'What was the good of his having a gun last night with all that fog?' queried the inspector.
'It was just a habit, sir,' Angell replied. 'He was used to it, as you might say.'
'All right, sit down again, would you?'
Angell sat again at one end of the sofa. The inspector examined the barrel of the gun before asking, 'When did you see Mr Warwick last?'
'About a quarter to ten last night, sir,' Angell told him. 'He had a bottle of brandy and a glass by his side, and the pistol he'd chosen. I arranged his rug for him, and wished him good-night.'
'Didn't he ever go to bed?' the inspector asked. 'No, sir,' replied the valet. 'At least, not in the usual sense of the term. He always slept in his chair. At six in the morning I would bring him tea, then I would wheel him into his bedroom, which had its own bathroom, where he'd bath and shave and so on, and then he'd usually sleep until lunch-time. I understand that he suffered from insomnia at night, and so he preferred to remain in his chair then. He was rather an eccentric gentleman.'
'And the window was shut when you left him?' 'Yes, sir,' Angell replied. 'There was a lot of fog about last night, and he didn't want it seeping into the house.'
'All right. The window was shut. Was it locked?' 'No, sir. That window was never locked.' 'So he could open it if he wanted to?' 'Oh, yes, sir. He had his wheelchair, you see. He could wheel himself over to the window and open it if the night should clear up.'
'I see.' The inspector thought for a moment, and then asked, 'You didn't hear a shot last night?' 'No, sir,' Angell replied.
The inspector walked across to the sofa and looked down at Angell. 'Isn't that rather remarkable?' he asked.
'No, not really, sir,' was the reply. 'You see, my room is some distance away. Along a passage and through a baize door on the other side of the house.'
'Wasn't that rather awkward, in case your master wanted to summon you?'
'Oh no, sir,' said Angell. 'He had a bell that rang in my room.'
'But he didn't press that bell last night at all?'
'Oh no, sir,' Angell repeated. 'If he had done so, I would have woken up at once. It is, if I may say so, a very loud bell, sir.'
Inspector Thomas leaned forward on the arm of the sofa to approach Angell in another way.
'Did you - ' he began in a voice of controlled impatience, only to be interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone. He waited for Sergeant Cadwallader to answer it, but the sergeant appeared to be dreaming with his eyes open and his lips moving soundlessly, perhaps immersed in some poetic reflection. After a moment, he realized that the inspector was staring at him, and that the phone was ringing. 'Sorry, sir, but a poem is on the way,' he explained as he went to the desk to answer the phone. 'Sergeant Cadwallader speaking,' he said. There was a pause, and then he added, 'Ah yes, indeed.' After another pause, he turned to the inspector. 'It's the police at Norwich, sir.'
Inspector Thomas took the phone from Cadwallader, and sat at the desk. 'Is that you, Edmundson?' he asked. 'Thomas here . . . Got it, right. . . Yes . . . Calgary, yes . . . Yes . . . Yes, the aunt, when did she die? . . . Oh, two months ago . . . Yes, I see . . .
Eighteen, Thirty-fourth Street, Calgary.' He looked up impatiently at Cadwallader, and gestured to him to take a note of the address. 'Yes. . . Oh, it was, was it? . . . Yes, slowly please.' He looked meaningfully again at his sergeant. 'Medium height,' he repeated. 'Blue eyes, dark hair and beard . . . Yes, as you say, you remember the case . . . Ah, he did, did he? . . . Violent sort of fellow? . . . Yes . . . You're sending it along? Yes . . . Well, thank you, Edmundson. Tell me, what do you think, yourself? . . . Yes, yes, I know what the findings were, but what did you think yourself? . . . Ah, he had, had he? . . . Once or twice before. . . Yes, of course, you'd make some allowances . . . All right. Thanks.'
