habit, because of its memories and strode on, his heavy chin thrust out, his shoulders sagging and his eyes down. There was defeat written all over him. As he turned and his face was hidden, Mr Campion raised the glass to the new skyscraper beside the old hotel. Of the nest of windows on the ninth and tenth floors, two had curtains looped back by cautious hands. They dropped into place as the solitary figure advanced.
Old ladies with silver knives? More accurately dry grey serpents with shiny duct-fed teeth. The thin man shivered and returned the little telescope to its locker.
âHow soon can you get back to Saltey?â he enquired.
âYouâve made up your mind already? Wonderful. I thought youâd have to have a conference or something. I can go down there today, as a matter of fact. Am I still to be investigating the great Saltey Demon? Iâm afraid thatâs going to turn out to be a dead loss, by the way.â
âI thought it might. What is it? A rustic joke?â
âSort of. The lady at the pub has been casting round for something to attract visitors ever since she took over the place. She had a yen for one of those God-awful wishing-wells you find all over the West Country. You know the sort of thing. Fling your dime into the water and the local pixies will reward you with a lucky pebble and a picture postcard of the waterfront. She kept worrying to know if Saltey had such a sprite and eventually someoneâher husband perhaps, for heâs a localâcame forward with this unlikely devil. They tell the tale on Friday nights in walnut time when the moon is full. Or something like that.â
Mr Campion laughed.
âShe must have sold the idea to the local papers because the nationals picked it up a year or two back. I read it somewhere. A coloured Sunday, I think.â
âYou told me. Anyway, the legend provides me with a fairly reasonable excuse for hanging round. At the moment Iâm the poor young Yankee professor, good for a free pint and folksy tale any day.â
âAnd no one new has arrived in the village in the past year or so?â
âOnly the pub people, or rather the woman. A couple called Wishart. Her name is Dixie and sheâs not exactly an intellectual but she means well and sheâs a worker. Her husband is not. Heâs a man of culture in his odd wayâquite a different background, anyhow, Iâd say. I think he lived around thoseparts as a boy. He writes poetry and gets it published or used to.â
âNot H. O. Wishart?â
âThatâs the man. Heâs about sixty-five now and not the best of value, but heâs in the anthologies. She keeps a Georgian Poetry under the bar counter and trots it out on the least provocation.â
â
Beware of me: I cast no shadow when I pass
,â quoted Mr Campion. âThatâs the chap, isnât it? A genuine minor poet and a white hope at one time. I didnât know he was at the inn. Did you say it was called âThe Demonâ?â
âThatâs very recent. Dixie got the brewers to change it. Partly because the other pub is called The Angel, and partly on account of the old joke about the Demon. It used to be called âThe Foliageâ, which she was mistaken enough to think dull.â
Morty met the other manâs raised eyebrows and laughed. âI know. It can only be a contraction of âThe Foliate Manâ, canât it? I tell you the place is full of good things. Add that to the Fertility Venus and one or two other items and the shenanigans the wilder teenage gangs get up to along the sea wall donât seem half as modern as they might.â
âTearaways? You get them down there?â The thin man looked interested but Morty shrugged.
âTheyâre everywhere. They donât stay. They just swoop down on motor bikesâton-up types. They tear off their space-man rig-outs and jump in the sea. Then they eat the shop
Michelle Pace, Andrea Randall