Really, there never was a more simple little maid.
“You must never again go out at night to such places,” remarked the Coroner paternally.
She cast down her eyes.
“Mamma was very angry,” she simpered. “I have been kept at home for days and days on account of it.”
She glanced at Martin. That explanation was intended for him. As a matter of fact, Mr. Beckett-Smythe called at The Elms on Thursday morning and told Mrs. Saumarez that her child needed more control. He had thrashed Frank soundly the previous evening for riding off to a rendezvous fixed with Angèle for nine o’clock. He whispered this information to Mr. Herbert, and the vicar’s eyes opened wide.
The other non-professional witnesses, children and adults, did not advance the inquiry materially. Many heard Kitty shrieking that her sister had murdered George Pickering, but Kitty herself had admitted saying so under a misapprehension.
P. C. Benson raised an important point. The pitchfork was first mentioned about eleven o’clock, when Mr. Pickering was able to talk coherently, after being laid on a bed and drinking some brandy. Neither of the two women had spoken of it. And there were footprints that did not bear out the movements described in the dead man’s deposition.
“But Mr. Pickering’s first lucid thought referred to this implement?” said Mr. Stockwell.
“Neäbody was holdin’ him, sir.”