Ellis Peters - George Felse 10 - The Knocker On Death's Door by Ellis Peters Page B

“The Sitting Duck.” The natives did not use “The Martel Arms.” The reason was beer rather than caste, but the aliens were not to know that. They came slumming, and it was a wonder they didn’t bring their tape recorders with them, so quaint and primitive was Sam Crouch’s antiquated—and profitable—bar, and so renowned its characters. The visitors being believers, Saul had become a sceptic of the bleakest kind. He believed in nothing he could not touch, smell or drink. He deposited his lean rump in the red pulpit-cushions of the corner settle, and winked at Dinah Cressett across the crowded bar.
    This was Saturday night, so everyone was there. The general hum of conversation—“The Sitting Duck” was never a noisy bar, they banished the young and loud into the garden pavilion—was constant, drowsy and warm, like the busy signature of a hive of bees. Over this background, dominant voices floated in emphatic moments like soloists in opera soaring out of the chorus, to subside again gracefully without breaking the continuous arc of rounded, communal sound. Not many pubs can command such orchestration and balance, these days.
    “The mockers,” pronounced Eb Jennings, in an unexpected bass lead-in that seemed to emerge from the cellars under their feet, “the mockers may have blood on their hands by morning. Who took away the wreath that was meant to protect us all?”
    On Saturday nights the Jennings family went their separate ways, each member with the family blessing on his choice: Eb to the bar of the “Duck,” Linda to the Bingo in the infant school, with her friend Mrs. Bowen, and young Brian, on his powerful pest of a motor-bike, to the weekly dance in Comerbourne, replete with beat groups blessed with incredible names, and heady with nubile girls. Brian was a heroic dancer and a Spartan motor-cyclist. His gear was stark, immaculately maintained and without insignia. In transit he looked more like one of Cocteau’s symbolic fates pursuing Orpheus than a modern, brass-knobbed, long haired, seedy enthusiast.
    Within the memories of the regulars, however, Eb had never taken any active part in the entertainments staged impromptu at the “Duck.” Either something had got into him, tonight, or else this was the first occasion that had touched him nearly, and caused him to give tongue.
    “In the midst of life,” he proclaimed, erect beside the bar like a prophetic angel, even his pint forgotten, “in the midst of life we are in death. Like our brother departed. No one should laugh who is not ready to go.”
    For one instant he achieved such an impression that there was total silence in the bar. Then Saul said reasonably: “Well, nobody who’s ready to go is going to feel much like laughing, that’s for sure. And anyhow, you tell the police, Eb, lad, don’t tell us,
we
didn’t shift your parsley garland.”
    “Nor call the coppers off night watch,” confirmed Willie the Twig. “After all, they’ve kept a guard on the church for three nights, and nothing happened. And they need plenty of men during the day on these jobs, they can’t wear out a constable minding the scene of the crime indefinitely.”
    “Anyhow,” said Eli Platt sententiously, “lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”
    “Have it your way, then,” intoned Eb, “but I tell you we’re not finished yet with this evil. ’Tis in the air all about us. ’Tis lurking there on the scene where the murder was done. I feel my thumbs prick and my blood chill when I go near that door.”
    “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” one of the visitors explained with kindly condescension, “if you approach these phenomena in a scientific spirit. From what you’ve told us of the past history of the Abbey, this is a very interesting case which ought to be investigated by someone trained in the proper research techniques. What’s needed is accurate and detached observation. That’s impossible if one is afraid.”
    Everyone