He replaced the receiver and said to the sergeant, 'Well, we've got some of the dope on MacGregor. It seems that, when his wife died, he travelled back to England from Canada to leave the child with an aunt of his wife's who lived in North Walsham, because he had just got himself a job in Alaska and couldn't take the boy with him. Apparently he was terribly cut up at the child's death, and went about swearing revenge on Warwick. That's not uncommon after one of these accidents. Anyway, he went off back to Canada. They've got his address, and they'll send a cable off to Calgary. The aunt he was going to leave the child with died about two months ago.' He turned suddenly to Angell. 'You were there at the time, I suppose, Angell? Motor accident in North Walsham, running over a boy.'
'Oh yes, sir,' Angell replied. 'I remember it quite well.'
The inspector got up from the desk and went across to the valet. Seeing the desk chair empty. Sergeant Cadwallader promptly took the opportunity to sit down. 'What happened?' the inspector asked Angell. 'Tell me about the accident.'
'Mr Warwick was driving along the main street, and a little boy ran out of a house there,' Angell told him. 'Or it might have been the inn. I think it was. There was no chance of stopping. Mr Warwick ran over him before he could do a thing about it.'
'He was speeding, was he?' asked the inspector.
'Oh no, sir. That was brought out very clearly at the inquest. Mr Warwick was well within the speed limit.'
'I know that's what he said,' the inspector commented.
'It was quite true, sir,' Angell insisted. 'Nurse Warburton - a nurse Mr Warwick employed at the time - she was in the car, too, and she agreed.'
The inspector walked across to one end of the sofa. 'Did she happen to look at the speedometer at the time?' he queried.
'I believe Nurse Warburton did happen to see the speedometer,' Angell replied smoothly. 'She estimated that they were going at between twenty and twenty-five miles an hour. Mr Warwick was completely exonerated.'
'But the boy's father didn't agree?' the inspector asked.
'Perhaps that's only natural, sir,' was Angell's comment.
'Had Mr Warwick been drinking?'
Angel's reply was evasive. 'I believe he had had a glass of sherry, sir,' He and Inspector Thomas exchanged glances. Then the inspector crossed to the french windows, taking out his handkerchief and blowing his nose. 'Well, I think that'll do for now,' he told the valet.
Angell rose and went to the door. After a moment's hesitation, he turned back into the room. 'Excuse me, sir,' he said. 'But was Mr Warwick shot with his own gun?'
The inspector turned to him. 'That remains to be seen,' he observed. 'Whoever it was who shot him collided with Mr Starkwedder, who was coming up to the house to try to get help for his stranded vehicle. In the collision, the man dropped a gun. Mr Starkwedder picked it up - this gun.' He pointed to the gun on the table.
'I see, sir. Thank you, sir,' said Angell as he turned to the door again.
'By the way,' added the inspector, 'were there any visitors to the house yesterday? Yesterday evening in particular?'
Angell paused for just a moment, then eyed the inspector shiftily. 'Not that I can recall, sir - at present,' he replied. He left the room, closing the door behind him.
Inspector Thomas went back to the desk. 'If you ask me,' he said quietly to the sergeant, 'that fellow's a nasty bit of goods. Nothing you can put your finger on, but I don't like him.'
'I'm of the same opinion as you, regarding that,' Cadwallader replied. 'He's not a man I would trust, and what's more, I'd say there may have been something fishy about that accident.' Suddenly realizing that the inspector was standing over him, he got up quickly from his chair. The inspector took the notes Cadwallader had been making, and began to peruse them. 'Now I wonder if Angell knows something he hasn't told us about last night,' he began, and then broke off. 'Hello, what's this? "'Tis misty in November, But seldom in December." That's not Keats, I hope?'
'No,' said Sergeant Cadwallader proudly. 'That's Cadwallader.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
The inspector thrust Cadwallader's notebook back at him roughly, as the door opened and Miss Bennett came in, closing the door
carefully behind her. 'Inspector,' she said, 'Mrs Warwick is very anxious to see you. She is fussing a little.' She added quickly, 'I mean Mrs Warwick senior, Richard's mother. She doesn't admit it, but I don't think she's in the best of health, so please be gentle with her. Will you see her now?'
