‘No, but that’s just the type of man Warrenby was too,’ Charles said.
‘We don’t know he was, dear: he wasn’t here during the War.’
‘At all events, he wasn’t the kind of man the Squire usually encourages.’
‘Oh, no, not in the least I must say,’ remarked Mrs Haswell reflectively, ‘I have sometimes wondered why he bothered to be nice to him, particularly when poor Mr Drybeck disliked him so much.’
‘He did dislike him, didn’t he?’ said Abby eagerly.
‘Well, dear, I’m afraid we all did.’
‘But Mr Drybeck much more than most people. Charles, I can’t think how you can be so dim about this! Going on and on about Mavis, when all the evidence points to Mr Drybeck!’
‘It doesn’t. Besides, –’
‘Yes, it does,’ Abby insisted. ‘He had a motive, for one thing. Not just hating Warrenby, but being done down by him, which I know from things Aunt Miriam’s told me. Losing clients to him, and Warrenby pulling fast ones on him.’
‘Abby, me sweet, be your age!’ Charles besought her. ‘Look at poor old Thaddeus! The most respectable body!’
‘Like Armstrong!’ she flashed. ‘That’s what’s been in my mind all day! He’s a solicitor, too, and it’s almost the same motive. Armstrong was a respectable little man no one ever dreamed would murder anyone, but he did, so it’s no use saying the motive isn’t strong enough!’
‘I agree with all that, but you’re forgetting that it was Armstrong’s second murder – at least, he didn’t pull it off, did he? I remember he was tried for having poisoned his wife, and he had a much stronger motive for that. I don’t suppose he’d have tried to do in his rival if he hadn’t got away with the first murder. Probably made him think he was so damned clever he could get away with any number of murders. Like the Brides in the Bath man. Isn’t it true, Dad, that if a murderer gets away with it he very often commits another murder? Sort of blood to the head?’
‘So I believe,’ replied his father. ‘But if you are suggesting that Drybeck has already murdered someone it’s high time you curbed your imagination.’
‘I’m not. I’m merely pointing out to Abby where Drybeck’s resemblance to Armstrong ceases.’
‘Well, whatever you’re doing, I think we’ve had about enough of the subject,’ said Mr Haswell. ‘Did you get any tennis this afternoon?’
This question, impartially addressed to both the young people, put an effectual end to the discussion. It was not reopened, the rest of the evening being spent in playing Bridge. Only when Charles motored her back to Fox Cottage did Abby say ‘Was your father annoyed with us for talking about the murder?’
‘Oh, no!’ said Charles. ‘I think he’s afraid we shall be indiscreet in the wrong company, that’s all. Like Gavin.’
She wrinkled her brow. ‘He isn’t indiscreet. He’s waspish.’
‘Baiting the Major? I don’t think he’s doing anyone any harm, you know. Merely being witty, and showing-off.’
‘He was definitely waspish about Mavis,’ she insisted.
‘And who shall blame him? So am I.’
‘Yes, but you wouldn’t set the police on to her,’ she said seriously.
‘Under certain circumstances I might.’
‘What circumstances? I don’t believe you would!’
‘Like a shot I would! If I thought the police were after me, or my people.’ He paused, rounding the corner into Fox Lane. ‘Or you,’ he added.
‘Thanks awfully! Big of you!’
‘I’m like that,’ he said unctuously, pulling up outside Fox Cottage. ‘Nothing I won’t do for the people I love!’
‘Go to the stake for them, I wouldn’t wonder!’ she returned, with an uncertain little laugh.
‘With enthusiasm – for you!’
‘D-don’t be so silly! Oh, look! here comes Aunt Miriam!’
‘Blast Aunt Miriam!’ said Charles savagely.
‘Hallo, Charles!’ said Miss Patterdale, opening the gate, and coming up to the car with a large cardboard dress-box under her arm. ‘I thought you’d bring Abby back, so I packed up the things for your mother’s Sale of Work. Will you give them to her, please?’
He took the box from her, and threw it somewhat unceremoniously on to the back-seat. ‘All right, Aunt Miriam. Is that ghastly Sale upon us again already? Hell! What about running down to the sea tomorrow, after tea, Abby? I’ll look in in the morning on my way to the office, and see how you feel about it. ’Night, Aunt Miriam!’
