The Burry Man’s Day

Chapter Eleven

The High Street, when I turned back on myself at the bottom of the brae and looked along it, was deserted. Of course, Mr Dudgeon’s funeral must be due to start any minute and the shops were closed out of respect, with their shutters down. The men would all be at the Kirk by now and I could only assume that those women not closely enough connected to the Dudgeons to be already at the cottage preparing for the feast, were respectfully inside their houses, curtains drawn, and keeping the children in too. So I was glad of my mourning clothes and I hoped that if I walked sedately enough, with my head bowed, then anyone happening to glance from a window and see me would not think me too callous for being out in the sunshine strolling around.

Almost immediately upon setting off, however, negotiating the corner at the Sealscraig, I saw that not quite everyone was closed up for the funeral after all. I caught a flash of light from the corner of my eye and, turning, I saw that there was a solitary drinker in Brown’s Bar and that Mr Shinie Brown was standing at the counter facing him. The light I had seen was the flare of a match as the customer lit a cigarette and when he turned to the side to blow the first smoke politely over his shoulder, I recognized him as one of the two Burry Man’s boys.

This was, at the same time, both strange beyond reckoning and also too good to miss. In fact, its strangeness only made it the more irresistible for there had to be a story behind this ostentatious absence from the send-off, surely. The only question was whether I could summon the nerve to cross the threshold, alone this time, join a strange man at the bar, and strike up the conversation necessary to find out what the story was.

To excuse ducking out of it, I could tell myself that Alec would be able to grill the other helper at the funeral or afterwards. On the other hand, there was no guarantee of this; Alec after all was relying on Cad being able to pick the face out of the crowd or, failing that, being able to ask around discreetly for an introduction. Imagine his disgust if he missed the man or could not get him to talk and then he heard that I had let this other one slip through my grasp out of sheer… I did not even know for sure what one would call it.

I put my gloved fingers firmly around the brass handle of the door and pulled it open. Mr Brown had disappeared into the back room while I was dithering, and only the man at the bar remained. He spoke, without turning, saying:

‘He’s no’ open.’

‘Oh!’ I said, flustered, and on hearing my voice the man turned around in some surprise.

‘It’s yoursel’,’ he said, obviously remembering me from our first encounter.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. (I have never been able to decide exactly how one should respond to this particular greeting.) ‘And I’m not really looking to buy a drink. I’m just… Well, to tell the truth, I was out for a walk and then seeing the street so quiet and realizing why, I’m looking for cover. It would be pretty blatant to parade along the High Street and then roar off in my motor car.’ I had joined him at the bar during this speech and he was nodding slowly in apparent understanding, but he was – I could see this now that I was close up – extremely drunk. As if to confirm the fact, he gave a huge wuthering sigh and sank his head to his chest with lips pushed out.

‘What brings you here?’ I asked, rather too brightly. He did not answer. ‘I should have thought you’d be up at the Kirk. Mr Brown too, for that matter.’

‘We’ve no’ been introduced,’ said the man, swinging to face me. I had to work hard not recoil from the beer fumes on his breath, and almost found myself offering him a peppermint. ‘Pat Rearden,’ he said, and held out a hand. I shook it faintly, wondering at the non sequitur, then I realized that it was not a non sequitur after all.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘What a shame. How awful for you, I mean, if you were great friends.’

‘We were friends,’ he announced, much more belligerently than was needed since he was, after all, agreeing with me. ‘Rab and me. We didnae give a – didnae care what folk said. And we aye kent that if he went first I’d be sittin’ in a bar and if it wis me he’d be sittin’ in a bar. Load o’ bloody nonsense.’

‘Hear, hear,’ I answered. ‘As someone else said just the other day in another context: we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns.’

‘We are,’ said Mr Rearden, thumping the bar. ‘We are that. You nivver said a truer word.’

‘What about Mr Brown? Why isn’t he there?’ I said. He looked blank. ‘ Shinie?’ I prompted.

‘Same as me,’ said Mr Rearden shaking his head morosely. ‘Just the same as me. Father Cormack would have his guts for garters if he crossed the door. And it’s worse for him. Fur Shinie. He’s practically ane o’ the family.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘So it wasn’t another context after all. It was exactly the same context. Ah well, Miss Brown seems to have been a staunch support to Mrs Dudgeon in the last few days nevertheless.’

