Miss Silver coughed.
‘You mean, Inspector, that it does not fit in with your case against Mr Madoc?’
Frank Abbott, sitting up at the writing-table with his notebook ready, chose this moment to lean upon his elbow and slide a hand across his mouth. Behind this screen he relaxed into an appreciative smile. Lamb said stolidly.
‘I’m not saying that one way or the other. I’m giving you the facts.’
Miss Silver said brightly, ‘Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. It is the little rift within the lute That by and bye will make the music mute And ever widening, slowly silence all.’ She coughed and added, ‘Dear Lord Tennyson – and how true!’
Sergeant Abbott gave himself up to reverent enjoyment. His Chief Inspector’s response was all that he could have hoped.
‘If that’s poetry, I’m not much of a hand at it. And as to being true, it sounds to me like throwing away an apple because it’s got a speck on it.’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘What a good illustration! I fear I interrupted you. You were going to tell me about Ezra Pincott. Pray continue.’
‘Well, there it is. The police surgeon’s done the post mortem, and the man was drowned.’
Miss Silver knitted.
‘I think there was something more than that.’
Lamb gave a grunt.
‘He was found face down in a foot of water. He was drowned. What more do you want?’
‘A shocking fatality. But there is something more, or you would not be concerned about it.’
Lamb shifted in his chair.
‘Well, if you must know, he’d been hit. Bruise behind the ear. He didn’t get that falling on his face into the water.’
Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’
‘He went in alive, but he’d been hit first. He’d had a good deal of liquor – some of it was brandy. Now he didn’t get brandy at the Bull. Beer was what he drank there, and by all accounts he could put away more than most before he was what you could call drunk. One of your steady day-in-day-out topers, but they tell me nobody’s ever seen him incapable or in any way unable to get himself home. And he didn’t have that brandy at the Bull.’
‘Where did he have it?’
‘I’d be glad if someone would tell me that. Well, there you are. You sent me a message yesterday to say he was boasting that he knew something that would put money in his pocket, and you thought someone ought to keep an eye on him. I’m sorry I didn’t take you at your word and put a man on to him then and there. I didn’t think there was all that hurry. Abbott was coming down here today, and I left it over till then. Seems I was wrong, but it’s no good crying over spilt milk. The man’s dead, and I’m going to find out how he died, whether it knocks the case against Madoc endways or not.’
Miss Silver gazed at him approvingly.
‘That is just what I would expect from you, Inspector.’
He said rather gruffly, ‘It sounds as if he was planning to blackmail someone. I’ve had a word with the landlord of the Bull, and he says Ezra always talked big when he’d had a few, but he’d been talking bigger than usual. I asked him if Mr Harsch’s name was mentioned, and he said it was. Just that – and he’d got something that would put money in his pocket if someone knew which side their bread was buttered. The landlord said he didn’t take it at all seriously. But there you have it – the man boasted of what he knew. Now after that somebody gave him brandy, somebody hit him, and he drowned in a foot of water. No evidence to say how he got there, but he may have been put. The place he was found was out of his way if he was going home. There’s one thing more – the sort of thing that mayn’t mean much, or then again it may – I haven’t had time to think it out. Frank there can tell you about it – it’s his pigeon.’
Abbott took his hand away from his mouth and sat up.
‘It’s just that I had a look at his boots,’ he said. ‘There was a speck or two of dry gravel on them.’
Miss Silver looked at him with extreme interest.
‘Dear me!’
Rightly considering this to be a tribute, he continued.
‘You know how sloppy the village street is. Even in the warm, dry weather we’ve been having it’s damp, and between the Bull and the place where this fellow was found there’s a dip in the road which is more or less of a quagmire. The only gravel anywhere about is on the drives of the houses round the Green and on the paths in the churchyard. If Ezra got gravel on his boots from any of those places, it couldn’t possibly have been dry and clean by the time he got to the place where he was drowned – if he walked there.’
‘That is very interesting indeed,’ said Miss Silver.
‘His boots were muddy all right – that’s how the gravel stuck. But once it got there it stayed clean. It wasn’t walked on – not to that miry place where he was found. I say he was given a tot of brandy and knocked out. Then he was taken down to the stream and put into it. It could have been done with a hand-cart or a wheelbarrow. Unfortunately the place has been so trampled over that there isn’t much to go by. I should think everybody in the village has been out to have a look. Anyhow all the traffic there is goes along that road, so there isn’t much chance of picking out a single track.’
‘The churchyard-’ said Miss Silver slowly. ‘That is very interesting. Yes – of course – there are gravel paths in the churchyard. And that reminds me that I have some information for you. The first item takes us a little away from our present subject, but it is so important that I feel you should have it without delay. You will, I am afraid, be unable to call Miss Brown as a witness in any possible case against Mr Madoc.’
Lamb stared.
‘Indeed?’
The needles clicked, the khaki sock revolved.
‘I had a conversation with her this afternoon, and she informed me that she married Mr Madoc on June 17th five years ago, at Marylebone Register Office.’
Frank Abbott said, ‘That’s torn it!’
His Chief Inspector turned a deep plum colour.
‘Well, if that doesn’t beat the band!’ he said in an exasperated tone.
Miss Silver coughed.
‘I felt that you should be informed immediately. But let us return to Ezra Pincott. Without wishing to link my second item of information with his death, I cannot but feel that it has a certain relevance in view of the fact that the churchyard paths are gravelled. I have discovered a witness, a young girl by the name of Gladys Brewer, who was in the churchyard round about ten o’clock on the night of Mr Harsch’s death. Her companion was a lad of the name of Sam Bowlby. I have not interrogated him, but Gladys says they saw the sexton, Bush, come out of the church at a little before ten.’
The Chief Inspector’s eyes bolted.
‘She saw him come out of the church?’
Miss Silver inclined her head.
‘She says he came out, locked the door behind him, and went off in a hurry round the building in the direction of the gate which opens upon the village street.’
‘Miss Silver!’
She inclined her head again.
‘Yes, I know. It makes a very considerable difference, does it not?’
‘Bush came out of the church before ten o’clock?’
‘A few minutes before the clock struck. We must allow time for him to lock the door, skirt the church, and be out of sight before the clock struck. Gladys and her friend were sitting on the flat stone of Mr Doncaster’s grave right up against the Rectory wall. They were immediately opposite the side door of the church, and it was bright moonlight. They could see perfectly, but were screened themselves by the branches of a copper beech which overhangs the wall at this spot.’
Lamb was leaning forward, his big body tilted, his eyes more like bull’s-eyes than ever.
‘You think she’s reliable, this girl? She’s not having us on – or working off a grudge against Bush? If she’s in the way of going into the churchyard with her boyfriend at night she might have had the rough side of his tongue – see?’