The Glimpses of the Moon by Edmund Crispin Page B

for the dog show and gawp at the legs competition, though I’m bound to say, the standard of girls’ legs hereabouts isn’t exactly dazzling: more like two pairs of bolsters, most of them. The fairground stuff helps, too, makes a change from stalls selling doilies and jam and daffodil bulbs and musty old copies of Blackmore and Annie S. Swan. There’s a sort of community of retired fairground people living in horrible little bungalows at Glascombe, and whenever we have a Fête I make them dig their gear out and bring it along here. The theory is that they’re thrilled to get back into harness again. They pocket half the proceeds, of course, when I’m not looking, but they fill in the gaps and they’re a draw, of sorts. There’s one who has a dead mermaid on show, but the moths have been at her and she’s beginning to look a bit odd. He ought to store her in polythene, I keep telling him, but for all the notice he takes I might as well be talking to a heap of boulders.’
    Trembling with exhaustion, the youth Scorer staggered into the car-park with his machine, while Fen and the Rector strode on along the rutted track towards the lawn. Ahead of them, a massive uniformed policeman in a white crash helmet was moving along unexpectedly slowly, swaying a little and from time to time waggling his head cautiously from side to side.
    â€˜What on earth’s the matter with Luckraft?’ the Rector demanded. ‘Looks as if he’s half cut… Been at the bottle, Luckraft?’ he inquired as they came abreast. Startled, Luckraft stumbled on a stone, recovered himself, said, ‘Oh, it’s you, Rector,’ feebly, and attempted a smile. In point of fact he looked not so drunk as ill. They passed him and were in turn passed by another cleric, small and wiry, running. The Rector bellowed a greeting at him. ‘That’s Father Hattrick,’ he said. ‘A Roman, mind you, but a sound chap nevertheless. And nowadays he’s allowed to wear trousers, liberalization and all that tosh. Under another name, he’s a sort of male C. V. Wedgwood,’the Rector perplexingly added. ‘Always runs, says it’s better exercise than walking. Comes for Mrs de Freitas’s gooseberry jam.’
    They debouched on to the lawn where a double dais stood portentously apart. On its rear section, four grubby-looking girls with guitars, drums and a microphone were pottering about, trying to get themselves organized; lettering on the bass drum identified them as The Whirlybirds. The front section, at a slightly lower level and with another microphone, was for the present unoccupied. Though a fair number of people were wandering about among the tents and stalls, reconnoitring, even more were assembled expectantly in front of the dais, and their numbers were increasing momently. The Rector detached himself from Fen and set about shaking hands. Father Hattrick stationed himself strategically. The youth Scorer arrived, peering about him in search of the doctor. P.C. Luckraft appropriated, and with evident relief slumped down on, a folding wooden chair which someone had left propped against a nearby marquee. From the car-park, engine noise signalled the return of Clarence Tully in his Land-Rover, his herding mission accomplished, his two huge sons still standing up stick-straight behind him. The crowd buzzed, the sun shone, in the distance the Pisser swapped continuity for irregular spasms, a light breeze rustled in the shrubs and the stands of trees which the first Sir George Stanbury had planted at the lawn’s margins. Diametrically opposite from the dais, over by the west wing, the Misses Bale single-mindedly mounted guard on the Botticelli, and for the tenth time little Miss Endacott re-arranged the in-congruent jumble of items on the Rectory stall. Should she, she wondered, call out, ‘Come and buy! Come and buy!’ The mere thought of it made her legs shake so much