“Tolerating people isn't the same as taking them up. Who's been putting this idea into your head?”
“Gavin more or less started it—”
“He would!” interrupted Miss Patterdale, her eyes snapping.
“Oh, he didn't say anything about that! He was only talking rot about the Squire having done the murder because he was the least likely person,” said Abby, not very lucidly. “And that made Charles ask his father exactly what I've asked you.”
“It did, did it? And what did Mr. Haswell say?”
Abby laughed, and gave her a hug. “He was rather snubbing. Like you, angel!”
“So I should hope! Now, Abby, I've nothing to say against your playing at detection, but you stick to Thaddeus! Do him good to be harried a little, old stick-in-the-mud! Leave the Ainstables alone! They've had enough trouble, poor things, without being worried by policemen. I should be seriously annoyed if I found you'd said anything to that Scotland Yard man which put a lot of false ideas into his head. If the Ainstables were kinder than most of us to that odious man, it was because they always feel they have a duty towards everyone in the district.”
“It's all right: I'm not going to do anything snakeish,” Abby assured her. “All the same, you do think it was funny of the Ainstables, don't you? Funny-peculiar, I mean.”
“Whatever I may have thought on that subject, I most certainly don't think it had anything to do with Warrenby's murder. Come along, it's time we went to bed!”
Chapter Nine
Before he went to bed that night, Inspector Harbottle, who had spent some part of the evening at the police-station, studying the Firearms Register, was able to inform his chief, with a certain gloomy satisfaction, that thirty-seven persons, living within reasonable distance of Thornden, possessed .22 rifles. “And that, mind you, is only within a twenty-mile radius,” he added, unfolding a piece of paper.
Hemingway, who had himself been engaged with the papers he had taken from Sampson Warrenby's desk, perceived that he was about to read his list aloud, and instantly discouraged him. “I don't want to hear you reciting the names of a lot of people I've never heard of, Horace! Checking up on the rifles is a nice job for the locals, and one that'll just about suit them. You tell me who owns a .22 in Thornden! That'll be enough to be going on with.”
“It wouldn't surprise me if we had to throw the net much wider,” said Harbottle. “You're very optimistic, Chief, but—”
“Get on!” commanded Hemingway.
The Inspector cast such a glance upon him as Calvin might have bestowed on a backslider, but replied with careful correctitude: “Very good, sir. According to the Register, there are eleven .22 rifles in Thornden. That includes three belonging to farmers, living just outside the village, which I daresay you aren't interested in.”
“You're right. And if I have any cheek from you, Horace, I'll give you the job of checking up on the whole thirty-seven!”
Cheered by this threat, the Inspector permitted himself to smile faintly. “Well, the Squire has one,” he offered. “Likewise a chap called Eckford, his agent; and a John Henshaw, game-keeper. Setting aside the possibility that someone might have got hold of their rifles unbeknownst, there doesn't seem to be any reason, from what Carsethorn tells me, to think they could have had anything to do with the case. Next, there's Kenelm Lindale: he has one.”
“Which he lent to Ladislas the Pole not so long ago. I remember that one,” interpolated Hemingway.
“I thought you would,” said Harbottle, eyeing him with melancholy pride. “Then there's young Mr. Haswell's, which he spoke about; and Mr. Plenmeller's, which you picked up. Josiah Crailing has one—he's the landlord of the Red Lion; and the last belongs to Mr. Cliburn, the Vicar. Mr. Drybeck's got a shot-gun only; and Major Midgeholme's hanging on to his Service revolver, and six cartridges, which there's a fight about every time his Firearms Licence is due for renewal. So far he's managed to keep them.” He folded his list, and put it back in his pocket. “That's the lot, Chief—so far as the Register goes. Do you want Carsethorn to pull them all in?”
“What, the whole thirty-seven?”
“Eleven,” Harbottle corrected him.
“Call it eight, Horace! If all else fails, maybe I'll start to take an interest in these three farmers of yours, but so far I've got enough on my hands without annoying people that very likely wouldn't have recognised Warrenby if they'd met him in the street. Tell Carsethorn to make the usual enquiries, and not to go cluttering poor old Knarsdale up with a lot of rifles which their owners can account for.” He paused, and considered for a moment. “No sense in us treading on one another's heels—nor in getting ourselves disliked more than we probably are already. I'm going to Thornden myself tomorrow, and I shall be paying a call on the Vicar. Tell Carsethorn I'll bring in that rifle if I see fit. He'd better pull in the Squire's, Lindale's, and young Haswell's first thing. He seems a fairly sensible chap, but you'd better warn him to do the thing tactfully—particularly when he gets to the Squire. The usual stuff about persons unauthorised perhaps having got hold of it.”
The Inspector nodded, but said: “You're going to see the Vicar?”
“Yes, and his rifle gives me a nice excuse.”
“Carsethorn did check up on his alibi. It seems all right, Chief.”
“That's why I need an excuse. By what the Colonel tells me this Reverend Anthony Cliburn is just the man I want to give me the low-down on this high-class set-up. So far, I've had to listen to Mrs. Midgeholme, who thinks Lindale murdered Warrenby, because Mrs. Lindale gave her a raspberry; and to Drybeck, who's in a blue funk; and to Plenmeller, who wants to be funny; and I'm getting muddled. When you want to know the ins and outs of village-life, Horace, go and talk to the Vicar! Not that it's any use telling you that, because you haven't got the art of making people talk, which is what becomes of drinking sarsaparilla instead of an honest glass of beer.”
“Anything in Warrenby's papers, sir?” said the Inspector coldly.
“Nothing that looks like doing us any good. We may find something at his office tomorrow, but I shall be surprised if we do.”
The Inspector grunted, and sat down. He watched Hemingway collect the papers into a pile, and then said: “There is something that strikes me, Chief.”
“Second time today. You're coming on,” said Hemingway encouragingly. “Go on! Don't keep me on tenterhooks!”
“From the moment I was told the shot was probably fired from a .22 rifle,” said the Inspector, “I've been turning it over in my mind, wondering what was done with that rifle. Because it seems to me it would be taking a big risk to walk away with it over your shoulder, or under your arm. Who's to say you'd meet no one? But I watched you go off up the street with Plenmeller, Chief, and it came to me then that if anyone could walk about with a rifle concealed he could push it down his left trouser-leg, and, with that queer limp of his, no one would notice a thing.”
“Not bad at all, Horace!” approved Hemingway. “Now tell me why he takes it home, and puts it back in the gun-cabinet, instead of dropping it in the river, or somebody's backyard—which is just the sort of little joke that would appeal to him, I should think. He inherited his guns from that brother of his; he doesn't shoot himself—which I believe, because, for one thing, he's not the kind of fool who'd tell lies to the police which they could easily disprove, and, for another, I noticed that the guns in that cabinet were showing signs of rust—and if he'd chosen to say that he didn't know where the rifle was, and hadn't even known it wasn't in the cabinet, it would have been a difficult job to prove it hadn't been pinched. Because it could have been, easy! His door's kept on the latch, and he's got a deaf housekeeper.” He got up, glancing at the marble clock over the fireplace. “I'm going to turn in, and you'd better do the same, or you'll start brooding, or get struck by another idea, which would be bad for my heart.”