“I’d like to say this,” he began. “If Miss Marion carries on—as she’s sure to do—until things is settled, reckon we’ll help her where we can and stand by her—and play fair by her as we’ve played fair by her father.”
“Aye, that’s right,” murmured several voices and Martin Lamb allowed himself a chuckle.
“Reckon if you don’t play fair by Miss Marion you won’t get no further than you would have done with her dad. She’s got all her buttons on.”
* * *
At closing time the landlord, Nathaniel Barrows, murmured a word or two in the ear of Mr. Trant and Mr. Lamb, indicating that Mrs. Barrows would be happy to have a word with them in the parlour if they could spare her a moment. This was a formula, well understood between them, indicating that the talk could be continued between the principals, as it were, in the landlord’s private quarters after the house was closed. In short, the meeting went into committee, the latter consisting of three old cronies, Nathaniel Barrows, Martin Lamb, and William Trant. The two farmers were both big men, but they looked older than their years, respectively fifty-eight and sixty-one. Their shoulders were bent, their hair grey and their faces furrowed. Nathaniel was also tall, but he was stout and rubicund, his bald head having a spare fringe of reddish hair just above his collar.
There was a pleasant fire in the parlour, and Mrs. Barrows was officiating with a kettle and glasses.
“I’m sorry there’s no lemon, Mr. Lamb,” she said, uttering words familiar to all during this ritual, “but otherwise I think you’ll find it to your liking—and you too, Mr. Trant.” Having thus vindicated Nathaniel’s truthfulness, Mrs. Barrows tactfully retired.
It was Martin Lamb who came to business first, glass in hand.
“I don’t like it, Will,” he said—and it was not to his hot toddy that he alluded.
Trant nodded. “Aye,” he said lugubriously.
“What’s this they’re saying about Ashthwaite? Did you name the fox hunt to him, Martin?—because I didn’t.”
“That I did not,” replied Lamb. “Seeing how things was I shouldn’t have expected Ashthwaite to come shooting where he’d see Mr. Garth for certain. Let sleeping dogs lie, I say. Nay, ’twas a surprise to me when I saw him there.”
“He’d never have come—for that…” said Trant unhappily. “’Tain’t sense. If he’d wanted to do that, why he could have done it any day and never been noticed. Mr. Garth was always about on the farm.”
“If he’d been so minded, he could have done it at the fox hunt. Dang it, by gum!” Lamb shouted, as though a great light had dawned on him, “that settles this nonsense about Bob Ashthwaite! If he’d wanted to shoot Mr. Garth he could have done it at the fox hunt, and no one any the wiser. Bob was above Mr. Garth and behind him, and there was others up there too, watching, some of them was. Brough was up at the top with his gun, and now I come to think of it old Joe Harrison potted a rabbit that bolted up the gill. Now if Ashthwaite had wanted to do that job, reckon he could’ve done it safely. He’s a dead shot—and who was to know what gun the shot came from?”
“Aye. I see that,” said Mr. Trant. “Come to think of it, I’m glad he didn’t. ’Twould have been a gey bad job at the hunt and all.”
“That ’twould—but Will, if so be as Ashthwaite didn’t do it—and I can’t see that he did, well then—who did?”
“Dang it if I know,” said Mr. Trant, and then Nathaniel Barrows took his turn.
“If you’ll pardon me, Mr. Trant, there was something I wanted to tell you.” He lowered his voice and leant forward. “I don’t like gossip,” he said, “and you’ll bear me out when I say I’ve never stood for any mischievous chatter in my bar. There’s summat I’ve heard which it’s right you two should hear, knowing I can trust you not to let it go any further if you don’t think fit.” He paused and leaned still closer towards the other two.
“You mind old Hodges at the Wheatsheaf over by Ingleton, Mr. Trant? He’s an old friend of mine, and we meet and have a word now and then. I saw him in Kirby market the day before yesterday, and he told me he’d had a chap putting up for the night last Wednesday. You know how visitors has to register their names these days—that’s a police regulation, that is. The chap I’m talking of registered his name as Richard Garth, Merchant Navy.”
