The Mystery of Abbot's Tower

"Watch it!" shouted Wildman. The body dropped suddenly six inches and stopped with a jerk. Its toes gouged crescents in the dust as the heels swung briefly back and forth. Then with a patter of earth and decayed mortar, the bush on which the noose had been tied pulled loose from the wall and brought down ashlar and rubble chunks from the ruin. One fell on my foot and I cursed.

The corpse stood for a moment -- absurdly -- on stiffened legs: half a second, perhaps, but it seemed longer. Wildman opened his arms to receive it when it toppled, but his expression indicated only a startled idiocy. A small stone bounced off the side of his head and set his ear to bleeding.

"My God! my God!"

*********************************

Later in the day, we were drinking much-needed whiskey in a private room at the Nag and Crow in Crow's Corning, with Mr Lincoln the lawyer. Herr Fedora Barim, the German Turk, was also present, but being a devout Muslim he did not drink whiskey.

"I say," he said, pausing to sip from his cup of sour milk. "Why should Herr Hastings of himself dispose when already he was tomorrow to be married to Fräulein Norn -- a nice cup of tea, so to say indeed, to be so gilded by ever so reluctant a lover?"

"Jilted," said Wildman to his crony automatically. "In any case, I am not convinced that he did commit suicide. If it weren't for the indications that he couldn't have been murdered, I should suspect that he had been."

"Stop that, Wildman," Lincoln said. "You are being obscure. The police seem to be sure it was suicide, even if no note has yet been found. That's not unusual. It is well known that Hastings often went to the tower when he felt down-hearted and wished to be alone. And there was that business in the billiard room last night."

"Bah! What do you think, Barim? Did he, in your opinion, kill himself?"

"Emphatical no is my reply," said Barim.

"I say yes, dammit," Lincoln cried. "Are you implying one of Lord Chariot's house guests is a murderer?"

Barim twined his fingers and fought ineffectually a tic in his right eye. "Ach, but no, see you. As a servant of the Foreign Office, Herr Hastings --"

"No, I will not hear that! With all respect to your fine qualities, Barim, you must see a Zionist plot behind everything. Even Wildman will admit -- won't you? -- that if murder is to be proved, the guilty person must be one of our own party."

"Of course," Wildman said, and crossed his arms over his stomach. "Who is there in this god-forsaken region who would have any political motive?"

"Admit, then, that of all the people concerned in this wedding party, none could have murdered Hastings."

"I admit appearances would seem to support that."

The Turkish German leaned forward eagerly. "But do you not see, gentlemen, that if you agree on that, I am right?"

We looked at Barim with raised eyebrows. He flickered his eyes at each of us, and the side of his face twitched and grimaced. "Am I not right? Murder, you say, William; suicide you say, Herr Lincoln. I say it was neither -- it was an assassination, gentlemen. Not a one of your guests is guilty, because, my freunds, they have the alibi, which is to say yourselves -- indeed your own alibis reciprocating therewith."

The solicitor and the detective stared at him.

"Have I not ever said as much with none to heed my words? That, to wit, there is a dreadful conspiracy amongst our midst and unbeknownst to us? To undermine our civilization and, in perpetual and everlasting servitude, into the mire of oppression and terror cast us down.Schön! The Zionist-Capitalist-Communist Coalition. The ZICCC!!" He stopped to breathe and to draw his finger dramatically across his throat as the last gasp of air rasped out of exhausted lungs.

"Barim!" cried Wildman. "Where is your navel? Where?" He jerked up the Turk's shirt.

"Aihh!"

"Good God, Wildman." Lincoln's eyes protruded unhealthily.

"Yes. You see, his widowed mother married a Jew, and to assert his loyalty to the cause of his dead Palestinian father, Barim had his navel removed by plastic surgery. Do you see, Lincoln, do you see?"

"Ach, no. It nothing signifies. It is there, it is there!"

"No, Barim, it is not. That is an old bullet wound."

We gaped in horror as Barim removed a wad of wax from his abdomen. Wildman and Barim started to giggle. In moments they were roaring with laughter, and the tears poured down their cheeks. Lincoln jumped up in fury, smashed his glass on the floor, and stamped out of the room.

