CHAPTER 51
“Good evening, Mr. Barton. Could you spare me a minute?”
Gilbert Barton found Inspector Young in the fold yard when he (Barton) came home for a hurried supper at eight o’clock the following evening. The farmer was going out again later, for the full moon would make it possible to go on loading the hay until after eleven o’clock that midsummer evening, and the last thing Barton wanted to do was to waste time talking.
“Well, you know how it is with us, Inspector: if you like to come in while I’m bolting my supper, do, but I’ve got another three hours’ work to do, carting. However, come in. A glass of cider? I’m as dry as a lime kiln.”
He led the way into the great stone-flagged kitchen, where his supper was laid on the scrubbed table—home-cured ham, salad and tomatoes and an e
