“No.”
“Oh,” said a disappointed Flavia.
“Sorry about that.”
“But he did know about it. That’s important. It means there are now hazy links between Forster and the disappearance of one Uccello, a Pollaiuolo, and a Fra Angelico. Three stolen paintings, dating between 1963 and 1991, and all on my boss’s list of thefts by Giotto’s hand. His own distinctive style, as you might say.”
“Impressive, and very hopeful. But there is nothing absolutely solid for any of them. Hazy, as you say. Now, Where’s that beer of mine?” he wondered.
In fact, Manstead’s beer had been ambushed, or at least Argyll had. He had scarcely given the order to the barman when George, who might well have been lying in wait for hours, docked alongside him.
“Hello again, young man,” he said to open proceedings. “What’s been going on, then?”
“Not a lot,” Argyll said airily, as he watched the barman’s wife, whose name, he gathered, was Sally, pull the pints. “You probably know as much as I do.”
“In that case, they’re not going to find anyone, are they? ’Cause I know nothing at all. Except that someone burnt all of Forster’s papers, his wife’s back, and that they’re going to have to let Gordon Brown go sooner or later.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Because he didn’t do it. He’s got an alibi.”
“First I heard,” said Argyll, noticing that George was speaking in a remarkably loud voice.
“I know,” he said. “But someone’ll tell you soon enough. No doubt about that. Bound to. Even I know he didn’t do it.” And, giving everybody in hearing distance what was unmistakably a significant look, George nodded sagely to himself, picked up the remains of his pint, and walked off to his corner seat. Argyll got the strong feeling that the man had delivered his message. He was just uncertain who the message had been delivered to. It certainly wasn’t him.
He found out at about ten that evening, as the trio were clearing away the table in the morning room and beginning the task of carrying everything down to the kitchen. A good meal, except for a bumpy start: Flavia had been asked to cook some pasta and, despite her protestations that cooking really wasn’t her area of expertise, she had given in eventually. Mary Verney had this certainty that all Italians are born cookers of pasta. Her opinion changed somewhat after the first course.
And then the doorbell went.
“Unexpected late night calls seem to be popular all of a sudden,” Mary said as she got up and prepared to go on the long voyage across the saloon, through the entrance hallway to the door. It was a trip that took several minutes, and she returned only to poke her head through the door and summon them to the little sitting room which was the only properly comfortable part of the house.
“It’s Sally,” she explained as she led them through the darkened hallway. “The barman’s wife. Don’t know what she wants. But I’m feudally obliged to listen, and as it seems to be about Geoffrey, I thought you might want to hear as well.”
Sally, the barman’s wife, was standing in her coat looking mightily uncomfortable, until Mary sat her down by the fire, beamed maternally and made appropriately reassuring noises.
“I said I had a headache and left Harry to close up,” she said. “I’m so sorry to bother you but… oh!”
Her face fell as she turned round and saw Flavia and Argyll.
“What’s the matter?”
“I think I’ve made a mistake. Perhaps I ought to go.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Mary said firmly. “If you need to talk to me on your own, then those two can go for a walk.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied, now panicking and wavering in her resolve. “I’m sorry I came at all. But I thought you might tell me what to do…”
“Just so,” said a curiously unsurprised Mary. “I think, if I can give you a little piece of advice, you would be well advised to tell Miss di Stefano your story as well. You can rely on her.”
“But what about him?” Sally said, pointing at Argyll. “He gossips with George. All the time.”
Mary went into the hallway and let out a piercing whistle, putting both fingers into her mouth to produce the right effect. It echoed through the great rooms like an air-raid siren, and in response there was a muffled barking and a patter of eager canine feet. She picked Argyll’s coat off the hook and tossed it at him.
“Please, Jonathan. A little favour. In the interests of village serenity. Take Frederick for his evening constitutional. Walkies! Walkies!” she said, switching her attention to the beast that came running expectantly through the door.
“Women’s business,” she went on, noting that Argyll seemed markedly less enthusiastic than Frederick at the prospect. “Come back in half an hour.”
By the time he got halfway to the gate, Flavia was regarding the unhappy woman with what she hoped was an air of encouraging sympathy. Sally was in her late thirties, heavy in the face and pale from too much bad food and too many hours confined behind the bar of the pub. A pretty face though. With a little bit of care, she thought to herself… But, as Argyll constantly told her, that was not the way things were done here.
Whatever Sally had come for, she was not over eager to tell them about it. She sat in a sullen silence, staring down at the carpet, unable to begin.
“Perhaps if I helped,” Mary prompted. “You’ve come about Gordon, is that right?”
“Oh, Mrs. Verney, yes,” she said in a rush. It was as though the older woman had pulled the bung out of a barrel. The words suddenly started gushing out. “He didn’t do anything wrong. I suppose everybody knows he steals things and he can get rough. But not like that.”
“The police seem to like the idea,” Mary said.
“But they’re wrong. I know they are.”
“And why is that?”
Sally lapsed into silence again.
“Because he was with you? Is that it?”
She nodded, and looked up with alarm.
“Tell us what happened,” Flavia suggested.
“Perhaps I should explain first of all,” Mary said. “Gordon is married to Louise. Formerly Louise Barton. George’s daughter. That’s why Sally didn’t want Jonathan to overhear this.”
Then Sally began her tale. It was simple enough. Both she and her husband worked behind the bar only at busy periods. At weekends they got in help, but ordinarily they managed on their own. Most lunch-times and evenings either one or the other worked the bar. On the day Forster died, it was Harry, and his wife had the evening off. The bar of the pub was downstairs, and the living quarters upstairs at the back. At eight o’clock, just as it was getting busy and she knew her husband would be occupied until closing time, Gordon had left the bar, gone round the back and climbed up the drainpipe and into her room. He’d stayed there until he’d heard the bell for closing time, then disappeared the way he’d come.
“I see,” Flavia said, deciding to keep to facts, rather than go into motives. “So he was with you from when, about eight to nearly eleven?”
“That’s right.”
“Which covers him for all the period in which Forster might have been killed.”
“Yes,” she said. “You see? That’s what I mean.”
“By far the easiest thing would be for you to tell this to the police. Get it over and done with.”
“And you think they’ll keep quiet about it? They arrested Gordon and they’ll have to let him go. They’ll say why and it’ll be all over the village by the end of the week.”
“But Sally,” Mary said sadly, “the only two people in Norfolk who don’t know about you and Gordon are your husband and Gordon’s wife. Surely you realize that?”
Sally’s hand went up to her mouth in an expression of shock. “No,” she said.