Mrs Bradley’s bright eyes and beaky mouth did not betray her thoughts. She put money in the collecting-box, gave a last look round, and, followed by Miss Carmody, went out at the back door of the house. They found themselves in a narrow alley, beyond the fencing of which they could see a bend of the river. Mrs Bradley collared a little girl who was playing with a skipping-rope nearby.
‘I want to see where Bobby was drowned,’ she said. The child, who was only too willing to display to strangers what had become the site of a nine days’ wonder, nodded intelligently and said with emphasis:
‘I’m going to the pictures after the funeral, if I can get the money.’
‘But do you think that is right?’ demanded Miss Carmody, shocked by this juxtaposition of entertainment.
‘It’s a sad picture,’ said the child defensively. She turned from the unsympathetic Miss Carmody, and said importantly to Mrs Bradley:
‘It’s over the bridge and down along ’ere it was. My father found ’im.’
Mrs Bradley had already heard the evidence of the man who had found the body. He had come upon it at just after five in the morning, on the way to his work. The medical evidence – the doctor had seen the body at six o’clock – showed that the lad had been dead for less than twelve hours. Mrs Bradley looked at the shallow water. It was wide and sedgy, but one would scarcely have thought it could be fatal, especially to a twelve-year-old boy. (Still, the bump on the head explained all.)
‘When will your father be home from work?’ Mrs Bradley asked the little girl. It appeared that he was expected within half an hour, and, the gift of sufficient money for the pictures having established their right to her services, the child led the way to a house in the same row as that in which the dead child lay. The village, an offshoot of Winchester proper, consisted of a single long main street in which the houses were almost all alike. The child turned the handle of the front door, invited the two ladies into the parlour, left them just inside the room, and went through to the kitchen for her mother.
‘Mum, they’ve come about Bobby Grier,’ she called out.
The mother, an anxious soul, came in looking thoroughly frightened.
‘Are you sociable ladies?’ she enquired.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Carmody, who felt that she could claim this description for herself. ‘We came to find out whether there was anything we could do. The poor little laddie, you know . . .’
‘For the Griers?’ enquired their hostess, with a sniff. ‘I daresay they’ll let you, but, although I wouldn’t talk against any of the neighbours, because that don’t do, and things gets around so quick, I don’t say it ’ud be necessary. Not what sociable ladies wouldn’t call necessary, any’ow. Very grabbing she is, although I’d take it a favour you didn’t tell ’er I said so. We’ve got reasons to ’ave our differences.’
She spoke breathlessly, Mrs Bradley noticed. This was explained a moment later.
‘Ted – that’s my ’usband – the police haven’t been very nice to ’im about poor Bobby Grier. Don’t leave you a chance to tell the honest truth. I feel frightened every knock at the door, and so I tell you. It’s ’ard not to be believed. Ted couldn’t ’elp it if’e found ’im. You’d think the poor child ’ad been murdered and Ted ’ad done it, the way they’ve kept all on. It’s been really cruel. And, of course—’ The pause was awkward. Mrs Bradley filled it.
‘And, of course, the police want such full explanations,’ she said, ‘that our lives become scarcely our own.’
The woman agreed, and seemed about to enlarge on the point, but at this moment Mr Potter, the husband, was heard. He scraped his feet beside the front door of the house, and then walked into the parlour, which opened directly off the street.
He looked a little shy, and not particularly gratified, when he saw that there was company in the house. He said, ‘Servant, ladies,’ in what Miss Carmody referred to afterwards as a delightfully old-fashioned way, went through to the kitchen, and dumped his bag of tools on the floor. He looked a good deal younger than the woman, and was well-set-up and good-looking.
‘You got to go back, Ted,’ said his wife, who had followed him out. There was a lengthy and muttered colloquy, and then the wife added loudly, ‘It’s some sociable ladies come to see you about the Griers. There ain’t nothing for you to be afraid of. Not as you deserve I should say it, but there it is.’
Mr Potter observed that he had better clean himself, then, and proceeded, from the sounds, to sluice himself vigorously under the kitchen tap. He reappeared at the end of ten minutes with damp front hair and wearing, to Miss Carmody’s gratification, a rather tight collar.
‘A mark of real respect,’ she muttered to Mrs Bradley.
‘Not newspapers, I suppose?’ he said nervously as he sat down and put his large hands on his knees. ‘You wouldn’t come from the newspapers, I suppose?’
‘I don’t know but what it will come to that,’ said Mrs Bradley, before Miss Carmody could speak. ‘I’m worried about the death of that boy, Mr Potter. Why was it such a long time before he was found?’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Potter, lifting one hand and bringing it back into place with a fearful whack. ‘What did I tell you, Lizzie? “Funny I’d have looked,” I said, “if that boy ’ad ’appened to be murdered,” I said. Didn’t I say that, Lizzie? You’re my witness to that, my gal. I said it the minute I come in when I’d fetched the police. Now didn’t I?’ He looked at his wife with a kind of hang-dog defiance not very pretty to see.
‘Yes, you did say it, Ted, but I dunno as you ought to repeat it in front of strangers,’ said Mrs Potter, glancing at the strangers to see the effect of his words. Relations between the Potters were not too good, Mrs Bradley noticed. She wondered what the woman suspected, or, possibly, knew.
‘What made you think of murder, Mr Potter?’ asked Miss Carmody keenly, leaning forward, her hands on her knees.
‘Why, nothing,’ he replied, a trifle confused, ‘except – well, you know ’ow it is, mum. It struck me comical, like, as a biggish lad like Bob should a-got hisself drownded in about six inches of water, as you might say, for ’e laid very near the edge, half into some plants. And another thing—’ He lowered his voice and gave a furtive glance at his wife. The two of them were certainly on the defensive with one another, almost as though they had quarrelled but did not want strangers to know it.
‘You be careful, Ted!’ said the woman. He shrugged his wide shoulders, but seemed disposed to obey her.
‘Yes, Mr Potter?’ said Mrs Bradley, with hypnotic effect. Miss Carmody sat straighter in her chair.
‘Oh nothing, excepting a soft straw hat laid underneath him. I didn’t tell the police. They’d ’a thought I was making it up. You see, mum, it wasn’t there when I went to work after taking of ’im home and making Ma Grier call the doctor.’
‘Ma Grier!’ said Mrs Potter scornfully. ‘That’s a new name for ’er, ain’t it? And you shouldn’t of mentioned that ’at! Very likely your fancy, I reckon. And as for ’im not being drownded, you know very well that ’is poor little head was right under! You said so yourself to the coroner! Don’t you remember? Bob was drownded. His head was right under. That’s what you said, and you can’t go back on it now.’
‘Well, right enough, so it was right under,’ Mr Potter admitted hastily. ‘But if these ’ere ladies ’ave seen the place, I’ll back they know what I’m a-gettin’ at. Not deep enough to drown in, not for a lad of his sense.’