“There’s somebody else I believe my friends mentioned as living down here,” said Luke. “They said she was a nice old pussy but talked a lot.”
Bridget laughed. “That applies to half the village!”
“What was the name now? I’ve got it. Pinkerton.”
Lord Whitfield said with a hoarse chuckle:
“Really, you’ve no luck! She’s dead too. Got run over the other day in London. Killed outright.”
“You seem to have a lot of deaths here,” said Luke lightly.
Lord Whitfield bridled immediately.
“Not at all. One of the healthiest places in England. Can’t count accidents. They may happen to anyone.”
But Bridget Conway said thoughtfully:
“As a matter of fact, Gordon, there have been a lot of deaths in the last year. They’re always having funerals.”
“Nonsense, my dear.”
Luke said:
“Was Dr. Humbleby’s death an accident too?”
Lord Whitfield shook his head.
“Oh, no,” he said. “Humbleby died of acute septicæmia. Just like a doctor. Scratched his finger with a rusty nail or something—paid no attention to it, and it turned septic. He was dead in three days.”
“Doctors are rather like that,” said Bridget. “And of course, they’re very liable to infection, I suppose, if they don’t take care. It was sad, though. His wife was brokenhearted.”
“No good rebelling against the will of providence,” said Lord Whitfield easily.
II
“But was it the will of providence?” Luke asked himself later as he changed into his dinner jacket. Septicæmia? Perhaps. A very sudden death, though.
And there echoed through his head Bridget Conway’s lightly spoken words:
“There have been a lot of deaths in the last year.”
Four
LUKE MAKES A BEGINNING
Luke had thought out his plan of campaign with some care, and prepared to put it into action without more ado when he came down to breakfast the following morning.
The gardening aunt was not in evidence, but Lord Whitfield was eating kidneys and drinking coffee, and Bridget Conway had finished her meal and was standing at the window, looking out.
After good mornings had been exchanged and Luke had sat down with a plentifully heaped plate of eggs and bacon, he began:
“I must get to work,” he said. “Difficult thing is to induce people to talk. You know what I mean—not people like you and—er—Bridget.” (He remembered just in time not to say Miss Conway.) “You’d tell me anything you knew—but the trouble is you wouldn’t know the things I want to know—that is the local superstitions. You’d hardly believe the amount of superstition that still lingers in out-of-the-way parts of the world. Why, there’s a village in Devonshire. The rector had to remove some old granite menhirs that stood by the church because the people persisted in marching round them in some old ritual every time there was a death. Extraordinary how old heathen rites persists.”
“Dare say you’re right,” said Lord Whitfield. “Education, that’s what people need. Did I tell you that I’d endowed a very fine library here? Used to be the old manor house—was going for a song—now it’s one of the finest libraries—”
Luke firmly quelled the tendency of the conversation to turn in the direction of Lord Whitfield’s doings.
“Splendid,” he said heartily. “Good work. You’ve evidently realized the background of old-world ignorance there is here. Of course, from my point of view, that’s just what I want. Old customs—old wives’ tales—hints of the old rituals such as—”
Here followed almost verbatim a page of a work that Luke had read up for the occasion.
“Deaths are the most hopeful line,” he ended. “Burial rites and customs always survive longer than any others. Besides, for some reason or other, village people always like talking about deaths.”
“They enjoy funerals,” agreed Bridget from the window.
“I thought I’d make that my starting-point,” went on Luke. “If I can get a list of recent demises in the parish, track down the relatives and get into conversation, I’ve no doubt I shall soon get a hint of what I’m after. Whom had I better get the data from—the parson?”
“Mr. Wake would probably be very interested,” said Bridget. “He’s quite an old dear and a bit of an antiquary. He could give you a lot of stuff, I expect.”
Luke had a momentary qualm during which he hoped that the clergyman might not be so efficient an antiquary as to expose his own pretensions.
Aloud he said heartily:
“Good. You’ve no idea, I suppose, of likely people who’ve died during the last year.”
Bridget murmured:
“Let me see. Carter, of course. He was the landlord of the Seven Stars, that nasty little pub down by the river.”
“A drunken ruffian,” said Lord Whitfield. “One of these socialistic, abusive brutes, a good riddance.”
“And Mrs. Rose, the laundress,” went on Bridget. “And little Tommy Pierce—he was a nasty little boy if you like. Oh, of course, and that girl Amy what’s-her-name.”
Her voice changed slightly as she uttered the last name.
“Amy?” said Luke.
“Amy Gibbs. She was housemaid here and then she went to Miss Waynflete. There was an inquest on her.”
“Why?”
“Fool of a girl mixed up some bottles in the dark,” said Lord Whitfield.
“She took what she thought was cough mixture and it was hat paint,” explained Bridget.
Luke raised his eyebrows.
“Somewhat of a tragedy.”
Bridget said:
“There was some idea of her having done it on purpose. Some row with a young man.”
She spoke slowly—almost reluctantly.
There was a pause. Luke felt instinctively the presence of some unspoken feeling weighing down the atmosphere.
He thought:
> “Amy Gibbs? Yes, that was one of the names old Miss Pinkerton mentioned.”
She had also mentioned a small boy—Tommy someone—of whom she had evidently held a low opinion (this, it seemed, was shared by Bridget!) And yes—he was almost sure—the name Carter had been spoken too.
Rising, he said lightly:
“Talking like this makes me feel rather ghoulish—as though I dabbled only in graveyards. Marriage customs are interesting too—but rather more difficult to introduce into conversation unconcernedly.”
“I should imagine that was likely,” said Bridget with a faint twitch of the lips.
“Ill-wishing or overlooking, there’s another interesting subject,” went on Luke with a would-be show of enthusiasm. “You often get that in these old-world places. Know of any gossip of that kind here?”
Lord Whitfield slowly shook his head. Bridget Conway said:
“We shouldn’t be likely to hear of things like that—”
Luke took it up almost before she finished speaking.
“No doubt about it, I’ve got to move in lower social spheres to get what I want. I’ll be off to the vicarage first and see what I can get there. After that perhaps a visit to the—Seven Stars, did you say? And what about the small boy of unpleasant habits? Did he leave any sorrowing relatives?”
“Mrs. Pierce keeps a tobacco and paper shop in High Street.”
“That,” said Luke, “is nothing less than providential. Well, I’ll be on my way.”
With a swift graceful movement Bridget moved from the window.
“I think,” she said, “I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
He said it as heartily as possible, but he wondered if she had noticed that, just for a moment, he had been taken aback.
It would have been easier for him to handle an elderly antiquarian clergyman without an alert discerning intelligence by his side.
“Oh well,” he thought to himself. “It’s up to me to do my stuff convincingly.”
Bridget said:
“Will you just wait, Luke, while I change my shoes?”