All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  The Inspector spoke again. “I don’t think he’s ever been out of here. He’s only a young dog—about a year old—but I understand he’s been in this shed since he was an eight week old pup. Somebody out in the lane heard a whimper or he’d never have been found.”

  I felt a tightening of the throat and a sudden nausea which wasn’t due to the smell. It was the thought of this patient animal sitting starved and forgotten in the darkness and filth for a year. I looked again at the dog and saw in his eyes only a calm trust. Some dogs would have barked their heads off and soon been discovered, some would have become terrified and vicious, but this was one of the totally undemanding kind, the kind which had complete faith in people and accepted all their actions without complaint. Just an occasional whimper perhaps as he sat interminably in the empty blackness which had been his world and at times wondered what it was all about.

  “Well, Inspector, I hope you’re going to throw the book at whoever’s responsible,” I said.

  Halliday grunted. “Oh, there won’t be much done. It’s a case of diminished responsibility. The owner’s definitely simple. Lives with an aged mother who hardly knows what’s going on either. I’ve seen the fellow and it seems he threw in a bit of food when he felt like it and that’s about all he did. They’ll fine him and stop him keeping an animal in the future but nothing more than that.”

  “I see.” I reached out and stroked the dog’s head and he immediately responded by resting a paw on my wrist. There was a pathetic dignity about the way he held himself erect, the calm eyes regarding me, friendly and unafraid. “Well, you’ll let me know if you want me in court.”

  “Of course, and thank you for coming along.” Halliday hesitated for a moment. “And now I expect you’ll want to put this poor thing out of his misery right away.”

  I continued to run my hand over the head and ears while I thought for a moment. “Yes…yes, I suppose so. We’d never find a home for him in this state. It’s the kindest thing to do. Anyway, push the door wide open will you so that I can get a proper look at him.”

  In the improved light I examined him more thoroughly. Perfect teeth, well-proportioned limbs with a fringe of yellow hair. I put my stethoscope on his chest and as I listened to the slow, strong thudding of the heart the dog again put his paw on my hand.

  I turned to Halliday. “You know, Inspector, inside this bag of bones there’s a lovely healthy Golden Retriever. I wish there was some way of letting him out.”

  As I spoke I noticed there was more than one figure in the door opening. A pair of black pebble eyes were peering intently at the dog from behind the Inspector’s broad back. The other spectators had remained in the lane but Mrs. Donovan’s curiosity had been too much for her. I continued conversationally as though I hadn’t seen her.

  “You know, what this dog needs first of all is a good shampoo to clean up his matted coat.”

  “Huh?” said Halliday.

  “Yes. And then he wants a long course of some really strong condition powders.”

  “What’s that?” The Inspector looked startled.

  “There’s no doubt about it.” I said. “It’s the only hope for him, but where are you going to find such things? Really powerful enough, I mean.” I sighed and straightened up. “Ah well, I suppose there’s nothing else for it. I’d better put him to sleep right away. I’ll get the things from my car.”

  When I got back to the shed Mrs. Donovan was already inside examining the dog despite the feeble remonstrances of the big man.

  “Look!” she said excitedly, pointing to a name roughly scratched on the collar. “His name’s Roy.” She smiled up at me. “It’s a bit like Rex, isn’t it, that name.”

  “You know, Mrs. Donovan, now you mention it, it is. It’s very like Rex, the way it comes off your tongue.” I nodded seriously.

  She stood silent for a few moments, obviously in the grip of a deep emotion, then she burst out.

  “Can I have ’im? I can make him better, I know I can. Please, please let me have ’im!”

  “Well I don’t know,” I said. “It’s really up to the Inspector. You’ll have to get his permission.”

  Halliday looked at her in bewilderment, then he said: “Excuse me, Madam,” and drew me to one side. We walked a few yards through the long grass and stopped under a tree.

  “Mr. Herriot,” he whispered, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I can’t just pass over an animal in this condition to anybody who has a casual whim. The poor beggar’s had one bad break already—I think it’s enough. This woman doesn’t look a suitable person…”

  I held up a hand. “Believe me, Inspector, you’ve nothing to worry about. She’s a funny old stick but she’s been sent from heaven today. If anybody in Darrowby can give this dog a new life it’s her.”

  Halliday still looked very doubtful. “But I still don’t get it. What was all that stuff about him needing shampoos and condition powders?”

  “Oh never mind about that. I’ll tell you some other time. What he needs is lots of good grub, care and affection and that’s just what he’ll get. You can take my word for it.”

  “All right you seem very sure.” Halliday looked at me for a second or two then turned and walked over to the eager little figure by the shed.

  I had never before been deliberately on the look out for Mrs. Donovan: she had just cropped up wherever I happened to be, but now I scanned the streets of Darrowby anxiously day by day without sighting her. I didn’t like it when Gobber Newhouse got drunk and drove his bicycle determinedly through a barrier into a ten foot hole where they were laying the new sewer and Mrs. Donovan was not in evidence among the happy crowd who watched the council workmen and two policemen trying to get him out; and when she was nowhere to be seen when they had to fetch the fire engine to the fish and chip shop the night the fat burst into flames, I became seriously worried.

  Maybe I should have called round to see how she was getting on with that dog. Certainly I had trimmed off the necrotic tissue and dressed the sores before she took him away, but perhaps he needed something more than that. And yet at the time I had felt a strong conviction that the main thing was to get him out of there and clean him and feed him and nature would do the rest. And I had a lot of faith in Mrs. Donovan—far more than she had in me—when it came to animal doctoring; it was hard to believe I’d been completely wrong.

  It must have been nearly three weeks and I was on the point of calling at her home when I noticed her stumping briskly along the far side of the market place, peering closely into every shop window exactly as before. The only difference was that she had a big yellow dog on the end of the lead.

  I turned the wheel and sent my car bumping over the cobbles till I was abreast of her. When she saw me getting out she stopped and smiled impishly but she didn’t speak as I bent over Roy and examined him. He was still a skinny dog but he looked bright and happy, his wounds were healthy and granulating and there was not a speck of dirt in his coat or on his skin. I knew then what Mrs. Donovan had been doing all this time; she had been washing and combing and teasing at that filthy tangle till she had finally conquered it.

  As I straightened up she seized my wrist in a grip of surprising strength and looked up into my eyes.

  “Now Mr. Herriot,” she said. “Haven’t I made a difference to this dog!”

  “You’ve done wonders, Mrs. Donovan,” I said. “And you’ve been at him with that marvellous shampoo of yours, haven’t you?”

  She giggled and walked away and from that day I saw the two of them frequently but at a distance and something like two months went by before I had a chance to talk to her again. She was passing by the surgery as I was coming down the steps and again she grabbed my wrist.

  “Mr. Herriot,” she said, just as she had done before. “Haven’t I made a difference to this dog!”

  I looked down at Roy with something akin to awe. He had grown and filled out and his coat, no longer yellow but a rich gold, lay in luxuriant shinin