Mr and Mrs Turnbull, the schoolmaster and his wife, teetotal, shining clean and with sober wholesomeness radiating from every pore, were strolling through the woods, without a broken bottle, reeking mongrel or muddy knee between them.
I could do nothing about Nipper, nor about my own dishevelment, but I hastily dug into a heap of leaf-mould with the heel of my shoe and dropped in the two pieces of glass, careful not to let them clink.
I gasped as I did so. I was no aficionado of whisky, as is well known, but this stuff must have been worse than the usual; even the empty bottle smelled powerful enough to give one goose pimples, harsh and yet sickly-sweet like burnt jam, reminding me of the terrible day when my cook Mrs Tilling was making crab-apple jelly for the War Effort and got a bad telegram just after adding the sugar to the pan. She had been found an hour later by our butler, sitting in the smoke as the mess boiled over on to the stove, forgotten. Odd how smell can be the most irresistible trigger to our unbidden memories. I shook myself, kicked some leaves back over the hole and stood straight ready to face the Turnbulls.
‘Why, Mrs Gilver,’ said Mr Turnbull, when he saw me. Mrs Turnbull nodded rather simperingly from his elbow. ‘We’re on a nature walk,’ he went on. My eyebrows must have risen: this was a bit too much even for them. ‘I mean to say,’ he went on, ‘we’re preparing possible nature-walk routes for the children, next school year. Excellent educational aid, the nature walk. Science, Art and PT all rolled into one. For instance, there are seven different kinds of mushroom on this path alone.’
‘In August?’ I said. ‘Rather early for mushrooms, isn’t it?’ He had raised my suspicions with this flood of unnecessary information about what they were up to here in the woods. I wondered how long they had been skulking and whether they were the reason that my hackles and Nipper’s had been prickling. Furthermore, I knew that I only babbled on to practical strangers about what was my business and mine alone when I had something to hide. Mr Turnbull was a match for me, however.
‘You should join us, Mrs Gilver,’ he said jovially. ‘I would wager you have lived in the countryside all your life and yet you know nothing of mushrooms. Certainly the common field variety has not come into its own yet for the year, but there are boundless others to be found.’
‘Toadstools, you mean?’ I asked, trying to keep Cad’s ‘untraceable poison’ out of my thoughts. Mr and Mrs Turnbull shared a rueful smile.
‘We try to discourage such fancies,’ said Mrs Turnbull. ‘They are all fungi, plain and simple. Some good to eat and some not, but we try to discourage any superstitions about them.’
I had just about had enough of them already and this tipped me right over the edge. True they were perfectly free to think I was ignorant and credulous about country matters (I after all thought that they were tedious and rude about all matters we had yet conversed upon), but at least I had the manners to keep my thoughts to myself. Besides, they were on my list of suspects for Robert Dudgeon’s nobblers. I decided to see if I could jolt them.
‘I think you’re on a hiding to nothing round here, I must say,’ I told them. ‘Fearfulness and superstition appear to be the norm. Look at the Burry Man, for instance.’
They frowned at me but said nothing.
‘What do you think the local folklore will make of Robert Dudgeon’s death?’ I went on, remorselessly. ‘Do you think anyone new will volunteer for next year? Or will there be stories of curses to add to all the others by then?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Mr Turnbull.
‘Oh nothing, in particular,’ I said. ‘Only I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in ten years’ time children of Queensferry are as frightened of touching burdock seeds as they are today of touching toadstools.’
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Mr Turnbull, grimly determined. ‘We have spoken before about the unfortunate prevalence of nonsense for those working underground or out at sea, but it irritates me beyond measure when the bounty of nature’ – he spread his arms wide about him, and his voice took on an unmistakable note of sermonizing – ‘the bounty of nature itself is corrupted to make their silly tales.’
‘Quite right, dear,’ said Mrs Turnbull. ‘But we shall show them the error of their ways.’ Her eyes were gleaming with unblinking zeal, like a missionary.
‘You’re all set to lead them into the light,’ I said, fatuously and thinking I was pushing it, but they took it as a compliment and simply nodded, smugly. ‘Well, good luck,’ I told them. They frowned again at that. Of course, they would not believe in luck’. ‘But your work is cut out for you. I’ll lay you good odds’ – this phrasing was deliberate; I was sure they would not believe in gambling either – ‘that before the year is out, there will be playground skipping-rhymes about poisonous burrs and children will be daring each other to touch the Burry Man as he passes, and even the mothers and fathers will think twice before they put burdock seeds in their midden heaps to spread on their kitchen gardens. You wait and see.’
‘My dear Mrs Gilver,’ said Mr Turnbull, ‘your imagination must be a great resource to you, but leave the horticulture to me. No gardener in his wits would put burrs on a midden heap. No goodness in them whatsoever and they’d take years to break down to a mulch. Harmless but useless, and our children know that very well.’
‘But -’ I began then I managed to stop myself in time. I nodded my goodbye to them, planning to sweep away with as much dignity as I could muster, but I was forced to wait for Nipper, who had chosen that very moment to make use of the facilities provided by the forest floor. Mr and Mrs Turnbull smiled stiffly at me and walked away, as though this most natural of canine functions was to be classed with the nasty shale mines and fishing boats and had no place in their land of flowers.
‘Thanks for nothing,’ I muttered to Nipper when we were on our way at last, but he really was beginning to limp, poor little chap, and I felt too guilty to be cross with him for long. His master, however, was quite unperturbed by the news of the roll in the horse dung, and even scratched his jaw in embarrassment and said he should have warned me about it. He was no less courteous about the cut paw, saying that it could have happened at any time and I was not to ‘fash’ myself about it.
Thankfully, Alec had sobered up during a long nap after luncheon and was installed in the library with his pipe, looking alert if rather seedy.
‘How can you?’ I said, as he lit up and puffed deeply. ‘At the best of times it’s mysterious enough, but with a hangover? How can you?’
‘I don’t have a hangover, Dandy,’ said Alec witheringly, but at that moment Buttercup’s butler came in with a glass of something effervescent on a small tray which he proffered to Alec with an assurance that Mr de Cassilis swore by it.
‘Hm,’ I said, with what I thought was great restraint. ‘I’m off to change.’
‘Yes, please do,’ said Alec. ‘You stink, darling. What is it?’
‘Whisky, dog’s blood, horse dung and rotting leaves,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain when I return.’
It was almost teatime before I was back with him; I had not seemed that bad while I was out in the woods, but standing on the pale carpet in my bedroom I got more and more redolent and disgusting as I peeled off layers, and in the end I bundled up every stitch I had on and rang for a bath. Apart from anything else, a good long spell alone with no interruptions would give me a chance to digest all that I had learned, all that I had surmised on the strength of it, and what I planned to do next. No such luck. I had only just finished running over the peculiar conversation with the Turnbulls when my bedroom door was swept open and I heard Grant’s voice bossing about whatever unfortunate underling had landed the job of carrying my trunk up from the hall.