“Come near her, and I’ll kill you,” roared Fernie. “I’ll—I’ll . . .”
As words failed, he picked up Goat and hurled him against the wall again and again. It was Slow Harry who stopped the beating, laying a big hand on Fernie’s arm.
“Uh-huh,” said Slow Harry, shaking his head.
“You all heard him,” shouted Fernie, backing to the door. “Next time, he said. That was a threat. A threat.”
No one spoke until the street door slammed behind him. Then we heard Goat moaning like the wind in a chimney.
“Killing, is it?” whined Goat. “Killing.” He struggled to his hands and knees, and was sick.
An old man’s bruises take time to heal, and it was days before Goat limped into the street again. For that time he lay untended in his darkened cottage. The village hated Goat; Goat hated the village. On Goat’s part, during those groaning days, the hate strengthened, sharpened, and finally struck.
Sam Fernie had been troubled since Goat Kemp took to his bed. None of us wondered at that. We had learned the hard way that it did not pay to cross Goat; and Fernie’s fists had dealt more than a crossing. Indeed, remembering how we had failed to protect Goat from the beating, most of us were concocting alibis against uncomfortable revelations—though personally I had no more to worry about than an illustrated edition of The Age of Perversion.
Fernie developed a nervous tic. His head would jerk as though he were trying to catch someone peering over his shoulder. He muttered about black spots, and we advised him to have his eyes tested, even though he could still hit a fly at a hundred yards.
At the end it was a feather—a whisp of white that he swore had floated round his head all day. Some of us saw it, nestling on his coat collar. He made occasional attempts to grab it, but it always eluded him, suddenly swirling away. We chased it along the bar. As we scrambled after it, the door was opened, and the feather escaped into the night.
Slow Harry blinked on the doorstep.
“Feather,” we laughed, as though that explained everything.
“Feather,” said Harry, nodding.
Fernie sat easier that night than I had seen him for some time. Toward closing time he even joined in a couple of choruses. Harry sat in the inglenook as usual, nodding, wiping his chin. Occasionally he would repeat “Feather” as though it was important.
Last drinks finished, we ambled to the door. I can remember distinctly what happened, and my observations were clarified by repeating them again and again in the face of official disbelief.
Five of us crowded the doorway. Bert Huggins and the doctor’s son were on the pub side of the door. Charlie Wells and myself were in the street. The village lighting is not brilliant, but as I swore on oath, the street was deserted. Sam Fernie was between us, crossing the threshold.
He stopped with a grunt, his mouth wide open, and he made a noise as though gathering breath for a sneeze.
“Bless you,” I said in anticipation.
At least he died with a blessing. He crossed his hands over his chest, then crumpled. For a few moments we joked. “Take more water with it.” “Put him to bed, mother.” But when we turned him over his blue eyes were lifeless.
His hands fell away from his chest, revealing a metal ring shining against his shirt. It seemed to be a badge of sorts. It was in fact a butchers skewer, and the rest of its length was buried in Fernie’s heart.
“Feather,” said Slow Harry.
Later I tried to explain to him that the lethal instrument had been a steel spike, driven in with remarkable force. But Slow Harry repeated, “Feather.”
Illustration by George Barr.
In certain matters I trusted Harry. If he said “Rain,” sure enough a downpour would be on its way. “Wind,” he says, and a gale sweeps in. His mother had a reputation with salves and brews; and the pair of them lived closer to nature than most of us. They recognized a sign when they saw one. I should not have tried to contradict Harry when he said “Feather.”
However I had little time for pedantry. It is not pleasant to be suspected of murder. Although the four of us had no motive and little opportunity, the doctor insisted that the wound could not have been self-inflicted. According to the facts no one could have killed Sam Fernie. Yet he was dead.
A collection was taken for his widow and children. Everybody contributed—except Goat, who was not asked; however he came to the funeral. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, he made a strange grunting sound. “Heh-heh-heh.” Some said he was sobbing, others thought he was laughing; but everyone felt his presence to be an intrusion and the noise a provocation. “Heh-heh-heh.” Like an old goat coughing.
Sam Fernie’s niece, Sue, voiced what we were thinking.
“Shut up and get out,” she called to him. “A pity you’re not in the hole instead of Sam.”
Sue was a no-nonsense nineteen-year-old. She had the Fernie build, and the Fernie coloring. Given time the one would run to fat and the other to her late uncle’s boiled complexion; but now she had blooming cheeks, a figure the boys fought over, and a voice that could be heard on the other side of the churchyard.
“What’s yon bundle of stinking rags doing at a decent man’s funeral?”
“What were you doing last night at Piggott’s Alley?” countered Goat. Sue’s cheeks flamed a deeper red as he pursued his advantage. “Are you counting on the doctor’s son to get rid of the inconvenience you’re expecting?”
He ended with a shriek as Sue’s fingernails raked four bloody streaks across his cheek.
Everyone agreed later that it was a disgraceful thing to have happened at a respectable funeral; but sympathies lay with Sue, and we were relieved to see Goat slouch away. The rest of the ceremony passed without incident, and the ham sandwiches were excellent.
Sue’s body was found by her mother next morning. She lay strangled on her bed with the marks of a rope around her neck. The police found her death even more baffling than her uncle’s. The pantry window had been left ajar, but no more than would have admitted a reasonably plump clothesline. All the other doors and windows had been made fast.
Probably I could have helped the police, but I had already been connected with one killing and was not inclined to sharpen their suspicions. Besides, they would never have believed me.
Just after ten on the night of Sue’s murder I was ambling from The Ox toward my bachelor bed and Teach Them to Love, when I noticed a movement by the wall of Piggott’s Alley. A snake was wiggling across the pavement. It knew where it was going, and it moved as fast as I could walk. Having a layman’s conviction that no British snake can be poisonous, I investigated.
The creature was about three feet long, the color and texture of old rope. It forged ahead, determinedly thrusting aside a crumpled newspaper, and eventually reached the end of the wall. There it paused before emerging into the light of the street lamp. Satisfied that all was clear, it dashed across the road, and I could see it quite clearly. It was a piece of old rope.
One end was frayed and the other end knotted. It was not a reptile taking on protective covering; it was exactly what it seemed to be. Yet it moved with intelligence. The night air was still, and the discarded newspaper lay inert in the gutter. Whatever propelled that yard of twisted fibres, it was not the wind.
Bolder by several pints of bitter, and untroubled by the thought that such lengths of hemp have choked the lives from countless men, I quickened my pace and followed the rope.
It seemed to sense discovery, because it reared up, the knot like a head swaying from side to side. After a few seconds it set rigid; it had seen me. Instead of being afraid I felt irritated—sure that I was being made a fool of. Beyond that piece of rope would be a length of thread, and beyond that someone laughing. Even a mediocre schoolmaster develops an eye for japes.