The effect of the landlord’s words was electrical. Martin Lamb, who seldom took the name of the Lord in vain, exclaimed:
“God a’mighty!” as he slammed his glass down on the table, and William Trant groaned aloud.
“Deary me…” he said; “deary, deary me… I don’t like it, Nat, I don’t like it.”
“That’s just it,” said the landlord. “I feel fair moithered, Mr. Trant. ’Twas the first thing jumped to my mind when I heard the news about old Mr. Garth. They quarrelled bitter, those two, and it’s the first time I’ve heard of Richard Garth being home in all these years—and that’s happened. Now what I want to know is this—what’s my duty? Ought I to tell the police?”
There was a dead silence, and at length Trant said slowly: “I mind Richard Garth as a lad: I taught him to throw a cast and set a snare; aye, I taught him to shoot, too. Many’s the time that lad came and tried his hand at potting rabbits in my roughs. I liked Richard, and I grieved when his dad treated him so hard over his marriage. Mary Ashthwaite was a right good lass. I’d find it hard to believe that Richard Garth did a thing like this. Shooting his own father? Why, ’tis against nature.”
“Are you sure it’s the same Richard Garth?” inquired Martin Lamb. “Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“I taxed ould Hodges with that when he named it to me,” replied the landlord. “He said the chap was getting on—nearing fifty may be, a hefty fellow and he’d the look of our old man here. Hodges tried to have a word with his visitor, but he was a close kind o’ man and had nought much to say.”
Martin Lamb, whose mind was more inquiring than Trant’s, then asked:
“How long did he stay and how did he leave? Did he ask about buses and trains?”
“Nay. He left afoot, saying he was hiking a bit; left early, as soon as ever he’d put away some breakfast—and that was the last Hodges saw of him—or heard, either.”
“Eh…but that looks as though he didn’t come near these parts,” said Lamb shrewdly. “If so be he’d walked this way he’d have come by way of Burton, and Melling likely, and many’s the folks who might have noticed him, he being a stranger and yet favouring the Garths. ’Tis likely he went on into Yorkshire.”
“Maybe he did, but that’s nought to do with our problem,” said Trant unhappily. “Is it our duty to tell the police about this?”
There was a lengthy silence. At last Martin Lamb spoke.
“I see it like this, Will. We’ve no proof the man was our Richard: we don’t know he came this way, and we don’t believe he’d have shot his dad. Let the police do their own job. I say—say nowt. Least said’s soonest mended.”
“Aye. Reckon you’re right. We’ll say nowt,” agreed Trant, and the trio lifted their glasses with deep sighs of relief.
Chapter Eight
Elizabeth Meldon had been deeply shocked by the news of old Garth’s death. Horror and fear mingled in her mind because she was vividly aware that she had been afraid that this very thing would happen. Her main concern was about Malcolm: try as she would she could not rid her mind of the dread that this was just what Malcolm might have done in one of his fits of furious resentment. He had hated his father, and Elizabeth knew it.
Outwardly she went about her work as usual: she helped with the milking, drove the cows out to pasture again, strained the milk and set the cream, washed the dairy utensils, fed the calves and mucked out the shippon. She had just finished two hours of hard work when she was summoned to be questioned by the Superintendent.
Elizabeth had often laughed over the cautious manner of speech used by the north
-country folk of Garthmere, but she donned that caution herself while she was being questioned. Deliberately she set to work to “stone wall” while Layng, having satisfied himself that her time was accounted for, made his laborious queries about enmities, grudges, and the like. Her blue eyes wide, Elizabeth disclaimed any knowledge.
“I’m employed here as a land worker, and I work hard,” she said. “I’m well treated and quite satisfied—and no one has complained about my work. But farming is hard work, Superintendent. At the end of a long day’s work in the fields, all one asks is to have supper and go to bed. One doesn’t sit up discussing people’s enemies. Also, as you may have noticed, the people round here aren’t very forthcoming. They wouldn’t have discussed Mr. Garth with me—a stranger.”
“And you had observed nothing on your own account,” inquired Layng.
