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  To Katherine Harris Grimes

  wherever you are,

  send Bygraves

  The Beginning

  1.

  AT THE MANOR HOUSE (I)

  He was there again today. End of lane.

  Knee-deep in leaves, just by that stand of ash.

  The same Burberry, furled umbrella, gun

  Mirroring light. I have seen him reflected in

  Shop windows, over my shoulder—commonplace,

  Anonymous on park benches or under

  Lampposts at the ends of passageways.

  He never leaves, except for a meal or a wash.

  After forty years, I have almost ceased to wonder:

  Who is supplying the cash?

  At first I thought (who wouldn’t?) it was the folks

  Wanting me out of the way. I lay in bed

  Sweating it out at night with the fangs and cloaks

  They called just shadows. No one ever comes clean

  About murder or sex. They can leave you there for dead,

  Tied up in an attic, or down in some ravine.

  “Mum, someone’s trying to kill me.” “Don’t be absurd,

  Dear,” she’d say, washing the blood from the basin.

  “If we can’t have a butler, how could we ever afford

  To hire an assassin?”

  And his turning up was not mere accident

  In family snaps of hatchet-faced old hats,

  All looking ghastly gray and prison-bent;

  Nor there, in tiers of black-robed graduates,

  Does he seem out of place, funereally

  Indistinguishable from the rest.

  He joined our summer outings by the sea,

  The unidentified and unknown guest;

  Wedding days, church socials, birthdays—he

  Attended all, unasked.

  I have seen him through the windows of stopped trains

  In village stations, hamlets, market towns,

  Cathedral cities, ends of country lanes

  Like this one, where the autumn’s rolling down

  The hillside, and it won’t be very long

  Before the leaves are stacked up window-level.

  Has something in his master plan gone wrong?

  Or is the whole idea wearing thin?

  Has death become, for both of us, less novel?

  And should I ask him in?

  But, no. It has to end with the police,

  Getting the neighbors out of bed to make

  Inquiries: Had she many enemies?

  Ever run foul of the law? What was she last seen wearing?

  They will stand in the rain with torches, they will rake

  Over the gravel, measure a footprint, scrape

  Blood from the sill, file a nail paring

  In a paper cup. End up dragging the lake.

  It will be so deadly boring.

  But I won’t be there to see.

  Neither will he.

  2.

  AT THE C.I.D.

  I

  “Send Bygraves!” barked the Chief Inspector.

  The walls went ghostlier white, the chairs

  Jumped. And from the portrait the eyes of the Queen

  Stared.

  The Superintendent paled. “Bygraves?

  Man, are you daft? You know his reputation!

  Scares witnesses. Hides evidence. Plants clues.”

  “That’s as may be. But no one else can solve

  This queer affair in Little Puddley, Surrey.

  The lady at the manor found a body—”

  “What’s queer in that? We’re always finding bodies.

  Bygraves finds bodies no one knew were missing.

  Last year: that spot of bother on Blackheath—

  Bygraves kept finding bodies where no bodies

  Had been reported!”

  “Still, he got his man!

  Some lunatic, some Bedlamite escaped . . .

  I think. Well, that’s who Bygraves said it was.

  Damn all! I can’t keep tabs on all of London!

  But this body in Little Puddley’s different:

  No one knows who it is. It comes and goes

  Like old shells that the sea keeps tossing up

  And dragging back . . . ”

  The Superintendent yelled:

  “I’m not in the mood, old boy, for metaphysics,

  Or poetry. We deal in facts, man, facts!

  You’re round the twist; you need your summer hols.

  A week in Bournemouth, Brighton, somewhere. Now,

  Get down to Little Puddley straightaway—”

  “Not I!” The C.I. yelled. “Send Bygraves! Dolt!

  Find Bygraves!”

  Sergeant Dolt, who had been sleeping

  Hard by the door, snapped to attention. “Bygraves?

  I’d get ’im sir, yes . . . only, wot’s ’e look like?”

  “What does he look like? What do you mean, you nit?”

  “Now now, sir, there’s no need to be abusive.”

  Dolt clattered up from his chair. “I never seen ’im.

  ’Ave you, then?”

  “Sergeant, Bygraves has been round here

  Longer than you or me.” The Chief Inspector

  Reddened, wondered too what did he look like?

  “Oh dash it all! Give me the phone! Bygraves!”

  He shouted down the blower. Drat the man!

  “Bygraves: I know you’re there.” No answer. “Bygraves!

  I’m ordering you straight to Little Puddley

  In Surrey.” Silence. “Someone’s found a body.

  Bygraves?” Click. The hum of disconnection.

  II

  Looking towards Greenwich,

  Towards that great confluence of sky and river,

  Thames and Tower,

  On misty mornings when Westminster rises

  In this pearl-gray hour;

  Had you been strolling on the Embankment then,

  You would not have looked up towards Scotland Yard,

  Its windows silvering in the sun,

  And thought: Murder is abroad.

