THE FOURTH PART

LORD PETER DODGES WITH MR. BLUNDELL AND PASSES HIM

“Dodging “is taking a retrograde movement, or moving a place backwards out of the ordinary hunting course. ... She will be seen to dodge with a bell, and pass a bell alternately throughout her whole work.

TROYTE.

“Well now, ma’am,” said Superintendent Blundell.

“Well, officer?” retorted Mrs. Gates.

It is said, I do not know with how much reason, that the plain bobby considers “officer” a more complimentary form of address than “my man,” or even “constable”; while some people, of the Disraelian school of thought, affirm that an unmerited “Sergeant” is not taken amiss. But when a highly-refined lady, with a grey glacé gown and a grey glacé eye, addresses a full-blown Superintendent in plain clothes as “officer,” the effect is not soothing, and is not meant to be so. At this rate, thought Mr. Blundell, he might just as well have sent a uniformed inspector, and had done with it.

“We should be greatly obliged, ma’am,” pursued Mr. Blundell, “for your kind assistance in this little matter.”

“A little matter?” said Mrs. Gates. “Since when have murder and sacrilege been considered little matters in Leamholt? Considering that you have had nothing to do tor the last twenty years but run in a few drunken labourers on market days, you seem to take your new responsibilities very coolly. In my opinion, you ought to call in the assistance of Scotland Yard. But I suppose, since being patronised by the aristocracy, you consider yourself quite competent to deal with any description of crime.”

“It does not lie with me, ma’am, to refer anything to Scotland Yard. That is a matter for the Chief Constable.”

“Indeed?” said Mrs. Gates, not in the least disconcerted. “They why does the Chief Constable not attend to the business himself? I should prefer to deal directly with him.”

The Superintendent explained patiently that the interrogation of witnesses was not, properly speaking, the duty of the Chief Constable. “And why should I be supposed to be a witness? I know nothing about these disgraceful proceedings.”

“Certainly not, ma’am. But we require a little information about the late Lady Thorpe’s grave, and we thought that a lady with your powers of observation would be in a position to assist us.”

“In what way?”

“From information received, ma’am, it appears probable that the outrage may have been committed within a very short period after Lady Thorpe’s funeral. I understand that you were a frequent visitor at the graveside after the melancholy event—”

“Indeed? And who told you that?”

“We have received information to that effect, ma’am.”

“Quite so. But from. whom?”

“That is the formula we usually employ, ma’am,” said Mr. Blundell, with a dim instinct that the mention of Hilary would only make bad worse. “I take it, that is a fact, is it not?”

“Why should it not be a fact? Even in these days, some respect may be paid to the dead, I trust.”

“Very proper indeed, ma’am. Now can you tell me whether, on any occasion when you visited the grave, the wreaths presented the appearance of having been disturbed, or the earth shifted about, or anything of that kind?”

“Not,” said Mrs. Gates, “unless you refer to the extremely rude and vulgar behaviour of that Mrs. Coppins. Considering that she is a Nonconformist, you would think she would have more delicacy than to come into the churchyard at all. And the wreath itself was in the worst possible taste. I suppose she was entitled to send one if she liked, considering the great and many favours she had always received from Sir Charles’ family. But there was no necessity whatever for anything so large and ostentatious. Pink hot-house lilies in January were entirely out of place. For a person in her position, a simple bunch of chrysanthemums would have been ample to show respect, without going out of her way to draw attention to herself.”

“Just so, ma’am,” said the Superintendent.

“Merely because,” pursued Mrs. Gates, “I am here in a dependent position, that does not mean that I could not have afforded a floral tribute quite as large and expensive as Mrs. Coppins’. But although Sir Charles and his lady, and Sir Henry and the late Lady Thorpe after them, were always good enough to treat me rather as a friend than a servant, I know what is due to my position, and should never have dreamed of allowing my modest offering to compete in any way with those of the Family.”

“Certainly not, ma’am,” agreed the Superintendent, heartily.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘Certainly not,’” retorted Mrs. Gates. “The Family themselves would have raised no objection, for I may say that they have always looked on me as one of themselves, and seeing that I have been housekeeper here thirty years, it is scarcely surprising that they should.”

