Red Christmas Page 2

  ‘Yet a slice for me, please,’ commanded the huge woman on his right.

  ‘Certainly, Frau Himmelstor.’

  Frau Cow. Fat Bitch. This was her third helping. She hadn’t even paused from eating as Arabella had been introduced round the table. Himmelstor, though almost equally fond of his food, had done the whole Teutonic courtesy bit, standing up, bowing from the waist, clicking his heels. The Swinburnes, who seemed to be having more difficulty talking with their newly arrived son than they would with a stranger on a train, had clearly welcomed the slight diversion. Young Stephen (Young? Nineteen? Twenty-one?) had brightened visibly.

  The other guests at the long table, which could seat a couple of dozen at a pinch, had smiled and nodded. The Burtons, a pleasant round-faced couple with Yorkshire accents, had looked particularly friendly, but were rather too far down the table to engage in conversation. From the resumed buzz of talk after the round of introductions it was clear to Arabella’s keen hearing that there were quite a number of foreigners present at the meal. There were no fixed places, but Wardle had escorted the newcomer to a seat next to the beef and Boswell.

  ‘I like your costume,’ said Arabella.

  ‘Thank you, kind lady,’ said Boswell, resuming his seat after the exertions of carving. ‘The rule is that everyone dresses up for the party tonight and remains in period dress all through Christmas Day. We have a wide selection of suitable clothes and one of the maids is a dab hand with a needle if any adjustments need to be made.’

  ‘I have something with me that I think may be all right for this evening,’ said Arabella.

  ‘Have you now? I must insist on the right of inspection. We can’t have a false note being struck.’

  She looked at him seriously.

  ‘Then I would suggest you remember the Papers appeared in the thirties and were set some ten years earlier. The kind of lapels you’re wearing didn’t appear till after 1840. They should be rolled.’

  Oh no! groaned Boswell inwardly. She’s not going to be a smartie-pants, is she? It’s bad enough without having an amateur expert about the place.

  ‘You can pay too much attention to detail,’ he said aloud. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought so. Not if you’re Oscar Boswell, President-elect of the Dickens Circle and second youngest Fellow in the modern history of St. Sepulchre’s College.’

  ‘Good God! You’re a policewoman!’

  Arabella smiled.

  ‘I always read dust-jacket blurbs. I thought your last book was superb.’

  What a lovely smartie-pants it is! thought Boswell. Give us a kiss and I’ll crown you Queen of the May.

  Wardle, who had been urging a lugubrious footman to chase round with the wine and porter, took his seat opposite.

  ‘That’s why he’s with us, Miss Allen. We need an expert and when we need something we go for the best. It’s the only way in life! Eat up, Miss Allen, eat up. Boz, my boy, another slice of the beef for the lady.’

  ‘No thank you,’ said Arabella, but Wardle had already turned his attention from her and was on his feet again.

  ‘Madame Leclerc! We have missed you!’

  Suzie walked through the door, dressed in a tight-fitting electric blue catsuit.

  Jackpot! thought Boswell.

  ‘I am late? No? I ask your pardon. My husband is fatigued and will lie down.’

  ‘Poor man,’ breathed Arabella. Boswell shot her a sharp glance.

  ‘Sit beside me then,’ said Wardle, going forward. The footman stepped into his path and murmured into his ear. For a moment the smile faded from his face.

  ‘Excuse me one moment, if you please. Sit you down. Boz, see to our new guest. The best of English beef for the fairest of French lilies.’

  His heart did not seem altogether in the compliment and he hurried from the room.

  ‘Alio,’ said Suzie to Arabella with a friendly smile which included Boswell.

  ‘Alio to you too,’ said Boswell.

  Mrs. Burton, the Yorkshirewoman, pushed her chair back and went over to the window.

  ‘What’s going on, love?’ called her husband.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I think there’s been some kind of accident.’

  Boswell stopped in mid-slice and moved swiftly to the window, leaving the carver in the beef. After a moment Arabella followed him.

