“What was that?” enquired the Inspector mechanically.
“I happened to ring Miss Warrenby up, and that maid of hers answered the call. And what do you think she said?”
“I don't know.”
“She said she thought Miss Warrenby was sitting in the summerhouse—you wouldn't know it: it's at the bottom of the garden, at the back of the house—talking to Mr. Ladislas! You could have knocked me down with a feather! After all that fine talk of his, sneaking off when he knew no one would be about, to visit Miss Warrenby! I just told Gladys not to bother, and rang off, and made up my mind that the thing to do was to report it to the Chief Inspector.”
“I'll tell him, madam,” said Harbottle, bent on getting rid of her. “As soon as he comes in, and I'm sure he'll be very grateful to you.”
“I only hope he does something!” said Mrs. Midgeholme, beginning, to his relief, to collect her gloves and handbag.
Ten minutes after her departure, Hemingway walked in.
“You've missed Mrs. Midgeholme,” Harbottle told him.
“I told you I'd got flair. What did she want?”
“To help you do your job. I was very near to telling her you'd gone off with a blonde.”
“It's a good thing you didn't. She's a blonde herself, and if she once got the idea I go for blondes I'd never be able to shake her off. I was right about Gladys: young Haswell did make her sit up.”
“Did you get anything important out of her?” Harbottle asked curiously.
“That I can't say. But she's got her head screwed on the right way, has Gladys. She says that if the late Warrenby was sitting in the garden with his slippers on it must have been something highly unexpected which took him out of the house.”
“Why?” demanded Harbottle.
“Seems it was one of his idiosyncrasies. Another was never going out without a hat. Gladys, not having been on the scene of the crime, and not having seen the photographs either, doesn't know that he had no hat on when he was shot, which is where I have the advantage of her.”
“I believe the bit about the hat,” said the Inspector reflectively. “There's a lot of men never stir a step out of doors without they must put a hat on. My old father's one of them. I don't see why he shouldn't have gone out in his slippers, unless the ground was wet, which we know it can't have been.”
“You don't see it, because very likely you never caught cold through getting your feet chilled. Still, you ought to know that once a man gets it into his head that something is a fatal thing to do, it gets to be an obsession with him. Gladys tells me that he's even ticked her off for popping down in her slippers to get a bit of mint, or something, out of the kitchen-garden.”
“You seem to set a lot of store by what this Gladys of yours says,” remarked the Inspector. “Has she got any ideas about what took him out of doors without his hat or his snow-boots?”
“She has, of course, which is where she and I part company, as you might say—though I wouldn't dare to tell her. She says the late Warrenby was lured out by a trick. It's no use asking me what the trick was, or who played it, because it wasn't a notion I took any kind of fancy to, and I headed Gladys off it. And I'll thank you to stop calling her my Gladys, Horace! She's been walking out steady with a very respectable chap in the building-trade for the last two years, and you'll be getting me into trouble.”
The Inspector gave a dry chuckle. “If that's so, I'll bet you know a whole lot about the building-trade you didn't know before, sir! But what do you make of this stuff she's given you?”
“I'm not at all sure,” replied Hemingway frankly. “I've had a feeling ever since yesterday that I've had the wrong end of the stick pushed into my hand; and I've now got a feeling that for all I've got nine suspects there's something highly significant which is being hidden from me. What's more, while Gladys was telling me all about the late Warrenby's habits, I got another feeling, which was that if only I'd the sense to see it, she was giving me a red-hot clue.”
“That is flair!” said the Inspector.
Hemingway eyed him suspiciously, but it was plain that he had spoken in all seriousness. “Well,” Hemingway said, after a slight pause, “you're coming on, Horace! When you were first wished on to me—”
“You asked for me,” interpolated the Inspector.
“If I did, it was because I've always been susceptible to suggestion. Anyway, when you first came to me, you used to think I was heading for the nearest looney-bin every time I got a hunch.”
