“Not too bad, it ain’t,” the other admitted, looking about him with obvious pride. “The soil’s a bit ’eavy, but it don’t do so bad.”
“Good for your roses, surely? Those are fine ones beside the house.”
Gurney laid aside his hoe and led the way to the really magnificent bed of La Frances to which French had pointed. It was evident that these were the old man’s passion. French was not a gardener, but he knew enough to talk intelligently on the subject and his appreciation evidently went straight to the watchman’s heart. For some minutes they discussed horticulture, and then French wore gradually round to the object of his visit.
“Terrible business that about Mr. Berlyn and Mr. Pyke,” he essayed. “It must have set this town talking.”
“It didn’t ’alf, sir. Everyone was sorry for the poor gentlemen. They was well liked, they was.”
“And that was another terrible affair,” pursued French after the local tragedy had been adequately discussed, “that finding of the dead body in the crate. Extraordinary how the body could have been put in.”
“I didn’t ’ear naught about that,” Gurney answered, with a sudden increase of interest. “You don’t mean the crate you was speaking about that day you was up at the works?”
“No other. Keep it to yourself and I’ll tell you about it.” French became deeply impressive. “That crate that I was enquiring about was sent from here to Swansea. There it was called for by a man who took it on a lorry to a place called Burry Port and threw it into the sea. A fisherman chanced to hook it and it was brought ashore more than a month later. And when it was opened the dead body of a man was found inside.”
“Lord save us! I read in the noospaper about that there body being found, but it fair beats me that the crate came from ’ere, it does.”
French continued to enlarge on the tale. That Gurney’s surprise was genuine he felt certain. He could have sworn that the man had no inkling of the truth. But he marked, even more acutely than before, a hesitation or self-consciousness that indicated an uneasy mind. There was something; he felt sure of it. He glanced at the man with his shrewd, observant eyes and suddenly determined on directness.