“And he said, ‘That’s very interesting.’ And then after a moment he said, ‘If there was a note with Miss Jenny Hill on it, would that be for you, or wouldn’t it be?’ And I said it would be for me, and I asked him why he wanted to know.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“He said he was just wondering. Well, I pressed him-I felt I must. I asked how he knew that I’d ever been called Jenny Hill, and he said that everyone knew it. The woman who works for Mrs. Merridew, she’d got hold of it, I don’t know how. And he said there was something exciting about having two names, and except for changing your name when you were married he’d never heard of anyone who had two names, and that was why he was interested.”
“Well, that’s quite a reasonable explanation.”
“No. No, it isn’t really. It didn’t really fit in with what he’d said before -‘And if there was a note with Jenny Hill on it, would that be for you, or wouldn’t it?’ So I said, ‘If you know anything about a note for me you’d better tell me what it is.’ And the little wretch said that he’d never said anything about a note for me. He said he couldn’t have said anything, seeing that there wasn’t one, could he?”
“Well-”
“He put on a very good act. He began to cry, and when I went on pressing him he ran away.”
“There’s not very much in that. I expect you frightened him.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t believe that boy’s ever been frightened in his life.”
“Which boy was it?”
“His name is Dicky Pratt.”
Richard whistled.
“He’s a young devil-I grant you that. But why are you so disturbed about the whole thing?”
She said under her breath, “A note for me-addressed to Miss Jenny Hill-who would that be from? I don’t like it at all.”
Chapter XXXIII
Dicky Pratt went home. He was in good time for his dinner, a most unusual circumstance. Not that there was much to eat. There were a couple of big old potatoes which Dicky had brought home about a month before. Mrs. Pratt wouldn’t have taken them from anyone else herself, but she had learned not to ask questions about what Dicky brought home. In her muddled way, what she didn’t know about left her conscience free-and what were two or three old potatoes anyhow? She cooked them in their jackets and served them on an uncleared table with the cold rabbit they had left over from yesterday. Dicky had no nerves about eating rabbit. “This here myxy,”[* Myxomatosis] as he called it, which had reduced the rabbit population to almost nothing was to him a “black shame.” Rabbits had been his main supply of meat since he had caught his first when he was no more than six years old, and then just when he got really good at it there had come the “myxy” plague and all rabbits ceased for a time. Enforced abstinence had whetted his appetite. Birds weren’t the same-there was no real meat on them, and his mother was no hand at cooking them neither. And then he had seen what were certainly traces of rabbit out back of the house, and a month later he had knocked one out down by Mr. Fulbrook’s in the late evening. There weren’t very many of them yet, and they were shy. He thought with reluctance that he’d have to make do with one a month.
He ate his cold rabbit and his hot potatoes with enjoyment but with a slightly distracted mind. When he had finished he went upstairs to his own room and shut the door. There was no key in the door, but when he had any private business he would pull the bed across it, which was quite satisfactory from his point of view. The room was bare enough, the bed a welter of untidy clothes roughly pulled together. Yet a millionaire might have envied the sweet sleep which Dicky enjoyed in it.
But today he was not bent on sleep. When he had secured the door he turned out his pockets on the bed. This, which was his grand account, took place as a rule only when the pockets were full to bursting. By putting it off as long as possible he not only saved time, but he enhanced the interest of the proceedings. If, for instance, some time had passed, it was possible that an added interest would have accrued to something that had merely been stuffed in as an afterthought. There was Mrs. Merridew’s earring for example. He had found it just outside her front gate, and it had never occurred to him that there was anything special about it-not for a week. And then his mum had come in, in one of her talking moods. She didn’t get them very often, and when she did he didn’t always listen. Grown-up people-the things they worried about! But this time he had taken notice of what she said, and just as well he had, for it seemed that Mrs. Merridew had lost an earring.
“What’s it like, Mum?” Dicky had said, only half interested, and out had come a whole lot of explanations-Mrs. Merridew had a pair of them, and they were worth a lot of money. Dicky pricked up his ears.
“What’s a lot of money, Mum?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. Some people have all the luck whichever way it goes.”
The affair of the earring stuck in his mind. He had put it in his pocket and forgotten about it, and if his mum hadn’t come home in one of her talking moods, that might have been the end of it. It was bent, and muddy, and twisted. He’d seen something like it in a shop window in Collingdon, and the price was ten-and-six. He hadn’t thought that one broken earring would be worth anything at all, but he’d kept it just on the chance, and the day after his mum had come back with her story he had gone over to Mrs. Merridew with his limpid smile and a “My mum says as how you lost an earring. Would this be it?” Mrs. Merridew was in a state, and when she was in a state she scolded all the time, but you didn’t have to take any notice of that. When she had gone on for as long as seemed proper, he pulled out the earring and showed it. And the end of it was that she had given him half a sovereign and sent him away very much exalted in his mind.
But this was a different matter. This required deep thought. The letter to Jenny was in the bottom of his pocket. He got it out and he looked at it. More than a week in the welter of his pocket had not improved its appearance, but it was plainly legible. He read it:
“Jenny, don’t say anything to anyone, but come out and meet me up on the heath as soon as it is quite dark.
Mac
Bring this with you.”
And in the top left-hand corner there was a date.
The date was that of last Saturday week, the same date that the note had been given to him. He was quite clear about that. He was quite clear about the whole thing. The note was dated last Saturday week. This was Monday-the second Monday since the murder. He’d got it quite clear in his mind. The question was, did he do anything about it, or didn’t he? There were things he could do, he knew that very well. The question was, would it pay him to do them? He wasn’t sure. And he’d got to be quite sure before he said anything to anyone. Not sure about what happened-he was perfectly sure about that, and no one would get him from it. Not if he decided that way. But he thought that he wouldn’t decide yet. He’d got to be certain of other things besides the facts. It was the facts that he had to speak about and swear to. A tingle went all through him as he thought about that. He’d been in a court, but not for a murder trial of course. He had only had to hold the Book and swear to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when there was a case about a motor accident in the village and as luck would have it he had been right there on the spot when it happened. He had enjoyed that case, but he wasn’t so sure about a murder. They might want to know too much. Suppose they were to ask him why he hadn’t spoken up at once-what was he going to say to that?
He shook his head. He didn’t know what to think. On the one hand there was the exhilarating mental picture of himself in the witness-box as the only person who knew the truth. And if he was to get this young fellow, this Jimmy Mottingley off, what would he get out of it? They said his father was a rich man. Dicky hadn’t seen him, but Bob Wilkins had. Bob was a softy. He wouldn’t take his word about anyone, not if it was ever so. If he had seen Mr. Mottingley himself he would know. He began to devise ways of seeing him. Only he’d have to be very careful not to give anything away until he had really made up his mind. He wasn’t going to do anything in a hurry. Once you’d got in with the law they’d see to it that you didn’t get out again. He’d have to think it out very carefully. Very, very carefully.