  The window overlooked the main approaches to the house. The coach-and-four had disappeared. Approaching the house were the two gamekeepers who had greeted it along the road. They were pushing something before them.

  Out of the front door came Wardle, who went to meet them. They all stopped and spoke together, then resumed the approach. As they neared the front door, it became apparent that what they were pushing was a ramshackle barrow of the type that gardeners use for collecting leaves and garden rubbish.

  But the rubbish this one contained was a man.

  Wardle backed carefully into the house, easing the barrow wheel over the doorstep. The man sprawled loosely, like a bonfire-night guy. Then one of the handles slipped a little and his head turned slowly towards the dining-room window. It looked almost like a deliberate movement.

  But it was clear his eyes were seeing nothing.

  ‘Who is it?’ whispered Mrs. Burton in horror. No one replied at first.

  ‘I saw him when we arrived,’ said Arabella, suddenly penetrating the man’s pale mask.

  It was the dark-skinned groom Wardle had been talking to in front of the house.

  The melancholy procession had now passed inside and they returned to the table. Most of the dozen or so guests present had risen or made some movement indicating interest, curiosity, concern. Only the elder Swinburne had remained in his seat with the indefinable air of one who does not go to see for himself but waits for his minions to return bearing reports. His wife, a pretty but rather sullen-looking woman much younger than her silvery-haired husband, did the reporting, while Stephen tucked into his dinner with undiminished appetite.

  As did Arabella, Boswell was interested to see. And as Suzie intended to, she indicated with a smile, as soon as he finished slicing her beef.

  The door opened and Wardle reappeared, eager to put their minds at rest. Even if he had missed the onlookers at the window, which he hadn’t, the atmosphere in the dining room would have sent signals down his host’s antennae.

  He was at once grave and reassuring.

  ‘An accident, I’m afraid. One of the servants. He’s had a nasty fall.’

  ‘How melancholy!’ sighed Suzie.

  ‘Not badly injured, I hope,’ said Swinburne suavely.

  ‘Oh no. Cracked ribs perhaps. And shock. We’re whipping him off to the Cottage Hospital the other side of the railway station. He’ll enjoy his Christmas dinner as much as you, sir.’

  Wardle was convincing. The jollity was back at full radiance now. Boswell caught Arabella’s eye fleetingly. But the moment was enough to tell him she was thinking what he was thinking.

  The man in the barrow would need more than a night in hospital to bring back his appetite.

  ‘Where did he fall from?’ asked Arabella.

  ‘Oh the silly fellow was taking a stroll up the hill at the side of the house,’ answered Wardle easily. ‘There’s a small quarry just before the trees begin and he must have strayed off the path to peer down. The frosty surface did the rest. So be careful, will you, my friends, on your post-prandial perambulations! If you want to slide, then slide you shall, but in good order and good company. The weather’s been kind to us, there’s a two-inch-thick sheet of ice on the Jockey Pond half a furlong behind the house, and we’ve got skates to fit all feet.’

  ‘Do you skate, Miss Allen?’ enquired Boswell.

  ‘I can. But I don’t think I will. Not today. A gentle stroll is more to my taste after a large meal.’

  ‘If you think this is large, wait till tomorrow. Perhaps you’d like me to show you round the policies?’

  ‘Policie
s?’

  ‘Scots for the grounds. Veneration for a great English writer hasn’t made me forget my origins.’

  Arabella nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘All right. If you wish.’

  Boswell had had more enthusiastic receptions to his offers than this, but he could see it would have to suffice. He smiled as he helped himself to the syllabub.

  Half an hour later they exchanged greetings with the skating party which was moving off from the back of the house. It comprised seven or eight women but only a couple of men.

  ‘So much for the stronger sex,’ said Arabella, moving off to the right.

  ‘Perhaps the stronger sex has better things to do,’ said Boswell, raising his left eyebrow, a trick to which Arabella responded by raising her right even higher.

  They plodded on in silence for a while, following a winding path which gradually began to steepen as it struck up towards the dark mane of trees on top of the crescent-shaped ridge. Halfway up, Arabella paused and Boswell came to a halt beside her. They glanced over to the house. They were already higher than the first-floor windows.