“Very natural indeed, ma’am. I only meant that a lady like yourself would, of course, take the lead in setting an example of good taste and propriety, and so forth. My wife,” added Mr. Blundell, lying with great determination and an appearance of the utmost good faith, “my wife is always accustomed to say to our girls, that for an example of ladylike behaviour, they cannot do better than look up to Mrs. Gates of the Red House at Fenchurch. Not”—(for Mrs. Gates looked a little offended)—“that Mrs. Blundell would presume to think our Betty and Ann in any way equal to you, ma’am, being only one of them in the post-office and the other a clerk in Mr. Compline’s office but it does young people no harm to look well above themselves, ma’am, and my wife always says that if they will model themselves upon Queen Mary, or—since they cannot have very much opportunity of studying her Gracious Majesty’s behaviour—upon Mrs. Gates of the Red House, they can’t fail to grow up a credit to their parents, ma’am.”

Here Mr. Blundell—a convinced Disraelian—coughed. He thought he had done that rather well on the spur of the moment, though, now he came to think of it, “deportment “would have been a better word than “behaviour.”

Mrs. Gates unbent slightly, and the Superintendent perceived that he would have no further trouble with her. He looked forward to telling his wife and family about this interview. Lord Peter would enjoy it, too. A decent sort of bloke, his lordship, who would like a bit of a joke.

“About the wreath, ma’am,” he ventured to prompt.

“I am telling you about it. I was disgusted—really disgusted, officer, when I found that Mrs. Coppins had had the impertinence to remove my wreath and put her own in its place. There were, of course, a great many wreaths at Lady Thorpe’s funeral, some of them extremely handsome, and I should have been quite content if my little tribute had been placed on the roof of the hearse, with those of the village people. But Miss Thorpe would not hear of it. Miss Thorpe is always very thoughtful.”

“A very nice young lady,” said Mr. Blundell.

“Miss Thorpe is one of the Family,” said Mrs. Gates, “and the Family are always considerate of other people’s feelings. True gentlefolk always are. Upstarts are not.”

“That’s very true indeed, ma’am,” said the Superintendent, with so much earnestness that a critical listener might almost have supposed the remark to have a personal application.

“My wreath was placed upon the coffin itself,” went on Mrs Gates “with the wreaths of the Family. There was Miss Thorpe’s wreath, and Sir Henry’s, of course, and Mr. Edward Thorpe’s and Mrs. Wilbraham’s and mine. There was quite a difficulty to get them all upon the coffin, and I was quite willing that mine should be placed elsewhere, but Miss Thorpe insisted. So Mrs. Wilbraham’s was set up against the head of the coffin, and Sir Henry’s and Miss Thorpe’s and Mr. Edward’s on the coffin, and mine was given a position at the foot—which was practically the same thing as being on the coffin itself. And the wreaths from the Servants’ Hall and the Women’s Institute were on one side and the Rector’s wreath and Lord Kenilworth’s wreath were on the other side. And the rest of the flowers were placed, naturally, on top of the hearse.”

“Very proper, I’m sure, ma’am.”

“And consequently,” said Mrs. Gates, “after the funeral, when the grave was filled in. Harry Gotobed took particular notice that the Family’s wreaths (among which I include mine) were placed in suitable positions on the grave itself. I directed Johnson the chauffeur to attend to this—for it was a very rainy day, and it would not have been considerate to ask one of the maids to go—and he assured me that this was done. I have always found Johnson, sober and conscientious in his work, and I believe him to be a perfectly truthful man, as such people go. He described to me exactly where he placed the wreaths, and I have no doubt that he carried out his duty properly. And in any case, I interrogated Gotobed the next day, and he told me the same thing.”

“I daresay he did,” thought Mr. Blundell, “and in his place I’d have done the same. I wouldn’t get a fellow into trouble with this old cat, not if I knew it.” But he merely bowed and said nothing.

“You may judge of my surprise,” went on the lady, when, on going down the next day after Early Service to see that everything was in order, I found Mrs. Coppins’ wreath—not at the side, where it should have been—but on the grave, as if she were somebody of importance, and mine pushed away into an obscure place and actually covered up, so that nobody could see the card at all. I was extremely angry, as you may suppose. Not that I minded in the least where my poor little remembrance was placed, for that can make no difference to anybody, and it is the thought that counts. But I was so much incensed by the woman’s insolence—merely because I had felt it necessary to speak to her one day about the way in which her children behaved in the post-office. Needless to say, I got nothing from her but impertinence.”

“That was on the 5th of January, then?”

“It was the morning after the funeral. That, as you say, would be Sunday the fifth. I did not accuse the woman without proof. I had spoken to Johnson again, and made careful inquiries of Gotobed, and they were both positive of the position in which the wreaths had been left the night before.”

“Mightn’t it have been some of the schoolchildren larking about, ma’am?”

“I could well believe any thing of them,” said Mrs. Gates, “they are always ill-behaved, and I have frequently had to complain to Miss Snoot about them, but in this case the insult was too pointed. It was quite obviously and definitely aimed at myself, by that vulgar woman. Why a small farmer’s wife should give herself such airs, I do not know. When I was a girl, village people knew their place, and kept it.”