*********************************

I am getting ahead of myself in this narrative, so let me pause and set the scene. My name is Osric Brenda (a name foisted upon me by an unfortunate fate). I was born at Carilskeld Farm, in the village of Crow's Corning, near the town of Dormouth in the north of England. When I was four years old, my parents emigrated to the United States -- a failure of the turnip crop or something of the sort. On a brief visit to Crow's Corning some two years ago I met Hastings Chariot, of the Foreign Office, an orphan who visited off and on with his paternal uncle Sir Lewis Chariot, Bart., of Chariot Hall -- just over the hill from Carilskeld Farm. He had a younger sister in New York, whom I had looked up a few months before the events to be narrated here. She goes by the appalling nickname 'Sweets', but I can only say in extenuation that her given name is far worse than Osric; I am pledged to secrecy in this matter and can say no more. Well, she went back to live with her uncle and aunt at the hall, and I followed her ... and in short, we became engaged.

In June of 19-- Hastings Chariot was to marry one Susan Norn, and quite naturally I was invited to the wedding. Let me list the people who were there on that fateful week. First of all, there was Sir Lewis Chariot and his wife Dame Alice, Hastings and Susan, myself and Sweets. Guests staying at the house were Lady FitzFirbolg from Ireland, a crony of Aunt Alice's, the family solicitor, Isaac Lincoln, of Holland, Kesteven & Lindsey of Dormouth, Hamlet Norn (the bride's brother), and Fedora Barim, a German Turk who was a close friend of the bridegroom. George Jassus, who now owned Carilskeld Farm, was to be the best man -- a successful painter with some talent but little art. My friend William Blackstone Wildman, whom I had met earlier in the year in the matter of the Ravenglass Ravener, was not involved in the celebration, but was to take his vacation at the Nag and Crow Inn at Crow's Corning later in the week. He and his late wife had come from Cockermouth, and he had a strong attachment to the area. I did not know at the time that he was also a long-time friend of Mr Barim and Lady FitzFirbolg -- small world it seems on occasion, although coincidence is not as rare as one would think given that each of us knows several hundred people, who are encountered in the most unlikely circumstances. The landlord of the inn, one Jerry Ink, had undertaken the role of butler for the occasion, as there was no permanent butler in residence.

Chariot Hall sat squatly on the side of a low hill in the midst of a square mile or so of untended parkland. In ground plan rather like the profile of a large stuffed armchair, the house was a neo-Jacobean relic of a wealthy speculative builder (Lord Chariot's grandfather), a man responsible in his time for the acres of yellow-brick rows of workers' houses on the outskirts of Dormouth. One of the ironies of our time is that the local mud is a rich brown clay whose bricks are eminently suited to the landscape, but it is exported in trade to the Midlands in exchange for those awful yellow bricks.

I might as well start here, on that fateful Thursday night. We were sitting in the drawing room after dinner, looking forward to what Sweets called a night of disgustful rebelry. The old ladies retired to the parlor at the far end of the great hall, one of those panelled two-story Jacobean affairs with minstrel gallery and all. Susan Norn and Sweets Chariot drove off in the roadster to Dormouth to attend the cinema. (Susan, I say, would have graced any bachelor party, preferably from a cake, but she'd have done even without the icing. How we envied Hastings!) That left us, eight men, for a bachelors' bacchanal.

So there we were, later on, whooping it up in that fine hall from which everything breakable or stainable had been tactfully removed under Aunt Alice's orders. There was Jerry Ink, fat and beaming, enthroned behind the old oak table, serving out the drinks, with the remains of Mrs Cork's kitchen mop balanced on his head, was pretending to be a judge. Staid old Mr Lincoln was wearing his barrister's wig. Sir Lewis, who is in fact a magistrate, was acting as the court bailiff, and said: "Gentlemen, this court is now in session." Hastings was on trial for the crime of matrimony.

Defence attorney Lincoln said: "Members of the jury, behold this poor wretch. Does it not strum your heartstrings to contemplate the dreadful fate in store for him? Are you not familiar with that terrible state of matrimony? Oh, the horror of it! Remanded into custody for as long as you shall live. Oh, my friends, is this English justice..." And more of the same. I was prosecuting attorney and cannot for the life of me remember what my case was. The jury was made up of the lugubrious Hamlet Norn (an aspiring poet), the bewildered but ebullient Fedora Barim, and George Jassus, who had been persuaded to abandon his artistic pursuit of what he called 'ethical surrealism' for the nonce. The proceedings became rather rowdy and vulgar, with Mr Lincoln providing some surprisingly lewd anecdotes about the marital state. Sobersides when inebriated can often surprise one.

About eleven o'clock -- none of us was very certain of the time -- Susan and Sweets returned from their outing, and in their company who but the incomparable William Blackstone Wildman?

