The Crozier Pharaohs

6

The Poacher’s Story

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I’ve got another of those nutters outside, sir,’ said the desk sergeant to Police Inspector Burfield. ‘Name of Adams.’

‘Not somebody else who wants to tell us he knows who murdered that man we took out of the river?’

‘That’s right, sir. He’s the fourth since Thursday. It’s that poacher chap. Shouldn’t have thought he was a nutcase. Out for what he can get, I reckon.’

‘I’d better see him. Looks as though we’re not the only people who thought the verdict given at the inquest was more than a bit doubtful. All right, send him in.’

The individual who was shown in was utterly unlike any of the three earlier visitors to whom the sergeant had referred One of these had claimed to be clairvoyant; another was an escapee from a mental hospital who had been claimed by the authorities almost before he had concluded a confession that he was a murderer; the third had been a pseudo-clergyman eccentric but harmless, who said that he had witnessed the murder in what he called a vision. As none of his descriptions tallied even slightly with anything which the police knew, he had been dismissed, like the clairvoyant, with a promise that ‘we will look into it’.

The present claimant to knowledge was a wiry, ferret-faced man wearing, in spite of the fine summer weather, a long overcoat which, to the police inspector’s experienced eye housed a poacher’s pocket. He had seen Adams before. He said to the disreputable man, ‘Well, what’s your problem? Keep it short. I’m busy.’

‘To come to the point, then, sir, I was wondering whether a bit of information might be worth a bob or two.’

‘Information about what?’

‘This bloke as was found in the river up about Abbots Crozier.’

Burfield did not betray the fact that he was interested. He said, ‘That’s all over and done with. We’ve held the inquest.’

‘You mean you knows who he was?’

‘No, we don’t know who he was. The inquest decided that the death was the result of an accident.’

‘And what if it wasn’t? What if somebody bashed him over the napper?’

‘You’re wasting my time. You own a dog, don’t you?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Licensed?’

‘Course she’s licensed. What do you take me for?’

‘You wouldn’t like it if I told you. What about those pheasants I heard about last autumn?’

‘I don’t never go trespassing after pheasants, sir. I only takes what I knows to be ferry naturee, such as rabbits and that.’

‘Fairy what?’

‘No, sir. Meaning as they don’t belong of nobody, so is a free-for-all. That’s all I ever takes, sir.’

‘If you’ve anything useful to say, say it and be off. If you think you know who the dead man was, you had better tell me. It’s a serious thing to withhold evidence.’

‘I can’t put a name to him, but I can tell you where he was dossing down the night before he was killed.’

The Axehead police had continued to make enquiries in their attempt to identify the dead man, but all efforts had proved to be in vain. Nobody appeared to have known him. The inspector jingled some silver in his pocket.

‘All right. Come across with it,’ he said. The story which emerged was circumstantial, but Burfield was inclined to think that it was true. Unfortunately it was of no immediate help in identifying the man found in the river.

According to the poacher, who lived in a shack on the moor about three miles from Crozier Lodge, on the morning in question he had gone at first light to look at some snares he had set and found that he had caught five rabbits. He had decided to offer them to the Rant sisters, as he often did, ‘them dogs of theirs being partial to a bit of rabbit’ — so he had taken them along to Crozier Lodge.

‘All five?’ asked Burfield.

‘Yes, sir, being that I’d been up to the hills a day or two before and had a nice hare hanging up ready for my own pot, hares on the mountain being anybody’s for the hunting, as the old song says.’

‘That lurcher of yours will land you in trouble one of these days.’

Adams ignored this warning and went on with his tale. Thinking that it was a little early to disturb the ladies — it being, he reckoned, not much past five in the morning — and being unwilling to carry five plump rabbits to his shack and then transport them later in the day to Crozier Lodge, he did as he had done before on similar occasions. He went to the back door of Crozier Lodge, which he had always found unlocked, opened it and deposited the rabbits on the kitchen table. When his occasions took him that way again, he proposed to call for his money and get the two thick slices of home-made bread and good beef dripping which were his perks when he made such visits. There was never any difficulty in getting paid for the rabbits, he explained, the ladies being as honest as the day and not the sort to try to do a good man down.

What he did not know at the time, although Morpeth told him later, was that, since the sisters had learned that they had a night prowler, they always locked and bolted both the back and front doors, so, for the first time, he could not get in.

He did not want to knock anybody up, so he thought of leaving the rabbits in the garage, where he assumed they would soon be found, but the garage also had been made secure. He then mounted the outside stair to the garage loft.

