‘I don’t know.’
Miss Silver coughed.
‘It was not very wise. But when one has kept a secret for a long time it tends to become a habit.’
Miss Brown said, ‘Yes.’
‘Will you tell me when you were married, and where? There must be proof, or you cannot be protected from giving evidence.’
‘Five years ago – in London – the Marylebone Register Office – June 17th. We didn’t give it out because he was waiting for a job. We couldn’t really afford to get married, but we were very much in love. It wasn’t anyone’s business but our own. He had his sister to support. I went on with my work, and he went on with his. We met when we could. Sometimes there were weekends.’ She spoke in short, detached sentences, and in an absent voice as if she were looking back over those five years and remembering bit by bit. What no one could have known was just how much relief it brought her to remember and to speak.
She pushed back her heavy hair and let her hands fall again in her lap.
‘We quarrelled of course. We weren’t young enough to live that sort of life. When you are not young you want a home, companionship – everything that is normal. We couldn’t have it. Somebody else got the job that he was hoping for. He couldn’t support me unless he stopped supporting his sister. He couldn’t do that. The quarrels got worse. He has a very bad temper, but I could have managed if we had had a normal life. We couldn’t have it. It all came to an end about three years ago. He didn’t even write. Then I heard he had got this government job. I thought if we could meet again. But I couldn’t leave my post – I couldn’t afford to do that. Then the old lady I was with died and left me some money – enough to have made all the difference if it had come before. I went on thinking about coming here. A friend of mine helped me to meet Miss Fell, and I came here just over a year ago. At first I thought it was going to be all right. Then we quarrelled again. He began to make scenes about Mr Harsch.’ She pushed back her hair again and looked wretchedly at Miss Silver. ‘There wasn’t any reason for it – there wasn’t indeed. We talked about music, and sometimes about Evan – we both loved him. But he is so difficult. I think he was jealous of both of us. That evening he knew Mr Harsch had gone to the church to play the organ. He came down to see if I was there, and he took my key just as that boy says he did.
And I don’t know – I don’t know what happened after that.’
‘Then we must find out,’ said Miss Silver in a brisk, and cheerful voice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WHO IS EZRA Pincott?’ enquired Miss Silver. She had the mild expectant look of a teacher addressing her class. For the moment this consisted of Miss Fell, Major Albany, and Miss Janice Meade. Miss Brown had been persuaded to go to bed. Her absence was felt to be a relief.
All three of them said, ‘Ezra Pincott?’
‘Dear me,’ said Miss Silver, ‘there seems to be a great many Pincotts in Bourne.’
There was nothing in her manner to show that she had already acquired a considerable amount of information about the Pincotts in general and about Ezra in particular.
Miss Sophy stopped pouring out tea, but kept the teapot poised.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Old Jeremiah Pincott had eighteen children. Susannah Bush is one of them, and they have mostly had large families themselves. Not Susannah – she has only two without counting the twins who died. Jeremiah was a well-to-do farmer, but Ezra is the son of his brother Hezekiah who ran away to sea.’
‘He’s the local bad hat,’ said Garth.
Miss Silver accepted a cup of tea, produced her own bottle of saccharin, and dropped in one tablet.
‘I see-’ she said. And then, ‘I should like very much to speak to him.’
Garth laughed.
‘Then you’d better let me catch him for you tomorrow before the pubs are open.’
Miss Silver coughed.
‘He drinks?’
‘As much as he can get. What do you want him for?’
He wondered if he was going to be snubbed, but it appeared that the teacher would answer his question.
‘I hear he was boasting last night in the Black Bull that he knew something that would put money in his pocket. No names were mentioned, but I received the impression that the reference was to Mr Harsch and the manner of his death. You do not think it would be possible for me to see him before tomorrow?’
‘I don’t think so. You see, he’s by way of working for Giles who farms the land on the other side of the Church Cut. The minute he gets off he goes down to the Bull and stays there till it shuts. The only time I could get hold of him for you would be during his dinner hour – that is, if you want him sober.’
Miss Silver looked grave.
‘I should prefer it. I should also prefer to see him today, but it cannot be helped.’ She coughed and continued, ‘I should also be glad to have some information about Gladys Brewer.’
Miss Sophy looked mildly shocked. She helped herself to a rock bun and said in a soft, distressed voice, ‘Not at all a satisfactory girl, I am afraid. She does daily work up at Giles’, and her mother has very little control over her.’
Janice leaned forward with an appealing look.
‘I don’t really think she’s as bad as they make out.’ She turned to Miss Silver. ‘She’s one of those giggling, bouncing girls who get themselves talked about. She likes boys, and she’ll do anything for a lark, but she’s not bad – really.’
‘I would like very much to see her,’ said Miss Silver. ‘I wonder if it could be managed. When is she likely to be free – about six o’clock?’
‘Yes, I should think so.’
‘She lives with her mother?… Then perhaps we might take a walk in that direction and look in.’
‘Oh, yes, but-’ Janice hesitated ‘-I wouldn’t like to get her into trouble.’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘There is a country proverb which says, “If you don’t trouble trouble – trouble won’t trouble you.” ’
Garth Albany gave her a direct look.
‘What do you mean by that?’
She turned the smile on him.
‘Gladys won’t get into trouble – from the law – if she hasn’t broken the law. I do not for a moment imagine that she has done so, but if she was in the churchyard on Tuesday night she may have seen or heard something. I should like to know whether she did.’
Janice said, still in that hesitating voice, ‘I could take you to see Mrs Brewer. I know them quite well.’
At a little before six Miss Silver and Janice turned off the main street into a narrow lane where half a dozen old cottages mouldered. They were of the kind which are called picturesque, with old tiled roofs, minute windows, and a general air of dilapidation. Mrs Brewer’s cottage was the smallest and the most delapidated. It had sunflowers and hollyhocks in the garden, and a few ragged gooseberry and currant bushes. The doorstep was freshly whitened.
When Mrs Brewer opened the door Miss Silver thought she looked rather like the cottage, battered, and as if time had been too much for her. She had lost most of her front teeth, the late Mr Brewer having knocked them out when ‘under the influence’. She had told Janice all about it whilst obliging at Prior’s End. She seemed to feel a kind of gloomy pride in her husband’s prowess – ‘Life and soul of a party he was, and no harm in him as long as he wasn’t crossed. And Gladys is as like him as two peas, but a bit tiring, if you know what I mean, miss.’
She invited them into her spotless kitchen. The door opened directly upon it, and disclosed very old uneven flagstones on the floor, and very old sagging beams not very far overhead. In the corner a narrow ladder-like stair led up to the bedroom. With the exception of a lean-to at the back to hold fuel and store vegetables, there were only these two rooms. Bathrooms and indoor sanitation were unguessed at when these cottages were built, and the petrifying dictum was that what was good enough in the past was good enough for the present had never been disputed.