“Chilthorpe?” said the old gentleman. “All the world seems to be coming to Chilthorpe. The County Council does not appear to have allowed for the possibility of its becoming such a centre of fashion. If you are fond of scenery, you should take the road to the left; it goes over the hill. If you like your tea weak, you had better take the valley road to the right. Five o’clock is tea time at the Load of Mischief, and there is no second brew.”
Something in the old gentleman’s tone seemed to invite confidences. “Thank you very much,” said Bredon. “I suppose the Load of Mischief is the only inn that one can stop at?”
“There was never much to be said for the Swan. But today the Load of Mischief has added to its attractions; it is not everywhere you can sleep with the corpse of a suicide in the next room. And the police are in the house, to satisfy the most morbid imagination.”
“The police? When did they come?”
“About luncheon time. They are understood to have a clue. I am only afraid, myself, that they will want to drag the river. The police always drag the river if they can think of nothing else to do.”
“You’re staying at the inn, I gather?”
“I am the surviving guest. When you have tasted the coffee in the morning you will understand the temptation to suicide; but so far I have resisted it. You are not relatives, I hope, of the deceased?”
“No; I’m from the Indescribable. We insured him, you know.”
“It must be a privilege to die under such auspices. But I am afraid I have gone beyond my book: when I say poor Mottram committed suicide I am giving you theory not fact.”
“The police theory?”
“Hardly. I left before they arrived. It is the landlady’s theory, and when you know her better you will know that it is as well not to disagree with her; it provokes discussion.”
“I am afraid she must be very much worried by all this.”
“She is in the seventh heaven of lamentation. You could knock her down, she tells me, with a feather. She insists that her custom is ruined forever; actually, you are the second party to stay at the inn as the result of this affair, and the jug and bottle business at midday was something incredible. The Band of Hope was there en masse, swilling beer in the hope of picking up some gossip.”
“The other party, were they relations?”
“Oh no, it’s a policeman; a real policeman from London. The secretary, I suppose, must have lost his head, and insisted on making a cause célèbre of the thing. I forgot him, by the way, a little chap called Brinkman; he’s at the Load too. A thousand pardons, but I see a fish rising. It is so rare an event here that I must go and attend to it.” And, nodding pleasantly, the old gentleman made his way to the bank again.
Chilthorpe is a long, straggling village with the business part (such as it is) at the lower end. The church is here, and the Load of Mischief, and a few shops; here, too, the Busk flows under a wide stone bridge—a performance which at most times of the day attracts a fair crowd of local spectators. The houses are of grey stone, the roofs of blue slate. The rest of the village climbs up along the valley all in one street; the houses stand perched on the edge of a steep slope, too steep almost for the cultivation of gardens, though a few currant and gooseberry bushes retain a precarious foothold. The view has its charms; when mists hang over it in autumn, or when the smoke of the chimneys lingers idly on a still summer evening, it has a mysterious and strangely un-English aspect.
The hostess, presumably to be identified with “J. Davis, licensed to sell wines, spirits and tobacco,” met them on the threshold, voluble and apparently discouraging. Her idea seemed to be that she could not have any more guests coming and committing suicide in her house. Bredon, afraid that his patience or his gravity would break down, put Angela in charge of the conversation, and so delicate was her tact, so well-placed her sympathy, that within ten minutes their arrival was being hailed as a godsend, and Mrs. Davis, ordering the barmaid to bring tea as soon as it could be procured, ushered them into a private room, assuring them of accommodation upstairs when she could put things to rights. It had been one thing after another, she complained, all day, she didn’t really hardly know which way to turn, and her house always a respectable one. There was not much custom, it seemed, at Chilthorpe, lying so far away from the main road and that—you would have supposed that in a R.A.C. Listed Hotel suicides were a matter of daily occurrence, and the management knew how to deal with them. Whereas
