“What you hanging about here for, anyway?” Janey asked the policeman with a friendly nudge.
“Doing my duty and keeping watch. Like I said, a man was killed here the other night.” For a second, the policeman looked hopeful. “You weren’t around here night before last, were you? About eight in the evening?”
“Might’ve been,” Lenny lied, impressing Janey all over again. “What should I have seen? Never saw a fight, I’m sure of that.”
“What about someone running away? Maybe even two people?”
“Two people?” Janey pounced, then, afraid of seeming too eager, she added, “That ain’t fair, two against one.”
“Murder isn’t fair,” the policeman said austerely.
Janey nodded sagely.
“How do you know two people croaked him, then?” Lenny asked.
“I never said they did. Just two different people were seen running away. Sailors, both of them, but one was English and one was dark.”
“Together?” Lenny asked.
“Not necessarily,” the policeman said grandly. “And you can move on if you’ve got no information.”
Janey and Lenny moved on, remembering to weave as they went.
“We need to find out who the English sailor was,” Janey said. “Because he was probably the one who committed the murder.”
“I don’t see how you work that out,” said Lenny, who had never met Mr. Grey’s double. “Could have been either of them. Or neither.”
“Well, we know who the dark man was,” Janey admitted. She sighed. “I should go back to the office. You coming?”
To her disappointment, Lenny shook his head. “I got things to look up about Herbert Chase. I’ll call in later, though, if I find anything.”
“Right you are,” Janey said cheerfully.
It was too soon to hope for any more from Lenny Knox. In her heart, she knew he would never look at her that way, and she didn’t blame him.
*
After a pleasantlyfilling meal at the inn, which made up for their lack of breakfast, Solomon and Constance borrowed the innkeeper’s gig and followed his instructions to Dravenhoe Farm to seek out the Gimlet family.
The Gimlets were, apparently, long-standing tenants of the Mortimers of the manor house. Dravenhoe was not large, although it seemed to be in good repair. In the distance, a couple of men were working in a field, part of which was already plowed. Solomon drove the gig past a few curious cows, and some sheep, before arriving at the farmhouse.
The door opened almost at once and a young woman came out, drying her hands on a cloth, her hair covered by plain kerchief. She looked tired and somehow frail.
She paused, blinking at her visitors in surprise. “Oh. Are you lost?”
“I don’t think so,” Constance answered. “Is this Dravenhoe, and are you Mrs. Gimlet?”
“Yes, but…”
“We’re friends of Dr. Chadwick,” Solomon said, with a touch of exaggeration. “My name is Grey. This is Mrs. Silver. We’re hoping you can help us with something.”
“Are you looking for my husband? He’s over in the field.”
“Perhaps later,” Constance said, “but we’d like to talk to you first, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” Mrs. Gimlet said, and Constance rather thought that she didn’t. She might have been going through the motions of life, but neither her heart nor her mind shone in her weary, numb eyes.
At her invitation, they tied the horse to the fence around the henhouse, followed her into her clean kitchen, and sat at her well-scrubbed table.
