Читать книгу Murder in the Mill-Race - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 22

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Sergeant Peel was a competent and zealous police officer, but he tended to develop a bee in his bonnet over Milham in the Moor. In actual fact, the village defeated him. It was a law-abiding village, and the constable who occasionally patrolled it had no complaints to make, but on the few occasions when Peel had had occasion to investigate irregularities—motoring offences, drinking after hours, dramatic performances in a hall which had no licence for same—he had come up against the communal answer, “I don’t know.” It had been the same over Nancy Bilton’s death: no one knew anything, and Peel was perfectly certain that quite a number of people knew quite a lot, but no wiles of his own could break down that unanimous ignorance of a village which was an integral whole. When he had received the news of Sister Monica’s death, Peel had fairly jumped to it. Milham in the Moor had diddled him once over a big case, and it wasn’t going to happen again.

He had arrived to find the two doctors, Venner and Wilson and Bob Doone all together close by the bridge. Hedges had been hurrying away after his agitated cows, who were not used to being honked at on their way to milking. No driver in the village ever honked at milking cows—it was bad for milk production. Peel had shouted at Hedges to come back and Hedges had disregarded the voice of the law, while Venner, Wilson, and Doone had all told Peel to “let mun be.” Cows had got to be milked and Hedges didn’t know aught about this here. Which negative statement set the old theme of not knowing.

After his first routine enquiries, Peel had agreed that the body should be moved to Dr. Brown’s house. There was no object in waiting for the photographers, for the body had already been lifted from the water and its position gave no information. The sergeant was favourably disposed towards Dr. Ferens, for the simple reason that he was a newcomer to Milham in the Moor, and things had gone fairly smoothly, except that Peel was incensed because Jim Rigg, who had first found the body, was not at hand to be questioned. Jim Rigg worked at the Manor Farm and was now milking Sir James Ridding’s pedigree Jerseys—and the Jerseys, Peel was given to understand, had to be milked to the clock and no dilly-dallying. “Him’ll tell you all him knows in good time,” said Venner, who had the Devonian’s persistence in using an accusative for a nominative and vice versa.

Eventually Peel, who had plenty of commonsense when he wasn’t being given information about dairy cattle, had decided that the best thing he could do was to search the immediate environs of the bridge. He could interrogate natives later, but any delay in searching might mean losing valuable evidence. The ground was fairly soft, and, for all Peel knew, somebody’s cows might be driven all over the place before he could stop them. The sergeant knew who had been at the bridge since the body had been found: Rigg, Venner, Wilson, and Hedges, all in labourer’s boots, Dr. Brown and Dr. Ferens in good country shoes. Rigg and Venner had lifted the body from the stream, Wilson and Hedges had turned up just after the body had been laid by the bank, and they had all come from the south side of the bridge. Dr. Ferens had come from the north, down the park. Peel and his attendant constable began to search the ground, the hedges and the grass, seeking for any object or sign which might indicate the presence of any other person who had been at the spot. When they had been at this job for some quarter of an hour, Inspector Carson of Barnsford arrived, together with two of his own men and a photographer. Peel saluted his superior officer, and while the constables continued searching the ground, the two seniors stood on the bank and Peel gave a brief description of events as far as his information went.

“I reckon we must make a job of it this time,” he said. “I wasn’t happy in my mind over the last case, and I reckon this proves I was right.”

“What have you got in mind, Peel?”

“I believe there’s a murderer in this village. That girl Nancy Bilton was a bad lot and she got into trouble with some chap here. I daresay she made a nuisance of herself to him and he pushed her into the mill stream. We never found out who he was, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if this Sister Monica had some sort of idea about his identity.”

“Then why didn’t she tell you?” asked Carson. “She swore in the witness box she didn’t know the chap’s identity and she was a religious body. You’re not telling me you think she told lies?”

“No, I’m not, though I reckon she was queer—too religious, you know. Takes some women like that. I know she thought herself next door to the Almighty, for all her show of humble-pie. My own idea is that she had her own suspicions and wouldn’t put ’em into words because she’d no means of proving it. And the chap knew she’d got an inkling of who he was and she was going round trying to ferret things out in that clever-belike way she’d got.”

The Inspector grunted. “More than a year ago, isn’t it? Not likely she’d have found out anything now.”

“I don’t know: this village is a queer place. Maybe somebody let something out to her, thinking it was all over and done with. Anyway, my guess is she met the chap down here and charged him with it sudden like, and he heaved her into the mill-race like he did the other. They do say she wandered round here of nights. Must have been some reason made her do it.”

Again the Inspector grunted. “Well, you’ve evidently had the last case on your mind, Peel. What’s your idea?”

Peel looked cautiously round the sunlit spot where they were standing, and lowered his voice even more. “Strikes me things went on pretty quietly in this village until two or three years ago. It’s the sort of village doesn’t change much from generation to generation. It was after that new estate manager came, three years ago, there seemed to be upsets.”

“I see,” said the Inspector. “Well, it’s worth looking into. And about these folk in the Mill House here.”

Peel interrupted with an exasperated snort. “There’s none so deaf as them that won’t hear. I reckon this spot is a sort of lovers’ lane. As you see, you can come round the mill from the village street and walk up the park by that steep path there. The village folk are allowed to use that path, but not to go through the Manor garden. They can get out again, into the village square, by a gate beside the walled kitchen garden. In other words, you can take a walk down the village street, turn into the park by the mill here, walk up the park and get to where you started. The gates aren’t locked. I bet any money the Venners know who’s in the habit of walking through here: they know Sister Monica used to walk here after dark. Stands to reason they know who else does.”

The Inspector nodded. “We’ll see to that. And now what about finger-printing the hand rail of that bridge? It’s worn smooth enough. We might get something there. I reckon there’s been too much trampling around for footsteps to help, and it’s too much to hope that we’ll find anything left around. Not that you weren’t right to start here. And we’ll have those gates shut and see to it that no one comes through.”

“Very good,” said Peel. “Let ’em see we mean business from the word go this time, and not so much about the poor soul brooding and throwing herself in. Brooding my hat.”