Chapter 26
The dramatic opening of the overture segued as the curtain opened and a Japanese village was seen, with a number of exotically-clad men coming forward.
“Have they shaved their heads?” squealed one small boy.
“Of course not, Pike secundus, they have bald wigs, you stupid boy,” boomed a master.
The gentlemen of Japan launched into their opening number ignoring this byplay.
There were a few gaffes, Nanki-Poo dropped his guitar to avoid tripping over his leg wrappings, which had come loose, but sat himself down to sing whilst doing them up to cover the mishap, and having Miss Goodie playing helped him to hold himself together, and he made an impromptu comment off the cuff about his samisen having been enchanted to play by itself by a fairy named Iolanthe, which creased up those knowledgeable about Gilbert and Sullivan’s other plays. Fred managed to trip on his kimono as well, and Miss Thripp saved the day with a quick ad lib, ‘It’s totally meet, he is at my feet, of his daughter-in-law elect,’ and Fred made much of brushing himself down and restoring his dignity as if such clowning had been deliberate.
In the intermission, he hugged Miss Thripp and kissed her cheek.
“And Edgar would have tried to make you feel inadequate, thank you, dear lady,” he said. “Nicely done, Dan, but I’m not going to kiss your cheek.”
“Thank you, Fred, I have eyes only for your wife as Yum-yum for another hour,” said Dan.
They got through the play, showing how good the troupe was by covering small problems, and bowed to the appreciative audience, and retired to the spread of food from the bakery, provided with the fee the boys’ school had paid. They fell on it like locusts and it was somewhat later that Fred spoke up.
“That was a farce, ladies and gents, but they say a bad dress is a good first night, so be not despondent. You’re all troupers and keep your heads. If you forget your lines, saying something is better than freezing up. Good catch, Tim, having Pish-tush say ‘we love our house of peers,’ which may be from ‘Pirates of Penzance’ but it worked well enough before your speech about what the Mikado decrees being taken as having happened. I don’t think the boys noticed.”
“I was distracted, thinking of Edgar Thripp being at large; sorry,” said Tim. “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.”
“You have Thursday and Friday to catch him, so get cracking,” said Fred. “We’ll knock them dead on Saturday.”
“I know where he is,” said Alexander. “Miss Thripp told me.”
Miss Thripp gave a squeak.
“I did?” she said.
“You did, because as Fred says, you are a trouper and sensible and I don’t believe you were dreaming,” said Alexander.
“Surely even Edgar isn’t brazen enough?” gasped Tim.
“You know him best, what does your gut say?” asked Jeff.
“My gut says that he’s a cheeky little bastard... oops, sorry, ladies... fellow... and he would laugh at Theodore’s grief and revel in using the home of his victims,” said Tim, grimly. “I know we don’t use the posse system here in England, but I sure could do with some volunteer deputies,” he tried to put on an American accent.
“That sounds more like Australian,” said Alexander. “I’m sure Campbell will help, and my father.”
“Gladly, and I’ll take the blame, if anyone quibbles,” said Simon. “Sketch map, Alex!”
Alexander sketched out the lay of the land on a napkin.
“Get changed; somehow I don’t think he’d be impressed by the Lord High Executioner,” said Simon. “The Misses Goodie, Harmon, and Thripp had better stay here until it’s all over, or go over to Heywood Hall for dinner.”
“I was going to invite the whole cast,” said Alexander. “That was a nice afternoon tea but I shall be hungry again in an hour or so; I got rid of all my extra weight sweating under the lights, I do declare. And we’re about to have a bit more exercise; because I think Edgar will fight like a cornered rat.”
“He’s facing the rope; he’ll fight,” said Jeff, grimly. “And his time in jail beforehand, short as it is, will not be pleasant for killing Irma, who was still essentially a little girl.”
“Get the bastard,” hissed Helen. “I’d volunteer, but I don’t suppose you’ll have me.”
“Your mother would have my guts for garters,” said Jeff. “But if a gaggle of Guides would care to take their bicycles to the road as spotters, I shouldn’t object, and you can jeer at him when we nick him.”
“Come on, girls,” said Helen.
Ida went too, leaving Alexander with mixed feelings. He went to change, and Jeff helped him out of the heavy grease-paint.
“I feel like a Christmas turkey,” grumbled Alexander.
“What, that hungry already?” asked Jeff, startled.
“No; I feel well basted,” said Alexander. “Hot and greasy.”
“You would join the players,” said Jeff.
“Yes, all my own fault,” agreed Alexander. “Are we ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” said Jeff. “I don’t think I’ve ever known a murderer I disliked more.”
"Indeed; even those two boys who cut me have the excuse of being barking mad, and their upbringing wasn't the best," said Alexander.
"Oh, don't go blaming upbringing; look at Tim Mapp, whose old man was an abusive thief," said Jeff. "And Tim's come through."
"Not without help, though," said Alexander, softly. "Miss Thripp has probably done more for the good of the village than any number of bobbies. I don't believe in bad blood, but I do believe in the power of parents to make a mess of their children. I swear if Vi Savin hadn't been so selfish, Irma at least would still be alive."
