Bones in the Belfry (12 page)

Well, I can tell you, I was JOLLY GOOD, and thanks to me F.O. didn’t have to go with Tubbly and be forced to loiter around the murder patch. We could see he was working himself into a lather, and that’s the last thing that’s needed. If he cracks we’ve all had it! It suits us here and if anything was to happen to our master, things could get pretty hairy! In any case, the vicar’s kind and we like him. At least
I
do, though you never really know what the cat likes except for the sound of his own voice. (You’d never guess the number of instructions he kept giving me when I was dying in my basket. Made snoozing a nightmare!)

As a matter of fact, Maurice has been very civil lately. Probably impressed by my MALING thing or whatever he calls it. I know it was his idea but it was me who
did
it – just like with the cigarette lighter in the wood last year. Goes to show, I’m quite a useful dog to have around. Maurice said he overheard F.O. telling Tubbly about me being ill and why he couldn’t go with her on the walk. He was perched right by the telephone and could hear her saying that Gunga Din sent me his love. I always knew bulldogs had a soppy side to them!

Anyway, this last week has been pretty good: F.O. on form and playing endlessly on that nice piano, Maurice busy with his mice (there’s a new lot arrived and they haven’t got the hang of him yet), and me getting extra Bonios on account of my AGUE. All in all, everyone’s had a nice easy time of it, but I don’t suppose it’ll last – it never does. He had a phone call from that sister of his today and went as white as the cat’s left paw. Something’s brewing, I feel it in my bones …

The bones were right: he’s on the pills again and crunching humbugs like some berserk rabbit with fangs. Even Maurice has noticed. That nice Mr Savage came to tune the piano this evening and I thought that might help, as his visits generally have a calming effect and put the vicar in a good mood; but it didn’t work, or at least not for long.

It’s bound to be something to do with those boring pictures again. Ever since that flash type from Brighton brought them here there’s been trouble. It’s a great pity that when Maurice and me first found them in the belfry we didn’t do a nice little demolition job. With his claws and my teeth we could have buggered them up in no time and they’d be gone for ever! (O’Shaughnessy could have lent a paw as well, he’d have enjoyed that.) Still, as Maurice is given to saying, it’s no use mewing over spilt milk. We’ll just have to keep an eye on things, try to be
good
, and do what we can …

You know, after all this thinking I’m beginning to feel pretty peckish so perhaps I’ll raid the pantry. In his present state he’ll never notice a thing!

He did notice and now I’ve got a tanned backside.

The next fortnight was a time of great tension and I could think of little else except the wretched painting. It was typical of Fate’s law that the picture chosen by Gladys as victim for her framing practice had been the one concealing the Spendler. But why had she not recognized the thing? After all, I reflected, the case had received wide publicity with photographs appearing on the arts pages of at least two of the broadsheets. It was curious … Or was it? For surely my own interest had been sparked only by force of circumstance. Had I been less intimately involved I should probably have given the matter scant attention. Perhaps, like thousands of others, the Clinkers were not remotely interested in contemporary art (Gladys in particular, I suspected, being far more absorbed in reading the obituary columns and the Court Circular than dwelling on matters cultural). Yes, quite clearly they had simply overlooked the newspaper reports and had no idea of the value of their find: hence the White Elephant stall. I just prayed no one would enlighten them in the meantime!

The main thing was that I had got charge of the stall. Items were generally delivered prior to the event, and thus if all went well I could intercept the donation before the need to display it. Bolstered by that thought, my mind turned to drumming up trade and organizing a charabanc.

Local interest proved more keen than I had expected, and rallying forty people for the coach required little effort. In this respect Edith Hopgarden was unusually helpful, distributing the bulk of Pick’s flyers and even designing posters coyly decorated with beribboned Easter eggs and prancing fairies (or angels – the distinction being unclear). When I congratulated Edith on her artistic endeavours she sniffed loudly and said that the embellishments were not of her doing but had been appended unsanctioned by Mavis Briggs who was beginning to fancy herself as a latter-day Leonardo. I might have guessed.

Three days before the event I had a phone call from Pick asking if there might be a spare seat in the coach on its way back to Molehill. Barry, the curate, was due for some leave starting the following Monday, and Pick had suggested he should begin it a couple of days early as soon as the fête was over. ‘He lives up in Scunthorpe or Wigan – or somewhere,’ he said vaguely, ‘and there’s an evening train from Guildford going in that direction. Failing that he’ll have to wait till after the weekend as the Sunday service is hopeless. You could drop him off at the station. The sooner he gets away the better. No need for the poor fellow to hang about more than he has to.’

What Pick meant was that the sooner the curate was off his hands, the sooner he could enjoy his absence. Barry Smith’s probationary stint at St Hilda’s had not been an unqualified success (something of which he himself seemed happily unaware). On arrival he had been quiet, diffident and ineffectual: six months later he was still ineffectual but had grown unnervingly loud and eager. The boy’s cheerfulness was endearing but it was a cheer unproductive of anything remotely useful. I was glad that he belonged to St Hilda’s and not St Botolph’s.

