T Kinsey - A Quiet Life in the Country (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery Book 1)

6

To judge from the architecture, the Dog and Duck had been serving food, ciders, ales, wines and spiritous liquor to the people of Littleton Cotterell for at least four hundred years, possibly longer. It was a small country inn with a yard to one side filled with barrels and crates awaiting the drayman’s next visit. There was also a stout handcart, tipped up and propped against the wall of the building.

I went into the snug and coughed delicately to attract the attention of the landlord. Old Joe Arnold was, indeed, rather old, but he was spryly alert and fairly skipped across the bar to greet me.

‘I was wondering when we might see you in here, my love,’ he said toothlessly.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Arnold, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’

‘And you, my dear. What can I get you? A nice glass of sherry? A small cider? On the house, of course. It’s not often we get new folk in the village, and you and your mistress are the talk of the town.’

‘You’re very kind, Mr Arnold, very kind. What a charming inn.’

‘Family business, my love. My old dad ran it afore me and his dad ran it afore him, back four generations.’

‘You must see all the village life in here. Everyone must come in sooner or later.’

‘We’re the heart of the village, miss. The very beating heart of it. I’n’t that right Daisy?’

Daisy, the young barmaid, was wiping the public bar with a dirty rag. ‘The beating heart, Joe,’ Daisy agreed, with only the tiniest trace of weary sarcasm.

I recognized the name. ‘Daisy Spratt?’ I asked.

‘That’s right,’ she said suspiciously. ‘How’d you know?’

‘You’re engaged to Bill Lovell.’

‘What if I am?’

‘It’s just that I’d heard both your names recently. What with the . . . er . . . the goings on.’

‘I bet they’re all talking about us now. Well, he didn’t do nothing and neither did I and don’t you go thinking we did. He didn’t do for Frank. Not my Bill.’

I hadn’t fully thought through how I was going to go about questioning Mr Arnold, but both bars were empty so it seemed as good a time as any for my interview. I still wasn’t sure quite how to broach the subject but, with Daisy there too, I thought I might have an opening. I didn’t want to create false hope but I wondered if I might start with a little bit of openness to see if I got any in return.

‘Would you both mind talking about that night a little?’ I asked. ‘Lady Hardcastle and I aren’t completely convinced that Mr Lovell is guilty, either, but Inspector Sunderland is going to need a little more to convince him than the opinion of a newcomer and her lady’s maid.’

They looked briefly at each other before Mr Arnold said, ‘I never seen a copper in such a hurry to get gone. We usually has to chase old Sergeant Dobson out with the brush and bolt the door behind him to get him to stop talking once he gets going, but this feller from Bristol was in and out afore I could tell him anything. He heard what he wanted to hear and was off to collar young Bill afore you could say ninepence.’

Mr Arnold’s toothlessness made it very difficult for him to convincingly say ‘ninepence’ at all, but I suppressed my smile. He led me over to a table in the corner of the bar and beckoned to Daisy to join us.

As we sat, he continued talking. ‘See, I told him about the argybargy ’tween Frank and Bill, but that weren’t the only row Frank got into that night.’

Daisy interrupted. ‘No, it weren’t. Arthur Tressle near started actual fisticuffs right there in the public,’ she said, indicating the other bar.

‘What about?’ I asked. ‘Was Mr Pickering walking out with his fiancée, too?’

Daisy glared at me. ‘No one,’ she said indignantly, ‘was walking out with anyone, most ’specially not me, and I’ll thank you to keep your insinuations about my character to yourself. Frank was sweet on me, that was all, and I walked out with him once – in public, mind – to set him straight about me and Bill.’

‘My apologies,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean any offence. But your Mr Lovell got to hear about it?’

‘Well, yes. He’s protective is all. He just wanted to set Frank straight. He wasn’t even going to hurt him, much less kill him. He just has this way of talking. He can be a bit—’

‘Fiery?’ I suggested. ‘Hot tempered?’

‘I s’pose you could put it like that. But he didn’t do for Frank. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.’ She was close to tears.

Mr Arnold looked slightly embarrassed and carried on quickly, trying to defuse the situation. ‘Arthur, see, he’s the captain of the cricket club. They was all in here that night for a meeting and Arthur, well, he’s a prickly sort, and he’s got it in his head that young Frank was trying to take over. He was only a fair batsman, was Frank, but he had a fast ball as could take a man’s arm off. He was keeping that team going, I reckon, and Arthur had taken a notion that he was angling for the captain’s cap.’

‘And was he?’ I asked.

‘Couldn’t say, my love. All I can tell you is that they squared off in the public bar and I had to get a couple of my regulars to separate them.’

‘They threatened each other?’

‘No, young Frank was one of they gentle-giant types. Calm as you like normally. He could stand his ground, mind, but he wasn’t the sort to go shouting the odds. No, it was Arthur. Seething, he was, fair ready to boil over. Said he’d never let Frank do it. Said he’d do for him if he tried it.’

‘All that over a cricket team?’ I asked incredulously.

‘We takes our cricket very serious round here, my love, very serious.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I was trying to calm Arthur down and Daisy saw to Frank.’

‘There weren’t much for me to see to, to be honest,’ said Daisy. ‘I went over to him and asked him if he was all right. He said he was, then he gets out his watch, takes a look at it and says, “Yes, well, I’d probably best be going anyway”, and walked out.’

‘And what time was it?’ I asked.

‘Just ’fore eleven, I think,’ she said.

‘And that was the last you saw of him?’

‘Last time I ever spoke to him,’ she said with a sniff.

‘Was Bill still there? And what about Arthur? Did he stay?’

‘Bill left soon after, but Arthur sat back down with the rest of the cricket lads and they finished their drinks,’ said Joe. ‘They didn’t stay long, mind, maybe another quarter of an hour. They was the last in here so I shut up after that, sent Daisy home and went to bed.’

‘Did you see anything on your way home, Daisy?’ I asked.

‘I saw the cricket lads on the green, still larking about.’

‘But nothing else?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I walked straight home. I lives with my ma and dad round the corner. Our Dad’s the butcher.’

‘Yes, I’ve met him. You live above the shop?’

She looked affronted. ‘We most certainly do not. We’ve got a house up behind the church a way.’

‘Ah, I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘What about you, Mr Arnold? Did anything else happen here?’

‘I should say it did, my love, but I can’t see as how it’s connected. Must have been getting on for half past when I hears this commotion outside in the yard. Banging and crashing and laughing. Our bedroom’s round the back and I looks out the window but I couldn’t see nothing, so I puts on me boots and a coat and goes down in me nightshirt to see what’s what. They’d had me bloomin’ handcart away, ’a’n’t they?’

‘Who had?’

‘Cricket lads, I reckon.’

‘But it’s back there now. I noticed it when I arrived.’

‘That it is, my love, that it is. We found it next morning over outside the cricket pavilion. Arthur Tressle was asleep inside on the dressing room floor.’