‘That’s good, sir,’ said Hemingway. ‘A war-injury?’
‘I took no part in the War. I was born with a short leg.’
‘Very hard luck, sir.’
‘Not in the least. I’m sure I should have disliked soldiering heartily. It does not discommode me in the saddle, and since hunting is the only sport I have the least desire to engage in, any sympathy you may be silently bestowing on me is entirely wasted.’
‘Do you get much hunting, sir?’
‘No, I cannot afford it. It doesn’t run to more than one decent hunter. Not a bad-looking horse, and not a bad performer on his going-days. Other times, it’s hit ’em and leave ’em, but he hasn’t gone back on me yet.’
‘Your brother didn’t hunt?’
‘No, he was such a dreary type, always either treading trees, or observing the habits of some birds, and shooting others.’
‘What made him commit suicide – if I may ask?’
‘I’ve told you: I did. With his dying breath he told me so, and you have to believe dying words, don’t you?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t so to say bank on them – not under those circumstances. In my experience, the sort of messages suicides leave behind them would be better put straight on the fire, because they only bring a lot of misery on people that in nine cases out of ten don’t deserve it.’
‘Oh, would you put it as strongly as that? I thought it was so annoying of him: like uttering a dirty crack, and then walking out of the room before it can be answered. We have now reached my ancestral home: go in!’
The Chief Inspector stepped through the gate in the wall, and paused for a moment, looking at the gracious house before him.
‘Like it?’ Gavin asked.
‘Yes, sir. Don’t you?’
‘Aesthetically, very much; sentimentally, a little; practically, not at all. The plumbing is archaic; the repairs – if I could undertake them – would be ruinous; and to run it properly a staff of at least three indoor servants is necessary. I have one crone, and a gardener-groom, who also does odd jobs.’ He led the way up the flagged path to the front-door, and opened it. ‘The room my brother used, amongst other things, as his gun-room, is at the back,’ he said, limping past the elegant staircase to a swing-door covered in moth-eaten brown baize. ‘Kitchen premises,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Here we are!’ He opened a door, and signed to the Chief Inspector to enter. ‘A disgusting room!’ he remarked. ‘It reeks of dogs, and always will. My brother’s spaniels used to sleep in it. A revolting pair, gushingly affectionate, and wholly lacking in tact or discrimination! Guns over here.’ He went to a glass-fronted case, and opened it. ‘Quite an armoury, as you perceive. Including a couple of hammer-guns, which must have belonged to my father. Yes, I thought Walter would probably have a .22. Take it, and do what you will with it!’ He lifted it out of the case as he spoke, but paused before handing it to Hemingway, and said, with a twisted smile: ‘Oh, that was unworthy of the veriest tyro, wasn’t it? Now I’ve left my fingerprints on it. That might be quite clever of me, mightn’t it?’
‘Not so very clever,’ said Hemingway. ‘Something tells me that the gun I’m after won’t have any prints on it at all. Mind if I borrow this, sir?’
‘No, and much good would it do me if I did mind! Would you like to fire it into my marrow-bed? I expect we can find some ammunition for it.’
‘Not my department, sir,’ Hemingway said, tucking the rifle under his arm. ‘I’m much obliged to you, though.’
He took his leave of Gavin on the doorstep, and found, when he stepped through the gate again, that the police-car was drawn up outside. He got into the back, beside Inspector Harbottle, and propped the rifle up between them. ‘Well, I’ll say this for you, you’re a zealous lot of chaps,’ he remarked. ‘Or did they throw you out of the pub for getting noisy?’
‘Where do you wish to go now, sir?’ asked Harbottle severely.
‘Back to Bellingham. We’ve done about enough for today, and given ourselves plenty to think about. Also I’ve picked up the first of the rifles we aren’t looking for.’
‘You don’t think it could be that one, sir?’ asked the Sergeant. ‘I mean, you’ve got some reason?’
‘No, I haven’t got any reason, but if I’ve hit the right one, first crack out of the bag, it’ll be a miracle, and I don’t believe in them. Step on it a bit, son: no one will have you up!’
‘You have now seen a few of the people you have to deal with,’ said Harbottle, with gloomy satisfaction. ‘Are you still liking the case, Chief?’