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Blundell, “and I’m sure we were all much happier in those days. And so, ma’am, you never noticed any disturbance except on that one occasion ?”

“And I should think that was quite enough,” replied Mrs. Gates. “I kept a very good look-out after that, and if anything of a similar kind had occurred again, I should have complained to the police.”

“Ah, well,” said the Superintendent, as he rose to go, “you see, it’s come round to us in the end, and I’ll have a word with Mrs. Coppins, ma’am, and you may be assured it won’t happen again. Whew! What an old catamaran!” (this to himself, as he padded down the rather neglected avenue beneath the budding horse-chestnuts). “I suppose I had better see Mrs. Coppins.”

Mrs. Coppins was easily found. She was a small, shrewish woman with light hair and eyes which boded temper.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “Mrs. Gates did have the cheek to say it was me. As if I’d have touched her mean little wreath with a hay-fork. Thinks she’s a lady. No real lady would think twice about where her wreath was or where it wasn’t. Talking that way to me, as if I was dirt! Why shouldn’t we give Lady Thorpe as good a wreath as we could get? Ah! she was a sweet lady—a real lady, she was—and her and Sir Henry were that kind to us when we were a bit put about, like, the year we took this farm. Not that we were in any real difficulty—Mr. Coppins has always been a careful man. But being a question of capital at the right moment, you see, we couldn’t just have laid our hand on it at the moment, if it hadn’t been for Sir Henry. Naturally, it was all paid back—with the proper interest. Sir Henry said he didn’t want interest, but that isn’t Mr. Coppins’ way. Yes—January 5th, it would be—and I’m quite sure none of the children had anything to do with it, for I asked them. Not that my children would go to do such a thing, but you know what children are. And it’s quite true that her wreath was where she said it was, last thing on the evening of the funeral, for I saw Harry Gotobed and the chauffeur put it there with my own eyes, and they’ll tell you the same.”

They did tell the Superintendent so, at some considerable length; after which, the only remaining possibility seemed to be the school-children. Here, Mr. Blundell enlisted the aid of Miss Snoot. Fortunately, Miss Snoot was not only able to reassure him that none of her scholars was in fault (“for I asked them all very carefully at the time, Superintendent, and they assured me they had not, and the only one I might be doubtful of is Tommy West, and he had a broken arm at the time, through falling off a gate”); she was also able to give valuable and unexpected help as regards the time at which the misdemeanour was committed.

“We had a choir-practice that night, and when it was over—that would be about half-past seven—the rain had cleared up a little, and I thought I would just go and give another little look at dear Lady Thorpe’s resting-place; so I went round with my torch, and I quite well remember seeing Mrs. Coppins’ wreath standing up against the side of the grave next the church, and thinking what a beautiful one it was and what a pity the rain should spoil it.”

The Superintendent felt pleased. He found it difficult to believe that Mrs. Coppins or anybody else had gone out to the churchyard on a dark, wet Saturday night to remove Mrs. Gates’ wreath. It was surely much more reasonable to suppose that the burying of the corpse had been the disturbing factor, and that brought the time of the crime down to some hour between 7.30 p.m. on the Saturday and, say, 8.30 on the Sunday morning. He thanked Miss Snoot very much and, looking at his watch, decided that he had just about time to go along to Will Thoday’s. He was pretty sure to find Mary at home, and, with luck, might catch Will himself when he came home to dinner. His way led him past the churchyard. He drove slowly, and, glancing over the churchyard wall as he went, observed Lord Peter Wimsey, seated in a reflective manner and apparently meditating among the tombs.

“’Morning!” cried the Superintendent cheerfully, “’Morning, my lord!”

“Oy!” responded his lordship. “Come along here a minute. You’re just the man I wanted to see.”

Mr. Blundell stopped his car at the lych-gate, clambered out, grunting (for he was growing rather stout) and made his way up the path. Wimsey was sitting on a large, flat tombstone, and in his hands was about the last thing the Superintendent might have expected to see, namely, a large reel of line, to which, in the curious, clumsy-looking but neat and methodical manner of the fisherman, his lordship was affixing a strong cast adorned with three salmon-hooks. “Hullo!” said Mr. Blundell. “Bit of an optimist, aren’t you? Nothing but coarse fishing about here.”

“Very coarse,” said Wimsey. “Hush! While you were interviewing Mrs. Gates, where do you think I was? In the garage, inciting our friend Johnson to theft. From Sir Henry’s study. Hist! not a word!”