‘Should have been ane o’ the family,’ said Rearden again, threatening real tears now. ‘That f-… bloody war.’ I nodded, sympathetically. ‘Left all of us old men whae’d lived wur lives and took the boys.’ He gave a rough sob, and I patted his arm. ‘And their boys were like brothers from they were laddies,’ he said, echoing what Mrs Dudgeon’s sisters had told me.

‘Yes, so I believe,’ I said. ‘They joined up together, didn’t they?’

‘Aye, the Black Watch,’ said Rearden. ‘Rab Dudgeon’s laddie was a’ for the King’s Own Borderers, but Billy got his way for once and the Royal Highlanders it was.’

‘For once?’ I said.

‘The usual thing o’ it was that the Dudgeon laddie said jump and Billy did the jumpin’.’

‘I had heard it was the other way round,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ said Rearden. ‘Ye’d have heard that from them, right? That would be whit they were sayin’.’

I smiled, acknowledging the point.

‘How impossible for Joey, in that case, then,’ I said. ‘Guilt as well as grief.’

‘Shinie’s boy was lost an’ all, ye ken,’ said Rearden. ‘Her brother.’ This I had not known, although it was hardly startling news. ‘Missin’ presumed,’ he went on. ‘Jist like wee Rab. And ye’d think it could have brought them closer, eh? Would ye no’? Would ye no’ think that?’ He glared at me until I nodded, agreeing with him on who knows what. ‘They nivver talked aboot it,’ said Rearden. ‘Not one word a’ these years, the both o’ them.’

‘Mr and Mrs Dudgeon didn’t?’ I said. ‘Or Joey and Mr Brown? Didn’t talk about what?’

‘Shinie and Rab,’ said Rearden. ‘Both o’ the laddies gone and they nivver once sat doon and had a dram together. We tried. Bringing him in here. Doing the old routine wi’ Joey. Cannae say we nivver tried. Look up there,’ he commanded suddenly, pointing a wavering finger to the row of bottles behind the bar. ‘See that? Does that no’ break yer heart?’ I looked along the row, but saw nothing that could be called heartbreaking except to Mr Turnbull or another of his Temperance chums. ‘Where is it?’ Rearden was muttering to himself. ‘Where is it away to?’ He tried to focus, slapping a hand over one eye and slowly tracing a pointing finger along in mid-air in line with the shelf. ‘That bottle there – it’s up there somewhere – that bottle o’ malt is fur the laddie. Eh? Kept there fur the laddie comin’ hame and naeb’dy else is let lay a finger on it.’ His voice was throbbing with emotion again, and as mawkish as this was in one way, it was hard not to get a little lump in one’s throat at the thought of Mr Brown keeping a bottle of special whisky, saved against the homecoming of his beloved son, who lay buried under the soil somewhere in France, too horribly mutilated even to identify and send home to his father.

‘Shinie!’ Rearden bellowed, all of a sudden, as loud as a gun going off in my ear. I yelped. ‘Here, Shinie! Where’s yer laddie’s drink away tae? Aye well,’ he said in a quieter voice, to me. ‘He’s mebbes put it behind him at last. I mind once a year or two back he took it doon and had done wi’ it. But then back it came. Shinie?’

I could hear Mr Brown advancing up the cellar steps, grumbling as he came.

‘Whaur’s yer laddie’s bottle?’ said Rearden, once his head came into view behind the bar. Brown frowned at me, understandably amazed to see me standing there. ‘Whaur is it?’ said Rearden. ‘I was jist tellin’ this lass aboot it.’

‘Hush now,’ I said, mortified to let Mr Brown think that Rearden had been spouting such intimate concerns of his to a practical stranger. ‘He’s got a bee in his bonnet about something, Mr Brown, and no mistake. I’ve no idea what the matter is.’

‘It’s Rab Dudgeon ye should be thinkin’ on the day, Paddy,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Not me. It’s Rab’s day the day. That’s who we should all be thinkin’ on.’ His voice was strained and thick, although he seemed sure enough in his movements and his eyes were clear. Perhaps he was regretting the silly joke he had played on his daughter on the Burry Man’s day, which after all needed Robert Dudgeon for a stooge and was not at all in the spirit of the Fair. Or perhaps he too was superstitious enough to think that he really had brought bad luck on Dudgeon with the dropped whisky. Certainly Brown had been keen enough to observe the ritual as to rush out into the street and try again, and Robert Dudgeon had been angry enough at the trick that he had dashed the dram to the ground. Or perhaps, in fact much more likely, it was not superstition after all. It was as Rearden said: with both their boys gone to the same fate and the union of the families never to come to pass, they should have been able to breach that wretched divide that cleaves so many Scotch towns in two, and now it was too late. Brown’s repeated insistence on the respect due to Robert Dudgeon certainly pointed that way.

