Chapter 19Mrs. Bridling, in the chair pushed back by Jane, sat bolt upright and met Inspector Crisp’s questioning gaze with the agreeable consciousness that no one had ever been able to say a word they shouldn’t about her nor any of her family. Go where they would and ask what they liked, they’d only be told the one thing. Bridlings or Bents—she herself had been a Bent—there was only the one thing to be said about them—they were good-living, hardworking people, Chapel members for the most part, and nobody could say different. She was buoyed up by these thoughts, and by the fact that she had kept Constable Cooling waiting whilst she put on her Sunday dress, a bright royal blue, her good black coat, and the hat which she had had for her mother-in-law’s funeral three years ago with a nice bun