“A good many years since he went fishing, poor soul,” said Mr. Blundell, sympathetically.

“Well, he kept his tackle in good order all the same,” said Wimsey, making a complicated knot and pulling it tight with his teeth. “Are you busy, or have you got time to look at something?”

“I was going along to Thoday’s, but there’s no great hurry. And, by the way, I’ve got a bit of news.”

Wimsey listened to the story of the wreath. “Sounds all right,” he said. He searched in his pocket, and produced a handful of lead sinkers, some of which he proceeded to affix to his cast.

“What in the world are you thinking of catching with that?” demanded Mr. Blundell. “A whale?”

“Eels,” replied his lordship. He weighed the line in his hand and gravely added another piece of lead. Mr. Blundell, suspecting some kind of mystification, watched him in discreet silence. “That will do,” said Wimsey, “unless eels swim deeper than ever plummet sounded. Now come along. I’ve borrowed the keys of the church from the Rector. He had mislaid them, of course, but they turned up eventually among the Clothing Club accounts.”

He led the way to the cope-chest beneath the tower, and threw it open. “I have been chattin’ with our friend Mr. Jack Godfrey. Very pleasant fellow. He tells me that a complete set of new ropes was put in last December. One or two were a little dicky, and they didn’t want to take any chances over the New Year peal, so they renewed the lot while they were about it. These are the old ones, kept handy in case of sudden catastrophe. Very neatly coiled and stowed. This whopper belongs to Tailor Paul. Lift ’em out carefully—eighty feet or so of rope is apt to be a bit entanglin’ if let loose on the world. Batty Thomas. Dimity. Jubilee. John. Jericho. Sabaoth. But where is little Gaude? Where and oh where is she? With her sallie cut short and her rope cut long, where and oh where can she be? No—there’s nothing else in the chest but the leather buffets and a few rags and oilcans. No rope for Gaude. Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus. The mystery of the missing bell-rope. Et responsum est ab omnibus: Non est inventus— -a or -um.”

The Superintendent scratched his head and gazed vaguely about the church.

“Not in the stove,” said Wimsey. “My first thought, of course. If the burying was done on Saturday, the stoves would be alight, but they’d be banked down for the night, and it would have been awkward if our Mr. Gotobed had raked out anything unusual on Sunday morning with his little scraper. As a matter of fact, he tells me that one of the first things he does on Sunday morning is to open the top thingumajig on the stove and take a look inside to see that the flue-pipe is clear. Then he stirs it up a-top, rakes it out at the bottom door and sets it drawing for the day. I don’t think that was where the rope went. I hope not, anyway. I think the murderer used the rope to carry the body by, and didn’t remove it till he got to the graveside. Hence these salmon-hooks.”

“The well?” said Mr. Blundell, enlightened.

“The well,” replied Wimsey. “What shall we do, or go fishing?”

“I’m on; we can but try.”

“There’s a ladder in the vestry,” said Wimsey. “Bear a hand. Along this way—out through the vestry-door—and here we are. Away, my jolly boys, we’re all bound away. Sorry! I forgot this was consecrated ground. Now then—up with the cover. Half a jiff. We’ll sacrifice half a brick to the water-gods. Splosh!—it’s not so very deep. If we lay the ladder over the mouth of the well, we shall get a straight pull.”

He extended himself on his stomach, took the reel in his left hand and began to pay the line cautiously out over the edge of the ladder, while the Superintendent illumined the proceedings with a torch.

The air came up cold and dank from the surface of the water. Far below a circle of light reflected the pale sky and the beam of the torch showed hooks and line working steadily downwards. Then a tiny break in the reflection marked the moment when the hooks touched the water.

A pause. Then the whirr of the reel as Wimsey rewound the line.

“More water than I thought. Where are those leads? Now then, we’ll try again.”

Another pause. Then:

“A bite. Super, a bite! What’s the betting it’s an old boot? It’s not heavy enough to be the rope. Never mind. Up she comes. Ahoy! up she rises! Sorry, I forgot again. Hullo, ’ullo, ’ullo! What’s this? Not a boot, but the next thing to it. A hat! Now then, Super! Did you measure the head of the corpse? You did? Good! then we shan’t need to dig him up again to see if his hat fits. Stand by with the gaff. Got him! Soft felt, rather the worse for wear and water. Mass production. London maker. Exhibit One. Put it aside to dry. Down she goes again.... And up she comes. Another tiddler. Golly! what’s this? Looks like a German sausage. No, it isn’t. No, it isn’t. It’s a sallie. Sallie in our alley. She is the darling of my heart. Little Gaude’s sallie. Take her up tenderly, lift her with care. Where sallie is, the rest will be.... Hoops-a-daisy! ... I’ve got it.... It’s caught somewhere.... No, don’t pull too hard, or the hook may come adrift. Ease her. Hold her.... Damn!... Sorry, undamn! I mean, how very provoking, it’s got away.... Now I’ve got it... Was that the ladder cracking or my breastbone, I wonder? Surprisin’ly sharp edge a ladder has.... There now, there now! there’s your eel—all of a tangle. Catch hold. Hurray!”

