Gladys Mitchell - Bradley 02 - The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop by The Mystery of a Butchers Shop-3S(v1)(html)

Author:The Mystery of a Butchers Shop-3S(v1)(html) [Shop-3S, The Mystery of a Butchers]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-03-25T08:40:17+00:00

II

Felicity was out, and the Reverend Stephen Broome was preparing his sermon when Margery alighted at the vicarage gate, propped up her bicycle against the untidy hedge, and walked up to the front door.

“The mistress is along by the village, and, sure, himself will have my life, Miss Margery, should I put the face of me inside his little room this day,” exclaimed Mary Kate when Margery asked to see either the vicar or his daughter.

“I can’t help it. If Felicity is out, I must see him! Tell him it’s about the murder, Mary Kate. That ought to fetch him!”

“The murder! Oh, then, Miss Margery, what’s come over you at all?”

“Nothing. Go and tell the vicar quickly, Mary Kate. Oh, do hurry up!”

Upon this, Mary Kate flung herself into the study, omitting even the formality of knocking at the door, and cried in a loud voice rich with direful woe:

“Glory be to God, your honor’s reverence, Mr. Broome! There’s Mistress Margery from the doctor’s house below does be after saying she’s done the murder herself itself entirely!”

“Where is Miss Margery?” enquired the vicar.

“Sure, herself is below stairs waiting on your reverence.”

“And don’t call me your reverence! I’ve told you before that I am not of the Roman persuasion.”

“More’s the shame to you, then,” retorted Mary Kate, recovering her wonted poise with speed and certainty, “that you wouldn’t be an honest Christian man – and you to be baptizing the babes and burying the old people and all!”

The vicar, as usual, was left without the honors of war, and Mary Kate retired in triumph from the study. She returned in two minutes and ushered in a stammering and shame-flushed Margery Barnes.

“Please, may I shut the door?” she asked timidly when Mary Kate had departed. “I – what I have to say is absolutely private. I don’t – nobody else – I couldn’t let everybody know.”

The Vicar of Wandles Parva laid down his pen and turned to face her. Without meeting his quizzical gaze, Margery went over to the door and closed it.

“Now then,” said the Reverend Stephen. “What’s all this? Some dark deed, or what?”

“It’s partly about me and partly about somebody else,” said Margery, looking past him and collecting her thoughts, and – or so it seemed to the vicar – her courage. He looked at her, half amused, and saw a red-faced, slightly perspiring, fair-haired, short-skirted, ingenuous maiden of eighteen, curiously like – who was she curiously like? He frowned. Margery caught his eye, and avoided it again.

“Mr. Broome,” she said at last, “do you think – I mean, there’s no chance of Jim Redsey being arrested, is there? You hear such horrible rumors down in the village about him.”

“I don’t know.” The vicar looked thoughtful. “I believe there’s a good deal of evidence against him. He’ll have to stand his trial if he is arrested, of course, unless anything turns up to point out the real murderer. It is a very nasty, puzzling business, this murder, isn’t it? I shouldn’t think too much about it, if I were you.

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