Mr. Hammond jutted out his jaw and crossed his beefy arms over his chest. Edwina wondered if she had provoked him unduly. She forgave herself for any lapse in judgment, as it had been a most trying morning.
“I wanted to know if the rumors were true,” he said.
“Which rumors would those be?” Beryl asked.
Edwina felt her stomach roll over. She most assuredly did not wish to discuss the sleeping arrangements of her jobbing gardener with a man like Clifford Hammond. There was only so much a body could take in one day.
“About Hector Lomax. I was down in the village this morning, and scrawny old Prudence Rathbone came scurrying out of her shop just as I went by. She couldn’t wait to tell me Hector had been found dead in the churchyard,” Mr. Hammond said. “But with the way Prudence gossips, I wasn’t sure I should believe a word she said.”
Edwina felt Beryl’s eyes boring into the side of her face. Word was spreading around the village, so there was no use in trying to quell the flow of information. Besides, it was not their place to do so. And Mr. Hammond might have some information about Hector’s murder. After all, he was his closest neighbor and might easily have seen some of what went on at the neighboring property.
“I’m sorry to say that the rumors are true. Constable Gibbs informed Simpkins only a couple of hours ago that his brother-in-law was found dead this morning,” Edwina said.
She kept her eyes trained on Clifford Hammond’s face as she confirmed the rumor. Edwina prided herself on her ability to ferret out lies. A lifetime spent posing uncomfortable questions to household help, as well as countless hours volunteering with the church youth group and the village girl guides, had honed her nose for the truth to a very fine degree. At least most of the time. Clifford Hammond seemed to have no intention of keeping his feelings to himself. A wide smile spread across his weathered face, and he rubbed his broad, work-worn hands together with glee.
“That’s the best news I’ve had in ages,” Mr. Hammond said. “I hardly dared to hope it was true, but I’m sure that I can believe it if a woman of as sterling a reputation as you is saying so, Miss Davenport.” Edwina thought that if the laws of gravity were not so firmly fixed, Mr. Hammond would have levitated off the ground in his delight.
“That’s hardly the reaction one would expect from a man whose neighbor has been murdered,” Beryl said.
“Murdered! The news just keeps getting better and better,” Clifford Hammond said.
“Really, Mr. Hammond, that is quite enough,” Edwina said.
“I’ll tell you it’s not enough,” Mr. Hammond said, jabbing an index finger in the general direction of the cottage Simpkins shared with Hector. “I’ve every right to be overjoyed at this news. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of that sort of a fate than Hector Lomax.”
“I agree that Mr. Lomax did have a deservedly disreputable reputation,” Edwina said. “Still, I haven’t heard anyone say they wished him dead. He must have done something especially egregious for you to feel so pleased about his untimely demise.”
Mr. Hammond nodded and swept his arm out in front of him, gesturing towards his rolling fields. For the first time since they arrived, Edwina took note of the Hammond property. In truth, the plants, trees, and shrubs looked no healthier than the ones on the Lomax farm. As much as Clifford Hammond was not the sort of person with whom Edwina would prefer to socialize, she had heard only praise for his abilities as a farmer. The condition of his fields surprised her.
“Hector Lomax is the reason that my farm looks like it does. Because of him, I expect the crop this year is entirely ruined,” Mr. Hammond said. “Next year’s, too, most likely.”
“Your plants do look a bit peaked. Why would you blame Hector for what ails them?” Beryl asked.
“You do know there’s a drought on, don’t you?” he asked.
Both Beryl and Edwina nodded. The entire country had been suffering from an unusually dry spell. News reports filled the papers and the wireless daily with dire warnings about water conservation and potential crop failures. Edwina had taken to prioritizing water for the trees and shrubs over the bedding plants that year.
As much as she wished she could lay any present disappointment in her garden at Simpkins’s feet, she knew in her heart of hearts that much of it was beyond his ability to fix. The gentle spring rains and summer showers England was known for had failed to appear, and no one quite knew what to make of it.