As I had surmised, the arrangement for the White Elephant stall was that items should be delivered in advance and stored in Pick’s garage. On the day itself I was required to drive over a good hour before the opening to select the merchandise and set up my wares. This suited me very well for it meant that with a combination of nonchalance and sleight of hand I could appropriate the painting and surreptitiously transport it to my car without anyone being the wiser. It seemed straightforward enough and I felt relieved that the matter was at last settled. The piano began to beckon and I spent a pleasant hour reminiscing with Ellington and Cole Porter.

The Saturday was sunny but cold, and I was glad that St Hilda’s fête committee had had the foresight to lay on a tent for the teas and some of the stalls. The hoopla and the tambourine players had the misfortune of being allocated a particularly draughty corner of the rectory field; but by arriving early I was able to secure a place well within the portals of the marquee.

I went to investigate Pick’s garage. He had been right: there was an awful lot of junk to be accounted for and it would be quite difficult setting things up to give an illusion of enticement. Garish plastic flowers, rusting tea trays, a blue knitted giraffe with mangled ear, and an object that looked uncomfortably like some ancient truss, were some of the items which would have challenged the ingenuity of the most practised window-dresser. How on earth could such things attract attention, let alone coins! I scanned the rubbish for Gladys’s picture, and seeing a large parcel wrapped in brown paper eagerly tore off its covers. What was revealed was not the anaemic youth on his sodden beach, but a mildewed tapestry of faded blooms, its frame bent and glass splintered. I was aghast. Surely even Gladys wouldn’t have had the nerve to present something quite so useless! It couldn’t possibly be her offering. But in which case, where on earth was it? My renewed scrabblings produced nothing. The painting simply wasn’t there.

I surveyed the collection in furious disappointment, cursing Gladys for her treachery. Why promise the wretched thing if she had no intention of giving it? It was too bad! In the distance I could hear the strains of the Scout band and then the fractured garglings of the loudspeaker: Pick doing his warm-up act. Gloomily I gathered up the bits and pieces and started to tote them over to the marquee and arrange them on the table. It was a rather meagre display and I felt embarrassed being associated with such a sorry collection. In fact I said as much to the stallholder next to me, an angular lady with wild hair and friendly face.

‘Oh, don’t worry!’ she said. ‘It’s always like this to begin with. It’s amazing how quickly the spaces fill up once they start bringing their bits in. What you’ve got there is only the beginning, there’ll be far more junk to come!’

‘But I thought the idea was for things to be delivered in advance.’

‘Oh, that’s the
idea
, but the system always breaks down. People never take any notice of what they’re told, they just bring the stuff and dump it on you. You wait!’ So conceivably there was hope yet.

Gradually people started trickling into the marquee and I assumed an expression of benign encouragement. It didn’t work terribly well, but the boredom was palliated by playing the game of ‘Spot the Bishop’. In fact the bishop was conspicuously absent, and as time wore on I grew more and more agitated.

Almost an hour had passed and still no sign of Clinker, let alone Gladys. And then I saw Pick approaching wearing one of his habitually harassed expressions.

‘My Lord Bishop is late,’ he announced acidly. ‘Just telephoned. Claims he’s had a puncture. More likely too busy sleeping off his lunch!’ (‘Or practising tiddlywinks,’ I nearly said.) ‘Still, it all seems to be going perfectly well without him – plenty of punters, so can’t complain, I suppose …’ and he loped off to rummage in the Lucky Bran Tub. I sighed. Confound the man. Surely he could have got Gladys to change the wheel!

A few minutes later Edith Hopgarden minced by, stopped, and cast a disdainful eye over my wares.

‘I see they’ve given you the wooden spoon, then,’ she observed with satisfaction.

‘Oh, it’s rather jolly,’ I replied enthusiastically. ‘It’s fascinating guessing what people are going to buy, you know!’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes, it is. How’s Mavis? Don’t think I’ve seen her this afternoon.’

It was a topic she could not resist. ‘Oh, she’s bound to turn up! Been to one of those Art Appreciation classes in Godalming – so of course we shall all have to hear about
that
.’

‘Goodness!’ I exclaimed. ‘Is this a new venture? I didn’t know Mavis was so keen on art.’

‘It is and she isn’t,’ Edith replied tartly.

‘Oh – so why …?’

‘Because she likes to give the impression.’

‘Ah well, we all have our foibles …’ I observed vaguely.

With a final withering look at the contents of my stall, she departed in the direction of the cake display. Needless to say no purchase had been made.

A further twenty minutes elapsed and still no sign of the Clinkers. If they didn’t come soon the whole thing would be over – and what then, for God’s sake! My mood grew progressively darker and it was not helped by the curate sauntering over grinning foolishly.

‘Hey, that’s a right load of cobblers you’ve got there, Francis. Not much mileage in that lot!’

I was about to retort that he could call me sir and get me a cup of tea – when out of the corner of my eye I suddenly glimpsed Gladys. She was talking volubly to anyone fool enough to listen; but other than the usual rucksack of a handbag, held nothing in her hands. Hope took another battering. Still, where there was Gladys there must also be Clinker.

