by T E Kinsey
‘Do they fight often?’ I asked as I put on my hat and gloves.
Mrs Birch laughed. ‘Now “fight”, dear, that’s a tricky word. See, for a fight you needs two, and their fights is a bit one-sided. She screams and shouts and throws things and he stands there meekly and takes it.’
‘Crikey,’ I said. ‘Well, I hope we’ve not made your lives any worse by our coming. Thank you so very much for your hospitality, that was quite the most enjoyable lunch I’ve ever had.’
‘It was our pleasure, miss,’ said Langdon. ‘And I hope we have the pleasure of your company again soon.’
Everyone gathered round to shake my hand and I followed Daniel out of the back door and round to the car. I sat inside while he started the engine then he rang the front doorbell to let them know that the car was ready.
Mr Seddon showed Lady Hardcastle to the door and shook her hand as they said their goodbyes before Daniel assisted her into the car.
‘That, my dear Armstrong, was quite a luncheon,’ she said as we drove off.
‘Mine was rather splendid, too,’ I said with a smile.
‘You’ll have to tell me all about it when we get home. But for now, Daniel, please tell me all about your magnificent motor car. I really must get one of these for myself.’
Daniel puffed with pride as he described the car and all its many features and we were home before we knew it.
‘Well, pet,’ said Lady Hardcastle as we took off our hats and gloves in the the hall, ‘That was... bracing.’
‘An unusual experience, to be sure,’ I said.
‘Disappointing not to get anything helpful about Mr Pickering. And lunch was lacklustre.’
‘That’s a shame, my lady,’ I said with a smirk. ‘Still, it does mean we’re home somewhat earlier than planned. Perhaps I should use the opportunity to try to talk to some people in the village? Fetch out those thumbscrews?’
‘A splendid notion. From what Constable Hancock said yesterday, I think your first task will be to get to the Dog and Duck and speak to... what was his name... “old Joe Arnold” and see what he’s got to say for himself. But first I want a cup of tea; there’ll be time for thumbscrews later. And you must tell me everything you found out from the Seddons’ servants.’
I told her about the delicious lunch, and Mrs Birch’s reason for it.
‘You got champagne, you lucky thing? I didn’t get any flipping champagne. I had to make do with an indifferent white burgundy.’
I went on to describe the servants’ general contempt for their employers and Mrs Seddon’s stern ruling of the Seddon roost.
‘I definitely got the impression that he’s slightly in awe of her,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘She has a taste for the more expensive things in life, too, I noticed, white burgundies notwithstanding.’
‘Not perhaps the most elegant or refined things, though,’ I added.
‘Oh, Flo, you snob,’ she laughed. ‘But yes, you’re right. Opulence without elegance seems to be her motto. I’m glad to know the “shop girl” history, though. Her accent is atrocious.’
‘Who’s the snob now, my lady?’ I said.
‘Touché.’
‘What happened before I arrived?’
‘Nothing of note. They twittered on about people they knew, dropping names and titles at such a pace that even I couldn’t keep up, and then as soon as I mentioned Pickering’s death, the whole mood of the table changed. Mrs Seddon feigned an air of delicately swooning propriety, but it was more like she was trying to avert a scandal.’
‘She does seem the type that wouldn’t want that sort of attention. Not quite the elegant sophistication she aspires to.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘To be fair, I don’t think any of them wanted the firm to be dragged into a murder investigation. Understandable, I suppose. Reputation is everything in the business world.’
We drank our tea together in the kitchen and it was with some reluctance that we left the table, with me still feeling far too full from lunch. But we hauled ourselves up, put hats and gloves back on and walked the half mile into the village together. I left Lady Hardcastle to call upon Constable Hancock to find out if there were any new developments while I made my way round the green to the village inn.
To judge from the architecture, the Dog and Duck had been serving food, ciders, ales, wines and spiritous liquor to the people of Chipping Bevington for at least a hundred years, possibly longer. It was a small country inn with a yard to one side filled with barrels and crates awaiting the drayman’s next visit. There was also a stout handcart, tipped up and propped against the wall of the building.