‘Nice boy, Charles,’ remarked Miss Patterdale, accompanying her niece up the path to the front-door. ‘Did you solve the mystery between you?’
‘No. Actually, Mr Haswell rather squashed us. I say, Aunt Miriam, you know Charles and I looked in at the Red Lion for a short one before we went on to The Cedars? Well, we were having drinks with Gavin and Major Midgeholme when that detective who interviewed Mavis walked in, and whoever do you think he brought with him?’
‘Two detectives from Scotland Yard,’ said Miss Patterdale promptly. ‘I met them up at Fox House.’
‘Oh, no, did you really? What did you think of the little one – the Chief Inspector? I rather fell for him. He’s got a sense of humour, and he handled Gavin a fair treat!’
‘I should say,’ responded Miss Patterdale grimly, ‘that he is adept in handling people a fair treat, as you put it. You should have heard him with Flora Midgeholme! I knew this would lead to trouble!’
‘No, why should it? Only for the murderer, and you don’t mind that, do you?’
‘Certainly not, but it won’t be only for the murderer if I know anything about it. There won’t be a skeleton in Thornden that isn’t dug up. Don’t tell me! Your Chief Inspector said that they always tried to be discreet. I don’t know whether he thought I believed him. I suppose you know he called on Thaddeus Drybeck?’
‘No! What happened? Tell me!’
‘I don’t know, except that he’s made Thaddeus behave like a cat on hot bricks. He came up here after supper with one of the feeblest excuses I’ve ever heard, and tried to make me remember what time it was when Mavis came to tell me her uncle had been killed. I’m not surprised he’s losing ground in his practice: make him grasp that I wasn’t likely to remember something I’d never known I could not! I couldn’t think what he was after. You’d never guess what it turned out to be! He’s trying to prove that Mavis killed her uncle! Silly old fool! The fact of the matter is he’s lived the whole of his life wrapped up in cottonwool, and this affair has frightened him out of his wits.’
Abby, who was trying to pour out a glass of lemonade without allowing the scraps of peel to slide out of the jug, suspended her operations to stare at her aunt. ‘Is he really scared?’ she asked. ‘Then it all goes to show! Why should he be scared if he had nothing to do with it? Trying to divert suspicion on to someone else, too!’
Miss Patterdale was rather amused by this. ‘Well, you all of you seem to suspect someone, so why shouldn’t he?’
‘No, only Charles and me, really, because Gavin isn’t serious. The Haswells don’t suspect anyone, and the Major doesn’t either.’
‘Flora does,’ said Miss Patterdale, with a short bark of laughter. ‘Lord, what a fool that woman can be! She can’t make up her mind whether that Pole did it, or the Lindales – either one of them or both.’
‘The Lindales,’ repeated Abby, considering this suggestion dispassionately. ‘I don’t know them well enough to say. Why does Mrs Midgeholme think they might have?’
‘No reason at all. Mrs Lindale has been a little stand-offish to her. Don’t blame her!’
‘What do the Lindales themselves say about it?’
‘My dear girl, you don’t suppose I’ve been up to Rushyford, do you? I’ve no idea.’
‘Oh, no, I just thought you might have seen them after church!’
‘They aren’t churchgoers. At least, he isn’t. I don’t know what she may do: I believe she’s an RC.’
‘O
h! Aunt Miriam, why did the Ainstables take Warrenby up?’
‘It’s news to me that they did,’ said Miss Patterdale curtly.
‘Aunt Miriam! I distinctly remember you saying once that you couldn’t imagine why the Squire tolerated him!’
‘Tolerating people isn’t the same as taking them up. Who’s been putting this idea into your head?’
‘Gavin more or less started it –’
‘He would!’ interrupted Miss Patterdale, her eyes snapping.
‘Oh, he didn’t say anything about that! He was only talking rot about the Squire having done the murder because he was the least likely person,’ said Abby, not very lucidly. ‘And that made Charles ask his father exactly what I’ve asked you.’
‘It did, did it? And what did Mr Haswell say?’
Abby laughed, and gave her a hug. ‘He was rather snubbing. Like you, angel!’
