“What was the name of this man?”
“Stephen Driver, he called hisself. Didn’t say much; only that he’d been trampin’ about a goodish time, lookin’ for work. Said he’d been in the Army, and in and out of work ever since.”
“Did he give you any references?”
“Why, yes, sir, he did, come to think on it. He give me the name of a garridge in London where he’d been, but he said it had gone bankrupt and shut up. But he said if I was to write to the boss, he’d put in a word for him.”
“Have you got the name and address he gave you?”
“Yes, sir. Leastways, I think the missus put it away in the teapot.”
“Did you take up the reference?”
“No, sir. I did think of it, but being no great hand at writing I says to myself I’d wait till the Sunday, when I’d have more time, like. Well, you see, before that he was off, so I didn’t think no more about it. He didn’t leave nothing behind him, bar an old toothbrush. We ’ad to lend him a shirt when he came.”
“You had better see if you can find that address.”
“That’s right, sir. Liz!” (in a stentorian bellow). “You cut off home and see if you can lay your ’and on that bit o’ paper what Driver give me.”
Voice from the back of the room: “I got it here, Ezra,” followed by a general upheaval, as the blacksmith’s stout wife forced her way to the front.
“Thanks, Liz,” said the coroner. “Mr. Tasker, 103 Little James St. London, W.C. Here, Superintendent, you’d better take charge of that. Now, Ezra, is there anything more you can tell us about this man Driver?”
Mr. Wilderspin explored his stubble with a thick forefinger.
“I dunno as there is, sir.”
“Ezra! Ezra! don’t yew remember all them funny questions he asked?”
“There now,” said the blacksmith, “the missus is quite right. That was a funny thing about them questions, that was. He said he ’adn’t never been in this here village before, but he knowed a friend as had and the friend had told him to ask after Mr. Thomas. ‘Mr. Thomas!’ I says. ‘There ain’t no Mr. Thomas in this here village, nor never has been to my knowledge.’ ‘That’s queer,’ he says, ‘but maybe he’s got another name as well. Far as I can make out,’ he says, ‘this Thomas ain’t quite right in his ’ead. My friend said as he was potty, like.’ ‘Why,’ I says, ‘you can’t mean Potty Peake? Because Orris is his Chrissen name.’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘Thomas was the name. Batty Thomas, that’s right. And another name my friend gi’n me,’ he says, ‘was a fellow called Paul — a tailor or some’in o’ that, living next door to him, like.’ ‘Why,’ I says to him, ‘your friend’s been havin’ a game with you. Them ain’t men’s names, them’s the names of bells,’ I says, ‘Bells?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘church bells, that’s what they is. Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, they call ’em.’ And then he went on and asked a sight o’ questions about they bells. ‘Well,’ I says, ‘if you want to know about Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, you better ask Rector,’ I says. ‘He knows all about they old bells.’ I dunno if he ever went to Rector, but he come back one day — that were the Friday — and says he been in the church and see a bell carved on old Batty Thomas’ tomb, like, and what did the writing on it mean. And I says to ask Rector, and he says: ‘Did all bells have writing on ’em,’ and I says, ‘Mostly’; and arter that he didn’t say no more about it.”
Nobody being able to make very much sense out of Mr. Wilderspin’s revelations, the Rector was called, who said that he remembered having seen the man called Stephen Driver on one occasion when he was distributing the parish magazine at the smithy, but that Driver had said nothing then, or at any other time, about bells. The Rector then added his own evidence about finding the body and sending for the police and was dismissed in favour of the sexton.
Mr. Gotobed was very voluble, repeating, with increased circumlocutory detail and reference to what he had said to Dick and Dick to him, the account he had originally given to the police. He then explained that Lady Thorpe’s grave had been dug on the 3rd of January and filled in on the 4th, immediately after the funeral.
“Where do you keep your tools. Harry?”
“In the coke-house, sir.”
“Where’s that?”
“Well, sir, it’s down underneath the church — where Rector says the old cryp used to be. Makes a sight o’ work, that it du, a-carryin’ coke up and down they stairs and through the chancel and sweepin’ up arter it. You can’t ’elp it a-dribbling out o’ the scuttle, do as you like.”
“Is the door kept locked?”
“Oh, yes, sir, always kept locked. It’s the little door under the organ, sir. You can’t get to it without you have the key and the key of the west door as well. That is to say, either the key of the west door or one of the church keys, sir, if you take my meaning. I has the west door key, being ’andiest for me where I live, but either of the others would do as well.”
“Where do you keep these keys?”
“Hanging up in my kitchen, sir.”
“Has anybody else got a key to the coke-house door?”
“Yes, sir; Rector has all the keys.”
“Nobody else?”
“Not as I knows on, sir. Mr. Godfrey hasn’t them all, only the key of the cryp.”
“I see. When these keys are in your kitchen, I suppose any of your family has access to them?”
Well, sir, in a manner of speakin,’ yes, but I ’opes as now you ain’t tryin’ to put anything on me and my missus, nor yet Dick, let alone the children. I been sexton in this — eighty year follerin’ on Hezekiah, and none of us ain’t never yet been suspected of ’ittin’ strangers over the ’ead and buryin’ of them. Come to think of it, this chap Driver came round to my place one morning on a message, and ’ow do I know what he did? Not but what, if he’d a-took the keys I’d be bound to miss them; still, none the more for that…”
“Come, come. Harry! Don’t talk nonsense. You don’t suppose this unfortunate man dug his own grave and buried himself? Don’t waste time.”
(Laughter, and cries of “That’s a good ’un, Harry!”)
“Silence, if you please. Nobody’s accusing you of anything. Have you in fact ever missed the keys at any time?”
“No, sir” (sulkily).
“Or ever noticed that your tools had been disturbed?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you clean them after digging Lady Thorpe’s grave?”
“’Course I cleaned ’em. I always leaves my tools clean.”
“When did you use them next after that?”
This puzzled Mr. Gotobed for a moment. The voice of Dick supplied helpfully: “Massey’s baby.”
(“Don’t prompt the witness, please!”)
“That’s right,” agreed Mr. Gotobed. “Massey’s baby it were, as you can see by the Register. And that ’ud be about a week later — Ah! just about.”
“You found the tools clean and in their right place when you dug the grave for Mrs. Massey’s baby?”