‘Kind hearts,’ Kirk was saying, ‘are more than coronets; him as said that lived to wear a coronet himself. Mind you, I ain’t saying as you been any way neglectful of your dooty but it do seem a pity as a young fellow should have his career broke, all for want of a bit of ’elp and guidance. Not to speak of this other suspicion which it’s to be hoped won’t come to anything.’
This was more than Foster could stomach in silence. He explained that he had offered help and guidance at the time of Sellon’s marriage; it had not been well received; ‘I told him he was doing a foolish thing and that the girl would be the ruin of him.’
‘Did you?’ said Kirk, mildly. ‘Well, then, perhaps it’s no wonder he didn’t turn to you when he was in a fix. I dunno as I would myself in his place. You see, Foster, when a young fellow’s made up his mind, it ain’t no good calling the young woman names. You only alienates him and puts yourself in a position where you can’t do no good. When I was courtin’ Mrs K., you don’t think I’d have ’eard a word agen her, not from the Chief Constable himself. Not likely. Just you put yourself in his place.’
Sergeant Foster said briefly that he couldn’t put himself in the place of making a fool of himself over a bit of skirt still less could he understand taking other people’s money, defection from duty and failure to make proper reports to one’s superior officer.
‘I couldn’t make head or tail of the report Sellon sent in. He dropped it in, didn’t seem able to give a proper account of himself to Davidson, who was on duty at the station, and now he’s off somewhere and can’t be found.’
‘What’s that?’
‘He’s not been back home,’ said Sergeant Foster, ‘and he’s neither rung up nor left a message. I shouldn’t be surprised if he’d made tracks.’
‘He was over here, looking for me at 5 o’clock,’ said Kirk unhappily. ‘He brought a report from Pagford.’
‘He wrote that out in the station, I’m told,’ said Foster. ‘And he left a bunch of shorthand stuff; they’re typing it now. Davidson says it doesn’t seem to be complete. I suppose it breaks off at the point where-’
‘What do you expect?’ retorted Kirk. ‘You don’t suppose he’d go on taking down his own confession, do you? Be reasonable… What’s worrying me is, that if he was here at five, we ought to have passed him between here and Paggleham, if he was a-going home. I hope he ain’t rushed off to do something rash. That ’ud be a nice thing, wouldn’t it? Maybe he took the ’bus-but if he did, where’s his bike?’
‘If he took the ’bus he didn’t get home by it,’ said the Sergeant, grimly.
‘His wife must be worrying. I think we’d better have a look-see into this. We don’t want nothing of an unfort’nate nature to ’appen. Now-where could ’e a-got to? You take your bike-no, that won’t do-takes too long, and you’ve had a pretty hard day. I’ll send Hart on his motor-bike, to see if anybody’s seen Sellon round Pillington way-it’s all wood round there-and the river-’
‘You don’t really think-?’
‘I don’t know what to think. I’m going over to see his wife. Shall I give you a lift over? Your bike can be sent back tomorrow. You’ll get the ’bus at Paggleham.’
Sergeant Foster could find nothing to resent in this offer, though his voice sounded injured in accepting it. As far as he could see, there was going to be an unholy row about Joe Sellon, and Kirk, characteristically, was taking steps to see that whatever happened he, Foster, should get the blame. Kirk was relieved when they overtook the local omnibus just outside Paggleham; he could drop his austere companion at once, without suggesting that they should go to Sellon’s place together.
He found Mrs Sellon in what Mrs Ruddle would have called ‘a state of mind’. She looked ready to drop with fright when she opened the door to him, and had evidently been crying. She was fair, pretty in a helpless sort of way, and delicate looking; Kirk noticed, with irritation as well as sympathy, that there was another baby coming. She asked him in, apologising for the state of the room, which was indeed somewhat disorderly. The two-year-old whose arrival in the world was the indirect cause of all Sellon’s misfortunes was ramping noisily about, dragging a wooden horse, whose wheels squeaked. The table was laid for a tea now long overdue.
‘Joe not come in yet?’ said Kirk, pleasantly enough.
