‘Well, that’s all right, as far as it goes,’ said Hemingway. ‘What about this Squire you talk of?’
‘Mr Ainstable. It’s like I told you, sir. He went off to look at the plantation, and didn’t get home till about a quarter to eight. Mrs Ainstable, I should mention, had left the party early, by car, at 6.30. That’s corroborated by Mr Plenmeller. He met her in the drive – he’d been back to his house to fetch some papers the Squire wanted – and she stopped to have a word with him. Seems she wasn’t very well: he says she looked bad, and was very nervy. She’s a bit of an invalid. Another person who went away early was Mr Cliburn, the Vicar. He went directly after tea, to visit a sick parishioner. I should say that’s all right, sir. I haven’t yet checked up on him, but –’
‘Well, don’t, unless you’re hard up for a job,’ Hemingway advised him. ‘Of course, we may have to fall back on him, but if we do, all I can say is I shall be surprised, and it takes a lot to surprise me. I might be able to swallow the Vicar’s wife, at a pinch, but even that’ll take a bit of doing.’
‘Mrs Cliburn and Miss Warrenby were the last to leave, sir,’ said the Sergeant, uncertain how to take the Chief Inspector. ‘They both left at ten past seven, Miss Warrenby going by way of the garden-gate, and Mrs Cliburn down the drive to Wood Lane. I’ve checked up on that. There’s an old chap who lives in one of the cottages in the High Street, facing Wood Lane. He was sitting on his doorstep, and he saw Mrs Cliburn come down the lane. He couldn’t say what time that was, because he wasn’t noticing particularly, but it seems Mrs Cliburn stopped to pass the time of day with him, and then went straight into the Vicarage. He says he saw Mr Plenmeller too, and that he didn’t go to Thornden House but along the street to the Red Lion. And he didn’t have a rifle, because that’s something old Rugby would have been bound to have noticed.’
‘Well, we can rule out Mrs Cliburn, too,’ said Hemingway. ‘Which brings us to this chap with the queer name. I’ve heard it before, but I don’t seem able to put a face to it.’
‘I suppose you might have heard it,’ said the Colonel grudgingly. ‘He writes detective stories. Don’t read ’em myself, but I’m told they’re very ingenious.’
‘Yes, I thought this case sounded a bit too good to be true,’ said Hemingway. ‘So I’m stuck with one of these amateur crime-specialists, am I, sir? Has he got an alibi?’
‘There seems to be some doubt about that,’ replied the Colonel, on a dry note. ‘You’d better tell him what Plenmeller said to you, Sergeant. He may as well know what he’s up against.’
‘Well, sir, it’s a fact I don’t know what to make of him,’ confessed the Sergeant. ‘Anyone would think there was nothing he liked better than to be mixed up in a case of murder! I ran him to earth at the Red Lion this morning, drinking a pint with Major Midgeholme, just after twelve. Quite the life and soul of the bar, he was, holding forth about the murder, and saying how he was sure the Major’s wife had done it, because of Mr Warrenby having been brutal to one of her little dogs. All by way of a joke, of course, but you could see the Major didn’t like it. So then Mr Plenmeller started in to prove how he might have done it himself. Very humorous he was, I’m sure, but not having the whole day to waste I stepped up to the bar, and told him who I was, and said I’d like a word with him. And if you was to ask me, sir, that was all he needed to make him quite happy. Anyone would have thought the whole thing was a play, and we was having drinks between the acts, and talking it over. Indecent, I call it, not to say coldblooded! Naturally I’d no thought of asking him questions in a public bar: my idea was we’d step up to his house, but that wouldn’t do for him. “Oh”, he says, “you want to know where I was at the time the crime was committed, and I’m sure I haven’t got an alibi!” The Major took him up pretty sharp on that, and said as how he knew very well he was on his way home when the rest of them – him, and Mr Drybeck, and Miss Dearham – set off in young Mr Haswell’s car. “Ah!” says Mr Plenmeller, “but how do you know I did go home? I might have been anywhere,” he says, “and Crailing – that’s the landlord of the pub – will swear I didn’t come in here till close on eight last night!” Which, however, Crailing didn’t do, not by a long chalk! He said he was positive Mr Plenmeller came in long before that, though he couldn’t be sure what the exact time was. Then I’m blessed if Mr Plenmeller didn’t tell him not to go saddling him with an alibi he didn’t want. Before I could say anything, the Major spoke to him, very military. Told him not to make a fool of himself, and to stop trying to turn the whole thing into a farce. So then he laughed, and said it was all such good copy he wasn’t going to be pushed out of it, and it was going to be very valuable to him to know how it felt to be what he called a hot suspect. However, he got a bit more serious after that, and he said that actually he had gone home before stepping down the street to the Red Lion, though he didn’t think he could prove it, because so far as he knew Mrs Blindburn – that’s his housekeeper – couldn’t have seen him, being in the kitchen, and certainly wouldn’t have heard him, because she’s as deaf as a post. Which is true enough: she is.’
