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 His godfather, I repeated weakly.
 I haven t done a terribly good job of it, have I? He seemed amused at his
failure, not troubled. I could think of no suitable response, so I remained
silent.  Still, he seems to have turned out all right. Been a good husband to
you, has he? If I d had trouble before finding an answer, now my mouth was
hanging open.  He loves you, of course; that helps. Foolishly, perhaps, but
men love like that, in flames compared to the warm steady love of women. I
hope 
I never found out what his hopes were, praise be to God. The ruckus outside
must have been approaching for some time without us hearing Baring-Gould
because his hearing was so poor and me because of the astonishment pounding in
my ears. The first intimation of a problem came with a huge crash in the
kitchen and voices raised enough for even my host to stop what he was about to
say and turn to the door.
 I say, Mrs  he started to call. With that the door burst open and what
looked like half the population of Lew Down spilled into the room, all of them
gabbling at once.
Baring-Gould rose majestically to his feet and glared at them all.  Stop this
at once, he thundered. Instant silence resulted.  Thomas, what is the meaning
of this?
The man automatically tugged off his cap, polite even in the extremity of his
emotional upheaval.  A body, Rector, the man stammered.
 There s a dead man in the lake.
sixteen
The care for the tenants, the obligation of setting an example of justice,
integrity, kindliness, religious observance, has been bred in him, and
enforced by parental warning through three centuries at the least, on his
infant mind. What is born in the bone comes out in the flesh.
 Early Reminiscences
« ^ »
It was fortunate that I was already dressed and wearing my shoes, because a
pair of bedroom slippers would surely have been torn to shreds, or left
behind, long before I reached the quarry lake. I was out of my chair before
Baring-Gould could articulate a response to the man s statement, out of the
front door without pausing to catch up a coat, across the drive, through the
meadow, and on the edge of the watery chasm before anyone else had even
emerged from the house on my trail.
I was not, however, before any others at the lake. Gathering a great breath, I
cupped my hands and shouted at the full strength of my lungs,  Stop where you
are! Don t touch him!
Even over the constant splash of the waterfall my unladylike bellow bounced
off the stone walls with sufficient force to startle the would-be rescuers.
One of them slipped and fell backwards from the rowboat into the lake, which
distracted the others long enough for me to race around the lake s rim and
plunge down the closer of the one-time quarry s two access ramps, now a steep
hillside heavily overgrown with fern and bramble, and slippery with fallen
leaves. I caught my breath at the water s edge and waited for the boat to
reach the shore.
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Two other men had been picking their way around the precipitous south wall of
the lake, and now stood eyeing me disapprovingly.
 Please, I called to them.  You must leave him there until the police have
seen him. I know it doesn t seem respectful of the dead. But it s necessary,
believe me. And try to walk back in the same place you went over.
I suppose that had it been summer, I might not have been so quick to think of
the possibility of what the police blotters call foul play. On a long summer s
night I could well imagine the lure this cool, slightly ominous spot might be
for a group of young men on their way home from the pub. But in October, and
with the awareness of wrongdoing on the moor, it was the first thing that came
to mind, and I did not want heavy boots destroying any evidence we might
unearth.
The five men gathered around me, one of them dripping wet, none of them
showing much inclination to leave. I suggested mildly that the wet one might
be better off dry, and thus rid myself of him and an escort, but the three
remaining men, one of whom I had seen working around Lew House, planted
themselves like trees and looked suspicious.
 Do you know who it is? I asked them. They did not, only that it was a man,
and he was not from around here, both of which facts I had already determined
by a brief glance from the quarry rim. (That, and the sure knowledge that it
was not Holmes. Not that for a moment I actually thought it was: My mad dash
from the house was set off by professional concerns, not wifely imaginings.
Truly.) The trousers on those reassuringly short legs had never belonged to a
Devonshire working man.  Has anyone gone for the police and a doctor?
 Don t need doctor for that n, missus.
 A doctor needs to declare him dead. It s a legal requirement. Did you send
for them?
 Mr Arundell went to fetch n. Baring-Gould s curate lived in the house
overlooking the lake.
 Good. Now, we can t use the boat again in case there are fingerprints on it.
Can we find another boat? I d like to take a look at the body.
They were shocked.  You baint wantin to be doing that, missus.
 You re quite right, I don t particularly want to, but I think I ought to.
 Thicky be Miz Holmes, the familiar-looking man said to the other two in
explanation, and that indeed seemed to explain and excuse all manner of
misbehaviour, because they suddenly became cooperative, even eager.
 You feel free to use thicky boat, missus. Baint nobuddy else as used n in
weeks. He were dry as an ole bone.
 Well, in that case, good. Now, if you, Mr& ?
We paused for introductions: Andrew Budd was the young gardener, Albert Budd
his older cousin, and Davey Pearce the third and eldest, an uncle of some
sort. We shook hands gravely, and resumed.
 If Mr Andrew Budd would come and handle the boat for me, and you, Mr Budd the
elder, would take up a position on the top of this ramp and stop anyone from
coming down, perhaps, Mr Pearce, you could make your way around to the top of
the other ramp and stop anyone from interfering on that side. And if you see
any footprints, any hoof or tyre marks, any scuffs, give them wide berth. Yes?
Good.
It was bitter cold out on the slate-coloured water of the submerged quarry. A
layer of mist clung low to the surface of the lake, causing my inadequate
clothes to go clammy against my skin, while over our heads the half-bare trees
rose up in watchful disapproval, the flares of intense yellow from their
remaining leaves the only colours in this tight closed-in little universe.
Budd rowed the short distance over to where the body floated, facedown in the
water. A hat, sodden but not yet completely waterlogged, had lodged against a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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