Page 56 of Murder at Hambledon Hall
He greeted us amiably. “I haven’t seen you here before, but that is of no consequence. I consider it an honor to marry a young couple of my parish, even those who are not regular churchgoers.”
“We’re not getting married,” I said. “We’re private detectives. This is Mr. Armitage and my name is Cleopatra Fox. We’re trying to determine the final movements of a man by the name of Esmond Shepherd. Did he come in here and ask you some questions?” At the vicar’s befuddled look, I added, “Middle-aged, quite handsome. He would have come in about ten days ago.”
“I’m afraid we get a lot of people looking through registers. Their faces blend together.”
“Mr. Shepherd wasn’t looking at parish records. He would have been asking after the former vicar, Reverend Pritchard.”
The vicar’s friendly demeanor vanished. “What is the meaning of this?”
“We simply want to know if you recall a man asking about Reverend Pritchard.”
He shook a finger at me. “I will not answer you, young lady. Take yourself off these premises immediately!” He pointed at the door. “Go!”
“I thought everyone was welcome here,” Harry said, a thread of steel in his tone.
“Only those with good in their hearts, not troublemakers and muckrakers.”
“We’re trying to solve a man’s murder. It may be linked to the reason why Reverend Pritchard left this parish.”
The vicar’s face turned thunderous. “Get out of my church!”
“Harry,” I said sharply, before he could respond. “We won’t learn anything here.”
I led the way outside and down the steps to the pavement. Harry’s long strides meant he soon streaked ahead. He was seething. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before he’d worked the anger out of his system and his strides returned to normal. I was going to run out of breath if he let it consume him much longer.
“Sorry, Cleo, but I can’t abide hypocrites. He talks of people with good in their hearts and yet he protects Reverend Pritchard, a man who did something the bishop called a ‘problem’ in his letter.”
I glanced over my shoulder to the church, expecting to see the vicar still spouting his fire and brimstone rhetoric at us from the steps. He was not. “At least we can be sure Pritchard did something terrible, otherwise his replacement wouldn’t be so insistent on keeping it private.”
Harry followed my gaze, frowning. “Yet he didn’t seem to recall Esmond Shepherd. If Shepherd had asked the same question as us, the vicar would certainly remember, given his reaction to our inquiry.”
“Unless he lied, and he did remember him.”
There wasno answer to our knock on Mr. Crippen’s door, so Harry and I decided to begin our inquiries at the bookshop below their flat. Still bruised from our encounter at St. Michael’s, I prepared myself for a nasty tirade telling us to mind our own business. I was pleasantly surprised when the bookshop owner was keen to talk about Miss Crippen when I mentioned her.
“I’m worried about her,” he said, leaning over the counter, his voice low. “She used to come in every day after she moved back in with her brother, but about six weeks ago, she stopped. I haven’t seen her since.”
“Perhaps she moved out,” I said.
He shook his head emphatically, causing his spectacles to slide down his long, straight nose. “Her brother comes in and buys books from time to time. They’re the sort of books a young woman would enjoy, so I’m quite sure she’s still up there. Sometimes I heartwosets of footsteps, a heavier one and lighter one.” He looked at the ceiling. “I think he’s keeping her prisoner in the flat.”
“Why would he do that?”
He leaned forward even further. “I can’t be certain, but usually when a female is kept prisoner by her family, it’s because she fell in love with a wrong ‘un, and the family are stopping her from running away with him.”
Esmond Shepherd certainly fit the description of a wrong ‘un.
“Has anyone come here looking for her?” Harry asked.
“Just you two, as far as I am aware. Someone could have come when the shop is closed, and I wouldn’t know.”
“In your opinion, is Crippen a violent man?”
“No. He seems quite ordinary. But you never can tell, can you?”
His answer eased my mind somewhat, but a kernel of concern remained. “May we wait in here for Mr. Crippen’s return?”
“Of course. There’s an excellent display of poetry books in the front window. You can pretend to browse while you watch the street.”
