‘Do you always catch this bus?’ asked Larry, wondering if by any conceivable chance Miss Trimble could be the wicked letter-writer.
‘If I can,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘The next one is not till after lunch you know.’
Larry turned and winked at Fatty. He didn’t think that Miss Trimble was the guilty person, but at any rate she must be put down as a suspect. But her next words made him change his mind completely.
‘It was such a nuisance,’ said Miss Trimble. ‘I lost the bus last week, and wasted half my day!’
Well! That put Miss Trimble right out of the question, because certainly the letter-writer had posted the letter to poor Gladys the Monday before - and if Miss Trimble had missed the bus, she couldn’t have been in Sheepsale at the right time for posting!
Larry decided that he couldn’t get any more out of Miss Trimble that would be any use and looked out of the window. Bets seemed to be getting on well with Mrs. Jolly now. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he could see that she was busy chattering.
Bets was getting on like a house on fire! Mrs. Jolly greeted her warmly and asked after her mother and father, and how the garden was, and had they still got that kitchen cat that was such a good hunter. And Bets answered all her questions, keeping an interested eye on Miss Trimble’s glasses, which had already fallen off twice, and on the sour-faced man’s twitching nose.
It was not until she saw how earnestly Fatty was trying to make the sour-faced man talk to him that she suddenly realized that she too ought to find out a few things from Mrs. Jolly. Whether, for instance, she always caught this bus!
‘Are you going to the market, Mrs. Jolly?’ she asked.
‘Yes, that I am!’ said Mrs. Jolly. ‘I always buy my butter and eggs from my sister there. You should go to her stall too, Miss Bets, and tell her you know me. She’ll give you over-weight in butter then and maybe a brown egg for yourself!’