Tracks in the Snow by Godfrey R. Benson — Read

On Wednesday, the 2nd of February, Candlemas Day, I read the burial service over my friend's body. I will not dwell upon what that service was to me, but like many funerals of my friends it is associated in my mind with the singing of birds. The inquest had taken place on the Monday and Tuesday, and while it clearly established the fact that the death had been caused by murder, not suicide, nothing was laid before the jury which would have justified a verdict against any particular person. I believe that some doubt had arisen as to the identification of the boots. The village shoemaker, whose expert opinion was asked, had said that though he never arranged hobnails in that way himself, he had seen the same arrangement in boots that had been brought to him to be repaired, by some man who was not Trethewy. Later on, however, it was ascertained, I fancy through Callaghan's ingenuity, that Trethewy, who liked dabbling in various handicrafts, had cobbled and nailed some boots for a friend, that this friend was the man whose hobnails had been noticed by the shoemaker, and that he had been safe out of the way at the time of the murder. Moreover -- perhaps I forgot it, perhaps I assumed that they would find it out for themselves and preferred that they should -- anyhow I had not mentioned to the police that I heard Trethewy alone had had access to the ladder (they found it out later).

Callaghan and Vane-Cartwright stayed with me for the funeral. A large crowd of merely impertinent people, as I confess I regarded them, collected from the neighbourhood and even from far away for the occasion. Two only of Peters' family were there, or could have been there. He had two nephews in the Army, but they were then in India. The rest of his near belongings were an old gentleman (a cousin of his father's, whom I had heard Peters himself describe as a relative whom he had only met at burials, but whom he regarded as an essential part of the funeral ceremony) and a maiden aunt, his mother's sister. Both of them came; both insisted on staying at the hotel, instead of at the Rectory, for the night before, but they had luncheon and tea at the Rectory after the funeral, and departed by the evening train. The old gentleman was, I believe, a retired stipendiary magistrate. Vane-Cartwright very obligingly devoted himself to entertaining him and took him for a walk after luncheon, while Callaghan roamed about, observing the people who had come for the funeral, expecting, as he told me, that there might be something to discover by watching them. I was thus left alone for a while with Peters' aunt, who, by the way, appeared to have known Vane-Cartwright as a boy.