“I’m afraid I’m not very observant,” said Elizabeth sweetly, “unless it’s about cows. I’m quite noticing-like about them.”
Layng could make nothing of her. He thought she was probably rather stupid, in spite of her educated voice. In his heart of hearts Layng believed that all farmers were stupid—otherwise they wouldn’t have been farmers. As a result, there was one thing which Layng had never learnt, and that was the best way of approach in getting information from country folk. No farmer who wanted information in the Garthmere district ever approached his subject directly. There was always a preamble, perhaps concerning the weather or the crops, in which the stage was set for discussion. Haste was but wasted time; it simply did not work.
Leaving Layng to do his irritated and impotent best with old Moffat—who was even less capable of speed than most—Elizabeth went and washed, changed her shirt, and set out by the fold yard gate. She didn’t want to talk to Marion—and she felt pretty certain that Marion didn’t want to talk to anybody. As for Charles, Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders—still less did she want to talk to Charles. If Marion would be too silent, Charles would be too talkative.
Elizabeth wanted to find Malcolm. She set out through the lower meadows where the rich fog grass was heavy with dew, observing as she went that there was a second clover crop ripe for cutting. “They ought to make silage,” she said to herself, “only the old man’s too obstinate”—and she remembered with a shock that old Mr. Garth could obstruct no longer.
“I wonder what will happen… Farming’s got to go on. Will Marion be given full control now?” she pondered. “Phoebe was to go to market when she calves, and Marion wanted…” Again discomfort overcame her. Perhaps Marion was free now to do what she wanted—but why had she left the potatoes so gladly to lift onions by herself that afternoon? “It’s horrible,” groaned Elizabeth as she crossed the higher pastures which led upwards to the fells. “One gets suspicious. One can’t help it.”
She left the fields and took a path through some woodland halfway up the slope. It was growing twilight now, and the wood was spooky, full of murmurous voices and scuttering leaves. She was glad when she struck the rough road which led through the sheep pastures to the open fell side, where Malcolm kept his bees. He always used this route and Elizabeth knew it. She loitered a little, picking some of the lush blackberries which weighted the brambles, and stopping to notice a squirrel throwing down hazel nuts. Here, high up above the valley, the evening light was still clear, the western sky still lucid gold above the blue distances of Morecambe Bay.
Elizabeth had nearly reached the open fell when she saw Malcolm. He was walking towards her, limping as he did when he was tired, his dark hair tousled. She called to him:
“Malcolm, you’re late. What have you been doing?”
He quickened his pace when he heard her voice.
“Lisa! How decent of you! I was just hating the thought of walking back. I do hate walking back. It’s grand up here.”
He waved his hand to indicate the golden west and the mist-shrouded valley far below. White swathes of mist now hovered waist high above the river meadows and the holmland.
Elizabeth fell into step beside him. “I’m not going to ask him any questions,” she said to herself. “I won’t give him a chance to lie to me... He might, if he’s frightened, and I couldn’t bear it.”
“We’ve had a ghastly time, Malcolm,” she said. “Old Mr. Garth was shot, and John Staple found his body in the old hull—”
Malcolm stopped dead, staring at her incredulously. In the dimness she saw his white face and wide, dark eyes and the untidy lock of black hair over his forehead.
“His body? You mean he’s dead…he’s really dead?”
“Yes. He was killed instantly.”
“Dead… I can’t believe it. Lisa—I hated him. I was afraid of him. I can’t pretend to you, I’m not sorry. I’m glad.”
She shivered as though the evening air were chill. “Don’t say that to any one else—don’t say it to me, even,” she cried. “There are police down there, waiting to question you, to trap you. They have to find out who shot him.”
“Don’t they know? Who moved him to the old hull?”
“Moved him? Nobody moved him. He was shot there.”
“Shot there? I thought you meant he was shot at the fox hunt. Who did it?”
“I don’t know, Malcolm. Staple found him, and told Marion to phone to the Superintendent of Police at Carnton. He came over here himself, and he’s been asking every one questions—had Mr. Garth any enemies, had anybody a grudge against him—”
Malcolm laughed. “Well, he ought to get quite a nice lot of answers. Every one had a grudge against him.”
