Edward Marston - Timetable of Death

Lydia picked up the newspaper and read the article about her father’s murder once more. Getting up abruptly from the table, she abandoned the tea and cakes, tossed the newspaper aside with disdain and left the restaurant.

The short time that Victor Leeming spent with the gravedigger gave him more amusement than information. Over a pint of beer guzzled down at enormous speed, Bert Knowles told him that on the night in question he’d been drinking with friends at the Union Inn and, when he rolled out of there, a sense of duty made him walk to the churchyard to make sure that the grave he’d dug for Cicely Peet was still sound and that none of the sides had caved in. When he got there, he claimed, he felt that somebody was watching him though he saw nobody even though he stayed in the churchyard for a long time. Knowles insisted that the invisible watcher must have been the killer, biding his time until it was safe to put the dead body into the ground.

Leeming felt sorry for the man. He earned a pittance as a labourer and work at the church was intermittent. But the sergeant was firm, telling him that the tale about a phantom in the dark was not worth one penny of the reward money. Knowles promptly burst out laughing, slapped him on the arm and said that his story, freely acknowledged as being fictitious, had been ‘worth a try’. Yet the purchase of a pint of beer for him had been a profitable investment. Thanks to Knowles, word of Leeming’s presence there would be quickly disseminated throughout the village. Those who felt they had something of importance to tell him would certainly do so when they read the reward notice. The sergeant was pleased with himself. In the space of a few hours, he’d befriended a reporter who’d given him a brief criminal history of Spondon, and a local character who was also a mine of information about the village.

Having walked back to the forge with Knowles, he waited until the labourer had taken the horse back to the farm then asked if he could speak to the blacksmith’s children. Walter Grindle agreed with the proviso that he had to be present. When he met Lizzie and Sam, Leeming realised that he’d get very little of value out of them. The girl kept collapsing in a flood of tears when she recalled her moment of discovery and her brother was paralysed with fear in the presence of a detective from Scotland Yard. The interview with the children was mercifully short for all concerned.

As he strolled along the street Leeming heard the sound of running feet behind him. He stopped and turned so that a lanky, dishevelled man with unusually large and staring eyes could catch up with him. Leeming put his age close to forty.

‘Are you the sergeant?’ asked the man.

‘Yes, sir — who are you?’

‘My name is Barnaby Truss,’ said the other, breathlessly, ‘and I just had a word with Bert Knowles when he went past my shop. He’s an old friend and always stops if he sees me. I’m a glove-maker, sir, like many people in this village.’

‘What kind of gloves?’

‘ Silk ones — the best you can buy.’

Leeming saw a chance to educate himself about local industry.

‘Someone mentioned a stocking frame. What exactly is that?’

‘Oh,’ said Truss, ‘you won’t find many of them in Spondon because this is a place for gloves. Happen you’ve heard the sound of our frames as you’ve walked along the street. They’re worked by hands and feet and make a lot of noise.’

Leeming was gratified to talk to someone who didn’t lapse into the dialect that he found incomprehensible. In every sense, Truss was a cut above Bert Knowles. The glove-maker read his mind.

‘Oh, I can talk the language as well as any of them, if I’ve a mind to,’ he explained, ‘but I’ve got ambitions, Sergeant. I want to go into local politics in Derby one day. That means a lot of public speaking so I’ve took lessons. You can probably tell.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Leeming without conviction.

The only thing he could tell was that Truss’s ambitions were doomed. Of the man’s sincerity he had no doubt, but Truss was altogether too tentative and subdued for the cut-and-thrust of political debate. Besides, the staring eyes would frighten away any potential voters. However, the man’s commitment had to be applauded so the sergeant passed a few encouraging comments.

‘What can I do for you, Mr Truss?’ he asked.

‘I’ve got something to report.’

‘I can see that Mr Knowles has told you about the reward.’

‘Oh, I’m not looking for any money,’ said Truss as if hurt by the suggestion. ‘I’d just feel guilty if I didn’t report something I saw. Of course, it may be nothing to do with the murder but, then again, it just might.’

‘Go on, sir.’

‘Well, Sergeant, what I witnessed was this …’

As he launched into his story, Truss began to wave his hands about in the air as if showing off a pair of his silk gloves. The gestures were so inappropriate as to be another deadly strike against his hopes of ever making his mark in local government and Leeming felt that whoever had been giving the man instruction in public speaking had no right to take a fee for his service. The glove-maker’s evidence was markedly more interesting than the cock-and-bull story invented by Knowles. On the night when the murder occurred, Truss had been returning home when he saw something that he first dismissed from his mind as being unimportant. In view of what had happened, he wondered if he’d instead accidentally bumped into the killer.

‘What time was this?’ asked Leeming.

‘Oh, it was well after midnight, Sergeant.’

‘That was rather late to be out, wasn’t it?’

The hands fluttered wildly like a pair of doves suddenly released from a cage.

‘I was … on my way home f-from a f-friend,’ said the other, introducing a stutter that had never been there before. ‘I was coming down Church Hill when I saw him.’

‘How far away was he, Mr Truss?’

‘It must have been twenty or thirty yards.’

‘Could you see him at all clearly in the dark?’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ replied the other, ‘but I saw enough to know that a man was pushing a wheelbarrow and that there was something in it covered with a cloth. I took no notice, to be honest, because it’s not an unusual sight in Spondon. We’ve had to wheel Bert Knowles home in a barrow more than once when he’s been drunk. But this barrow was heading for the church and the person pushing it was struggling as if he wasn’t used to doing anything like that. A dead body can be heavy. Suppose that’s what was under the cloth? I’ve been asking myself that ever since.’ His arms fell to his sides and he grinned inanely. ‘Was I right to tell you, Sergeant Leeming?’

‘You were indeed, Mr Truss, and I’m very grateful.’

‘Please don’t mention to anyone else that I told you. It could be … awkward for me, you see.’

Leeming suspected that the real awkwardness would be felt by the friend whom Truss had called on that evening. From the man’s behaviour, he guessed that the glove-maker had had a rendezvous with a woman and that he was anxious to protect her from any gossip and embarrassment. After reassuring him, Leeming sent him on his way and reviewed what he’d just learnt. As he did so, he recalled the old adage that bad news always came in threes. Could it be equally true that good news also came in triplicate? That’s what had happened to the sergeant. Since he’d arrived in Spondon, he’d met Philip Conway, recruited Bert Knowles to his cause and heard about the nocturnal adventures of a glove-maker. He’d had three pieces of good news to pass on to Colbeck.

Something told him that the last of them was by far the best.