"Look what we picked up," said Susan. "Dragging a suitcase along the road, it was. With an open map and a walking stick."

"I remembered him, Oz," said Sweets, "from the last time. Otherwise we should never have picked up such a disreputable fellow."

"Osric, my friend, and yes Fedora! Delighted to see you. My train was late and I got totally lost. Bless these fine lady Samaritans."

So here on stage appears the Great Detective, but he must now leave it temporarily. Sir Lewis was, by this time, hors de combat, and the great hall was a shambles in spite of the precautions, so we all left the Lord of the Manor to dream in peace on a couch and adjourned to the billiard room. George and Hastings were already there, having a go at the balls when we entered -- a variation of the game played without cue sticks, and in fact without most of the balls, which were lying about the room, and outside, to the detriment of the windows. Ink ducked a flying eight ball with the skill and ease acquired after years of serving in the vicinity of a dart board and decided to accompany Wildman back to the inn to set up his accommodation. Norn had some trouble adjusting his stomach to the cold wind blowing through the broken windows; he smiled sheepishly at his sister, and stumbled out into the cold night air. I arranged to meet Wildman the next day to walk the area and see the sights. And Ink swore that he would make sure there were no bats in the bedroom, because it had not been used in several months.

Meanwhile, there was the problem of Sir Lewis to settle. His snores were shaking the walls. We (Barim, Lincoln, Sweets, and I) maneuvered him up to his bedroom. When we eventually returned to the billiard room, Hastings was gone, Susan was in tears, and George was flushed with anger. Not that any explanation was offered or asked for, but of course it was generally known among the circle that Susan had been spending a lot of time lately at Carilskeld Farm for the sake of modern art. And there had been a marked coolness between her and Hastings that was not at all like their former relationship, in spite of their betrothment. In retrospect, although nobody ever talked of it, I should say that we were all aware of this, even Aunt Alice. Hamlet Norn was almost openly hostile to Hastings and, Susan confessed to Sweets, had told her she was a fool to go ahead with the marriage. But he was out, passed out, in the garden, and I do not want the reader of this tale to regard him as a suspect in some skulduggery, because we carried him into the parlor and he could not be roused until we all retired. And George, whatever was going on with Susan, was still Hastings's best friend.

Well, Susan's spirits were damped for the night, as well as her mascara, and she retired immediately to bed. I honestly can't recall much else on that evening, as the remainder of us resumed drinking. George joined in with a furor of intense and boisterous enthusiasm as Barim and I mercilessly baited the lawyer, who riposted like the true musketeer he is at heart. For a non-drinker, Barim surely behaved as though he were besotted -- on something or other. His diction, for one thing (he speaks perfect English) became absurd. In any case, Hastings never returned, and we gave no thought to it.

*********************************

On Friday morning, Wildman did not come over to the manor until much later than we had arranged. That suited me fine as I had quite a bad headache. (When did we finish? Surely not before three in the morning.) When we finally did set out on a tour of the area, Lincoln declined the pleasure of the outing. He wouldn't leave his bed -- and he complained of a painful billiard ball bruise on his shin. So it was just Wildman and I who went.

Let me explain the general plan of the neighborhood to you. Come walking with us. First along the manor drive, skirting the fine tree-clad hills. At the gate we joined the high road from Dormouth to Stoke Furness. We walked north along this for half a mile or so between scraggly hedges and dry-stone walls, bulging in a seemingly erratic way. To the right the hills, and little farther on, the hump-backed bridge over Abbot's Beck. To the left is the parish church and the remains of the medieval abbey -- not much of that standing. A left turn and we descend into Crow's Corning, a pleasant enough little hamlet snuggled under the church and the fragments on Abbey Hill. It straddles another highway, the low road, to Stoke Furness. A mile and a half to the south along that road is a railway crossing and just beyond it the coastal footpath. But we did not go that way; it's rather dull. So straight across the high street, past the side of the Nag and Crow, into the woods and west along a gravelly trackway towards Carilskeld Farm. Watch it -- it's hard on the shoes.

Whew! Here we are then. Tunnel under the railway tracks. Sun's getting hot. Too muddy and dank under here for a smoke, but there's shade on the other side of the embankment.