‘No,’ said Mrs Sellon. ‘I don’t know what’s gone of him.
Oh, be quiet, Arthur, do!-He’s not been in all day aid his supper’s spoiling… Oh, Mr Kirk! Joe ain’t in any trouble, is he? Martha Ruddle’s been saying such things-Arthur! you bad boy-if you don’t give over I’ll take that horse away from you.’
Kirk captured Arthur and stood him firmly between his own massive knees.
‘Now, you be a good boy,’ he admonished him. ‘Grown a lot, ain’t he? He’ll be getting quite a handful for you. Well, now, Mrs Sellon-I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you about Joe.’
Kirk had the advantage of being a local man, having in fact been born at Great Pagford. He had not seen Mrs Sellon more than twice or thrice before; but he was at least not completely strange and therefore not completely awe-inspiring. Mrs Sellon was induced to pour out her fears and troubles. As Kirk had suspected, she knew about Mr Noakes and his missing note-case. She had not been told of it at the time, naturally; but later, when the weekly payments to Noakes had begun to press heavily on the exchequer, she had wormed it out of Joe. She had gone about in a state of anxiety ever since, fearing that something dreadful would happen. And then, a week ago today, Joe had had to go and tell Mr Noakes he couldn’t pay that week, and came back ‘looking awful’, and saying ‘they were done for now for good and all’. He’d been ‘very queer in his ways’ all the week, and now Mr Noakes was dead and Joe was missing and Martha Ruddle told her there’d been a dreadful quarrel and, ‘oh, I dunno, Mr Kirk, I’m that terrified he may have done something rash.’
Kirk, as delicately as he could, asked whether Joe had said anything to his wife about his quarrel with Noakes.
Well, no, not exactly. All he’d said was, that Mr Noakes wouldn’t listen to nothing and it was all up. He wouldn’t answer no questions-seemed regular fed-up like. Then he’d suddenly said he thought the best thing would be to chuck everything and go out to his elder brother in Canada, and would she go with him? She’d said. Why goodness gracious, Joe, surely Mr Noakes wasn’t going to tell on him after all this long while-it’d be a wicked shame, and after he’d paid all that money! Joe had only said gloomily. Well, you’ll see tomorrow. And then he’d sat with his head in his hands, and there wasn’t nothing to be got out of him. Next day they heard that Mr Noakes had gone away. She had been afraid he’d gone to Broxford to tell on Joe; but nothing happened, and Joe cheered up a bit. And then this morning, she heard Noakes was dead, and she was that thankful, you couldn’t think. But now Joe had gone off somewhere and Martha Ruddle came in with her talk-and since Mr Kirk had found out about the note-case, she supposed it had all come out, and oh, dear, what was she to do and where was Joe?
None of this was very comforting to Kirk. It would have cheered him up a good deal to learn that Sellon had spoken frankly to his wife about the quarrel. And he didn’t at all like the reference to the brother in Canada. If Sellon really bad done away with Noakes, he would have had about as much chance of escaping to Canada as of being made king of the Cannibal Islands, and reflection must have told him so; but that his first blind impulse should have been to flee the country was unpleasantly significant. It occurred to Kirk, incidentally, that whoever did the murder must have been going through a pretty trying time. For it seemed very unlikely that he or she had thrown Noakes down the cellar steps-else why was the door left open? The murderer, having clubbed Noakes and left him for dead, would have expected-what? Well, if he had done it in the sittingroom or the kitchen or any room downstairs, the body might have been seen the next time anyone happened to look in at the windows-Mrs Ruddle, or the postman, or an inquisitive lad from the village, or the vicar, on one of his visits. Or Aggie Twitterton might have come over to see her uncle. At any moment the discovery might have been made. Some poor devil (Kirk really felt a passing twinge of pity for the culprit) had been sitting for a whole week on the safety-valve, wondering! At any rate, the body must have been found the next Wednesday (that was today) because of Crutchley’s weekly attendance. If, of course, the murderer knew about that, as he or she was bound to do; unless the crime could be traced to a passing tramp or somebody-and what a good thing if it could!