Inspector Slack moved with alacrity towards the door.
"I shouldn't ask her if she heard a shot in the house," I said. "Because if you do, she'll deny it. Call it a shot in the wood. That's the only kind of shot she'd admit to hearing."
"I know how to manage them," said Inspector Slack, and disappeared.
"Miss Marple says she heard a shot later," said Colonel Melchett thoughtfully. "We must see if she can fix the time at all precisely. Of course it may be a stray shot that had nothing to do with the case."
"It may be, of course," I agreed.
The colonel took a turn or two up and down the room.
"Do you know, Clement," he said suddenly, "I've a feeling that this is going to turn out a much more intricate and difficult business than any of us think. Dash it all, there's something behind it." He snorted. "Something we don't know about. We're only beginning, Clement. Mark my words, we're only beginning. All these things, the clock, the note, the pistol - they don't make sense as they stand."
I shook my head. They certainly didn't.
"But I'm going to get to the bottom of it. No calling in of Scotland Yard. Slack's a smart man. He's a very smart man. He's a kind of ferret. He'll nose his way through to the truth. He's done several very good things already, and this case will be his chef d'œuvre. Some men would call in Scotland Yard. I shan't. We'll get to the bottom of this here in Downshire."
"I hope so, I'm sure," I said.
I tried to make my voice enthusiastic, but I had already taken such a dislike to Inspector Slack that the prospect of his success failed to appeal to me. A successful Slack would, I thought, be even more odious than a baffled one.
"Who has the house next door?" asked the Colonel suddenly. "You mean at the end of the road? Mrs. Price Ridley."
"We'll go along to her after Slack has finished with your maid. She might just possibly have heard something. She isn't deaf or anything, is she?"
"I should say her hearing was remarkably keen. I'm going by the amount of scandal she has started by 'just happening to overhear accidentally.'"
"That's the kind of woman we want. Oh! here's Slack."
The inspector had the air of one emerging from a severe tussle.
"Phew!" he said. "That's a tartar you've got, sir."
"Mary is essentially a girl of strong character," I replied.
"Doesn't like the police," he said. "I cautioned her - did what I could to put the fear of the law into her, but no good. She stood right up to me."
"Spirited," I said, feeling more kindly towards Mary.
"But I pinned her down all right. She heard one shot - and one shot only. And it was a good long time after Colonel Protheroe came. I couldn't get her to name a time, but we fixed it at last by means of the fish. The fish was late, and she blew the boy up when he came, and he said it was barely half-past six anyway, and it was just after that she heard the shot. Of course, that's not accurate, so to speak, but it gives us an idea."
"H'm," said Melchett.
"I don't think Mrs. Protheroe's in this after all," said Slack,
With a note of regret in his voice. "She wouldn't have had time, to begin with, and then women never like fiddling about with firearms. Arsenic's more in their line. No, I don't think she did it. It's a pity!" He sighed.
Melchett explained that he was going round to Mrs. Price Ridley's, and Slack approved.
"May I come with you?" I asked. "I'm getting interested."
I was given permission, and we set forth. A loud "Hie" greeted us as we emerged from the Vicarage gate, and my nephew, Dennis, came running up the road from the village to join us.
"Look here," he said to the inspector, "what about that footprint I told you about?"
"Gardener's," said Inspector Slack laconically.
"You don't think it might be someone else wearing the gardener's boots?"
"No, I don't!" said Inspector Slack in a discouraging way.
It would take more than that to discourage Dennis, however.
He held out a couple of burnt matches.
"I found these by the Vicarage gate."
"Thank you," said Slack, and put them in his pocket.
Matters appeared now to have reached a deadlock.
"You're not arresting Uncle Len, are you?" inquired Dermis facetiously.
"Why should I?" inquired Slack.
"There's a lot of evidence against him," declared Dennis. "You ask Mary. Only the day before the murder he was wishing Colonel Protheroe out of the world. Weren't you, Uncle Len?"
"Er -" I began.
Inspector Slack turned a slow suspicious stare upon me, and I felt hot all over. Dennis is exceedingly tiresome. He ought to realise that a policeman seldom has a sense of humour.
"Don't be absurd, Dennis," I said irritably.
The innocent child opened his eyes in a stare of surprise.
"I say, it's only a joke," he said. "Uncle Len just said that any one who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world a service."
"Ah!" said Inspector Slack, "that explains something the maid said."
Servants very seldom have any sense of humour either. I cursed Dennis heartily in my mind for bringing the matter up. That and the clock together will make the inspector suspicious of me for life.
"Come on, Clement," said Colonel Melchett.
"Where are you going? Can I come, too?" asked Dennis.
