John Grayson had grown up on a farm. In his opinion this was as nasty and spiteful a trick as you could want. He began to think that the early death of Margot Trent was not going to inflict any particular loss upon the community. But he had his duty to do, and in pursuance of it he put the question which he had already addressed to Miss Muir and to the domestic staff.
“How was the girl treated after she had carried out one of these annoying tricks? Was Mr. Trent angry with her-was she scolded?”
A little natural colour sprang up in Miss Delauny’s face. Her fine eyes brightened, and she exclaimed with emphasis,
“Oh, never! Mr. Trent was wonderful. Very few fathers would have been so kind to a child of their own. Whatever he may have felt, he never showed her that he was angry. On this last occasion, when she played that dangerous trick in the quarry, he told me he would have a serious talk with her. She came away from it in quite a softened mood and said he had been sweet. But even then-” She broke off and looked down into her lap.
“Yes, Miss Delauny-what were you going to say?”
She lifted her eyes to his with a look of appeal.
“When anything like this happens, don’t you think it is so difficult to know afterwards whether you really did have those uneasy feelings and are not just imaging that you had them?”
He looked at her keenly.
“Well, that’s honest enough. But I should like to hear what this feeling was.”
She looked down again and dropped her voice.
“Well, I thought-at least I think I did-that she was-well-a little too quiet. I was afraid she might be-thinking up-something else.” She made haste to add, “It was all just an impression-the sort of suggestion that comes to one when one’s mind is disturbed.”
He considered that she was splitting hairs, and brought the questioning back to facts again.
“Now, Miss Delauny, I want you to tell me about Sunday afternoon. You and your charge had lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Trent?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“We had coffee with them in the drawing-room, after which we went to our own sitting-room.”
“That is the room I have seen-next door to this one?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do there?”
“Margot was cutting pictures out of an illustrated paper. It was one of the few things she would do if it was too wet to go out.”
“Was she still in that softened mood?”
Miss Delauny shook her head.
“Oh, no-she was impatient and aggressive. It made her really angry to be kept in by the rain. I was thankful when it showed signs of clearing, and at a quarter to three I told her she could go out, only she must put on a waterproof and goloshes as everything would be streaming.”
“It did not occur to you to go with her?”
She shook her head.
“She wanted to be off by herself. She has always had the freedom of the grounds. They are large, and fortunately it never seemed to occur to her to want to go outside them.”
“So you felt no anxiety about her being out alone?”
“Oh, no-it happened every day. She has so much energy-” She checked, caught her breath in a sob, and corrected herself. “I ought to have said had-one doesn’t remember these things all-at once. What I was going to say was I couldn’t possibly have kept up with her. She liked to be free, and we wanted her to be happy. Then there is Mrs. Trent. You will have noticed that she is in a very sad state of health. She ought not to be too much alone, and I give as much time to her as I can.”
He nodded. It did seem all right and above-board. He said,
“Well, you went on writing letters-”
“Yes. I knew Mrs. Trent would be resting. And then Mr. Trent came along and said he would be taking her for a drive, and would Margot and I like to come? I said I had letters to write, and Margot had just gone out, but I would see if I could find her. I went out on to the terraces and called, but she didn’t answer, and Mr. Trent had said he couldn’t wait, so I came back and went on with my letters.”
“Just a minute, Miss Delauny. How long was it after Miss Trent had gone out that Mr. Trent came to you and spoke about the drive?”
She seemed to reflect, her face turned up to his, her brows just drawn together.
“Oh, no time at all-just a few minutes-”
“And when did you hear of the accident?”
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Mr. Severn came and told me, while Miss Muir went out to the garage to tell Mr. Trent.”
He had one more question to ask.
“How did Mrs. Trent take the news?”
Miss Delauny hesitated.
“She didn’t seem to take much notice. But of course one can’t really tell. It is part of her illness that she doesn’t seem to notice anything very much.”
As man to man, the Inspector found himself feeling sorry for Mr. Geoffrey Trent. As if it wasn’t enough to have that poor girl in the family, it seemed now that there was something odd about Mrs. Trent! He reflected, without any consciousness of being trite, that money didn’t always make you happy.
He let Miss Delauny go and went out into the garden to look for old Humphreys. He found him in the potting-shed mixing compost and extremely unwilling to have his attention diverted. They were not strangers, and Grayson was perfectly well aware that he wasn’t going to get any co-operation. He had married a Bleake girl who was a great-niece of old Humpy’s, and there was very little he didn’t know about his long association with the Falconers, his skill as a gardener, and the remarkable obstinacy of his temper. To his “Good morning, Uncle!” Humphreys made no reply. He went on putting compost into a row of six-inch pots for some time before he said in an aggressive voice,
“Now, it’s no use your coming a-bothering me, Johnny Grayson, nor a-coming the policeman over me, because I won’t have it! Arh!” He sucked in his breath in a very determined manner and pressed the earth down with a broad spatulate thumb.
Grayson laughed.
“Now, Uncle, I’ve got my job the same as you have, and all I want is to ask you if you saw or heard anything of Miss Margot Trent on Sunday afternoon. Or,” he added hastily, “anyone else.”
He got a bright malicious stare.
“And what might you be meaning by anyone else? Flaxmans goes out Sundays regular. Lunch for the family at one, and come a quarter to three they’re a-catching of the bus for Wraydon-right past my windows and a-hurrying like mad. If that’s what you mean by your anyone else, then I see’d ’em, same as I see Florrie Bowyer a-running like a rabbit to meet that young man of hers.”
Since Grayson was already aware that none of the domestic staff had been on the premises after a quarter to three on the Sunday afternoon, all this was of no particular interest. If he hoped that it argued a disposition to talk on Uncle’s part he was soon to be undeceived.
Old Humpy bent to plunge his hands into the compost heap. He was a square, sturdy figure, not much above five-foot-one in height, with a face burnt as brown as a walnut and a lot of grizzled hair which like some spreading plant sent up its vigorous bushy growth in whisker, beard, and eyebrow. It was known that he was the owner of half a dozen houses in Wraydon, and his savings were reputed to be considerable. These circumstances, together with the fact that he possessed a formidable temper, caused him to be regarded with a good deal of respect by the three hundred and fifty or so inhabitants of Bleake, to a great many of whom he was related. He had married three meek women in succession, and they had reared three respectable and obedient families. Each of them had brought him something in her stocking foot, as the saying is. He certainly wasn’t going to stand any nonsense from Johnny Grayson who had married his brother Sam’s grand-daughter. He stood up with his big hands full of compost and let it run through his fingers on to the old kitchen tray where the previous heap had been getting low.