I was somewhat appalled, of course. Not, as I say, that I believed in the vicar’s guilt. I don’t believe I ever had, except intellectually, so to speak. The case, as put, however, certainly did hang together. I mean, apart from everything else, there was the point that, while, upon all the evidence, even that of the police who had arrested Candy, poor Bob had had a bare fifteen minutes in which to commit the murder and bring three dozen bottles of assorted beers out of the public house cellar, the vicar had had a possible hour to an hour and a half. I thought I wouldn’t put this point to Mrs. Bradley. She wasn’t safe!
“I’ll see Burt,” I said, “and find out exactly at what time the vicar was attacked.”
“Splendid,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I’ll come with you. You don’t mind going the longer way, via the post office, do you? I really must post this letter.”
Burt was up in his loft. He came down rather obligingly, gave us drinks, and started laughing and talking about the riot in the church.
“Look here, Burt,” I said, “you know the night of August Bank Holiday, when you tied the vicar up in the pound—”
“Oh, dash it!” said Burt, “Let bygones be bygones, can’t you? After the stout work I put in on his behalf yesterday evening at the kirk— look here!”
He pulled up his trousers and showed us two badly-hacked shins. We sympathised, and I thanked him for what he had done.
“I only wanted to ask you the time when the vicar was first set upon at the Cove,” I said. “We want some sort of defence for Candy when his trial comes on.”
Burt put it at twenty-past ten or perhaps half-past. Curiously enough, he didn’t seem sufficiently interested in the murder to ask how the attack on the vicar would assist Candy.
“Not earlier?” I asked, my heart beginning to thump rather horribly.
“Oh, couldn’t have been earlier,” said Burt. “I left the fete as soon as it got round about six o’clock, came back here and had tea, and then went down to the Cove and helped the ‘Sans Baisers’ to land the tomes. My beautifully exact translation of ‘Les Soeurs de Matabilles,’ dear boy.” He patted my knee. “Eighteen and six a copy in England, Mrs. Bradley,”—he had the hardihood to wink at her—“and sold strictly sub rosa and under the ‘snow’ laws, but dirt cheap at the price. Do you still read Browning? Wouldn’t you like to ‘grovel hand and foot in Belial’s gripe’? But anyway, it’s too late, laddie. A gent’s word is his bleeding bond. Besides, the lady opposite would jug me if I so much as touched the dust-jacket of the ‘Soeurs’ now, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Bradley?”
I returned to the Manor with my worst fears confirmed. The vicar could have had ample time to commit the murder at the inn and get over to the Cove by twenty minutes past ten.
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Bradley. “That is only one. Come along. Let us check Sir William’s movements.”
“But he came straight back here after the quarrel with the vicar, didn’t he?” I asked.
“He did,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“Then that must be that,” I said, surprised that she had brought his name forward.
“Yes, that must be that,” Mrs. Bradley agreed. I gazed at her rather hard, but could make nothing whatever of her amused smirk. After a moment she said:
“Very well. Let us try Edwy David Burt. Mark this, child. If the vicar had no alibi, neither had Burt.”
“Nor Yorke,” I interpolated, cheering up. “We ought to get hold of Yorke. He’s simple and will tell us about Burt, I should think, because he won’t see what we’re getting at.”
“An excellent idea,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Lead on, MacDuff.”
“What, now?” I asked.
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Bradley. So off we trailed again, up the hill and past the quarries and in at the front gate of the Bungalow. Instead of snooping round the back and taking cover behind the water-butt as preliminaries to our seeing Foster Washington Yorke without Burt seeing us again, Mrs. Bradley led the way to the front door and rang the bell. Burt himself opened the door. His hair was rumpled and his eye was wild, and he had a fountain pen in his hand. He stumped down the passage and flung the door open and scowled at us. He looked positively murderous. Not at all the genial host of an hour earlier.
“Go to hell! I’m busy!” he said, and banged the door in our faces.
“That being that,” said Mrs. Bradley, with her unnerving yelp of laughter, “we will now concentrate upon our objective.”
She led the way to the back regions, and we found the negro chopping wood.
“Did you know Burt wouldn’t want to see us?” I asked the old lady.
“Of course. He always writes at this time of the day,” she answered. “Surely this is a much nicer way of interviewing our friend with the axe than if we had darted from currant bush to currant bush to avoid being seen by the master of the house?”
She hooted, and dug me in the ribs. Yorke grinned. He seemed pleased to see us, and, guided, of course, by Mrs. Bradley’s questions, he gave us a very clear account of the manner in which he and Burt had spent August Bank Holiday. Mrs. Bradley skilfully steered him past the uninformative hours of nine a.m. to nine p.m. but after that his story was interesting—at least, I thought so. It dove-tailed so beautifully with Burt’s that I was fascinated. Burt
“Hm!” said Mrs. Bradley to me later on. “If I had to classify Edwy David, I should place his name under the heading of Criminal Optimist. I suppose it never occurred to him that anyone might
