Free Swing, Swing Together by Peter Lovesey Page B

There was nothing she could do. Tears of humiliation blurred her vision.
    â€œShe has to come with us. We’re responsible, you see,” Hardy explained to Mr. Bustard, pushing his foot firmly against the skiff as it came alongside. “Decent of you to offer.”
    On the train, twenty minutes later, Harriet’s indignity flared into anger. “I strongly resent the way you spoke to me.”
    â€œI could have lifted you off Bustard’s boat without so much as a word, but you wouldn’t have thanked me for that,” Hardy quietly answered.
    â€œYou seem to presume that you have the right to order my actions.”
    â€œI do, miss, up to a point.”
    â€œTake care what you say, Constable.”
    â€œI shall,” said Hardy.
    â€œI intend to speak to Sergeant Cribb about you. I shall tell him that you threatened me with physical violence.”
    â€œAnd I shall tell him what you were proposin’ to do, miss.” “It was nothing criminal. I have the right to accept a perfectly proper invitation from a gentleman, do I not?”
    â€œNot while I’m responsible for you,” said Hardy.
    â€œYou are not my chaperone.”
    Here Thackeray judged it right to intervene. “It was for your own good, miss. I don’t think those two are quite what they may appear.”
    â€œNeither are you, come to that,” said Harriet, glancing contemptuously at his ill-fitting flannels. “But at least they know how to speak to a lady.”
    No more was said until Culham. Having had the last word, Harriet should have felt better for the exchange, but Hardy’s inexcusable behaviour still rankled. If he had not taunted her into waving to Mr. Bustard, the incident need not have happened.

CHAPTER
    14
    Hardy buys a German—Three men in the Barley Mow—Touching on Jack the Ripper
    T HEY MANAGED TO AGREE on one thing by the time they reached Culham: they needed a meal. At the ticket barrier Hardy asked if tea was served anywhere locally. “I can think of three places,” said the ticket collector after some reflection. “The first is in Culham, but that’s closed down. The second I wouldn’t recommend, and the third is the Railway Hotel across the road.”
    It was an attenuated meal, owing partly to Thackeray’s repeated requests for more tea cakes and partly to a general understanding that it would not be prudent to get to Clifton Hampden before Sergeant Cribb. There was not much conversation, but Hardy did find the good grace to congratulate Harriet on pouring a perfect cup of tea, an observation she acknowledged with a nod. It would want more than that to reinstate him.
    Towards six o’clock the waitress signalled that tea was officially over by laying the tables for dinner in a good imitation of a rifle volley. After a short consultation, Hardy approached her and asked for the bill. “You serve a good dinner too, by the looks of it,” he told her, indicating a table spread with various kinds of cold meat. “That large sausage at the back—is that the sort they call a polony?”
    â€œI couldn’t tell you, sir. Germans is what we call them in the kitchen.”
    â€œDo you have another one like it? I’d like to take one with me.”
    â€œYou’ll have to ask the waiter, sir. Germans are supposed to be for cold dinner, you see.”
    â€œIs he available, then?”
    â€œJust coming across the road from the station, sir. He comes on at six.”
    It was the ticket collector. He had exchanged his railway livery for a black tie and tails. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”
    â€œYes,” said Hardy. “That—er—German on the table—”
    â€œThe polony, sir?”
    â€œPolony. I’d like to buy it, or another like it.”
    So when the party started along the road to Clifton Hampden, Hardy’s polony, wrapped in cheesecloth, perched on Harriet’s