Days and weeks passed over, but no clue was found to the murderer of Philip Jamblin. Every effort was made by the police, both London and provincial, but with no satisfactory results.
No one appeared to know where Giles Chudley had gone to after leaving Broxbridge, and nobody seemed to understand how it was that he had returned so suddenly on the night of the murder, and then be spirited away in such an extraordinary manner.
Many of the rustics were under the impression that Nell Fulford might have made a mistake as to the identity of the man behind the hedge in Dennett’s lane.
They did not say much, but shook their heads and muttered—
“No gell could make certain sure of any one behind such a thick hedge.”
“Maybe she’s mistaken,” suggested another.
After short detached observations like these the rustics in Brickett’s parlour would lapse again into silence.
Men who are employed from dawn to dusk in such a solitary occupation as ploughing or spreading manure, without perhaps hearing the sound of a human voice all the time, are not likely to be voluble or ready speakers.
They contract silent and ruminating habits, and taciturnity is one of their most marked characteristics. There is no analogy between the “men of the plough” and the British workmen in manufacturing towns.
A group of agricultural labourers will sometimes sit together smoking and drinking for a whole evening, and the nearest approach to a sociable chat will be occasional jerky observations, few and far between, fired off like conversational minute guns.