In my defence I have to say that I was taken completely by surprise.
Otherwise I would have been more than capable of taking on McCrimmon.
I’m not a boastful man, but I am reasonably handy with my fists.
However, when a harmless-looking garage mechanic is – as you expect –
about to confide a secret, you’re not as ready as you might be. Plus,
I think he used some sort of stick that had been lying by the back
door. I’m not very clear on the whole thing for obvious reasons.

At any rate, the next thing I knew, the landlord was shaking me and
someone in the background was going on about sending for a doctor.

“I am a doctor,” I tried to say.

The landlord slapped me.

“I’m not sure that’s the correct procedure,” said the female voice
from behind him in a tone of interested observation.

He said cheerfully, “Well, it’s working. He’s coming round.”

I opened my eyes reluctantly, since I had a feeling that I wasn’t
going to like where I found myself.

I was right. I was lying on the damp mud and gravel of the yard;
McCrimmon was nowhere to be seen; the landlord – a giant of a fellow
with wild curly hair and a terrifyingly wide smile – was kneeling over
me, and I was going to have the devil of a headache – concussion, if I
was unlucky. Unless I was concussed and the landlord was an
hallucination. He looked as though he ought not to be real.

“Hey there,” shouted the landlord, unnecessarily, “can you hear me?”

I winced. “Yes. I’m not deaf.”

“See?” he said to the woman behind him. “What did I say? Fellow’s
right as rain. Now, what are you doing, lying around here? I know my
lemonade’s potent stuff, but I’ve never seen it have that sort of
effect before.”

I tried not to move too suddenly. “A mechanic knocked me over the
head.”

“Ah,” said the landlord. “With a spanner, I expect. Did you say a
mechanic or a rustic?”

“Or possibly the lead piping,” suggested the woman.

He grinned again. “Maybe a candlestick?”

“Look,” I said, hoping for some sense out of them. “Did you see him
go through the pub?”

He shook his head. So, McCrimmon must have hared off out the back
gate or something.

“And what about Sarah?” I asked. “Miss Smith, I mean? Where is
she?”

It was beginning to occur to me that if McCrimmon was our murderer and
not merely a man desperately trying to protect a secret that he might
have gone after Sarah once he’d dealt with me. I swallowed, since the
thought of finding Sarah as we’d found Polly -. Well, I’d rather
*not* have to think of it.

“There aren’t any Smiths here,” said the woman. She moved forward and
I could see that she was a petite blonde with dark eyes. “Aside from
us, of course. This is the Crown Inn, Namechester.”

I cautiously tried to sit up. “I know where I am, thank you.”
Actually, that was reassuring. I knew where and who I was and what I
had been doing, so I might have avoided the concussion. It was about
as much as could be said for today.

It wasn’t encouraging news. Miss Smith, I knew by now, was not one to
sit idly by and wonder what had happened to her suspect and
accomplice. She’d have gone looking for one or both of us by now. I
hoped she hadn’t started trailing McCrimmon.

“Come on,” said Mr Smith (Sarah was right: there were an awful lot of
them around). “Let’s get you back inside.”

He helped me up with ease if not grace and deposited me back in the
window seat I’d been occupying earlier even as Sarah came racing
through the front door, half-flinging herself at the bar.

“Hello,” said the landlord. “Clearly a lady who’s desperate for a
pint.”

Sarah stared at him for a moment and then turned aside to me, as Mrs
Smith patted the back of my head with a cloth, presumably cleaning up
a spot of blood.

“Dr Sullivan, what are you doing?”

I thought about that for a moment before replying. “It’s a bit of a
long story.”

“Professor Plum in the conservatory,” said the landlord.

Mrs Smith moved away as Sarah reached me. “With the lead piping.”

“Where were you?” I asked.

She was flushed with excitement. “Someone’s stolen your car!”

I have to say that as days went, this one was steadily getting worse.

*

Sarah was surprisingly sympathetic about the whole incident. While my
ineptitude in letting McCrimmon whack me over the head and leg it had
only confirmed her low opinion of me, she at least tried not to let it
show and inspected the bump on my head with apparent concern.

The landlord fetched me a glass of ginger beer on the house. “Thought
you needed something stronger than lemonade,” he explained and pushed
it across the table to me. “Go on. It’ll do you good.”

“Thanks,” I said. I wanted to go home to bed, but I needed to find
out what Sarah had been doing in the mean time – and how we were going
to get back now that someone had run off with my motor.

Sarah took my arm. “Sorry about your car.”

“What happened?”

She bit her lip. “Well, the garage owner went off to fetch something
or other. I was watching from across the road, as I had nothing
better to do since McCrimmon had -.”

“Decided I was the most gullible of the two of us,” I said for her.
“Or he’s not as bad as we think and he didn’t want to bash a female
over the head.”

She gave me a look. “You would say something like that. Anyhow, I
was standing there watching, when a dark-haired, foreign looking man
walked up. He stared about him a bit, then he opened the car door and
started poking around inside. I tried not to let him see me watching,
but I moved further forward.”

“Searching for something?” I echoed. I didn’t keep anything in my
car, barring one or two essentials. Nothing a man would go to those
sorts of lengths for, any rate. “That’s odd.”

She nodded. “I wondered if he was after your doctor’s bag.”

“I suppose that’s a theory,” I said, although I have to say that no
shady-looking foreign types have ever tried to snatch my kit before.

Sarah took a deep breath. “Anyway, then he looked up and saw I was
watching and he panicked. He got in, slammed the door behind him and
sped off. There was a bicycle hanging around, so I threw myself on it
and went after him.”

“I say,” I put in, “that wasn’t very sensible – you could have been
hurt.”

Sarah glanced at me. “I’m not the one who’s got a lump the size of an
ostrich egg on my head, am I?”

“No,” I admitted. “What happened?”

She coloured slightly then, as I noted with interest. “He must have
seen me following – he swerved round and headed straight for me, but I
managed to get out of the way, but he crashed right into the wall
beside me.” She paused then. She added with a slight tremor, “It was
all rather horrible after that.”

“I say, Sarah,” I said, ashamed of myself for moaning about my
troubles. “He tried to kill you?”

She frowned. “Well, I think so. Or maybe he only wanted to force me
off the road. I think your car did need seeing to – the brakes can’t
have been much use.”

We both look at each other, distracted by the same conclusion.

“Jamie,” she said, wide-eyed. “Do you think -? Surely not?”

I put my hand to my head. “This is all getting a bit much for me.
You mean that McCrimmon sabotaged the brakes, but then this other chap
decided to steal the car and he got smashed up instead of us?”

“I don’t know,” said Sarah. “I mean, if it had been Jamie, the other
mechanic would surely have come along and fixed it before you got it
back, wouldn’t he?”

I thought about this. “Actually, if he hadn’t knocked me silly, I
might have chased after – gone for the car.”

“Oh,” she said, paling. “I suppose we might have done.”

I sighed. “And my car?”

“Not good,” she said. “They towed it back to the garage and the man
said he’ll do his best, but he didn’t sound confident.”

I looked at her. “What have we got ourselves into?”

“A good question,” she observed. “And I've got another – how are we
going to get back to Nether St Yorick? I can’t take you on the bus,
looking like that.”

I straightened myself. “I’m fine now, honestly.”

“Well,” she amended, “I suppose as long as you keep your hat on…”