‘It was indeed a terrible thing,’ I said. ‘And such a shock. He seemed so very hale and hearty just the day before.’ Mr Brown simply shook his head and walked away. I heard a couple of doors open and close, dividing him from us and then, despite them, the sound of dry, hacking sobs.

Rearden gazed owlishly across the bar with his bottom lip pushed out, saying nothing, and a few slow tears began to roll down his face too.

‘Well, at least you spent his last day with him,’ I said, grasping at straws. ‘That’s something rather wonderful for you to look back on.’

‘Aye but it wisnae richt,’ said Rearden. ‘The laughs we had on Burry Man’s day over the years, I could tell you. But no’ Friday. Rab Dudgeon wis in a state about somethin’ that day. Awfu’ strange first thing, and then goin’ daft like that richt at the end. He wisnae himsel’. An’ more nor me said it.’

‘I saw the strange little turn at the end,’ I said. ‘Saw it for myself. When he suddenly broke away from you and rushed into the hall? I thought at the time that maybe it was part of the ritual, but I believe not.’

‘Nivver done it before,’ Mr Rearden assured me. ‘And when we got in after him, he had ripped a’ his suit off his heid and halfway off his back as if they burrs were red hot needles in him.’ I could not help but stare at him on hearing that. Was it possible that there really was something off about the burrs? That Dudgeon had borne it stoically all day but had been unable at that moment to stand it a second more? Could we have hit on something with the story of poison after all?

‘How odd,’ I said, trying not to sound too interested. ‘And usually… what? Usually he would just stand quietly and let them be taken off by helpers?’ Pat Rearden offered nothing for another long, long moment. He was at that stage of drunkenness when the subject settles into himself like a melting jelly; almost asleep but with his eyes open.

‘Aye for sure,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a tricky job takin’ them off. No’ as tricky as getting’ them a’ on, mind, since it disnae matter whit it looks like, but they’re jaggit wee buggers, they burrs. Excuse ma language, madam, Ah’m forgettin’ myself. But Rab wis scratched to bits, Friday nicht, the way he’d jist hauled them off hissel’ like that.’

‘And first thing?’ I said, speaking loudly and slowly, hoping to get through the drink which seemed to be descending over him like a blanket of fog. ‘You said he was peculiar then too?’

‘Wisnae himsel’,’ said Rearden, mumbling it into his chest. ‘“Leave me, boys,” he says. “Leave me a minute, I need a minute jist tae myself.” Nivver wanted a minute on his own afore. Should o’ kent. We should o’ kent.’ He was beginning to work himself up again and I attempted to console him, telling him that no one could possibly have known anything and that he wasn’t to berate himself now. All the time, I was thinking furiously to myself. Both he and Mrs Dudgeon, then, had been asking to be alone, begging for time alone. There was something very suspicious about it. What possible reason could there be for the Burry Man to want to be alone before his round and to want the same thing so much at the end that he broke away from his guards and made a run for it? Could it be the same reason that Mrs Dudgeon begged to be left on her own? Wandered the woods in the night to get away from others and even put her beloved husband’s body away from her if that was the only way she could get rid of the mourners. I could not imagine any common purpose behind the two desires that did not smack of witchcraft, but perhaps one explanation could suffice for the Burry Man’s behaviour at the start and the end of his day.

‘When was this exactly?’ I said, wanting to get the clearest possible picture of the thing. It was rather a stretch, but if the burrs were poisoned perhaps Robert Dudgeon knew as soon as he was dressed that something was wrong. Perhaps he felt dizzy or sick and thought he needed a moment alone to gather himself. It was far-fetched but I thought I should press Rearden on it while I had the chance.

‘When did Mr Dudgeon ask to be alone?’ I persisted. ‘Mr Rearden?’ But Rearden only repeated to himself that it had never happened before and he should have known there was something wrong and that ‘Rab’ was not himself then he put his head down upon his crossed arms on the bar and was lost to me.