  No, you would not have known

  The blind man coming towards you in these waves

  Of Londoners, his white stick tapping

  The ground like a divining rod, is looking

  Over his shoulder at you.

  Was it Bygraves?

  3.

  LODGINGS

  These are Bygraves’ rooms.

  Do not touch a thing.

  Stuff out of his pockets—

  Notebook, change, key ring.

  Careful. If he comes

  Back and finds us at it . . .

  Do not think about it.

  Do not touch a thing.

  Notice how the floor

  Tilts. And notice there

  Where the wallpaper

  Seems to conceal a door.

  Set that table straight;

  Leave those chairs around it.

  Fool! That paperweight—

  Put it where you found it.

  See your face dissolving

  In his wardrobe mirror,

  Like a face in water;

  See its surface moving.

  Do not touch the glass!

  Do not be alarmed.

  I have heard that others

  Have escaped unharmed.

  Stay back fro
m those windows!

  Wipe that knob you touched!

  Cling to walls and shadows.

  Fool! Put out that match!

  What? You thought you heard

  A key turn in the lock?

  Quiet. Not a word.

  Quick. Out the back.

  4.

  THE REGULARS AT THE BELL AND ANCHOR, LITTLE PUDDLEY, SURREY

  We’re a decent lot. We cause no trouble.

  (That spot of bother with the poisoned dogs

  At Smythe-Montcrieff’s? We’d nothing to do with that!)

  You standing, Sergeant? Ah, thank you, I’ll have a Double

  Diamond. Jameson on the side. That fog’s

  Thick as pea soup ihnit? I’ll tell you flat:

  We don’t much like the Yard nosing about

  In Little Puddley. Keep ourselves to ourselves,

  We do. We’ve nothing to hide. We’re a decent lot.

  We don’t know—right, mates?—nothing about no murder.

  We come to the Bell for a friendly pint and a game—

  Shove-penny, a bit of darts, it’s all the same.

  Only listen: there’s hugger-mugger up at that manor.

  Ain’t that right, Trev? Trevor was gardener

  For thirty years. But now the help won’t stay.

  There’s Fiona Rugg was cook there all these years;

  The one-eyed chauffeur, he quit too; and Scroggs,

  Scullery girl, they say she left in tears.

  We’ve heard of this chap, Bygraves. There’s a strange one.

  Dihn’t he find them bodies on Blackheath?

  No one knew who they was nor where they came from?

  You’d think he’d spun them up out of thin air.

  You standing again? Yes, thanks; I’ll have a Guinness.

  I’ll tell you straight, it fair gives me the creeps

  To think of fog out there and Bygraves in it.

  Look there! Whose face was that against the window?

  Another round, Mrs. Peach! This bloody fog.

  I’d not go out on a night like this, no, sir.

  Except to the Bell, of course, not with this fog;

  Not with this wind, screeching across the moor.

  Blind Willie says he hears them dogs. That’s blather,

  I say. But there’s strange doings in Little Pud.

  Like the things that’s happened to Whipsnade’s ladylove

  (All artsy-tartsy she is with her foreign ways!).

  What? You ain’t heard of that? Let’s have another—

  Mrs. Peach! Mrs. Peach! Two pints, please, of best bitter.

  Life’s a mug’s game, only joy for crooks and saints.

  Trying to puzzle it out—now, that’s where the trouble starts.

  Here at the Bell and Anchor we’ve no complaints.

  Life’s a mug’s game. Stick to your pints and darts.

  5.

  AT THE LODGE

  Major Snively is cleaning his guns.

  Hounds sprawl like logs

  Across the hearth. Ever since

  That wretched business of the poisoned dogs

  He’s had them in. Snively listens hard:

  What noise came from the yard?

  Fog like a curtain. Snively checks the locks.

  Has he forgotten anything?

  Fingerprints wiped clean; the clocks

  Turned back; the chairs upended;

  The broken statue of Eros mended.

  Snively remembers:

  Fear rises in him like a flight of birds.

  The shout. The sharp report.

  The hound returning with the bloodstained glove.

  Over the mantel gleam the polished swords

  Of the old regiment. His orderly

  White-turbaned and gold-toothed. Sahib. Sahib.

  Pink gin beneath the palms. The camel bells.

  Snively mops his brow; he’s through.

  This is the end of him.

  His dreams are bad. Blood falls like dew.

  What was that tapping on the pane?

  That scraping on the gravel?

  Snively stumbles to the window:

  The rag-and-bone man back again!

  What is he looking for?

  Snively wonders if

  The bloodstained glove is buried deep enough.

  That Scotland Yard lot’s given him no peace,

  And that chap Bygraves seemed too curious.

  What noise was that? Whose footstep on the terrace?

  6.

