The next morning dawned fine and bright. Uncle was up early and had obviously forgotten that it was his birthday, because the cards and gifts Arbie brought to the breakfast table puzzled him for a few seconds.
He claimed to be only fifty-two. Arbie didn’t believe him.
Mrs Privett had cooked him all his favourite dishes and left a wrapped parcel of his favourite tobacco by his plate as her own offering, and Uncle was contentedly smoking his newly filled pipe when they set off from the house a little while later.
‘So where’s this surprise you’ve promised me then?’ Uncle said, twinkly eyed, as they made their way across the somewhat lacklustre garden towards the green field that sloped down to the river beyond.
‘You’ll see,’ Arbie said, grinning happily, having already spotted in the distance the tell-tale white shape of the small boat tied up by the usually deserted jetty. ‘I hope you like it, Uncle. I’ve had her re-fitted just for you.’
At this, Uncle’s eyes slit up speculatively. ‘Her, eh? Finally found me that buxom barmaid I’ve been dreaming … er, oh hello, young Val.’ He choked off his reprehensible ramblings abruptly, and Arbie spun around to find Val bearing down on him. Even though she wasn’t on her bicycle, there was a look in her eyes that again set off ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ in his mind, and he felt his shoulders go back, ready to take whatever onslaught was coming.
‘Ah, Val, lovely to see you.’ He presented his most appeasing smile. ‘That’s a particularly fetching hat you’re …’
‘What’s all this about Mr Bickersworth killing himself in his cell last night?’ she demanded, barely pausing to nod at his uncle. ‘Apparently, Inspector Gorringe arrested him late in the evening and he admitted to killing Amy Phelps and Phyllis, and then hung himself with his shoelaces or something equally awful!’
‘Eh?’ Arbie squeaked, battered by so much information all at once. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of …’
‘Oh, don’t try and tell me you had nothing to do with it,’ she warned him, hands on her hips and her blue eyes flashing. ‘I saw Inspector Gorringe this morning when he came to talk to Daddy about something, and he let slip that you and he had had a most enlightening conversation yesterday. Have you been holding back on me, you, you, you swine, you?’ Val spluttered, all but stamping her foot.
‘I think I’ve just spotted my birthday surprise,’ Uncle said hastily, pointing down the field. ‘Is that it?’ He indicated with his walking stick at the white boat bobbing on the water below, and Arbie nodded mutely. ‘In that case, I think I’ll check her out. Thanks, m’boy.’ He clapped Arbie on the shoulder in a gesture of manly camaraderie. ‘I’ve always liked mucking about on the river. Miss Val.’ Uncle tipped his hat to her and then sped off down the field at a good clip, just like the honest-to-goodness yellow lily-livered coward that he was.
Arbie wished bitterly that he was speeding off with him.
‘Now look here, Val …’ he tried, but she instantly raised a pale, imperious hand, cutting him off.
‘No! I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses!’ Then her shoulders slumped a little. ‘Oh, Arbie, I thought we were in this together,’ she wailed in a more conciliatory tone. ‘If the Inspector was in the mood to finally spill the beans about what’s been happening and took you into his confidence that he was about to arrest Mr Bickersworth and how it was all done and so forth, you might at least have come and told me about it afterwards so that I was the first to know.’
Arbie, mortally offended by this slur, opened his mouth to say that the Inspector had done no such jolly thing, and that he’d been the one doing all the explaining, but just in time realised the sheer folly of doing so. If Val was this hopping mad already, he was not about to send her boiling over into incandescent rage by telling her just how much he’d kept back from her.
For when he’d finally drummed up the courage to talk to Gorringe about his deliberations it hadn’t occurred to him that Val ought to be there. He knew that her parents wouldn’t thank him for involving her in things any deeper, and there would certainly be talk if her name was linked in any way as being a catalyst to an actual arrest. The newspapers would have a field day as it was! And, damn it, a chap had to a duty to protect the ladies.
Besides, he thought fatalistically, she probably wouldn’t have believed he could have worked it all out anyway. Val had always thought him a total dunderhead.
So he hung his head and shuffled his feet. ‘I say, Val, I am sorry,’ he muttered instead. ‘I just didn’t think of it,’ he added feebly.
Val took one look at him, gave a huffy sigh of part exasperation, part despair, tossed her head, snorted a bit and finally stormed off. Arbie watched her go, not sure if he felt glad or sorry that she was apparently finally washing her hands of him once and for all.
He morosely wandered away across the field to join his uncle on the jetty. So, Reggie had decided that he couldn’t face a trial, and had done what was euphemistically called ‘the decent thing’, had he? Arbie didn’t blame him. The Inspector must have found the evidence he needed in Reggie’s studio and tracked down a copy of Phyllis’s will, confirming that she’d left her fortune under his control.
Arbie supposed that justice had been done, but even so, he wished heartily that none of it had ever happened.
He sighed and stepped onto the jetty that his uncle had built, testing the timbers somewhat gingerly, and relieved to find that they seemed solid enough beneath his feet – if not particularly straight. At the sound of his feet, his uncle popped his head out from one of the open boat windows and beamed at him.
‘She’s a beauty, my boy,’ he enthused. ‘A bit old-fashioned, but that’s no bad thing, and the added daylight you’ve let into her plus the extra storage spaces for my paints and easels are just right. And the tarpaulin on the floor – perfect. I can paint riverside landscapes “outdoors” but stay nice and dry and warm and out of the wind at the same time! Genuis, my boy, sheer genius! I’ll be positively spoilt! Thanks, Arbie m’boy, this is the best birthday present I’ve ever had!’
His uncle was so over the moon that Arbie’s spirits couldn’t help but lift a little. The grizzled head retracted momentarily, then almost instantly, popped back out again. ‘Oh, and Arbie? The name? Splendid. I nearly choked with laughing. Didn’t think you had it in you. You can be a bit of a conservative stick sometimes, you know. But this old girl will get the neighbours’ eyes and minds boggling,’ he said, affectionately patting the windowsill of the boat. ‘She’ll soon be notorious on the river for miles around. I dare say all the old biddies and churchmen will try to get me to change her name, but I’ll be keel-hauled before I will!’
And with that, his head disappeared again.
Arbie blinked. What on earth was Uncle on about? What was wrong with The Arty Craft for a name? He’d thought it rather appropriate himself. It was a craft, and it was going to be piloted by an artist and used to create works of art. What objection could anyone make about that?
Uneasily, he trotted forward to the bow of the boat, where the name would be visible. As he did so, he remembered the deafness of Marcus Finch and that last phone call from him, and he felt his heart plummet.
A deep sense of foreboding and premonition assailed him as he reached the bow and read the resplendent navy-blue italicised writing that proudly declared the vessel’s name.
The Crafty Fart.
As the full horror of it hit him, Arbuthnot Swift wondered if he could persuade his publishers that the next volume of The Gentleman’s Guide to Ghost-Hunting should be set abroad. Far, far abroad. And that he needed to set off on his research trip right away.
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