The track turns north again towards the old Roman ruins and Carilskeld Farm, but there is little to see of interest (the once-elaborate Roman fort being nothing more than a fragmentary rubble core wall which only makes one wonder why they were ever here in the first place). So we continue straight along a footpath. See? There you can get a good view of Abbot's Beck again, and this is the path that gives it its name. There is Abbot's Tower way up ahead. Try to ignore the gnats that keep flying in your face. Not really a full-grown castle, but old Abbot Whatsis had to have some protection from the Scots. It was used for that purpose as late as 1745, the Bonnie Prince Charlie business, but it had never really served well, as its final refugee, a Jesuit priest, got himself hanged from the ramparts. You will not find that in many history books, though.

Then we finally came to the junction with the coastal path after a hike of two and a half miles. And across the unmarked mud left by the low tide, the shattered ruin of Abbot's Tower on its little island. The mud has a lot of clay in it and is firm enough to walk across without sinking in up to the kneecaps when it is exposed by the ebb tide. Still, it tends to stick to the shoes in an ever-thickening layer of glutinous muck -- Lord, it gets heavy! -- and it was only enthusiasm to view the ruins, and stout walking boots, that led us to stumble over to this ruinous antiquity. And then we found Hastings...

When we left to summon the police, Wildman observed that there were only four tracks of footprints to the island, ours, coming and going, and he had noticed that there were no tracks at all when we first reached the tidal flats. Why he should have noted that when we had no idea that anything had happened in Abbot's Tower baffles me -- however, he is the professional detective, not I.

Constable Haddock, when we returned from Crow's Corning with him and Dr Menlowe, made some observations. "Daid in't he?" was the first. Then, pointing: "Them your feetprints, yes?" "And the ones we all just made," commented Wildman. "There are no others."

This is important evidence, so I will expand on it. For two periods during any day, one can walk across the mud -- estuary mud, if the mouth of the Abbot's Beck can be dignified with such a title -- to the islet where the tower is, and twice a day, when the tide is high, you can't. High tide last night had commenced about an hour after midnight even if not in full flood for another hour or so. Wildman had observed that while Hastings's shoes were muddy, neither his stockings or trouser cuffs were wet. He did not wade (or swim as he would have had to even later in the night). His own footprints, after the intervening high tide, would have been washed away. Therefore, barring any outside intruder, he must have been alone on the island when he died, which the doctor estimated to have been no later than 1:30 a.m., everybody else in the house having a sufficient if not totally substantiated alibi for that time, especially considering that Abbot's Tower was three miles away from the manor. It was an obvious case of suicide, although Haddock would need to turn up an explanatory motive for the act to report to his superiors.

It was Wildman, however, who found the clinching evidence. There was a small stone jetty or platform underneath the tower -- where we had all of us scraped the muck off our boots. Alongside it was a ramp of mud above the high-tide line, and there he discovered a few small impressions of heel marks. Haddock took one of the dead man's shoes and measured it to one of the prints. It fit. "Yes, yes," said Haddock, "this here is were'e come up. But that he done hisself with that nice lass to wed tomorra I canna brook." I Canna Brook -- fitting epitaph for a suicide.

I will gloss over the results of our tragic information on the members of the household. Sir Lewis had been gardening when we walked up the drive, and waved his trowel at us cheerfully until receiving the shocking news of his nephew's death. He took it well, as one who had carried a pack of supplies -- soap, tea, and eau de cologne -- across Iraq to Lawrence of Arabia, could be expected to do.

"Monstrous, monstrous," said Lady Megan FitzFirbolg. She staggered back dramatically against the wall and raised her hands, palms up, to bring her wrists with a flourish to her temples. "Oh, whatever shall the poor gel do? This will devastate, I say, devastate her, and on her wedding night! Oh William, please help us."

Isaac Lincoln made a wretched, unintended pun when he said, "This is terrible. Why the chap was alive and kicking just last night. What made him do such an awful thing?"

Dame Alice just dithered, as usual, and arranged for cups of tea to be served, while the girls wept and retired to the back parlor, where Dr Menlowe tended to their nerves. Norn could not be found; he was said to be out visiting George at Carilskeld Farm. The rest of us had need of stronger relief and adjourned to the pub.

*********************************

"Well, Wildman, do you often pull that little charade with your friend here?"

Barim grinned in his twitchy way. "Is much fun, nein? To prick the bladder upon such pompussy."

"Simple enough. Those footprints were faked."

"How does one a simple footprint fake when the shoe fits?" said Barim.

"Is gemutlich. However, no sense for it. Is hanged, ja? And alone on island. Murder makes no sense. Assassination, yes. Only ZICCC devils would such an inexplicable rigamortis do."

