Though, mark you, if Mrs. Davis didn’t know poor Mr. Mottram, who did? Coming there regular year after year for the fishing, poor gentleman; such a quiet gentleman too, and never any goings-on. And how was she to know what would come of it? It wasn’t that the gas leaked; time and again she’d had those pipes seen to, and no complaints made. If there had have been anything wrong, Mr. Pulteney, he’d have let her hear about it, he was one for having everything just as he liked, and no mistake. … Yes, that would be him, he was a great one for the fishing. Such a queer gentleman too, and always taking you up short. Why, yesterday morning, when she went to tell him about what had happened in the night he was as cool as anything; all he said was, “In that case, Mrs. Davis, I will fish the Long Pool this morning,” like that he said. Whereas Mr. Brinkman, that was the secretary, he was in a great taking about it, didn’t hardly know what he said or did, Mr. Brinkman didn’t. And to think of all the gas that was wasted; on all night it was, and who was to pay for it was more than she knew. Summing up, Mrs. Davis was understood to observe that it was a world for sorrow, and man was cut down like a flower, as the sparks fly upward. However, there was them above as knew, and what would be would be.
Of all this diatribe Bredon was a somewhat languid auditor. He recognized the type too well to suppose that any end was to be gained by cross-examination. Angela cooed and sighed, and dabbed her eyes now and again at appropriate moments, and in so doing won golden opinions from the tyrannous conversationalist. It was a strong contrast when the maid came in with the tea things; she plumped them down in silence, tossing her head defiantly, as who should imply that somebody had recently found fault with her behind the scenes, but she was not going to take any notice of it. She was a strapping girl, of undeniable good looks, spoilt (improved, the Latins would have said) by a slight cast in one eye. In the absence of any very formidable competition it was easy to imagine her the belle of the village. So resolute did her taciturnity appear that even Angela, who could draw confidences from a stone, instinctively decided that it would be best to question her later on. Instead, she whiled away the interminable interval which separates the arrival of the milk jug from that of the teapot by idly turning over the leaves of the old-fashioned visitors’ book. The Misses Harrison, it appeared, had received “every attention” from their kind and considerate hostess. The Pullford Cycling Club had met for its annual outing, and the members pronounced themselves “full to bursting, and coming back next year.” An obviously newly married couple had found the neighbourhood “very quiet”; a subsequent annotator had added the words “I don’t think!!!” with the three marks of exclamation. The Wotherspoon family, a large one, testified to having had a “rattling good time” at this old-world hostelry. The Reverend Arthur and Mrs. Stump would carry away “many pleasant memories” of Chilthorpe and its neighbourhood.
Miles was wandering aimlessly about the room inspecting those art treasures which stamp, invariably and unmistakably, the best room of a small country inn. There was the piano, badly out of tune, with a promiscuous heap of dissenting hymnbooks and forgotten dance tunes reposing on it. There were the two pictures which represent a lovers’ quarrel and a lovers’ reconciliation, the hero and heroine being portrayed in riding costume. There was a small bookshelf, full of Sunday-school prizes, interspersed with one or two advanced novels in cheap editions, clearly left behind by earlier visitors. There was a picture of Bournemouth in a frame of repulsive shells. There was a photograph of some local squire or other on horseback. There were several portraits which were intended to perpetuate the memory of the late Mr. Davis, a man of full bodily habit, whose clothes, especially his collar, seemed too tight for him. There were a couple of young gentlemen in khaki on the mantelpiece; there was a sailor, probably the one who had collected the strange assortment of picture postcards in the album under the occasional table; there were three wedding groups, all apparently in the family—in a few words, a detective interested in such problems might have read there, a picture, the incredibly long and complicated annals of the poor.
To Bredon it was all a matter of intense irritation. When he visited the scene of some crime or some problem, he was fond of poking his way round the furniture, trying to pick up hints from the books and the knickknacks about the character of the people he was dealing with. At least, he would say, if you cannot pick up evidence about them you can always catch something of their atmosphere. Mottram had hardly played the game when he died in a country inn where he had not been able to impress his surroundings with any touch of his own quality; this inn parlour was like any other inn parlour, and the dead body upstairs would be a problem in isolation, torn away as it was from its proper context. The bedroom doubtless would have a text over the washing-stand, a large wardrobe stuffed with family clothes and mothballs, a cheap print