“It’s not all here,” said the Superintendent, as the slimy mass of rope was hauled over the edge of the well.

“Probably not,” said Wimsey, “but this is one of the bits that were used to do the tying. He’s cut it loose and left the knots in.”

“Yes. Better not touch the knots, my lord. They might tell us something about who tied ’em.”

“Take care of the knots and the noose will take care of itself. Right you are. Here we go again.”

In process of time, the whole length of the rope—as far as they could judge—lay before them in five sections, including the sallie.

“Arms and ankles tied separately. Then body tied up to something or other and the slack cut off. And he removed the sallie because it got in the way of his knots.

H’m!” said Mr. Blundell. “Not very expert work, but effective, I dare say. Well, my lord, this is a very interesting discovery of yours. But—it’s a bit of a facer, isn’t it? Puts rather a different complexion on the crime, eh?”

“You’re right. Super. Well, one must face up to things, as the lady said when she went to have hers lifted. Hullo! what the—”

A face, perched in a bodiless sort of way on the churchyard wall, bobbed suddenly out of sight as he turned, and then bobbed up again.

“What the devil do you want. Potty?” demanded the Superintendent.

“Oh, nothing,” replied Potty. “I don’t want nothing. Who’ve you goin’ to hang with that there, mister? That’s a rope, that is. They’ve got eight on ’em hanging up the tower there—” he added, confidentially. “Rector don’t let me go up there no more, because they don’t want nobody to know. But Potty Peake knows. One, two, three, four, five, six seven, eight—all hung up by the neck. Old Paul, he’s the biggest—Tailor Paul—but there did ought to be nine tailors by rights. I can count, you see; Potty can count. I’ve counted ’em over time and again on my fingers. Eight. And one is nine. And one is ten—but I ain’t telling you his name. Oh, no. He’s waiting for the nine tailors—one, two, three, four—”

“Here, you, hop it!” cried the Superintendent, exasperated. “And don’t let me catch you hanging round here again.”

“Who’s a-hanging? Listen—you tell me, and I’ll tell you. There’s Number Nine a-coming, and that’s a rope to hang him, ain’t it, mister? Nine of ’em, and eight’s there already. Potty knows. Potty can say. But he won’t. Oh, no! Somebody might be listening.” His face changed to its usual vacant look and he touched his cap. “Good-day, sir. Good-day, mister. I got to feed the pigs, that’s Potty’s work. Yes, that’s right. They pigs did ought to be fed. ’Morning, sir; ’morning, mister.”

He slouched away across the fields towards a group of out-houses some distance away.

“There!” said Mr. Blundell, much vexed. “He’ll go telling everybody about this rope. He’s got hanging on the brain, ever since he found his mother hanging in the cowhouse when he was a kid. Over at Little Dykesey, that was, a matter of thirty year back. Well, it can’t be helped. I’ll get these things taken along to the station, and come back later on for Will Thoday. It’ll be past his lunchtime now.”

“It’s past mine, too,” said Wimsey, as the clock chimed the quarter past one. “I shall have to apologise to Mrs. Venables.”

* * *

“So you see, Mrs. Thoday,” said Superintendent Blundell, pleasantly, “if anybody can help us over this awkward business it’s you.”

Mary Thoday shook her head. “I’m sure I would if I could, Mr. Blundell, but there I how can I? It’s right enough to say I was up all night with Will. I hardly had my clothes off for a week, he was that bad, and the night after they laid poor Lady Thorpe to rest, he was just as bad as could be. It turned to pneumonia, you know, and we didn’t think as we should ever pull him through. I’m not likely to forget that night, nor the day neither. Sitting here, listening to old Tailor Paul and wondering if he was going to ring for Will before the night was out.”

“There, there!” said her husband, embarrassed, and sprinkling a great quantity of vinegar on his tinned salmon, “it’s all over now, and there’s no call to get talking that way.”

“Of course not,” said the Superintendent. “Not but what you had a pretty stiff time of it, didn’t you, Will? Delirious and all that kind of thing, I’ll lay. I know what pneumonia is, for it carried off my old mother-in-law in 1922. It’s a very trying thing to nurse, is pneumonia.”