“Malcolm, don’t say things like that. The police suspect everybody, they have to. They suspected you just because you weren’t in when they wanted to see you.”
“Me? Oh, I see. Well, I’ve been up here all the afternoon. I just lay and baked in the sun and watched the curlews. There was a kestrel hovering just above me, and lots of lapwings, and larks, singing in the blue. Oh, I saw a lizard under one of the hives—have you ever seen a lizard?”
“No, not in England. Malcolm, did you meet any one up here—or see anybody?”
“Not a soul. That’s one of the blessed parts of the fells. There’s no one there.”
“But you saw John Staple talking to Richard the other day.”
“So I did—but that’s only once in a lifetime. Richard. That’s funny.”
He broke off and Elizabeth said, “I don’t think it’s funny at all. If you tell the police you saw Richard, they’re sure to believe he did it…killed your father.”
“Perhaps he did. I don’t blame him. He hated him—you should just have heard him. But don’t be a juggins. Of course I shan’t tell the police I saw Richard. Neither will John Staple. I bet he won’t because he promised Richard he wouldn’t tell any one he’d seen him. And that’s that—and the others all lived happily ever after.”
“Oh, Malcolm. Don’t be flippant. The whole thing’s horrible. He was murdered, and murder’s beastly. It gave me the horrors—and I had to come and find you, so that you should know, and not have it jumped on you unexpectedly when you got home.”
“Sorry, Lisa. All right, I’ll be sensible. Look here, let’s forget it all for just five minutes. Haven’t you got a cigarette? Let’s sit on the next gate and watch the gloaming. The owls will be coming out, and there are night jars in the wood down there.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, all right. I’ve got just one cigarette. I haven’t had time to smoke it… I had an awful lot to do, I mucked the shippon out and did most of the milking.”
She stopped and leant against a gate, with Malcolm beside her, and looked down into the mist-wreathed valley.
“Look!” said Malcolm softly, and a great white owl swept past them on silent wings.
* * *
Marion Garth drew a deep breath when the Superintendent had at last taken himself off. She listened while the sound of his car faded a
way; she was standing by the office window which she had just opened—it had been closed at Layng’s wish. She had opened it instinctively “to blow the smell of the police away”—though Layng would have snorted could he have known her thought. He had been very much aware of the smell of dung hanging about the working clothes of these farming folk. Marion listened, and became conscious of the deep silence which had settled on the house. Every one had taken themselves off, it seemed. Probably Mrs. Moffat had gone to bed, as she often did at sunset. She had a long day, getting up at six o’clock, summer and winter alike. Old Moffat had gone outside somewhere and Jem was probably in the village. Elizabeth Meldon had disappeared, too.
Marion breathed a sigh of relief, closed the office window again, and went out into the orchard by way of the living-room window. There had been so much talking—she was tired of it all.
She strolled under the old apple trees, instinctively picking up the best windfalls—Mrs. Moffat’s trug, half full of apples, still lay where she had left it when the news was brought in. Marion was glad to pick up apples, leisurely, peacefully, as the grey twilight deepened. She was not given very long, however, to commune with her own thoughts. Charles hailed her across the orchard.
“I say—what about some supper?”
Marion retorted: “Go and find something to eat yourself if you want it. There’s plenty of food in the larder.”
“That’s all very well—but we’ve got to talk about things sometime,” said Charles.
“I’m sick to death of talking. It doesn’t get us anywhere,” she replied.
“Perhaps not.” Charles came towards her, lowering his voice a bit. “A few things have got to be settled, old girl,” he said, his voice not ungentle. “First—who’s going to run this outfit, pro tem? You’ll have to advise the lawyers or you’ll soon be in a mess. Wages must be paid, business must be settled. You can’t carry on without the needful—and the bank won’t honour your signature—or mine, either.”
“Oh, Lord! I don’t want to bother now,” said Marion. “We can’t do anything to-night.”
Fell Murder Page 10
