‘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.’