I went into the snug and coughed delicately to attract the attention of the landlord. Old Joe Arnold was, indeed, rather old, but he was spryly alert and fairly skipped across the bar to greet me.
‘I was wondering when we might see you in here, my love,’ he said, toothlessly.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Arnold, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘And you, m’dear. What can I get you? A nice glass of sherry? A small cider? On the house, of course. It’s not often we get new folk in the village and you and your mistress are the talk of the town.’
‘You’re very kind, Mr Arnold, very kind. What a charming inn. Have you been here long?’
‘Family business, my love. My old dad ran it afore me and his dad ran it afore him, back four generations.’
‘You must see all the village life in here. Everyone must come in sooner or later.’
‘We’re the heart of the village, miss. The very beating heart of it. I’n’t that right Daisy?’
Daisy, the young barmaid, was wiping the public bar with a dirty rag. ‘The beating heart, Joe,’ Daisy agreed, with only the tiniest trace of weary sarcasm.
I recognized the name. ‘Daisy Spratt?’ I asked.
‘That’s right,’ she said suspiciously. ‘How’d you know?’
‘You’re engaged to Bill Lovell.’
‘What if I am?’
‘It’s just that I’d heard both your names recently. What with the... er... the goings on.’
‘I bet they’re all talking about us now. Well, he didn’t do nothing and neither did I and don’t you go thinking we did. He didn’t do for Frank. Not my Bill.’
I hadn’t fully thought through how I was going to go about questioning Mr Arnold but both bars were empty so it seemed as good a time as any for my interview. I still wasn’t sure quite how to broach the subject, but with Daisy there too, I thought I might have an opening. I didn’t want to create false hope but I wondered if I might start with a little bit of openness to see if I got any in return.
‘Would you both mind talking about that night a little?’ I asked. ‘Lady Hardcastle and I don’t think Mr Lovell guilty, either, but Inspector Sunderland is going to need a little more to convince him than the opinion of a newcomer and her lady’s maid.’
They looked briefly at each other before Mr Arnold said, ‘I never seen a copper in such a hurry to get gone. We usually has to chase old Sergeant Dobson out with the brush and bolt the door behind him to get him to stop talking once he gets going, but this feller from Bristol was in and out afore I could tell him anything. He heard what he wanted to hear and was off to collar young Bill afore you could say ninepence.’
Mr Arnold’s toothlessness made it very difficult for him to convincingly say “ninepence” at all, but I suppressed my smirk. He led me over to a table in the corner of the bar and beckoned to Daisy to join us.
As we sat, he continued talking. ‘See, I told him about the argy-bargy ’tween Frank and Bill, but that weren’t the only row Frank got into that night.’
Daisy interrupted. ‘No, it weren’t. Arthur Tressle near started actual fisticuffs right there in the Public,’ she said, indicating the other bar.
‘What about?’ I asked. ‘Was Mr Pickering walking out with his fiancée, too?’
Daisy glared at me. ‘No one,’ she said, indignantly, ‘was walking out with anyone
, most ’specially not me, and I’ll thank you to keep your insinuations about my character to yourself. Frank was sweet on me, that was all, and I walked out with him once – in public, mind – to set him straight about me and Bill.’
‘My apologies,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean any offence. But your Mr Lovell got to hear about it?’
‘Well, yes. He’s protective is all. He just wanted to set Frank straight. He wasn’t even going to hurt him, much less kill him. He just has this way of talking. He can be a bit...’
‘Fiery?’ I suggested. ‘Hot tempered?’
‘I s’pose you could put it like that. But he didn’t do for Frank. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.’ She was close to tears.
Mr Arnold looked slightly embarrassed and carried on quickly, trying to defuse the situation. ‘Arthur, see, he’s the captain of the cricket club. They was all in here that night for a meeting and Arthur, well he’s a prickly sort, and he’s got it in his head that young Frank was trying to take over. He was only a fair batsman, was Frank, but he had a fast ball as could take a man’s arm off. He was keeping that team going, I reckon, and Arthur had taken a notion that he was angling for the captain’s cap.’