I watched him for a while and eventually heard doors opening again. Mr Brown returned to the bar.

‘I’ll ask you to forgive me, madam,’ he said. ‘It just… brought it all back.’

‘Of course it did,’ I said.

‘I couldnae just stand here and listen to Paddy,’ Brown went on. ‘What’s he… Eh, what’s he been saying anyway?’

I did not wish to tell him. There was no need to mention his son and the whisky and cause him further pain for one thing, but also I was reluctant to give him any information about the case. He was, after all, Joey Brown’s father and I was still very interested in Joey Brown.

‘Nothing very coherent,’ I settled on at last and Shinie gave his friend a rueful look.

‘Just as well I’m closed,’ he said, ‘or I’d be in trouble for lettin’ him get in thon state this early in the day.’ I could well imagine what the Turnbulls would make of the scene, and I could only agree.

‘He’ll sleep it off soon enough, poor chap,’ I said, still firmly on the side of the drinkers, thinking that the ten minutes I had spent with a maudlin drunk in this public bar had still managed to be more congenial than the turgid half-hour of lukewarm coffee and red-hot invective in the Turnbulls’ parlour. Mr Brown seemed to be feeling real remorse, though; the expression on his face as he looked at the top of Rearden’s head was quite bleak.

‘What the Temperance gang never do seem quite to understand,’ I said, ‘is the very real comfort of getting absolutely blind drunk when life has thrown you something unspeakably nasty.’ Mr Brown looked understandably surprised at this sharp turn in the conversation, as well he might. ‘I had coffee with Mrs Turnbull this morning,’ I explained. He could not prevent his lip from curling and I smiled. ‘And you know, even the hangover can be a comfort sometimes,’ I went on. ‘A real enemy to battle and a distraction from whatever caused one to get drunk in the first place. And then when the hangover clears, one is so happy to be feeling better that one’s spirits can’t help but lift a little. There’s a great deal to be said for strong drink in response to sorrow, all in all.’

‘Well, I’ve heard everything now!’ said a voice behind me. I jumped and turned around, flushing to the roots of my hair (I could feel it from the inside, as though I had walked into a steam-bath). One of the three ministers I had met at Buttercup’s cocktail party had opened the door of the bar without a sound and was standing in the threshold twinkling at me. A very useful little knack for a minister to have, I thought to myself.

‘What would this be, then?’ he said, advancing. ‘The Ladies’ Intemperance League? That’s a new one.’ He stopped at the bar, gave Rearden, still slumped face down on the counter, a shrewd look, then gave Brown an even shrewder one which made the landlord shuffle his feet and almost out-blush me. Ah, I thought, this must be Father Cormack. I could relax.

‘He’s only had beer, Father,’ said Brown. ‘And all on the house.’ I should have thought that made it worse: Rearden must have had to absorb simply buckets of the stuff to get this drunk on only beer.

‘Well, I’m not averse to a glass of beer,’ said Father Cormack, ‘although it can be filling and Miss Patterson was busy making dumplings when I left.’ Brown took a small glass from under the counter, polished it vigorously with a corner of his apron and poured a large tot of clear liquid from a bottle behind him.

‘Can I get you anything, madam?’ he said. ‘On the house, since I’m closed, of course.’

‘Sherry?’ I said, but at Father Cormack’s chuckle, I gathered my wits. ‘Or lemonade?’

‘I can heartily recommend the damson gin, Mrs Gilver,’ said Father Cormack, lifting his glass to hold it against the gas light and swirling it gently. ‘William here has his own recipe.’

‘Och, Father,’ said Brown. ‘You’re an awful man. It’s hardly worth callin’ it a recipe. You jist put a few damsons in a bottle o’ gin and wait.’

‘Of course,’ said Father Cormack. ‘What was I thinking? Ah, but lovely stuff it is once the wait is over.’

‘Well, you’ve persuaded me,’ I said. ‘I’m very partial to sloe gin and I’d like to try a new variation.’ Father Cormack chuckled again for reasons best known to himself, and Brown poured me a tot. It was, indeed, quite delicious; fragrant and spiced but with a kick like an angry donkey.

‘Gosh,’ I said, feeling as though flames were licking my toes. ‘Hoo! Well, here’s to Robert Dudgeon, gentlemen, wouldn’t you say?’ We raised our glasses, Brown lifting a beer tankard of his own, and drank.