Matters, however, did not turn out as he had hoped. The door to the upper room was not locked, so he had opened it and was about to step over the threshold into the very dimly lighted chamber when he heard somebody moving about. He supposed it was a tramp and — ‘me being what you might call a bantam-weight, sir’ — he had decided to make a discreet withdrawal rather than risk annoying the vagrant by invading his sleeping quarters.

‘Oh, yes?’ said Burfield. ‘And, having read the papers, I suppose the minute you opened the door you detected a strong smell of aniseed.’

‘Aniseed, sir? Why should I? Anyway, I didn’t smell nothing unexpected beyond what you’d expect.’

‘Never been in the dog-stealing business, then? Oh, never mind. Go on.’

In turning, Adams had caught his heel and dropped the rabbits — ‘being as I’d tied up their back legs and put ’em along a stick as I carries so I can put the stick acrorst my shoulder with four of the rabbits hanging from it two by two and t’other un in my overcoat pocket’. Burfield said that he fancied he knew all about that pocket, but that the matter need not be discussed at this juncture.

The noise must have been heard by the tramp. He gave a shout and Adams could hear a chair, a decrepit object, but a favourite, perhaps, at one time, with Dr Rant, creaking as the occupant pushed it aside. Adams had retrieved the stick and the rabbits, flung himself down the stone stair and hidden himself away round by the side of the garage, hoping that the tramp would not try to find out the reason for the disturbance.

The next thing Adams heard was a curse and then the sound of the door at the top of the staircase being shut. He did not know at the moment whether the man up above him was now inside or outside the building, although he assumed that the curse was because the fellow had stumbled, as he himself had done. However, it was soon clear that somebody had emerged from the loft, for the next thing was the sound of footsteps on the stone staircase.

Adams remained where he was, hoping that the man, realising that somebody was about, would now take flight. He himself remained in hiding until he thought the coast would be clear, but he did lean out to get a glimpse of the man. Then he crept forward and could see the tramp walking rapidly across the garden towards the big gates. Thinking that the man would soon be gone, he went back into hiding in case the other looked round.

‘I give him all of five minutes, I reckon, sir,’ he said, ‘but when I ventures forth I seen that, far from slinging his hook, I had thought he would, blowed if he wasn’t still halfway down the garden and off to the side by what was the old garden shed afore the ladies turned it into a kind of a kennel and, what’s more, he was stood there a-talking to somebody.

‘Of course I thought at first as it must be one of the ladies as had got up extra early to take one or two of the dogs out for run, but then I see as it wasn’t nobody I knowed.’

‘Man or woman?’

‘It wasn’t one of the ladies, nohow. Whoever it was, they was dressed in a big coat and had a black hat well pulled down, but they was too far off, the garden, as you will know, sir, being what you might call — ’

‘Spacious? All right. Now what did you do next?’

‘Well, I thinks to myself that, if folks was about in the garden, maybe the ladies was up, so I sneaks myself round to the back door again with me rabbits, but, blow me! — if it wasn’t still locked and not a sound to be heard nowhere without you don’t count the chirping as the birds was kicking up.’

Wondering what was the best thing to do, and doubtful whether to leave the rabbits on the back doorstep, he had crept into the bushes and decided to wait until the coast — ‘meaning them two as was talking’ — was clear. He had needed to wait, it seemed, for some time. Apart from the fact that he was lingering in a garden where, it would appear, he had no right to be, another point which did not escape Burfield was that, although the man from the loft might well have sought night shelter during rough, wintry weather, he was not very likely to have risked doing so on somebody else’s premises on a warm summer night and at a season when there was plenty of dry, springy heather to furnish a bed on the moor. He said nothing of this, but told Adams to get to the end of the story and make it snappy.

‘I can’t wait to hear what happened to the rabbits,’ he said sardonically.

Because the postman, among other callers, had always refused to walk through the grounds to the house in case the two bitches, Isis and Nephthys, were loose, a large box had been erected outside the main gates. It was not only roomy enough to take the mail, including parcels, but was used by the butcher, the baker, the milkman and so forth. It had occurred to Adams that the rabbits could also be accommodated in it.

‘So that’s where I left ’em,’ he said, ‘soon as I could see me way clear.’

‘Did the other two go off together?’

‘No, they never. They seemed to be having a barney, though they kept their voices down low, I suppose not wishing to be ’eard from the ’ouse.’

‘Did the tramp appear to be threatening the woman?’

‘I never said as how the one with a hat was a woman, did I? — though, from the way it was waving its arms about, it could of been. Anyway, they never went off together. Him as I thought was the tramp went first, then t’other one waited a bit while I goes to ground deeper be’ind me bushes in case that one had it in mind to go past me up to the house, but they never. They undone the door of that there shed where the dog was and took her out and down to the big gates like they was going off for a walk. I gives ’em a few minutes, then I sneaks down to the gates meself, parks me rabbits in the postbox and goes off home to me bit of bread and bacon.’