"Well, I don't say you're wrong, there," said Jeff. "But you're right; Edgar has had every privilege, and is still a wrong 'un. Sometimes people are just born bad. But enough philosophising; the cast would have every right to quote the Modern Major General, 'But you don't go,' if we don't go and meet his fate."
"But at least not in a highly nervous state," said Alexander. "Though I do urge caution; he will be like a cornered rat. He hasn't a chance of avoiding the death penalty."
They drove to the curve in the road about a hundred yards from the cluster of three cottages, and got out.
“I’ll go with Tim round the back,” said Alexander. “Give us a few minutes to be in position and then go to the front. You should still have Mrs. Savin’s key.”
“I do,” said Jeff. “Sir Simon, after you.”
“I answer to ‘Simon,’ to Alex’s friends, you know,” said Simon. “Even to David Henderson. Poor David,” he added. Jeff did not answer; he did not know David Henderson, but he had heard plenty from Ida and Alexander.
Alexander followed Tim round the end of the cottages; there were ploughed fields beyond with the starting spikes of wheat.
“Tim,” he said, “I’m an idiot. Next to the ladies is the Twiddly-Bonk woman’s cottage. Not Theodore’s.”
“It’s still empty,” said Tim. “And I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“You go and bang on that door the minute the pater bangs on Theodore’s,” said Alexander. “Whichever one he comes out of at the back, he has to come into the lane along the side of the field via the gate in the back hedge.”
Tim nodded, turned, and ran back. It would be tricky tackling Edgar alone, but hopefully the others would hear a police whistle, which both he and Alexander carried.
Alexander hovered in the lane, listening, and watching both gates. He heard a police whistle, and heard the rattle of a casement window open. All the cottages had lean-to kitchens, and he saw a figure climb out of the window of Mrs. Tweedie-Banks’s cottage onto her leanto, or back’us as they were called in Essex, where Alexander had grown up. Alexander counted the steps from the ground to the gate, and opened it.
Edgar was on the other side, brandishing a revolver.
“Put that thing down, you idiot,” said Alexander. Edgar pointed the revolver at him, and pulled the trigger.
A sharp pain in the ear made Alexander stumble back, as Edgar cried out.
Tim erupted out of the back door, and brought Edgar down with a rugby tackle which would have done credit to someone who had played rugby, which Tim had never done. He sat on top of the groaning prisoner, and blew his whistle again, the Scouting three short, sharp blasts and a longer blast, the pattern ‘Leaders-come-here.’ He knew that Alexander had been a Scout, so it was likely that his father also knew it.
Sure enough, Simon and Jeff ran up.
“Bloody hell!” said Simon, catching sight of Alexander, who had knelt to help Tim hold down Edgar.
They heaved him up.
“My arm! I hurt my arm!” howled Edgar.
“I’m not surprised,” said Simon, cautiously retrieving the gun “An old German model, Pickert, 1890, someone’s war trophy, I should think the kick has broken your shoulder. Alexander, if you are still conscious, you don’t have a 5.25mm cartridge in your head.”
“My head is ringing, as Mowgli said, like a bee-tree,” said Alexander. “I think he shot some of my ear off.”
Simon examined him whilst Jeff and Tim made a quick sling for Edgar’s arm, and put hand cuffs on him.
“You’ll live,” said Simon. “If it swells up, you’ll look like a plug-ugly but I’m sure Ida won’t care.”
They marched Edgar out of the front, where all the Girl Guides and Ida rang their bike bells at him, and chanted, “Shame, Shame, he’s to blame!” over and over. They hissed as Edgar was marched past them to be put in the car. It was a squeeze, but they got him back to the police house, and Tim let out Amabel to put Edgar in the cell. Amabel spat in his face and kneed him in a delicate sort of place.
“Liar!” she said, as she fled the police house.
Jeff borrowed the car and took dinner down to Tim, and ate with him, so there were two people watching the prisoner. They served themselves before Tim took the leftovers to Edgar. There was plenty; just that there was no stuffing with the pork, nor any crackling, nor any gravy on his potatoes and split pease pudding, and his roast onion was from the inside and not crisp. Tim would have considered what Edgar got a fine meal had he not had the trimmings, but appreciated telling him what he was not getting.
oOoOo
“That’s my gun!” cried Miss Goodie, when Alexander told the assembled company all about it. “That wretch has been in our house, ferreting about in our smalls! Well! I will make a deposition to Timmy Mapp about it later, I took it from a German Zeppelinist we shot down when I was in the shipyards.” She looked rueful. “Well, someone shot him down and the gas bag emptied and it gracefully wallowed to earth, or rather, in the harbour, and I rowed out some military types and bagged them.”
“You had a colourful war,” said Alexander.
“You had better believe it,” said Miss Goodie. “Though they tried to get rid of me when they found out I was a woman not a boy.”
“But?” asked Alexander.
Miss Goodie snorted.
“I asked my supervisor if my work was substandard, and he said no, in fact the reverse,” she said. “I’d been there two years by then, so they gave in. Nothing wrong with my welding. Can we go home after dinner, or is our home a crime scene?”
