4. LADY GODIVA AND TRAIN SETS

THE FANCY DRESS BALL (4)

I was still exchanging pleasantries with Cedric when the Swanspottle police constable, in uniform even though he was clearly not on duty seeing that he was currently in the adjacent town to his village beat, Oliver Crunch walked brazenly into the shop. He brought with him the air of one who might be about to arrest everyone in sight and work out why afterwards. It was an impression he invariably gave and it concealed the fact that he was, in actual fact, underneath it all an amiable soul.

“Hello, hello, hello,” he said, frowning and then, when Cedric almost leapt onto his counter, grinning broadly, “what have you got in the way of scarecrows, my good friend?” he asked.

“Scarecrows?” stammered Cedric, not quite having recovered from the shock of having a burly policeman shouldering his way into his innocent shop,

Oliver nodded. “Scarecrows,” he confirmed, “I need to be a scarecrow,” ans he nudged me and grinned, “’cause I’ll catch ‘em at it, I will, when I’m lurking in corners watching and waiting until they put one foot wrong, and then nabbin’ them!”

“Worzel Gummidge?” I asked, “is that who you were thinking of, Oliver? Because if it is I rather suspect that Farmer Muggins has already taken it because every time we have a do like the Absinths are planning he goes as a scarecrow. Reckons it’s a joke, but it’s worn a bit thin of late, him standing still as a corpse like any old scarecrow, then leaping into life and making the kids all jump for their lives when they’re least expecting it.”

“Scarecrow? Worzel Gummidge? That’s right. Farmer bloke took it, and for good measure he took Aunt Sally for his good lady.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Police Constable Oliver Crunch, “I wonder what I can do?”

“Try something else?” I suggested, “I mean, there are no end of costumes to choose from in this very shop...”

“I’ve got a lady scarecrow,” suggested Cecil, and he called his partner from wherever he was lurking, “I say, Tony back there, do you know where that dolly bird scarecrow costume is? The one made to look like one of them there young beauties in carry on films? All legs and b***s, they were, and silly as owt?”

Tony Dingle made his way from the back of the shop, a smile on his always cheerful face, and pointed to a rail of various garments hanging in the corner. “It’s in amongst that lot,” he said, “complete with mask. Without the mask she’d look like a siren, one of them Greek temptresses who made sailors forget where they were sailing to until they smashed up against a rock. But with the mask she’d look really earthy. That’s it: earthy.”

Tony disappeared back to whatever it was he’d been doing and Cecil started investigating where the female scarecrow was supposed to be. It didn’t take him long to find the mask, a truly hideous affair with coarse curls of yellow wool for hair and lips the size of snakes. At least, that’s what they looked like to me.

Oliver Crunch looked at it and frowned, but when the rest of the costume emerged and Cecil held it up his smile grew broad.

“It’ll do,” he said slowly, rubbing his hands together, “who’d suspect anything as evil looking as the of being a person of interest in a murder enquiry?”

”Murder enquiry?” I spluttered, “there won’t be a murder there, surely? Not at the manor?”

Using his best hollow voice Oliver frowned and said, quietly, “Who can tell, Roger? The Manor is an old country house and all the best murders happened in country houses. Ask Agatha Christie ‘cause she knows all about country house murders. And all the best country coppers manage to look like losers who haven’t got a clue, but if I were involved I’d see all the clues. Oh, yes I would! So I’ll take this costume if you don’t mind, and show you how a country copper can solve the hardest of crimes.”

“You’re joking!” I spluttered.

“We’ll see,” he grinned, and then added, “and who knows, I probably am...”

oo0oo

I was sitting in the Nags Head once I left the costumiers, with my costume carefully wrapped in a bag. It had stopped raining outside and Police Constable Crunch had caught the bus back to Swanspottle in time, he said, for his beat, though nobody knew exactly where he strolled when he was on duty, which probably added to the ferocious act he was capable of adopting and meant that his area was more peaceful than most and most certainly suffered from almost no juvenile crime.

I was enjoying a pint of best bitter, and there’s no beer better in all of Middleshire in my experience, when a familiar voice attracted my attention.

“Why, hello Cynthia!” I replied. It was the wife of my friend Sir Jeffrey Absinthe and I’ve told her more times than I could count that if she were unattached then I’d make a powerful play for her because, tell the truth, there are few women more attractive in the whole of the county. She had everything: hair (very long and shining), eyes (deliciously blue like a summer cloudless sky) and her taste in clothing warmed my heart whenever I saw her and whatever she was wearing.

Looking at her it was hard to imagine that she was mother of two teenage daughters, Jessica and Dakota, who, being twins and consequently the same age, were at the same University as each other, but studying, I believe, two very different subjects. But delightful as the girls were it was their mother who never ceased to catch my eye.

“I’m meeting Jeff here,” she said with a radiant smile, “may I join you or are you waiting for someone?”

“Not at all,” I said, meaning I wasn’t waiting for anyone, “please, take a seat, and save one for Jeffrey. It can get busy in here now that everyone’s spaced so far apart that you have to shout in order to be whispering!”

That was a precaution against the pandemic that we were all fearing might destroy us in the way that the black death or bubonic plague had decimated populations in history.

“What would you like me to get you?” I asked her, but she shook her head.

“Nothing, thanks,” she said, and she noticed the big I had, the one bearing the name of Balls and Co, costumiers. “That’s where he is now,” she said, “and he hates dressing up, but he said he’ll find something appropriate.”

“And you?” I asked.

She laughed. “What do you think,” she said, “get me a horse and with this hair,” she indicated her wonderful head of flowing locks, “with this hair I could be Lady Godiva. That way I needn’t spend a penny on a costume, don’t you think?”

A mental image of her dressed in the nothing favoured by Lady Godiva in history mad me squirm in my seat.

“Why, Roger, I do believe I’ve turned you on,” she said, “fancy that!”

“You’ve turned what on?” came Jeffrey’s voice from the direction of the door.

Cynthia smiled at her husband. “Why, Roger, darling, but then you know him. He’s easier to wind up than your clockwork train set! I told him I might attend our soiree as Lady Godiva!”

“But he’s nowhere near as much fun as my train,” he growled, “come on, honey, let’s get home before the rains return!”

© Peter Rogerson 20.07.20