The car was much less luxurious than the Seddons’ but no less practical, and after a brief stop at home to pick up Lady Hardcastle we were on our way into Bristol.
It took the best part of an hour to reach the terraced street on the outskirts of the city. There were children playing in the street as we drew up outside the address Hancock had given us and they came rushing over, noisily exclaiming over the gleaming motor car and bombarding poor Bert with a cacophony of questions about it. Fortunately for us, this meant that the lady and her maid in the back were of no interest at all and we slipped quietly out, and then up to the front door of the small house.
The door was answered by a small woman of late middle age wearing a housecoat and headscarf.
‘Yes?’ she said suspiciously. ‘What do you want?’
‘Is Mr Tressle at home?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘What if he is?’
‘I’d like to speak with him if I may.’
‘I don’t allow my lodgers no lady visitors. This is a respectable house.’ She made to close the door.
Lady Hardcastle took a card from her silver case and handed it to the landlady. ‘Please give him my card and tell him I’d like to speak to him. Tell him it’s about... the Littleton Cotterell Cricket Club.’
The fearsome woman took the card and glanced at it. Her manner changed instantly. ‘Oh. Oh, come in your ladyship,’ she gushed. ‘Cricket club, you say? Please wait in the best parlour and I shall tell Mr Tressle you’re here. Can I get you something? Tea, perhaps? Or something a little stronger?’ She grinned a gap-toothed grin.
‘Thank you, no. You’re very kind but I’ve only recently had some tea. Just fetch Mr Tressle for me, please.’
We followed the woman into the house and she showed us into the tiny front room, then she hurried out and clumped up the stairs.
A few moments later, a neatly dressed young man with thinning hair appeared at the door. He squinted through grimy spectacles at the calling card he’d been given.
‘Lady Hardcastle?’ he said, looking at each of us.
‘That’s me,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘This is my maid, Armstrong.’
‘Pleased to meet you both, I’m sure. Mrs Grout said you’d come about the cricket club. You haven’t come about the cricket club, have you?’
‘No, Mr Tressle, I haven’t. Shall we sit down?’
They each sat on one of the two overstuffed armchairs while I stood beside Lady Hardcastle.
‘Is it about... you know... Frank Pickering?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it is. You know that Bill Lovell has been charged with his murder?’ she said.
‘I knew he’d been arrested.’
‘But you knew he didn’t do it?’
‘I didn’t think he could have, no.’
‘Because you knew who it was? Was it you, Mr Tressle?’
‘Me? How dare you come in here and say such things.’
‘I know that you and he had a fight about him taking over the cricket club in the Dog and Duck the night he was killed. You were heard saying that you’d not let him do it. I think you followed him out, strangled him with your scarf and then took his body to the woods using the handcart from the inn. How did you get him up into the tree, Mr Tressle? That’s what’s puzzling me.’
‘I did no such thing. Who told you we argued about the cricket club? Daisy?’
‘I spoke to her on Tuesday afternoon,’ I said. ‘Both she and Joe Arnold were adamant that you’d had a fight.’
‘Oh, I didn’t say we’d not had a fight,’ he chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Just not about the club, that’s all.’
‘About Daisy?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘That strumpet? I’d not touch her with gloves on. Have you considered it might be her? That she might be trying to divert the blame?’
‘What was the fight about, Mr Tressle,’ said Lady Hardcastle, firmly.
‘It was a confidential business matter,’ he said.
‘Business? What business did you and Mr Pickering have?’
He looked slightly disbelieving for a second. ‘We worked together, Lady Hardcastle. I’m a clerk at Seddon, Seddon and Seddon.’
We sat in stunned silence for a few moments.
‘Why,’ she said eventually, and with some exasperation, ‘did no one think to tell me that before? Armstrong? Did you know?’
‘No, my lady,’ I said, deciding against my initial, more flippant reply.
‘Please tell me,’ she said when she had collected herself, ‘exactly what happened that evening.’
‘We had our meeting at the Dog and Duck and we all got a little drunk,’ he began.
‘What was the meeting about?’ she asked.
‘Arrangements for the club’s annual supper dance,’
‘Give me strength,’ she said. ‘I’d been given the impression it was some sort of coup.’
He laughed. ‘No, nothing like that. With our business concluded, we settled down for a few more convivial drinks. That’s when Bill Lovell comes and has a go at Frank.’
‘Yes, we heard about that. What next?’
‘Then Frank and I has our... our private discussion–’
‘Your argument.’
‘Things did get a little bit heated, yes. Then Frank leaves, and we stays to have one more before home time. We leaves the pub in good time but a couple of the lads gets into some tomfoolery on the green–’
‘They stole Mr Arnold’s handcart,’ interrupted Lady Hardcastle.
‘They did, yes. We ended up larking about at the cricket pavilion and by the time I looked at my watch I was too late to get to Chipping Bevington for the last train home so I kipped down on the dressing room floor. I’ve done it before and I don’t doubt I’ll have to do it again.’
‘And you didn’t see Frank at all?’
‘Not after he left the pub, no.’
‘What was your argument about, Mr Tressle?’ she asked, kindly. ‘I really must know. If it has anything to do with what happened to him...’
‘Look, I can tell you if you think it will help, but when I say it’s a confidential business matter, I mean it. It would ruin lives if it got out.’
‘If it helps to save a man’s life, it might have to come out anyway, but I give you my word that I shall keep it in the utmost confidence if I possibly can.’
He sighed. ‘Very well. Frank was the senior clerk at Seddons and he’d taken it upon himself to review some of our bookkeeping practices. He had it in mind that we could increase profits if we kept better track of our receipts and payments. In his own time he’d been going through the ledgers – stacks of them. Weeks it had taken him.