“I fear so, I fear so!” said the Vicar mournfully.
There was a decided twinkle in the Chief Inspector's eye. “You too, sir?”
“I cannot deny it,” replied the Vicar, sinking deeper into dejection. “One has tried not to entertain uncharitable thoughts, but the flesh is weak—terribly weak!”
“You will soon find yourself regarding with suspicion anyone who did not dislike Warrenby, Chief Inspector,” said Haswell. “Let me hasten to assure you that I found him quite as objectionable as the Vicar did!”
Hemingway laughed, and got up. “He does seem to have made himself unpopular,” he agreed. “I won't take up any more of your time now, sir.”
“Not at all,” said the Vicar courteously. “My time is at the disposal of those who may need it.”
He then escorted Hemingway to the front-door, shook hands with him, and said that he could have wished to have met him on a happier occasion.
Constable Melkinthorpe then drove away, asking the Chief Inspector, as he halted the car in the Vicarage gateway, which way he was to go. He was told to drive to Rose Cottages, and, after allowing a boy on a bicycle to pass down the High Street, he swung his wheel over to the left, and was just changing gear when the Chief Inspector told him to stop. He obediently pulled in to the side of the street, and saw Major Midgeholme crossing the road towards the car.
“Good-evening, sir!” said Hemingway. “Want me?”
“Yes,” said the Major, with an air of resolution. “I have been turning it over in my mind, and I think it's my duty to put you in possession of a piece of information. Mind you, it may be nothing! I don't say I attach much importance to it, but one never knows, and in such cases as this I consider it to be every man's duty to tell the police whatever he may know.”
“Quite right, sir,” said Hemingway, and waited.
But the Major seemed still to be a little undecided. “Can't say I like talking about my neighbours!” he said. “But when it comes to murder, things are different. My feeling is that if what I have to say is irrelevant, there's no harm done; and if it isn't—well! There's no denying that this business has made us all sit up—do a bit of thinking! I'm not going to pretend I know who did it, because I don't. Between you and me and the gate-post, there's a bit too much amateur detection going on in Thornden! Shouldn't like you to think I was trying to do your job for you, but of course I've thought about it a good deal, and talked it over with one or two people. As a matter of fact, I was discussing it with my wife last night—she's got her own theories, but I shan't go into that, for I don't agree with her. Point is, it's been in my mind all along that the two people who disliked Warrenby the most were Drybeck and Plenmeller. Now, when Drybeck and I were on our way to The Cedars on Saturday, Plenmeller joined us, and one of the things he said was that his was the only threshold in Thornden which Warrenby couldn't cross.” The Major paused impressively. “Well, I happened to mention that to my wife, and she told me that she had seen Warrenby go into Thornden House on Saturday morning! Of course, she doesn't know what he went for, or for how long he was with Plenmeller, for she was shopping, and she thought no more about it. I didn't set much store by it myself when she first told me, but I've been turning it over in my mind, and I've come to the conclusion you ought to know about it. As I say, there may be nothing in it. On the other hand, queer thing to do—boast that Warrenby had never crossed his threshold when he'd done so that very morning! Almost as if he wanted to make sure no one should think he'd had any dealings with the fellow.”
Constable Melkinthorpe, glancing at the Chief Inspector to see what effect this disclosure had upon him was not surprised to perceive that his calm was quite unruffled.
“I see,” said Hemingway, gravely. “He'd have to be a bit of an optimist, wouldn't he, sir to think no one would notice Mr. Warrenby going to call on him, on a Saturday morning, right on the village street?”
“Well,” said the Major, shrugging, “I've told you for what it's worth, that's all!” He looked up, and stiffened a little. Gavin Plenmeller, coming from the direction of his house, was crossing the road diagonally towards them.
“Undergoing interrogation, laying information, or just passing the time of day, Major?” enquired Gavin. “I'm glad to see you here, Chief Inspector, and I'm sure the whole village shares my feeling. We confidently expected to see you in our midst at crack of dawn, but it was not to be. I may add that a certain amount of dissatisfaction has been felt. Action is what we want, and we did think that a real detective from London would provide us with plenty to talk about.”