  ‘Someone has been clearing the ground here,’ said Arabella. Boswell glanced down the hillside. Beneath the whiteness of the frost it was evident that fire and scythe had been put to work and the stumps of once tall trees protruded bluntly like weather-rounded tombstones.

  ‘So they have,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it was too handy for Peeping Toms, eh? You’d get a nice view into those bedrooms at the side. No voyeurs at Dingley Dell!’

  ‘It should be Manor Farm, shouldn’t it?’ said Arabella, resuming her walk.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Boswell, unsurprised now by her knowledge. ‘Dingley Dell was the village. But Manor Farm doesn’t mean much to most people. Only us experts.’

  She ignored the gentle irony of his tone.

  ‘Exactly what are you doing with your expertise here, Mr. Boswell?’ she asked.

  Now he did look surprised.

  ‘Why, I’m giving advice, making suggestions, keeping things on the Dickensian straight and narrow.’

  ‘Carving the roast beef, waiting at table and taking orders from Mr. Wardle,’ added Arabella.

  ‘He pays me well for it,’ said Boswell with a shrug. ‘My Fellowship’s not worth much and even superb books on Dickens don’t make a fortune.’

  They were almost at the trees now. The red-tiled roof of the house lay beneath them. Distantly they heard a scream of laughter which must have come from the skating party who were out of sight. Boswell looked with pleasure at the girl ahead of him as she glanced round. She showed no sign of discomfort from her exertions, but the frosty air had nipped her cheeks to a glowing ruddiness and the condensation from her breath had left her lips looking warm and moist.

  ‘That must be the quarry over there,’ she said suddenly, and turned off the path. Boswell was taken by surprise.

  ‘Careful!’ he cried. ‘We don’t want another accident.’

  So saying, he stepped off the path himself, caught his foot in a tussock of grass and almost fell. By the time he recovered, the girl was at the edge of the quarry and peering in.

  As quarries went, it was a pretty miniscule affair, hardly more than a harrowing of the hillside. At some time in the past, in the early days of the farm, it might have been a useful source of stone for walls and byres and other small structures. But it had obviously been long unused. The marks of the groom’s descent through the ferns which grew out of the steep (though not perpendicular) sides were plain to see.

  And speckled among the green of the leaves and the white of the frost were darker spots.

  ‘He must have cut himself in the fall,’ said Boswell. ‘I’d prefer it if you wouldn’t stand so near the edge.’

  Arabella stepped back as though in compliance, then pointed to the ground at her feet.

  ‘It looks as if he cut himself before he fell,’ she said. ‘Badly.’

  The dark spots on the edge of the quarry almost formed a pool.

  ‘Nose-bleed,’ suggested Boswell, unconvincingly. She ignored him, peering up at the line of trees which fringed the ridges crest only a few yards away.

  ‘Perhaps we should be getting back,’ said Boswell.

  ‘What? You don’t call what we’ve done a walk?’ retorted the girl, and began to move towards the trees.

  The ground here was protected from the frost by the gnarled old beeches whose branches, even leafless, were close-woven enough to provide an almost solid ceiling. Boswell lengthened his stride so that he overtook the girl who was moving slowly now, eyes intent on the ground. He came to a halt by one of the trees and leaned back against it, blowing into his cupped hands.

  ‘Not so warm,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Arabella.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Excuse me. Would you mind moving? Your foot. There we are.’

  She stopped and came up with a small cylinder of cardboard on a brass base, still bright despite having been pressed into the ground. Boswell glanced at it without interest.

  ‘Quite the little jackdaw aren’t you? Shall we press on? Or go back?’

  If you like. I’ve seen enough up here,’ said Arabella, turning away with an infuriating casualness. ‘Thank you for your guidance.’

  And shrieked, gently but genuinely, as she almost walked into a tall figure, dark against the low-dipping sun, carrying a long-barrelled shotgun which was pointed straight at her exquisitely slender waistline.