"No, you can't," I snapped.
We left him looking after us with a hurt expression. We went up to the neat front door of Mrs. Price Ridley's house and the inspector knocked and rang in what I can only describe as an official manner. A pretty parlourmaid answered the bell.
"Mrs. Price Ridley in?" inquired Melchett.
"No, sir." The maid paused and added: "She's just gone down to the police station."
This was a totally unexpected development. As we retraced our steps Melchett caught me by the arm and murmured:
"If she's gone to confess to the crime, too, I really shall go off my head."
CHAPTER XIII
I hardly thought it likely that Mrs. Price Ridley had anything so dramatic in view, but I did wonder what had taken her to the police station. Had she really got evidence of importance, or that she thought of importance, to offer? At any rate, we should soon know.
We found Mrs. Price Ridley talking at a high rate of speed to a somewhat bewildered-looking police constable. That she was extremely indignant I knew from the way the bow in her hat was trembling. Mrs. Price Ridley wears what, I believe, are known as "Hats for Matrons" - they make a speciality of them in our adjacent town of Much Benham. They perch easily on a superstructure of hair and are somewhat overweighted with large bows of ribbon. Griselda is always threatening to get a matron's hat.
Mrs. Price Ridley paused in her flow of words upon our entrance.
"Mrs. Price Ridley?" inquired Colonel Melchett, lifting his hat.
"Let me introduce Colonel Melchett to you, Mrs. Price Ridley," I said. "Colonel Melchett is our Chief Constable."
Mrs. Price Ridley looked at me coldly, but produced the semblance of a gracious smile for the colonel.
"We've just been round to your house, Mrs. Price Ridley," explained the colonel, "and heard you had come down here."
Mrs. Price Ridley thawed altogether.
"Ah!" she said, "I'm glad some notice is being taken of the occurrence. Disgraceful, I call it. Simply disgraceful."
There is no doubt that murder is disgraceful, but it is not the word I should use to describe it myself. It surprised Melchett too, I could see.
"Have you any light to throw upon the matter?" he asked.
"That's your business. It's the business of the police. What do we pay rates and taxes for, I should like to know?"
One wonders how many times that query is uttered in a year!
"We're doing our best, Mrs. Price Ridley," said the Chief Constable.
"But the man here hadn't even heard of it till I told him about it!" cried the
lady.
We all looked at the constable.
"Lady been rung up on the telephone," he said. "Annoyed. Matter of obscene language, I understand."
"Oh! I see." The colonel's brow cleared. "We've been talking at cross purposes. You came down here to make a complaint, did you?"
Melchett is a wise man. He knows that when it is a question of an irate middle-aged lady, there is only one thing to be done - to listen to her. When she has said all that she wants to say, there is a chance that she will listen to you.
Mrs. Price Ridley surged into speech.
"Such disgraceful occurrences ought to be prevented. They ought not to occur. To be rung up in one's own house and insulted - yes, insulted. I'm not accustomed to such things happening. Ever since the war there has been a loosening of moral fibre. Nobody minds what they say, and as to the clothes they wear -"
"Quite," said Colonel Melchett hastily. "What happened exactly?"
Mrs. Price Ridley took breath and started again.
"I was rung up -"
"When?"
"Yesterday afternoon - evening to be exact. About half-past six. I went to the telephone, suspecting nothing. Immediately I was foully attacked, threatened -"
"What actually was said?"
Mrs. Price Ridley got slightly pink.
"That I decline to state."
"Obscene language," murmured the constable in a ruminative bass.
"Was bad language used?" asked Colonel Melchett
"It depends on what you call bad language."
"Could you understand it?" I asked.
"Of course I could understand it."
"Then it couldn't have been bad language," I said.
Mrs. Price Ridley looked at me suspiciously.
"A refined lady," I explained, "is naturally unacquainted with bad language."
"It wasn't that kind of thing," said Mrs. Price Ridley. "At first, I must admit, I was quite taken in. I thought it was a genuine message. Then the - er - person became abusive."
"Abusive?"
"Most abusive. I was quite alarmed."
"Used threatening language, eh?"
"Yes. I am not accustomed to being threatened."
"What did they threaten you with? Bodily damage?"
"Not exactly."
"I'm afraid, Mrs. Price Ridley, you must be more explicit. In what way were you threatened?"
This Mrs. Price Ridley seemed singularly reluctant to answer.
"I can't remember exactly. It was all so upsetting. But right at the end - when I was really very upset, this - this - wretch laughed."
"Was it a man's voice or a woman's?"
"It was a degenerate voice," said Mrs. Price Ridley, with dignity. "I can only describe it as a kind of perverted voice. Now gruff, now squeaky. Really a very peculiar voice."