"Rigamarole. Obviously Hastings was not hanged there, he was placed there afterwards."

"You are both talking lunacy," I said. "Why should anybody want to murder Hastings? He was a harmless enough person even if he wasn't the brightest man in the world. I don't have any idea why he should kill himself, unless he was getting cold feet about his marriage. That, to me, is no reason. But he was always a man of startlingly different moods -- up, down, angry, sad, sober, drunk..."

"Lunacy, mmm. Yes, there was a full moon last night. That would have made the going easier."

"Jawohl, ya-oool. Have we anozzer werewolf on our hands? That one in Prague was bad enough, nein?"

"I will set a trap for this werewolf. It's obvious to me who did it although there is no real evidence yet. But we must tread carefully or face a charge of slander. Listen, we need to enlist Haddock and, er, Ink, then ..."

*********************************

It was arranged for that evening. I was surprised that Constable Haddock agreed to participate, as the police view was already 'self-murder whilst of unsound balance of mind'. An Inspector from Dormouth had called, had a few brief interviews, and soon departed. Nevertheless, while doubtful, the constable was game, as of course was Jerry Ink, who as you now gather was a rather spirited man.

"Lacking convincing evidence, our only option," said Wildman, "is to encourage him to bolt and run. Flight as an admission of guilt, you know. I think, however, that if we can get him rattled enough, he may simply confess and come quietly."

Everybody would be present at the wake that evening, and Haddock and Ink would be posted outside in case the quarry should abscond. Barim said he was going to enjoy this. As it happens, events did not proceed as planned. ("Such matters should be left to the professionals," the Inspector chided us later.)

The evening began, as had the previous one, with dinner followed by a large quantity of alcohol, the difference being the lugubrious atmosphere. Susan Norn was absent, as she refused to leave her room. And the old ladies, again, retired to their back den. Even with the liberal flowing of drink, the issue of the tragedy was skirted and hardly mentioned. This gave Wildman the opportunity to discuss the character of the neighborhood. We all chatted half-heartedly about local history, economics, geography, and the like. Wildman let himself get carried away with the subject of local antiquities, and in the midst of an uneasy silence he started talking about the Abbot's Tower.

"You wonder," he said, "how they were accustomed to get into the place. For security, there was no causeway, and I am inclined to think no mud was exposed at low tide. This area has heavily silted up in the last few hundred years."

("Indeed," muttered Sir Lewis.)

"Even so, you've probably noticed how the muck builds up on your shoes -- makes you feel club-footed. I'm inclined to think the monks crossed over by boat. There's even the remains of a jetty outside the tower."

"I think," Sir Lewis said, carefully steering the conversation from the particular to the general, "the question of access to fortifications is an interesting one. The convenience of the inhabitants and the inconvenience to the attacker are always to be balanced against each other. The history of that type of building can almost be said to mark a trend away from the latter in favor of the former..."

Once mounted upon his hobby horse, Sir Lewis needed to be side-tracked. "Do you do much sea fishing in the estuary, Sir Lewis?"

"No, sir. Fish and I do not agree, living or dead, but I believe we do have a few devotees. Isn't that so, Hamlet?"

"Well, I put on the thigh boots and wade out occasionally. Not much to catch that way, though. I go for the seaweed."

"Whatever for?" (Barim)

"I burn the stuff for my asthma. Kelp's the best, I find."

"Yes, I've seen him reaping of a morning," George Jassus said.

"Ah, whilst out painting in the sunrise, no doubt." (Barim again)

"Yes, I row out to the shoals sometimes to catch the different lighting effects."

"You have a boat, then?" Wildman leaned forward avidly.

"Well, no. I borrow the one at Abbot's Beck."

"I saw no boat at Abbot's Beck."

Sweets said, "It should be there, right at the mouth, opposite the castle ..." She paused with a slight frown.

"Perhaps it drifted out to sea. Do you think so, Mr Jassus?"

"Yes, I suppose. Damn nuisance, that."

"If you could find that boat, George, you should tie it up more securely," said Sir Lewis. "There is new rope in the pantry."

There was a tense pause. Our thoughts were all trending the same way.

"Er, yes."

Wildman stood up. "Gentlemen, and lady. I will no longer keep silent about this lamentable affair. Sir Lewis, I believe your nephew Hastings was murdered."

"Preposterous."

