‘No use asking me!’ said the Squire harshly. ‘If I’d had any reason to suspect such a thing, shouldn’t have had anything to do with the fellow.’
‘You’re trying to make out why we did have anything to do with him, aren’t you?’ said Mrs Ainstable, her eyes challenging the Chief Inspector. ‘It was my fault. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for his unfortunate niece! That’s why I called on them. It’s all very silly, and feudal, but if we receive newcomers other people follow our lead. But do tell us more about this blackmailing idea of yours! If you knew Thornden as I do, you’d realise what an entrancingly improbable thought that is. It’s all getting more and more like Gavin Plenmeller’s books.’
Out of the tail of his eye Hemingway could see that the Squire’s gaze was fixed on his wife’s face. He said: ‘I can see I shall have to read Mr Plenmeller’s books. Which puts me in mind of something I had to ask you, sir. Did you ask Mr Plenmeller to fetch some papers from his house, during the tennis-party on Saturday?’
‘No, certainly not!’ said the Squire curtly. ‘I asked him to let me have them back, but there was no immediate hurry about it. He chose to go for them at once for reasons of his own. Damned rude reasons, too, but that’s his own affair! Don’t know what you’re getting at, but it’s only fair to say that he was back at The Cedars before I left the party. Met my wife on the drive, and gave the papers to her. Might have given them to Lindale, and saved me the trouble, but that’s not his way!’
‘Something to do with this River Board I hear so much about, weren’t they, sir? I understand a solicitor’s wanted, and Mr Warrenby was after the post?’
The Squire stirred impatiently in his chair. ‘Yes, that’s so. Don’t know why he was so keen on being appointed: there’s nothing much to it. However, he had a fancy for it, and as far as I was concerned he could have had it. Not worth worrying about.’
‘Well, that’s what it looks like to me,’ confessed Hemingway. ‘Not that I know much about such matters. Mr Drybeck wanted it too, I understand.’
‘Oh, that’s nonsense!’ said the Squire irritably. ‘Drybeck’s well-enough established here without wanting jobs like that to give him a standing! As I told him! However, I daresay he’d have got it in the end! There was a lot of opposition to Warrenby’s candidature.’
‘Well,’ said Hemingway, stroking his chin, ‘I suppose he has got it, hasn’t he, sir? – the way things have turned out.’
‘What the devil do you mean by that?’ demanded the Squire. ‘If you’re suggesting that Thaddeus Drybeck – a man I’ve known all my life! – would murder Warrenby, or anyone else, just to get himself appointed to a job on a River Board –’
‘Oh, no sir! I wasn’t suggesting that!’ said Hemingway. ‘Highly unlikely, I should think. I was just wondering what made you back Mr Warrenby, if Mr Drybeck wanted the post.’
‘Quite improper for me to foist my own solicitor on to the Board!’ barked the Squire. ‘What’s more – Well, never mind!’
‘But, Bernard, of course he minds!’ interrupted his wife. ‘Mr Drybeck is the family solicitor, Chief Inspector, but – well, he isn’t quite as young as he was, and, alas, not nearly as competent as Mr Warrenby was! Yes, Bernard, I know it’s hideously disloyal of me to say so, but what is the use of making a mystery out of it!’
‘No use talking about it at all,’ said the Squire. ‘Got no possible bearing on the case.’ He looked at Hemingway. ‘I take it you want to know where I went and what I did when I left The Cedars on Saturday?’
‘Thank you, sir, I don’t think I’ll trouble you to go over that again,’ replied Hemingway, causing both husband and wife to look at him in mingled surprise and doubt. ‘The evidence you gave to Sergeant Carsethorn seems quite clear. You went to cast an eye over that new plantation of yours. I was looking at it myself a little while back. Don’t know much about forestry, but I see you’ve been doing a lot of felling.’
‘I have, yes,’ said the Squire, his brows lifting a little, in a way that clearly conveyed to the Chief Inspector that he failed to understand what concern this was of his.
‘You’ll pardon my asking,’ said Hemingway, ‘but are you selling your timber to a client of Mr Warrenby’s?’
‘To a client of Warrenby’s?’ repeated the Squire, a hint of astonishment in his level voice. ‘No, I am not!’