‘I see,’ said Hemingway, somewhat grimly. ‘I’ve met his sort before! Oh, well, with any luck we may be able to pin the murder on him!’
The Colonel smiled, but Sergeant Carsethorn looked a little shocked. ‘Well, I daresay he could have done it,’ he said dubiously, ‘but I can’t say I know why he should want to.’
‘The Chief Inspector wasn’t speaking seriously, Sergeant.’
‘No, sir. That’s about the lot, then, as far as we’ve had time to discover.’
‘What about young Mr Haswell’s father?’ enquired Hemingway. ‘Or is he out of the running?’
‘He wasn’t there, sir. He went off to Woodhall that afternoon, and didn’t get home till half past eight. Woodhall’s a good fifteen miles from Thornden: it’s a big estate which he looks after for the owner. He’s an estate agent, and he does a good bit of that sort of work.’
‘Was he on good terms with Mr Warrenby?’
The Sergeant hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly, but on the other hand I wouldn’t say that there was anything definite, if you take my meaning. They were both on the Council, and I believe they had a few differences of opinion.’
‘Tell me something else!’ invited Hemingway. ‘Do you know of anyone who was on good terms with this character?’
The Sergeant grinned. Colonel Scales said: ‘Yes, you’ve hit the mark, Chief Inspector. He was a nasty piece of work, and no one could stand him! I don’t mind telling you that I couldn’t myself. He was one of those men who not only want to have a finger in every pie, but who are never content until they’re top-dog. Sort of pocket-Hitler! A bumptious little upstart who wanted to be the kingpin in the district, and would go to any lengths to muscle in on things that were no concern of his, and which you wouldn’t have thought he’d want to be bothered with! He even got himself on to the committee for the charity-ball Lady Binchester organised, a year ago. I don’t know how he managed that, but I’ve no doubt he thought it would give him a foothold in that set. More fool he!’
‘It sounds to me, sir, as though this place where he lived can’t have been the only place where he made enemies. We’ve gone into all the Thornden people. What about the people he must have rubbed up against here, where he had his business?’
‘We’ve thought of that, naturally, but setting aside the fact that Carsethorn hasn’t heard of any Bellingham-man being seen in Thornden at the time – of course, it’s possible to get to Fox House across the common, I know – I don’t know that he had any serious quarrel with anyone. There was a good deal of jealousy, a lot of people disliked him, we should most of us have been glad to have seen him leave Bellingham. He was the best-hated man in the district, but you don’t murder a man you just don’t like: there has to be some motive! And that, Chief Inspector, is why I thought it wisest to call in Scotland Yard at once: no one has anything that begins to look like a sufficient motive!’
‘There’s the Pole that seems to have been making passes at the niece, isn’t there?’ suggested Hemingway mildly. ‘What’s more, there’s the young lady herself. If she inherits his money, I should call that a pretty good motive.’
‘You’d better go and make Miss Warrenby’s acquaintance!’ recommended the Colonel, with a bark of laughter.
‘I will, sir,’ said the Chief Inspector.
