The Tale of Castle Cottage (21 page)

She seemed surprised by his question and answered it hesitantly. “No, sir. I live in t’ cottage up t’ hill. I come in days.”

“What time of the morning do you usually come in, then?”

Another hesitation. “Six, most days. Mr. Biddle likes an early breakfast, all but Sundays. I doan’t come Sundays. Sundays he does for hisse’f.”

“Today?”

She was backing toward the door. Clearly, she did not want to talk with him, and he thought he knew why. “’Twas elev’n today.”

“Eleven, eh? Why so late, Mrs. Framley?”

“Mr. Biddle said I could, sir.” Hurriedly, she added, “I’ll fetch him.” She turned and fled.

The office was a medium-sized room, very plain but neatly outfitted with shelves; a table that served as a desk, its surface littered with papers; and two wooden chairs, both stacked with papers. A large and handsome pike, stuffed and mounted, hung on one wall, and under it a half-dozen photographs of Biddle at various lakes in the district, displaying his fine fishing catches, all large fish. Beside the photos there were a half-dozen blue and red ribbons from various angling competitions, and as many plaques. The captain glanced at them, remembering that Biddle had quite a local reputation as a fisherman.

On the opposite wall, there was a framed map of the district. The map had several pins stuck into it, representing, the captain surmised, Mr. Biddle’s current construction projects. Hands in his pockets, he was studying it when Mr. Biddle himself came into the room.

“Well, now, Cap’n Woodcock,” Mr. Biddle said energetically. He was a sizeable man with burly shoulders, a florid, pockmarked face, and a stubbly brown beard and a moustache. There was a fresh cut across his cheek. “How’s that stable workin’ out for ye? Got ’ny complaints?” He rubbed his hands together. “Always like to hear from a customer, one way or t’ other. Praise or complaints, but hopin’ for praise, o’ course.”

“Good afternoon, Biddle,” the captain said, not answering the questions. Without being asked, he removed the papers from one of the chairs and sat down, crossing his legs.

After a brief hesitation, Biddle went behind the table, removed the papers from that chair, and sat down as well. “Well, then, Captain,” he said with a careless air. “Somethin’ on your mind?”

The captain, who had spent a great deal of time in Military Intelligence when he was in Egypt, always enjoyed fishing for information. Over the years, it had got to be quite the game with him. He let Biddle’s question rest for a moment, like a trout fly briefly suspended on the surface of a calm pool, then ignored it and cast one of his own.

“I say, Biddle, that’s a nasty cut you’ve got on your cheek. How did it happen?”

Biddle raised his hand to his cheek as if to hide the cut, then dropped it. “Ah, that,” he said dismissively. “Nothin’ important. Been hurt worse many a time. Got kicked in t’ face once by a horse. Bad, that was. Verra bad. This ain’t nothin’.”

The captain gave his question a casual twitch. “A fight, was it?”

Biddle eyed him nervously, as if he were trying to decide what and how much the captain knew. “Bit of a dust-up,” he allowed. “Nothin’ serious.”

“The constable called it a fight,” the captain remarked. He took his pipe out of his jacket pocket. “Apparently the other fellow caught your fist in his eye.”

“Aye.” Biddle grinned crookedly. “‘Twas only a small disagreement. As I said, nothin’ important.”

“I understand that it happened after you sacked the man,” the captain went on. He pulled out a tobacco sack and filled his pipe, moving with slow deliberation. “Lewis Adcock, was it?”

“Aye,” Biddle admitted after a moment. He fumbled in his pocket for a crumpled cigarette pack, shook one out, dropped it on the floor, picked it up.

“You remarked to the constable that you thought he was untrustworthy.”

“Well, and so wot if I did?” Biddle was truculent. He struck a match to his cigarette and puffed on it. “I hired ‘im. I paid ’im. I sacked ’im. I’ve got a right to discharge a fellow who can’t be trusted, doan’t I?”

The captain let the question float for a moment while he tamped the tobacco in his pipe. Then he rejected it for one of his own. “‘Can’t be trusted,’ he repeated thoughtfully, taking matches out of his pocket. “He stole something, did he?”

Biddle nodded shortly. His eyes were wary now.

The captain struck a match to his pipe, and pulled on it. “At Castle Cottage? That’s where he was working, I understand.”

“Aye,” Biddle said slowly, shifting in his chair. “Aye. Castle Cottage. Miss Potter keeps a close eye on things, she does. Can’t have a thief on the job, now, can I?”

“What did he steal?”

Biddle leaned forward and tapped his cigarette into the ashtray. “I say, Cap’n Woodcock, wot’s this all about?”

