Mr. Tuke surveyed what little of the winding lane was in sight. Vision was limited to twenty yards either way, and the ragged hedges were head-high. If the writer had died by accident, it must have been after dark, which meant, in July with double summer time, not much before eleven o’clock. He must also have been coming from his cottage, for there was no gap at the other end of the bridge. But if his death had been no accident, as Harvey himself firmly believed, then it could have taken place as early as halfpast seven, when he was returning from the inn. This blind turn of the land was an ideal spot at which to waylay anybody at any time, for even now, at eleven in the morning, for all visual signs of human life there were one might have been in the Gobi Desert. The faint noise of a tractor, the whistle of a train, the rumble of aircraft, the lowing of cattle—these sounds only accentuated the loneliness of the scene. Harvey Tuke had his own dash of imagination, and he saw with his mind’s eye a figure sitting waiting on the little bridge. Now it was a shadow in the darkness, now, in the evening light, a sort of composite of all the other cousins and their friends, or the faceless mask of a man long dead. He saw it getting up with a word of welcome as the victim drew near, pointing to something in the stream below, bidding him turn and look. . . .
His satanic face was very grim as he walked back to his car. Driving on, within a few minutes he had come to the end of the lane, where it entered a wider road fifty yards south of the last houses of Dry Stocking. A short way down the village street a projecting sign depicted a barrel with a lath of wood against it. Discovering that W. Twitchell, the licensee of The Bushel and Strike, sold spirits as well as beer, Mr. Tuke got out once more and entered the inn.
Only Mr. Twitchell himself, a large bald man with an impediment in his speech, was in the bar. Scarcely believing his eyes, the traveller saw among a row of bottles on a shelf a sherry of an excellent and now rare brand. Mr. Twitchell poured him a generous glass, and, on invitation, drew himself a mugful of ale.
“Your health, s-s-sir,” said Mr. Twitchell.
They discoursed for a time on the weather, and then Harvey introduced the subject of Raymond Shearsby’s death.
“I knew him by name,” he said. “A bad business.”
“Terrible, sir,” said Mr. Twitchell, wagging his bald head. “A very p-p-pleasant young gentleman. In here that v-v-very evening, he was. Had his pint, and says ‘g-g-good night, all/ and walks out as happy as Higgin-b-b-bottom.”
“Excuse my ignorance, but who is Higginbottom?”
“It’s a s-s-saying, sir. As happy as Higginbottom, who laughed when his wife hanged h-h-herself.”
“It was still daylight then,” Harvey remarked. “I suppose Mr. Shearsby came out again after dark.”
“He did most of his writing at n-n-night, sir, and he’d often go for a walk after, before he went to b-b-bed.”
“I looked in at the window of his cottage. All the furniture seems to have been taken away.”
“His cousin, that was, sir. A gentleman from B-b-bedford. He took ch-ch-charge of everything, and he sold the furniture to p-p-pay for the funeral.”
“Mr. Raymond not haying left much money, I dare say?”
“Only a few p-p-pounds, his cousin said. He never had a lot. But he was always free with his m-m-money, when he had any. Not like s-s-some,” Mr. Twitchell added darkly. “The cousin, for instance?” Harvey queried at a venture.
“No names, no p-p-pack-drill,” said Mr. Twitchell cannily. “But furniture f-f-fetches a rare price these days, and the funeral was done cheap enough. Well, it takes all s-s-sorts to make a world. There’s some is freehanded gentlemen, like our Mr. Sh-sh-shearsby, and there’s others as mean as M-m-morris.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of him either. What did he do?”
“It’s another saying, s-s-sir. As mean as Morris, who hopped on one l-l-leg to save shoe-leather.”
Mr. Tuke was so pleased with these parables that he offered Mr. Twitchell a Larranaga. When this was lighted, he said:
“Had Mr. Shearsby any particular friends here?”
“Only the V-v-vicar, sir. He’s lived abroad, like Mr. Shearsby, and it was a link b-b-between them, as Hopkins said.”
“On what occasion did Hopkins say that?”
“He was handcuffed to a b-b-bobby, sir.”
“On that evening Mr. Shearsby left here at a quarter-past seven, I’m told,” Mr. Tuke said. “A little early, wasn’t it?”
“He’d come and go at all t-t-times, sir. It was just on the quarter that night. I remember he l-l-looked at the clock there, and then at his watch, and w-w-went off.”
Mr. Tuke changed the subject. “I had a look at your Cat Ditch. It is quite a little river. What is the depth?” Mr. Twitchell finished his ale, set down his tankard, and wiped his lips with a hand like a ham.
“Three to f-f-four feet now, sir. But there was another three feet more water at the end of 1-1-last month.”
“As much as that?”
“It had been raining c-c-cats and dogs, sir, and you’d be surprised the amount of water the old D-d-ditch’ll bring down when she’s in flood. C-c-cattle get drowned in her, and last w-w-winter a little old pig was c-c-carried clean along to the Cam. Most of the streams hereabouts are shallow and slow, like, but the Ditch is d-d-different. Rises out of a spring, she does, up in the hills behind W-w-whipstead. Slap out of a f-f-face of rock.”
“I didn’t know there was any rock in this part of the world. I thought it was
