Anyway, before we left Mrs Kempson's house that day we had laid all before her and she had promised to see that Sukie's man got justice. I do not know, even to this day, what gave us such complete confidence in her, but she came to see Uncle Arthur and he agreed to give Bellamy Smith a complete alibi, as was only just and right.
'Well,' said Kenneth, when we were on our way back to Aunt Kirstie's. 'I think we can depend on her, don't you? She seems a very reliable sort of person. She talked to us as if we were grown-up and she didn't ask any silly questions.'
'There's an awful lot of the day left. What shall we do after dinner?' I asked.
'I know what I want to do, but I don't know whether you'll agree, and it's not a job I want to tackle on my own.'
'You mean the hermit's cottage, don't you? I don't want to go there again.'
'I thought you wouldn't, but remember that filled-in hole!'
'What about it?'
'I rather think,' said Kenneth, kicking a stone in front of him as we walked down the hill, 'I rather think Mr Ward may have buried something there, you know.'
'Why? What makes you think so?' I no longer thought of buried treasure. I had murder in mind and I was frightened.
'Well, why should he dig a hole like that and then fill it in again if he wasn't burying something?' said Kenneth. 'He'd never do all that work for nothing. Nobody would.'
'He might if he was a madman.'
'They think a madman murdered that girl, and we think Mr Ward is a bit mad. Tell you what! Suppose there's some important clue to him being the murderer and he's buried it in that cottage so the police won't find it? Wouldn't it be a score if we dug it up and it turned out to be just the thing the police were looking for? It could be, you know, because I don't suppose they realise Mr Ward used to go to the cottage and dig up the floor.'
Aunt Kirstie hardly ever asked what we had been doing with ourselves during the morning or what we were going to do after dinner and she did not do so on this occasion. We slipped out while she was doing the washing-up and went down to the duckpond. Grandfather, we knew, would be settling down for his afternoon nap and Aunt Lally would be doing her own washing-up, so the coast was clear. All the same, we went a long way round to get to the gap we had made in the hermit's iron railings. We took cover among raspberry canes and currant bushes after we had skirted the duckpond, then we went behind the pigsties and, having reached old Polly's stable, we took cover behind that and waited and listened. I still did not want to go to the cottage, but I was afraid of Kenneth's going alone.
There was nobody about, so we made for the gap in the fence and squeezed through. Unless somebody looked over the side wall which had glass on top to keep children from climbing in, we knew we could not be spotted, for the people who lived next door had put up a very high fence between them and the hermit's untidy garden. We tip-toed up what was left of the garden path, listened at the back doorway and then went in through the kitchen to the front room.
There was the filled-in hole and near it lay Mr Ward's pickaxe. It was then that Kenneth said, 'Well, that's no use to us. We ought to have brought a spade.'
'That wouldn't be much use, either,' I said. 'We tried Uncle Arthur's once, don't you remember? We couldn't do much with it, even in his garden. I vote we chuck this and find something else to do.'
'And leave the treasure, or maybe the clue to the murder?'
'Well, what's the use? We can't get it on our own. Besides...'
'Besides what?'
'We might find there wasn't any treasure or any clue and then we, or whoever helped us, would have had all the sweat for nothing.' (I did not express my real fear of what we might find.)
'Oh, rot! If Mr Ward filled in the hole, he must have buried something. Stands to reason.'
'Not if he's mad it doesn't,' I said again.
'You said "whoever helped us". I've thought of somebody who would.'
'They're all in school, and, anyway, it wouldn't be our secret any longer.'
'Poachy Ling isn't in school.'
'But he's barmy.'
'All the better. He won't know what it's all about, and he's as strong as a horse. He's always hanging about and trying to join in things. He'd come like a shot if we asked him.'
'He gibbers and dribbles. I'm scared of him.'
'He's all right. Just a bit simple, Uncle Arthur says. That's why he doesn't go to proper work. Does odd jobs here and there and helps his mother with her washing. Let's go and see if he's hanging about anywhere.'
Poachy Ling was usually to be found hanging about. He was called Poachy not because he had a talent for snaring rabbits or taking pheasants, but because it was the nearest he ever got to pronouncing his own name, which was Percy. He was known to be harmless, but his moppings and mowings always made me uneasy
