Free The Saltmarsh Murders by Gladys Mitchell

Upset, I suppose, by the row at the inn, Bob Candy came round last thing at night—that is, at about eleveno’clock—to say that he would not play in the cricket match on the morrow. This was a fearful blow to us. Bob, although no scientist with a bat, was the sort of chap you find in some village teams—a man with a good eye and a gift for perfect timing. On his day you simply couldn’t get him out. We always used to put him in first, because he was a highly restive, excitable sort of bloke underneath his bovine, brooding exterior, and would work himself up into a fearful state of nerves while waiting for his knock. So he went in first, and I’ve known him, not once, but twenty times, carry his bat. And he was no stonewaller, mind you. He would pick out unerringly and smite unmercifully every ball that was hittable. The others he would leave alone or block. He held a straight bat as though by nature. A natural player, in fact, if ever there was one. And as rotten a field as you’d meet in a fortnight’s progress through the shires. We used to play him at mid-off, because village batsmen always hit to leg. It’s using a scythe does it. Bred in the bone, those leg strokes of a village batsman. Bob had his uses at mid-off, of course. For instance, you could depend upon him to appeal, in a threatening bass, at every doubtful point in the game. Useful that,’ with an umpire like Sir William, who wants to do his best for the village, but isn’t really taking much interest in the match. It guides his decision, so to speak. Unsporting, of course. But then, village cricket always is. That’s what makes it so frightfully sporting, if you know what I mean.
    Bob, therefore, was a real loss to us. He would give no reason for dropping out at the last minute, except to say that Lowry had given him a holiday until six o’clockand he didn’t want to go to the fête, so he was going off by himself. In the end, we had to let it go at that. A cursed nuisance, of course. We argued for about an hour, but it was not a scrap of good. The poor mutt had made up his mind. Apart from this, I went to bed a happy man. I soon fell asleep, and dreamed about Daphne. It was one of those nebulous dreams. Nothing exactly happened, but we were together and I was extraordinarily bucked. William woke me at six-thirty on the following morning to come and bowl to him, and I was so full of beans that I actually arose from a perfectly comfortable bed, and went and did it. Got him second, fifth and seventh balls, too.

CHAPTER V

THE VILLAGE FÊTE
    T he fête at Saltmarsh was an all-day affair. The villagers paid sixpence to be admitted, and the tickets, printed by Daphne and perforated by me, were in three portions, so that persons who left the grounds to go home to a mid-day meal or to their tea, could be readmitted without further charge. People from all the outlying villages came to the fête, and occasionally we got a beanfeast party in motor-coaches, or people from the adjacent seaside resort of Wyemouth Harbour. We reckoned upon taking twelve pounds at least in ticket and gate money, five pounds from the fair people, at least twenty pounds for refreshments—(this of course, was
not
all profit, since we had the caterers to pay) and anything from five pounds upwards from the various amusements which we ourselves had staged. Of these, I may say that the cocoanut-shy was the most profitable, although we had made up our minds this year that the fortune-telling must be made a great success. The fortune-telling was an innovation, of course, and we wanted it to justify itself. It had been impossible to arrange it during the afternoon because of the cricket match, but stumps were to be drawn at six precisely, and it would take me less than half an hour to bathe, change, have my tea and sneak into the fortune-teller’s little tent.
    The match began at ten-thirty. We had first knock and made one