"Probably a practical joke," said the colonel soothingly.
"A most wicked thing to do, if so. I might have had a heart attack."
"We'll look into it," said the colonel; "eh, inspector? Trace the telephone call. You can't tell me more definitely exactly what was said, Mrs. Price Ridley?"
A struggle began in Mrs. Price Ridley's ample black bosom. The desire for reticence fought against a desire for vengeance. Vengeance triumphed.
"This, of course, will go no further," she began.
"Of course not."
"This creature began by saying - I can hardly bring myself to repeat it -"
" Yes, yes," said Melchett encouragingly.
"'You are a wicked scandal-mongering old woman!' Me, Colonel Melchett - a scandal-mongering old woman. 'But this time you've gone too far. Scotland Yard are after you for libel.'"
"Naturally, you were alarmed," said Melchett, biting his moustache to conceal a smile.
"'Unless you hold your tongue in future, it will be the worse for you - in more ways than one.' I can't describe to you the menacing way that was said. I gasped, 'Who are you?' faintly - like that, and the voice answered, 'The Avenger.' I gave a little shriek. It sounded so awful, and then - the person laughed. Laughed! Distinctly. And that was all. I heard them hang up the receiver. Of course I asked the exchange what number had been ringing me up, but they said they didn't know. You know what exchanges are. Thoroughly rude and unsympathetic."
"Quite," I said.
"I felt quite faint," continued Mrs. Price Ridley. "All on edge and so nervous that when I heard a shot in the woods, I do declare I jumped almost out of my skin. That will show you."
"A shot in the woods?" said Inspector Slack alertly.
"In my excited state, it simply sounded to me like a cannon going off. 'Oh!' I said, and sank down on the sofa in a state of prostration. Clara had to bring me a glass of damson gin."
"Shocking," said Melchett. "Shocking. All very trying for you. And the shot sounded very loud, you say? As though it were near at hand?"
"That was simply the state of my nerves."
"Of course. Of course. And what time was all this? To help us in tracing the telephone call, you know."
"About half-past six."
"You can't give it us more exactly than that?"
"Well, you see, the little clock on my mantelpiece had just chimed the half-hour, and I said, 'Surely that clock is fast.' (It does gain, that clock.) And I compared it with the watch I was wearing and that only said ten minutes past, but then I put it to my ear and found it had stopped. So I thought: 'Well, if that clock is fast, I shall hear the church tower in a moment or two.' And then, of course, the telephone bell rang, and I forgot all about it." She paused breathless.
"Well, that near enough," said Colonel Melchett. "We'll have it looked into for you, Mrs. Price Ridley."
"Just think of it as a silly joke, and don't worry, Mrs. Price Ridley," I said.
She looked at me coldly. Evidently the incident of the pound note still rankled.
"Very strange things have been happening in this village lately," she said, addressing herself to Melchett. "Very strange things indeed. Colonel Protheroe was going to look into them, and what happened to him, poor man? Perhaps I shall be the next?"
And on that she took her departure, shaking her head with a kind of ominous melancholy. Melchett muttered under his breath: "No such luck." Then his face grew grave, and he looked inquiringly at Inspector Slack.
That worthy nodded his head slowly.
"This about settles it, sir. That's three people who heard the shot. We've got to find out now who fired it. This business of Mr. Redding's has delayed us. But we've got several starting points. Thinking Mr. Redding was guilty, I didn't bother to look into them. But that's all changed now. And now one of the first things to do is to look up that telephone call."
"Mrs. Price Ridley's?"
The inspector grinned.
"No - though I suppose we'd better make a note of that or else we shall have the old girl bothering in here again. No, I meant that fake call that got the vicar out of the way."
"Yes," said Melchett, "that's important."
"And the next thing is to find out what every one was doing that evening between six and seven. Every one at Old Hall, I mean, and pretty well every one in the village as well."
I gave a sigh.
"What wonderful energy you have, Inspector Slack."
"I believe in hard work. We'll begin by just noting down your own movements, Mr. Clement.''
"Willingly. The telephone call came through about half-past five."
"A man's voice, or a woman's?"
"A woman's. At least it sounded like a woman's. But of course I took it for granted it was Mrs. Abbott speaking."
"You didn't recognise it as being Mrs. Abbott's?"
"No, I can't say I did. I didn't notice the voice particularly or think about it."
"And you started right away? Walked? Haven't you got a bicycle?"
"No."
"I see. So it took you - how long?"
"It's very nearly two miles, whichever way you go."
"Through Old Hall
woods is the shortest way, isn't it?"
Agatha Christie - Murder at the Vicarage Page 10
