A Presumption of Death by Dorothy L. Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh Read Free Book Online Page A

Ruddle.
    ‘Who’s been murdered in their bed, Mrs Ruddle?’ Harriet asked.
    ‘That poor young woman . . .’
    ‘Murdered in the street, I think.’
    ‘Well, that’s even worse, isn’t it, if we can’t even walk down the middle of the street without being done for.’
    ‘It is horrible,’ said Mrs Trapp, cutting up her dough and twisting it neatly into the bread tins. ‘I don’t envy whoever has to tell her parents.’
    ‘But why should we expect it, Mrs Ruddle? I don’t understand you,’ said Harriet.
    ‘With all these German spies around,’ said Mrs Ruddle gleefully.
    ‘What German spies are those?’ asked Harriet. ‘Have you heard something I haven’t?’ Not that that was unlikely, she thought. Mrs Ruddle was at the centre of every web of gossip for twenty miles around – certainly for the entire area served by the local telephone exchange, at which her daughter worked.
    ‘Well, I can’t say exactly,’ admitted Mrs Ruddle. ‘But it stands to reason, Lady Peter. If there aren’t any German spies, what for are we taking down all the signposts? How come my Bert has got a job of work to do painting out the name of the village on the railway station? Answer me that!’
    Harriet couldn’t think of an answer, and Mrs Ruddle continued. ‘You want to ask Mrs Spright – she says she’s spotted two or three of ’em around already!’
    ‘Do I know Mrs Spright?’ asked Harriet.
    ‘P’raps you don’t, Lady Peter,’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘She used to be a dentist over at Broxford. She retired here to that house down Datchett’s Lane. Three year or more ago.’
    ‘If she’s seen any spies around, she ought to tell the authorities,’ remarked Mrs Trapp, spreading a floured cloth over her loaf tins.
    ‘That’s what I told her!’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘I said, you ought to go tell one of them officers at the airfield, and get them arrested. She said she would tell who she felt like, when she was good and ready. She said as how you couldn’t necessarily trust a body along of ’im wearing a Nar A ef uniform.’
    ‘You should tell her if she knows anything, it’s no more than her duty, Mrs Ruddle,’ said Mrs Trapp. ‘She should tell the police.’
    ‘A lot of good that’ud do, I don’t think!’ cried Mrs Ruddle. Harriet remembered the Ruddle family’s long-lasting grudge against a village policeman who had been replaced some time back.
    ‘I suppose you must be very busy, Mrs Ruddle?’ asked Harriet mildly. ‘Everyone seems to have such a lot to do.’
    ‘What? Oh, yes, I can’t hang around like this gossiping with Mrs Trapp,’ said Mrs Ruddle, heaving herself out of her chair. ‘I’ll bid you good morning, and be off.’
    ‘Did she want anything in particular, Mrs Trapp?’ asked Harriet when the door closed safely on Mrs Ruddle’s back.
    ‘To borrow a mug of sugar, and to talk about the murder. A dreadful thing, I know, but . . . I’m afraid I told her, m’lady, that now sugar is rationed we didn’t have any to lend.’
    ‘Quite right, Mrs Trapp. But that didn’t get rid of her?’
    ‘Not her!’ said Mrs Trapp with emphasis. ‘She sat right in there till I more or less had to make a cup of tea. Sugar, indeed! It was gossip she came for!’
    ‘Talking of sugar,’ said Harriet tentatively, ‘how hard would it be to rustle up a cake? I need to get on the right side of those land-girls.’
    ‘A fruit cake, Lady Peter?’
    ‘Just the thing. Can we do it?’
    ‘I’ll eke the sugar out with grated carrot. You’ll not know the difference.’
    ‘Mrs Trapp,’ said Harriet with feeling, ‘you are a wonderful woman, and I don’t know what we would do without you.’
    ‘Go along with you, my lady,’ said Mrs Trapp.
    With Mrs Trapp’s cake in a tartan shortbread tin, Harriet presented herself at five o’clock in the afternoon at the barns where Farmer Bateson had housed his team of land-girls. It was getting dark, and she reckoned they would be home and making a meal.