“Of course we do. I’m a keen gardener myself, and my own plants have been suffering,” Edwina said. “But I don’t find myself blaming my neighbors for the condition of my herbaceous borders.”
“Then count yourself lucky. It’s one thing to blame Mother Nature, as she’s unlikely to laugh in your face when ill using you. The same cannot be said for Hector,” he said.
“What exactly did he do?” Beryl asked.
“Come with me and I’ll show you,” he said.
Mr. Hammond stomped towards them, pushed past them, and walked across the nearest field on the Lomax property. With trepidation, they followed him. At least trepidation on Edwina’s part. Beryl, characteristically, strode along as though nothing whatsoever worried her.
They crossed the field, and Mr. Hammond climbed over a stile that marked a gap in the hedgerow. Beryl scrambled up after him and reached out a hand to pull Edwina up behind her. They made their way down the other side, to where Mr. Hammond stood pointing at a pile of stones.
Edwina came alongside him and looked down. The stones were large and neatly chinked together to form a dam. Someone had blocked up a naturally occurring stream and had diverted the flow of water towards a series of holding tanks.
“This stream is supposed to flow across the field we just traversed and on into my own property. Most years it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever,” Mr. Hammond said. “But in times of drought, I have always been able to rely on this stream as a backup source of water. This year Hector got it into his head to keep it all for himself.”
Clifford Hammond made a rumbling noise down in his throat, then spat out a gob of something unmentionable right into the watering tank. Edwina shuddered all the way to her toes.
“Is that legal?” Beryl asked.
“I have no sway over what a man does on his own property. I tried to appeal to his better nature and asked that he let the water flow, but he said he wouldn’t do so unless I made it worth his while.”
“Are you saying he tried to extort money from you?” Edwina said.
Mr. Hammond nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. He told me that there was no more free water, and unless I paid up, he would be keeping all of it for himself or selling it to another buyer,” Mr. Hammond said.
“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be saying this, but I can understand why you would be glad to hear he will no longer be your neighbor,” Edwina said.
“I’d say you had a very good reason to want him out of the way,” Beryl said. “Would you mind telling us where you went last night when you left the pub?” Beryl turned on one of her winning smiles, but Edwina was surprised to see it did not have its usual effect on Mr. Hammond.
“I would mind very much. Are you accusing me of something?” Mr. Hammond crossed his arms over his chest again, and Edwina suddenly became more aware of how isolated the back field at the Lomax farm just happened to be.
“I was simply asking you a question,” Beryl said.
“I can’t see that it is your place to do so,” he said. “If there are any questions that need to be asked, I expect the constable to be the one to ask them. I’ll take my leave of you.”
With that, he turned his back on the women and strode back over the field, across the stile, and onto his own property. The two investigators followed at a sedate pace. Partly to give him time to cool off and partly to speak without him overhearing.
“I should think that Clifford Hammond had at least as much of a reason to kill Hector as Simpkins did,” Edwina said. “What was all that about t
he pub last night?”
“You remember how I mentioned to Constable Gibbs that several people argued with Hector at the pub last night?” Beryl asked.
“I do,” Edwina answered.
“Clifford Hammond was one of them,” Beryl said. “I happened to notice that he left not long after Hector. I wondered if he could account for his whereabouts any better than Simpkins could.”
“I’m sure she won’t appreciate us telling her how to do her job, but I think that’s exactly the sort of thing we ought to report to Constable Gibbs, don’t you?” Edwina said.
“I think it would be in Simpkins’s best interest if we did. But, I daresay, we can wait until after lunch,” Beryl said, linking her arm through Edwina’s. “Shall we head back to the Beeches?”
