The Major had just time to say, “Missed, dammit!” before the third and fourth jack-in-the-boxes leaped out. Two brisk shots dispatched these in rapid succession.
The Major turned to Henry. “Three out of four,” he said. “Not too bad, I suppose, but I’d liked to have shown you a full hand. Never mind. I’ll go and set up a fresh lot.”
Henry followed Manciple to the wall at the far end of the range. The one object which had escaped the deadly revolver fire was lying like a gray rat in the scrubby grass. Henry approached it with a certain amount of trepidation, and then he saw that it was a very old, very worn tennis ball.
The Major picked it up. “The local tennis club gives them to me for nothing, as I was telling you,” he said. “Past playing with, you see, but still very resilient. Just the job for the Manciple traps.”
“How on earth do they work?” Henry asked,
“Perfectly simple. I make them myself. Stout wooden box, lid secured with string. Inside the box, powerful metal spring with tennis ball on top. Fuse burns slowly toward string — giving me time to get back to my gun, y’see, when I’m on my own. Once the fuse burns as far as the string, box flies open, spring throws ball out. Meanwhile, fuse burns on to second box, and so on. What d’you think of it, eh?”
“It’s amazing,” said Henry faintly. “I thought you said you hadn’t inherited the Manciple brain.”
The Major looked pleased, but he said, “Brains are one thing, ingenuity’s another. Take Claud. He couldn’t invent a thing like this; no good with his hands. But give him a couple of pages of mathematical formulae — that’s the way it goes, you see. Yes, I flatter myself that my traps are ingenious. All the advantages of clay pigeons without the exorbitant expense. Of course, I have to take them back indoors and reset them once they’re sprung, but I always keep some in readiness.” He was busy clearing away the four used boxes and bringing out a further set from a dilapidated garden shed near the end of the wall.
“So this,” said Henry, “is what you were doing when Mason was shot.”
“Not exactly,” said Manciple. “I was just setting up a new four, as a matter of fact, when I heard his car starting up and decided to go indoors. Now, if you’ll stand well back, I’ll try to get four out of four for you this time.”
That time, indeed, four out of four tennis balls disintegrated in mid-air, and the Major smirked complacently.
“Practice makes perfect,” he said, forestalling compliments.
“This range,” Henry sounded hesitant. “Is it completely safe?”
“Safe? Safe? Of course it’s safe.” The Major’s color was rising again. “Unless some lunatic turns around and fires away from the target and toward the house. That’s what Mason kept on about — shots going astray. Now, I ask you, sir, is anything safe by that reckoning? A car is dangerous, if you drive it over a precipice. A window is dangerous, if you throw yourself out of it. A pillow is dangerous, if you smother yourself with it. And I’ll tell you something else, Tibbett.” The Major shook a bony finger in Henry’s face. “Whoever killed Raymond Mason was deliberately trying to discredit my shooting range.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“A clumsy attempt,” said Major Manciple, “to make it look as though the man had been accidentally shot by someone firing on the range. By me, in fact.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to do such a thing?”
“Nobody. That’s what is so mysterious. Except Mason himself, of course.” Manciple gave a short bark of ironic laughter.
“Nevertheless,” said Henry, “you mean that it would have been possible for the shot that killed Mason to have been fired from the range?”
“Possible, yes.”
“But,” Henry went on, “it would have meant the marksman turning around and firing away from the target, which is hardly likely, not to mention the fact that the gun was found in the shrubbery near the front door. And any shot that was fired from the range would have been quite at random. You can’t see the drive at all from here because of the bushes.”
“You’re a sensible fellow, whatever Edwin may think,” remarked the Major. “I’m glad you appreciate the point I was making.”
“Yes,” said Henry slowly, “yes, I think I do. Thank you for showing me the range.”
“A pleasure, a pleasure. Well, we’d better be getting indoors again. I dare say you’ll be wanting a word with Violet.”
Henry looked at his watch. “It’s nearly six,” he said. “I dare say that tomorrow will be time enough…”
“Just as you wish, just as you wish.” The Major cleared his throat. “I’m afraid you may not find Violet a very reliable witness. She is inclined to be emotional, especially where Maud is concerned.”
“I’ll make allowances for that,” Henry promised.
Violet Manciple met them in the hall in a state of some agitation. “Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, George. Mr. Tibbett, a sergeant has arrived asking for you. I’ve put him in the morning room. Perhaps you’d like to have a word with him. The tea’s cold, I’m afraid. I made it some time ago, but I didn’t want to disturb you. And the puppy’s been sick. I think Ramona has been feeding her again, although I asked her not to. There’s no sign of Julian, George, and Maud is getting quite worried. Oh dear, there’s the telephone…”
She hurried away, and George Manciple said, “Women always make a bit of a fuss over things I’m afraid.”
“All this must mean a lot of extra work for Mrs. Manciple,” said Henry.
“Work?” George Manciple sounded as though he had never heard of the word. “What do you mean, work?”
“Well — cooking and washing up and extra people in the house…”
“Oh, the house. Yes, I suppose it does mean a bit more for Violet to do.”
“She runs this place entirely alone, does she?”
“I suppose she does, now I come to think of it. Normally old Mrs. Rudge comes in two mornings a week, but she’s off in Kingsmarsh at the moment, staying with a sick daughter. Heaven knows when we’ll see her back.”
“And how many servants did there used to be in the old days?”
“The old days?” A pleased smile illuminated George’s face, as it always did when he contemplated the golden past. “Let me see. Cook, of course, and Jimson the butler, and a housemaid, and a parlormaid indoors. Outdoors, the Head kept two full-time gardeners and a boy. And very contented they all were. Pity they had to go, but they all got too old to carry on and frankly, Tibbett, you can’t get the people these days. Not for the money one can afford to pay.”
“So your wife is doing the work of four people?”
George Manciple looked surprised and not a little offended. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “It’s only the house, after all. And Violet doesn’t wait at table or bring around the jars of hot water to the bedrooms in the mornings, the way the house maid used to do. Work? Violet has never worked in her life. She is my wife, and I can assure you, sir, that she has never done a hand’s turn for reward, which is what I understand by the word work. Goodness me, anybody would think that she was being exploited, like a Victorian factory girl.” The Major paused, and breathed heavily, as though expelling an unpleasant suspicion from his mind. Then he indicated a door and said, “That’s the morning room. You’ll find your fellow in there.”
The sergeant was apologetic for disturbing Henry, but thought that the Chief Inspector ought to know that Frank Mason, the dead man’s son, had arrived in Cregwell and was demanding to see Henry at once. He was being a bit troublesome, in fact, and was making certain wild accusations and — well — quite apart from all that, the sergeant went on rapidly, and with some relief, some further technical information had come through.