Page 36 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘I will, sir. You can count on it.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thanks to some diligent work on the part of Constable Holyoak, a woman had been found in Mop End who remembered looking out of her kitchen window on the evening of the 4th of November and seeing a man go past who sufficiently matched William’s description. She had been looking out for her husband to come back from the Red Lion, and seeing the dark human shape had thought at first it was him, till he went right past the gate and was lit for a moment by the bright moonlight. Holyoak knew her husband, who frequently got drunk at the Red Lion – a very low sort of beer house – and when in his cups liked to bash his wife a bit. So it made sense to him that she would have been looking out of the window, and that she would remember the approaching shape that turned out not to be the man whose return she dreaded. He believed her, therefore, and it was the final scruple to add to the scales on the side of William’s innocence.

Sergeant Mayhew did not set much store by Mrs Porrit’s evidence, or indeed by that of Tabby Mattock, who, he opined, was a baggage who would say anything. In fact, he regarded women in general as unreliable and most of them inveterate liars. But he was inclined to believe William’s account, now he was willing to give one, because he did not think a man would admit to something as embarrassing as being beaten up by a woman unless it was true. So the charge against William was dropped, and word sent to the Castle. Richard came himself and collected the footman, so that he could be sure Tabby had kept her end of the bargain before he paid her the second instalment.

‘So William is definitely in the clear?’ he asked the sergeant.

‘Free to go, sir,’ said Mayhew.

‘Without a stain on his character?’

Mayhew writhed a little at that. ‘You might tell him to steer clear of females like that Mattock piece,’ he said uncharitably. ‘Consorting with them won’t do his character no good.’

‘Consorting,’ Richard said, savouring the word. ‘No, I dare say “consorting” is never a good idea. I shall have the butler give him a good, fatherly talking-to.’

‘A proper thrashing is what I’da got from my old man,’ Mayhew said sternly, ‘and the better for it. Course, he’s got no father, and Mrs Sweeting may be a God-fearing woman and a church-goer, but she’s a quarter that William’s size and couldn’t raise a welt on him if she stood on a chair. Spare the rod, Mr Tallant, and spoil the child. That’s what I always say.’

‘I’ll try to see William is put on the right track,’ Richard promised him. ‘And what will happen now to the, er, case – is that the word? – of Edgar Speen?’

‘Put aside, Mr Tallant,’ Holyoak said, ‘pending further information.’ Mayhew only sniffed disapprovingly, so he continued, ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know who killed him. My betting is it was a tramping man, passing through, and long gone now. We do get ’em, making their way to London – out-of-work labourers, or ruined men, hoping to make a new start in the capital. It’s a main route, along the valley, from a number of places.’

‘What happens to the body, by the way?’ Richard asked.

‘Buried on the parish,’ Mayhew said. ‘Deceased had no family that we could discover.’

‘My family will make a donation, seeing he was in our employ,’ Richard said. ‘And a simple headstone, perhaps.’ He felt bad about Speen, who had been his valet, and would never have come to Ashmore to get himself killed if he hadn’t engaged him.

‘That’s as you please, Mr Tallant,’ said Mayhew. ‘You’d better talk to Rector.’

‘I think my brother would expect it done,’ Richard said.

Richard chose a quiet moment to walk down to Warner’s Rents. It was a fine breezy day after several showery ones. All the way down the hill he was passing washing laid out on hedges to dry, and at the rents themselves many had washing pegged out in the long front gardens. No washing blew at the Mattock house. He saw the door was open, which again was a common thing – all these cottages were desperately damp, and on a day like this the door would often be left open so that the breeze could dry the floor and walls inside.

He walked down the path, paused politely at the door and rapped on the frame, calling ‘Hulloo, the house! Anybody home?’ but it was all quiet within. Then he noticed that there were no napkins or baby clothes drying in front of the fire. He took a step inside and looked round. The cottage consisted of one room, with a lean-to scullery behind, so he could see the whole thing from the door. A bed in one corner where presumably Tabby, her mother and the baby all slept, a wooden table, two wooden chairs and an open-fronted cupboard in which a few items of crockery and the heel-end of a loaf of bread were all that could be seen on the shelves. No human being of any size.

Suspicion slipped into his mind. He stepped back out, thought a moment, and walked away to where a chestnut tree gave him a large trunk to stand behind while he watched the house. After a few minutes, Mrs Mattock came along, bent sideways under the weight of a bucket: the cottages shared a privy and a water pump at the end of the row. She went into the cottage with it. He waited. It was ten or fifteen minutes later that he saw Tabby approaching, with a covered basket on her arm. He waited until she turned down her own path before he came out, swiftly covered the ground between them, and caught her arm.

It was almost the undoing of him. She whipped round at amazing speed and flung a fist at him. Only his own quick reaction saved his face. It grazed his ear in passing as he jumped back and cried, ‘Steady! It’s only me!’

Her face shut down into a secretive blankness, enigmatic as a cat. ‘You frit me! Creeping up on a person like that,’ she complained. ‘What’s the idea?’

‘I thought you’d be expecting me,’ he said. ‘William’s been released. He’s back at the Castle. There’s no charge against him.’

‘Oh,’ she said, surveying his face carefully. ‘Well, good. So you know I told the pleece the story, like I promised.’

‘Yes, they told me all about it,’ Richard said. ‘Where’s the baby?’

‘Beg pardon?’ It was a strategic deafness, he saw, to give her time to think.

‘The baby. The one I’m going to help support.’ He gestured to the basket on her arm. ‘You’re not carrying it about in there, are you?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said shortly. The basket was nowhere near big enough to hold a baby. ‘It’s just a bit of stuff for our supper.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘So where’s my three pound? Hand it over.’

‘Where’s the baby, Miss Tabby?’

‘In the house,’ she said, not meeting his eye. ‘Ma’s minding it.’