The Burry Man’s Day

Chapter Seven

Of the three of us, Alec certainly had the best of it the next day. Cad was to take the widow to town, I was to sit with the sisters in her absence, since with Mrs Dudgeon gone their tongues would surely be loosened, and Alec was to start his round of the hostelries.

At eleven in the morning then, we scattered to our tasks, Alec taking my motor car to the first pub on his list, Cad setting off with black hat and solemn face in Buttercup’s Austin to pick up Mrs Dudgeon, and I beginning my solitary tramp through the woods. Solitary, because Buttercup had once again declined to have any part in the day’s adventures and had avoided being press-ganged by the simple but effective method of not getting dressed. She had still been in curling-pins and cold cream, propped up in bed when I had swept into her room half an hour before to drag her with me and her smile had been triumphant as she watched me concluding that I didn’t have time to wait for her. She merely gave a happy sigh and turned the page of her Tatler as I glared and marched out again and worst of all, because of the luscious pile of her bedroom carpet, I could not even slam the door.

Hopeless as she was though, I began fervently to wish as I made my way into the woods that I had insisted she come with me. It was another beautiful day, getting hot as noon approached, but sweet and fresh in the trees, at least in this part of the forest where the ground was dry under birch and spruce. Elsewhere, no doubt, streams, bogs and years of broad leaves rotting would make the woodland unpleasantly rank as August sweltered on, but here was a carpet of needles and patches of sunshine. What could be more cheerful? What could be farther from mould and cobwebs? And yet, as I say, I found myself wishing heartily as I advanced that Buttercup was there, or even better that I had Bunty with me and, despite the dappling sunshine and trilling birds, my pulse was knocking by the time the edge of the wood was out of sight behind me.

Once or twice I fancied I heard footsteps, but then I was just as sure that I heard breathing, and that could hardly be so. Oh, for Bunty! The value of a dog, when one is walking through woods getting spooked for no reason at all, is that a dog has keener hearing but a much duller imagination than oneself and so will mooch along nose to the ground no matter what horrors one’s fancy conjures, and it is only when the ears prick and the nose quivers that one can be sure there is something going on outside one’s own head, and even then it is most likely a rabbit. I shook myself, firmly telling myself that there was no such thing as ghosts, that there was no one creeping along beside me breathing heavily and watching me and, although the jitters did not leave me, I at least managed to keep going and not bolt back to the castle in fright.

However, I was so thoroughly rattled by the time I arrived at the clearing that on seeing someone emerge around the corner of the Dudgeons’ cottage six feet away from me as I came at the building from the side, I jumped clear off the ground and shrieked. The other person shrieked too, even louder, and it took each of us a moment to register who it was who had so alarmed the other. At last, though, I recognized Miss Joey Brown the barmaid, round-eyed and with her hand pressed to her heart, shrinking back against the cottage wall and staring, whereupon I gave a fluttering laugh to excuse myself and cover my embarrassment. Much to my surprise, however, although Miss Brown soon recovered from her initial fright, she grew no more calm; she nodded to me politely enough and murmured a greeting, but she kept making darting glances back the way she had come, and when I followed her looks with my own, she grew even more flustered, standing square before me blocking the path, as though I would want to go around to the back of the cottage and it was her duty to stop me. Then, seeming to realize how foolish she was being, she gave it up and attempted to look casual as she strolled towards the front door, only ruining it with one more fearful look over her shoulder. I stood my ground for a moment, but I knew I could not go squirrelling about the back regions of Mrs Dudgeon’s house, not with the place full of mourners as it was, so I met Miss Brown’s backward glance with a frank smile and followed her around the path to the front. She disappeared inside without knocking and went into the room on the left where the coffin lay, but I rapped on the open door and waited.

‘Ye ’ve missed her, madam,’ said the woman I thought was called Tina, who came to admit me. ‘Chrissie’s away to the Rosebery Hall wi’ Izzy and Mr de Cassilis.’

