Doug Allyn: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 633 & 634, October 1994

There was no harm in him, but then I didn’t live near Monks Farm, except as the crow flies. Half his larks were dreamed up to annoy the natives, simple as that. We got on fine; my secret nickname for Ben Basgate was Mr. Toad, he had that Wind in the Willows air of self-importance and innocent glee at being himself. A hairless head, bulging eyes, and wide mouth endorsed my label.

The one I felt sorry for was his nephew, Tom Oates. Tom had always wanted to be a farmer. So when Ben went off to seek his fortune and his dad got doddery, there was Tom Oates to act as proxy son and work the place for him. In an ideal world he would have inherited Monks Farm. As it was, Ben kept him on as manager, though precious little remained to manage. All credit to him, Tom stood up for his uncle, though privately he must have agonised over Ben’s misuse of prime land.

Anyway, I lounged on my log, emulating the proverbial bump, watching a speck of red and wondering what the man wearing it might be doing. Ben never went outdoors without that baseball cap. All I could make out was the spot of color, but it seemed to be bobbing to and fro. Every now and then came a silver flash... And that tock would stammer across the valley.

It took minutes for the message to sink in. Then I jumped up and, ludicrously, shouted, “Oi, stop it! Ben, stop that!” My voice sounded hoarse and feeble, as well it might.

The cheek, the nerve, the... sheer Mr. Toadness going on over there, appalled me.

Of course the vandal had got up early. Of course the red cap was moving in an arc with the rest of Ben Basgate. Of course steel caught the sun from time to time.

To explain: Monks Farm was rather grand, in its mid-Victorian, box-of-nursery-bricks way. Three floors, a pillared porch, gravel drive — and in the center of the lawn, soaring thirty feet or so, one of the finest monkey-puzzle trees in the county. Ben Basgate claimed that it was an eyesore, darkening his lounge. He had threatened to cut it down (largely to annoy his neighbours, whom he taunted as stick-in-the-muds). They, as inimical neighbours will, whispered in councillors’ ears, and as councils will, ours slapped a preservation order on the monkey puzzle. An Englishman’s home is his castle, but only while council planners aren’t looking.

Now Mr. Toad was having the last word by chopping the thing down. The worst that could occur was a fine of a few hundred pounds. Knowing Ben Basgate, he’d consider it money well spent. The subsequent row, daunting to most people, would strike him as a bonus...

The axe swung, and an instant later the sound of steel on timber bounced off the spire below me. Tock , pause, tock. Evidently he was tiring. Ben was no lumberjack, but a bald, podgy amateur.

Dithering, first I made for the cottage, meaning to phone him. Then I changed direction to the garage. He might ignore the phone, always supposing he heard it out there, but a visitor couldn’t be overlooked. Only it would take me a quarter-hour to drive down the zigzag track — very slowly if I wanted the muffler in place on reaching the road — and get to Monks Farm. So maybe the phone was a better idea after all, though the chances were that the monkey puzzle was past saving, either way.

Confirming my pessimism, a creaking, tearing noise rippled through still air, followed by a faint crash from over there. A scribble of birds defaced the sky over Monks Farm, danced briefly, and erased itself. I stood still, caught between cursing and laughter.

Mr. Toad had been and gone and done it, my word he had.

If it’s not labouring the point, we had plenty more trees around Drawbel. And I have never been fond of monkey puzzles with their multiple “tails” of branches; for my money they’re grotesquely ornate unless it’s ornately grotesque, like so many ugly examples of Victoriana.

All the same, I got the car out and set off to see Ben. The man was a fool to himself, and needed to be reminded of it before the lynch mob arrived. Not a real necktie party, but Peter Stuckey and his shrewish wife were probably phoning round the village by now, stirring up trouble for Ben. The Stuckeys were “proper farmers,” Ben Basgate’s nearest neighbors, and they detested him. He was quite likely to jeer when they turned up to protest, and that might well increase the amount of his fine when the inevitable case came to court and they gave evidence. Ben could spare whatever the magistrates decreed — on the other hand, I was the nearest thing he had to a friend, and owed him advice. The fact that Mr. Toad would ignore it was another matter...

“Idiot!” I said out loud.

It didn’t take long to reach Monks Farm, once out of Petticoat Wood. You go half a mile in the opposite direction, then up the dogleg of lane to Ben Basgate’s home, the Stuckeys’ place, and a few other dwellings.

Gravel sputtered under my tires and suddenly the car was skidding across Ben’s drive because I’d tramped on the brakes. I jerked forward and stalled with a nasty, expensive sound which I forgot about until the following day.

The monkey puzzle was down all right, its tip spearing across the lawn. About halfway along the trunk, a foot and a hand were visible under the tangle of bottle-brush tails of foliage. I got out, mouth dry, fighting that underwater-walking sensation of nightmares.

Gross, heartless humour is a blessing at such times. It’s a form of anaesthetic. Going down on one knee, I pawed among the leafy monkey tails, telling myself that if Ben Basgate wasn’t dead, then he had found a way of surviving with his head and chest smashed flat. As a matter of form I tried for a pulse in his wrist, and of course there was none.

“What the hell are you playing at?”

The angry shout made me gasp and topple sideways, heart hammering. Tom Oates barged past, only to recoil, a hand clamped over his mouth. “God... it’s Uncle Ben.”

“Come away,” I gabbled, “we can’t do anything.” Tom looked terrible, as well he might — pallor startling in contrast to all that blue-black hair, shiny with grease.

“We’ve got to get him out,” Tom whimpered. He was thirty-five, a stolid, sturdy, thoroughly capable man, but shock had reduced him to a faltering youngster. He started wrenching at the nearest branches, teeth bared, a vein rising on his forehead; I had to wrestle him back.

“Tom! He’s past help. Use your head, they’ll need lifting gear to shift this thing.” I cleared my throat. “I think we’re supposed to leave everything as it is. For the police.”

Not appearing to take that in, he demanded, “What’s been going on here?”

“What does it look like? You must have heard the tree come down.” Tom lived in a bungalow a few hundred yards along the lane.

He blinked at me, working things out. “Yes... it would have made a right racket. I was cleaning house, it’s my day for it. Had the music on.” He was wearing jeans and T-shirt, and now I noticed the Walkman clipped to his belt with the earphones slung round his neck, stethoscope fashion. “Saw you drive past like a madman, thought there might be a fire here or something,” Tom explained.

“You’d better ring for... well, an ambulance, I guess. And the police.”

Tom didn’t move. Face twisting, he muttered, “Uncle, Uncle, what did you think you were doing?” Gently I drew him away. In the end I had to make the calls. Doglike, Tom simply refused to leave the body.

I sat on the doorstep, wishing I hadn’t given up smoking. The next twenty minutes were interminable. After ten of them, I badgered him into going indoors and making us a cup of tea. He needed distraction.

Swept off his head by a flying branch, Ben’s baseball cap caught my eye. Automatically I picked it up and set the thing on a window ledge, wiping my fingers afterwards. Dismiss it as squeamishness, but while I can handle blood, literally or metaphorically, there was something uncommonly disturbing about the momentary touch of a dead man’s sweat...