  AT THE MANOR HOUSE (II)

  Scroggs found him first by the statue of Eros,

  Impossible to mistake

  The man (the same Burberry, gun)

  Who watched me from the ends of lanes;

  And yet by morning he was gone.

  All day we searched the grounds, the woods.

  I remember the way the rooks

  Cawed in the treetops. Sinister, that.

  Rugg, the cook, took fright and packed.

  Next day we found him by the lake.

  We thought it odd. The chauffeur, Quickly,

  Stumbled on him three days later

  Face down in the kitchen garden.

  Then by evening, he was gone,

  The cabbage patch completely wrecked.

  Vanished, nothing left

  Except his glove and trilby hat.

  Now Scroggs has gone, and Rugg and Quickly.

  Well, what did I expect?

  You can’t keep servants after that.

  I wait alone, except for Sneed,

  Whom I distrust. All day I sweep

  Binoculars across the lawn.

  The formal garden’s gone to seed.

  The locals stand about ten-deep.

  I’ve picked out Snively, Whipsnade, Crumb,

  Having a turn round the estate.

  What does it mean? I still can’t shake

  The feeling that I’m being watched.

  They’ve called the Yard in much too late.

  The case will, in the end, be botched.

  7.

  A NOTE FROM BYGRAVES FOUND UNDER A MALT VINEGAR JUG

  The dark suspicions of a winter’s night:

  The missing hands of clocks.

  The poisoned chocolates in the heart-shaped box.

  8.

  ROSE COTTAGE

  Miss Ivers serves the Chivers marmalade

  With trembling hands. Miss Ivers is nervous.

  Miss Ivers is in love with Dr. Whipsnade,

  Engaged to Lady Madrigal du Bois,

  Pale, blonde, and vaguely foreign, whom he saved

  From being trampled underneath her horse.

  The reins were cut. But who would have believed

  The girl had enemies? There was that awful

  Episode in Creeper’s Wood, that brief

  Incident at Snively’s with the rifle.

  A good thing Whipsnade found the arsenic

  Traces in the cocoa and the trifle.

  Poor Madrigal. Thin, faded, turned to drink,

  Imagining her body lying on

  Dredcrumble Moor, or buried in a trunk.

  “More marmalade, my dear? Another scone?”

  Miss Ivers asks. Her rooms are cold and poor.

  Miss Ivers has lived all her life alone

  Watching the fog roll off Dredcrumble Moor,

  Thick and close and certain as old age.

  What will she do now Scotland Yard is here?

  Who walked behind her from the vicarage?

  Who tampered with her lock? Who took her key?

  Who left the knifemark on the window ledge?

  “More marmalade, my dear? Are you unwell?”

  “It tastes a bit bitter,” says Madrigal.

  9.

  P.C. FEATHERS AT THE GEORGE HOTEL

  They’ve cornered Feathers at the George Hotel:

  There’s Keepyhole, the butcher; there’s Miss Crumb,

  The Little Pud postm
istress; there’s Blind Willie,

  Village Teiresias; there’s poor Tom Spratt,

  Who at the age of fifteen was struck dumb

  By lightning in a field of cows.

  “Well, Feathers,

  Whose body is it, then?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Well, what’s the Scotland Yard lot doing, then?”

  Asks Keepyhole. “I hear it comes and goes

  Like Rose’s virtue. There, love, another round!”

  Giggles. More beer. The judgment of Miss Crumb:

  “You’ll not laugh when we’re throttled in our sleep.

  I don’t much fancy lying in a heap

  In Creeper’s Wood.” Silence while this sinks in.

  Tom grins and drools a bit and bangs for gin.

  Blind Willie lays his finger by his nose.

  Keepyhole says: “This Bygraves chap, you’ve seen him,

  Feathers. What’s he like?”

  “I’ve never seen him.

  Nobody’s seen him—only at a distance:

  On country roads, down lanes, across the park,

  Or in a stand of trees, or after dark,

  If you see torchlight show window to window,

  That’s Bygraves.” No one speaks. “A funny thing, though,

  The lanes are darker once Bygraves has been there;

  The house is emptier when Bygraves leaves it;

  The woods are colder when Bygraves has walked there.”

  They all stare at the fire. Flames shoot. Logs spark.

  Keepyhole pounds for beer. Spratt looks slack-mouthed.

  Miss Crumb eats Bovril crisps. “But he’s in charge;

  How’s he give you orders?”

  “Writes us notes.”

  “He writes you notes?”

  “Yes, notes.”

  “What kind of notes?”

  “Telling us to go here or to go there,

  To look for this or that. And listen close—

  We always find what Bygraves says well find:

  Letters, a ticket stub, a broken locket,

  Faded snapshot, bit of colored glass,

  Jar of marmalade—”

  “A poisoned dog!”

  Blind Willie winks his boiled-egg eye and cackles.

  “Get on with ye!” cries Feathers. “That’s all blather.”

  “I heard ’em!” shouts Blind Willie. “Oh, I heard ’em!