‘Did you see either of the others again?’

‘No, I never see nobody, but one on ’em — the one in the noospaper — must have gone down the river path to Watersmeet, mustn’t they? Whether t’other ’un went there, too, I couldn’t say. Any road, I goed to the inquest, having a special interest, as you might say.’

‘What special interest?’

‘Why, sir, me recognising that there corpse as was took out of the river. I see the picture in a paper as I found in a litter bin down to Abbots Bay, so then I thinks to come to you, sir, and tell you what I seen, sir.’ He looked hopefully at Burfield. The inspector said, ‘But what you’ve told me is useless unless you can put a name to the corpse. You saw both these people — ’

‘And seen them chinwagging together like they was having some sort of a argyment, sir. Ain’t that worth something?’

‘Not to me. Did the dog go willingly with the person who took her out of her kennel?’

‘Seemed to.’

‘Then it must have been one of the Rant ladies or that woman who helps with the dogs.’

‘I don’t hardly reckon so, sir. It’s true I was some way off from them while I was in the bushes, but I reckon I would have recognised one of them three.’

‘They paid you for the rabbits later on, I suppose?’

‘Always paid up like clockwork, sir. I haven’t got nothing again’ any of them ladies.’

‘Exactly,’ said Burfield, but the dryness of this agreement was lost upon Adams. He still looked hopeful and expectant. Burfield took out a five-pound note and handed it to him. ‘Oh, well, keep your eyes and ears open, especially when you’re at the Crozier Arms,’ he said. ‘By the way, isn’t that a new shirt you’re wearing? How come?’

‘Give me by a charitable lady what’s husband had died soon after he bought it, sir. “Do for the winter,” she says, “being pure wool,” she says. I put it on special to come and see you, sir.’

‘Oh, ah? Well, I believe you, although some wouldn’t. I can’t see you going into a shop and buying a shirt of that quality. Just watch your step, though, that’s all.’

He dismissed the poacher and then looked across at the sergeant, whom he had called in as soon as he realised that Adams had something to tell. The sergeant stood up.

‘Shall I type out my shorthand, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. It might come in useful later on, although I’m hanged if it tells us much at present. What did you make of his yarn?’

‘I reckon it was the truth, sir, as far as it went. I don’t think he’s capable of making up a story like that. The only thing I’d be doubtful about — ’

‘Don’t tell me. Give me three guesses.’

‘I think you’ll make do with one, sir.’

‘Here goes, then. You think he does know who took that dog for a walk that morning.’

‘Well, that’s what I would bet on, sir. He came here for what he could get, but those Rant ladies are good customers of his and he wasn’t going to give one of them away.’

‘Right. Well, I shan’t tackle him about that at present, but I wouldn’t mind hearing what the ladies themselves have to say.’

‘Might perhaps ask whether anything is missing from the house, sir.’

‘They would have reported that.’

‘Where do you think he set his snares for the rabbits, sir? There are burrows in that bank by the woods that border the river. Could he have been at Watersmeet that morning and seen something? I got the impression that he reckons one of the parties murdered the other. If so, he may have something to go on. He did say he thought the parties were having an argument in the garden.’

‘If every argument led to murder there would be precious few of us left alive. One major point strikes me, but it is one I may be able to check with the Rant ladies.’

‘Whether the morning Adams took the rabbits round to Crozier Lodge was the day the kennel-maid found the dead man in the river? Depends upon how fresh the rabbits were when one of the ladies found them in the postbox, I suppose.’

‘I wonder if they’d know a fresh-killed bunny from one that had gone a bit niffy. They probably wouldn’t bother much. I don’t expect those hounds would object to a bit of a high flavour.’

‘Anyway, in this weather, rabbit would begin to go off pretty soon, wouldn’t it? Wonder whether he skinned and cleaned them before he took them round there?’

‘Hardly likely, if he went to Crozier Lodge directly he’d taken them out of the snares. Ladies that breed dogs wouldn’t burke at skinning and gutting a few rabbits. Very likely kept the liver and heart and kidneys to make soup for themselves.’

‘I had a Boxer once and the handbook said to give the rabbit, skin and all, to him, occasional like. It made it more interesting for the dog.’

‘Oh, well, it takes all sorts,’ said Burfield. ‘Let me have a copy of that as soon as you’ve typed it out. There may be something in it that, so far, we’re missing.’