“So ’tis,” agreed Mrs. Thoday. “Very bad he was, that night. Kept on trying to get out of his bed and go to church. He thought they was ringing the peal without him, though I kept on telling him that was all rung and finished with New Year’s Day. A terrible job I had with him, and nobody to help me, Jim having left us that very morning. Jim was a great help while he was here, but he had to go back to his ship. He stayed as long as he could, but of course he’s not his own master.”

“No,” said Mr. Blundell. “Mate on a merchantman, isn’t he? How’s he getting along? Have you heard from him lately?”

“We had a postcard last week from Hong Kong,” said Mary, “but he didn’t say much. Only that he was well and love to the children. He hasn’t sent nothing but postcards this voyage, and he must be terrible busy, for he’s such a man for writing letters as a rule.”

“They’ll be a bit shorthanded, maybe,” said Will. “And it’s an anxious time for men in his line of business, freights being very scarce and hard to come by. It’ll be all this depression, I suppose.”

“Yes, of course. When do you expect him back?”

“Not for I don’t know when,” replied Will. The Superintendent looked sharply at him, for he seemed to detect a note almost of satisfaction in the tone. “Not if trade’s decent, that is. You see, his ship don’t make regular trips. She follows cargo, as they call it, tramping round from port to port wherever there’s anything to be picked up.”

“Ah, yes, of course. What’s the name of the ship, again?”

“The Hannah Brown. She belongs to Lampson & Blake of Hull. Jim is doing very well, I’m told, and they set great store by him. If anything happened to Captain Woods, they’d give the ship to Jim. Wouldn’t they, Will?”

“So he says,” replied Thoday uneasily. “But it don’t do to count on anything these days.”

The contrast between the wife’s enthusiasm and the husband’s lack of it was so marked, that Mr. Blundell drew his own conclusions. “So Jim’s been making trouble between ’em, has he?” was his unspoken comment. “That explains a lot. But it doesn’t help me much. Better change the subject.”

“Then you didn’t happen to see anything going on at the church that night?” he said. “No lights moving about? Nothing of that kind?”

“I didn’t move from Will’s bedside all night,” replied Mrs. Thoday, with a hesitating glance at her husband. “You see, he was so ill, and if I left him a minute, he’d be throwing the clothes off and trying to get up. When it wasn’t the peal that was in his mind, it was the old trouble—you know.”

“The old Wilbraham affair?”

“Yes. He was all muddled up in his head, thinking the—the—that dreadful trial was on and he had to stand by me.”

“That’ll do!” cried Thoday, suddenly, pushing his plate away so violently that the knife and fork clattered from the plate upon the table. “I won’t have you fretting yourself about that old business no more. All that’s dead and buried. If-it come up in my mind when I wasn’t rightly in my senses, I can’t help that. God knows, I’d be the last to put you in mind of it if I’d been able to help myself. You did ought to know that.”

“I’m not blaming you, Will.”

“And I won’t have nothing more said about it in my house. What do you want to come worrying her this way, Mr. Blundell? She’s told you as she don’t know a thing about this chap that was buried, and that’s all there is to it. What I may have said and done, when I was ill, don’t matter a hill of beans.”

“Not a scrap,” admitted the Superintendent, “and I’m very sorry such an allusion should have come up, I’m sure. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. You can’t assist me and that’s all there is to it. I’m not saying it isn’t a disappointment, but a policeman’s job’s all disappointments, and one must take the rough with the smooth. Now I’ll be off and let the youngsters come back to their tea. By the way, what’s gone with the parrot?”

“We’ve put him in the other room,” said Will, with a scowl. “He’s taken to shrieking fit to split your head.”

“That’s the worst of parrots,” said Mr. Blundell. “He’s a good talker, though. I’ve never heard a better.”

He bade them a cheerful good evening and went out. The two Thoday children—who had been banished to the woodshed during the discussion of murders and buryings, unsuited to their sex and tender years—ran down to open the gate for him.

“’Evening, Rosie,” said Mr. Blundell, who never forgot anybody’s name, “’evening, Evvie. Are you being good girls at school?”

But the voice of Mrs. Thoday calling them at that moment to their tea, the Superintendent received but a brief answer to his question.

* * *

Mr. Ashton was a farmer of the old school. He might have been fifty years old, or sixty or seventy, or any age. He spoke in a series of gruff barks, and held himself so rigidly that if he had swallowed a poker it could only have produced unseemly curves and flexions in his figure. Wimsey, casting a thoughtful eye upon his hands, with their gnarled and chalky joints, concluded, however, that his unbending aspect was due less to austerity than to chronic arthritis. His wife was considerably younger than himself; plump where he was spare, bounce-about where he was stately, merry where he was grave, and talkative where he was monosyllabic. They made his lordship extremely welcome and offered him a glass of homemade cowslip wine.

