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

Jameson.
    They returned up the lane and entered Dead Man’s Path. The sky was still gloomy and the path was even darker than it had been that morning. Nobody was about, and they reached the spot where Tom Tipping had died without meeting anybody. Sergeant Primm looked about him warily.
    ‘I’m not one for believing in ghosts,’ he said, ‘but Margaret Tipping was right enough when she said this place was haunted. It’s not the pleasantest of spots.’
    ‘No,’ agreed Inspector Jameson. ‘Why is it called Dead Man’s Path?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said the sergeant. ‘But I’ve lived here all my life and my father used to call it by that name, and his father before him.’
    ‘But where does it go? It’s not a short-cut from the village to the fête, as far as I can tell. It starts at Tithes Field and leads—where?’
    ‘There are farmhouses and cottages up that way,’ said Primm. ‘Mrs. Montgomery lives in one of them, and some of the farm-hands who work around here live in the others. And a little farther up still there are some newer houses, which were built when the river flooded about thirty years ago and washed away a street of old cottages on the lower land.’
    ‘I see,’ said Jameson.
    A church bell rang out suddenly in the silence and made them both jump.
    ‘I didn’t realize we were so near the church,’ said Jameson. He peered through the trees and saw the tumble-down wall of the churchyard. ‘Hmm,’ he went on. ‘Whoever did it might have come here by any number of ways, it seems. He might have come from the fête in Tithes Field at that end, or from the houses at the other end.’
    ‘Beyond those houses is open countryside,’ said Primm helpfully, ‘so anyone might have come from that way and done it. There’s nothing to say it was someone from Banford. It might have been someone who just happened to be passing.’
    ‘A random killing, you mean?’ said the inspector. ‘They’re pretty rare. Was the motive robbery, perhaps?’
    ‘No,’ said the sergeant. ‘That was our first thought, as a matter of fact. We’ve some troublesome gipsies hereabouts, but they’re not that sort. They’re more for the petty pilfering. They’ve never been known to attack anybody. We’ll have a word with them, though.’
    ‘Do,’ said Jameson. ‘Of course, with so many people out and about that day, whoever it was might have passed quite unnoticed. It would have been a matter of minutes to slip away from the fête and do the deed, for example.’
    ‘That’s true enough,’ said Primm. ‘There was a pretty large crowd there that day, and a lot of coming and going.’
    ‘Whoever it was took quite a risk, though, since anyone might have turned up—and in fact there were three people nearby at the time that we know of,’ said Inspector Jameson. ‘He must have arrived, shot Tipping and then run off as quickly as he could before he was caught.’ He turned his attention back to the path. ‘So, then, our murderer might have arrived from either end of the path, or he might have come from the lane and through the churchyard, or he might have come from that house over there,’ he indicated a large farmhouse that could just be glimpsed through the trees on the other side of the path, ‘which I take it is the Tippings’ house.’ He paused. ‘Where does Norman Tipping live?’ he said after a moment.
    ‘He has his own house on the edge of the village,’ said Primm.
    ‘Is he a wealthy man?’
    ‘I couldn’t say what he was before, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘but I imagine he’ll be rather wealthier now that his father is dead.’
    The words hung significantly in the air, and the two men exchanged glances.

TEN
    On her way back to Two Tithes, Angela decided to take a detour through the old orchard in which she had spent many a happy hour stealing fruit as a child. She crossed Tithes Field and climbed over a stile, beyond which was the orchard itself. The place looked much the same as it