There was one point, where aniseed had been lavishly spilled. At this point, there were footprints in the soft soil. He was used to making and taking plaster casts; he took good plaster casts of these. Two women and a tall man, all wearing expensive boots or shoes, had loitered for a moment there. It was not very helpful. After all, many people had been at Tibb’s Cross all the forenoon; fifty or sixty such might have been in the field.
“Those two birds who were at my pond were the women,” he muttered. “I’ll now get the prints of their feet in my flowerbed and near that bench.”
He did so, and found that undoubtedly the two women from the car had been the two who had loitered in the field. He took his casts to his study and telephoned to the police, to say that the Hunt at Tibb’s Cross had broken open and unhinged his gate, and run through his preserve. He wished them to enquire into this, because he meant to prosecute. All these things took him until nearly two o’clock; he lunched then, still raging, composing, as he ate and raged, a letter to the Hunt Secretary.
After lunch he was busy with other matters. After tea, he thought: “I’ll get along, now, to Spirr, to find what Timothy knows of all this.” But Timothy hadn’t returned to the warden’s lodge in the covert. “Nothing for it, but to do a pub-crawl,” he thought. He judged that shopping would have taken perhaps an hour and a half, shopping and a haircut, two hours; but this absence meant a binge. “Rotten young ass,” he growled.
He drove first to the
“Did it for a bottle of gin, probably,” he growled, but had to admit that he had done it with a certain go.
However, Timothy hadn’t been there lately, not since week afore last, the man thought; but Mr. Mansell might find him along at
He sang it charmingly, as was his way when a little drunk; the audience, being much moved by a touching poem, did not applaud, but murmured.
Frampton went into the bar, which smelt and looked like other country bars. A game of darts was on one wall. Behind the bar was a big, stuffed, moth-eaten badger in a glass case, and a framed almanac of twenty-three years before, showing a lifeboat approaching a wreck. A tall, tired-looking man, in his shirt-sleeves, was leaning behind the bar. Three men were sitting on the settles. Timothy and another man, a dapper little figure, very black and trim, were at the bar. The dapper man was saying:
“A sad but frequent case. Have another gin, Timothy.”
Frampton had come in meaning to have Timothy out of it and to give him a roasting, but he suddenly recognized the landlord.
“Why,” he said, “aren’t you Mr. Hordiestraw, who used to keep the inn at Tallant Bay, in Devon? What brings you so far from home?”
“Why, Mr. Mansell,” the man said, “we’m all simple fules, when it comes to city men. I reckon we’m all greedy, when the bacon is dangled. I was made a proper fule of; that’s why I’m here. They say rogues don’t prosper. Maybe they don’t for long, but they prosper proper for a time; iss vai.”
Frampton asked him a question or two, while the eyes of all the people present turned upon him. The little dapper man had moved discreetly to the door. Frampton heard one of the men present say “the chap at
Hordiestraw said: “I well remember what you liked, Mr. Mansell.” He went to a door leading inwards from the bar and called: “Lily, Lily, bring up a bottle of Yellow Tommy. Here’s Mr. Mansell come in.”