Death on a Branch Line(27)
‘Cycling is certainly beneficial in that way,’ he said, in reply to Mr Handley. ‘It is said to promote a general activity in the liver,’ he added, at which he gave a pitying look to Handley, as if to say, ‘But your liver has enough on as it is.’
He then stood up and quit the bar.
I asked for John Smith’s, and plunged in haphazard as Mrs Handley passed me the pint.
‘Almost everyone hereabouts has … well, gone.’
She folded her arms and eyed me for a while.
‘Moffat’s here,’ she said, ‘down on the East Green. He’s the baker.’
‘Why hasn’t he gone?’
‘He doesn’t like Scarborough, I suppose.’
‘Can’t credit that,’ said the wife, and she grinned, whereas Mrs Handley did not. Or not quite, anyhow.
‘Caroline and Augusta are here,’ said Mrs Handley.
‘Who are they?’
‘They’re the old ladies in the almshouses.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘the elderly parties. We saw them. Why haven’t they gone?’
‘Well, they’re too old. They have those houses at a peppercorn rent. They’re supposed to be infirm. They can hardly go off … enjoying themselves.’
And here she did give a quick smile. She was continuing to eye me carefully, however.
‘Who runs the Scarborough outing?’ asked the wife.
‘Christmas Club,’ said Mrs Handley. ‘You see, the Christmas Club here has nothing really to do with Christmas. You put in your money, and you have three days in Scarborough.’
‘Don’t you get a turkey at Christmas?’ I said.
‘You get a chicken,’ Mrs Handley said after a while. ‘But people like the Scarborough jaunt. It’s a village tradition.’
‘I suppose nobody from the Hall’s gone, have they?’ I asked Mrs Handley.
‘Most of the servants have, I believe.’
‘But not the man who cuts the grass?’
‘That’s Ross’s boy,’ she said, and she nodded to one of the two agriculturals, explaining that they were brothers from West Adenwold, to which they would be returning on foot very shortly, together with the grass-cutter, who was son to one of them. I decided to put them out of consideration, along with the two old maids in the almshouses.
‘I believe there’s a new squire in place of the murdered man,’ I said. ‘But that it’s not John Lambert.’
Mrs Handley folded her arms, and smiled at me as if to say, ‘Well now, you’re quite the dark horse, aren’t you?’
‘That’s Robert Chandler,’ she said, slowly, as though feeling her way. ‘He’s Major Lambert’s late wife’s brother. He’s the new tenant.’
‘Why doesn’t John Lambert have the place?’
‘Oh, he owns it. It’s come to him – only he doesn’t want to live there.’
‘Why not?’
‘Bad memories, I expect.’
‘Does he ever come in here?’ asked the wife.
‘No fear,’ said Mrs Handley.
‘What does he do for a living?’ I asked.
Mrs Handley shrugged.
‘I can’t say. I hardly know him. He’s in London a good deal of the time, and in York most of the rest. They say he keeps heaps of books in the gardener’s cottage, a little way off from the main house.’
‘Sir George Lambert,’ I said, ‘– what was he like?’
Did Mrs Handley colour up at the question?
‘He was a sportsman,’ she said presently, ‘always bucking about on his horse. He had the hunt, which came through on Wednesdays and Saturdays like a great whirlwind; he had his shoots, and he had his cricket games …’
‘This inn is his, isn’t it?’ I said, with the wife eyeing me.
‘’Course it is,’ said Mrs Handley, as if to say, ‘Don’t you know how a village works?’
‘What about his wife?’ asked Lydia, no doubt thinking this would be a subject more to Mrs Handley’s taste.
‘Dead long since,’ said Mrs Handley.
Well, I had read something of the account of her death in Hugh Lambert’s papers – the business of the fire seeming always too cold.
‘And so there was no-one to come between him and the boys,’ Mrs Handley was saying. ‘He was very hard on the two boys – on Hugh especially.’
Mrs Handley had fallen to gazing at Mr Hardy the station master, but I was sure there was nothing in this. He was just a convenient object to look at. Mrs Handley’s earlier sadness had returned, and I could see that it was not on account of the murdered father, but on account of the son who was about to swing for the crime.