“It’s not many that makes it now,” said Mrs. Ashton. “But it was my mother’s recipe, and I say, as long as there’s peggles to be got, I’ll make my peggle wine. I don’t hold by all this nasty stuff you get at the shops. It’s good for nothing but to blow out the stomach and give you gas.”

“Ugh!” said Mr. Ashton, approvingly.

“I quite agree with you, Mrs. Ashton,” said his lordship. “This is excellent.” And so it was. “It is another kindness I have to thank you for.” And he expressed his gratitude for the first-aid given to his car the previous January.

“Ugh!” said Mr. Ashton. “Pleased, I’m sure.”

“But I always hear of Mr. Ashton engaged in some good work or other,” went on his lordship. “I believe he was the good Samaritan who brought poor William Thoday back from Walbeach the day he was taken ill.”

“Ugh!” repeated Mr. Ashton. “Very fortunate we happened to see him. Ugh! Very bad weather for a sick man. Ugh! Dangerous thing, influenza.”

“Dreadful!” said his wife. “Poor man—he was quite reeling with it as he came out of the Bank. I said to Mr. Ashton, ‘How terrible bad poor Will do look, to be sure! I’m sure he’s not fit to go home.’ And sure enough, we hadn’t got but a mile or so out of the town when we saw his car drawn up by the side of the road, and him quite helpless. It was God’s mercy he didn’t drive into the Drain and kill himself. And with all that money on him, too! Dear, dear! What a terrible loss it would have been. Quite helpless and out of his head he was, counting them notes over and dropping of them all over the place. ‘Now, Will,’ I said, ‘you just put them notes back in your pocket and keep quiet and we’ll drive you home. And you’ve no call to worry about the car,’ I said, ‘for we’ll stop at Turner’s on the way and get him to bring it over next time he comes to Fenchurch. He’ll do it gladly, and he can go back on the ’bus.’ So he listened to me and we got him into our car and brought him home. And a hard time he had, dear, dear! He was prayed for in church two weeks running.”

“Ugh!” said Mr. Ashton.

“What he ever wanted to come out for in such weather I can’t think,” went on Mrs. Ashton, “for it wasn’t market day, and we wouldn’t have been there ourselves, only for Mr. Ashton having to see his lawyer about Giddings’ lease, and I’m sure if Will had wanted any business done, we’d have been ready to do it for him. Even if it was the Bank, he could have trusted us with it, I should think. It’s not as though Mr. Ashton couldn’t have taken care of two hundred pounds, or two thousand, for that matter. But Will Thoday was always very close about his business.”

“My dear!” said Mr. Ashton, “ugh! It may have been Sir Henry’s business. You wouldn’t have him anything but close about what’s not, rightly speaking, his affair.”

“And since when, Mr. Ashton,” demanded his lady, “has Sir Henry’s family banked at the London and East Anglia? Let alone that Sir Henry was always a deal too considerate to send a sick man out to do business for him in a snowstorm? I’ve told you before that I don’t believe that two hundred pounds had anything to do with Sir Henry and you’ll find out one of these days I’m right, as I always am. Aren’t I, now?”

“Ugh!” said Mr. Ashton. “You make a lot of talk, Maria and some of it’s bound to be right. Funny if it wasn’t, now and again. Ugh! But you’ve no call to be interfering with Will’s money. You leave that to him.”

“That’s true enough,” admitted Mrs. Ashton, amiably. “I do let my tongue run on a bit, I’ll allow. His lordship must excuse me.”

“Not at all,” said Wimsey. “In a quiet place like this, if one doesn’t talk about one’s neighbours, what is there to talk about? And the Thodays are really your only near neighbours, aren’t they? They’re very lucky. I’ll be bound, when Will was laid up, you did a good bit of the nursing, Mrs. Ashton.”

“Not as much as I’d have liked,” said Mrs. Ashton. “My daughter was took ill at the same time—half the village was down with it, if it comes to that. I managed to run in now and again, of course—’twouldn’t be friendly else—and our girl helped Mary with the cooking. But what with being up half the night—”

This gave Wimsey his opportunity. In a series of tactful inquiries he led the conversation to the matter of lights in the churchyard. “There, now!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton. “I always thought as there might be something in that tale as little Rosie Thoday told our Polly. But children do have so many fancies, you never know.”

“Why, what tale was that?” asked Wimsey.

