Colin Watson - The Flaxborough Crab

“She comes over three times a week from Moldham to do the packin’ an’ that. Then there’s the boss, o’ course. Office stuff—she does all that. But ’er hours ain’t wot you’d call regular, ’cos she’s got a long way to come, see.”

“And do you have far to travel?” Love knew of only one monastery and that was twenty miles the other side of Flaxborough.

“Wot, me? I live in, ’erbmasters always live in, mate. There are fings can go wrong. Lots o’fings.”

“Oh,” said Love.

He looked away from the man’s bright, upturned face. It reminded him a little of the face of a salesman on Flaxborough market who once had inveigled him into buying a ‘fuel extender’ to increase by forty per cent his motor cycle’s mileage performance. It had turned the petrol into a toffee-like substance that had effectively sealed the engine for ever. But this fellow seemed genuine enough. Why should he wear this get-up out here in the middle of nowhere if he wasn’t a real monk?

“I’ve always rather fancied gardening,” Love remarked. “Nice quiet sort of life.” He hoped he had compensated for the unworthy straying of his thoughts.

“Oh, it’s ’eaven,” agreed Brother Culpepper.

He regarded the sergeant carefully for a moment.

“I’m on wot they call release from the Order, see? Sort of lent aht. Abbot’s dispensation.”

“Ah,” said Love, nodding.

“Lickewer’s really my line, o’ course. Chartroose. This makes a change, though.”

“Yes, it must.”

Love gazed past the end shed, trying to discern some area of disciplined cultivation in the wilderness of weeds.

“What is it, exactly, this, er...you know—what you make here?”

“Wot is it?” echoed Culpepper, incredulously. “Don’t tell me you ’aven’t ’eard of Lucky Fen Wort?”

“Well, I...”

“Balm of Befle’em?”

The sergeant pretended to think hard.

“Samson’s Salad?” urged Culpepper. “Cor, but you must ’ave!”

“Oh, that. Yes. Yes, I have.”

“ Course you ’ave!” The monk puffed his cheeks rougishly and gave Love’s chest a flip with the back of his hand.

The sergeant swallowed. “What is it supposed to do, though? I’m not very well up on herbs.”

At once Culpepper’s face was serious and eager once more.

“Look,” he said, “if I didn’t know wot was wot regardin’ miracles an’ that, I’d say that stuff was one. A miracle. No—straight up, I would.”

“Good, is it?”

“Good? Good ?” Culpepper’s little eyes squeezed to mere creases behind his glasses, then popped. “It’s aht o’ this flippin’ world, bruvver!”

“You mean it cures things?”

“Har...”—Culpepper raised a finger—“as to that, we’ve got to be careful, ’aven’t we, eh? Claims is dodgy fings. I’m not goin’ to stand ’ere an’ tell you Lucky Fen Wort will cure this and Lucky Fen Wort will cure that. I mean, I know all abaht renderin’ under Caesar an’ all that. But wot I will say—and may ’E strike me if I tell a lie—’Im, not Caesar, I mean—wot I will say is, Lucky Fen Wort didn’t get it’s name for nuffink.”

The sergeant looked at his watch. The inspector was not going to thank him for having spent an entire morning learning that the promoters of Samson’s Salad offered nothing more definite than good luck (the late Alderman Winge’s experience notwithstanding).

“This manager of yours—you think she’d be here about eleven.”

“Should be.”

“And what did you say her name was?”

Brother Culpepper hauled up his gown and fished a leather wallet from his trousers pocket. He extracted a pale lilac card and handed it to Love.

“That’s ’er.” He pointed to the name in the bottom left corner of the card. “Luvly lady. Used to be a missionary.”

The sergeant noted that a smile of blissful devotion had appeared on Culpepper’s face. He examined the card. Under a delicate floral motif was printed MOLDHAM MERES LABORATORIES, MOLDHAM, ENGLAND...Director: Lucilla E. C. Teatime, M.B.E.

Love frowned, but only for a second.

“Is that the Miss Teatime who does the charity work in Flax?”

“Wot! You know ’er?” A beam of surprise and congratulation.

“We have met once or twice.”

“Oh, a luvly lady!”

Love looked again at the card, then slipped it into his pocket. “I hadn’t realized she was an M.B.E.”

“She’s a great one for ’iding lights under bushes,” explained Brother Culpepper. He sighed. “Anyway, p’raps you’d like to come an’ ’ave a shufti?”

“A what?”

“A look-see. A stroll rahnd.”

He led Love to the first shed and held the door open for him to enter.

It was very dim inside. There was a cool, earthy smell, overlaid with an aromatic odour that reminded Love of newly mown road verges. Against one side of the shed had been heaped greenery of some kind, spangled with bright yellow flowers.

“That’s the wort ’arvest,” his guide told him. “It’s brought in ’ere an’ graded.”

The sergeant saw no evidence of grading. The green stuff lay in one big pile. There were several baskets lying around, though. He stepped between them and picked a sample of the harvest, examining leaves and stalk with what he hoped would look like intelligent appreciation.

“Very like dandelion,” was the only comment that occurred to him.

“Ah,” responded Culpepper immediately, “yor dead right. Lots o’ people can’t see the diff’rence. But ’erbs is like everyfink else—you gotta know ’em, see? Takes years.”

He took the sample from Love, sniffed it fastidiously, then slowly split a stem with his thumb nail.

“See?” He indicated the stem’s viscous inner surface. “That’s wort orlright.”

He tossed the plant back on the heap and turned towards the door.

In the middle shed, Culpepper pointed to nets stretched from wall to wall on which were spread thin layers of shrivelling leaves.

“Dryin’ ’ouse,” he explained.

They went on to the third shed.

The air here was dusty. It smelled. Love thought, rather like the inside of Pearsons’ seed warehouse in North Street. This was where the sound of machinery had come from. He saw an electric motor bolted to a table and, nearby, what appeared to be an outsize coffee mill. The mill was surmounted by a hopper. To a delivery pipe at the bottom of the machine a canvas bag, rather similar to a post office sorting bag, had been clipped.

Culpepper tipped the contents of a basket into the hopper and switched on the motor. Above the resultant racket he shouted triumphantly: “Untouched by ’uman ’and!” and pointed to the canvas bag, which slowly fattened.

On the other side of the gangway was a second table, bearing a big enamelled bowl, a couple of scoops, a kitchen spring balance and a pile of empty packets.

Brother Culpepper walked over to it.

“This is where young Florrie gives an ’and.”

He thrust a scoop into what Lucky Fen Wort had been left in the bowl at the end of Florrie’s last shift and yelled:

“Goes all over the flippin’ country, this does! Arsk an’ it shall be given unto yew!”

Love took this to be a scriptural jest of some sort and grinned sheepishly.

Culpepper stepped back and switched off the motor.

“That’s abaht it, then,” he said.

“Very interesting,” said Love. He was wondering what else he could usefully ask when Culpepper perked up his head and listened.

“ ’Ello, ’ello, ’ello—’ere comes the Queen o’ Sheba!”

The sergeant heard the hornet-like crescendo of an approaching car—a sports car, without doubt. He followed Culpepper into the sunlight. Three seconds later, what seemed to be a wheeled projectile, immaculately agleam and pulsating wickedly, drew up before them.