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

I had no intention of coming out. I knew enough about country matters to recognize that he had let loose only one barrel of his shotgun and I felt sure that the other was anxiously seeking the slightest sign of movement on my part. My best bet was to lie low. The undergrowth around me was so thick and rustly that I should be able to keep close track of his movements if he began to approach.

Why this should have seemed a comfort I don’t know! When next he moved, I certainly heard him, but he was so near that he must just as certainly hear me if I attempted to retreat. Now he’d stopped again. I pictured him standing close by, beady eyes gleaming, ears and gun cocked for my slightest movement.

I could bear it no longer. I had to get out of there!

Slowly I rose, using a Walt Disney beech tree for cover. I had a strong sense that he was directly on the other side of it, but it didn’t matter. Nothing could be worse than this terror of waiting!

Then from under my feet a rabbit started! The poor beast must have been crouching only a couple of feet away from me, petrified by an equal terror. Now it was off in a noisy panic-stricken dash through the dark brush. I leaned against the tree startled half out of my mind, and suddenly the farmer, attracted by the noise of the rabbit’s flight, jumped out from behind the beech.

He looked exactly as I’d imagined him. I held my breath. He peered after the rabbit, gun leveled. I thought I was going to die. He hadn’t seen me yet, but he was only a yard away. I felt myself choking. Any moment he must turn!

I did the only thing possible.

Raising both my arms, I leapt forward and brought my clenched fists crashing down on the base of his thick red neck.

For the next few seconds, I staggered around in complete agony, certain I must have broken my wrists. When the pain eased slightly and the tears cleared from my eyes, I discovered the unfortunate farmer was lying flat on his face in a tangle of whin and briar. I must have unknowingly struck some particularly susceptible point of the body. It was the kind of thing I had frequently viewed with blasé disbelief in the cinema. I still do. They never show you the hero nursing his sprained wrists.

To my relief, he began to make groaning noises and even essayed a movement of the arms to push himself upright. It was unsuccessful, but the next one might not be. His shotgun lay at my feet. I did not feel he was going to be a safe person, either physically or mentally, to bear arms for a few hours, so I picked it up and set off at a brisk trot.

The trees thinned out after a while and I could make almost as rapid progress as I would have done in the open. Eventually the wood became a mere meadow and this ran all the way to the hedge which marked the farthest boundary of Alice’s kitchen garden.

Flitting from tree to tree, I crossed the meadow with a mixture of speed and circumspection, my mind very much concerned with the twin necessities of getting under cover as quickly as possible and of getting into the house without being spotted. It was the monster, Lennie, I feared most of all. Discovery by Alice would be more completely devastating, I knew, but in terms of sheer probability Lennie was the real danger. Alice was a large woman, slow moving, easily spottable, while Lennie wandered hither and thither like an infant poltergeist, perceptible only by the trail of damage he left. He could be sitting behind the hedge at this very moment watching my progress with that cold curiosity of his, wondering what profit was in it for him.

I stopped and regarded the hedge uneasily, victim of my own imaginings. But my luck was holding. As I watched, I heard the noise of a car and out of the old lean-to garage at the far side of the house pulled Sally’s Mini. I caught a clear glimpse of two heads, one topped by Sally’s dear long blond hair, the other by Lennie’s raven-black tangle, before the car turned into the road and set off for Millthwaite village, which fortunately lay in the opposite direction to the angry policeman, the assaulted farmer, the educated tramp, and the rustled sheep.

This left only Alice, and a glance at my watch told me that it was more than likely she, too, would be out. About this time most mornings she took a short walk over the fields to practice good works on Widow Tyler, who was too old to resist or too imbecile to resent the dreadful condescension with which Alice’s gifts of caramel custards, nourishing broths, or homemade wine (all on a par with her fried eggs) were given.

Saying a little prayer of anticipatory thanks, I dashed across the few remaining yards of the meadow, clambered over the hedge, trod with fearful care between the rows of Alice’s vegetables (how hard do our old terrors die!), and entered the kitchen.

It was empty. The twenty tarts still lay on the table. The empty saucer still stood on the shelf by the cellar door.