Late, Late in the Evening

Aunt Kirstie said, 'Well, father, is there something you want with me?'

Grandfather glared at her.

'Where's your lodger?' he demanded.

'I wish we knew, father. Hasn't slept in his bed since that Thursday night,' she said.

'Well, get you up to Mrs Kempson's, my girl, and tell her he's sound asleep now. Take this boy and girl with you. She'll want to know all the tale. And then keep them out of my sight for a bit. Bringing all this trouble on us!'

Aunt Kirstie stared at him.

'You mean as Mr Ward's dead?' she asked, dropping her voice at the last word.

'That's my meaning, my girl, or so it seems, so get on up there quick as you can. It isn't any business of ours, except these children of Elspeth's have seemingly dragged us into it. Don't stand there gaping at me! Get along! Get along!'

'I'll get my good coat and hat,' said Aunt Kirstie. 'Mr Ward dead! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Whatever will Mrs Kempson have to say?'

'The children better have a clean-up, too, hadn't they, if you're going to the big house?' said Aunt Lally in an undertone, as she saw us out. Aunt Kirstie agreed. To get us washed and into our best clothes took a little time and when at last we started out, Aunt Kirstie said she could not hurry up the hill. However, we reached the manor house eventually and our aunt rang the bell.

Apparently it was the butler's afternoon off, for the door was opened by a maidservant. Aunt Kirstie asked whether it would be convenient for her to speak to Mrs Kempson about something important, so, leaving us standing at the door, the maid said she would go and find out. She did not need to ask Aunt Kirstie's name. She came back in a very short time and took us to the ground-floor room in which Kenneth and I had been received the last time we had visited the manor house.

The room was in the sole possession of Mrs Bradley. She told us that Mrs Kempson was out, so, without consulting Aunt Kirstie, who did not know the whole truth, anyway, Kenneth told her our story. She listened without interrupting him. When, with a few interpolations from me and a few exclamations from Aunt Kirstie, he had finished the tale, she asked where the cottage was situated and then said she would ring up the police and that we had better return home at once, as the police would want to question us.

'Tell them the truth in a simple, orderly, straightforward fashion,' she said. 'Answer their questions briefly and to the point. I shall hope to see more of you later.' She told us to sit down while she telephoned. She had to go out of the room to do this, and while she was gone another maid brought Aunt Kirstie a cup of tea.

We could not tell the police much and I doubt whether they got anything at all useful from Poachy. Uncle Arthur was not very pleased when he came home.

'Police at my house?' he said. 'I've never been mixed up with the police, not the whole of my life. And where's it going to end? The law is cruel hard on poor people. It will be all right for that Kempson lot. They're rich. They'll get away with it. But he was our lodger, wasn't he? So they'll be on to us like the hand of God, and so I tell you, Kirstie.'

Aunt Kirstie harped upon another string.

'I don't know what come over you to want to go and play in that dirty old tumbledown shack,' she said sorrowfully. 'You got all our garden and all your grandfather's land, and the pigs and ducks and chickens and all, and your swing in the cartshed and all the fruit on the bushes, and The Marsh and the brook for your games. What call did you have to go and play in that there old dirty dump? Might have caught the fever or worse! And now we've lost our lodger, too, and not likely to get another when this comes out.'

We were silent. Her last observation affected us painfully, all the more so as it had not occurred to us, until she made it, that the death of Mr Ward, especially under such circumstances, would affect her and Uncle Arthur financially. Like my father and mother, they were anything but well off. Uncle Arthur's jobs on building sites-he was a plasterer by trade-were intermittent and I know now that, apart from allowing them to live rent-free-not nearly as much of a concession then as it would be nowadays-our grandfather, who disapproved of their marriage, did nothing to help them when they struck upon hard times, especially during the winter when there was no building going on. The most he would do-since he said once in my hearing that he could not let his daughter Kirstie starve-was to make the couple an occasional gift of a chicken or a piece of pork.

So we hung our heads and said nothing. The police came again next day, with more questions and with official notebooks in which they wrote down all Aunt Kirstie's answers about Mr Ward, and finished by saying that they would return in the evening when Uncle Arthur was home from work. We had taken refuge under the parlour table, which had a cover on it with a long fringe with bobbles on it. It formed an excellent hiding-place, and we heard the whole interview. Aunt Kirstie guessed we were there, I think, but perhaps she was glad of our company and moral support.

It was after the police had gone, and Aunt Kirstie had returned to the kitchen, and we had crawled out and sneaked down the back staircase into the scullery and the garden, that Kenneth said we must track down the murderer.

We had to wait until afternoon school came out before we could contact Our Sarah and her gang. By that time rumours of Poachy's horrid discovery were all over the village. The police had been seen going into Aunt Kirstie's house and it was known that two of them had dragged poor Poachy out of the hermit's cottage. Then his mother, who, alone of mankind, seemed able to interpret his gibberings, had gone into Miss Summers' shop to purchase a loaf of bread and spread the news. It was not known at that time who the dead man was, except to us and our family and Mrs Bradley. Even the police could not be dogmatic until the body had been formally identified, although their questioning of ourselves and Aunt Kirstie indicated their opinion clearly enough.

We did not intend to wait at the school gate for Our Sarah because we did not want to be spotted and identified by the governess as not having been at school, so we loitered outside the drill hall, knowing that Sarah and Ern would have to pass it on their way home.

We seemed to wait for a very long time, and Kenneth suggested that they must be playing on The Marsh. They hove in sight eventually and we went to meet them.

'Can't stop now,' said Our Sarah, before we could speak. 'Oi warnts moi tea.'

'After tea, then,' said Kenneth. 'It's fearfully important.'

Even Our Sarah, who had lofty ideas as to what was important and what was not, was compelled to allow our claim when we mentioned the cottage, later, after tea.

'Though Oi knows all about et,' she said, when we met at half-past five on The Marsh. 'Oi 'eard et en Mess Summers. That old nosey parker the Weddow Wenter was en there and her and Mess Summers was so busy yappen their selly 'eads orf as 'em never 'eard me come en. Tale dedn't lose nothen en the tellen, Oi'll be bound. Any road, take somethen special to breng the Weddow Wenter out from be'oind they aspedestriers of hern.'

'It was because of us that the body was discovered,' said Kenneth, repeating a phrase which the police inspector had used in our hearing when he was questioning Aunt Kirstie.

'Oi don't berlieve et.'

'It's true. We knew something was buried in that cottage, so we got Peachy to dig it up for us.'

'Then you be a body-snatcher, you young Oi say.'

'What's a body-snatcher?'

'Oi don't roightly know, but moi dad talk about 'em. Be 'anged for body-snatchen, ee can. They won't arf streng ee up 'oigh because you be only a lettle un and got no weight to ee, so they'll gev ee a long drop.'

'We didn't "snatch" anything. We simply found Mr Ward,' said Kenneth quickly.

'How do ee know as et was hem?'