nothing more than very wet moccasins on his feet, despite the deep snow. He says he had claimed that his boots had been stolen from outside his front door. But he has more …
Two days previously Jack Ferrario had blown his top in the pub, apparently furious that his next-door-neighbour Trethewey had been hopping over their party wall and romancing Ferrario’s wife while he was shoeing horses at the smithy. Ferrario promised that he was going to damage Trethewey’s good looks in a way he wouldn’t be able to fix.
The old chap says that though Ferrario has small feet he is a huge ox of a man and that if he decided to pick up the slight Trethewey, carry him round the pub, and then fling him through the etched-glass window, he’d be able to do it without any trouble.
A light springs up in Swainston’s eye.
The problem
Who has killed Trethewey and where is the weapon? Is blacksmith Ferrario the murderer? If so how did he shoot the victim in the middle of a snow-covered field without leaving any footprints? Where are Trethewey’s boots, why was he wearing moccasins, and why are there no moccasin prints in the field? Finally, why has such a slight man made such heavy impressions with his monogrammed wellies?
The mystery
It is a September day in 1925, on the outskirts of a small Yorkshire town tucked into a quiet nook in the Dales. It is lunchtime and the bells from the moorland church are chiming the quarter. Coming over the bridge is a solitary walker dressed in hiking tweeds, his cap pulled down over his eyes against the rain, which is now coming on hard. Across the high street he spies a cosy pub where he decides to shelter and have a bite to eat.
Inside the pub, our walker, whose name is Gerald, shakes the rain from his cap and hangs it on a peg beside the fire. He orders a pint of beer and a piece of cheese from the rosy-faced landlady and looking around the low ceilinged room he spots in the corner an old man in a straw hat, nursing a drink in a china mug.
Gerald leans his stick against the chimney corner and goes over to sit beside the old man. ‘Good afternoon,’ he says.
‘Aye’, replies the man, taking a pull at his ale and drawing a rough sleeve across his muttonchop whiskers.
Through the window Gerald can see, on the other side of a dry-stone wall, a huge Victorian factory building and its handsome reflection in the millstream. A plume of smoke rises from the chimney, and the factory name, S. GARTONS, is reflected in gigantic back-to-front capitals in the water. The old man removes the long clay pipe from his lips and says, ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’
‘No,’ replies Gerald.
The man pauses. ‘I’ll tell you what, lad,’ he says. ‘If you can tell me in one guess what it is they make in that factory I’ll buy you as much beer as you can drink. If you fail, you’ll do the same for me. One guess only.’ Gerald muses for a minute, staring into the shimmering water of the millstream opposite.
‘Well, I’ve no idea,’ he says. Then he takes a longer look at the name reflected in the water. ‘All right,’ he says suddenly, ‘I’ll tell you.’
The old man grins. ‘What is it then?’
‘Handkerchiefs!’ exclaims Gerald.
‘You cheated! You knew already,’ gasps the man.
‘No I didn’t,’ says Gerald. ‘It was easy.’
The problem
How did Gerald know what was made in the factory?
The riddle of the Burns supper
The mystery
John and Joan Jones live in a charming 18th-century cottage near Matlock in Derbyshire, on the south-eastern cusp of the Peak District. From their bedroom windows their two children Julie and Jeremy often look out across the craggy sheep-sprinkled vista, which stretches from the low screen of evergreen trees at the bottom of their back garden out as far as the eye can see.
They watch the ravens circling and cawing overhead, tearing worms from the damp earth, or dropping snails from a height onto the limestone outcrops as if cracking nuts. At night a low wind is often to be heard moaning under the eaves and rattling the handle of the Joneses’ garden shed.
The Joneses are a happy family. John Jones is a Scotsman who teaches business studies at Buxton’s Espurio University. Joan Jones is a full-time mother. Their cheerful children catch the bus to school every day and are both doing well. Jeremy is good at drawing and Julie likes maths. They help their mother around the house but from time to time Jeremy is mischievous, blowing raspberries at the dustmen through a hole in the hedge or letting his beagle Tinker off the lead when he goes into town.
One Sunday morning Mr and Mrs Jones return home in the early hours after a roisterous Burns Night supper in town. Letting themselves into the house in the pitch black, they relieve the babysitter and push straight off to bed.
Mrs Jones wakes later than usual the next morning. She had rather more sparkling wine than she’d meant to the previous night and John polished off a bottle of malt whisky with a couple of friends. Today her head is throbbing and he is snoring for Scotland.
Mrs Jones gingerly opens the bedroom curtains to take a look at the morning. The sun is streaming onto the front lawn and it is a good deal warmer than it has been over the past week, which is nice.
But Joan notices something unusual. Lying on the wet lawn are some objects that she cannot identify. Pulling on her dressing gown, she goes downstairs and turns on the kettle in the kitchen before padding over to the front door. She opens it a crack to have a better look at the things on the grass.
In the middle of the lawn are eleven pieces of coal, each very roughly the size of a walnut. They are not far apart and appear to have been placed together deliberately. Lying nearby all on its own is a large carrot, which a raven is eyeing from the wall. Somebody, presumably the person who placed the other objects on the lawn, has left his or her scarf on the grass, and it is now soaking wet. The scarf is of a very common design and looks rather moth-eaten. It certainly isn’t one Mrs Jones would allow John or Jeremy to wear in a similar state.
Behind her, Joan Jones hears the tread of Jeremy on the stairs. His hair is up on end and he is holding a jam jar with a snail in it. ‘Malcolm wants some lettuce,’ says Jeremy.
‘Good morning to you too,’ says his mother, shutting
