Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake

Then she saw that Bruce Gardener, in his Harris tweed suit, had come out of the hall and was climbing up the steps to the church. He followed the Vicar and Jim Jobbin and disappeared. Verity had noticed him at the inquest. He had sat at the back, taller than his neighbours, upright, with his gardener’s hands on his thighs, very decorous and solemn. She thought that perhaps he wanted to ask about the funeral, about flowers from Quintern Place, it might be. If so, that was nice of Bruce. She herself, she thought, must offer to do something about flowers. She would wait a little longer and speak to the Vicar,

“Good morning,” said Claude Carter, leaning on the passenger’s door.

Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. She had been looking out of the driver’s window and he must have come up from behind the car on her blind side.

“Sorry,” he said, and grinned. “Made you jump, did I?”

“Yes.”

“My mistake. I just wondered if I might cadge a lift to the turn-off. If you’re going home, that is.”

There was nothing she wanted less but she said yes, if he didn’t mind waiting while she went up to the church. He said he wasn’t in a hurry and got in. He had removed his vestigial beard, she noticed, and had his hair cut to a conservative length. He was tidily dressed and looked less hang-dog than usual There was even a hint of submerged jauntiness about him.

“Smoking allowed?” he asked.

She left him lighting his cigarette in a guarded manner as if he was afraid someone would snatch it out of his mouth.

At the head of the steps she met the Vicar returning with Bruce and Jim. To her surprise Jim, a bald man with a loud voice, was now bent double. He was hovered over by the Vicar.

“It’s a fair bugger,” he shouted. “Comes over you like a bloody thunderclap. Stooping down to pull up them bloody teazles and now look at me. Should of minded me own business.”

“Yes, well: jolly bad luck,” said the Vicar. “Oh. Hullo, Miss Preston. We’re in trouble as you see. Jim’s smitten with lumbago.”

“Will he be able to negotiate the descent?” Bruce speculated anxiously. “That’s what I ask myself. Awa’ wi ye, man, and let us handle you doon the steps.”

“No, you don’t. I’ll handle myself if left to myself, won’t I?”

“Jim!” said Verity, “ what a bore for you. I’ll drive you home.”

“No, ta all the same, Miss Preston. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. I’m best left to manage myself and if you’ll excuse me that’s what I’ll do. I’ll use the handrail. Only,” he added with a sudden, shout of agony, “I’d be obliged if I wasn’t watched.”

“Perhaps,” said the Vicar, “we’d better—?”

Jim, moving like a gaffer in a Victorian melodrama, achieved the handrail and clung to it. He shouted: “I won’t be able to do the job now, will I?”

There was an awkward silence broken by Bruce. “Dinna fash yourself,” he said. “No problem. With the Mister’s kind permission I’ll dig it myself and think it an honour. I will that.”

“The full six foot, mind.”

“Ou aye,” Bruce agreed. “All of it. I’m a guid hand at digging,” he added.

“Fair enough,” said Jim and began to ease himself down the steps.

“This is a most fortunate solution, Bruce,” said the Vicar. “Shall we just leave Jim as he wishes?” and he ushered them into the church.

St. Crispin’s-in-Quintern was one of the great company of parish churches that stand as milestones in rural history: obstinate registers to the ravages of time. It had a magnificent peal of bells, now unsafe to ring, one or two brasses, a fine east window and a surprising north window in which — strange conceit — a walrus-mustachioed Passcoigne, looking startlingly like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was depicted in full plate armour, an Edwardian St. Michael without a halo. The legend indicated that he had met his end on the African veld. The familiar ecclesiastical odour of damp held at bay by paraffin heaters greeted Verity and the two men.

Verity explained that she would like to do anything that would help about the flowers. The Vivar said that custody of all brass vases was inexorably parcelled out among the Ladies Guild, five in number. She gathered that any attempt to disrupt this procedure would trigger off a latent pecking order.

“But they would be grateful for flowers,” he added.

Bruce said that there were late roses up at Quintern Place and he’d thought it would be nice to have her ain favourites to see her off. He muttered in an uneven voice that the name was appropriate: Peace. “They endure better than most oot o’ water,” he added and blew his nose. Verity and the Vicar warmly supported this suggestion and Verity left the two men to complete, she understood, the arrangements for digging Sybil’s grave.

When she returned to the top of the steps she found that Jim Jobbin had reached the bottom on his hands and knees and was being manipulated through the lych-gate by his wife. Verity joined them. Mrs. Jim explained that she was on her way to get dinner and had found Jim crawling backward down the last four steps. It was no distance, they both reminded Verity, along the lane to their cottage. Jim got to his feet by swarming up his wife as if she was a tree.

“It’ll ease off once he straightens himself,” she said. “It does him good to walk.”

“That’s what you think,” her husband groaned but he straightened up and let out an oath as he did so. They made off in slow motion.

Verity returned to her car and to Claude, lounging in the passenger’s seat. He made a token shuffle with his feet and leant over to open the door.

“That was as good as a play,” he said. “Poor old Jobbin. Did you see him beetling down the steps? Fantastic!” He gave a neighing laugh.

“Lumbago’s no joke to the person who’s got it,” Verity snapped.

“It’s hysterical for the person who hasn’t, though.”

She drove as far as the corner where the lane up to Quintern Place branched off to the left.

“Will this suit you?” she asked, “or would you like me to run you up?”

He said he wouldn’t take her out of her way but when she pulled up he didn’t get out

“What did you make of the inquest?” he asked. “I must say I thought it pretty off.”

“Off?”

“Well — you know. I mean what does that extraordinary detective person think he’s on about? And a further postponement. Obviously they suspect something.”

Verity was silent.

“Which isn’t exactly welcome news,” he said. “Is it? Not for this medico, Schramm. Or for Mr. Folksy Gardener if it comes to that.”

“I don’t think you should make suggestions, Claude.”

“Suggestions! I’m not suggesting anything, but people are sure to look sideways. I know I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I were in those gentlemen’s boots, that’s all. Still, they’re getting their lovely legacies, aren’t they, which’ll be a great consolation. I could put up with plenty of funny looks for twenty-five thousand of the best. Still more for Schramm’s little lot.”

“I must get home, Claude.”

“Nothing can touch my bit, anyway. God, can I use it! Only thing: that old relic Rattisbon says it won’t be available until probate is allowed or passed or whatever. Still, I suppose I can borrow on my prospects, wouldn’t you think?”

“I’m running late.”

“Nobody seems to think it’s a bit oft-colour her leaving twenty-five thousand of the best to a jobbing gardener she’d only hired a matter of months ago. It’s pretty obvious he’d got round her in a big way: I could tell you one or two things about Mr. gardener-Gardener.”

“I must go, Claude.”