“Well, I must be getting along,” said the Major, not quite comfortably.
Gavin looked at him, a glint in his eyes. “Now, why are you suddenly in a hurry to go away?” he wondered. “Can it be—can it possibly be—that you were telling the Chief Inspector something damaging about me?” He watched a dull red creep into the Major's cheeks, and laughed. “Splendid! What was it? Or would you prefer not to tell me?”
It was patent that the Major would very much have preferred not to tell him, but he was an officer and a gentleman, and he was not going to turn and run in the face of fire. He said boldly: “Seems to me that you've done so much talking yourself about people that you can't very well object if the tables are turned.”
“Of course I don't object!” said Gavin cordially. “I merely hope that you've dug up something good about me.”
“I haven't dug up anything. Not my business to pry into your affairs! And if you want to know what's been sticking in my mind, it's this!—Why did you tell me that Warrenby had never crossed your threshold?”
“Did I?” said Gavin, faintly surprised.
“You know damned well you did!”
“I don't. It's quite possible, of course, and I shouldn't dream of denying it, but when did I make this momentous statement?”
“You said it to Drybeck and to me when we were walking up Wood Lane on Saturday. You said that yours was the only threshold he couldn't cross.”
“I spoke no less than the truth, then. Yes, I remember: our Thaddeus wasn't a bit pleased, was he? But what is this leading up to?”
“That won't wash, Plenmeller!” said the Major, gaining assurance with indignation. “Warrenby had crossed your threshold that very morning!”
“Take note, Chief Inspector,” said Gavin quite unmoved, “that I instantly and categorically deny this infamous accusation!”
“It may interest you to know, however, that my wife saw him go into your house!”
“She lies in her throat,” said Gavin amiably. “She may have seen him enter my garden. In fact, if she was in the High Street at the time, I should think she could hardly have escaped seeing that. She may even have noticed his very vulgar car parked at my gate. Now tell me how she saw through a brick wall and I shall be all interest!”
The Major looked a good deal taken aback, and a little sceptical. “Are you telling me he didn't enter your house?”
“You oughtn't to need telling,” Gavin reproved him. “He found me in the garden, and in the garden we remained. I don't say he didn't make a spirited attempt to cross my threshold, for he did. He had the impertinence to suggest that we should go into the house, which forced me to disclose to him that to admit him would be to break a solemn vow.”
The Major gasped. “You can't have said such a thing!”
“Nonsense, you know very well that I find not the smallest difficulty in saying to people's faces precisely what I say behind their backs!”
The Chief Inspector intervened at this point. “Why did he want to cross your threshold, sir?”
“Vaulting ambition, perhaps. It may be said to have o'erleapt itself. Or do you want to know why he wanted to see me?”
“That's it,” said Hemingway.
“Ah! Well, he came to remonstrate with me. At least, that was how he phrased it. He seemed to think I had been inserting a spoke into his wheel on various occasions, and it had come to his ears—one wonders how!—th
at I had spoken of him in opprobrious terms. So I told him that these allegations were true, and he then asserted that he would know how to put a stop to my activities. How he proposed to do any such thing I am unable to tell you, and, of course, we shall now never know what Napoleonic scheme he may have had in mind. I can only say that he failed to convince me that he had evolved any form of counterattack whatsoever. The remonstrance somewhat rapidly deteriorated into sound and fury. He favoured me with a catalogue of the serviced he had rendered to the country, adding, a trifle infelicitously, I felt, a list of the distinguished persons whom he had—as he regrettably put it—forced to play ball with him. After that he became incoherent, and I showed him off the premises.”
“Well, by Jove!” exclaimed the Major, bristling with suspicion. “Seems a queer thing you didn't tell Drybeck and me that you'd had this quarrel with Warrenby!”