‘Ah, that’s where I’ve got a bit confused!’ said Hemingway. ‘It was the gravel-pit he was interested in, wasn’t it? There’s some correspondence in his office, dealing with that. I don’t know that it’s important, but I’d better get it straight.’
‘I have had no dealings whatsoever with Warrenby, in his professional capacity,’ said the Squire.
‘He wasn’t by any chance acting for this firm that’s working your pit, sir?’
‘Certainly not. I happen to know that Throckington & Flimby act for them. In point of fact, no solicitors were employed either by me or by them.’
‘You didn’t get your own solicitors to draw up the contract, sir?’
‘Quite unnecessary! Sheer waste of money! Very respectable firm. They wouldn’t cheat me, or I them.’
‘Then, I daresay that would account for your solicitors not seeming to know you’d already disposed of the rights in the pit,’ said Hemingway.
‘If you mean Drybeck, he was perfectly well-aware that I had done so,’ said the Squire, his eyes never shifting from the Chief Inspector’s face.
‘No, not him, sir. Some London firm. Belsay, Cockfield & Belsay I think their names are.’
A draught from the open door stirred the papers on the table. The Squire methodically tidied them, and set a weight on top of the pile. ‘Belsay, Cockfield & Belsay are the solicitors to the trustees of the settlement of the estate,’ he said. ‘The details of any transactions of mine would naturally be unknown to them. Do I understand you to say that Warrenby had been in communication with them?’
‘That’s right, sir. And seeing that it seems to have been pretty inconclusive I thought I’d ask you for the rights of it.’
‘May I know the gist of this correspondence?’
‘Well, it seems Mr Warrenby had a client who was interested in gravel, sir. He wrote to these solicitors, making enquiries about terms, having been informed – so he wrote – that they were the proper people to approach in the matter. Which they replied that they were, in a manner of speaking, but that any arrangements would have to be with you. And, as far as the documents go, there it seems to have petered out. For I gather he didn’t approach you, did he, sir?’
It was not the Squire but Mrs Ainstable who answered, exclaiming: ‘No, he approached me instead! Really, what an impossible person he was! It’s no use frowning at me, Bernard: he may be dead, but that doesn’t alter facts! So typical of him to find out from me that you’d already leased the gravel-pit, instead of asking you! I can’t bear people who go about things in a tortuous way for no conceivable reason! So dreadfully underbred!’
‘He asked you, did he, madam?’
‘Oh, not in so many words! He led the conversation round to it.’
‘When was that?’ asked Hemingway.
‘Heavens, I don’t know! I’d forgotten all about it until you told us all this. He was the most inquisitive man – and quite unsnubable!’ She laughed, and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I wonder who his client was? It sounds rather as if it must have been some shady firm he knew my husband wouldn’t have had anything to do with. What fun!’
‘No doubt that would have been it,’ agreed the Chief Inspector, rising to his feet.
Eleven
It was five o’clock when Hemingway reached the Vicarage, and he found the Vicar in conference with one of the Church-wardens, Mr Henry Haswell. An awed and inexperienced maidservant ushered him straightway into the Vicar’s study, saying with a gasp: ‘Please, sir, it’s a gentleman from Scotland Yard!’
‘Good gracious me!’ ejaculated the Vicar, startled. ‘Well, you’d better show him in, Mary – o
h, you are in! All right, Mary: that’ll do! Good afternoon – I don’t know your name?’
Hemingway gave him his card, which he put on his spectacles to read. ‘Chief Inspector Hemingway: dear me, yes! You must tell me what I can do for you. Oh, this is one of our Church-wardens – Mr Haswell!’
‘Perhaps you’d like me to clear out?’ said Haswell, nodding briefly to the Chief Inspector.
‘Not on my account, sir,’ said Hemingway. ‘Very sorry to come interrupting you, Vicar. It’s quite a small matter, really. I see by the Firearms Register that you own a .22 rifle. Could I have a look at it?’
‘Rifle?’ said the Vicar blankly. ‘Oh, yes, so I do! But it is really my son’s. That is to say, I got it for him originally, though of course he has no use for it now he lives in London. Still, one never knows when he might like to have it, beside getting a little sport when he comes to visit us. I don’t shoot myself.’
‘No, sir. Might I see it?’
‘Now let me think!’ said the Vicar, looking harassed. ‘Dear me, this is very awkward! I wonder – ? Excuse me, I’ll go and look! Do take a chair!’
