Crooked Wreath by Christianna Brand Page A

the paths over first?”
    â€œRake ’em over? Of course not,” said Brough with the ineffable contempt of the ignoble mind for those not familiar with its own little specialty. “I rolls ’em, Mr. Cockrill, rolls ’em! Matter of fact, I rolled these paths earlier in the evening; then last thing, I only had to smooth ’em out with the back of me rake and scatter a fresh lot of sand over the top of the lot.”
    â€œSo in point of fact you do rake them,” said Cockrill with a touch of triumph.
    Brough raised his eyes to heaven in mute appeal that he be preserved from those who persisted that to use a rake was necessarily to rake. “Do you rake them (whether with the teeth or the back of the rake) after you’ve sanded the paths?”
    Brough cast up his eyes again. “I’ll thank you for a civil answer, Brough,” said Cockrill, irritated. “Do you or do you not rake or roll or smooth the paths, after the new top-coat of sand has been scattered?”
    â€œNo,” said Brough.
    â€œIf anything, any roller or garden tool had passed over them since you scattered the sand, could you tell?”
    â€œYes,” said Brough. “And nothing has.” He added, acutely: “You mean could anyone have covered up their footsteps by tidying the path after theirselves? Well, the answer is, no, they couldn’t. These paths are just as I left them last night, except for Miss Claire’s footsteps here, and the mark of the tray; and her footsteps and the doctor’s, running up the side of the path, there. The path to the front door and the path to the back door hasn’t been touched. Those doors is kept locked and nobody uses them, even when the old man is at the lodge. And what’s more,” said Brough, anticipating Cockrill’s next question, “if you think the paths may have been walked on and then sanded over again, I can tell you that that won’t work neither, because when I’d finished last night, that was the last grain of sand in the place. If the Council thinks …”
    â€œAll right, all right, we’ve had all that before.” He stood looking at the rose beds, closely encircling the little house. “Nobody could push a way through these–avoiding the paths, that is–without tearing their clothes to bits, could they?”
    â€œThey couldn’t do it without tearing the rose trees to bits, that’s the thing,” said Brough. He took a rake and thrust it, horizontally between a couple of bushes; a shower of petals fluttered to the ground. “They’re all ready to fall; only that it was such a still, close night, they’d be all over the bed. But as it is …” The soil beneath the trees was free of more than half a dozen petals, here and there. “Nobody pushed no way between them trees last night,” said Brough.
    â€œNo,” said Cockrill. He dismissed the man and sent a constable up to the house for a pair of shoes belonging to each of the family. “Try and get the ones Miss Claire March was wearing last night …”
    Stephen Garde, turning in at the lodge gates, found Cockrill squatting unselfconsciously in the centre of the sanded path, poking at one of the prints with a stick. “Hallo, Inspector? Playing at Robinson Crusoe?”
    Cockrill got to his feet, bending down to rub his aching knees. He ignored Stephen’s little jokes. “Mr. Garde, exactly what time did your man hand Sir Richard the draft of the will?”
    â€œHe says it was about quarter to seven. He spoke to Brough, who told him that Sir Richard was sitting at his desk at the French window, and he went round and handed the envelope to Sir Richard; he says Sir Richard put it in a drawer of the desk.”
    â€œThis man o.k.? Has he been long with your firm?”
    â€œThirty or forty years,” said Stephen. “That’s all. If you’re suggesting, Inspector, that