35. In The Muck

The stables of my neighbours the Falks were silent but for the noises that horses tend to make when left to enjoy their own company. They are faintly human sounds: snorts without our haughtiness or ill manners, whines which denote neither complaint nor pain, and the occasional stamp of a hoof that so resembles a certain Scottish housekeeper when you’ve insisted on adding a drop of whisky to her famous chicken broth.

I may not be much of an admirer of the sport of kings but I found their noises to be lift soft pillows placed beneath my nerves. Naturally, I also happen to think that the sound of septic tank filling would have sounded equally pleasing to the ear of a man who had just run half a mile pursued by a crazed officer of the local county council.

These were the thoughts that were clopping around happily in the narrow stable of my brain.

Catherine Falk had disappeared as soon as she’d realised what she’d done and perhaps it was an omen that I was occupying a crime scene that made me drag Finch’s unconscious body across to the building that served the stable staff.

Propped against the wall, he now looked like he was merely taking a quiet five minute siesta and you would never have thought he was sleeping off a crack across the cranium with a dung shovel.

Having escaped from the man’s persecution, I had adapted to a role usually taken by those grey haired matriarchs in war movies who feed the troops once they’ve liberated Normandy. I was the model of caring. I had loosened the man’s collar, checked his pulse, rifled through his pockets, tied his shoe laces together, planted the stem of his pipe in nearby mound of manure, and finally been considerate enough to take the cartridge from my fountain pen and ink a large blue moustache on his upper lip. I don’t think I could have done much more for him even had I fed him wine and cheese and not spared him a chorus or two of La Marseilles.

A moment or two later, Catherine Falk appeared from around the corner of the building. In her hand, she carried a wooden bucket filled to the brim with water. I had a fraction of a second to act once I realised that she intended on throwing it over the unconscious Finch.

I jumped out of the way and then I breathed a sigh of relief. The water ran from Finch’s face but the ink moustache stayed in place.

‘Funny,’ she said, as the unconscious man failed to respond, ‘that usually works on the TV.’

‘Then you have an odd way of handing electronic devices, Miss Falk,’ I said, brushing down the knees to my trousers. ‘However, speaking as a man who has clobbered many a chap over the head with a coal shovel, I find smelling salts or the passage of time are better remedies for this type of unconsciousness. Mr. Finch will wake up with a headache but I we hope noting more. I take it that your father is insured?’

She squinted in the low sunlight and appeared indifferent to the thought of litigation.

‘Did he have that blue moustache before?’

‘He did,’ I nodded. ‘But I wouldn’t go mentioning it to him. He doesn’t like people to talk about it.’

‘Funny chap, is he Mr. Murgatroid? A blue moustache and trying to strangle you. Do you owe him any money?’

I wondered about the kind of world in which neighbours jump to such quick assumptions about the liquidity of a chap’s assets. Then I looked at Finch. He looked quite harmless but I could see how he did have the look of a bailiff. I’ve always maintained that they’re a different breed of men. They are usually men with very long arms and a way of frowning that reminds one of the great apes.

‘This,’ I said, deciding that Miss Falk deserved an explanation, ‘this is a sad man with delusions of influence.’ I proceeded to explain about the whole affair of a bonfire, the wicker man, druidic rituals, the fertility of the fields, and about a duck called Mullins.

‘I say! The man’s an absolute rotter!’ said the young Catherine. ‘ You did the right think stealing his keys. I bet that took some quick thinking. So where did you hide them?’

‘In your horse’s feed bag.’

‘Oh, superb!’ she gasped and skipped across to the hanging sack of grain.

‘I’ve always been blessed with a quick mind,’ I explained as I followed her. ‘It’s vital in a crisis to make decisions quickly and leaving no room for hesitation.’

She was rooting around in the bag so I don’t think she heard me.

‘Are you sure you put them in this one? I can’t feel them…’

‘Of course they’re there,’ I said, moving her out of the way and examining the bag for myself.
But she was right. Nothing but a handful of oats.

‘I don’t understand,’ I began and looked towards the horse just in time to see a glint of something silver flash between its teeth.

Catherine must have seen it too. She was immediately pulling the animal’s maw open.

‘Get those keys!’ she screamed. ‘It could kill him. Papa says Finchley is worth millions!’

‘Finchley?’ I asked.

‘Get those keys!’ she screamed.

I looked into the wet tunnel of flesh. ‘Me?’

‘Do you have insurance?’ she replied.

The girl had a point. These council officials are a pound to the dozen but champion horses…

I pushed my hands between teeth the size of dice.

‘Deeper,’ she said.

And deeper I went. It wasn’t the most unpleasant sensation I’ve ever experienced. I once drank a glass of Blue Nun.

I was cogitating on this memory when my fingers touched something hard and familiar at the back of the horse’s mouth. My fingers slipped around it and I removed my hand. The keys were attached to their ring which is what I believe had halted their progress down the horse’s throat.

‘The oddest things you find yourself doing for the sake of the Tory Party,’ I said as I added thick animal mucus to the list of reasons why my herringbone trousers would soon be donated to the poor.

My success was short lived. Finch groaned.

Catherine looked at the devil who moaned again only louder.

‘I think he’s waking up,’ she said.

‘Such a shame,’ I said.

‘Not half,’ she replied. ‘I was about to go and get a camera and a stable boy... Wouldn’t it have been the most wonderful thing to blackmail him?’

I shuddered. What does the immortal bard of Avon say about women’s powers of intrigue? Well, here was a perfect example. Young, pretty, and clearly with a good heart, but as crafty as a pickpocket’s thumb.