What splendid lies shall be found among the cheeses? What disappointed hopes, what epic deeds?
Elegies Thomas Pudding
Thomas Moore resided on a small dairy farm a half-mile to the east of the hamlet of Snailwell. With Jack Murray beside him, Charles drove the rented gig down a narrow lane. On one side, a stone fence opened onto a wide view of the heath and a river valley; on the other, an ancient hedge enclosed a parcel of rocky hillside and a picturesque herd of black-and-white cows, grazing on the June grass. The hedge was interwoven with wild roses and honeysuckle and blackberry in blossom, and patches of yellow flag, bright as new gold coins, bloomed in the ditch.
At length, passing through a wooden gate, they came upon a prosperous-looking farm. Before them was a large two-up, two-down stone cottage with a chimney at either gabled end, the roof thatched with straw and netted to keep birds away. The central door, painted green, was bowered with a pink China rose and a purple clematis, and fragrant rosemary clothed the whole foot of the walls on either side. The gray mist had risen, the sun was gleaming through the silvery clouds, and the casement windows with their red-checked curtains had been flung open to catch the warming breeze. From indoors, Charles could hear the melodic voice of a girl, singing a lullaby. The song stopped when they pulled up in front, and a moment later the girl appeared at the door, a tow- headed child on her hip. She was plump and red-cheeked, with long brown braids and a white apron over a plain gray dress. She dropped a curtsy when Charles got down from the gig.
“We’re looking for a Mr. Oliver Moore,” Charles said. “Is he here, miss?”
The girl pulled her brows together in a pretty frown, as if wondering how she should reply. “I’ll ask, sir,” she said, and disappeared indoors. In a moment she was out again, without the child, who could be heard wailing disconsolately within. She picked up her skirts and ran around the front corner of the cottage. With a nod to Jack to accompany him, Charles set out after her.
The girl was darting up a path that lay between a large vegetable garden filled with lettuce and rhubarb and potatoes and peas climbing a lattice of hazel twigs, and a stoutly fenced pigsty containing two pink porkers. An arrogant rooster rose up threateningly in her way, but she flapped her apron at him and he scuttled under the railing to join his hens looking for bugs around the bee hive.
At the end of the path, the girl ducked into a low stone building, with netted windows equipped with shutters in the front. Following close behind, Charles saw through the windows that it was a cheese-house, built for the drying of large cheeses, no doubt produced from the milk of the black-and-white cows on the hillside. The stone floor was raised up several feet above the ground to protect the cheeses from damp, and wide wooden shelves had been hung round the walls. These shelves were lined with cut nettles, over which had been laid large rounds of yellow cheese, as bright as the yellow flags in the ditch. These were being turned by a slight, rusty-haired man, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows.
“Ollie,” Charles heard the girl say in a low voice, “there’s a pair o’ gentl’men lookin’ fer ye. Wot’ll I tell ’em?”
“Yer s’posed t’ keep it quiet that I’m ’ere,” Moore hissed.
“I din’t say,” the girl protested, and turned with a start as Charles’s shadow fell across the threshhold. She dropped a frightened curtsy and fled back down the path.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Moore,” Charles said quietly. “I am Charles Sheridan, and this is Mr. Murray. We’ve come to talk with you about the murder of Mr. Alfred Day.”
“Don’t know nuffin ’bout it,” Moore growled with a show of belligerence. “Nuffin a’tall. If ye don’t b’lieve me, ask me brother Thomas. I bin ’ere fer three ’ole days. ’E’ll swear to it.”
“No, sir,” Murray contradicted him firmly. “You were in the Great Horse in Newmarket High Street yesterday evening, before eight. The proprietor testifies to that, and others will, too.”
Furtively, Moore glanced from one to the other. He wore thick-soled boots, stiff brown trousers tied at the waist with a length of dirty rope, and his shirt was homespun-the usual farmer’s garb. But he was clean shaven, his hair was neatly cut and pomaded, and his hands and nails were clean. He did not have the look of a country man.
“Are ye from the p’lice?” he asked nervously.
“No, Mr. Moore,” Charles said. “We are conducting a private investigation.”
This seemed to make Moore feel easier. His shoulders relaxed, and he became more confident. He glanced from Charles to Murray. “Wot’cher want from me, then?”
“We want you to tell us what you know about your employer’s murder,” Charles said. “Everything you know about it, please, sir.”
“Don’t know
“To St. James Street?” Charles asked, thinking of the remains of the pie on the table in the loft.
“Where else?” Moore countered. “I went ’ome, ate me pie leisure-like, and went t’ bed. I wuz woke in the middle o’ the night by men movin’ round in the office below. Thieves, they wuz. Bangin’ drawers, pullin’ out papers, talkin’-”
“What time was this?” Murray asked.
“I din’t strike no light, now, did I?” Moore was truculent. “They din’t know I wuz there. I wuzn’t goin’ to call their attention to me, now, wuz I?”
Charles pictured the situation, the clerk cowering in his bed with the covers pulled over his head, afraid that the men would come up the stairs and discover him. “You say you heard them talking,” he remarked. “What were they talking about?”
Moore chewed on his lip. “One of them said as how Badger wuz dead. Shot in th’ alley b’hind the Great ’Orse. I reckoned when they ’eard ’e wuz dead, they come lookin’ fer money.” He shook his head as if with disgust. “Prob’ly figgered t’ find a satchel full o’ gold sovereigns.”
“But they didn’t?” Charles asked.
“Badger wuz a careful man,” Moore said. “ ’E never kept no money in the office. ’E ’ad a safe at ’ome.”
“I see,” Charles said. Perhaps it would be a good idea to interview the widow after all. The safe might contain some sort of clue to the killer’s identity. “You didn’t recognize the voices, I suppose.” And might not readily tell them if he had.
Moore shook his head.
Charles narrowed his eyes. “Why did you come here?” he asked abruptly. “Why are you hiding out? What do you know?”
Again the furtive glance, and a silence.
Murray stepped closer, crowding Moore against the shelves. “Don’t be a fool, man,” he snarled. “Your employer’s been murdered and you’ve run away to hide. Who’s to say there was no money in that office? Who’s to say that you didn’t kill Badger, ransack the office, and make off with that satchel of sovereigns? I promise you, the chief constable won’t be so tender, nor the judge at the assize. Answer the question!”
Moore seemed to deflate in front of their eyes. His shoulders slumped as if his backbone could no longer support them, and his head dropped. “I’m ’iding out from Baggs,” he muttered.
“Baggs?” Charles frowned. “Why?”
“ ’Cause ’e’s ’oo killed Badger.”
“How do you know?”
Moore chewed on his lower lip. “ ’Im and Badger ’ad sharp words about ’orse doping, more’n once. Badger din’t like doping, ye see. It interfered wiv the book. Badger said it’s the bookie ’oo gets ’urt when
