'adopted' for convenience' sake-are known to have been out of the house at the time of the girl's murder. Mrs Kempson had gone to bed (her personal maid vouches for this) but, so far as I can tell, there was no reason why she should not have slipped out of her room between ten and eleven, left the house secretly and returned to it unnoticed while the party was in full swing. As for Lionel's parents, Mr and Mrs Conyers, they say they retired to their own quarters to escape the sounds of revelry. They certainly left the party, but there seems no confirmation of where they went. However, as they were hardly likely to desire the death of their only son, if either or both are murderers they must have intended to make Miss Patterson their victim. The question here is-why? They were acquainted with her, no doubt, since she and her brother belonged to their daughter's set in London and the girls had been at school together. However, I do not suspect Mrs Kempson or the Conyers of having any hand in the murders at all. Nigel Kempson and Doctor Tassall are the horses for my money.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE
It was at Kenneth's suggestion that we mobilised our forces in order to track down the murderer.
'Our Sarah,' he said, 'has always been decent, letting us join her gang and telling fibs for us and not splitting that time I uppercut Our Ern and landed him in the brook, so I reckon we ought to let her join in if she wants to. Besides, I expect she knows far more about the village than we do.'
'There's another thing, too,' I said. 'Safety in numbers.'
'How do you mean?'
'Well, if the murderer gets to know we're on his track, he could kill two of us as easy as wink. He might think twice about killing the whole of Our Sarah's gang, though.'
'It's a good point. Let's see what she says.'
Of course there had been terrific excitement when Poachy found what was buried in the hermit's cottage. As soon as we realised what it was, we begged him to stop digging, but he had worked himself up into a frenzy and went on stabbing away with the heavy spade, so, as we did not want to see any more than we had to see, although we knew for certain that it was Mr Ward, we rushed off home to get away from the grisly scene and dissociate ourselves from Poachy's findings if we could.
At least, that was my idea. We ran into the garden, but after we had squeezed through the gap in the iron railings and were on our way past Polly's stable, Kenneth stopped running and said,
'We'll have to tell them, you know. Somebody's got to stop Poachy. Besides, he might be blamed if we don't tell.'
Unfortunately Uncle Arthur was at work on a building site the other side of the town, and as we did not think the aunts would be much help in dealing with Poachy, that only left grandfather. We were afraid of him, but we felt that some man had to know, if only to stop Poachy from continuing his excavations.
Grandfather, I remember, was furious with us. Looking back, I realise that his anger was really horror to think that we should have mixed ourselves up with what obviously was a second case of murder.
When his diatribe (which was punctuated by threatening gestures with his walking-stick and with Aunt Lally's terrified exclamations and tearful reproaches) was over, he sent us to Aunt Kirstie with orders that she was to come immediately across to speak to him.
We found her feeding the ferrets. They belonged to Uncle Arthur and we were never allowed to handle them, but sometimes there would be rabbit pie or stewed rabbit with carrots, onions, turnips and small, fluffy dumplings for Sunday dinner instead of the usual pork or chicken.
Normally we enjoyed seeing the ferrets, but on this occasion there was no time for dallying. We did not want to tell Aunt Kirstie about our grim discovery in the derelict cottage, so we gave her grandfather's message and that was all.
'Oh, dear!' she said. 'Has he had one of his turns? I'd better get over as soon as I've changed my apron, Lally is that helpless she'll be crying and wringing her hands instead of doing something sensible about it.'
'I don't think he's ill,' I said, 'but he says to drop everything and come at once. I think he wants you to get on up to the big house. That's what he said.'
'To Mrs Kempson's? Whatever for? They haven't found poor Mr Ward, have they? That would be the only reason for me to go to Mrs Kempson's.'
'I think it
'Must be,' she said. 'I'll be glad to have him back.' She bustled about, changed her clothes for what she called her 'decent bodice and skirt' and ran with us to the next-door house. Aunt Lally was indeed crying and wringing her hands, her usual reaction in times of crisis. Grandfather was sitting very upright and rigid in his armchair. He looked like Moses, I thought, or perhaps the prophet Jeremiah. His right hand was clutching the knob of his ebony, silver-topped stick and with his left fist he was banging the table.
Aunt Kirstie said, 'Well, father, is there something you want with me?'
Grandfather glared at her.
'Where's your lodger?' he demanded.
'I wish we knew, father. Hasn't slept in his bed since that Thursday night,' she said.
'Well, get you up to Mrs Kempson's, my girl, and tell her he's sound asleep now. Take this boy and girl with you. She'll want to know all the tale. And then keep them out of my sight for a bit. Bringing all this trouble on us!'
Aunt Kirstie stared at him.
'You mean as Mr Ward's dead?' she asked, dropping her voice at the last word.
'That's my meaning, my girl, or so it seems, so get on up there quick as you can. It isn't any business of ours, except these children of Elspeth's have seemingly dragged us into it. Don't stand there gaping at me! Get along! Get along!'
'I'll get my good coat and hat,' said Aunt Kirstie. 'Mr Ward dead! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Whatever will Mrs
