WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE.
In the meantime a constable Ormond was also feeling a little blue.. He had suddenly bethought him of the one person in Darley who was likely to have kept tabs on Mr Perkins. This was old Gaffer Gander who, every day, rain or shine, sat on the seat of the little shelter built about the village oak in the centre of the green. He had unaccountably overlooked Gaffer Gander the previous day, owing to the fact that — by a most unusual accident — the Gaffer had not been in. his accustomed seat when Ormond was making his inquiries It turned out that Mr Gander had actually been in Wilvercombe, celebrating his youngest grandson’s wedding to a young woman of that town, but now he was back again and ready to be interviewed. The old gentleman was in high spirits. He was eighty-five come Martinmas, hale and hearty, and boasted that, though he might per haps be a trifle hard of hearing, his eyes, thank God, were as good as ever they were.
Why, yes, he remembered Thursday, 18th Day as the poor young man was found dead at the Flat-Iron. A beautiful day, surely, only a bit blowy towards evening. He always notices any strangers that came through. He remembered seeing a big open car come past at ten o’clock. A red one it was, and he even knew the number of it, because his greatgrandson, little Johnnie — ah! and a bright lad he was — had noticed what a funny number it was. 01 0101—just like you might be saying Oy, oy, oy. Mr Gander could call to mind the day when there wasn’t none o’ them things about, and folks was none; the worse for it, so far as he could see. Not that Mr Gander was agin’ progress. He’d always voted Radical in his young days, but these here Socialists was going too far, he reckoned. Too free with other folks’ money, that’s what they were. It was Mr Lloyd George as give him the Old Age Pension, which was only right, seeing he had worked hard all his life, he didn’t hold with no dole for boys of eighteen. When Mr Gander was eighteen, he was up at four o’clock every morning and on the land till sunset and after for five shillings week and it hadn’t done him no harm as he could see: Married at nineteen he was, and ten children, seven of them still alive and hearty. Why, yes, the car had come back at one o’clock. Mr Gander had just come out from the Feathers after having a pint to his dinner, and he see the car stop and the gentleman as was camping in the lane get out of it. There was a lady in the car, very finely rigged out, but mutton dressed as lamb in Gaffer’s opinion. In his day, women weren’t ashamed of their age. Not that he minded a female making the best of herself, he was all for progress, but he thought they were going a bit too far nowadays. — Mr Martin, that was the gentleman’s name, had said good morning to him and gone into the Feathers, and the car had taken the Heathbury road. Why, yes, he’d seen Mr Martin leave. Half-past one it were by the church clock. A good clock, that was. Vicar, he’d had it put in order at his own expense two years ago and when they turned the wireless on, you might hear Big Ben and the church clock striking together quite beautiful. There hadn’t been no wireless in Mr Gander’s day, but he thought it was a great thing and a fine bit of progress. His grandson Willy, the one that was married on a woman over to, Taunton, had give: him a beautiful set. It was that loud, he could hear it beautiful, even though his hearing was getting a little hard… He’d heard tell as they were going to show you pictures by wireless soon, and he hoped the Lord might spare him long enough to see it., He hadn’t nothing against wireless, though some people thought it was going a bit far to have the Sunday services laid on like gas, as you might say. Not but what it might be a good thing for them as was ailing, but he thought it made the young folks lazy and disrespectful-like. He himself hadn’t missed going to Sunday church for twenty year, not since he broke his leg falling off the hayrick, and while he had his strength, please God, he would sit under vicar. Why, yes, he did remember a strange young man coming through the village that afternoon. Of course he could describe him; there wasn’t nothing wrong with his eyes, nor his memory neither, praise be. It was only his hearing as wasn’t so good but, as Mr Ormond might have noticed, you had only to speak up clear and not mumble as these young people did nowadays and Mr Gander could hear you well enough. One of these rickety-looking townbred fellows it was, in big glasses, with a little bag strapped to his back and along stick to walk with, same as they all had. Hikers, they called them. They all had long sticks, like these here; Boy Scouts, though, as anybody with experience could have told them, there was nothing like a good crutch-handled ash-plant to give you a help along when you were walking. Because, it stood to reason, you got a better holt on it than on one of they long sticks. But young folks never listened to reason, especially the females, and he thought they was going a bit far, too, with their bare legs and short pants like football players. Though Mr Gander wasn’t so old neither that he didn’t like to look at a good pair of female legs. In his days females didn’t show their legs, but he’d known men as would go a mile to look at a pretty ankle.
Constable Ormond put all his energy into his last question.
‘What time did this young man go through?’’
‘What time? You needn’t shout, young man — I may be a bit hard of hearing, but I’m not deaf. I says to vicar only last Monday, “That was a good sermon you give us yesterday,” I says. And he says, “Can, you hear all right where you sit?” And I says to him, “I may not have my hearing as good as it was when I was a young man,” I says, “but I can still hear you preach, vicar,” I says, “from My Text is taken to Now to God the Father.” And he says, “You’re a wonderful man for your age, Gander,” he says. And so I be, surely.’
‘So you are, indeed,’ said Ormond. ‘I was just asking you when you saw this fellow with the glasses and the long stick pass through the village.’
‘Nigh on two o’clock it was,’ replied the old gentleman, triumphantly, ‘nigh on two o’clock. Because why? I says to myself, “You’ll be wanting a wet. to your whistle, my lad,’.’ I says, “and the Feathers shuts at two, so you’d better hurry up a bit.” But he goes. right on, coming from Wilvercombe and walking straight through towards Hinks’s Lane. So I says “Bah!’ I says, “you’re one o’ them pussy-footin’ slop-swallowers, and you looks it, like as if you was brought, up on them gassy lemonades, all belch and no body (if you’ll excuse me), that’s what I says to myself. And I says, “Gander,” I says, ‘that comes like a reminder as you’ve just got time for another pint.” So I has my second pint, and when I gets into the bar I see as it’s two o’clock by the clock in the bar, as is always kept five minutes_ fast, on account of getting the men out legal’
Constable Oemond took the blow in silence. Wimsey was wrong; wrong as sin. The two o’clock alibi was proved up to the hilt. Weldon was innocent; Bright was innocent;
Perkins was innocent as day. It now only remained to prove that the mare was innocent, and the whole Weldon-theory would collapse like a pack of cards.
He met Wimsey on the village green and communicated this depressing intelligence.
Wimsey looked at him. ‘Do you happen to have a railway time-table on you?’ he said at last.
‘Time-table? No, my lord. But I could get one. Or perhaps I could tell your lordship—’