‘Sorry, Constable, let me just check. Lovell was engaged to Daisy. Pickering walked out with Daisy. Lovell found out and threatened violence?’
‘That’s how it seemed, m’lady, but I knows them both and I knows it was just young lads squaring up to each other. You knows what it’s like. They might let fly with feet, fists and elbows if they had a chance for a good set to on the green, but there’d be no murdering. But that’s not how Inspector Sunderland sees it. He’s arrested Bill Lovell for murder and he’s holding him in a cell down in Bristol.’
‘Gracious me. Did he speak to anyone else?’
‘No, m’lady, that’s just it. Clear case of jealous murder, he says, and lays him by the heels.’
‘And you’re not convinced?’
‘No, m’lady, not by a long chalk. See, old Joe Arnold called me back in. He was right agitated. He says the Inspector didn’t give him a chance to tell him everything. He says there was another row that night. A row between Frank Pickering and Arthur Tressle, captain of the cricket team.’
‘What about?’
‘Something and nothing as far as I can make out. But he didn’t reckon Lovell had it in him to murder no one neither, and he says it could just as easy be Arthur as Bill.’
By this time, the tea was ready and I brought the tray through. I set it on the low table and stood to one side, not wanting to miss anything.
‘It all seems a bit perfunctory on Inspector Sunderland’s part, I must say,’ said Lady Hardcastle at length. ‘Is there anything I can do? Would you like me to speak to your sergeant? He seemed like a reasonable man.’
‘No, m’lady. I spoke to him myself but he says there’s nothing we can do. But would you mind sort of helping me get to the bottom of it all. Even round here where they’ve known me for years people puts up the shutters when they sees the uniform. That’s why the detectives get so much out of them, I reckons, but the detective in this case doesn’t seem like he cares overmuch.’
‘I say,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Detective work. How exciting. Isn’t it exciting, Armstrong? You can be Watson to my Holmes.’
‘But without the violin and the dangerous drug addiction, my lady,’ I said.
‘As soon as the piano arrives from London that will make an admirable substitute for the violin. And I’m sure we could both have a tot of brandy from time to time to grease the old wheels, what?’
Hancock seemed slightly nonplussed by Lady Hardcastle’s sudden flight of whimsy.
‘What do you know about the victim, Constable. Who was Mr Pickering? What did he do? Who were his friends? Where did he work?’
‘I can’t say I knows much about his private life, m’lady, ’cept to say he was a fine and well-liked fellow. Calm and quiet for the most part, jovial company and a demon on the cricket pitch. Finest pace bowler the village has ever known, by all accounts.’
Lady Hardcastle and I exchanged confused glances.
‘Sorry, m’lady, I forgets not everyone enjoys their cricket. He could bowl the ball very fast. Very useful for taking wickets.’
‘Thank you, constable. Roddy – Sir Roderick, my late husband – used to talk about cricket all the time and I tried so hard to be interested, but the game lacked excitement for me, I’m afraid and I never really picked up the argot.’ She paused in wistful contemplation as she often did when something reminded her of her husband. And then, just as suddenly, she came back to herself. ‘I’m so sorry, do carry on.’
‘Yes, m’lady. I made some enquiries, spoke to a few people and it seems there weren’t nothing remarkable about him apart from that. He grew up at Woodworthy, about three miles east of here, and when he left school he got hisself a job with a shipping agents at Bristol: Seddon, Seddon and Seddon. He moved on down to the city and found hisself cheap diggings nearby the office. He worked hard. Damn good at his job, they say, and he done very well for hisself. But he was homesick, see, so when he got his latest promotion last year to Chief Clerk, he come back out to Woodworthy to be with his friends and family, like. Like I said t’other day he rode his bicycle into Chipping Bevington every morning and caught the train into the city.’
‘He sounds like an admirable fellow,’ said Lady Hardcastle at length. ‘I think the least we can do for the poor chap is to find out the truth of his murder.’
‘Would you be willing to help, then, m’lady?’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t like to impose and it’s all highly irregular, but apart from Dr Fitzsimmons you’re the cleverest person I knows. They say you went to university. And I can’t see a lad from the village hanged for shouting the odds in a pub just because a city detective thinks as how he’s got more important things to do.’
‘It sounds like exactly the sort of fun I’ve been missing, Constable,’ she said. ‘But we need to be discreet. If I start asking the locals all manner of questions I’ll draw unwanted attention and possibly even get you into trouble. Would you allow Armstrong to help, too? She can be my eyes and ears around the village. No one notices a lady’s maid, they’re invisible.’
‘It all sounds grand, m’lady. If you don’t mind, miss?’
‘No, Constable, I don’t mind at all,’ I said. ‘I’d be delighted to help.’
We chatted inconsequentially while the constable finished his tea and he left looking much more at ease than he had been when he arrived.
‘Gracious me, Flo,’ said Lady Hardcastle once Constable Hancock had gone, ‘we seem to have become embroiled once more. What a pair we are.’
She would never have dreamed of calling me anything but “Armstrong” in company, but alone in the house she tended to call me by my first name. Somehow, though, I could never quite bring myself to call her anything but “my lady”. I think I only ever called her Emily once, in China, when we were sure we were about to die.
‘We do seem to be something of a pair, my lady,’ I said. ‘At the very least, you’re a one. I distinctly remember being promised a quiet life in the country, and yet here I am about to equip myself with thumbscrews and cosh and slink into the murky village underworld on your behalf.’
‘“Murky village underworld” indeed! You do have an overdeveloped sense of the melodramatic, Flo. And when have you ever needed a cosh to protect yourself?’
‘It’s just for show, my lady, just for show. But are you serious? Shall we really investigate this murder? I really thought we’d left all the skulduggery and intrigue behind us. And, be honest, what do we really know of detective work? It’s not as though we have any experience. We were always involved in more... direct action.’
‘It’s true, it’s true, but I really think we need to get involved and try to do something to help. Neither of us would be happy to see a lad hanged for something he didn’t do.’