“Ugh! foolish nonsense, foolish nonsense,” said Mr. Ashton. “Ghosts and what not.”

Oh, that’s foolish enough, I dare say,” retorted his lady, “but you know well enough, Luke Ashton, that the child might be telling the truth, ghost or no ghost. You see your lordship, it’s this way. My girl Polly—she’s sixteen now and going out to service next autumn, for whatever people may say and whatever airs they may give themselves, I will maintain there’s nothing like good service to train a girl up to be a good wife, and so I told Mrs. Wallace only last week. It’s not standing behind a counter all day selling ribbons and bathing-dresses (if they call them dresses, with no legs and no backs and next to no fronts neither) will teach you how to cook a floury potato, let alone the tendency to fallen arches and varicose veins. Which,” added Mrs. Ashton triumphantly, “she couldn’t hardly deny, suffering sadly from her legs as she do.”

Lord Peter expressed his warm appreciation of Mrs. Ashton’s point of view and hinted that she had been about to say that Polly—

“Yes, of course. My tongue do run on and no mistake, but Polly’s a good girl, though I say it, and Rosie Thoday’s always been a pet of Polly’s, like, ever since she was quite a baby and Polly only seven. Well, then, it was a good time ago, now—when would it be, Luke? End of January, maybe, near enough—it was pretty near dark at six o’clock, so it couldn’t be much later—well, call it end of January—Polly comes on Rosie and Evvie sitting together under the hedge just outside their place, both of them crying. ‘Why, Rosie,’ says Polly, ‘what’s the matter?’ And Rosie says, Nothing, now that Polly’s come and can they walk with her to the Rectory, because their Dad has a message for Rector. Of course, Polly was willin’ enough, but she couldn’t understand what they was cryin’ about, and then, after a bit—for you know how difficult it is to get children to tell you what they’re frightened on—it comes out that they’re afraid to go past the churchyard in the dark. Well, Polly being a good girl, she tells ’em there’s no call to be frighted, the dead being in the arms of our Saviour and not having the power to come out o’ their graves nor to do no harm to nobody. But that don’t comfort Rosie, none the more for that, and in the end Polly makes out that Rosie’s seen what she took to be the spirit of Lady Thorpe a-flittin’ bout her grave. And it seems the night she see her was the night of the funeral.”

“Dear me,” said Wimsey. “What exactly did she see?”

“No more than a light, by what Polly could make out. That was one of the nights Will Thoday was very bad, and it seems Rosie was up and about helping her mother—for she’s a good, handy child, is Rosie—and she looks out o’ the window and sees the light just a-rising out of where the grave would be.”

“Did she tell her mother and father?”

“Not then, she didn’t. She didn’t like to, and I remember well, as a child I was just the same, only with me it was a funny sort of thing that used to groan in the wash-house, which I took to be bears—but as to telling anybody, I’d ha’ died first. And so would Rosie, only that night her father wanted her to go a message to the Rectory and she tried everything to get off doing it, and at last he got angry and threatened to take a slipper to her. Not that he meant it, I don’t suppose,” said Mrs. Ashton, “for he’s a kind man as a rule, but he hadn’t hardly got over his illness and he was fratchety, like, as sick people will be. So then Rosie made up her mind to tell him what she seen. Only that made him angrier still, and he said she was to go and no more nonsense, and never to speak about ghosts, and such like to him again. If Mary had been there, she’d a-gone, but she was out getting his medicine from Dr. Baines, and the ’bus don’t come back till half-past seven and Will wanted the message sent particular, though I forget now what it were. So Polly told Rosie it couldn’t have been Lady Thorpe’s spirit, for that was at rest, and if it had been, Lady Thorpe wouldn’t do harm to a living soul; and she said Rosie must a-seen Harry Gotobed’s lantern. But it couldn’t well a-been that, for by what the child said it was one o’clock in the morning past that Rosie see the light. Dear me an’ all! I’m sure if I’d a-known then what I know now, I’d a-paid more attention to it.”

Superintendent Blundell was not best pleased when this conversation was repeated to him. “Thoday and his wife had better be careful,” he observed.

“They told you the exact truth, you know,” said Wimsey.

“Ah!” said Mr. Blundell. “I don’t like witnesses to be so damned particular about exact truth. They get away with it as often as not, and then where are you? Not but what I did think of speaking to Rosie, but her mother called her away double quick—and no wonder! Besides, I don’t care, somehow, for pumping kids about their parents. I can’t help thinking of my own Betty and Ann.”

And if that was not quite the exact truth, there was a good deal of truth in it; for Mr. Blundell was a kindly man.