Six
The trouble with you, Horace, is that there’s no pleasing you,’ said the Chief Inspector, some little time later. ‘I bring you down, in the middle of the summer, to as nice a part of the country as you could wish for, set you up in a pub which, as far as I can see, never got around to reading the Rationing Orders, and all you do is to sit there looking as though you’d been dragged to one of the Distressed Areas. I’ll trouble you for the butter, my lad!’
The Inspector handed him a green dish fashioned into the semblance of a lettuce-leaf. ‘It is butter, too,’ he said severely. ‘About a week’s ration.’
Hemingway helped himself generously. Both men were sitting down, in the otherwise deserted coffee-room, to a high tea reminiscent of an almost forgotten age of plenty. The Sun, though perhaps its oldest, was by no means Bellingham’s most fashionable hostelry. It was situated in a back street, and catered for Commercials; the rigours of its beds were alleviated by feather-mattresses; it had one bathroom, containing an antiquated painted bath, with an old-fashioned plug, and a wooden surround; and several of its tiny lattice windows could, by the exercise of careful force, be induced to open. Since its clients were not persons of leisure, only one sitting-room had been provided for them, and that the coffee-room, which contained, besides one long table, a number of horsehair chairs; a massive and very yellow mahogany sideboard, supporting an aspidistra, a biscuit-tin commemorating the coronation of Edward VII, and an array of sauce-bottles and pickle-jars; several steel-engravings in maplewood frames; and a tall vase full of pampas-grass. Meals were not served with elegance, or dignified by menu-cards, but the food itself was excellent, and prepared by a large-minded person. An order for tea was understood by this person to include a plate piled with bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, and chips, three or four kinds of jam, scones, a heavy fruit cake, a loaf of bread, a dish of stewed fruit, and one of radishes. Sergeant Carsethorn had recommended the Sun to Hemingway, a circumstance which was causing that cheerful officer to take what his assistant considered a roseate view of his ability.
‘And I’d like to know how they come by all that bacon,’ added Harbottle, in a sinister voice.
The Chief Inspector poured himself out another cup of tea, and lavishly sugared it. ‘Why you ever went in for homicide beats me,’ he remarked. ‘What you ought to have done was to have got yourself a job as snooper for the Ministry of Food. What’s it matter to you where they come by their bacon? I didn’t hear you making any bones about eating it. Have another cup of tea!’
Harbottle accepted his offer, and sat for some minutes stirring the brew meditatively. ‘It’s all very well being sent into the country,’ he said suddenly, ‘but I don’t like this case, Chief!’
‘That’s because you’ve got an inferiority-complex,’ responded Hemingway, unperturbed. ‘I thought there’d be trouble when they started talking about the Squire. It set you off remembering the days when you were one of the village lads, carting dung, and touching your forelock to the Squire.’
‘I did no such thing!’ said his indignant subordinate. ‘What’s more I never carted dung in my life, or touched my forelock! I hadn’t got one, and I wouldn’t have touched it if I had had!’
‘One of the Reds, were you? Well, it’s no use brooding over the equality of man here, because that won’t get us anywhere.’ He observed that the Inspector was breathing heavily, and added soothingly: ‘All right, Job! you cool off, or you’ll very likely burst a blood-vessel.’
‘Why Job?’ demanded the Inspector suspiciously.
‘If you read your Bible you’d know that the poor chap suffered from a horrible disease. Amongst other things, which I’ve forgotten for the moment.’
‘Now, look here!’ exploded Harbottle. ‘What am I supposed to be suffering from, I’d like to know?’
‘Me, mostly,’ replied Hemingway serenely.
A reluctant grin greeted this sally. ‘Well, you’re the boss, so it won’t do for me to contradict you, sir. But what you see in this case to be pleased about I can’t make out! Seems to me it’s either going to be so easy that this local Sergeant you think so well of might just as well have solved it for himself; or it’s going to be such a snorter that we shall never get to the bottom of it.’
‘It’s got class,’ said Hemingway, selecting a radish from the dish. ‘It’s got a good decor, too, and, barring the Pole, I like the sound of the dramatis personae. It isn’t every day you get a murder amongst a lot of nice, respectable people living in a country village. Of course, I daresay Snettisham will dig up some character with a record as long as your arm, here in Bellingham, who’ll turn out to be the guilty party, but so far it looks a lot more promising than that. It’s got what you might call possibilities.’
