Ellis Peters - George Felse 10 - The Knocker On Death's Door by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

under the trees drew in outline long, trousered legs in flannel grey, the hem of a short car coat, bulky shoulders under brown gaberdine, straw-coloured hair spilled on the flagstones from a lolling head that was not quite the right shape.
    Dave advanced by inches, chilled and yet irresistibly drawn. He saw an extended arm, fingers and palm flattened against the foot of the closed door. He stepped over the sprawled legs, and peered at the motionless face. The eyes were open, glazed and bright, glaring at the shut door, straining after the calm within. The jaw had dropped, as if parted upon a desperate cry for help.
    The photographer from Birmingham, who had sensed a story here in the barbarian territory of Middlehope, and staked his freelance reputation upon cornering the scoop, was never going to file his story after all. He was dead and cold at the foot of the sanctuary door.

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CHAPTER 3
    « ^ »
    DAVE started back for the vicarage at a run. The nearest telephone was there, and the vicar had to know, in any case, and was by far the most suitable person to stand guard over the scene until the police arrived. The one thing everyone knows about the scene of a crime—especially a murder—is that nothing must be moved or touched until the whole circus has had its way. That this was a crime was not in doubt for a moment. And not merely a murderous assault, but a murder. The large, jagged stone that lay in the middle of the flagged path, ominously stained, had not fallen out of the trees; there was a gap among the whitened stones fringing the grass, to show where someone had plucked it from, and there was the dark, muddied red hollow in the photographer’s skull to show what the same someone had done with it. There was no misting of breath on metal when Dave held his silver lighter against the open lips, the hand he touched gingerly was marble-cold. It never entered his head to think of a doctor. Doctors weren’t going to do anything for this poor devil from now on, except haggle over the time and the exact cause of his death. The Reverend Andrew, a realistic soul, accepted what he was told without demanding that it be repeated. When he said something he meant it, and not being lavish or fluent with words, he expected to have the few he did use taken as gospel. Moreover, he recognised a like directness in Dave. He waved him at once to the telephone, and galloped off towards the churchyard, to mount guard over the body that must have lain unguarded all night. And Dave called, not headquarters at Comerbourne, as the vicar would probably have done, but Sergeant Moon, up the valley at Abbot’s Bale. The moment the outside world laid an encroaching hand on the property, privacy or peace of mind of Middlehope, the whole valley closed its ranks.
    “Stand by, and we’ll be down there in a quarter of an hour,” said Sergeant Moon. “Don’t leave him alone, but don’t let anyone touch anything.”
    “No, that’s taken care of—the vicar’s keeping an eye on him.”
    And Dave went to join him. The Reverend Andrew was examining everything in the south porch with appalled but fascinated eyes, as closely as he could without disturbing anything. He wasn’t a native, and he was young enough and innocent enough to find life in Middlehope a little wanting in action—being excluded by his office from about nine-tenths of what action there really was. He would have been horrified if it had so much as entered his mind that he could be glad of a murder; but here was one on his doorstep whether he wanted it or not, and it was impossible not to feel a decided curiosity, and even a certain distinctly pleasurable excitement.
    “Desecrated!” he said, looking over his shoulder at Dave from his precious door. “This means we shall have to get it reconsecrated all over again.”
    “A pity we can’t just do the same for him,” Dave said drily. He couldn’t take his eyes from the misshapen head and the jagged stone with its stained