‘And if it’s a nine, my lady?’
‘Then Bert takes us into Bristol and we have a slap-up lunch, an afternoon of shopping and try to catch a show at the Hippodrome. And hang the murder investigation.’
‘Crikey, you’re on.’
I lifted the front cover of the book out of the way and then riffled through the pages. Lady Hardcastle’s finger darted between them as they fell and I opened the book fully to see what fate had chosen for us.
‘Page 257,’ I said disappointedly. ‘Looks like we’ll be speaking to Dick Alford tomorrow morning.’
‘It seems that way, pet. We’ll have to have our day out another time.’
‘Pfft,’ I said. ‘Stupid murderers and their stupid murders.’
‘Quite so, pet, quite so. Now let’s get cleared up and we can update the Crime Board. And then I think a little music is in order. Perhaps we can make up some bawdy music hall songs to make up for our missed trip to the Hippodrome.’
‘She was only a fishmonger’s daughter…’ I sang, and gathered up the plates.
I was up with the lark on Saturday morning, and resolved at once to make enquiries as to the sleeping habits of larks. Do they really rise early? “Up with the lady’s maid” might be just as evocative of early rising but perhaps open to unfortunate misinterpretation.
By the time Lady Hardcastle rang for her morning coffee, I’d completed quite a few chores that I had been putting off and was feeling rather pleased with myself as I took it up to her.
She was sitting up in bed, reading, when I entered.
‘Good morning, pet,’ she said.
‘And good morning to you,’ I said. ‘At last. Coffee?’
‘“At last”, eh? Are you calling your mistress a slugabed?’
‘If the nightcap fits.’
‘Harrumph,’ she said. ‘It’s Saturday. Surely a lady can rest on a Saturday.’
‘That would be true, my lady, were it not the case that the lady in question takes her ease on the other six days of the week as well.’
‘You, my girl, are a puritan. And a… a…’
‘A perfectly charming and wonderful woman, my lady?’
‘If you like,’ she said with another harrumph.
‘It’s actually only eight o’clock, my lady,’ I said. ‘Breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes and Bert won’t be here until ten. I’ve laid out some clothes and polished your boots.’
‘You seem to have everything well in hand, pet. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, my lady. I shall yell uncouthly when breakfast is served.’
‘We need a gong, dear.’
‘Nonsense, my lady. A good strong pair of Welsh lungs is all we need. See you presently.’
I excused myself and went back downstairs.
Breakfast and dressing passed without major incident. There was a moment of slight drama over a loose button on the dress, but Flo’s Magic Sewing Box came to the rescue there. Bert arrived at the door exactly as the hall clock struck ten and we were soon on our way to Dick Alford’s farm in Woodworthy.
We arrived just as Mr Alford was walking back up the lane from one of his more distant fields and Lady Hardcastle asked Bert to stop and let us out so that we could walk with him. Mr Alford, too, stopped in the lane and regarded us with suspicion as we both clambered out of the motorcar.
‘Good morning, Mr Alford,’ said Lady Hardcastle, approaching him. ‘I’m Lady Hardcastle and this is Miss Armstrong.’
‘And good mornin’ to you, m’lady. I knows who you are,’ he said, knuckling his forehead. ‘I seen you with Lady Farley-Stroud down The Hayrick t’other week. Heard about you ’fore that, o’ course. What can I do for you?’
‘We’re trying to find out a little more about the death of Mr Carmichael,’ she said.
‘That old buzzard? Shouldn’t speak ill and all that, but good riddance to him.’ He resumed his trudge back to the farmhouse and we fell in beside him. Lady Hardcastle gestured to Bert that he should park the motorcar and wait.
‘You’re not the first person to say that to us, Mr Alford,’ she said. ‘And we only started asking about him yesterday.’
‘Don’t reckon you’ll get many different opinions round here,’ he said. ‘On the day the Good Lord was handing out charm and happy-go-lucky personalities, Spencer Carmichael was round the back trying to start a fight with St Peter over sommat or other, I reckons.’
‘When did you last see him?’ she said.
‘Thursday, down The Hayrick. Saw him sitting there, hunched over his pie, glaring at everyone. Then a little later he was face-down in it.’
‘And when did you last speak to him?’ I asked.
‘I went over to his place last week after he cheated me at the auction. Gave the old codger a piece of my mind.’
‘What did you say?’ I said.
‘Told him I’d not stand for none of his nonsense no more and if he bilked me again I’d give him what for.’
‘And what was his reaction?’
‘Told me to… beggin’ your pardon, ladies, but I can’t say what he told me to do in present company.’
‘We get the gist,’ said Lady Hardcastle with a grin. ‘But why did you think he’d cheated you?’
‘Well,’ he said, thoughtfully, ‘now I comes to tell it to someone else, I i’n’t certain no more that he did. It was just every time I thought I was about to get a little bit ahead, there was Carmichael, putting the kibosh on it. Like he was doing it on purpose. He didn’t need them cows from off the Farley-Stroud estate. He just wanted ’em so I couldn’t have ’em. Good milkers they was. I could-a done with they.’
‘Where did this altercation take place?’ she said.
‘Out in his yard.’
‘He didn’t invite you in? Offer you a cup of tea and talk it over?’
Alford laughed. ‘Spencer Carmichael? Genial host? He wouldn’t give you the steam off… begging your pardon ladies.’
‘Was Mrs Carmichael there?’ I said.
‘Audrey?’ he said, slightly wistfully. ‘She didn’t come out, but I seen her through the window, like.’
‘And she didn’t invite you in?’
‘She never done nothing without Spencer’s say-so.’
‘So you had your row in the yard,’ I said. ‘And then what?’
‘I just left him to it,’ he said. ‘I’d said my piece, so I just left him to stew on it. It weren’t going to do no good, like, but I felt all the better for having said it.’
‘And you didn’t see him again until the next market day?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘No, m’lady, didn’t have no cause to. He weren’t the sort of bloke you’d seek out for company if you knows what I mean.’
We had arrived at the farmhouse gate where Alford stopped, plainly unwilling to invite us further.
‘Do you keep any poisons, Mr Alford?’ I said abruptly.
He stared at me, first in surprise, and then with mounting anger.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he said, coldly.
‘Poison, Mr Alford. Do you keep any?’
‘I hope you’re not accusing me, Miss…’
‘Armstrong,’ I said. ‘No, Mr Alford. I’m trying to find out where the poisons are around these parts. We’re new round here.’
‘Every farmer has poison, Miss Armstrong. Rats. They eats the feed, damages the barns. Pests. We kills ’em,’ he said, looking me defiantly in the eye.