'Oh, certainly,' replied the inspector. 'Ask her to come in.'
Miss Bennett opened the door, beckoning, and Mrs Warwick came in. 'It's all right, Mrs Warwick,' the housekeeper assured her, leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.
'Good morning, madam,' the inspector said. Mrs Warwick did not return his greeting, but came directly to the point. 'Tell me, Inspector,' she ordered, 'what progress are you making?'
'It's rather early to say that, madam,' he replied, 'but you can rest assured that we're doing everything we can.'
Mrs Warwick sat on the sofa, placing her stick against the arm. 'This man MacGregor,' she asked. 'Has he been seen hanging about locally? Has anyone noticed him?'
'Enquiries have gone out about that,' the inspector informed her. 'But so far there's been no record of a stranger being seen in the locality.'
'That poor little boy,' Mrs Warwick continued. 'The one Richard ran over, I mean. I suppose it must have unhinged the father's brain. I know they told me he was very violent and abusive at the time. Perhaps that was only natural. But after two years! It seems incredible.'
'Yes,' the inspector agreed, 'it seems a long time to wait.''
'But he was a Scot, of course,' Mrs Warwick recalled. 'A MacGregor. A patient, dogged people, the Scots.'
'Indeed they are,' exclaimed Sergeant Cadwallader, forgetting himself and thinking out loud. ' "There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make,"' he continued, but the inspector immediately gave him a sharp look of disapproval, which quietened him.
'Your son had no preliminary warning?' Inspector Thomas asked Mrs Warwick. 'No threatening letter? Anything of that kind?'
'No, I'm sure he hadn't,' she replied quite firmly. 'Richard would have said so. He would have laughed about it.'
'He wouldn't have taken it seriously at all?' the inspector suggested.
'Richard always laughed at danger,' said Mrs Warwick. She sounded proud of her son.
'After the accident,' the inspector continued, 'did your son offer any compensation to the child's father?'
'Naturally,' Mrs Warwick replied. 'Richard was not a mean man. But it was refused. Indignantly refused, I may say.'
'Quite so,' murmured the inspector.
'I understand MacGregor's wife was dead,' Mrs Warwick recalled. 'The boy was all he had in the world. It was a tragedy, really.'
'But in your opinion it was not your son's fault?' the inspector asked. When Mrs Warwick did not answer, he repeated his question. 'I said - it was not your son's fault?'
She remained silent a moment longer before replying, 'I heard you.'
'Perhaps you don't agree?' the inspector persisted.
Mrs Warwick turned away on the sofa, embarrassed, fingering a cushion. 'Richard drank too much,' she said finally. 'And of course he'd been drinking that day.'
'A glass of sherry?' the inspector prompted her.
'A glass of sherry!' Mrs Warwick repeated with a bitter laugh. 'He'd been drinking pretty heavily. He did drink - very heavily. That decanter there -' She indicated the decanter on the table near the armchair in the french windows. 'That decanter was filled every evening, and it was always practically empty in the morning.'
Sitting on the stool and facing Mrs Warwick, the inspector said to her, quietly, 'So you think that your son was to blame for the accident?'
'Of course he was to blame,' she replied. 'I've never had the least doubt of it.'
'But he was exonerated,' the inspector reminded her.
Mrs Warwick laughed. 'That nurse who was in the car with him? That Warburton woman?' she snorted. 'She was a fool, and she was devoted to Richard. I expect he paid her pretty handsomely for her evidence, too.'
'Do you actually know that?' the inspector asked, sharply.
Mrs Warwick's tone was equally sharp as she replied, 'I don't know anything, but I arrive at my own conclusions.'
The inspector went across to Sergeant Cadwallader and took his notes from him, while Mrs Warwick continued. 'I'm telling you all this now,' she said, 'because what you want is the truth, isn't it? You want to be sure there's sufficient incentive for murder on the part of that little boy's father. Well, in my opinion, there was. Only, I didn't think that after all this time -' Her voice trailed away into silence.