“I didn't, because Sandy Grant warned me not to be misled,” retorted the Inspector. “He told me—”
“I don't want to know what he told you, for I'll be bound it was something insubordinate, not to say libellous, besides having a lot of that unnatural Gaelic of his mixed up with it. What did Mrs. Midgeholme come to tell me? Don't say Ultima Ullapool has whelped, and she wants me to be god-father to one of the pups!”
“One of her bitches has, but I don't know if it was Ullapool. I wasn't attending all that closely. She says old Drybeck's going round trying to prove Miss Warrenby murdered her uncle, and you're not to believe a word he says. And also that that Pole of yours has told everyone he's got no intentions towards Miss Warrenby, but went up to Fox House after dinner last night, and sat with her in the summerhouse. I don't know whether there might be something in that.”
“I've already had that from Gladys. Taking everything into account, I should say young Ladislas went up to beg Jessica's First Prayer to lay off till all this commotion has blown over. He's got intentions all right, and he's scared white I should think so. Jessica's gone up to London, by the way. I saw young Haswell driving her to the station, so it looks as if she was catching the 12.15. She may be escaping from justice; on the other hand, she may have gone up to see her uncle's solicitors, to find out how she stands, and what she's to use for money till probate's been granted. In fact, that's why she has gone, according to what Gladys tells me, which is why I didn't arrest her. Let's hope that's the Superintendent!”
The telephone-bell was emitting a discreet buzzing noise. Harbottle picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, and said: “Yes, switch it through: he's here.” He handed the receiver to Hemingway. “It is the Superintendent,” he said.
Chapter Fifteen
In the early part of the afternoon the police-car was once more proceeding along the Hawkshead-road. As Constable Melkinthorpe slowed to take the turn into Rushyford Farm, Hemingway said: “No, drive on slowly! If he's haymaking, I'll find him in one of his fields.”
He was right. Melkinthorpe coasted gently along, and the sound of a hay-cutter soon came to their ears. The hay was being cut in one of the fields abutting on to the road, and Kenelm Lindale could be seen, standing talking to one of his farmhands.
Hemingway got out of the car. “You stay here, Horace,” he said.
The Inspector, who had been expecting this, nodded. Almost bursting with curiosity, Constable Melkinthorpe slewed himself round in the driver's seat, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he shut it again. Something told him that an indiscreet question addressed to Inspector Harbottle would earn the enquirer nothing but a blistering snub. “Hot, isn't it, sir?” he said weakly.
The Inspector opened the newspaper he had brought with him, and began to read it. “It often is at this time of year,” he replied.
Constable Melkinthorpe, lacking the courage to venture on any further remark, had to content himself with watching the Chief Inspector walk across the field towards Kenelm Lindale.
Lindale had seen him, but he did not go to meet him. After one glance, he resumed his conversation with the farmhand. As Hemingway came within earshot, he said: “Well, get on with that job first: I'll be along presently, and we'll take another look at it. Good afternoon, Chief Inspector! What can I do for you this time?”
“Good afternoon, sir. Sorry to come interrupting you, but I'd like a word with you, please.”
“All right. I suppose you'd better come up to the ho
use.”
“Provided we can get out of range of the din this machine of yours makes, I'd just as soon talk to you here.”
“Infernal things, aren't they?” Lindale said, walking beside him towards the blackthorn hedge which separated the field from the one beyond it. “Give me the old-fashioned methods! But it's no use, these days. Now, what is it you want?”
“I'm going to be quite frank with you, sir, and, if you're wise, you'll be frank with me. Because what I have to ask you I can quite as easily ask Mrs. Lindale, which, I take it, you'd a lot rather I didn't do.”
“Go on!” said Lindale evenly.
“Is Mrs. Lindale, properly speaking, the wife of a Francis Aloysius Nenthall, living at Braidhurst?”
There was a short silence. Lindale gave no sign that the question had startled him, but walked on beside the Chief Inspector, his face a little grim, his eyes fixed on the ground before him.