“My very dear Major,” said Gavin sweetly, “in the first place, there was no quarrel: I never gratify my enemies by allowing them to lure me into losing my temper. In the second place, I have not so far been conscious of the smallest impulse to confide my minor triumphs to a Drybeck or a Midgeholme. And, in the third, I have long realised that in my not wholly unsuccessful attempts to depress Warrenby's pretensions I have been playing a lone hand.”
“You're the most offensive fellow I have met in all my life!” said the Major, his face by this time richly suffused with colour. “I'll be damned if I'll stand here bandying words with you!”
“No, I didn't think you would,” said Gavin. He watched the Major stride off down the street, and said pensively: “It's a mystery to me that so many persons find it impossible to shake off crashing bores. Did you ever see a fish take the fly more readily?”
Hemingway said, ignoring this question: “What made you dislike Mr. Warrenby so particularly, sir?”
“Sheer antipathy, Chief Inspector. Mixed with a certain amount of atavism. The blood of the Plenmellers arose in me when I saw that repulsive upstart storming every citadel, including the Ainstables'. When he lived, I rarely managed to earn my brother's approval, but now that he is dead I feel sure I'm behaving just as he would have wished. Which is what people so often do, isn't it? There's a moral to be drawn from that, but I beg you won't! Do you want to know any more about Warrenby's ill-advised visit to me, or have you had enough of it?”
“I'd like to know how he thought he could make you stop running him down,” said Hemingway, fixing Gavin with a bright, enquiring gaze.
“So would I, but it was never disclosed. I discount his veiled threat to take me into court on a charge of uttering slander. My imagination boggles at the thought of such a man as Warrenby complaining publicly of the things I've said about him. Not quite the kind of notoriety he craved for, you know!”
“Oh, he did threaten to take you into court, sir?”
“He did, and I promised him that I should do my best to ensure his winning his case. He was not in the least grateful. In his blundering way he was not devoid of intelligence. Tell, me, Chief Inspector!—have you in your diligent research come upon the name of Nenthall?”
“Why do you ask me that, sir?” countered Hemingway.
There was a derisive gleam in Gavin's eyes. “I'm not at all sure, but I see that you haven't. Well, when you have finished following up the theories put forward by the village half-wits, you might find it profitable to discover what was the significance of that name. I can't help you: I never heard it until it was tossed, with apparent carelessness, into the conversation at the Red Lion, one evening about a month ago.”
“Who by?” asked Hemingway.
“By Warrenby, upon receiving a well-merited snub from Lindale. He asked Lindale if the name conveyed anything to him. Lindale replied that it did not, but it was all too apparent that it conveyed a great deal to him.”
“Oh! And what happened then?”
“Nothing happened. Our curiosity remained unsatisfied. Warrenby said that he had just wondered, and the incident terminated. It appeared to me, however, that the question had had a profound effect upon Lindale—and I just wonder, too.”
“When you talk of a profound effect, sir, what exactly do you mean?”
“Well,” said Gavin thoughtfully, “it did occur to me for one moment that I might be going to witness a murder. But you have to bear in mind, of course, that I am by profession a novelist. Perhaps I allowed my imagination to get the better of me. But I still wonder, Chief Inspector!”
He removed his hand from the door of the car, favoured Hemingway with one of his sardonic smiles, and limped away.
Constable Melkinthorpe's feelings got the better of him. He drew an audible breath. “Well!” he uttered. “He's a one, and no mistake! Blessed if I know what to make of him!”
“As no one wants you to make anything of him, that needn't keep you awake! Get on with it!” said Hemingway tartly.
Chapter Twelve
A few minutes later, the police-car was standing outside Rose Cottages, and the Chief Inspector was making the acquaintance of Mrs. Ditchling and five of her seven children, who ranged in age from Gert, who was twenty, to Jackerleen, who was six. He would willingly have dispensed with the introductions which were forced upon him, but while Mrs. Ditchling was cast into housewifely distraction by his visit, because she was afraid he would find the place a bit untidy—which was her way of describing a scene of such chaos as might be expected to exist in a very small cottage inhabited by seven persons, most of whom were of tender years—it was obviously considered by the rest of the family to constitute a red-letter day in their lives, Alfie, a young gentleman in velveteen knickers and Fair Isle jersey, going so far as to dash out into the garden at the back of the cottage yelling to his brother Claud to come quick, or else he wouldn't see the detective.