The inspector looked up from the notes he had been consulting. 'You didn't hear anything last night?' he asked her.
'I'm a little deaf, you know,' Mrs Warwick replied quickly. 'I didn't know anything was wrong until I heard people talking and passing my door. I came down, and young Jan said, "Richard's been shot. Richard's been shot." I thought at first-' She passed her hand over her eyes. 'I thought it was a joke of some kind.'
'Jan is your younger son?' the inspector asked her.
'He's not my son,' Mrs Warwick replied. The inspector looked at her quickly as she went on, 'I divorced my husband many years ago. He remarried. Jan is the son of the second marriage.' She paused, then continued. 'It sounds more complicated than it is, really. When both his parents died, the boy came here. Richard and Laura had just been married then. Laura has always been very kind to Richard's half-brother. She's been like an elder sister to him, really.'
She paused, and the inspector took the opportunity to lead her back to talking about Richard Warwick. 'Yes, I see,' he said, 'but now, about your son Richard -'
'I loved my son, Inspector,' Mrs Warwick said, 'but I was not blind to his faults, and they were very largely due to the accident that made him a cripple. He was a proud man, an outdoor man, and to have to live the life of an invalid and a semi-cripple was very galling to him. It did not, shall we say, improve his character.'
'Yes, I see,' observed the inspector. 'Would you say his married life was happy?'
'I haven't the least idea.' Mrs Warwick clearly had no intention of saying any more on the subject. 'Is there anything else you wish to know, Inspector?' she asked.
'No thank you, Mrs Warwick,' Inspector Thomas replied. 'But I should like to talk to Miss Bennett now, if I may.'
Mrs Warwick rose, and Sergeant Cadwallader went to open the door for her. 'Yes, of course,' she said. 'Miss Bennett. Benny, we call her. She's the person who can help you most. She's so practical and efficient.'
'She's been with you for a long time?' the inspector asked.
'Oh yes, for years and years. She looked after Jan when he was little, and before that she helped with Richard, too. Oh, yes, she's looked after all of us. A very faithful person, Benny.' Acknowledging the sergeant at the door with a nod, she left the room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sergeant Cadwallader closed the door and stood with his back against it, looking at the inspector. 'So Richard Warwick was a drinking man, eh?' he commented. 'You know, I've heard that said of him before. And all those pistols and air-guns and rifles. A little queer in the head, if you ask me.'
'Could be,' Inspector Thomas replied laconically.
The telephone rang. Expecting his sergeant to answer it, the inspector looked meaningfully at him, but Cadwallader had become immersed in his notes as he strolled across to the armchair and sat, completely oblivious of the phone. After a while, realizing that the sergeant's mind was elsewhere, no doubt in the process of composing a poem, the inspector sighed, crossed to the desk, and picked up the receiver.
'Hello,' he said. 'Yes, speaking . . . Starkwedder, he came in? He gave you his prints? . . . Good . . . yes - well, ask him to wait . . . yes, I shall be back in half an hour or so . . . yes, I want to ask him some more questions . . . Yes, goodbye.'
Towards the end of this conversation, Miss Bennett had entered the room, and was standing by the door. Noticing her, Sergeant Cadwallader rose from his armchair and took up
a position behind it. 'Yes?' said Miss Bennett with an interrogative inflection. She addressed the inspector. 'You want to ask me some questions? I've got a good deal to do this morning.'
'Yes, Miss Bennett,' the inspector replied. 'I want to hear your account of the car accident with the child in Norfolk.'
'The MacGregor child?'
'Yes, the MacGregor child. You remembered his name very quickly last night, I hear.'
Miss Bennett turned to close the door behind her. 'Yes,' she agreed. 'I have a very good memory for names.'
'And no doubt,' the inspector continued, 'the occurrence made some impression on you. But you weren't in the car yourself, were you?'