Free The Problem at Two Tithes (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 7) by Clara Benson

quarter past one, and went into the snug. They were brought some cold meat and cheese at half past one, and then left the place at ten past two. The landlord was in the tap-room with his eye on the door to the street all that time, and swears that Norris didn’t leave. It’s a great pity,’ he went on. ‘If it weren’t for his cast-iron alibi then that would be that: we could lock him up and forget about it. The two of them have been fighting over that path for years, the silly old goats.’
    ‘Does it really belong to Norris?’ said Jameson.
    ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ said Primm. ‘He got the idea that it was his about twenty years ago, and went to law about it. It never got resolved, though, as there’s just enough doubt in the deeds to his land to make it uncertain. What is certain is that everyone has used Dead Man’s Path freely for centuries, and he’s not going to stop them now. It’s really just a convenient excuse for him to make things difficult for Tom Tipping.’
    ‘Do you mean the feud came before the dispute over the path?’
    Primm nodded.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They haven’t got on for years, ever since Tom married Margaret about forty years ago. Norris was sweet on her, you see, but Tipping stepped in, and they’ve been rowing ever since. ’Course, it’s not so much the woman they’re fighting over—it’s more that old Norris is a bad loser and can’t bear to be beaten. Tipping got what was his, you see, and now Norris wants to pay him back.’
    ‘Goodness me,’ said Jameson. He glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll be lunch-time soon, but if you don’t mind I’d like to go back to Dead Man’s Path first and look around more carefully, this time without interruptions.’
    ‘Right you are, sir,’ said Sergeant Primm.
    Inspector Jameson looked about him as they came out of the police station. They were in the centre of the village, which was laid out around a large green. Many of the buildings were ancient and had thatched roofs, and the whole effect was very attractive and quaint. Of course, the signs of modernity had inevitably encroached upon even this quiet place, and on market days (for Banford Green, although now considered merely a village, had once been a thriving market town and still proudly held to that tradition), the cobbled streets that led off the green tended to be crowded with motor-cars and vans. Otherwise, there was little to disturb the peace, and as Jameson eyed the pretty cottages with their window-boxes full of flowers, he understood why people might choose to live here.
    A few doors along from the police station was the Red Lion Inn, where Andrew Norris and Ben Shaw had had their lunch on the day of Tom Tipping’s murder. It looked pleasant enough, and Jameson made a note to speak to the landlord. The two policemen crossed the green and walked down a narrow street, then turned left. This brought them to the entrance to Tithes Field and the start of Dead Man’s Path. Tom Tipping’s body had been found some way along it, and Jameson paused again to look about him.
    ‘As you can see, sir,’ observed Sergeant Primm, ‘even if Andrew Norris did somehow manage to sneak out of the inn, he’d have been in full view of everyone in the street and couldn’t possibly have run all the way here, shot Tipping and then come back without someone seeing him.’
    ‘Is this the only way to Dead Man’s Path from the Red Lion?’ asked Jameson.
    ‘Unless you can run through brick walls,’ said Primm, and pointed. Just past the entrance to Dead Man’s Path was a lane. Jameson walked a little way down it and saw on the left farther down a row of tiny terrace cottages. Opposite them was the church, a pretty building of grey stone with a mossy roof, which sat within a quiet churchyard.
    ‘The inn backs onto those houses,’ said the sergeant, who had followed him. ‘You’d have to jump over them to get here.’
    ‘I see. That seems to settle it, then,’ said