‘Of course I am! Why shouldn’t I, when I’ve got half a dozen people doing my job for me?’
This drew a smile from Harbottle, but slightly puzzled the Sergeant, who did not recall having seen quite so many persons in the Chief Inspector’s train. ‘Half a dozen, sir?’ he repeated.
‘Well, that’s what’s called a conservative estimate,’ said Hemingway. ‘From what I’ve seen, I shouldn’t think there’s a house or a cottage in Thornden where they aren’t chewing over the crime at this very moment. If your Mr Drybeck hasn’t solved the whole mystery by tomorrow, very likely that nice young couple will have done it, and then we can go back to London, and take all the credit.’
Eight
Whatever may have been the topics under discussion in other houses, nothing but the murder of Sampson Warrenby was considered worthy to be talked about at The Cedars, where the son of the house and Miss Dearham were regaling Mrs Haswell, over cocktails, with a description of the encounter at the Red Lion. Mrs Haswell, beyond entertaining a vague hope that no one she knew would prove to be the guilty person, took really very little interest in the affair. She inclined to the belief that the murder had probably been committed by a Bellingham man, and was a good deal more exercised in her mind over the disquieting symptoms suddenly evinced by one of her rarer plants. However, she and Miss Patterdale were agreed that although it was disagreeable to persons of their generation to have a murder committed in their midst, it was very nice for the children to have something to occupy them, Thornden being such a quiet place, with really nothing to do in it at this season except to play tennis. Miss Patterdale went so far as to say that if it had had to happen she was glad it had happened during Abby’s visit, because she was always so afraid Abby would grow bored when she stayed with her. Mrs Haswell said, Yes, she felt the same about Charles; but privately she thought a murder had not been necessary to keep either Charles or Abby from a state of boredom.
‘I rather liked the Chief Inspector, didn’t you?’ Abby said. ‘The other one had a quelling sort of face, though. Much more like what one imagines. I do wonder what they’re doing!’
‘I thought the Chief was leading us all on to talk. I was afraid you were going to come out with your theory.’
‘Like Gavin. You are a beast, Charles! As though I would! All the same, I bet I’m right.’
‘Abby thinks old Drybeck did it, Mum.’
‘Oh, no, dear, I shouldn’t think so!’ said Mrs Haswell, quite unperturbed. ‘He’s lived here for years!’
Charles, accustomed to the workings of his mother’s mind, grinned appreciatively, but said: ‘The end of it will be, of course, that he’ll have her up for slander.’
Again Mrs Haswell demurred, this time on the ground that Mr Drybeck was Miss Patterdale’s solicitor.
‘Yes, and if I’m right he won’t be able to have me up for anything,’ Abby pointed out. ‘He’s the one person who fits in.’
‘No, he isn’t,’ Charles contradicted. ‘He doesn’t fit in half as well as Mavis.’
‘Oh, do shut up about Mavis!’ begged Abby. ‘She couldn’t possibly have done it! She’s far too dim!’
‘If you ask me, she’s a dark horse. It’s a pity you shirked coming to church this morning. I don’t like Gavin, but he was dead right about her! Talk of overacting! She was doing the heartbroken heroine all over the shop, accepting condolences, and drivelling about her dear uncle’s kindness, and being
alone in the world, until even Mummy felt sick!’
‘Well, no, darling, not sick exactly,’ said Mrs Haswell. ‘It was all a little insincere, but I expect she feels that’s the way she ought to behave. There’s something about death that turns people into the most dreadful hypocrites. I can’t think why. I was just as bad when your grandfather died, until your father pointed out how disagreeable and exacting he’d been for years, wearing poor Granny out, and never being in the least pleased to see any of us.’
‘You weren’t the same as Mavis at all!’ said Charles. ‘You didn’t pretend he’d been a saint, and tell everyone you wished he hadn’t left his money to you!’
‘No, darling, but I always knew he must have done that, and in any case it didn’t come to me till Granny died. Not that I should have said anything so silly.’