Hemingway watched him leave the room, and said, with a resigned sigh: ‘Yes, I can see this is another rifle which has been allowed to go astray. I think you were responsible for the first, sir.’
‘Not unless you consider me responsible for my wife’s misdemeanours, Chief Inspector,’ replied Haswell calmly. ‘Nor can I agree that the rifle in question has gone astray. It is true that it was lent – improperly, of course – to the local plumber, who once got my wife’s car to start for her; but it is equally true that he returned it some days ago, since when it has not, to my knowledge, been out of the house.’
‘Yes, that’s all very well, sir,’ retorted Hemingway, ‘but my information is that it was left hanging about in a cupboard in your cloakroom, so that as far as I can make out anybody could have borrowed it without you being the wiser!’
‘Quite so, but may I point out that it was found in that cupboard no later than yesterday evening? While I can – with some difficulty – visualise the possibility of its having been abstracted by one of the people who came to my wife’s tennis-party, I am quite unable to arrive at any satisfactory explanation of how anyone knew that there was a rifle at the back of a coat-cupboard, or how he or she could have restored it without having been seen by any member of my household. Have you collected the rifle? My son left it ready for you.’
‘No, I didn’t, sir, but Sergeant Carsethorn did, which is how I come to know what happened to it.’
Haswell smiled faintly. ‘You must admit we’ve kept nothing from you, Chief Inspector!’
‘Very open and above board, sir. Is there a door into your cloakroom from the garden?’
‘No. The only entrance is through the hall, and the ventilation is by ventilator, above a fixed, frosted-glass window. In fact – taking into consideration my son’s alibi – there seems really to be only one person who might, without much difficulty, have both removed the rifle from the cupboard, and restored it. Myself, Chief Inspector – as I feel sure you’ve realised.’ He paused, and his smile grew, a tinge of mockery in it. ‘But I don’t think I should have put it back,’ he added. ‘Cliburn, have your sins found you out?’
‘They have, they have!’ said the Vicar, who had come back into the room, an expression of guilt in his face. ‘I am exceedingly sorry, Inspector, but I fear I cannot immediately lay my hand upon the weapon. If one could but see the pitfalls set for one’s feet! Not but what I am aware that I have erred, well-aware of it!’
‘All right, sir! You’ve gone and lent it to someone,’ said Hemingway. ‘Which, of course, you’ve got no business to do.’
‘I cannot deny it,’ said the Vicar mournfully. ‘But when one possesses a sporting gun – selfishly, I feel for I have no use for it – it seems churlish to refuse to lend it to lads less fortunate, particularly when the example is set me by our good Squire, who allows shooting on his waste-land, and is always the first to encourage the village-lads to spend their leisure hours in sport rather than the pursuits which, alas, are by far too common in these times! Splendid fellows, too, most of them! I’ve watched many of them grow up from the cradle, and I can assure you, Inspector, though I have undoubtedly broken the law in lending a rifle to any unauthorised person, I should not dream of putting it into the hands of anyone I could not vouch for.’
‘Well, sir, whose hands did you put it into?’ asked Hemingway patiently.
‘I think,’ said the Vicar, ‘and such, also, is my wife’s recollection, that I lent it last to young Ditchling. One of my choir-boys, till his voice broke, and a sterling lad! The eldest of a large family, and his mother, poor soul, a widow. He has just received his call-up papers, and I fear that in the excitement of the moment he must have forgotten to return the rifle to me, which was remiss of him, and still more so of me, for not having reminded him. For young people, you know, Inspector, are inclined to forget things.’
‘They are, aren’t they, sir?’ agreed Hemingway, with commendable restraint. ‘Did you say he was the eldest of a large family? With a whole lot of young brothers, I daresay, who have been having a high old time with a gun that doesn’t belong to them, and have very likely lost it by this time!’
The Vicar, much dismayed, said: ‘Indeed, I trust not!’
‘Yes, so do I,’ said Hemingway grimly. ‘Where does this large family live?’
‘At No 2 Rose Cottages,’ replied the Vicar, regarding him with an unhappy look in his eye. ‘That is the row of cottages facing the common, on the Trindale road.’
‘It is, is it?’ said Hemingway, his excellent memory at work.