‘And was he?’ I asked.
‘Couldn’t say, my love. All I can tell you is that they squared off in the public bar and I had to get a couple of my regulars to separate them.’
‘They threatened each other?’
‘No, young Frank was one of they gentle giant types. Calm as you like normally. He could stand his ground, mind, but he wasn’t the sort to go shouting the odds. No, it was Arthur. Seething, he was, fair ready to boil over. Said he’d never let Frank do it. Said he’d do for him if he tried it.’
‘All that over a cricket team?’ I asked, incredulously.
‘We takes our cricket very serious round here, my love, very serious.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘I was trying to calm Arthur down and Daisy saw to Frank.’
‘There weren’t much for me to see to, to be honest,’ said Daisy. ‘I went over to him and asked him if he was all right. He said he was, then he gets out his watch, takes a look at it and says, “Yes, well I’d probably best be going anyway,” and walked out.’
‘And what time was it?’ I asked.
‘Just ’fore eleven, I think,’ she said.
‘And that was the last you saw of him?’
‘Last time I ever spoke to him,’ she said with a sniff.
‘And what about Arthur? Did he stay?’
‘He sat back down with his mates and they finished their drinks,’ said Joe. ‘They didn’t stay long, mind, maybe another quarter of an hour. They was the last in here so I shut up after that, sent Daisy home and went to bed.’
‘Did you see anything on your way home, Daisy?’ I asked.
‘I saw the cricket lads on the green, still larking about.’
‘But nothing else?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I walked straight home. I lives with my ma and dad round the corner. Our dad’s the butcher.’
‘Yes, I’ve met him. You live above the shop?’
She looked affronted. ‘We most certainly do not. We’ve got a house up near the church.’
‘Ah, I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘What about you, Mr Arnold? Did anything else happen here?’
‘I should say it did, my love, but I can’t see as how it’s connected. Must have been getting on for half past when I hears this commotion outside in the yard. Banging and crashing and laughing. Our bedroom’s round the back and I looks out the window but I couldn’t see nothing, so I puts on me boots and a coat and goes down in me nightshirt to see what’s what. They’d had me bloomin’ handcart away, ’a’n’t they.’
‘Who had?’
‘Cricket lads, I reckon.’
‘But it’s back there now. I noticed it when I arrived.’
‘That it is, my love, that it is. We found it next morning over by the cricket pavilion, and Arthur Tressle asleep inside on the dressing room floor.’
‘Sleeping it off?’ I said.
‘Or hiding out, racked with guilt,’ said Daisy, venomously.
‘You think he murdered Frank Pickering?’ I asked.
‘Well, it certainly weren’t my Bill. There’s no way he could do an awful thing like that. No way on earth. And that Arthur Tressle’s a nasty piece of work, you mark me. Nasty and spiteful. I wouldn’t put it past him at all.’
We chatted for a few moments longer with both of them vehemently proclaiming Bill Lovell’s innocence but not really saying anything new. After listening for a polite length of time, I thanked them for their help and said my goodbyes.
Mr Arnold showed me to the door and I walked off towards the main road and home. I’d gone a few yards before I had a sudden thought and went back to the yard to take a look at the handcart. It was old and weathered, but sturdy enough, with large, iron-bound wheels about two inches wide and set about a yard apart. It was about six feet long, easily big enough to accommodate a dead body, but it showed no obvious signs of having carried one recently. To be truthful, I wasn’t sure what form such signs might take – a fragment of torn cloth, perhaps, or a smear of earth from the victim’s shoe – but I thought it only right and proper that I take a look and report my findings, or the lack thereof, to my mistress.
I set off once more for home.
Lady Hardcastle had been home for just a few minutes by the time I arrived and was in the hall, taking off her hat when I opened the front door.
‘Ah, splendid, it’s you,’ she said.
‘It is I indeed, my lady,’ I said, closing and bolting the door.
‘I do wish you’d relax a little,’ she said. ‘I’m quite sure there’s no need for bolts and bars out here.’
