Free The Longer Bodies by Gladys Mitchell

that,’ replied the village policeman, with prophetic gloom.
    The sergeant gazed glumly down at the corpse. ‘And
I’d
be glad to know how you came by that cosh on the nut, mister,’ he said to himself, ‘for, speaking without previous experience of a murder case, I don’t seem to call to mind any instrument that would make quite
that
sort of a mess of the top of a chap’s head, blowed if I do! But we’ll see what the M.O.’s got to say.’

Chapter Six
Great-aunt Puddequet is Happy
    MRS HOBSON RECEIVED the news of her husband’s death without visible emotion. She was a poor, thin, haunted-looking creature, who, having listened in silence to all the sensational details of the crime from Constable Copple, merely observed at the end in an oddly weary tone:
    â€˜Well, Mr Copple, you know as well as anyone the way it’s been with me. What’s the sense of making out I be sorry? I bean’t sorry. I be glad.’
    The constable shook his head sympathetically. At the last moment of departure he turned, twirling his helmet awkwardly between his large red hands.
    â€˜Look here, Janey,’ he said, ‘don’t ’ee take it amiss what I be saying, but I wudden be too free with trollopsing round the place telling folks you be glad Jacob’s been took. And mind what ’ee say and how ’ee say it when the inspector and the sergeant from Market Longer come to see ’ee. Happen I see ’em down the street now.’
    He had barely taken his leave after this friendly warning when the inspector and the sergeant thundered at the door. She let them in, dusted two chairs, and stood meekly before them, both work-roughened hands rolled up in her apron, while the two police officers seated themselves.
    â€˜Sit down, please, Mrs Hobson,’ said the inspector. ‘This is a bad business, and we’ll get over this part of it as quickly as we can. You must answer my questions as promptly as possible, and please be very careful what you say.’
    With this kindly preface he elicited for the second time that day all she knew of the events which led to the murder of her husband. At the end, the inspector read to her what she had stated.
    â€˜Now, Mrs Hobson,’ he said, ‘do you know of anyone who had a grudge against your husband?’
    She could think of no one.
    â€˜I suppose I be about the only one, sir,’ she stated calmly. ‘Jacob was a merry, loud-laughin’ sort of chap with his mates, they tell me. He was free with his money, too.
I
never see very much of it. Friday was his kind of royal day at the public house. He was paid on a Friday, you see.’
    â€˜Did he seem to have anything on his mind at all? He came home to tea, you said.’
    â€˜He talked a rare lot about the roof. What a disgrace it was, and how he’d take pewmonia with it, and what he’d say to old Mrs Puddequet up at the House when he went to talk to she about it, and how he reckoned he’d go to her there and then, but afterwards he reckoned he’d have a drink first because he didn’t see why her should waste his evening and do him out of his drop of beer; and then a deal about the honest working man that some chap as ought to know better had talked about over in Market Longer where Jacob abeen on a job these two months painting the new houses there; and so on and on, till his rant fair head-ached me.’
    â€˜I see. And that gave you the idea that he might have staggered into old Mrs Puddequet’s pond?’
    â€˜Ay, sir, it did that. When the clock struck twelve and no sign of him, drunk or sober, thinks I that Jacob have been run in by Mr Copple for bad behaviour, or he’s slipped into the ditch, or else that he did go up to the House and maybe he’s walked into the lake. But I didden do much hoping. I reckoned it would be a big lake would drown
my
sorrows.’
    The inspector grunted. After a pause for rumin-ation,