“Her maiden name,” continued Hemingway, “having been Soulby, and the date of her marriage the 17th October, 1942.”
Lindale looked up, a smouldering spark of anger in his eyes. “You could prove it so easily if I denied it, couldn't you?” he said bitterly. “Damn you! In the eyes of the law she is, but if Nenthall weren't a Catholic, and a cold-blooded bigot on top of that, she'd be mine!”
“I don't doubt you, sir.”
“How did you find this out?” demanded Lindale.
“We needn't go into that,” replied Hemingway. “What I want to know—”
“Yes, we dam' well need!” interrupted Lindale. “I've got a right to know who told you! Unless someone tipped you off, you can't have had the slightest reason for suspecting it, and I want to know who it was who went ferreting out my private affairs!”
“Well, you do know, don't you, sir?” said Hemingway.
“Warrenby?” Lindale said, staring at him with knitted brows. “I've reason to think he knew—God knows how!—but he can't have told you! Unless— Have you come upon some blasted enquiry agent's report amongst his papers?”
“Is that what you expected?” Hemingway said swiftly.
“Good lord, no! What on earth should he do such a thing for? He once said something which showed me that he knew about Nenthall, but how much he knew, or how he knew it, I couldn't tell. I got under his skin one evening at the Red Lion—I couldn't stand the fellow, you know!—and he asked me if the name, Nenthall, conveyed anything to me. I said it didn't and there the matter dropped. He never mentioned it again, and, so far as I know, he didn't spread any kind of scandal about us, which was what I was afraid he'd do. I didn't think anyone but he knew anything about us—though I do know that that Midgeholme woman has done her best to discover all the details of our lives!”
“I don't mind telling you, sir, that I've no reason to suppose that anyone does know it, at any rate down here, except me and my Inspector. And I should think I don't have to tell you that I shouldn't, unless I had to, make it public.”
“No, I believe you wouldn't, but I can see how you might very well have to make it public. I've been hoping to God you'd get on to the track of the man who did do Warrenby in before you started making enquiries into my past!”
“You say Warrenby never mentioned the matter to you but the once, sir. Quite sure of that?”
“Of course I'm sure of it! Are you thinking he was blackmailing me? He wasn't. I haven't anything he wants—money or influence. What is more, had he tried that on I shouldn't have hesitated to put the matter into the hands of the police. It isn't a crime to live with another man's wife: I'd nothing to fear from the police. I can only suppose that he found it out by some accident, and let me know he'd done so to pay me out for choking him off.”
“Am I to take it, then, that the only use he made of his knowledge was to get off a bit of spite?”
Lindale was frowning. “It does sound improbable, put like that,” he admitted. “It's the only use he did make of it. He may have had other ideas in mind, but what they were I can't for the life of me imagine. The impression I had was that he said it partly out of spite, and partly as a sort of threat—Accept-me-socially-or-I'll-make-trouble kind of thing.”
“Which he could have done.”
Lindale stopped, and said: “Look here, Chief Inspector, I'd better be quite open with you! As far as I'm concerned, Warrenby was welcome to tell the whole world all he knew. Neither my—neither Mrs. Nenthall nor I have done anything to be ashamed of. There was never any furtive intrigue. We—well, we cared for one another for years, and Nenthall knew it. She married him during the War, when she was only a kid, and—well, it just didn't work out! I'm not going to say anything about Nenthall, except that if I murdered anyone it would be him! There was a child, a little boy, which made it all impossible. My wife is a woman of very strong principles. Then the kid died—meningitis, and—I shan't take you into all that. She was ill for months, and then—well, we had it out, the three of us, and the end of it was that she came to me. There couldn't be a divorce, so nothing ever got into the papers. My own view is that it's a mistake to make any secret of the situation. People aren't anything like as hidebound as they used to be. Her family, of course, have cut her out: they're Catholics, and pretty strict; and my father disapproves. But I think that most people, knowing the facts, wouldn't ostracise us—none that we've the least desire to be on friendly terms with. That's my point of view, but I said I'd be open with you, and so I'll tell you that my wife doesn't share it. She believes that she's living in sin, poor girl. We're very happy—but there's always that behind. Which is why I'd do a lot to keep the whole thing secret. A lot, but not commit murder—though I don't expect you to believe that. But whatever you believe, I'm dead sure you haven't enough evidence against me to justify an arrest! The bullet wasn't fired from my rifle, and I infer that you already know that, or you wouldn't be asking me questions: you'd be clapping handcuffs on me! Well, I quite see that you'll have to try to find out more, and I've no objection to that. All I do ask is that you'll refrain from worrying my wife. I won't have her driven into another nervous breakdown: she's been through enough!”