‘Yes, so I believe,’ I said, sitting and accepting the inevitable teacup. ‘But to tell the truth I wanted to come while Mrs Dudgeon was out, to ask how you think she is today. Yesterday…’ I shook my head and was met with matching head-shakes from all around. There was, as I had hoped, an air of greater ease around the place without Mrs Dudgeon there, despite the fact that the body of Dudgeon himself still lay in the next room.

‘I wish I had some good news for you, madam,’ said one of the older ladies. ‘But if anything she’s worse. Tell her, Margaret.’

‘I was here last night, madam,’ said Margaret. ‘Donald was sitting with Rubbert, but we thought somebody should be here for Chrissie too, and were we ever right! She would not go to her bed, never mind she was fit to cowp over she was that tired. She jist sat here, telling me I needed to lie down, I needed to get my sleep. Well, of course, I did shut my eyes in the end.’

‘Of course you did.’

‘You’re only mortal.’

I nodded my agreement with this, and loath as I was to interrupt the flow I took the chance while I had it of backtracking a little to check up on something puzzling.

‘Is Donald there now?’

‘Eh?’

‘Next door with Joey.’

‘Oh, you ken Miss Josephine Broon, do you, madam?’

There was something in her voice which hinted that if she had had her way, Joey Brown would not have been awarded her role as mourner. I decided to probe a little.

‘Is she a relative?’ I asked. ‘Miss Brown?’

‘Not exactly,’ said another of the sisters.

‘She should hae been.’

‘It would nivver have come to nothing.’

‘Och, Margaret,’ said Bet. ‘We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns.’

‘Aye, but a barmaid,’ said Margaret.

‘We can hardly turn up wur noses at her for workin’ behind the taps,’ said Tina and there was a little gentle laughter. I smiled along with them in a vacant kind of way, but hoped that someone would take pity on me and explain. At length, Bet volunteered.

‘She was walking out with young Bobby,’ she said with a nod towards the photograph on mantelpiece. ‘They hadn’t named the day but they were getting there.’

‘Aye, only Billy – that was Joey’s brother – he joined up the minute he turned eighteen and whatever Billy Broon did, Bobby Dudgeon did too. Ever since bairns this was. Bobby would never have left his mammy if he hadn’t been hanging on to Billy Broon’s coat-tails and here if it didnae end in heartache all round for everyone.’

‘Most distressing,’ I said. This snippet of news at least explained why Joey Brown’s father had felt she had to be here, and perhaps if she felt some residual responsibility over young Bobby’s death – since it was her brother who encouraged him to join up – that might even go some way to explain her grief and guilt when Mr Dudgeon died. I decided not to pursue it any further, but to try to get back to the main thread.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs… Margaret,’ I said. ‘You were saying, before I interrupted, about having no good news of Mrs Dudgeon this morning.’

‘Aye richt. Well, as I wis tellin’ ye, I fell to sleep and when I woke again, it was gettin’ light, near four o’clock and Chrissie was nowhere to be seen. I thocht she had gone through and lain doon at last and I jist cracked the door to have a wee keek at her, to see that she was restin’ peaceful… but she wisnae there! I went through to Rubbert. She wisnae there either. Donald had dropped off – well, he’s a long day at his work to be sittin’ up the nicht – and he hadnae heard a thing. So oot we went. Quiet-like, no’ wantin’ to stir all they bairns, and we went lookin’ for her. A good hour we looked and we were near ready to come up to the house and get Mr de Cassilis to phone to the police and start raisin’ some men, when we saw her at last.’

‘And?’ I said.

‘She was wanderin’ home from wherever she had been. Cold as a dab o’ ice, she must have been oot for hours. Fit to drop, she was.’

‘But where had she been?’ I said. ‘Did she tell you?’

‘She… well, she wisnae herself, madam, and that’s the truth,’ said Margaret. ‘At first we thocht she had gone away to do herself harm – ye ken what I’m sayin’? – cos she had a wee bottle in her hand. “Oh Chrissie,” I says, “Chrissie, hen? If you would only jist get the doctor or get the minister, or jist even lie down and rest. You’ll get through, hen. Didn’t I get through when Jock was taken?” Mind you, I hadnae had my only boy go off to the war and no’ come hame again.’

