The Key

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

GARTH CAME SLOWLY back. When he reached the village he took the shorter way and came to the bottom of the Rectory garden by way of the Church Cut. Someone had cleared away the broken glass. As he was wondering who it might have been, Cyril Bond emerged crab-like from Meadowcroft.

‘I made a good job of it, I reckon. I’m a Scout, so I thought, “Suppose someone was to cut himself,” and I picked it all up and put it in the ditch. I reckon that was a good deed all right.’

Garth laughed. There was something artless about the creature.

‘I reckon it was.’

Cyril edged nearer.

‘Was you at the inquest?’

Garth nodded.

‘What did they say?’ His a’s were all i’s, his London twang pure Stepney.

‘They said it was suicide.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he was found in the church with the door locked and his key in his pocket.’

Cyril gave a scornful laugh.

‘I reckon there was another key all right, mister.’

‘Oh, yes – there are three other keys. The Rector has one, Mr Bush the sexton has one, and Miss Brown who plays the organ has the third. They were all accounted for.’

Cyril said ‘Coo!’ And then, ‘They don’t ’arf believe things, those blokes at inquests. I could tell them something if I liked. And would they believe me? Not ’arf, they wouldn’t! I’m not a clergyman, nor a sexton, nor Miss Brown.’

Garth was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He eyed the flushed cheeks and bright blue eyes and enquired,

‘What could you tell them?’

Cyril came closer.

‘Something about a key.’

‘Look here – do you mean that?’

‘Coo – I don’t tell lies! Scouts don’t. It isn’t ’arf inconvenient sometimes, but it’s better in the long run, because people believe you. See?’

Garth saw.

‘All right – what do you know about a key?’

The boy shuffled with his feet.

‘I dunno as I’d better say.’

‘If you really know anything-’

‘O – w, I know all right.’

‘Then I think you ought to say.’

Cyril appeared to consider this. He had obviously spent a happier hour and a half since tea-time in getting as much mud on to his person as possible. His knees were plastered, his hands and arms bedaubed, and his face well smeared. In spite of this he contrived a serious, even a dependable look.

‘If I was to say, I couldn’t take it back afterwards?’

‘No.’

‘If anyone was to get into trouble along of what I said, and it come to a trial, I’d have to get up and say it in front of a judge?’

‘Yes.’

‘And have my picture in the papers? Coo! That wouldn’t ’arf be something to write home about!’ His face lit up with bright anticipation and then was overcast again. ‘I reckon I’d get into trouble though.’

‘Why?’

Cyril edged up another six inches or so.

‘Well, it’s like this. I’m supposed to be in by half-past seven. I gets my supper and a wash, and I’m supposed to be in bed by eight.’ There was a heavy accent on the ‘supposed’.

‘But you don’t always go – is that it?’

‘Well, it’s like this. I have my wash and I go to my room-’

‘But you don’t always get into bed?’

Cyril scuffed with his feet. Garth laughed again.

‘All right – I see. And Tuesday was one of the nights you didn’t go to bed?’

He got a look, at first deprecating but which changed to something uncommonly like a wink.

‘What did you do?’ said Garth.

Cyril kicked so hard as to endanger the toe of his shoe.

‘I reckon I’ll get into trouble,’ he said.

‘Probably. But I think you’d better tell me all the same. What did you do?’

There was another of those sidelong glances, and then, ‘I got out of the window.’

‘How did you manage that?

Having taken the plunge, Cyril became extremely animated.

‘See that window there on the side of the house? That’s my room, and if you get out on the sill and hang with your hands, it ain’t so far to drop on to that bit of roof that sticks out over the libery. There’s a big branch of a tree comes over, and you can get a good holt of it and come along hand over hand and climb down. I’ve done it ever so many times and I haven’t never been caught once.’

Garth considered it a very sporting effort. He knew the tree, the window, and the distance. He wasn’t at all sure that he could have pulled it off at Cyril’s age. He nodded and said, ‘Well, you climbed down the tree. What happened after that?’

‘I larked about a bit, playing Red Indians, crawling up to the house like it was a stockade and surrounding it. Coo – it wasn’t ’arf exciting!’

‘What sort of time was it?’

‘Well, it wasn’t far off a quarter to nine when I got out of the window. You can hear the church clock strike, and it had gone the quarter to.’

