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Fairacre to employ her dissolute husband over the years. Mr Roberts, the local farmer, had taken him on as a farm hand, only to find that eggs vanished, one or two hens disappeared, as well as sacks of potatoes and corn. The other men complained that they were doing Arthur's work as well as their
own and they were right. Mr Roberts dispensed with Arthur's services.
    Mr Lamb had tried to employ him as a jobbing gardener, but again found that vegetables were being taken and the jobs set him were sketchily done, and the local builder's patience snapped when he caught Arthur red-handed, walking home with a pocketful of his tools.
    The plumber at Springbourne, whose soft heart had been touched by the sight of Mrs Coggs and her four children all in tears one morning as he passed through Fairacre, was moved to take on Arthur for a week's trial. By Wednesday he discovered that a considerable amount of copper piping had vanished, and Arthur was sacked once again.
    Virtually, he was unemployable, and soon realised that he was far better off collecting his social security allowance and other moneys disbursed by a benevolent government, and indulging his chronic laziness at the same time.
    He was known to be in tow with some equally feckless and dishonest men in Caxley, and, in fact, Arthur frequently acted as look-out man when the more daring of the gang were breaking-in. His wages for this kind of work were in proportion to the loot obtained, but always far less than the share each burglar received.
    'You didn't take much risk, chum,' they told him. 'Piece of cake being look-out. You can reckon yourself lucky to get this bit.'
    And Arthur agreed. As long as it helped to keep him in beer, there was no point in arguing.
    For a while, immediately after the discovery of the loss of Mr Mawne's roofing lead, Fairacre folk were extra careful about making their homes secure. People actually shut their
front doors on sunny days, instead of leaving them hospitably open for neighbours to enter. They began to hunt for door keys, long dis-used, and some very funny places they were found in after the passage of time. Mr Willet, after exhaustive searching, admitted that he found his front door key at the bottom of a biscuit tin full of nuts, bolts, screws, hinges, padlocks, latches, tacks, brass rings, and other useful impedimenta vital to a handyman.
    His neighbour found his on top of the cistern in the outside lavatory. The two Misses Waters, Margaret and Mary, who had a horror of burglars but so far relied on a stout bolt on both back and front doors, now scoured their small cottage in vain for the keys they had once owned. It was Margaret who remembered eventually, at three o'clock one morning, that they had hidden them under the fourth stone which bordered their brick path, when they were going away for a brief holiday some years earlier. At first light, she crept out, and unearthed them, red with rust. She remained in a heady state of triumph all day.
    Mr Lamb, it seemed, was the only householder in Fairacre who locked up and bolted and barred his premises methodically every night. But then, as people pointed out, as custodian of the Queen's mail he'd have to see things were done properly or he'd soon get the boot. No one gave him credit for his pains, and to be honest, Mr Lamb was sensible enough not to expect any. But at least he was spared the searching for keys, for his own hung, each on its hook and carefully labelled, ready for its nightly work.
    For a time, even the children caught the fever and became aware that it was necessary to be alert to dishonesty.
    One Caxley market day, Linda Moffat and Eileen Burton
arrived each with a door key on a string round their necks.
    'My mum's gone on the bus to buy some material for summer frocks,' said Linda 'and she may not be back when I get home.'
    'And mine's gone to buy some plants,' announced Eileen. 'Ours never come to nothing.'
    'If they never came to nothing,' I said severely, 'then they