I scanned the crowd. And then, out of the blue, saw him standing only a few yards away … clutching a large square packet! Frantically hustling Barry out of the way, I adopted an air of ingratiating welcome.

‘Good afternoon, Oughterard,’ he boomed genially. ‘Glad you’re doing your bit. It’s what I always like to see, parishes getting together. Spreads the load, you know. What one might call ECU-MEN-ICAL!’ He chuckled.

I laughed dutifully and eyed the package. ‘Is that something for the stall, sir?’

‘This? Oh yes, yes … nearly forgot. My wife sent it. Some frightful picture she dredged up. She’s been doing a spot of picture framing and found this at the back of another one. Presumably the last owner had had enough of it – though I’d have thought the bin a better place! Anyway you’re welcome to it, just right for your stall.’ He took off the wrappers and handed it over.

I was about to place it unobtrusively against the side of the table when suddenly a familiar voice exclaimed, ‘Oh my, what a striking picture! How deeply
significant
!’

Only Mavis Briggs could make an observation like that. We stared at her. ‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘such interesting
tones
: the dark shore, the dark sea, the dark sky, the dark moon, the dark-haired young man – though I hope he’s not too chilly!’ And she tittered coyly. ‘Then of course there’s the composition – waves, rocks … and er, pebbles,’ she added vaguely. ‘And, and – such
depths
!’

‘Depths?’ echoed Clinker blankly. ‘And I suppose they’re dark too!’

She smiled pensively. ‘Oh yes, deeply dark …’

Clearly the Art Appreciation classes were not adding much to Mavis’s wits and I wished she would clear off. The afternoon was drawing to a close, and with mission accomplished I was eager to shut up shop and make my getaway. However, it was not to be.

‘Well, if you think so much of it you’d better buy it,’ said Clinker challengingly. ‘Nothing’s more than one-and-sixpence on this stall, and since it’s the end of the day I’m sure the vicar will let you have it for a bob. Though come to think of it, I doubt if there’ll be any customers for this sort of
artistry
, so you can take it with my compliments.’ I shot him a furious look but he saw nothing. ‘Not my sort of thing at all, glad to get rid of it, dear lady. My wife found it and …’

Mavis became even more animated, picked up the Spendler, and clasping it to her thin bosom exclaimed breathlessly, ‘Oh,
Your Grace
, what a wonderful gift, a truly wonderful gift. My lucky day, my lucky find!’ And bowing her head, she curtsied theatrically and precariously. Even Clinker had the grace to look embarrassed by his sudden elevation, and indeed so surprised by her obeisance that for one moment I thought he was going to curtsy back.

‘It will have pride of place in my little cottage and fit in so well with the stampeding elephants. Are you sure you have no use for it – I mean, what about your good wife? Surely a
sensitive
picture like this is bound to delight!’

Clinker stared bleakly at the sensitive picture, contemplating the lugubrious youth with his emaciated shanks and outsize posterior, the raging seas, the desolate beach … ‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘she has no use for it.’

‘Well, it must be worth something,’ Mavis bleated. ‘And I’m sure the Church can always do with a little extra!’ And so saying, she began to scrabble in her bag, eventually locating a purse from which, after further frenzied gropings, she produced a coin and thrust it into the bishop’s hand. And then, clutching the picture firmly, she capered off into the thinning crowd, pink-faced and babbling.

‘
Why
does she think it’s sensitive?’ exclaimed Clinker, staring down in wonder at the half-crown in his palm. ‘And what did she mean about the elephants?’

‘I have no idea, sir,’ I murmured, leaden-hearted. ‘You know how the ladies have their whims.’

‘I do indeed!’ he replied, staring balefully at the figure of Gladys in the far distance. He moved off, and I looked around wildly for Mavis thinking she might be cajoled into yielding up her prize. But she was already far ahead, gripping her trophy and tottering purposefully towards the waiting charabanc.

‘Dear God, don’t let her show it around!’ I implored. And then looking at her companions clambering on to the bus, I decided it wouldn’t really matter if she did. Festooned with thermoses and cake-stall produce, they were clearly far too engrossed in the teatime ritual to bother with the dreary daubings of Herr Spendler. In any case, as Nicholas Ingaza might have remarked, ‘Couldn’t tell a Spendler from a spent knitting needle!’ And why indeed should they?

Nevertheless, she could not keep it – that was for certain. Nicholas would hardly be content with the return of only half his plunder. Something had to be done, and done quickly!

Thankful that I had waived my right to a lift in the coach, I left the overseeing of the return journey in the incapable hands of Barry, and sought the sanctuary of the Singer. Here I meditated – or rather, cudgelled my brains for some means of wresting the picture from its new owner. Nothing emerged, and enveloped in gloom I let in the clutch and started for home. Halfway there I overtook the coach, and through its window saw the curate standing at the front waving his arms as one possessed: presumably conducting a sing-song. I shuddered and pressed on grimly.