“What did Lewis Adcock steal?” the captain asked, now more sharply.

There was a moment’s silence as their eyes met. At last Biddle’s glance slid away. “It was a tool. Aye, a tool. A . . . carpenter’s level, y‘see. Didna cost much, but a man can’t allow his employees steal him blind, now can he? Let Adcock get away with it, next thing you know, they’ll all be doin’ it, ev‘ry man of’em.” He shook his head sternly. “Nobody can be trusted these days, seems like.”

The captain considered this for a moment. He would lay a quid that Biddle was lying. Adcock might have stolen something, but it wasn’t a carpenter’s level. Lewis Adcock had practiced the carpenter’s trade for years and could be presumed to have a full set of his own tools, like those in the shed behind his house. Perhaps he had been involved with the lumber and materials theft that Heelis had identified and Biddle had found out about it.

But if that was the case, why hadn’t Biddle gone to the constable with the accusation? And why hadn’t he acknowledged the theft in answer to his questions, just now? More likely, it was the other way around. Adcock had stumbled onto Biddle’s thefts and had threatened to tell the authorities what he knew. Biddle couldn’t incriminate himself by revealing that, so he concocted the lie about the tool.

The captain turned his pipe in his fingers, examining it. Without looking at Biddle, he said, as if to himself, “ ‘Nobody can be trusted these days.’ ” He let out his breath. “Well, I can certainly agree with that. Seems that theft is epidemic hereabouts, especially on construction sites.”

Biddle stiffened.

The captain continued to muse aloud. “Reports of building materials being stolen. Lumber disappearing. Slates and supplies, too.” He looked straight at Biddle. “Do you know anything about that?”

“No,” Biddle said edgily. “Haven’t heard it m‘self.” He frowned, now alert. “Building materials, you say? Sounds serious. Sounds like somethin’ I should know about.”

“I should say so.” Then, abruptly, before Biddle could take the interrogation in that direction, the captain cast another question. “Where were you this morning at six thirty?” That was the hour at which the man had been seen in the Adcocks’ back garden.

There was a silence. “Six thirty?” Avoding the captain’s glance, Biddle put out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Why, I was right here at home, I was, eatin’ my breakfast. Eggs, bacon, porridge. Why?”

“Who can testify to that? Your housekeeper, I assume.”

Biddle’s nostrils flared. “Wot’s all this in aid of, Cap’n? Wot’s all these questions for?”

“Can your housekeeper verify that you were here in this house at six thirty this morning, Biddle?” the captain repeated steadily.

“Nay, she canna!” Biddle replied in a testy tone. “Her old dad’s sick wi‘t’ influenza, so I give her a half-day holiday to walk over an’ see him.”

“That was very generous of you,” the captain said dryly. And very convenient, he thought. “What time did you leave this place this morning, then—after you had your lonely breakfast?”

Biddle slapped the desk with his hand. “I woan’t say another word ’til you tell me wot’s it about, Cap’n!”

The captain pinned him with his gaze. “Lewis Adcock is dead.”

“Dead?” Biddle’s mouth fell open. There was a silence. Then: “Oh, aye? Dead, y’say? How? All I give him was a poke in the eye,” he added defensively. “Not hard enough to hurt a flea.”

“Wasn’t the poke in the eye that killed him.” The captain blew out a stream of pipe smoke, letting the silence ripen. “It was the rope around his neck.”

“T’ rope?” Biddle asked, as if dumbfounded. He raised his hand to his cheek as if remembering Adcock’s blow, then dropped it again. He swallowed. His eyes had grown very large. “You mean to say that Lewis Adcock . . . hung hisself ?”

“That’s what it looks like,” the captain acknowledged. “Well, then, Biddle. What time did you leave this place this morning? Where did you go?”

Biddle swallowed again. “I left near about eight. I went to . . . to Castle Cottage. I was there most of t’ mornin’. Until noon. Noon I went to t’ pub to have my dinner.”

“And the men on the job will verify that?”

“Aye.” Biddle nodded awkwardly, but his hands were clenched on the desk. “Aye, o‘course they will. I’ll just tell ’em to get in touch with you an’—”

“Good,” the captain said, and made as if to rise from his chair. “But you needn’t bother to tell them. I will go straightaway and ask each of them, this afternoon. If they can vouch that you were on the job all morning, you’re home and dry.”

“I thought . . . I thought you said he hung hisself,” Biddle said, and his voice cracked.

“I said that’s what it
looks
like,” the captain replied with careful emphasis. “Dr. Butters is conducting an autopsy.”