‘Dear God,’ I said. ‘Thank heaven you found her in time.’

‘But it wisnae that after all, madam,’ said Margaret. ‘Thon wee bottle was nothing evil after all. It was ink.’

‘Jist a bottle o’ ink,’ said one of the others.

‘Ink?’ I said, frowning around the ring of faces, puzzled. ‘A bottle of ink?’

‘And she hadnae drunk none o’ it,’ said Margaret. ‘It’s not like you could miss it if she had.’

‘Aye well,’ said Bet, ‘she’s no’ hersel’ right enough.’ And she seemed content to leave it at that.

There was a time when I might have been too, but in my short detective career one of the lessons I had learned, the hard way, was never to abandon the attempt to make sense of things; random anomaly is an explanation of the very last resort. So, if Mrs Dudgeon had been wandering around in the night with a bottle of ink in her hand, it must have been for a reason.

‘Did she have a pen with her?’ I asked. They shook their heads.

‘Did she have paper?’ More shakes.

‘And do you have any idea what she might have been doing?’ I said. Nothing but blank looks greeted this; if the ink was not a suicide draught, it seemed, they had nothing more to offer.

‘Ah well,’ I said, turning the subject, determining to file away the bottle of ink and puzzle it out on my own later, ‘maybe she’ll be easier in herself after this morning’s errand.’ I got the impression from the reception this gained that the sisters had been long trying to comfort themselves with such thoughts, and failing. They nodded politely but looked unconvinced.

‘Is she – Is Mrs Dudgeon -’ I began. I had to tread carefully here; it was their own flesh and blood after all. Although some of them surely must be in-laws. There was no family resemblance among the set. ‘I hardly know how to ask this without sounding rude,’ I went on, ‘and I mean no disrespect, but were Mrs Dudgeon’s nerves strong before this happened? After her son’s death, it would have been entirely unsurprising if she had been laid low. And if she had been at all nervous before that, well, by now with such tragedies heaped one upon the other… Might it be a good idea to see if she could get away for a rest somewhere, perhaps?’ I thanked my stars for Grant and all her chatter, for without her generously shared postings from her clan I should not have been able to speak so assuredly of ‘nerves’ and ‘rest’ and might have put my foot squarely in it talking instead of sanatoria and madness. As it was, the sisters looked sceptical but not in the least affronted.

‘Naw, Chrissie’s never had any trouble of that kind before, madam,’ said one. ‘I dinnae ken if that makes it worse or better, though.’

‘Even when Bobby was lost,’ said another. ‘They both of them took it brave. No matter there’s a case to say “missing presumed” is harder to get over than anything else.’

‘I quite agree,’ I said. ‘Torture. It must be so hard to stop hoping. Perhaps that’s why Mrs Dudgeon was so very set on having her husband’s body brought home as quick as it could be. That would make sense, psychologically, wouldn’t it?’ But I had lost them.

At that moment we heard the sound of the motor car returning. I had thought to have more of a chance with the sisters than this, but I supposed that when the walk through the woods was added there had been ample time for Cad to have driven to the village and back and for Mrs Dudgeon to have carried out her sorry little bit of business there. As it turned out, there had been time for more than that. After some murmured talk at the doorstep and the sound of the next-door cottage’s front door opening and closing – perhaps some of the red-haired terrors attracted by the sound of the engine? – Cad and Mrs Dudgeon entered. She had her head bowed and greeted no one, but Cad gave me a look quivering with significance as he ushered her to a chair and he nodded a signal to me to keep my seat and wait for something worth waiting for.

‘Everything well, Chrissie?’ said one of the sisters.

‘Aye, fine,’ said Mrs Dudgeon. ‘We stopped off at Faichen’s after the registrar. He’s comin’ to get Robert. The hearse’ll be here in half an hour.’

A moment of stunned silence met this remark, during which Cadwallader caught my eye and wiggled his eyebrows.

‘What?’ said Margaret at last.

Mrs Dudgeon stuck her chin up as she answered. She seemed different this morning. No more resigned, still not accepting, but less agitated and firmer in her resolve. Resolve to do what, though? I listened closely as she spoke.