‘One can never be too careful, my lady,’ I said, unmoved. ‘When I’m certain there’s no danger, then I’ll leave all the doors and windows open as much as you like. Until then, the simple act of sliding a bolt will make me feel much safer and will cause inconvenience only to those who would be ill mannered enough to attempt to open the door and enter without invitation.’
‘Very well, have it your way. But come. Make tea. Tell all.’
Removing my own hat and gloves I went through to the kitchen and began to make a pot of tea. As I worked I recounted my conversation with Mr Arnold and Daisy Spratt as closely as I could.
‘You’re terribly businesslike,’ said Lady Hardcastle when I had finished. ‘No small talk? No gossip? No servants’ chatter to tease out the sordid secrets of the village? I thought you’d have been hours yet.’
‘No, my lady. I’m not completely sure they trust me yet. But I thought I was under instructions to collect facts, anyway.’
‘Facts, dear, yes. But what about your impressions? Who are these people? What do they think? What are they like? Can we rely on their testimony? Are they hiding anything?’
‘Well, then. From her manner, I suggest that Daisy is a flirty little tease who had been stringing Frank Pickering along and is devastated to have been caught out. I don’t trust her farther than I can spit your piano – is there any word on when that’s being delivered, by the way? – but beyond desperately trying to cover her tracks and make out what a pure and virginal girl she is, I don’t think she’s hiding anything important. Her belief in Bill Lovell is genuine.’
‘Gracious. Remind me never to ask you for a character reference.’
‘“Emily, Lady Hardcastle, is a bossy, overbearing, yet flippant woman with a fine mind, a remarkable education, a breathtaking talent for music and drawing, and absolutely no common sense, nor any sense of self preservation, whatsoever. Without me to look after her she would have long since starved to death, been strangled by her own corsets (the fitting of which continues to baffle her, despite her advanced years), or have been set upon by thugs, footpads and garotters as she made her giddy way about town.” Will that suffice, my lady?’
‘You’re a cheeky wench and I shall h
ave the carpet beater to your backside,’ she laughed. ‘And what of Joe the Publican?’
‘Mr Joe Arnold,’ I continued in the same style, ‘is a charming and toothless old soul of indeterminate years. He’s honest, hardworking and rather too fond of the locally brewed cider which is the preferred tipple in these parts. He likes to avoid arguments when he can and is slightly intimidated by women, most especially Miss Daisy. I suspect there’s a Mrs Arnold waiting upstairs of whom he is inordinately fond and profoundly afraid. He seems to have a keen sense of justice and, like Daisy, is steadfast in his belief that Bill Lovell is not the murderer.’
‘No, indeed, they both seem to favour this Arthur Tressle fellow.’
‘They do, and I’ll allow that the case against him is stronger than against Bill Lovell. But I can’t quite shake the feeling that they’re charging in as blindly as Inspector Sunderland. They don’t want it to be Lovell so they’re pointing the finger at the next person they can think of. But there doesn’t seem to be any proof for either of them beyond a bit of shouting.’
‘I say, you do seem to have picked up something of the scientific method, my girl. My giddiness hasn’t prevented me from passing that on, at least.’
I curtseyed and she smiled a wicked smile.
‘That handcart,’ she went on, ‘seems to be just the sort of thing to have made those tracks in the clearing. And the cricket lads seem like just the sort of fellows to have pinched it for a lark.’
‘I’d not be out on the street proclaiming their innocence if they were banged up for that, my lady. But pinching a handcart and doing a chap to death are two completely different matters. Joe and Daisy don’t seem to have linked any of the goings-on to the handcart, though. I just got the feeling Joe was aggrieved that it had gone briefly missing.’
‘Then we shall have to see what proofs we can come upon.’
‘Even if that means proving it was Bill Lovell all along, my lady?’
‘Even so. I’m more than happy for a guilty man to hang, but as yet I remain as unconvinced as Constable Hancock that Bill Lovell is guilty of anything more than being humiliated by that strumpet Daisy.’