‘And here’s to the Ladies’ Intemperance League,’ carried on Father Cormack. ‘Power to their elbow. I’d hate to see those Turnbulls cut the heart out of our little Burgh, Mrs Gilver, and that’s what it would do, make no mistake, if we lost our distilling and brewing. Wouldn’t it, William? You must know the old stories about the Hawes Inn.’

‘Smuggling?’ I said. ‘Pirates? Surely that doesn’t go on any more. And there’s no actual distilling either, is there? It’s just a bottling hall.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Father Cormack again. ‘What was I thinking?’ He paused and then continued in a much more serious voice with his twinkle turned down to a peep. ‘I missed you on Sunday, William,’ he said, putting down his empty glass and wiping his lips with a handkerchief as Brown refilled it. ‘You and Josephine. Friday too.’ Then he excused this public dressing down by turning to me and saying, cheerfully: ‘Aren’t you glad, Mrs Gilver, not to be one of my flock, to be chased up and ticked off like a lost lamb when it’s no one’s business but your own what you do on a Sunday morning? It’s a terrible burden, is it not now, William?’ Mr Brown looked miserably ill at ease in the face of this bantering, but I answered the priest like for like.

‘Certainly, I’m glad to be walking the broad path between such persecution and the absolute fire and brimstone on the other side. I was born in Northamptonshire, you know, where there is a happy third option.’

‘Ah, the Church of England,’ said Father Cormack, twinkling again, and putting his hand across his heart. ‘Will I tell the lady what we call them when there’s no one but us to hear, William? Will I, now.’

‘Father,’ said Mr Brown again. ‘You’re an awful man.’

I rather wanted to hear, but he was not to be persuaded – a terrible tease, it seemed – and instead he started again gently mocking me for my paean to the demon drink.

‘And you’re preaching to the needy, telling William here,’ he said. ‘Don’t let all these bottles here fool you, my dear lady. He’s on the slippery slope, aren’t you, lad? Started out working for a distillery, moved to work for a brewery, and now he’s only running a pub and selling the stuff; the poor man could end up with a lemonade stall if he’s not careful.’ He threw back his head and laughed and I joined in, not because any of this was particularly witty, but he was just such a dear little man with his twinkling eyes and his tuft of hair sticking out in a spout at the front with a gleaming bald head behind it. William Brown though, I noticed, did not laugh along with us, and I wondered after a moment if Father Cormack was not just a little cruel, a little cold, underneath his bonhomie; I was glad indeed not be one of his lambs.

Not long after this, a couple of heads were glimpsed bobbing along the street, just visible above the half-blinds in the windows, and we heard the clang of a shop door being opened along the terrace a-ways. The curfew, evidently, was over and Queensferry was coming back to life so I bid Father Cormack goodbye, thanked Mr Brown for the gin, causing yet another eruption of chortling, and patted Mr Rearden’s shoulder in farewell. Then I opened the door a crack and looked carefully up the street and down before sidling out and beginning to walk back to my motor car trying to look as though I had just done no such thing, which was more of a challenge than one would have imagined as the fresh sea air mingled with the unaccustomed mid-morning gin and made me feel more like waltzing in circles and singing.

After the ribbing I had given Alec about his inebriation the day before I felt most concerned to be myself again before we met and so on returning to the castle I went to my room and rang for more coffee even though there was barely an hour until luncheon. I was growing rather fond of my corner of the castle keep and, although I still wished for a few more windows about the place, for some reason it made me feel extra-specially studious to sit writing at my little desk with a lamp lit. I did spend quite a bit of my free time day by day doing just that, having learned the lesson well on my first case that one cannot guarantee to remember all that one has heard unless one writes it down immediately. Furthermore, it is no good simply sifting through and deciding what one thinks are the nuggets because, when one is detecting, the snippets one thinks are chaff often turn out to be pure gold, and the nuggets one hugs to one’s breast as treasure just as often reveal themselves to be utter clinker in the end. This, I often thought to myself, would be one of my most fiercely held detecting maxims if only I could resolve the metaphor into some respectable whole.

