The Sittaford Mystery

‘You go in for competitions, don’t you?’ asked Violet. ‘Acrostics and crosswords and all those things.’

Burnaby nodded.

‘I do crosswords. Trevelyan does acrostics. We each stick to our own line of country. I won three books last month in a crossword competition,’ he volunteered.

‘Oh! really. How nice. Were they interesting books?’

‘Don’t know. Haven’t read them. Looked pretty hopeless.’

‘It’s the winning them that matters, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Willett vaguely.

‘How do you get to Exhampton?’ asked Violet. ‘You haven’t got a car.’

‘Walk.’

‘What? Not really? Six miles.’

‘Good exercise. What’s twelve miles? Keeps a man fit. Great thing to be fit.’

‘Fancy! Twelve miles. But both you and Captain Trevelyan were great athletes, weren’t you?’

‘Used to go to Switzerland together. Winter sports in winter, climbing in summer. Wonderful man on ice, Trevelyan. Both too old for that sort of thing nowadays.’

‘You won the Army Racquets Championship, too, didn’t you?’ asked Violet.

The Major blushed like a girl.

‘Who told you that?’ he mumbled.

‘Captain Trevelyan.’

‘Joe should hold his tongue,’ said Burnaby. ‘He talks too much. What’s the weather like now?’

Respecting his embarrassment, Violet followed him to the window. They drew the curtain aside and looked out over the desolate scene.

‘More snow coming,’ said Burnaby. ‘A pretty heavy fall too, I should say.’

‘Oh! how thrilling,’ said Violet. ‘I do think snow is so romantic. I’ve never seen it before.’

‘It isn’t romantic when the pipes freeze, you foolish child,’ said her mother.

‘Have you lived all your life in South Africa, Miss Willett?’ asked Major Burnaby.

Some of the girl’s animation dropped away from her. She seemed almost constrained in her manner as she answered.

‘Yes—this is the first time I’ve ever been away. It’s all most frightfully thrilling.’

Thrilling to be shut away like this in a remote moorland village? Funny ideas. He couldn’t get the hang of these people.

The door opened and the parlourmaid announced:

‘Mr Rycroft and Mr Garfield.’

There entered a little elderly, dried-up man and a fresh-coloured, boyish young man. The latter spoke first.

‘I brought him along, Mrs Willett. Said I wouldn’t let him be buried in a snowdrift. Ha, ha. I say, this all looks simply marvellous. Yule logs burning.’

‘As he says, my young friend very kindly piloted me here,’ said Mr Rycroft as he shook hands somewhat ceremoniously. ‘How do you do, Miss Violet? Very seasonable weather—rather too seasonable, I fear.’

He moved to the fire talking to Mrs Willett. Ronald Garfield buttonholed Violet.

‘I say, can’t we get up any skating anywhere? Aren’t there some ponds about?’

‘I think path digging will be your only sport.’

‘I’ve been at it all the morning.’

‘Oh! you he-man.’

‘Don’t laugh at me. I’ve got blisters all over my hands.’

‘How’s your aunt?’

‘Oh! she’s always the same—sometimes she says she’s better and sometimes she says she’s worse, but I think it’s all the same really. It’s a ghastly life, you know. Each year, I wonder how I can stick it—but there it is—if one doesn’t rally round the old bird for Xmas—why, she’s quite capable of leaving her money to a Cat’s Home. She’s got five of them, you know. I’m always stroking the brutes and pretending I dote upon them.’

‘I like dogs much better than cats.’

‘So do I. Any day. What I mean is a dog is—well, a dog’s a dog, you know.’

‘Has your aunt always been fond of cats?’

‘I think it’s just a kind of thing old maids grow into. Ugh! I hate the brutes.’

‘Your aunt’s very nice, but rather frightening.’

‘I should think she was frightening. Snaps my head off sometimes. Thinks I’ve got no brains, you know.’

‘Not really?’

‘Oh! look here, don’t say it like that. Lots of fellows look like fools and are laughing underneath.’

‘Mr Duke,’ announced the parlourmaid.

Mr Duke was a recent arrival. He had bought the last of the six bungalows in September. He was a big man, very quiet and devoted to gardening. Mr Rycroft who was an enthusiast on birds and who lived next door to him had taken him up, overruling the section of thought which voiced the opinion that of course Mr Duke was a very nice man, quite unassuming, but was he, after all, quite—well, quite? Mightn’t he, just possibly, be a retired tradesman?

But nobody liked to ask him—and indeed it was thought better not to know. Because if one did know, it might be awkward, and really in such a small community it was best to know everybody.

‘Not walking to Exhampton in this weather?’ he asked of Major Burnaby.