A Dedicated Man

4
ONE

Monday morning dawned on Helmthorpe as clear and warm as the five previous days. While this wasn’t exactly unprecedented, it would have been enough to dominate most conversations had there not been a more sensational subject closer at hand.

In the post office, old bent Mrs Heseltine, there to send her monthly letter to her son in Canada (‘Doin’ right well for ’imself.. .’E’s a full perfesser now!’), was holding forth.

‘Strangled by a madman,’ she repeated in a whisper. ‘And right ’ere in our village. I don’t know what the world’s coming to, I don’t. We’re none of us safe anymore, and that’s a fact. Best keep yer doors locked and not go out after dark.’

‘Rubbish!’ Mrs Anstey said. ‘It was ’is wife as done it. Fer t’ money, like. Stands to reason. Money’s t’ root of all evil, you mark my words. That’s what my Albert used ter say.’

‘Aye,’ muttered Miss Sampson under her breath. ‘That’s because ’e never made any, the lazy sod.’

Mrs Dent, having read every lurid novel in Helmthorpe library and some especially imported from Eastvale and York, was more imaginative than the rest. She put forward the theory that it was the beginning of another series of moors murders.

‘It’s Brady and Hindley all over again,’ she said. ‘They’ll be digging ’em up all over t’ place. There was that Billy Maxton, disappeared wi’out a trace, and that there Mary Richards. You’ll see. Digging ’em up all over t’ place, they’ll be.’

‘I thought they’d run off to Swansea together, Billy Maxton and Mary Richards,’ chipped in Letitia Stanford, the spindly postmistress. ‘Anyway, they’ll be questioning us all, no doubt about that. That little man from Eastvale, it’ll be. I saw ’im poking about ’ere all day yesterday.’

‘Aye,’ added Mrs Heseltine. ‘I saw ’im, too. Looked too short for a copper.’

‘’E’s a southerner,’ said Mrs Anstey, as if that settled the matter of height once and for all.

At that moment, the bell jangled as Jack Barker walked in to send off a short story to one of the few magazines that helped him eke out a living. He beamed at the assembled ladies, who all stared back at him like frightened prunes, bid them good morning, conducted his business, then left.

‘Well,’ sighed Miss Sampson indignantly. ‘And ’im a friend of Mr Steadman’s too. I’d like to see what the poor man’s enemies is doing.’

‘He’s an odd one, all right,’ Letitia Stanford agreed. ‘Not the killing type, though.’

‘And how would you know?’ asked Mrs Dent sharply. ‘You should read some of ’is books. Fair make you blush, they would. And full of murder, too.’ She shook her head and clucked her tongue slowly at the sprightly figure disappearing down the street.