Said Jim, not moving: “You’re on the wrong tack. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.” And it was somehow immediately apparent that he had in no sense been tricked into assuming a particular she. He knew which woman George had in mind, and he saw no point in dissembling his knowledge. All his cards went on the table. Or had he perhaps still one he wasn’t showing, one he was never likely to show?
“Why should she?” said George. “No fly’s been hurting her.”
“I never knew her even feel like being violent to anyone or anything. She wouldn’t know how. I tell you, Gerd Hollins is an angel.”
“For all I know,” said George, “I may be looking for an angel.”
“Then why don’t you stop looking?” asked the dark mouth very softly.
Four
« ^ »
George went into the yard of the Shock of Hay by the private way, and tapped at the scullery door; and there was Io filling a kettle at the tap, and putting it on the gas-ring for the late cocoa on which they usually went to bed. It was getting round to closing-time, and warm, merry murmurs came in from the bar along the passage, the mellowest noise George had heard in Comerford all that day. It took a solid evening of drinking, leisurely but devoted drinking, to get rid of the hag on Comerford’s back these days. There were no individual voices in this noise, it was as communal as the buzzing of a hive of bees, and as contented. He liked to hear it; it soothed his over-active mind, even while he was thinking out the first question for Io, who welcomed him with an unsuspecting smile. Pussy, of course, was in bed already, though it was questionable whether she was sleeping. No one who wanted information would have dreamed of going to the Shock of Hay until after Pussy’s bedtime.
“Come on in!” said Io resignedly. “We’re nearly through, and you don’t have to be official tonight—Dad’s going to be only too glad to get ’em out on time, believe me. Go into the kitchen, will you, Sergeant, and I’ll be with you in a minute. And keep your voice down, or the quiz-child will be out of bed and stretching her ears.”
“Anybody’d think you were expecting me,” said George, ducking his head under the low scullery doorway, where even Joe Hart, who was about five feet seven inches square, had to stoop.
“You’d have hard work to find one person among that gang out there,” she said, nodding briskly in the direction of the murmurous bar, “who isn’t expecting you—any minute. You’re the most expected man in Comerford, bar none.” But he could tell from the serenity of her voice and the undisturbed tiredness of her eyes that the true meaning of what she said had not yet penetrated into her own mind. She looked at him, and he was still human, he had not become a symbol. She smiled at him nicely, following him into the kitchen and patting the back of a chair at him invitingly. “Sit down until I can get Dad for you. I’ll take him off in the bar until ten, it won’t be long.”
“No, stay!” said George. “I’d like to talk to you. In fact, I probably need to talk to you more than to your father—if you were looking after the snug last Wednesday, that is.”
Io had already turned cheerfully away to relieve her father of his duties in the bar, but she swung round in the doorway and looked back at him with eyes suddenly widening and darkening, in a sharpened awareness. She came back slowly into the room, and closed the door behind her, one hand smoothing uncertainly at the skirt of her pink cotton frock.
“Me? The night before Pussy came in and—the night before they found him?”
“The night he was murdered,” said George.
“Yes, I see! You know,” she said slowly, “that’s funny! I knew what you’d come about, of course. What else could it be? I guessed that much. And I knew everybody was somehow mixed up in it—I mean, from the impartial view. But the only person I didn’t think of as being involved was me. Do you suppose that’s the same with all those fellows out there? Everybody’s talking about the murder, there isn’t anything else worth talking about in Comerford just now. But how funny if every one of them sees all the rest as actors and himself as the audience!”
“Until I come along,” said George wryly, seeing the first veil of removal drawn between his eyes and hers. He felt himself being geometricized into a totem as she looked at him. The law! An idol which does condescend to wield a certain benevolent guardianship over us; but beware of it, all the same, it exacts human sacrifice.
“Poor George!” said Io, breaking all the rules deliciously. “It isn’t very nice, is it? But you can’t help it. Go on, then, ask me anything you like. I don’t quite see how I can be any good, I didn’t know anything about it until you sent Pussy home, and even then she wouldn’t let on what had happened, the monkey! She had an awful nightmare in the night, and then I found out. By next day it was a great adventure, and she was Sexton Blake and Tinker and Pedro all in one, but it didn’t look quite such a picnic at one o’clock in the morning. I was in the snug as usual that evening—I mean the Wednesday evening. So go ahead, and ask me things. But I can’t imagine I’ll be much help.” She sat down opposite to him, and folded her hands submissively in her lap, and looked at him gravely with her large brown eyes.
“Can you remember who was in, that night? All the regulars? Wedderburn and Charles Blunden? Jim Tugg?”
Io shut her eyes and recited a list of names, fishing them up out of her memory one by one, the first few readily, including the quarrelsome friends of whose presence she could never go unaware for long, then single names coming out of forgetfulness with distinct pops of achievement, like champagne corks. “And Tugg—yes, he was in some time that evening, I’m sure. I remember his dog having a bit of an argument with Baxter’s terrier. You know what terriers are. Yes, he was here.” She added disconcertingly, suddenly opening her eyes upon doubt and wonder, upon the crack in the wall of Comerford’s peace: “Why did you ask me specially about him? You don’t think that
“I just collect facts,” said George. “If witnesses can account for every minute of a man’s time between nine and eleven on that evening, so much the better for him. Every one canceled out is one with a quiet mind—at least on his own account. So let’s not look any further for my motives. What time did Jim come in?”
“Oh! Oh, dear, that’s something quite different. I served him, of course, and I know he was there, because of the dogs—but what time he came in, that’s another thing. The news was on when the terrier came in and started the row, I remember that. But honestly, I can’t remember how long he’d been there then.”
“Never mind! You could hardly be expected to keep the lot of ’em in mind.” The news had been on, and Jim Tugg noticeably there at the Shock of Hay. The news had been on, and Chris Hollins talking cattle-transport with Blunden at the Harrow. “What time did he leave? Any clue?”
She shook her head helplessly. “I didn’t notice him go. You know, he isn’t a man who makes a noise about what he does. I think—I’m pretty sure he wasn’t there at ten, when everybody was saying good-night. But he seldom stayed until ten, so perhaps I’m not really honestly remembering that, only taking it for granted. Doesn’t he
