Ngaio Marsh - Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh

Mr. Bates was greatly excited. “Who knows!” he cried. “A Wagstaff in the hand may be worth two Hadets in the bush. I am your slave forever, my dear Mrs. Alleyn!”

Miss Hart was a lady of perhaps sixty-seven years. On meeting Mr. Bates she seemed to imply that some explanation should be advanced for Troy receiving a gentleman caller in her husband’s absence. When the Bible was produced, she immediately accepted it in this light, glanced with professional expertise at the inscriptions and fastened on the Wagstaffs.

“No doubt,” said Miss Hart, “it was their family Bible and much good it did them. A most eccentric lot they were. Very unsound. Very unsound, indeed. Especially Old Jimmy.”

“Who,” Mr. Bates asked greedily, “was Old Jimmy?”

Miss Hart jabbed her forefinger at the last of the Wagstaff entries. “William James Wagstaff. Born 1870. And died, although it doesn’t say so, in April, 1921. Nobody was left to complete the entry, of course. Unless you count the niece, which I don’t. Baggage, if ever I saw one.”

“The niece?”

“Fanny Wagstaff. Orphan. Old Jimmy brought her up. Dragged would be the better word. Drunken old reprobate he was and he came to a drunkard’s end. They said he beat her and I daresay she needed it.” Miss Hart lowered her voice to a whisper and confided in Troy. “Not a nice girl. You know what I mean.”

Troy, feeling it was expected of her, nodded portentously.

“A drunken end, did you say?” prompted Mr. Bates.

“Certainly. On a Saturday night after Market. Fell through the top-landing stair rail in his nightshirt and split his skull on the flagstoned hall.”

“And your father bought it, then, after Old Jimmy died?” Troy ventured.

“Bought the house and garden. Richard De’ath took the farm. He’d been after it for years—wanted it to round off his own place. He and Old Jimmy were at daggers-drawn over that business. And, of course, Richard being an atheist, over the Seven Seals.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Bates asked.

“Blasphemous!” Miss Hart shouted. “That’s what it was, rank blasphemy. It was a sect that Wagstaff founded. If the rector had known his business he’d have had him excommunicated for it.”

Miss Hart was prevented from elaborating this theory by the appearance at the window of an enormous woman, stuffily encased in black, with a face like a full moon.

“Anybody at home?” the newcomer playfully chanted. “Telegram for a lucky girl! Come and get it!”

It was Mrs. Simpson, the village postmistress. Miss Hart said, “Well, really !” and gave an acid laugh.

“Sorry, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Simpson, staring at the Bible which lay under her nose on the window seat. “I didn’t realize there was company. Thought I’d pop it in as I was passing.”

Troy read the telegram while Mrs. Simpson, panting, sank heavily on the window ledge and eyed Mr. Bates, who had drawn back in confusion. “I’m no good in the heat,” she told him. “Slays me.”

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Simpson,” Troy said. “No answer.”

“Righty-ho. Cheerie-bye,” said Mrs. Simpson and with another stare at Mr. Bates and the Bible, and a derisive grin at Miss Hart, she waddled away.

“It’s from Rory,” Troy said. “He’ll be home on Sunday evening.”

“As that woman will no doubt inform the village,” Miss Hart pronounced. “A busybody of the first water and ought to be taught her place. Did you ever!”

She fulminated throughout luncheon and it was with difficulty that Troy and Mr. Bates persuaded her to finish her story of the last of the Wagstaffs. It appeared that Old Jimmy had died intestate, his niece succeeding. She had at once announced her intention of selling everything and had left the district to pursue, Miss Hart suggested, a life of freedom, no doubt in London or even in Paris. Miss Hart wouldn’t, and didn’t want to, know. On the subject of the Hadets, however, she was uninformed and showed no inclination to look up the marked Bible references attached to them.

After luncheon Troy showed Miss Hart three of her paintings, any one of which would have commanded a high price at an exhibition of contemporary art, and Miss Hart chose the one that, in her own phrase, really did look like something. She insisted that Troy and Mr. Bates accompany her to the parish hall where Mr. Bates would meet the rector, an authority on village folklore. Troy in person must hand over her painting to be raffled.

Troy would have declined this honor if Mr. Bates had not retired behind Miss Hart and made a series of beseeching gestures and grimaces. They set out therefore in Miss Hart’s car which was crammed with vegetables for the Harvest Festival decorations.

“And if the woman Simpson thinks she’s going to hog the lectern with her pumpkins,” said Miss Hart, “she’s in for a shock. Hah!”

St. Cuthbert’s was an ancient parish church round whose flanks the tiny village nestled. Its tower, an immensely high one, was said to be unique. Nearby was the parish hall where Miss Hart pulled up with a masterful jerk.

Troy and Mr. Bates helped her unload some of her lesser marrows to be offered for sale within. They were observed by a truculent-looking man in tweeds who grinned at Miss Hart. “Burnt offerings,” he jeered, “for the tribal gods, I perceive.” It was Mr. Richard De’ath, the atheist. Miss Hart cut him dead and led the way into the hall.

Here they found the rector, with a crimson-faced elderly man and a clutch of ladies engaged in preparing for the morrow’s sale.

The rector was a thin gentle person, obviously frightened of Miss Hart and timidly delighted by Troy. On being shown the Bible he became excited and dived at once into the story of Old Jimmy Wagstaff.

“Intemperate, I’m afraid, in everything,” sighed the rector. “Indeed, it would not be too much to say that he both preached and drank hellfire. He did preach, on Saturday nights at the crossroads outside the Star and Garter. Drunken, blasphemous nonsense it was and although he used to talk about his followers, the only one he could claim was his niece, Fanny, who was probably too much under his thumb to refuse him.”

“Edward Pilbrow,” Miss Hart announced, jerking her head at the elderly man who had come quite close to them. “Drowned him with his bell. They had a fight over it. Deaf as a post,” she added, catching sight of Mr. Bates’s startled expression. “He’s the verger now. And the town crier.”

“What!” Mr. Bates exclaimed.

“Oh, yes,” the rector explained. “The village is endowed with a town crier.” He went over to Mr. Pilbrow, who at once cupped his hand round his ear. The rector yelled into it.

“When did you start crying, Edward?”

“Twenty-ninth September, ’twenty-one,” Mr. Pilbrow roared back.

“I thought so.”

There was something in their manner that made it difficult to remember, Troy thought, that they were talking about events that were almost fifty years back in the past. Even the year 1779 evidently seemed to them to be not so long ago, but, alas, none of them knew of any Hadets.

“By all means,” the rector invited Mr. Bates, “consult the church records, but I can assure you—no Hadets. Never any Hadets.”

Troy saw an expression of extreme obstinacy settle round Mr. Bates’s mouth.

The rector invited him to look at the church and as they both seemed to expect Troy to tag along, she did so. In the lane they once more encountered Mr. Richard De’ath out of whose pocket protruded a paper-wrapped bottle. He touched his cap to Troy and glared at the rector, who turned pink and said, “Afternoon, De’ath,” and hurried on.