Chapter 7
Beryl kept quiet on the way home. After all, Edwina really had had a rough morning. She had been absolutely shattered by the knowledge that Simpkins had been sleeping in her potting shed. Hector’s murder and then the ugly confrontation with Mr. Hammond had only compounded the earlier shock. Still, Edwina’s look of surprise as Beryl pulled to a stop in the driveway of the Beeches seemed unreasonable considering how careful she had been to slow down before taking the turn to enter the property.
“I’m afraid there may be more bad news,” Edwina announced, inclining her head towards the front step.
Jack Prentice, the local paperboy, stood pacing back and forth on the wide stone step to the front door of the house. He held his flat cap clutched in his small hands, and even from a distance, Beryl could see that the boy quivered with agitation.
While children were not creatures for whom Beryl often had a soft spot, she had been surprised at how easily she had taken to Jack when she met him shortly after arriving in Walmsley Parva. She admired his grit and his work ethic. She had also found him to be remarkably useful on occasion. It was not a quality she attributed in general to children, and the novelty of it had been especially endearing. She slid from behind the wheel and hurried towards him, with Edwina close on her heels.
“Jack, I can’t imagine that you are here to deliver the papers. What seems to be the trouble?” Beryl asked.
To her horror, he looked as though he might burst into tears. She cast a glance over her shoulder at Edwina, who had much more of a knack for dealing with children, despite the fact that her friend was uncomfortable with emotional outbursts of any kind. Fortunately, Edwina rose to the occasion.
“Come along in, Jack. I’ll fix you a cup of tea and you can tell us all about it,” Edwina said as she pushed open the door and purposefully moved down the hallway. Jack followed her, and Beryl gratefully brought up the rear.
After all these months Beryl still found herself astonished by the enervating quality of the suggestion of a cup of tea. She could have understood had cocktails been on offer. Not that that would have been appropriate for a boy his age. Still, she couldn’t see how hooking children on something as odious as tea made any sense either. Nevertheless, she had made it a point of honor to respect local traditions no matter how bizarre and so kept her thoughts to herself.
Edwina busied herself filling the kettle and setting it on the hob. She produced a tin of biscuits, a food that Beryl would have called cookies, from somewhere secreted in the back of a cupboard and pried off the lid. She placed them on the table and indicated that Jack should take a seat and help himself. Beryl understood the depth of his distress when he shook his head and pushed the tin away.
“I haven’t much money, but I need to hire you,” he said. Beryl heard the trembling in his voice and felt her heart squeeze. If she had been a different sort of woman, she would have attempted to embrace him. As it was, she simply took the chair next to him.
“Hire us for what?” Beryl asked.
A ragged choking noise escaped Jack’s throat. “Constable Gibbs has arrested my father,” he said.
“Not to make light of the difficulty,” Edwina said, “but I rather think this is not the first time that has happened, is it?” She lifted three cups down out of the cupboard and placed them on the table.
“My father has spent more than a few nights in the constable’s custody for public drunkenness, it’s true,” Jack said. “But the constable has arrested him for Hector Lomax’s murder.” With that, Jack dug his ink-smudged fingers into the pocket of his worn coat. He extracted a small and pathetic handful of coins and deposited them on the scrubbed wooden table.
“Why has the constable arrested him?” Beryl asked.
“Because the vicar found him passed out in the churchyard, not far from where Hector’s body was found.”
“Being in the proximity of a body might cast suspicion but is not a good enough reason to make an arrest. Constable Gibbs is enthusiastic in the dispensing of her duties, but she’s not a foolish woman by any means,” Edwina said. “There must be something more to it than that.”
Edwina spooned loose tea leaves into a Brown Betty teapot and poured steaming water over them. She carried the pot to the table and sat down.
“She said that judging by his injuries, it looked like Hector was killed by being clobbered over the back of the head with a shovel. She said there was a shovel covered in blood lying right next to my father when she found him,” Jack said.
“Did she say what she thought the motive was?” Beryl asked. She had a sneaking suspicion that the constable had heard about the confrontation Hector and Frank Prentice had had in the pub.
