial.”
“It’s very unfortunate that this happened so close to your house.”
“I don’t find it unfortunate in the least,” said Munday.“It has nothing whatever to do with me. Was there anything else you wanted?” That was a Friday. No policeman came to investigate, though Mrs. Branch said she saw one on a bicycle pedaling past the house. Munday was being kept in suspense, not only about the dog—which worried him more than he admitted: he didn’t like being singled out as a stranger—but also there was Caroline. He had not heard from her for weeks, and he missed her, he required her to console him. Emma tried, but her consolation didn’t help, and with the admission of her illness, her bad heart, she had stopped making any show of bravery and she had begun to refuse Munday’s suggestions of walks, saying, “No—my heart.” He believed her, and yet her words were an accurate parody of his own older expressions of weakness.
But he took his walks still, and walking alone he often had the feeling he was being followed—not at a distance, but someone very close, hovering and breathing at his back. The suspicion that he was being followed was made all the stronger by his inability to see the hoverer; it was like the absence of talk about the dead dog, the silence in which he imagined conspiring whispering villagers. The walks did little to refresh him: he was annoyed, and it continued to anger him that he was annoyed, so there was no relief in thinking about it—it only isolated his anger and made it grow. And he could be alarmed by the sudden flushing of a grouse, or the church clock striking the hour, or the anguish he saw in a muddied pinafore flapping on a low gorse bush.
He had avoided The Yew Tree since the billiard game and that wounding “nigger-boy,” but one Sunday several weeks after the discovery of the dagger he stopped in to cash a check. He entered the bar and precipitated a silence so sustained and deliberate among the old men, who sat like jurors, that his voice rattled in the room. And his check was refused.