  3

  Sound the gong, draw up the curtain, and enter the two conspiraytors!

  MR. SAM WELLER

  ‘Oh it’s you, Mr. Boswell,’ said the long gamekeeper with the overtight leggings. ‘Sorry if I startled you, miss.’

  He swung the gun through about two degrees so that it would merely remove most of her left rib-case if it went off. It was a small enough mercy, but it brought back Arabella’s powers of speech.

  ‘What the hell are you doing prowling around up here like an Indian?’ she demanded indignantly.

  ‘Sorry, miss,’ the man repeated, ‘but it is my job. You’ve got to move quietly when there’s vermin about. I thought I might try for a few rooks. Oh, I see you’ve got one of my cartridge cases. Thanks. I don’t like to litter up the countryside with them.’

  Smiling, he plucked the case from Arabella’s fingers, tipped his forehead and moved swiftly and silently away.

  ‘Damn!’ said Arabella, taking a pace after him.

  Boswell caught her arm.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, amused. ‘Has he stolen your little souvenir? Never mind, we’ll get you another.’

  ‘Not like that one you won’t,’ replied Arabella.

  ‘What’s so special about that one?’

  She eyed him speculatively for a moment before answering.

  ‘There can’t be many 410 cartridges fired from twelve-bore guns.’

  Boswell laughed again.

  ‘Still more expertise! I’ve no idea what it means, but it sounds very impressive. Come on. First down the hill gets a broken leg!’

  He was charmed by the ease with which she cast off her serious mood and, pushing him aside, cried, ‘All right! Let’s move!’

  She shot into a five-yard lead, moving nimbly and surefootedly ahead of him until she succumbed to the tempation to slide on the glistening grass and after a couple of yards fell back heavily on to the ground.

  He bent over her anxiously. Her eyes were closed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, conscious of the stupidity of the traditional question.

  She opened her eyes and looked at his worried face. Then she lifted her head slightly, put one hand to the back of his neck, pressed his face towards her and kissed him. It was a good kiss and she took her time.

  Finished, she moved him gently aside, stood up and began dusting herself down.

  ‘What was that for?’ he asked politely.

  ‘Like Lizzie Borden said to the jury, it seemed the only thing
to do in the circumstances,’ she said with a grin. ‘But don’t let it give you ideas. Let’s get on down, shall we?’

  It’s too late, thought Boswell as he watched her step sedately before him down the path. It’s given me all kinds of ideas already. That bromide they put in the Fellows’ port must have passed through my system.

  As they reached the house, the rural silence was shattered by the roar of a tractor engine.

  ‘Not very Dickensian that,’ grinned Arabella.

  ‘No. I’ll go and have a word. Excuse me. See you later.’

  He went quickly round to the front of the house just in time to see a large tractor coming down the hillside towards the barn which adjoined the stables and coach house about fifty yards from the main building. Behind it, being dragged along at the end of a thirty-foot length of chain, was a lopped tree-trunk.

  The tractor came to a halt by the barn and Boswell approached.

  ‘Not today, Harry,’ he shouted to the driver, a sullen-looking man in a dirty cloth cap. ‘Not while the guests are here.’

  ‘It’s you as wanted the hillside cleared,’ grunted the man.

  ‘Yes. But no more, eh? And be careful when you put the tractor away to leave a bit of space. We’ve got a band coming this evening and they’ll want to put their van in the barn. O.K.?’

  Without waiting for an answer, Boswell returned to the house. The man Harry watched him enter, then spat. He laboriously unhooked the chained tree from the tractor, but did not get back into the driving seat.

  ‘They can have all the bloody room they like,’ he muttered, climbing on his push-bike and setting off grimly down the drive.

  Boswell had already forgotten the incident as he re-entered Dingley Dell. The skating party had not yet returned and the hotel was very quiet. He made his way quickly up the stairs, along a narrow corridor which terminated in what seemed to be a solid oak door. Only an expert carpenter with time to look closely could have detected that this wood was by no means of the same ancient vintage as the rest of the house. It was in fact a veneer over solid steel.