In describing the scene later, to Inspector Harbottle, Hemingway admitted that he lost his grip at the outset. The Ditchlings were not only friendly: they were garrulous and inquisitive, and they all talked at once. The Chief Inspector, stunned by his reception, found himself weakly admiring a hideous toy rabbit made of pink plush, shown him by Jackerleen—or, as she was mercifully called, Jackie; answering questions fired at him with the remorselessness of machine-guns by Alfie, and his brother Claud; and endorsing Mrs. Ditchling's opinion that for Edie to leave her nice, steady job at Woolworth's to become a film star would be an act of unparalleled folly. He was also put in possession of much information, such as the entire history of the late Mr. Ditchling's untimely demise; of the rapid rise, in Millinery, of Gert; of the medals Claud had won as a Boy Scout; of the trouble his mother had had over Alfie's adenoids; of the letter Ted had written from his training-camp; and of the high opinion his employer held of Reg, who, unfortunately, was going to the pictures that evening, and so had not come home after work. “He will be upset!” said Mrs. Ditchling.
Everyone seemed to feel that the absent Reg was missing a rare treat, Gert saying that it was a shame, Claud asserting that he would be as sick as muck, and Jackerleen asking her mother several times, with increasing tearfulness, if Reg wouldn't come home to see the pleeceman.
When the Chief Inspector at last managed to make known the reason for his visit, the confusion grew worse, for Mrs. Ditchling, shocked to learn that his rifle had not yet been returned to the Vicar, related in detail the circumstances of Ted's call-up, Gert asserted several times that Ted had told Reg particular not to forget to take the rifle back for him, Edie said that that was Reg all over, Claud and Alfie argued shrilly with one another on the certain whereabouts of the weapon, and Jackerleen reiterated her demand to know if Reg was not coming home to see the pleeceman.
“Well, I hope to God he's not!” said Hemingway, plucking the two boys apart, and giving each a shake. “Stop it, the pair of you! You shut up, Alfie! Now then, Claud! If you're a Wolf Cub, you just tell me where your brother put the Vicar's rifle—and if I see you try to kick Alfie again, I'll tell the Scoutmaster about you, so now!”
; Thus admonished, Claud disclosed that Ted put the gun in his workshop, to be safe; and the whole party at once trooped out into the narrow strip of garden at the rear of the cottage. At the end of this was a wooden shed, which, Mrs. Ditchling proudly informed Hemingway, Ted had erected with his own hands. But as the door into it was locked, and the key—if not mislaid, or taken away in a moment of aberration by Ted—was in the absent Reg's possession, Claud's statement could not be verified. A suggestion put forward by Alfie, who wanted action, that the lock should be forced, was vetoed by the Chief Inspector. He issued instructions that Reg was to bring the Vicar's rifle to the police-station in Bellingham on his way to work on the following morning, refused the offer of a cup of tea and left the premises. He was accompanied to the door by the entire family, who saw him off in the friendliest way, the two boys begging him to come to see them again, and Jackerleen not only saying goodbye to him on her own behalf, but adding by proxy, and in a squeaky voice, the plush rabbit's farewell.
This scene so much astonished Constable Melkinthorpe that instead of showing his efficiency by starting his engine, and opening the door for Hemingway to get into the car, he sat staring with his mouth open.
“Yes, you didn't know I was their long-lost uncle, did you?” said Hemingway. “For the lord's sake, start her up, and look as if you were going to drive me to Bellingham, or we shall have Claud and Alfie trying to storm the car!”
“Where am I to drive you, sir?” asked Melkinthorpe.
“To the end of the row. I'm going to call on Ladislas, but I don't want that gang flattening their noses against the window.”
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