“Well, while we’re waitin’, we might come into your nice little room,” Reggie suggested. “There’s one or two things you can tell me.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure, anything as I can, I’ll be glad. Will you come through, please?” She lifted the flap of the counter for him, she opened the curtained glass door of the room behind. It was still in exact order, but she had to apologise for it. “I’m sorry we’re all in a mess. I’m behindhand with my cleaning, having this dreadful trouble with the children and being so worried I can’t get on. I don’t half know what I’m doing, and then poor Mrs. Wiven being lost - -” She stopped, breathless. “What is it about Mrs. Wiven, sir? What have you heard?”
“Not good news,” Reggie said. “Nobody will see Mrs. Wiven alive again.”
The full face grew pale beneath its sweat, the eyes stood out. “She’s dead! Oh, the poor soul! But how do you know? How was it?”
“She’s been found dead on the common.” Mrs. Brightman stared at him: her mouth came open and shook; she flung her apron over her head and bent and was convulsed with hysterical sobbing. “Fond of her, were you?” Reggie sympathised. A muffled voice informed him that she was a dear old lady - and so good to everybody.
“Was she? Yes. But I wanted to ask you about the children. What time did they go out yesterday?” Still sobbing under her apron, Mrs. Brightman seemed not to hear. “Yesterday morning,” Reggie insisted. “You must remember. What time was it when Eddie and Bessie went out?”
After a moment the apron was pulled down from a swollen, tearful face. “What time?” she repeated looking at her lap and wiping her eyes. “I don’t know exactly, sir. Just after breakfast. Might be somewheres about nine o’clock.”
“Yes, it might be,” Reggie murmured. “They were pulled out of the pond about ten.”
“I suppose so,” she whimpered. “What’s it got to do with Mrs. Wiven?”
“You don’t see any connection?”
She stared at him. “How could there be?”
The shop - door bell rang, and she started up to answer it. She found Bell in the shop. “Oh, have you found Mr. Brightman?” she cried.
“No, not yet. Where’s Mr. Fortune?”
Reggie called to him, “Come on. Bell,” and she brought him into the back room and stood looking from one to the other. “So Mr. Brightman wasn’t in his yard?”
“No, sir. Nobody there. At least, they couldn’t make anybody hear.”
“Well, well,” Reggie murmured.
“But I told you he might have gone off on a job. He often has to go to price some stuff or make an offer or something.”
“You did say so. Yes,” Reggie murmured. “However. I was asking about the children. Before they went out yesterday Bessie got into trouble with Mrs. Wiven, didn’t she?” The woman looked down and plucked at her apron.
“You didn’t tell us that last night,” Reggie said.
“I didn’t want to. I didn’t see as it mattered. And I didn’t want to say anything against Bessie. She’s my baby.” Her eyes were streaming. “Don’t you see?”
“Bessie told me,” said Reggie.
“Bessie confessed! Oh, it’s all too dreadful. The baby! I don’t know why this was to come on us. I brought ‘em up to be good, I have. And she was such a darling baby. But it’s God’s will.”
“Yes. What did happen?” said Reggie.
“Mrs. Wiven was always hard on the children. She never had a child herself, poor thing. Bessie got into her room, and Mrs. Wiven caught her and said she was prying and stealing like Eddie. I don’t know what Bessie was doing there. Children will do such, whatever you do. And there was Bessie crying and Eddie all wild. He does get so out of himself. I packed ‘em off, and I told Mrs. Wiven it wasn’t nothing to be so cross about, and she got quite nice again. She was always a dear with me and Brightman. A good woman at heart, sir, she was.”
“And when did Mrs. Wiven go out?” said Reggie. “It must have been soon after. She liked her days on the common in summer, she did.”
“Oh, yes. That’s clear.” Reggie stood up and looked out at the yard, where some washing was hung out to dry. “What was Mrs. Wiven wearing yesterday?”
“Let me see - -” Mrs. Brightman was surprised by the turn in the conversation. “I don’t rightly remember - she had on her dark coat and skirt. She always liked to be nicely dressed when she went out.” Under the frown of this mental effort swollen eyes blinked at him. “But you said she’d been found. You know what she had on.”
“Yes. When she was on the common. Before she got there - what was she wearing?” Mrs. Brightman’s mouth opened and shut. “I mean, when she caught Bessie in her room. What was she wearing then?”
“The same - she wouldn’t have her coat on - I don’t know as I remember - but the same - she knew she was going out - she’d dress for it - she wouldn’t ever dress twice in a morning.”
“Wouldn’t she? She didn’t have that overall on?” Reggie pointed to a dark garment hanging on the line in the yard which stretched from house to shed.