“I wasn’t going to quibble, and I doubt Jeff will, either,” said Alexander. “We have him, and enough evidence on him to put him away. Jeff had Oxford City Police find who uses price tags like those on Irma’s scarf, and they identified Edgar as having bought it. They phoned through with the information. There was another scarf in with his clothes, still in the wrapping from the shop clumsily labelled ‘To Maud from Irma’ in a handwriting copied roughly from Irma’s signature in some of her books, which you, Miss Thripp, may be asked to testify to; to my mind, it looks like her early diaries, before she switched to using Morse Code to write them.”
“Did she write much about her friends?” asked Helen.
“Of you, as I recall, she said, ‘Helen is a golden friend, and a sweetie, but oh! So cautious. I told her, I always wear passion-killers to meet any boy to keep him from getting fresh, with nettles pinned to them, and what harm can I come to in sleepy old Lashbrook?’”
Helen gasped, and gave half a sob, half a laugh.
“Oh! That was Irma. Insouciant but practical. She liked to tease, but... well, you know.”
Alexander nodded. He knew. A girl with good sense did not let boys go too far, and it explained why she had been wearing knee-length elasticated-legged flannel drawers with more daring corsetry and sheer stockings. The nettle had plainly come adrift in the water.
“She had never given herself to anyone?” asked Alexander.
“She said a boy once hurt her with a finger and she didn’t want to do that again, though I’m not perfectly sure what she meant,” said Helen, blushing violently. “It’s why she started wearing passion-killers when she was going out with a boy.”
“Bless you, Helen,” said Alexander. “I can append that she had been assaulted to the notes of why she was not virgo intacta, so her reputation is not besmirched.”
Poor little Irma, half child still, craving to be a woman, with a strong sense of self-preservation in one respect, and the sense of a kitten in others. Alexander rarely celebrated the thought of the death penalty for anyone he arrested, but he was happy to make an exception in Edgar Thripp’s case.
Jeff and Tim sent for a car the next day to have Edgar Thripp placed before a magistrate to be remanded in custody; as he had already tried to run, there would be no bail. Amabel Brinkley went readily to a nursing home to deal with her broken heart, and Simon went to collect Ruth and Millie, coming back to play the organ for the show on Saturday. Miss Goodie and Miss Harmon were roped in as well, as their playing had helped no end. Fred spent his off hours with Alexander as his helper, making the organ pit into a more regular part of the village hall and less of an accidental-looking hole. It now had steps down to it, railings around, book shelves for scores, and was boxed in to keep out under-floor draughts. Simon appreciated that.
Friday was a day of mourning for Christ Crucified, and Dr. Brinkley also added the remembrance of those torn in an untimely way from life, for the greed of a man who sold his soul for an equivalent sum to thirty pieces of silver to be gained in an inheritance not even left to him.
The mood on Saturday was, however, jubilant, and the players looking forward to the show. The hall was packed, with extra chairs added as extensions to the seating ever way Fred or Alexander could manage.
And the performance went smoothly from start to finish.
Braithwaite catered to the post-show party, with everyone chipping in a donation, and Alexander making up any deficit. Jeff came down for the afternoon and evening, and Theodore Savin arrived, very dignified, and asked Fred if the players would accept Mr. Buttons as a mascot and member of the troupe, in memorial of Irma. He had had the bear re-stuffed and dressed in a kimono.
Fred accepted on behalf of all, and Mr. Buttons moved onto the organ, from where he could direct everything.
Alexander sang glad hymns on Sunday, uplifted by how the village had rallied round, and on Tuesday made the trip to London to break the news to Edwin Barrett that, as he was finding recovery hard, he felt he had no choice but to tender his resignation from the Force.
“Dammit, Alex! We’ll miss you,” said Barrett.
“I’m setting up as a consulting detective, so you can ask me to do some unofficial poking around any time,” said Alexander. “I won’t lose touch.”
“No, don’t,” said Barrett. “And Alma wants to keep in touch with Ida, as well.”
“We shall,” said Alexander. “But I can’t guarantee to do my job properly without a longer time of healing, and I know that won’t be allowed.”
“If you ever want to come back, I can probably make sure there’s no big deal made about it,” said Barrett.
Alexander cleared his desk and removed Basil Henderson’s page of sketches of him from the wall with a heavy heart; but at least he would have more time to spend with Ida.
And he would be seeing more of Jeff Morrel, who was to be spending weekends at Heywood Hall, having proposed to Ruth and been accepted.
And on the day Edgar Thripp was hanged, which was not long after his trial, Alexander invited a small group of those most nearly concerned to throw a wreath to Irma into the river, and toast her memory in champagne, because it would have excited Irma to have such a romantic drink.
Finis
I got interrupted in the Brandon, with all that's been going on, and the stress has knocked my health for six. I am working on it, but I've only completed one story arc. I do, however, have a number of shorts, a couple of fairy stories, some further adventures of Adele Rawlins, and a few random police procedurals from Więszy-Bydlin so I will post this and that whilst working on it.