‘He’s takin’ Robert away to his place for tonight. The funeral’s tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Donald can sit there with him tonight as easy as here.’

‘But -’ began Margaret, then stopped. She looked at me, willing me to think of something to say about any of this, but I was as perplexed as the rest of them.

‘Do ye no’ think, Chrissie,’ said one of the oldest of the women, brave soul, ‘do ye no’ think you’d rather he stayed here the last night? Do ye no’ think ye’d be sorry in the end if he lay in thon place?’

‘It’s my decision,’ said Mrs Dudgeon, still very firmly. ‘My business and mine alone.’ The sister who had spoken last got two spots of colour right in the middle of her cheeks upon hearing this and I too thought it was a bit much, if I am honest. After all, this was her family and they had been very generous with their time in the last few days even if they had been an irritant rather than a comfort. Besides she had hardly shown steady judgement until now. ‘And so I’ll thank ye all and I’ll take ye up on your offers. It was that kind of you all to say you’d help me out.’ There were some perplexed glances at this, but she went on to elaborate. ‘I cannot see myself doin’ any bakin’ today. I’d never have thocht to say it and I dinnae ken what folk’ll say aboot me, ma ain man buried and ma kitchen cold, but Margaret, you said you’d do a big cake, and if Betty can make a good load of scones, we’ll no’ need soup in a’ this heat. Now I’ve a wee bit put by so Tina, if you and Mima can get a good lot of ham from Fairlie’s and do sandwiches we should manage fine.’

‘Ham sandwiches,’ I said under my breath, remembering.

‘And I’ll stay here with you, Chrissie,’ said the remaining sister who had been assigned no mess duty.

‘Suit yoursel’,’ said Mrs Dudgeon. ‘There’s no need and I wis going to ask you to make a big trifle, or two even if you take my bowl away with you. But I can jist as easy get Izzy to do it, or we can do without if you don’t think you can manage.’

I could see the woman tussling with herself. If she was famed for her trifles the thought of letting someone else take over would be painful, and the idea that it would be published abroad that she was asked and had refused was insupportable. Mrs Dudgeon was watching her quite calmly, and eventually she succumbed.

‘Aye, fine, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll do a couple of big trifles. My custard’s a sight more reliable than Izzy’s. But are you sure you’ll be all right here on yer own?’

Mrs Dudgeon nodded, and I found myself nodding along with her. Of course she would be all right. She had wanted to be on her own since yesterday and this was nothing short of a master stroke. The women, who one would have thought could not have been pried away from her side with a crowbar, were already fidgeting and beginning mentally to calculate what they had in their cupboards and what they would have to go to the shops and buy.

‘And if ye can tie up some of your good dishes in paper the nicht,’ went on Mrs Dudgeon, ‘I’ll send Donald in the cart to get them and I can have them all washed and ready for the morn.’

I was beginning to feel sorry for this Donald, whoever he was, doing the round on the cart to pick up everyone’s best china for the funeral tea, before sitting up yet another night with the coffin.

‘Wee Tina can gie ’im a hand,’ said Tina senior.

‘And we’ll all be round the morn’s morn to help you get set oot,’ said Jessie. Mrs Dudgeon nodded and said she didn’t know what she would do without them and it was settled.

Masterful. Before the sisters really had a chance to say a word about it they and we were being bundled out of the door, Cad offering lifts which were, of course, declined. When we were all out in the passageway, Joey Brown put her head around the door of the other room to see what the commotion was and catching sight of her Mrs Dudgeon insisted on her leaving too, insisted that she wanted a bit of time just Robert and herself before Faichen got here to take him away. Her voice broke once as she said this.

‘There’s no one else with him just now?’ I said, glancing at Miss Brown, who had the grace to blush; it was a shocking dereliction of her duty to have sloped off and left Mr Dudgeon’s body alone.

Mrs Dudgeon shut the door firmly on us all as soon as she decently could and the sisters set off down the path.