‘All right – go on.’

‘Well, after a bit it stopped being dark because of the moon coming up, so I couldn’t go on playing Indians near the house in case of anyone looking out of a window and seeing me, so I thought I’d come out here and make a ambush, and if anyone come by I could play I’d scalped them.’

‘And did anyone come?’

‘Oh, boy – didn’t they just! The lady come first – out of this door.’ He laid his hand on the jamb against which Garth had been leaning.

‘What lady?’ He tried not to speak too quickly.

‘The lady that lives with the old lady at your house – Miss Brown. You know – the lady that plays the organ in church on a Sunday. I was down in the ditch there right opposite, lying down flat, and I reckon if I’d had a bow-an-arrow I could have shot her dead. Well, she stays there with the door half open – that’s when I reckon I could have shot her – and then she comes right out. And then the gentleman comes, and he says, “Where are you going?” and he says her name. It sounded awfully funny to me – something like suet.’

‘Suet?’

Cyril nodded.

‘You know – in a packet – Atora, like my auntie used to send me for to the grocer’s’.

Garth restrained himself.

‘Medora?’

‘That’s right! It isn’t ’arf a funny kind of name. “Where are you going, Medora?” he says. I reckon I could have shot him too.’

‘Yes – go on. What did she say?’

‘She says it hasn’t got anything to do with him, and he says oh, yes it has, and what’s that she’s got in her hand. And she says, “Nothing”. And he says, “Oh, yes, you have, and you’ll ’and it over to me! You’re not using any keys to let yourself into the church tonight. If you want to listen to him playing you can stand out here, and if you want to talk to him you can do it in the day time. ’And over that there key!” ’

‘And did she?’

‘I’ll say she did! He’d got her by the arm, twisting it like, and the key fell down. And she says “Oh!” like she was going to cry and pulls her ’and away and back into your garden and shuts the door, and the gentleman he picks up the key and puts it in his pocket and goes off.’

‘Which way did he go?’

An extremely dirty finger pointed in the direction of the church.

‘Sure?’

‘Ow, yes!’

‘Who was it?’ said Garth. ‘Do you know?’

Cyril looked surprised.

‘Course I do!’

‘Who was it?’

‘The one as they call the professor.’

Here was something with a vengeance. Garth said, ‘Are you sure?’

Cyril nodded emphatically.

‘Coo – I wouldn’t say a thing like that if I wasn’t! It was him all right. Ever so angry he was – put me in mind of Boris Banks in Murder at Midnight. It was a smashing picture – he didn’t ’arf carry on. You see, he’d murdered a lady-’

Garth recalled him firmly.

‘Cut all that and get back to Tuesday! What makes you sure who it was you saw?’

Cyril looked obstinate and a little dashed.

‘Well, mister, I seen him. I told you as how the moon was up – bright as bright it was. It was him all right. Lives in the house up at the top of the lane where the field is with the ruings. The gentleman that was shot, he lived there too.’

Garth whistled.

‘Well, if you’re sure, you’re sure. But you mustn’t say you are if you’re not. It’s – very important.’

Cyril nodded again.

‘Coo – I know that! It was him all right – name of Madoc.’

Garth stood there a moment. Then he put a hand on Cyril’s shoulder.

‘While he was there – while he was talking to Miss Brown, could you hear anything else – anything from the church?’

‘Only the other gentleman playing the organ.’

‘You did hear that?’

‘Ow, yes!’

‘All right – go on. What happened after that?’

Cyril stared.

‘Nothing. I went back in.’

‘How do you get back?’

‘Up the tree, mister, and a bit higher up – then if you crawl along, there’s a branch you can get hold of that brings you down where you can swing on to the window ledge.’

Garth thought of his Aunt Sophy’s feelings. He remembered performances of his own which included sliding down the outer slope of the roof and finishing up with his heels in the guttering, yet the human boy survived. He laughed and said, ‘Sounds quite a stunt. Then you went to bed, I suppose?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t hear anything after that?’

Cyril shook his head regretfully.

‘I went to sleep. If I hadn’t I might have heard the shot. I don’t ’arf want to kick myself when I think about it. I didn’t hear nothing. Oh boy – I wish I had!’