“My father and Hector got into it again at the pub yesterday, but they’ve been rowing for a couple of weeks,” Jack said.
“Is this about the sexton job?” Edwina asked.
Beryl never failed to be astonished by the small goings-on in Walmsley Parva Edwina seemed to be privy to. It was as though she simply gleaned them from the air.
“My father was still angry about being dismissed from that job. He really needed the work,” Jack said. His gaze landed on the small pile of coins he had placed upon the table. “It was really unfair.”
“Can you tell me what happened? I don’t know anything about this,” Beryl said.
“I believe that the vicar acquiesced to Hector’s insistence that Frank be relieved of his duties as the church sexton after a dispute about Hector’s brother’s grave. Is that right, Jack?” Edwina said.
“Hector said my father didn’t do a good job digging the grave for his brother. He complained to the vicar and got him sacked,” Jack said. “My father always thought there was more to Hector’s complaints than what he told the vicar.”
“Didn’t your father work from time to time at the Lomax farm too?” Edwina asked.
“He did when old Mr. Lomax was alive. He helped with the planting and the weeding and the harvesting. Old Mr. Lomax said he was a good worker and that he always had a place there,” Jack said.
“Did Hector relieve him of his duties there too?” Beryl asked.
“He said the farm wasn’t doing well enough to justify having any help this year,” Jack said. “My father said Hector had run the farm into the ground and that it was a shame that a man like him had a property and the likes of us didn’t.”
Edwina lifted the lid on the teapot and peered inside. Then she uncharacteristically slid the sugar bowl and small pitcher of milk over to Jack to add as he saw fit. Beryl knew that there was a social order to the serving of tea. Someone had mentioned to her that members of the lower classes were accustomed to adding milk to their tea and also to placing the milk in the cup before the tea was poured in.
It was said that the practice stemmed from both a desire to improve the flavor of the low-quality tea they were able to afford and the need to protect their even lower-quality crockery from cracking when the hot tea was added to the cups. Sure enough, Jack splashed some milk into his cup before holding it out to Edwina.
“I should think a growing boy like you would like his tea with plenty of sugar,” Edwina said. “Please do fix it just as you like. Sugar is very good for the sort
of shock you’ve had.”
How like Edwina to think of things like that, Beryl thought.
“Thanks, miss,” Jack said, adding five lumps of sugar to his cup. It set Beryl’s teeth on edge just to imagine guzzling such a sweet slurry. Still, Jack took a sip, and Beryl was pleased to see a bit of color returned to his face.
“So what is it exactly you would like for us to do?” Beryl asked.
“I want you to find out who really killed Hector Lomax, because I’m sure my father didn’t do it,” Jack said.
Beryl and Edwina exchanged a glance over the top of the boy’s head.
“Does your mother know you’re here?” Edwina asked.
“No, she doesn’t. When my father’s away, and sometimes even when he’s not, she relies on me as the man of the house. I’m sure it’s fine that I came to hire you without consulting with her,” Jack said. He squared his small shoulders and lifted his chin defiantly.
Edwina nodded slowly, as if she was not surprised. “But you don’t intend to keep that information from her, do you?” Edwina asked. “We have your permission to speak with her, do we not?”
“Does that mean you will take the case?” Jack asked.
“It means we will make enquiries on your behalf. But, Jack, it’s not within our power to change facts. If your father is guilty, our investigation will show that. You understand, don’t you?” Edwina asked.
“My father didn’t do it, and I know that the two of you will be able to prove that. I bet he’ll be home by the end of the day,” Jack said.
“We really appreciate your faith in us, but I don’t think you should set such high expectations,” Beryl said. “After all, Constable Gibbs can be quite difficult to convince once she sets her mind to something.”
Jack scraped back his chair and stood. He drained his cup, then set it carefully back on the table.
“I have no doubt you’ll get to the bottom of it,” Jack said. “Now, how much do I owe you to get started?”
Murder Cuts the Mustard Page 5