‘I might go this way,’ I said in a loud voice to Cad, gesturing around the side of the cottage and towards the woods, and I was rewarded with a stiff look from Miss Brown. With her jaw rigid she glanced once at me and once fleetingly towards the back of the house, then she squared her shoulders, faced front again and strode forward to meet the others.

‘What for?’ said Cadwallader, but I shushed him.

‘It was a blind,’ I said, ‘and it worked. Now take me to the castle, darling. I need to make some notes before I forget all of this. Very puzzling. Very puzzling indeed.’

Alec, returning to the castle for lunch, was – there is no other word for it – drunk. He asked the butler for a glass of milk and ate slice after slice of bread, buttered and rolled up, but still his eyes were swimming.

‘You have to have the milk and starch first, you goose,’ I told him. ‘You should have had a pint of porridge for breakfast. It’s far too late now to do you any good. But what did you find out?’

‘Apart from the limits of my constitution?’ said Alec. ‘Very little. Nothing. Only that the Burry Man had a sizeable nip at each of the pubs and that most of the “right ferry folk” also gave him either a penny or a nip, a penny if they have children most usually and a nip if they don’t. Except that some of them give both, but the incomers and some of “those and such as those” do neither, or if they do it’s more likely money than drink. But all in all, he could quite easily have had more than enough whisky to kill him. Just as the doctor said.’

‘Is that what you were trying to prove?’ said Cadwallader, looking hurt. ‘Do you still not believe me that something fishy is going on here?’

‘Oh certainly, we believe that,’ I told him. ‘More definitely all the time. Only I’m not convinced that the mystery is a murder mystery, that’s all. Now Alec, here’s a thing. I had forgotten this until Mrs Dudgeon was organizing the funeral feast this morning, and the bad news is that if you forgot too you might have to go round again and pump the publicans for more details.’ Alec groaned. ‘Unless,’ I went on, ‘on your travels did anyone own up to the ham sandwich?’

‘Is that a code name?’ said Buttercup.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember? The police surgeon said that Robert Dudgeon had nothing in his stomach except a great deal of alcohol and a ham sandwich.’ There was a chorus of disgust at my choice of topic for the luncheon table, Buttercup spluttering with dainty squeamishness and Alec clearly on a knife-edge after all the beer.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but some of our sensibilities must be set aside. Alec and I have learned that to our cost in the past. So darling, did anyone mention a sandwich?’

Alec shook his head.

‘Isn’t it all part of the bravado of the Burry Man,’ said Buttercup, ‘that he can’t eat a thing once he’s in his little green suit? The ham sandwich must have been waiting for him when he disrobed at the end of the day. Mrs Dudgeon must have brought it from home.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘After all, he must have eaten it fairly late on for it still to have been identifiable as -’ Alec gulped and I stopped. ‘But there’s something not quite right there. Something that occurred to me on the very first night when we went round to the cottage, Buttercup.’

‘Which cottage is that?’ said Cad.

‘Oh Lord, can’t we just tell him, “Freddy”?’ I said. ‘I’ll never remember to stop.’

‘You dare,’ said Buttercup. ‘I know things about you I can tell as well, my dear.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Cad. ‘What are they talking about, Osborne?’

‘No idea as usual,’ said Alec. ‘But the drink has made it much less annoying.’

‘That very first time we went there,’ I resumed, ‘that awful fierce woman was banging around washing all manner of pots and pans, wasn’t she?’ Buttercup shrugged. ‘Well, she was. I was reminded of it the next day when all the sisters were fighting over a little teacup to wipe. Now here is the question: what meal was that the washing up of?’ No one responded. ‘From what meal sprang those pots and pans? Do you see?’ Alec gazed at me owlishly, with his mouth slightly open and Cad and Buttercup looked expectant and polite, but blank. ‘If Robert was out Burry Manning all day, they couldn’t be luncheon pots. And if Mrs Dudgeon packed a sandwich to take to him so that he could go straight from his rounds to the greasy pole competition then they’d hardly be supper pots, would they?’

‘Well then, they must have come from the night before’s supper, then,’ said Buttercup. ‘But I can’t see that they matter.’