‘Yes, but that’s just the kind of thing one would expect Mavis to say!’ Abby pointed out. ‘There was a girl at school awfully like her, always saying “Oh, I don’t think we ought to!” and being kind and forgiving to everyone, and saying improving things. She was the most ghastly type! And the worst thing about people like that is that they actually believe in their own acts. I wouldn’t mind half as much if they were doing it deliberately, and stayed honest inside, but they don’t. Geoffrey Silloth says hypocrisy is a deadly drug which finally permeates the whole system. And, in any case,’ she added, struck by a powerful thought, ‘can you see Mavis firing a gun?’
‘I didn’t see it,’ said Charles, with emphasis. ‘All I know about her is that she chose to come down here and act as a sort of unpaid drudge for an out-and-out swine, who wasn’t even decently polite to her, rather than get a job and be able to call her soul her own. And I never knew why till yesterday!’
‘Well, dear, until yesterday you never really thought about it at all, did you?’ interpolated his mother mildly.
‘She said she felt it was her duty to look after Dear Uncle,’ said Abby.
‘Boloney!’ said Charles scornfully. ‘I may not have thought much about it, but I do recall that in one of her expansive moments she disclosed that it was such a surprise to her when Dear Uncle wrote to offer her a home, because she had never even met him. So if you’re nourishing a vision of Warrenby being the prop of his sister-in-law’s declining years, can it! He offered Mavis a home because, for one thing he needed a hostess in his big social climb, and, for another, he thought it would be grand to have a housekeeper and general dogsbody he wouldn’t have to pay, and could bully!’
‘Yes, that’s perfectly true,’ conceded Abby. ‘But I still say she didn’t do it. Do you know what I did when you were all at Church this morning? I walked down to Mr Drybeck’s house, and then cut back to Fox House, across the common, timing myself, and I found he could have done it easily! It took me exactly six minutes to reach the gorse bushes. What’s more, there’s plenty of cover, because there are lots of bushes and things on that part of the common.’
‘I don’t say Drybeck couldn’t have done it in the time, but I don’t suppose he’d walk as fast as you did. He’s too old.’
‘What rot!’ said Abby scornfully. ‘He’s as thin as a herring, and look at him on the tennis-court!’
At this moment, Mr Haswell walked into the room, saying, as he shut the door, that if Charles must borrow his clothes he did wish he would sometimes put them back where they belonged, instead of leaving them all over the house. He said this without ill-will, and certainly without any hope that his words would bear fruit; and his son replied, as he invariably did: ‘Sorry, Dad!’ and then dismissed the matter from his mind.
Mr Haswell, having by this time observed that a guest was present, shook hands with Abby, favouring her with an appraising look, which rather surprised her, since she was well-acquainted with him and quite unaccustomed to exciting more interest in him than he felt for any of his son’s young friends, all of whom he received in an uncritical and incurious spirit. Fortunately for her self-possession she did not know that this keen scrutiny was due to certain mysterious words uttered by Mrs Haswell into his private ear on the previous evening. He was a well-built man, with a square, rather impassive countenance, and a taciturn disposition; and although he was a pleasant host, and accepted with perfect equanimity all the young people who invaded his house, and danced to the radio, or argued loudly and interminably on such subjects as Surrealist art, Anglo-Soviet Relations, and The Ballet, most of Charles’ friends stood in considerable awe of him. Appealed to now by Charles to state whether he thought old Drybeck had murdered Sampson Warrenby, he replied calmly: ‘Certainly not,’ and poured himself out a glass of sherry.
‘Well, that’s Abby’s theory. I think it’s possible, but my own bet is that it was Mavis. What’s your view, Dad?’
‘That you’d both of you do better to leave it to the police, and not talk quite so much about it,’ replied his father.
Abby, who had been very well brought-up, would have abandoned the entrancing topic at once, but Charles, though extremely fond of his parents, naturally held them in no exaggerated respect. He said: ‘You know perfectly well we’re bound to talk about it. It’s quite the most interesting thing that’s ever befallen Thornden.’
‘Oh, Mr Haswell!’ said Abby, feeling that Charles had broken the ice, ‘there’s a Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard, and we actually talked to him, at the Red Lion!’
‘Did you indeed?’ he said, smiling faintly. ‘That must have been a thrill for you! I hope you didn’t tell him what your theories are?’
‘No, we were madly discreet,’ she assured him.
