Constable Crosby saw the picture as he entered the room and took a deep breath.
Sloan said swiftly, “Is that your own work, Mr. Murton?”
The artist nodded. “My grandmother—my paternal grandmother, needless to say, was fond of texts on walls. She had this one hanging over her bed.”
“This one?”—faintly.
“Well, the same thing in words. I prefer to express the idea in paint, that’s all.”
“I see,” said Sloan cautiously. He took a second look at the painting.
“You’ve recognised it, of course,” said Murton ironically.
Sloan, who only knew what he didn’t like in modern art, said, “I don’t know that I have, sir.”
“Thou God Seest Me.” There was no mistaking the mocking tone now. “Reaction against all that traditional stuff up at the House, you know.”
“Quite so.” If the painting was anything to go by, it was a pretty violent reaction.
“And over there…” Murton pointed to where an excessively modern wall bracket in the shape of a nude female figure—just this side of actionable—supported a light fitting.
Constable Crosby’s eyes bulged and his lips started to move.
“Over there,” continued Murton, “my grandmother had ‘There’s No Place Like Home’ worked in embroidery.”
“Did she?”
“Set tastefully in a ring of roses.”
Inspector Sloan, whose who hobby was growing roses—rather than growing girls—said, “That must have been very nice, sir.”
“Pure Victoriana, of course.”
“Naturally, sir.” He coughed. “This is your home, I take it?”
“Well, now, Inspector, that’s a good question.” William Murton’s eyes danced mischievously. “It’s like this. By virtue of long residence I’m a protected tenant here…”
That, decided Sloan privately, must have caused a certain amount of chagrin in some quarters.
“So,” went on Murton, “it would be downright foolish of me to leave, wouldn’t it?”
“I see what you mean, sir.”
“So I stay. After all”—gravely—“my family have lived here a very long time.”
“Quite so.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with being a cottager, you know. My father was a cottager.”
“So,” said Sloan impassively, “you use this for a weekend cottage.”
“Got it in one, Inspector.”
“You come down every weekend?”
“Not quite”—tantalisingly—“every weekend. Just… er… every now and then.”
“Why this particular one?”
Murton shrugged a pair of surprisingly broad shoulders. “The spirit moved me. I didn’t come down to do poor Ossy in, if that’s what you mean.”
“You knew him, of course?”
“Oh yes. We were all brought up together as children, you know. Like puppies. Miles’ parents were abroad a lot and mine couldn’t provide for me properly”—he grimaced—“so…”
“So,” concluded Sloan for him, “you had the worst of both worlds.”
Murton looked at him curiously. “That’s right, Inspector. I was brought up half a gentleman. You think as children that the world’s an equal place. It’s later when you realise that Henry gets the lot.”
“Disturbing,” agreed Sloan.
“Especially when you’re older than he is and you can see his father had the lot, too. And all your father had was this.”
“Quite so, sir.”
“That’s what’s made me into a sponger.”
“A sponger?”
“A sponger, Inspector, that’s what I said. I don’t earn my keep like Cousin Gertrude cleaning chandeliers for dear life and I don’t stay on the fringes like Laura, hoping for pickings.”
“I see, sir.”
“And I don’t stand around praying for miracles like that efficient ass Charles Purvis. I’m a plain hanger-on.”
“I see, sir. And for the rest of the time you do what?”
“This and that,” he said easily.
Sloan could find the proper answer by picking up the telephone. He said instead, “Now, as to Friday…”
William Murton hadn’t a great deal to tell him about Friday.
Yes, he had originally intended to come only for the weekend.
Yes, he had come down on Friday afternoon.
By train.
About half-past five.
He had spent Friday evening at the cottage.
Alone.
Saturday he had stayed in bed until teatime and the evening he had spent in The Ornum Anns.
At least twenty people would confirm this, including Ebeneezer Lambert down the road.
If the Inspector should by any remote chance happen to see old Lambert he might tell him that he had lost his bet and owed him, William Murton, Esquire, a fiver.
And not to forget the esquire. We might not all be Earls, but there was no law yet against us all being esquires, was there?
And if the Inspector wanted to know who he thought had done it…
The great-aunts.
“In fact, sir,” said Crosby, as he drove Inspector Sloan from the cottage up to the House, “we aren’t short of suspects, are we?”
“No.”
“That chap ran right through the lot for us. Did you notice, sir?”
“He didn’t mention Dillow,” said Sloan, “and he didn’t mention Mr. Ames.”
“The Vicar?” said Crosby. “I hadn’t thought of him.”
“You should think of everyone, Constable. That’s what you’re here for.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He came to the house at about the right time on Friday afternoon,” said Sloan. “He told us so.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he knows about armour.”
“He doesn’t look like a murderer.”
“Neither did Crippen.”
This profound observation kept Constable Crosby quiet until they reached Ornum House.
Dillow was at hand as ever.
“The Vicar is in the Great Hall, gentlemen, waiting your arrival. Mr. Purvis is in the morning-room interviewing the Press…”
“The Queen is in the Parlour eating bread and honey,” muttered the incorrigible Crosby, irritated by all this formality.
“Very good, sir,” murmured the butler smoothly, not at all put out.
Sloan reflected that an irrepressible police constable must be child’s play to a man who had worked for that eccentric millionaire Baggles.
“And, sir, Edith, the housemaid—you indicated you wished to speak to her—is available whenever you wish.”
“Now,” suggested Sloan. “I just wanted to know when she last went into the Library.”
Dillow produced Edith immediately. She was willing and cheerful, but not bright.
“Yeth, sir”—she was slightly adenoidal too—“Saturday morning, sir. There was nobody there then.”
This was clarified by Sloan into no body.
“That’s right,” agreed Edith. “Nobody at all.”
“Did you go right into the Library—to the very far end?”
“Oh, yeth, sir.”
“Passed the farthest bay?”
“Yeth, sir. Because of the General.”
“The General?”
“Yeth, sir. He gets very dusty if you leave him over the day.”
“Ah, you mean the bust…”
Edith looked as if she hadn’t liked to mention the word in front of three gentlemen. She nodded.
“And what time would that have been?”
“Nine o’clock, sir. After I cleared the breakfasts.”
“Thank you, Edith. That’s all.”
Edith looked relieved and went. In the distance at the top of the great balustraded staircase they caught a glimpse of Cousin Gertrude tramping across the upper landing.
Mr. Ames was waiting for them in the Great Hall. He looked older in broad daylight.