Page 21 of Marriage and Murder
Arthur and Jim looked at each other, then both looked at Stokes and shook their heads.
“We were here together,” Jim said. “We were pruning those trees down there, and they’re old and the branches big enough that it’s easier to do with four hands. We’d’ve noticed if one of us wasn’t there.”
Arthur nodded. “We’d’ve had to stop, and that would’ve slowed us down. A lot.”
“Thank you.” Stokes turned his attention to Jim. “Given you were here, we can strike you out as a potential suspect as well. However, we understand that you worked for Miss Huntingdon for two days a week and that you weren’t entirely happy in her employ.”
Jim frowned, then offered, “It wasn’t the work—I was happy doing that. Her garden is different from here or from fields or orchards. It was always interesting, and I liked that. But she…well, she wasn’t what you would call nice. She was always finding fault, not with me and my work so much as with everyone around. She was forever complaining and carping about this or that as if she was better than all those hereabouts. I learned to switch off me ears, most of the time. Had to if I wanted to work in her garden, and I did. I had the time, and she paid well and promptly. She never tried to chouse me out of my coin, I will say that for her.”
“I see.” Stokes was furiously scribbling. “So it was her personality that was the issue—she grated on your nerves, so to speak.”
Jim nodded. “Aye, that’s it. But that’s not the sort of thing one kills over, is it?”
Stokes managed not to sigh. “No, and as I said, neither you nor Mr. Penrose are suspects. But we also wanted to ask you both if you’d noticed anyone lurking around Lavender Cottage in the weeks before Miss Huntingdon’s murder.”
Barnaby knew that Stokes and Penelope were as eager to hear what Jim would say as he was.
Jim didn’t disappoint. “There was this one bloke—a gentleman, I’d say, given how he was dressed and the way he walked. I’ve seen him over the past weeks, mayhap for over a month now, walking back and forth along the right-of-way at the back of Lavender Cottage. I never saw him close enough to say who he was, and I never actually saw him going into the cottage nor even into the rear garden—that’s screened by the woodland. But he was always headed that way or coming from that direction, so I don’t know where else he might have been going if it wasn’t to see Miss Viola.”
Arthur was nodding. “I was with Jim once when he saw the fellow. I caught just a glimpse, but like Jim said, he looked to be a gentleman heading for Lavender Cottage.” Arthur paused, then added, “If Viola had been a different sort of lady, I would’ve called around sometime and just asked about him—just checking in a neighborly way. But if I’d’ve asked her, she would likely have taken on about us spying on her or some such, so I didn’t say anything.” Arthur grimaced. “Now she’s been killed in such a way, no matter how obstreperous she was, I kind of wish I had.”
Stokes inclined his head. “Thank you both. That’s all very clear.”
Penelope finally spoke. “Do you remember what days you saw this man? Can you recall whether those were the days Mrs. Gilroy had off?”
“Well,” Jim said, “it was only four times that I saw him, and it was mostly afternoons, but I’m sure once was a Friday morning, and Mrs. Gilroy’s half days are on Thursday and Sunday afternoons.”
Arthur shifted and said, “But Pat Gilroy goes to the market on Friday mornings, so she’s not at the cottage then, either.”
“Oh, aye.” Jim nodded. “I’d forgotten about that.” He looked at Penelope. “I guess you could say that I only saw him when Mrs. G wasn’t at the cottage.”
“Thank you.” Stokes had written the information down. “Now, is there anything you know about Miss Huntingdon’s movements on the days before her death that was any different to what she normally might do?”
Jim frowned. “I’m not sure if this is what you want to know, but I drove her into Salisbury that Wednesday.”
“The day before she was killed?” Barnaby clarified.
Jim nodded. “I drove her into town about once a month, sometimes more often. Wednesday is one of my days off, and I have a gig, and she used to ask me to drive her in whenever she needed to go there. She didn’t have any other way to get to town unless she went with Mrs. Foswell in the Foswells’ carriage, and she sometimes did that, too. But last Tuesday, she asked me to drive her in on the Wednesday. As I’ve said, that wasn’t unusual, and she was in her usual mood on the way there. If anything, I’d’ve said she was eager and looking forward to doing something in town. I dropped her off where I always do, at the nearest corner of the market. I’ve a mate who works at the Hare and Hounds, and I always go there for a pint and a bite and a chinwag while I wait for Miss Viola to do whatever she was there to do.”
“Last Wednesday”—Stokes was scribbling furiously—“was she there for long?”
“Well, she said she’d be just an hour, and I was to pick her up at the same spot I left her—by the market cross. I got there at the right time, and she’s usually waiting ready to go, but not that time. I waited, and eventually she rushed up, more than half an hour late. That was odd. And she was out of breath, too—I could see she’d been hurrying—and that wasn’t normal for her, either. Very cool and correct, she was. Never flustered, yet she was that time.”
“Did she say anything about what had happened?” Penelope asked.
“Or about what she’d done or where she’d gone in Salisbury?” Barnaby added.
But Jim shook his head. “She never did speak to me much. That was just her way. She didn’t talk to staff unless she wanted to, and in general, I suppose, she didn’t believe we was worth sharing things with.” He paused, clearly thinking back, then added, “Mind you, this time—last Wednesday—the way she sat there, all bottled up, I thought that at any moment, she was going to burst into tears or start raving at something. And the farther we drove, the more she grew…I think it was angry? Angry and upset with it. But by the time we rolled into the village, she’d swallowed it all back down, I’d say. Just pushed whatever she was feeling down inside and locked it away, but it still seemed like, inside, she was a powder keg ready to blow, yet she was determined to behave normally on the outside.”
Jim suddenly looked faintly embarrassed. “That’s just me talking, mind. She didn’t say anything about her feelings to me. And that was the last I saw of her. She paid me as usual, then she turned and hurried up the path—and she didn’t normally hurry, especially not like that, with her shoulders all hunched up and looking down but not seeming to see.”
Barnaby was quietly amazed by just how observant and insightful Jim Swinson had been. It just went to show one shouldn’t assume those who were quiet didn’t pay attention.
Stokes had been jotting madly. Finally, he looked up and shut his notebook. “Thank you. Your information is likely to be very helpful. Aside from all else, we now know that Miss Huntingdon went to Salisbury on the day before she died, and there, she learned something that overset her.”
“Aye.” Jim nodded. “She did that.”
Stokes thanked both men again, and Barnaby and Penelope echoed his words, then they left Arthur and Jim to finish gathering their tools and, with Constable Price, headed out of the orchard.