‘The night before?’ I said. ‘My dear girl, Mrs Dudgeon would have you up for slander if she heard you. Dirty pots sitting overnight and all day in a decent woman’s cottage kitchen? And at Ferry Fair time too. Impossible! No, the only explanation is that Dudgeon had indeed meant to go home after discarding his burrs and that Mrs Dudgeon had supper ready for him. Someone in the crowd at the greasy pole expressed surprise that he was there – I overheard it – and apparently Mrs Dudgeon had refused to shift her pony and her sweet little trundle-cart from where it stood waiting, saying that she was going to take Robert home. But… he doubled back. And… at some point he ate that pesky sandwich.’

‘Which…’ said Cad, trying to catch up, ‘… you’re saying might have been poisoned?’ I sighed in exasperation.

‘No, Cad, for heaven’s sake, which I’m not saying might have been poisoned. Please will you get untraceable poison out of your head once and for all. All I’m saying is that we need to find out where they got to on this aborted journey homewards; where it was that he was taken in and fed.’

‘And what will that tell us?’ said Buttercup. Alec showed no sign of having registered anything; his head had sunk until his chin was on his chest.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘But it might be significant. If Dudgeon was being threatened by someone who wanted to stamp out the Burry Man, perhaps this same someone waylaid the cart on Friday evening and subjected Mr and Mrs Dudgeon to a tirade on the subject of their broken agreement.’

‘With light refreshments,’ said Buttercup, drily. I had to laugh.

‘I admit it sounds a little odd. But look at Alec here.’ We all looked at Alec, who gave a gentle snore. ‘If one were determined to have a serious talk with him at the moment one might well start by shovelling in some sustenance. I’d go for strong coffee rather than sandwiches, but still.’

‘I still don’t see what any of that will tell us about the actual death,’ said Cad, sounding rather sulky.

I refused to rise to the bait again, but I mollified him a little by saying: ‘At the very least, if someone did harangue Dudgeon on his way home on Friday night, and if he thought they might follow him all the way back to his cottage to carry on haranguing him there, and because of that he decided to go back to the Fair instead of sleeping it all off at home, then to my mind that person has a great deal to feel guilty about. I mean, the strain of the day and the drink might be the main culprits but any upset or worry added to the mix had to have played a part. And if Dudgeon was as keyed up then as Mrs Dudgeon is now I would quite happily say that his state of mind was what tipped the scales. After all, he did the parading and the drinking every other year and they didn’t kill him. It was this year, with the mysterious worry, that he died.’

Cad nodded and seemed satisfied with this to be going on with.

‘We’ll have coffee upstairs,’ said Buttercup to a maid who had come to clear the table. ‘Lots of strong coffee.’ She reached under the table to nudge Alec with her foot and he stirred, grunting. The maid smirked and left.

‘After which,’ I said, ‘I’m off back to the Dudgeons’ place to poke around at the back and see if I can work out what Miss Joey Brown was up to this morning.’

‘Do you suspect her?’ said Cad.

‘I’m not sure,’ I answered. ‘There’s something slightly off about her, but it might be quite separate from our concerns. Worth checking, though.’

‘And can we do anything?’ said Cad.

‘You could try to come up with a reason that Mrs Dudgeon should be out wandering the woods in the middle of the night with a bottle of ink,’ I said. ‘Or actually, more usefully, do you have a Post Office Directory in the house?’ Cad and Buttercup looked at each other and then shrugged in unison. ‘If you do you could try to work out the Dudgeons’ most obvious route from the Rosebery Hall towards their cottage and see who lives along the way that might be of interest.’

‘Of interest in what way?’ said Buttercup, screwing up her face as she used to do when asked questions in class at our finishing school. I knew exactly what I meant, but it was impossible to explain to someone who did not catch on to it automatically.

‘Or,’ I said, scooting down in my seat as Buttercup had done and giving Alec a sharp kick on the front of the shin, ‘you could see what you can do with this sorry case. Try holding him under in a water-butt perhaps and then get him to do the detecting. It’s what he’s here for, after all. And, finally, tell me where I can lay my hands on a dog.’