‘So I should hope! Now, Abby, I’ve nothing to say against your playing at detection, but you stick to Thaddeus! Do him good to be harried a little, old stick-in-the-mud! Leave the Ainstables alone! They’ve had enough trouble, poor things, without being worried by policemen. I should be seriously annoyed if I found you’d said anything to that Scotland Yard man which put a lot of false ideas into his head. If the Ainstables were kinder than most of us to that odious man, it was because they always feel they have a duty towards everyone in the district.’
‘It’s all right: I’m not going to do anything snakeish,’ Abby assured her. ‘All the same, you do think it was funny of the Ainstables, don’t you? Funny-peculiar, I mean.’
‘Whatever I may have thought on that subject, I most certainly don’t think it had anything to do with Warrenby’s murder. Come along, it’s time we went to bed!’
Nine
Before he went to bed that night, Inspector Harbottle, who had spent some part of the evening at the police-station, studying the Firearms Register, was able to inform his chief, with a certain gloomy satisfaction, that thirty-seven persons, living within reasonable distance of Thornden, possessed .22 rifles. ‘And that, mind you, is only within a twenty-mile radius,’ he added, unfolding a piece of paper.
Hemingway, who had himself been engaged with the papers he had taken from Sampson Warrenby’s desk, perceived that he was about to read his list aloud, and instantly discouraged him. ‘I don’t want to hear you reciting the names of a lot of people I’ve never heard of, Horace! Checking up on the rifles is a nice job for the locals, and one that’ll just about suit them. You tell me who owns a .22 in Thornden! That’ll be enough to be going on with.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if we had to throw the net much wider,’ said Harbottle. ‘You’re very optimistic, Chief, but –’
‘Get on!’ commanded Hemingway.
The Inspector cast such a glance upon him as Calvin might have bestowed on a backslider, but replied with careful correctitude: ‘Very good, sir. According to the Register, there are eleven .22 rifles in Thornden. That includes three belonging to farmers, living just outside the village, which I daresay you aren’t interested in.’
‘You’re right. And if I have any cheek from you, Horace, I’ll give you the job of checking up on the whole thirty-seven!’
Cheered by this threat, the Inspector permitted himself to smile faintly. ‘Well, the Squire has one,’ he offered. ‘Likewise a chap called Eckford, his agent; and a John Henshaw, gamekeeper. Setting aside the possibility that someone might have got hold of their rifles unbeknownst, there doesn’t seem to be any reason, from what Carsethorn tells me, to think they could have had anything to do with the case. Next, there’s Kenelm Lindale: he has one.’
‘Which he lent to Ladislas the Pole not so long ago. I remember that one,’ interpolated Hemingway.
‘I thought you would,’ said Harbottle, eyeing him with melancholy pride. ‘Then there’s young Mr Haswell’s, which he spoke about; and Mr Plenmeller’s, which you picked up. Josiah Crailing has one – he’s the landlord of the Red Lion; and the last belongs to Mr Cliburn, the Vicar. Mr Drybeck’s got a shot-gun only; and Major Midgeholme’s hanging on to his Service revolver, and six cartridges, which there’s a fight about every time his Firearms Licence is due for renewal. So far he’s managed to keep them.’ He folded his list, and put it back in his pocket. ‘That’s the lot, Chief – so far as the Register goes. Do you want Carsethorn to pull them all in?’
‘What, the whole thirty-seven?’
‘Eleven,’ Harbottle corrected him.
‘Call it eight, Horace! If all else fails, maybe I’ll start to take an interest in these three farmers of yours, but so far I’ve got enough on my hands without annoying people that very likely wouldn’t have recognised Warrenby if they’d met him in the street. Tell Carsethorn to make the usual enquiries, and not to go cluttering poor old Knarsdale up with a lot of rifles which their owners can account for.’ He paused, and considered for a moment. ‘No sense in us treading on one another’s heels – nor in getting ourselves disliked more than we probably are already. I’m going to Thornden myself tomorrow, and I shall be paying a call on the Vicar. Tell Carsethorn I’ll bring in that rifle if I see fit. He’d better pull in the Squire’s, Lindale’s, and young Haswell’s first thing. He seems a fairly sensible chap, but you’d better warn him to do the thing tactfully – particularly when he gets to the Squire. The usual stuff about persons unauthorised perhaps having got hold of it.’
The Inspector nodded, but said: ‘You’re going to see the Vicar?’
‘Yes, and his rifle gives me a nice excuse.’
