Ellis Peters - George Felse 01 - Fallen Into The Pit Read Online Free PDF Page A

least, of some interesting incident. However, he departed blithely when George came out to the office himself, for trouble would keep, and the golden July evening would not.
    “Hell!” said George, reaching for the receiver. “This is what comes of drawing fate’s attention to— Hullo, yes! Felse here!” Bunty saw the official tension settle upon his face, and heaved a resigned sigh. When he hung up she had his cap already in her hands, and was holding it out to him with a comical resignation.
    “Who mentioned knives?” said George accusingly, ducking his head into it wrathfully, ducking a little lower still to kiss her as he hooked open the door. “From now on, woman, keep off that line of talk, you’ve got me a real casualty this time.”
    “Where?” cried Bunty. “Not the camp?”
    “The Lodge—young miner at the hostel copped it from a P.O.W.”
    “He’s not badly hurt?” she shrieked after him, leaning forward in the doorway as he flung a leg across his bike and pushed off hard along the empty evening road.
    “Be O.K., I think—I hope!” He was gone, and the rest of the story with him. Bunty went back dispiritedly into the kitchen and turned up the radio, but it was not much company. One might almost as well not have a husband; D.P.s, labor rows, neighbors swapping punches over a shared front path or a drying-ground, Road Safety Committee meetings, lectures, drunks, accidents, there was no end to it. And now some poor kid in trouble—maybe two poor kids, since most of the ex-P.O.W. recruits at the miners’ hostel were no more. Say goodbye to that cosy evening with George, he won’t be back until all hours.
    “Maybe I should get me a dog,” said Bunty grimly, “or take up fancy-work.”

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Four
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    The Lodge had cost the Coal Board more than it was worth, and more than they need have paid for it if they had had the courage of their convictions; but it was house-room for thirty men. The warden was a decent, orthodox, middle-aged man who expected his troublous family of Welshmen, local boys, Poles, Germans and Czechs to behave in as orderly a manner as children in a preparatory school, and was out of his depth when they did not. The whole setup was too new for him; he preferred an arrangement tried and hardened by use, where the right procedure for every eventuality was already safely laid down in black and white for a simple man to follow. Improvisation was not in his nature. He opened the studded imitation Tudor door to George, and perceptibly heaved all his responsibilities into those welcome navy-blue arms at sight. His wife would be less than useless; she had political convictions but no human ones. If the boy was really hurt they’d better get him out of there, thought George, before she gave him a chill.
    “Doctor here?” he asked, halfway up the stairs with the warden babbling in his ear.
    “Just ten minutes ahead of you, Sergeant. He’s with the lad now.” There is a certain type of man who persists in using the word lad though it does not come naturally to him; the thing has a semi-clerical ring about it, a certain condescension. You get the feeling that a young male creature of one’s own class would have been a boy, while this person is subtly different.
    “Good! No verdict from him yet?”
    “There’s scarcely been time, Sergeant. This has been a terrible business, it might so easily have ended in a tragedy. This collier’s lad—” A shade more of definition, and one step down; we’re getting on, thought George.
    “Which? You didn’t say who the victim was. Local boy?”
    “Young Fleetwood. He’s been here only a month, and really—”
    “I know him,” said George. “What about the other party?”
    “A young man named Schauffler, Helmut Schauffler. I must say he’s never given me any trouble before. A good type, I would have said. And, to be quite fair, I can’t say he has been altogether to blame—certainly not the only one to blame—”
    “Where