Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

‘Do you mean to say that it looks after itself, it doesn’t need a helping hand, and that a fond mother can entrust her precious charge to it without a nursemaid and without a tremor?’

‘She can,’ said Munt, ‘and without an undertaker and without a sexton.’

‘Undertaker . . . ? Sexton . . . ?’ echoed Valentine. ‘What have they to do with perambulators?’

There was a pause, during which the three figures, struck in their respective attitudes, seemed to have lost relationship with each other.

‘So you didn’t know,’ said Munt at length, ‘that it was coffins I collected.’

An hour later the three men were standing in an upper room, looking down at a large oblong object that lay in the middle of a heap of shavings and seemed, to Valentine’s sick fancy, to be burying its head among them. Munt had been giving a demonstration.

‘Doesn’t it look funny now it’s still?’ he remarked. ‘Almost as though it had been killed.’ He touched it pensively with his foot and it slid towards Valentine, who edged away. You couldn’t quite tell where it was coming; it seemed to have no settled direction, and to move all ways at once, like a crab. ‘Of course the chances are really against it,’ sighed Munt. ‘But it’s very quick, and it has that funny gift of anticipation. If it got a fellow up against a wall, I don’t think he’d stand much chance. I didn’t show you here, because I value my floors, but it can bury itself in wood in three minutes and in newly turned earth, say a flower-bed, in one. It has to be this squarish shape, or it couldn’t dig. It just doubles the man up, you see, directly it catches him—backwards, so as to break the spine. The top of the head fits in just below the heels. The soles of the feet come uppermost. The spring sticks a bit.’ He bent down to adjust something. ‘Isn’t it a charming toy?’

‘Looking at it from the criminal’s standpoint, not the engineer’s,’ said Bettisher, ‘I can’t see that it would be much use in a house. Have you tried it on a stone floor?’

‘Yes, it screams in agony and blunts the blades.’

‘Exactly. Like a mole on paving-stones. And even on an ordinary carpeted floor it could cut its way in, but there would be a nice hole left in the carpet to show where it had gone.’

Munt conceded this point, also. ‘But it’s an odd thing,’ he added, ‘that in several of the rooms in this house it would really work, and baffle anyone but an expert detective. Below, of course, are the knives, but the top is inlaid with real parquet. The grave is so sensitive—you saw just now how it seemed to grope—that it can feel the ridges, and adjust itself perfectly to the pattern of the parquet. But of course I agree with you. It’s not an indoor game, really: it’s a field sport. You go on, will you, and leave me to clear up this mess. I’ll join you in a moment.’

Valentine followed Bettisher down into the library. He was very much subdued.

‘Well, that was the funniest scene,’ remarked Bettisher, chuckling.

‘Do you mean just now? I confess it gave me the creeps.’

‘Oh no, not that: when you and Dick were talking at cross-purposes.’

‘I’m afraid I made a fool of myself,’ said Valentine dejectedly. ‘I can’t quite remember what we said. I know there was something I wanted to ask you.’

‘Ask away, but I can’t promise to answer.’

Valentine pondered a moment.

‘Now I remember what it was.’

‘Spit it out.’

‘To tell you the truth, I hardly like to. It was something Dick said. I hardly noticed at the time. I expect he was just playing up to me.’

‘Well?’

‘About these coffins. Are they real?’

‘How do you mean “real”?’

‘I mean, could they be used as—’

‘My dear chap, they have been.’

Valentine smiled, rather mirthlessly.

‘Are they full-size—life-size, as it were?’

‘The two things aren’t quite the same,’ said Bettisher with a grin. ‘But there’s no harm in telling you this: Dick’s like all collectors. He prefers rarities, odd shapes, dwarfs, and that sort of thing. Of course any anatomical peculiarity has to have allowance made for it in the coffin. On the whole his specimens tend to be smaller than the general run—shorter, anyhow. Is that what you wanted to know?’

‘You’ve told me a lot,’ said Valentine. ‘But there was another thing.’

‘Out with it.’

‘When I imagined we were talking about perambulators—’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘I said something about their being empty. Do you remember?’

‘I think so.’

‘Then I said something about them having mannequins inside, and he seemed to agree.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Well, he couldn’t have meant that. It would be too—too realistic’

‘Well, then, any sort of dummy.’

‘There are dummies and dummies. A skeleton isn’t very talkative.’

Valentine stared.

‘He’s been away,’ Bettisher said hastily. ‘I don’t know what his latest idea is. But here’s the man himself.’

Munt came into the room.

‘Children,’ he called out, ‘have you observed the time? It’s nearly seven o’clock. And do you remember that we have another guest coming? He must be almost due.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Bettisher.

‘A friend of Valentine’s. Valentine, you must be responsible for him. I asked him partly to please you. I scarcely know him. What shall we do to entertain him?’

‘What sort of man is he?’ Bettisher inquired.

‘Describe him, Valentine. Is he tall or short? I don’t remember.’

‘Medium.’

‘Dark or fair?’

‘Mouse-coloured.’

‘Old or young?’

‘About thirty-five.’

‘Married or single?’

‘Single.’

‘What, has he no ties? No one to take an interest in him or bother what becomes of him?’

‘He has no near relations.’

‘Do you mean to say that very likely nobody knows he is coming to spend Sunday here?’

‘Probably not. He has rooms in London, and he wouldn’t trouble to leave his address.’

‘Extraordinary the casual way some people live. Is he brave or timid?’

‘Oh, come, what a question! About as brave as I am.’

‘Is he clever or stupid?’

‘All my friends are clever,’ said Valentine, with a flicker of his old spirit. ‘He’s not intellectual: he’d be afraid of difficult parlour games or brilliant conversation.’

‘He ought not to have come here. Does he play bridge?’

‘I don’t think he has much head for cards.’

‘Could Tony induce him to play chess?’

‘Oh, no, chess needs too much concentration.’

‘Is he given to wool-gathering, then?’ Munt asked. ‘Does he forget to look where he’s going?’

‘He’s the sort of man,’ said Valentine, ‘who expects to find everything just so. He likes to be led by the hand. He is perfectly tame and confiding, like a nicely brought up child.’

‘In that case,’ said Munt, ‘we must find some childish pastime that won’t tax him too much. Would he like Musical Chairs?’

‘I think that would embarrass him,’ said Valentine. He began to feel a tenderness for his absent friend, and a wish to stick up for him. ‘I should leave him to look after himself. He’s rather shy. If you try to make him come out of his shell, you’ll scare him. He’d rather take the initiative himself. He doesn’t like being pursued, but in a mild way he likes to pursue.’

‘A child with hunting instincts,’ said Munt pensively. ‘How can we accommodate him? I have it! Let’s play “Hide-and-Seek.” We shall hide and he shall seek. Then he can’t feel that we are forcing ourselves upon him. It will be the height of tact. He will be here in a few minutes. Let’s go and hide now.’