The shop was not very clean. That was the first thing which struck Vardon when the two inspectors walked in. The proprietor was alternately obsequious and insolent, but Darling had been prepared for that. He had met Tomson before.
‘Take in parcels? Why, no, sir, not with the post office so close. The only thing I do in that line is Small Ads.’
‘Quite so,’ said Vardon. ‘What about a Small Ad. from a lady named Faintley?’
The proprietor appeared to reflect. Then his face brightened.
‘Miss Faintley? Well, yes, but that was not a Small Ad. That was a cry from the heart.’
‘Love letters?’
‘I couldn’t say, but I took in a matter of a dozen letters or more in the past three months, all addressed in the same writing.’
‘When did the last of them come?’
‘Let me see, now. Yes, the last of them came on 23rd July. But that’s easy understandable. She went on holiday after that.’
‘I see. And no doubt presents were delivered as well as letters?’
‘Not so far as I know. I’ve told you I don’t take parcels.’
‘I think there were parcels, Tomson. And one of them came to Hagford just before Miss Faintley went on holiday. A young fellow delivered it to you under Miss Faintley’s instructions and you refused to give him a receipt.’
‘All right I Have it your own way! There
‘And you gave it him?’
‘At the point of a gun, what would
‘So he had a gun?’
‘He put his hand in his jacket pocket and threatened me. That’s all I know. I didn’t resist. I don’t pretend to be a blinking hero.’
‘You’d probably pretend very badly,’ put in Darling, excusably. ‘All right, Tomson. Watch your step, that’s all. Not that you need the advice. I’ve had
‘You’ll be a long time putting salt on
‘You wait and see,’ retorted Darling. ‘Now I
‘What was the other information you told him you had?’
‘Oh, merely corroborative evidence that Miss Faintley did have some connexion with him. Came from a chap I know pretty well – one of the masters at the school. Doesn’t give any clue to the murder, worse luck, but it makes Mandsell’s story quite credible. She
‘Sounds as if she was married to him!’
‘The aunt would have known that, I should think! But it argues a queer situation between shopkeeper and customer, all the same!’
Chapter Five
DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR DARLING
‘… and now let us take a walk a little way out of the town.’
the brothers grimm –
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But, in spite of these words, Detective-Inspector Darling was dissatisfied. Crime, in Kindleford, was of the dull, unrewarding kind. Offensive parking of cars on the wrong side of the High Street on Wednesdays and Fridays – Friday was market day in Kindleford – petty larceny in which the culprit (bone-headed, in the detective-inspector’s opinion) was only too easily distinguishable; an occasional misinterpretation of the licensing laws, were all the grist which had ever come to his mill until the extraordinary death, on holiday, of this obscure, inoffensive (so far as he knew or was concerned), little-known, unattractive school-marm.
He was not an unduly ambitious officer, but he had often longed for a case which would make headlines in the big newspapers. He had often longed for a case of murder. It had come his way, but for all the good it did him it might as well never have happened, he considered. The murder, although it was the murder of one of Kindleford’s residents, had had the tactlessness to take place in another county. His co-operation was vital to the police of that county, but instead of being in a position to take fingerprints, photograph the body, make brilliant deductions from the medical evidence and arrest the wrongdoer in a flood of limelight, the only thing he could do was to badger, respectively, a rather elderly lady, aunt to the deceased Miss Faintley, a young, impecunious, obviously innocent author and a miserable little rat of a shopkeeper, who had probably told him already everything he knew. He decided to leave the aunt alone and to concentrate first on Mandsell.
The author seemed pleased with life and welcomed him cordially, although a fountain-pen in his hand and an