Biddle stared at him. “You mean, there’s some question?”

“There’s always a question until after the inquest,” the captain replied casually. “In the meantime, it’s my job—and the constable’s—to make sure that all the facts are ascertained. And it is most certainly a fact that you accused Adcock of thieving and that the two of you fought the night before his death. Who’s to say that you didn’t finish the job you started?”

“But I—” Biddle sat stone still.

Captain Woodcock stood, then bent over and knocked his pipe out into the ashtray. In a businesslike tone, he said, “The day isn’t getting any younger, Biddle, and both of us have things to do. I am going to drive to Castle Cottage and ask your men to corroborate your alibi.”

Biddle held up his hand, shaking his head. “No need, Cap’n,” he said in a low, sullen voice. “T’ truth is that I didn’t go to t’ job this mornin’.”

“Oh?” The captain sat back down again. Perhaps they were getting someplace at last. “Well, then. Where did you go?”

“I went . . . fishin’.”

“Fishing.” The captain blinked, not quite sure he had heard properly. “Did you say
fishing
?”

“Aye.” Biddle nodded emphatically. “It’s t’ truth,” he added in a gruff voice. “God’s truth. I swear it.”

Now, the mounted fish and the ribbons and plaques on the wall attested to Biddle’s reputation as an expert angler. And it is true that occasionally one of the residents of the Land Between the Lakes will decide that what he or she needs most of all is a holiday and make up a packet of sandwiches and cheese and an apple and disappear for a glorious, carefree day of fell-walking or bird-watching or some other loitering pursuit. But for the most part, the villagers and farmers and other folk are a hardworking lot who keep their noses to the grindstone, so to say, all week long, and save their recreation for the week’s end. To hear Biddle confess that he had gone fishing on a Thursday morning when he should have been at work was surprising, to say the least.

“I see,” the captain said, recovering himself. “Well, then. Fishing where?”

There was a silence, as if Biddle wasn’t sure he wanted to answer. “Moss Eccles Tarn,” he finally said in a resentful tone. “And no, nobody saw me. I was by m‘self, all alone. And if I wasn’t,” he added enigmatically, “I wouldn’t tell ye who was with me. Ye’ll just have to take me at my word. I was fishin’, and that’s the first an’ last o’ it.”

Well, now. I must confess that we have arrived at a gert mezzlement, as the villagers like to say. Was Biddle alone, or wasn’t he—and why the mystery? And a second mezzlement, as well, for the captain (himself an experienced angler) is quite sure that, had Biddle sincerely wanted to catch fish, he would have done much better in a rowboat on Esthwaite Water, where he would have had a good chance at large char and even larger pike. Moss Eccles is a small, out-of-the-way lake to the north of the village that is known to be stocked with brown trout, and some of the villagers managed to pull their dinners out of the water occasionally. But in the captain’s opinion, it is a rather tame place for a sportsman of Mr. Biddle’s reputation to go fishing, and I must concur. In fact, I can’t think of a single good reason for him to do so.

Captain Woodcock sighed and gave it one more try. “Well, Biddle, I don’t suppose there’s any use asking, but I will. It is common knowledge that the job at Castle Cottage is lagging well behind schedule, and that Miss Potter finds the delay provoking and troublesome. I have heard that the workmen themselves do not seem to feel a proper urgency, and now I learn that the building contractor himself goes fishing on a Thursday morning, rather than encourage them to get on with the job. P’rhaps you will be so good as to tell me why this is the case.”

But now Biddle had his back up. “No, sir, I woan’t say.” Biddle’s mouth took on a firm, hard set. “What I did or didn’t do this mornin’ has got nothin’ wotsomever to do with poor Adcock’s hangin’ hisself. For which I am as sorry as the next’un, but that’s not here nor there, neither one.” He stood up, his face by now very red and his voice loud and decidedly passionate.

Well. I don’t know about you, but I am surprised, and so is Captain Woodcock, who is not accustomed to having his questions answered in such an unambiguously negative tone. But wait! Mr. Biddle has not yet said all he’s got to say.

“So no, sir, Captain, sir, I am
not
goin’ to tell you why I went fishin’ on a fine, bright Thursday mornin’ when I could’ve been on the job, settin’ an example for t’ men. ’Tis good enough for ye to know that I
did
go fishin’, and that I went fishin’ at Moss Eccles Tarn, and that I brought home three brown trout, and that Mrs. Framley is goin’ to fry ’em up for my supper. If ye please, ye can go round by the kitchen and ask to see ‘em. And now, sir, I have work to do an’ you do, too. So I’ll wish you good day.”