‘I didn’t have to tell him my theory,’ said Charles. ‘Gavin did that for me. Oh, I say, Mummy, do you know what became of my old .22, by any chance? The one Daddy got for me when I was at school?’
‘Do you mean the one you used to shoot rabbits with, darling? Yes, I lent it to old Newbiggin’s grandson: the one with the extraordinary ears, who was so helpful that time Woodhorn was ill, and I couldn’t get the car to start.’
‘Good lord! Did he bring it back?’
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure he must have!’ said Mrs Haswell, folding up her tapestry-work, and removing the thimble from her finger. ‘Why? You don’t want it, do you, Charles?’
‘No, but it looks as if the Chief Inspector will. Gavin had the bright idea that it would have been just the rifle for Mavis to handle, and I should think they’re bound to follow that up. And if it’s sculling about the village –’
‘No, it isn’t. I remember now!’ said Mrs Haswell. ‘Jim Newbiggin returned it one day when I was in London, and Molly put it in the cloakroom. I meant to put it with the rest of your stuff, in the attic, and then I forgot, and I don’t know what became of it.’
‘Lord-love-a-duck!’ said Charles inelegantly, and immediately left the room.
He returned in a very few minutes, carrying in one gloved hand a light rifle. ‘Shoved at the back of the coat-cupboard,’ he said briefly. ‘Now, where would be a safe place to put it? I haven’t touched it, and no one must, because of finger-prints. Look, Mummy, I’ll put it on the top of the cabinet for the time being.’
‘Must you use my gloves?’ asked his father.
‘Sorry, Dad! There weren’t any others, and it isn’t greasy.’ He then deposited the rifle well out of any housemaid’s reach, stripped off the glove, and dropped it on a chair. Mr Haswell observed this with disfavour, but as the gong sounded at that moment he said nothing, merely picking his glove up on his way out of the room, and restoring it to the cloakroom himself.
Since only one of her three servants was on duty on Sunday evenings, supper at The Cedars was cold, and no one waited at table. There was thus no other bar to exhaustive discussion of the murder than Mr Haswell’s silent disapproval. And as it was Mrs Haswell who set the ball rolling again, by saying that she really didn’t think Mavis was the kind of girl to borrow things without asking if she might, Abby felt herself at liberty to pursue her own theory. Exhaustively searching the inside of a
large lobster-claw with a silver pick, she said: ‘Of course she wouldn’t! Gavin only said it to be clever. Like saying that if he couldn’t have Mavis, or himself, for the murder he’d have Mr Ainstable.’
‘What?’ said Mr Haswell, looking up.
‘Yes, because he was the most unlikely person he could think of.’
‘Do you mean to say that Plenmeller said that in front of this Chief Inspector you say you met?’
‘Oh, lord, yes!’ replied Charles, turning the contents of the salad-bowl over in chase of an elusive olive. ‘I thought it was a bit thick myself, but I don’t suppose it really mattered much. Too fatuous!’
‘Besides, he didn’t mind Mr Warrenby nearly as much as most people did,’ Abby remarked. ‘I mean, he and Mrs Ainstable have him to parties, don’t they? Had him, I mean.’
‘Yes – and, come to think of it, why?’ said Charles slowly. ‘He was about the last man on earth you’d expect the Ainstables to have had any time for at all, and it wasn’t even as though he was their solicitor. Why did they take him up, Dad?’
‘I have no idea, nor should I have said that they did more than show him a little ordinary civility.’
Charles was frowning. ‘Well, I think they did. The Squire quite definitely introduced him to you, didn’t he, Mummy? And he’d never have wormed his way into the Club if the Squire hadn’t sponsored him.’
‘I expect the Ainstables felt it was their duty to be neighbourly,’ said Mrs Haswell placidly.
‘Well, they didn’t feel it was their duty to be neighbourly to those ghastly people who evacuated themselves here from London during the blitz, and took Thornden House for the duration!’ said Charles. ‘They never had anything to do with them at all!’
‘No, but that was different,’ replied his mother. ‘They weren’t permanent residents, and they got things on the Black Market, and said that if you knew your way about you could always get extra petrol. You couldn’t expect the Ainstables to have anything to do with them!’
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