"No, let me continue. This afternoon on the island something struck me as rather peculiar. My own shoes had become quite caked with that appalling mud, and I had to scrape them off before I could walk another step, once I was on dry ground. Now, I observed that your nephew's shoes were only slightly muddied, and -- I'm certain of this -- they had not even been walked on after being muddied. What mud there was had not been trodden flat, nor was any grass, sand, or gravel adhering to it. I inspected the jetty and found the footprints where Hastings had apparently climbed up, but apart from wet traces where we had scraped off our own shoes, there was no sign that he had done so."

"And what do you conclude from that?" said Isaac Lincoln, who had not spoken for some time.

"That somebody had planted the body in the Abbot's Tower and made it look as though the deceased had walked across the mud around midnight and there done away with himself. Moreover, that this was done some three hours or so after Hastings had met his death -- when, in fact, the tide was at high water. In short, the body was taken to Abbot's Tower, by boat, at three or four in the morning, strung up from a bush inside the tower, shoes removed and used in such a way as to make it appear that the deceased had walked across the mud when it was still exposed some three hours earlier -- then replaced upon the victim's feet."

"And why all that needless foolery?"

"In order to establish an alibi for the guilty party, as well as to enhance the illusion of suicide..."

George Jassus interrupted. "I suppose you are referring to me."

"Oh, no, Mr Jassus. I have not mentioned your name."

"Well, I can take a hint as well as anyone. I have one thing to say to you. Rubbish! and damn you for a nosy bastard." He stamped out of the room.

"Coo, that's torn it," Norn said. "I'm glad you didn't think it was me."

"Tell me," Lincoln said, "why do you suspect Jassus? Mind you, I think he's a bounder, but what motive could he have for getting rid of Hastings?"

Sweets mumbled, "He wanted Susan for himself."

I spoke my piece. "I've got it a little clearer now. You think Jassus killed Hastings somewhere in the park here last night, during a brief absence from the party. He hid the body until we'd all quit for the night, when he could come back and move it to the tower."

"Yes. Stole a rope from the pantry, strangled him with it, and later re-used it to string him up. From our walk this morning, I gather that Jassus usually drives his car along that trackway to Carilskeld Farm. He could have parked it under the railway, taken the body out of the boot, and carried it down the footpath to where the boat was moored."

"Carry a dead body a quarter of a mile?" I was dubious.

"I think it likely enough. He's a strong chap, and he could take his time. Not likely to meet the casual stroller that time of night."

"The boat really did drift out to sea, then?"

"Why not? No point in leaving it right there opposite the castle, where we could see it. I think it more likely, though, he tied it up farther up the coast."

We sat silently for a while. I recalled the prior evening. Barim said: "As coming downstairs after Sir Lewis to bed was placed this is what we did see perhaps. There is Miss Susan in the billiard room, tears on her face, there is Herr Jassus, panting with rage, there is Hastings, knocked down dead on the floor. That did not transpire. I cannot picture Jassus in the bushes stalking, after the argument an hour -- whatever that was about, ach -- with rope in his hands und leer on his face and waiting for, the victim destined for his doom, obligingly to say 'I am here, come and get me'."

"But that, in effect, is just what did happen. They agreed to meet, to have it out in the garden. But our friend Jassus had a more permanent solution in mind. Surely you can see, as I did right from the first when I saw him slinging those billiard balls around, that this Jassus is a dangerous maniac."

"Oh, nonsense," Sweets said. "He has a bad temper, yes, but as for the rest..."

"All right, you bastard," came a sudden voice. "So I'm a maniac, am I? I'll show you." George Jassus jumped in through the French window. He was brandishing a wicked looking knobbed branch. He swished it viciously back and forth in front of him.

"The rest of you stay out of this," he sneered. And casually, he tossed away the club, spat on the floor, and knocked Wildman sprawling with one blow from his fist.

"I did kill that swine, you know. He told me to lay off Susan if I didn't want my teeth knocked out. Ran off in a huff, he did, and I decided to let it ride. Got good and bloody drunk instead. To hell with the whole business.

"I went outside to relieve the call of nature. He came at me with a rope. 'I'll horsewhip you within an inch of your life', he says. 'Go break an egg', I say ---

"ZICK!" [Barim jumped] "Christ, that hurt. I snatched the rope ... and before you can say whiskers, the man is dead. You bloody, bloody fool, I say to myself, all at once sober as a nun. So I thought and thought. You know the rest."

"That will be all, sir," said Constable Haddock as he and Jerry Ink flanked the killer. Wildman was sitting on the floor, rubbing his jaw. Jassus bent down and picked up a tooth.