Page 15 of Evidence of Evil
“Don’t see why you want to ask me anything,” Cranston said, meeting his gaze with a touch of hostility. The locals were closing ranks.
“No, it must seem a trifle ghoulish to you,” Constance said sympathetically. “The thing is, as friends of your master and mistress, we are trying to find out what actually happened to poor Miss Niall, because apart from anything else, you must see this reflects most unfairly on the whole household.”
The gardener nodded. “We can all see that, ma’am.”
“Then perhaps you’d tell me what tracks you noticed on the ground around the lake that morning when you first arrived to find her in the water.” Solomon held his gaze. “Did you see footprints before you raked them over?”
Cranston took off his hat and scratched his fiery head as though to aid remembrance. “Yes, there were a few. But then, her ladyship walked round it with Miss Niall the evening before.”
“Round about where you found the body, were there more than two sets of prints?”
Cranston plonked his hat back on. “Hard to tell. They were all tangled and scuffed before I got there.” His eyes widened slightly. “I’ll tell what I did see, though. A line of wheel tracks, like a wheelbarrow.”
“Was that not you?” Solomon asked, glancing at the wheelbarrow behind them.
“No, I didn’t take the barrow that morning. Not many leaves, so I meant to just rake them off the path into a pile and get them all at once later on.”
“So, when did you last take a wheelbarrow around the lake?
“Not since spring.”
Constance felt a twinge of excitement. “Where did they come from? The wheel marks?”
“Lord, I don’t know. I never followed them. Everything went up in the air when I saw her floating there among the lilies…”
“From the path that leads to the house, perhaps?” Solomon suggested. “Or to your shed?”
“No, they’re on the other side of the lake, aren’t they? No, it was toward the other path, the one that leads to the road and down to the village, or up to the Grange.”
Solomon pounced. “Toward the path? Did you notice the tracks actually going along that path?”
“No, I never followed them. I had to help get her out, and then I had to go home and change—and if you want the truth, I don’t like going near the lake at all now.”
“Can’t blame you for that,” Solomon said. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
“She was brought here in awheelbarrow?” Constance said as soon as they were far enough away from the gardener. For some reason, the vision inspired fresh pity at the indignity, though it made no difference to the poor woman who was already dead. It seemed…disrespectful.
“I think it’s possible.” Solomon, of course, sounded perfectly calm. “The main question is, where was she brought from?”
“If it was the path Cranston thought, then it could have been the village or Fairfield Grange or anywhere else on that road.But,” she added with more than a trace of triumph, “not from The Willows.”
“Why not?” Solomon asked distractedly.
“It’s hardly the quickest way from the house. If you had just committed murder, you would not go on a tour of the estate wheeling a heavy corpse.”
“No,” Solomon agreed. “But you might take a route that offered less likelihood of being seen by a random insomniac in the house.”
Constance opened her mouth to object to that, but he forestalled her with a rueful glance.
“Unlikely, I know. But on their own, the wheelbarrow tracks don’t rule anyone out. And since they’re long gone from the ground, we can’t follow them.”
Chapter Four
Over breakfast, SirHumphrey offered to take them to Fairfield Grange in the carriage. Constance asked if they could walk instead, since she and Solomon were eager to see what other dwellings might be nearby on the same route.
“How far is it to the village?” she asked, pausing to glance back in that direction.
“Only about a mile.”