‘I know what you are thinking,’ said the Vicar, sitting down heavily in the chair behind his desk. ‘I can never sufficiently blame myself for having been the cause – unwitting, but equally unpardonable! – of bringing suspicion to bear upon a member of a gallant and a persecuted nation, and one, moreover, of whom I know no ill!’
‘Well, I won’t deny, sir, that it did come into my mind that this Pole with the unnatural name whom you all call Ladislas lodges in one of those cottages,’ admitted Hemingway. ‘But if you know what I’m thinking it’s more than I do myself, because I’ve always found it a great waste of time to think about things until I’ve got a bit more data than I have yet. However, I’m glad you’ve mentioned him; because what any gentleman in your position has to say about one of his parishioners seems to me well worth listening to.’
‘I cannot, I fear, describe Ladislas as my parishioner,’ said the Vicar deprecatingly. ‘He is not, you know, of my communion. One is apt, of course, to look upon every soul living in one’s parish as a member of one’s flock, and particularly in such a case as this, when the young man is so tragically bereft of family, home, even country, one feels impelled to do what one can to bring a little friendliness into a lonely life.’
‘And I’m sure it does you credit, sir,’ said Hemingway cordially.
‘I am afraid it rather does Ladislas credit,’ said the Vicar, with a sudden smile. ‘We had Poles stationed in the vicinity during the War, and the impression they made upon us was not entirely happy. One makes allowances, of course, but still – No, not entirely happy! Indeed, to my shame I must confess that I was far from being pleased when I heard that one had come to live permanently amongst us. However, I thought it my duty to visit the young man, and I was agreeably surprised by him. A very decent fellow, determined to make his way in his job, and combating, I grieve to say, a good deal of insular prejudice. I had no hesitation in introducing him to one or two people whom I thought he might find congenial, and I have had no reason to regret having done so. I should add, perhaps, that his landlady, our good Mrs Dockray – a most respectable woman – is quite devoted to him, and that is a more valuable testimony than mine, Inspector!’
‘I wouldn’t say that, sir, but at least it means he hasn’t been spending his spare time getting all the village girls into
trouble – not to mention the wives whose husbands are doing their military service,’ said Hemingway.
Haswell, who had retired to the window-seat, laughed suddenly; but the Vicar, though he smiled, shook his head, and said that when he thought of the infants, of what he must call mixed parentage, whom he had been obliged to baptise, he felt more like weeping. From this reflection he was easily led to talk about the humbler members of his flock, the Chief Inspector listening to his very discursive descriptions with great patience, mentally sifting possible grains of wheat from obvious chaff, and guiding him adroitly, by way of Mrs Murton, who obliged for Mrs Lindale, into the higher ranks of Thornden society. But the Vicar could not tell him very much about the Lindales. Like Ladislas, Mrs Lindale was not of his communion, and her husband, although brought up in the Anglican faith and a very good fellow, was not, alas, a churchgoer. It was a pity, the Vicar thought, that such pleasant young people should live such retired lives. It was rarely that one had the pleasure of meeting them at any of the little entertainments in the neighbourhood. Mrs Lindale was thought to be stand-offish; he himself believed her, rather, to be shy. Miss Patterdale – whom he always called the good angel of the parish – had been most neighbourly, and spoke well of Mrs Lindale. Indeed, she had persuaded Mrs Ainstable to call, but nothing had come of it, Mrs Lindale excusing herself from accepting invitations on the score of being unable to leave her little girl. A pity, he could not but think, for although the Ainstables were not of the Lindales’ generation, and did not, nowadays, entertain a great deal, they must be considered, in every sense of the word, valuable connaissances.
‘Yes, I’ve just been having a chat with them,’ said Hemingway. ‘A gentleman of the old school, Mr Ainstable. The Chief Constable was telling me that he lost his only son in the war, which must be just about as bad a thing for Thornden as it was for him, I should think.’
‘Indeed, indeed you are right, Inspector!’ said the Vicar earnestly. ‘One of the finest young men I have ever known, and one, moreover, who would have upheld traditions which are so fast vanishing. The flowers of the forest…! A bitter blow for the Squire! One must hope that the present heir will prove a worthy successor, but I fear there will be a sad change in the relationship between the Squire and the village. Thornden does not readily accept strangers.’
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