Accordingly, I wrote down as much as I could remember of the visit to the Turnbulls, the cart-hunt along the Back Braes and of course the drinking session in Brown’s Bar, and after two cups of strong coffee and some plain biscuits, I had filled six sheets and was ready to face the others in the Great Hall. I shrugged off my dark frock and chose a pearl-grey and pink stripe which Grant is very fond of and always packs even though, to my thinking, it has a little too much of the sailor dress about it for a woman of my age; if I wore it today and tried to drop something dark down the front, it would be safely hors de combat for the rest of the visit (Grant never attempts complicated laundering procedures away from home if she can help it).

I doubled back at the last minute to add some notes about my encounter with the weeping village women halfway up the Loan – I had forgotten about them, which rather proved the point about needing to keep careful notes – and so I was late for luncheon. The others were already being served with tomato soup when I arrived, Alec once more tucking his napkin into his collar and Cad once more looking rather shocked to see him do so. Tomato soup, of course, was perfect for my purposes. The pink and grey stripe would be at the bottom of the trunk with a sprinkling of soda under a brown-paper patch before the afternoon was out.

‘How did you enjoy your first Scotch funeral?’ I asked Cad as I sat down. He considered the question for a moment, nodding sagely.

‘I’m not sure that “enjoy” is the word,’ he said. ‘It’s a damn silly idea not to let the women join in for one thing. If the women were there weeping and wailing the men could be patting their shoulders and feeling superior. With no one else there to do the blubbing it was all down to us and I’ve never felt so uncomfortable in all my days.’

Buttercup and I looked first at him and then at Alec – thunderstruck with his mouth open – and then collapsed into giggles.

‘What?’ said Cadwallader. I was not sure I could have explained ‘what’ exactly if I had a week to think it out, only just that he was so very unlike other men and so utterly unaware of it that it was impossible not to laugh.

‘I must say, though,’ Cad went on, ‘I’d far prefer it if we went to the regular Sunday shindigs in that church instead of the Pisky, Freddy my love. It’s much less annoying when you can’t understand a word that’s being said. Still not soothing exactly – the pastor doesn’t have a soothing cadence – but I could learn to think of it as a kind of tone-poem, you know. Avant garde.’

‘It wouldn’t work,’ said Alec. ‘All of a sudden you’d find yourself beginning to catch the odd word and then whole phrases and then there’s no turning back. It happened to me with the men working on the estate. I used to assume they were talking about the birds and the trees and the bonny heathered glens. Then when my ear tuned in at last I got a rude awakening. Clara Bow’s legs, don’t you know. And all points north.’

‘Don’t speak too soon, my darling,’ I said. ‘They can still catch me out despite the yawning eternity I’ve been incarcerated here. I can’t, for instance, make head nor tail of what they call Robert Dudgeon’s little cart.’

‘I wondered about that,’ said Cad. ‘When I was going over the inventory. There are scores of them around, you know. We use them for all kinds of things.’

‘Anyway,’ said Alec, ‘since I now have a passable “guid Scots tongue in ma’ heid” -’

‘Alec!’ I said, sharply. I had spoken to him before about attempting a Scotch accent, more than once, and had told him that I would rather he scraped his fingernails down a slate.

‘Sorry!’ he said. ‘But you really are a bore sometimes, Dandy. It’s harmless fun. Anyway, since I can now interpret the natives like a missionary’s child, I did a good bit of earwigging this morning. There was a great deal of discussion about the death as you can imagine, a lot of pretty maudlin revelling in the fact that both father and son are gone and poor Mrs Dudgeon is all alone. How they rolled that around and admired it from all angles. Quite disgusting. As well as that, there was quite a bit of audible tallying of how much respect was being paid to Dudgeon, and from all that I could gather it washes out some of our suspicions about the various Ferry Fair factions. Both the Prod Padres were there and representatives of all three of the great families – four, of course, counting Cad.’ Cad looked surprised but very pleased to be lumped in with the Linlithgows, Roseberys and Stuart-Clarks in this way, and certainly did not suspect for a heartbeat that Alec’s tongue could be in his cheek. ‘Quite an impressive turn-out for an estate carpenter, and a clear sign, I thought, that the feeling for the Burry Man goes far too deep for him to be dislodged by a gaggle of hysterical -’ He caught my eye and stopped. ‘… by a few, and an unrepresentative few, ladies who have slightly lost their sense of perspective over a heartfelt difference of opinion.’ He flashed me a beaming smile and I blew him a raspberry in reply. ‘Now, Cad did manage to spot one of the Burry Man’s boys -’

‘The fat one,’ said Cad. ‘Not the fellow with the side-whiskers, no sign of him.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Alec. ‘And I did get the chance to sidle up to him and strike up a conversation.’

