Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

It also filled me with apprehension. If Jarvis set off in the right direction, he could easily overtake Old Tommy before the tramp was safely over the arterial. I hadn’t been seen by the pair at the gate, so I quickly retreated. It was my simple intention, if Jarvis came this way, to flag him down and engage him in conversation as long as I possibly could. But when I came in view once more of the little field nestling among the wooded hills, I saw that not all the sheep were safely grazing inside anymore. Some fool had left the gate ajar. It was probably me. I was never very hot on the country code, I’m afraid. Anyway, two or three sheep were already out on the road and the others were queuing up to follow. Guiltily I set about trying to shoo the escapees back in. Then it struck me that here was the perfect excuse for delaying Jarvis if he came. Not that a couple of sheep would cause a country policeman much trouble. Was that the distant putt-putt of a motor scooter I could hear?

Acting with sudden resolution, I opened the gate wide, went into the field, and began waving my arms and shouting. For a few seconds, the stupid animals merely regarded me indifferently. Then, as if someone had pressed a panic button, suddenly they turned as one and stampeded out of the gate and down the road.

At exactly that moment, P.C. Jarvis came sailing round the corner. They must have used more of the taxpayers’ money to give him a first-class training, for he displayed a high degree of skill, gently colliding with no more than four or five of the leading animals before his machine came to rest in the hedgerow as, shortly afterwards, he did himself.

It was no time to come forward and pretend I had been trying to restore the sheep to their field, I decided. A quiet withdrawal was best. Jarvis was on his feet. He was bleeding slightly and looked rather dazed, but in the best traditions of the great force to which he belonged, he was applying himself instantly to the immediate task, which seemed to involve viciously kicking every sheep that was foolish enough to remain within range.

It would be a long time before he was ready to resume the chase after Old Tommy. Well satisfied, I climbed out of the field into the surrounding wood and began to make my way back towards the cottage across country.

I smiled as I walked at the thought of all those sheep running wildly in all directions. They would take hours to round up. Foolish animals! Unlike the rational part of creation, their only reaction to danger was flight. Had I been a sheep and not a man, I would doubtless have been running madly towards the railway station by now (I smiled at the thought), instead of which I was going to stay on at Rose Cottage, conquer Alice’s suspicions, win Sally’s hand, and live happily ever after.

Another bubble! Townie though I am, I had a sharp enough ear for danger to catch a discordant note in the great symphony of nature. And now I paused and listened.

I was right. Something was approaching fast — some large, heavy beast galloping down the slope towards me, paying scant attention to the undergrowth or any other obstacle. A wild boar? I wondered, ready to believe anything of a landscape which could house Aunt Alice.

Then I saw a figure and heard a distant voice. It was almost incomprehensible with anger and the thick local accent, but I heard enough to catch his general drift.

“—ing bugger! My — ing sheep! — ing shoot! — ing police!”

This might have been the not totally unattractive program of some new anarchist party, but I guessed not. No, it seemed more likely this was that same pigeon-shooter I had heard earlier, probably one of the local farmers, a fearsome tribe of primitives, fit consort for the likes of Alice. And I guessed from his broken speech that the sheep were his, and from some vantage point on the hill he’d observed my apparent attempt to rustle them!

I could only hope he’d been too distant for identification. From the time he’d taken to appear on the scene, it seemed likely. Without further ado, I took to my heels, scrambling madly through the undergrowth which, innocuous a moment earlier, now seemed to coil thorny tentacles around my calves and thighs at every step.

Behind me, the voice ceased its abusive babble and a single more terrible sound filled its place — the soft explosion of a shotgun cartridge. The leaves above my head hissed as though drilled by jets of boiling rain, frightened birds rose noisily into the air, and I fell to the ground with all the speed I could muster.

“Come on out, you varmint!” roared the awful voice. (He may or may not have said “you varmint,” but this was the kind of thing these local farmers were able to say with no self-consciousness whatsoever.)