Free Thou Shell of Death by Nicholas Blake

expect. You come with me, Bolter. I’ll want you to take down depositions.’
    The superintendent jumped higher in Nigel’s estimation. He might be only a country dumpling, but he noticed things.
    ‘Now first we’ve got to try to find out when the snowfall began here,’ Bleakley was saying as they went over to the house. ‘It started about midnight with us. Do you know, by any chance, sir?’
    ‘Afraid I did the same as Arthur—fell asleep on the job,’ said Nigel bitterly.
    Bleakley noticed the bitterness in his voice, and changed the subject tactfully. ‘A good lad, that George. His dad and mine worked on a farm down to Watchet. Now , sir, can you give me a line on the other people staying here, before I interview them?’
    Nigel gave a succinct account of his fellow guests, omitting all conjectures and nuances. To keep out of earshot, he led Bleakley round by the kitchen garden and the stable yard, and by the time they had reached the back door he had finished his descriptions. He was so absorbed by them, in fact, that he did not notice the face that regarded him and Bleakley with a forbidding expression from the kitchen window. As they entered a harsh voice said, ‘I’ll thank ye to wipe your feet and noat come sullying ma clean passage.’ Mrs Grant stood in the kitchen door, her fingers folded tightly over her apron. Nigel began to giggle uncontrollably; the anticlimax was too much for his strained nerves. Mrs Grant fixed him with a dour regard. ‘This is noat the time for unseemly murrth, with a mon lying deid oot yonder.’
    ‘And who told you your master was dead?’ asked the superintendent smoothly.
    The slightest flicker appeared in Mrs Grant’s granite-grey eyes. ‘Ah hairrd that woman screeching,’ she said.
    ‘What woman?’
    ‘Miss Thrale. It was an ill day when she set foot in this house, the painted hoor. I have always been in respaictable families before.’
    ‘Come, come, this is no way to talk with your master just dead,’ said Bleakley, genuinely shocked.
    ‘He broaght it on himself, consorrting with that hussy. It is the Lorrd’s judgement. The sinner shall perish before Him.’
    ‘Well,’ said Nigel, recovering himself, ‘we can discuss the theological aspect of the case later. What we’re concerned with at the moment is facts. Can you tell us, Mrs Grant, what time it began to snow last night?’
    ‘I dinna ken. I went to bed shairp at eleven and bolted the back door. It wasna snowing then.’
    ‘You saw, or heard no unauthorised persons about the place yesterday night, I take it?’ asked Bleakley.
    ‘That slut, Nellie, went home to the village when she’d washed up. After that, I hairrd nothing but Mr O’Brien’s friends rampaging and blaspheeming in the drawing room,’ said Mrs Grant severely. ‘And now I’ll thank ye to let me get on with my wurrk. I havna time for chattering with beesy-bodies.’
    They retired, Bleakley frankly mopping his brow. The guests were in the dining room. Georgia was trying to persuade Lucilla, who was now clothed, though scarcely in her right mind, to drink some coffee. The rest were making spasmodic efforts to eat breakfast. Their heads all turned nervously when the door opened. The superintendent seemed rather nervous himself. He was not used to high life, his professional activities having been mainly confined so far to poachers, petty thieves, drunks and errant motorists. He twisted his moustache and said:
    ‘I will not trouble you for long, ladies and gentlemen. There seems no doubt that Mr O’Brien committed suicide. But I just want to get a few details settled up, so that there will be no trouble at the inquest. Now first, can any lady or gentleman tell me what time it began to snow here last night?’
    There was a stir, a relaxation, as though everyone had been expecting some more sinister question. Starling and Knott-Sloman glanced at each other. Then the latter said:
    ‘Cavendish and I went to play billiards between eleven