‘Carsethorn did check up on his alibi. It seems all right, Chief.’
‘That’s why I need an excuse. By what the Colonel tells me this Reverend Anthony Cliburn is just the man I want to give me the low-down on this high-class set-up. So far, I’ve had to listen to Mrs Midgeholme, who thinks Lindale murdered Warrenby, because Mrs Lindale gave her a raspberry; and to Drybeck, who’s in a blue funk; and to Plenmeller, who wants to be funny; and I’m getting muddled. When you want to know the ins and outs of village-life, Horace, go and talk to the Vicar! Not that it’s any use telling you that, because you haven’t got the art of making people talk, which is what becomes of drinking sarsaparilla instead of an honest glass of beer.’
‘Anything in Warrenby’s papers, sir?’ said the Inspector coldly.
‘Nothing that looks like doing us any good. We may find something at his office tomorrow, but I shall be surprised if we do.’
The Inspector grunted, and sat down. He watched Hemingway collect the papers into a pile, and then said: ‘There is something that strikes me, Chief.’
‘Second time today. You’re coming on,’ said Hemingway encouragingly. ‘Go on! Don’t keep me on tenterhooks!’
‘From the moment I was told the shot was probably fired from a .22 rifle,’ said the Inspector, ‘I’ve been turning it over in my mind, wondering what was done with that rifle. Because it seems to me it would be taking a big risk to walk away with it over your shoulder, or under your arm. Who’s to say you’d meet no one? But I watched you go off up the street with Plenmeller, Chief, and it came to me then that if anyone could walk about with a rifle concealed he could push it down his left trouser-leg, and, with that queer limp of his, no one would notice a thing.’
‘Not bad at all, Horace!’ approved Hemingway. ‘Now tell me why he takes it home, and puts it back in the gun-cabinet, instead of dropping it in the river, or somebody’s backyard – which is just the sort of little joke that would appeal to him, I should think. He inherited his guns from that brother of his; he doesn’t shoot himself – which I believe, because, for one thing, he’s not the kind of fool who’d tell lies to the police which they could easily disprove, and, for another, I noticed that the guns in that cabinet were showing signs of rust – and if he’d chosen to say that he didn’t know where the rifle was, and hadn’t even known it wasn’t in the cabinet, it would have been a difficult job to prove it hadn’t been pinched. Because it could have bee
n, easy! His door’s kept on the latch, and he’s got a deaf housekeeper.’ He got up, glancing at the marble clock over the fireplace. ‘I’m going to turn in, and you’d better do the same, or you’ll start brooding, or get struck by another idea, which would be bad for my heart.’
The Inspector rose, and after eyeing his chief for a pregnant moment, addressed himself to the vase of pampas-grass in a musing tone. ‘If I had to explain why I like my present job, I’m blessed if I could do it!’
‘If you’re thinking the BBC is going to ask you to take part in a programme, you needn’t worry!’ retorted Hemingway. ‘They won’t!’
‘How Sandy Grant put up with it as long as he did I don’t know!’ said Harbottle.
‘That’s all right, Horace: he knew if he stuck to me he’d precious soon get promoted.’
‘It’s a fact your assistants do,’ admitted Harbottle grudgingly.
‘Of course they do! Recommending them for promotion is the only way I can get rid of them. Come on up to bed!’
On the following morning, Inspector Harbottle betook himself to Sampson Warrenby’s office, and Hemingway went round to the police-station, where, after putting through a call to Headquarters, he had an interview with the Chief Constable, and received a brief report from Sergeant Knarsdale.
The Sergeant had already despatched the bullet, with its cartridge-case, which he had fired from Gavin Plenmeller’s rifle, to London, but said frankly that he was not hopeful. ‘I wouldn’t like to say, not for sure, without seeing them under the comparison-microscope,’ he told Hemingway, ‘but I think they’ll find there’s some marks on this cartridge-case I couldn’t spot on the other. Got any more for me, sir?’
‘Sergeant Carsethorn will be bringing in three more this morning, unless they’ve got unaccountably mislaid.’
Knarsdale grinned. ‘Regular arsenal we’ll have here!’
‘You don’t know the half of it! The inspector’s got thirty-seven on his list.’
‘Ah, well! we’ll be able to get up a competition,’ said the Sergeant, who knew his Chief Inspector.