The Crozier Pharaohs

would have recognised one of them three.’

‘They paid you for the rabbits later on, I suppose?’

‘Always paid up like clockwork, sir. I haven’t got nothing again’ any of them ladies.’

‘Exactly,’ said Burfield, but the dryness of this agreement was lost upon Adams. He still looked hopeful and expectant. Burfield took out a five-pound note and handed it to him. ‘Oh, well, keep your eyes and ears open, especially when you’re at the Crozier Arms,’ he said. ‘By the way, isn’t that a new shirt you’re wearing? How come?’

‘Give me by a charitable lady what’s husband had died soon after he bought it, sir. “Do for the winter,” she says, “being pure wool,” she says. I put it on special to come and see you, sir.’

‘Oh, ah? Well, I believe you, although some wouldn’t. I can’t see you going into a shop and buying a shirt of that quality. Just watch your step, though, that’s all.’

He dismissed the poacher and then looked across at the sergeant, whom he had called in as soon as he realised that Adams had something to tell. The sergeant stood up.

‘Shall I type out my shorthand, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. It might come in useful later on, although I’m hanged if it tells us much at present. What did you make of his yarn?’

‘I reckon it was the truth, sir, as far as it went. I don’t think he’s capable of making up a story like that. The only thing I’d be doubtful about — ’

‘Don’t tell me. Give me three guesses.’

‘I think you’ll make do with one, sir.’

‘Here goes, then. You think he does know who took that dog for a walk that morning.’

‘Well, that’s what I would bet on, sir. He came here for what he could get, but those Rant ladies are good customers of his and he wasn’t going to give one of them away.’

‘Right. Well, I shan’t tackle him about that at present, but I wouldn’t mind hearing what the ladies themselves have to say.’

‘Might perhaps ask whether anything is missing from the house, sir.’

‘They would have reported that.’

‘Where do you think he set his snares for the rabbits, sir? There are burrows in that bank by the woods that border the river. Could he have been at Watersmeet that morning and seen something? I got the impression that he reckons one of the parties murdered the other. If so, he may have something to go on. He did say he thought the parties were having an argument in the garden.’

‘If every argument led to murder there would be precious few of us left alive. One major point strikes me, but it is one I may be able to check with the Rant ladies.’

‘Whether the morning Adams took the rabbits round to Crozier Lodge was the day the kennel-maid found the dead man in the river? Depends upon how fresh the rabbits were when one of the ladies found them in the postbox, I suppose.’

‘I wonder if they’d know a fresh-killed bunny from one that had gone a bit niffy. They probably wouldn’t bother much. I don’t expect those hounds would object to a bit of a high flavour.’

‘Anyway, in this weather, rabbit would begin to go off pretty soon, wouldn’t it? Wonder whether he skinned and cleaned them before he took them round there?’

‘Hardly likely, if he went to Crozier Lodge directly he’d taken them out of the snares. Ladies that breed dogs wouldn’t burke at skinning and gutting a few rabbits. Very likely kept the liver and heart and kidneys to make soup for themselves.’

‘I had a Boxer once and the handbook said to give the rabbit, skin and all, to him, occasional like. It made it more interesting for the dog.’

‘Oh, well, it takes all sorts,’ said Burfield. ‘Let me have a copy of that as soon as you’ve typed it out. There may be something in it that, so far, we’re missing.’

7

Trouble at Crozier Lodge

« ^ »

Laura was walking her two dogs, so Dame Beatrice herself took the call. It was Bryony Rant on the telephone.

‘Sorry to bother you again,’ she said, ‘but we are having an awful time. At least, poor Susan is, and if it’s not Susan, it could be one of us, and if it’s not one of us, it must be somebody else, and that’s worrying, too, because we have no idea who it could be. Of course, the man who went to the police may be lying. There are people in the village who don’t like us because of father, and I daresay they don’t like Susan because she works for us and tends to keep herself to herself.’

‘Would you care to come over this afternoon to tell me more of the matter? In a nutshell, what is at the root of it?’

‘I don’t want to speak the word over the telephone. We’ll be with you at half-past three.’

When Laura came in, Dame Beatrice told her about the telephone call.

‘Well, there is only one word she wouldn’t like to say over the telephone,’ was Laura’s comment, ‘and that word