‘And?’ I said. ‘Oh damn and blast. I’ve dropped soup in my lap. Ho-hum.’

‘And I’m afraid I had to make reference to a rumour that it was the drink that did for Robert Dudgeon,’ said Alec, screwing his face up in a grimace of remorse.

‘Oh, Alec, you didn’t!’ I said. ‘Please tell me you didn’t. After Inspector Cruickshank and the doctor managed to keep it quiet for her. You are a stinker sometimes.’

‘Well, I had to get the talk round to the sandwich and the only way I could think to do it was to start with: did he think there was anything in the rumour, and even if there was, wouldn’t he say it was not enough food rather than too much drink that was at the bottom of it, and did people on the way around sometimes give the Burry Man food instead of whisky. How would you have got there starting from somewhere else, Dan?’

I thought about it for a minute or two and had to concede that there was no other obvious route to that particular destination. I took comfort in the thought that the Turnbulls and their like really had started exactly this rumour anyway and Alec had probably not done a great deal, in that particular company, to strengthen it.

‘And?’ said Buttercup to Alec. ‘What did he say? Was there a cloaked stranger who drew up and proffered the sandwich in a gnarled claw?’

‘There was not,’ said Alec. ‘The chap said that nobody ever gave the Burry Man food – pointed out that it would be rather cruel torture to do so since he couldn’t eat it – and that nothing but whisky passed his lips between nine and six. So I said, “Oh, I suppose his wife must have brought him the sandwich, then.” And he looked puzzled. And I said, “He did eat one, you know. It showed up in the post-mortem.” And then he looked at me as though I had crawled out from under a stone, and since we were just then walking at sombre pace behind the coffin en route from the church to the graveyard, I can quite see that what the PM found in the way of stomach contents was hardly polite.’

‘Yet the same point in respect of luncheon tables continues to elude you,’ said Buttercup.

‘And did you get a chance to ask any more after that gaffe or did he draw his skirts aside?’ I said.

Alec waited while the butler scooped a piece of fish on to his plate and a maid following after poured some sauce over it then he resumed.

‘Pray, don’t spare my feelings, Dandy,’ he said. ‘I can take it on the chin if you care to tell me exactly what you think. Yes, I did rather lose his confidence after that, but I fell into step with… wait for it… the famous Donald.’

‘Ah, Donald!’ I said. ‘Lay preacher, chief recruiter for the Band of Hope and all-round hero.’

‘You’re kidding!’ said Alec. ‘Donald is a Temperance Tenter?’

‘I didn’t think he looked the part either,’ I said, ‘but Mrs Turnbull assured me only this morning that he is their star turn.’

‘Well, well, well,’ said Alec. ‘That must have made things rather awkward at times in the family circle. Anyway, Donald and I got to talking, trailing along there behind the coffin, which was quite a surprise to me at first. Since he was the chief mourner in absence of anyone closer to fill the role, I’d have thought he’d be ringed around with pals. But it seems that a funeral is like a wedding in that respect. No one ever speaks to the groom at a wedding because they always assume he should be talking to someone else.’

‘I noticed that,’ said Cad. ‘It was one of the loneliest days of my life.’

‘Ooh, I loved my wedding day,’ said Buttercup. ‘Both of them. I wish I could have lots more.’

‘Ever the diplomat, darling,’ I said, as she clapped her hand belatedly over her mouth. ‘Are you going to send Cad to Brighton with a floozy or shove him off the ramparts?’

‘As I was saying,’ Alec resumed, sounding severe, ‘Donald and I started to chat about this and that and inevitably the talk turned to Robert Dudgeon and his last day and Donald latched on to that odd little moment, when the Burry Man was almost home and dry and he slipped his leash and headed for the hills. Well, the stairs. Donald told me that Dudgeon was found inside by the dignitaries, tearing off his burry suit, only he didn’t – Donald didn’t, I mean – take this to be an indication of poison. Instead he pointed out that people who are suffering a heart attack often talk about a constricted feeling in the chest. A “tight band” or a “band of steel” are the phrases and Donald’s theory is that Dudgeon felt this, took it to be sudden claustrophobia caused by being trussed up like a parcel all day and simply had to get out of the damn things with not a moment to lose.’

‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘It certainly fits the facts. Now Alec, since you’re on the subject of burrs, please tell me you remembered to -’

‘I remembered,’ said Alec with a great show of weary patience in his voice. ‘Have some faith in me, Dandy, please.’

‘Remembered what?’ said Buttercup.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Because the other Burry Boy was out cold on the bar counter before I had a chance to ask him.’

‘What?’ said Cad, Alec and Buttercup together, staring at me.

‘Oh yes, I’ve a tale of my own to tell about this morning,’ I said. ‘But first things first. Alec?’

‘I’m rather proud of this,’ said Alec. ‘I asked just how bad a thing it was for Dudgeon to do that rushing and ripping off stunt. Asked – you know, very wide-eyed and eager to understand the folklore – if it was bad luck or sacrilege or anything to treat the burrs in that way.’

‘Oh, good thinking,’ I said. ‘Excellent!’

‘And Donald told me that no, not especially, although he did mention that in days gone by people used to pluck burrs from the suit as the Burry Man came around and replace them with flowers. It’s died out for some reason, but Donald supposed that that’s the origin of the few flowers still sticking out of the costume here and there.’

‘What a shame it stopped,’ said Buttercup. ‘That must have been lovely. Cad, I think if you and I are in on this next year we should try to reinstate the flower thingummy. We can donate the blooms if our gardens are up and running in time.’

‘Anyway,’ said Alec, ‘it was the easiest step in the world from there to asking what does happen to the things afterwards, and hearing that it’s usually nothing in particular, they just go out for the dustmen once they’ve been picked off the inner suit. And then I asked him if he knew how they ended up back at Dudgeon’s house this year, and he said he didn’t know.’

‘That was skating pretty close to the edge,’ I said. ‘Did it raise his suspicions to have you asking about them? After him finding me guddling with them yesterday, I mean?’

‘It didn’t seem to,’ said Alec. ‘He didn’t mention you.’

‘Hmm,’ I said, stirring my spoon round and round in my syllabub. It started to collapse and then I remembered how delicious Mrs Murdoch’s fruit fool had been the day before and decided just in time that this syllabub probably deserved better treatment. I licked my spoon clean and laid it down again. ‘It would have been good to hear from one of the horses’ mouths, just exactly what happened about those burrs,’ I said. ‘I can’t think of any innocent reason for them to have been saved. And I can’t really see how anyone except Dudgeon or Mrs Dudgeon could have organized getting them into a sack and into the cart. But then I’m absolutely convinced that Mrs Dudgeon did not kill her husband, so I can’t see why she should be concerned to take the things home. And if she was then why did she let them lie for days on the midden heap for anyone to find?’

‘We’ve already said that she was desperate to get rid of everyone from the house,’ said Alec. ‘To give her the chance to get the things on the fire.’

‘In which case she would have been discovered wandering around in the night with a box of matches and some kindling,’ I pointed out. ‘Not with a bottle of ink and a pen.’

‘It’s terribly niggly-piggly sort of work, detecting, isn’t it?’ said Buttercup. ‘You sound so cross with each other, bickering away like that.’ She stood up and dropped her napkin on to her seat. ‘I think I’ll go for a nap,’ she announced. ‘Cad? Come and tuck me in?’

‘Absolutely, my love, I’ll be right there,’ said Cadwallader. ‘But Dandy,’ he went on, ‘are you really saying that the poisoned burrs theory is still on the table?’ Buttercup left the room unnoticed, her shoulders in a sorrowful little slump of self-pity. Cadwallader would have to do some extra billing and cooing this afternoon to make up for the slight.

‘Darling,’ I told him, happy to be in the position to spread such cheer, ‘I am. For one thing there is a rumour to that effect doing the rounds of the local tots and I’ve had independent corroboration this very morning that these little ones are to be ignored at our peril.’ Cad looked at me, open-mouthed, eager for more, but I was tired of having an audience. I wanted to get Alec to myself and really thrash the thing out.

‘Buttercup awaits,’ I reminded him.

‘Is that a secret code?’ he breathed in response. Alec gave a shout of laughter, and Cad joined in with a good-natured grin.

‘I think I’ll leave you to it,’ he said. ‘It’s all way, way over my head. And Freddy’s expecting me.’