“Well, sir, I can't promise you anything,” Hemingway replied, “but I don't mind saying that I shan't worry her, unless I must. I won't keep you any longer now: you'll be wanting to get back to your hay-cutting.”
“Thanks!” Lindale said, turning, and walking with him towards the gate. “I shan't run away.”
They parted at the gate. Constable Melkinthorpe, straining his ears, managed to hear a snatch of dialogue, and found it disappointing.
“Well, you've got wonderful weather,” Hemingway remarked.
“Couldn't be better. Touch wood!” said Lindale, shutting the gate behind him.
Hemingway crossed the road to the car. “Take a walk with me, Horace,” he said. “You can drive the car round to the end of Fox Lane, Melkinthorpe, and wait for us there.”
He led Harbottle to the entrance to the footpath, and turned into it.
“Well?” said Harbottle.
“He's no fool. In fact, he's very plausible.”
“Too plausible?”
“No, I wouldn't say that. He didn't overplay his part at all. What he told me tallied with what the Superintendent gave me. He also said that as far as he was concerned the whole world could know the truth about him, and I'm inclined to believe him. The trouble is—and he told me this too, which may have been honesty, or may have been because he knew I was wise to it—Mrs. Lindale doesn't look at it like that.”
“I'm not surprised,” said Harbottle austerely.
“Now, don't lets have any psalm-singing!” said Hemingway, with a touch of irritability. “I've got a lot of sympathy for that chap. I should say life isn't all beer and skittles for him, with a wife—or whatever you like to call her, which I can guess, knowing you!—who can't get over thinking she's a black sinner. What's more, I don't suppose it ever will be—not unless Nenthall is obliging enough to pop off. And don't give me any stuff about the wag
es of sin!”
“I won't. But it's true, for all that,” said the Inspector. “Is this the footpath he and the Squire came along together? I've never seen this end of it till today.”
“It is, and it was about here that the Squire turned off into the plantation. I should say he did, too—either when he said he did, or a bit later. Perhaps both.”
“Both?”
“Well, if he's the man I'm after, he had to park the rifle somewhere, hadn't he? Seems to me his own plantation would have been as good a place as any. Easy to have picked it up, and to have nipped back to Fox Lane when Lindale was out of sight.”
“But the shot wasn't fired from his rifle,” objected Harbottle.
“I know it wasn't. It may be that we shall have to pull in his agent's rifle, and his game-keeper's as well.”
Harbottle frowned over this. “I don't think the Squire's the man to commit a murder with another man's gun—and that man one of his own people,” he said.
“Very likely you don't. You didn't think he was the kind of man to cheat his heir either.”
“You don't yet know that he is doing that, sir. And I don't mind telling you I wouldn't want the job of accusing him of such a thing!”
“Well, you haven't got the job. Now, this is Mr. Haswell's spinney—separated from his garden by a wall, as you see. Any amount of cover to be had. We won't follow the path to his gates, but you can see where it runs and you can see that it would have been possible for Miss Warrenby to have got home by pushing through that very straggly hedge into her uncle's grounds.”
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