The Inspector frowned over these. ‘The Pole – which you wouldn’t like! – and the niece, which the Chief Constable laughed at. I didn’t reckon much to any of the others. Except that I’d like to know why the Chief Constable shut up so tight when Carsethorn started on the solicitor – Drybeck!’
‘Because Drybeck’s his own solicitor, and he plays golf with him every weekend,’ replied Hemingway promptly.
‘Did Carsethorn tell you that, sir?’
‘No, he didn’t have to. It’s standing out a mile the Chief Constable’s on friendly terms with most of the people mixed up in the case. That’s why he was so prompt in calling us in, and I’m sure I don’t blame him.’
Harbottle shook his head over this evidence of the frailty of human nature, but he appeared to accept it, and relapsed once more into meditative silence. The frown deepened between his brows; he presently said abruptly: ‘There’s one thing that strikes me about this case, Chief!’
‘What’s that?’ asked Hemingway, not looking up from his study of the plan of Thornden.
‘Well, it seems to be fairly well established that the shot was fired from close to that clump of gorse. How did the murderer know that the deceased was going to be so obliging as to sit down on that seat in his garden at just that time of day?’
‘He didn’t,’ replied Hemingway. ‘He probably didn’t even know he was going to have the luck to find Warrenby in the garden at all. You think it over, Horace! If the murder was committed by one of the people at that tennis-party, he knew Miss Warrenby wasn’t in the house, and it’s a safe bet he also knew it was the maid’s day out. He may have thought Warrenby was likely to be in the garden on a hot June evening, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t been. You’ve seen the house: it came out good and clear in one of the photographs. It’s got long french windows, which would be bound to be standing open on a day like that. As for the time, that didn’t matter either. If the Pole did it, obviously he couldn’t have, because he must have had to lie up, waiting for Warrenby to show himself, for nearly a couple of hours. Which is one reason why I don’t, so far, much fancy young Ladislas.’
‘The more I think of it, the more I can’t help feeling it must have been someone who wasn’t at that party at all,’ said Harbottle. ‘If it was one of them, where was the rifle? If it had been a cricket-match, we could assume it had been all the time in the murderer’s cricket-bag; but what would anyone take to a tennis-party which could possibly hold a rifle?’
‘Nothing, of course. That’s quite a good point, Horace, but there’s an easy answer to it. If the murderer was at that party, he knew the locality well, and somewhere between the Haswells’ place and Warrenby’s he had that rifle cached where he could pick it up easily at the right moment. You’re a country-man! You ought to know it isn’t very difficult, where you’
ve got woods, and hedges, and ditches. I’d choose a ditch, myself, at this time of the year, when the grass is long; and everything a regular tangle of dog-roses, and meadowsweet, and the rest of it.’
‘Yes,’ admitted Harbottle. ‘If it turns out to be like you describe.’
‘Well, we shall soon see,’ said Hemingway. ‘Carsethorn’s coming round here before six to pick us up, and take us out to Thornden. They’ve had a chap keeping an eye on Fox House ever since yesterday, and Miss Warrenby wants him to be removed as soon as convenient, on account of the maid, who says she can’t stay there with a policeman on the premises. Nice reputation the police have got in these parts!’
‘People don’t like having police in the house,’ said the Inspector seriously. ‘It isn’t respectable.’
‘Well, once I’ve had a look at the scene, and gone through any private papers there may be in the desk, he can be taken off. I don’t want to lose that girl a maid, even if she did murder her uncle, which we don’t know, after all. Warrenby had a London solicitor, but beyond having drawn up his Will he doesn’t seem to have done much for him. He’s fishing in Scotland at the moment, anyway: the Chief Constable had a word with his clerk, and then with Miss Warrenby, who said she was sure her uncle wouldn’t have minded us doing whatever it was our duty to do. So we don’t have to lug this bird back from Scotland before we can get on with the job.’