But he didn’t.
Instead the Earl said, “That’s when you get political arithmetic creeping in, Inspector.”
“Do you, my lord?” Sloan didn’t know about political arithmetic, but he did know that the Earl was trying to convey a philosophy to him, a philosophy that did not encompass murder.
“The greatest good of the greatest number.”
“I see, sir.” Wasn’t that known as “the common weal,” or was that something different?
“And, Inspector, because they are of historical value I may not sell them to the highest bidder.”
“No, my lord?”
“My country which bleeds me white does not allow me the freedom of the marketplace.”
Sloan was more aware now of Cossington stirring in the background.
“All I may do, Inspector, is to retrench against a taxation system whose only aim is to deprive me of my inheritance.”
“Those Court records,” said Sloan, policeman not politician, “would they have been in the Muniments chests?”
“In the ordinary way,” agreed the Earl.
“But not on Friday?” Sloan’s view of Ornum was blinkered to Friday.
The Earl shook his head. “They’ve been on loan to the Greatorex Library since the beginning of June.”
“Who all knew this?”
“Anyone who cared to read the papers,” said his Lordship blandly.
“Cor,” said Constable Crosby expressively as they left the Private Apartments, “he’s agin the government if you like.”
Inspector Sloan’s mind was elsewhere. He was wondering if hounds felt the same sense of disappointment as he did now when they had been following a scent that turned out to be false. For a moment he had thought he had been on to something.
Crosby waved a hand. “And he calls this being bled white.”
“All things are relative, Crosby.”
Just how relative, though, was all this to a handful of police constables getting a few shillings’ palm oil from a greedy garage proprietor every now and then?
“I’d like to have his sort of money all the same,” persisted Crosby.
“No, you wouldn’t.” The mental dichotomy between this investigation and the other was almost too much. They were at the extreme opposite ends of the scale.
But it was the same scale.
He knew that.
And so did Superintendent Leeyes.
“Try me,” said the constable cheerfully, “that’s all I ask, sir.”
Sloan looked across at Crosby, trying to see in him the lineal descendent of those early Earls of Ornum. Crosby suppressing tear-aways on motorcycles or calming over-excited yobboes on a Saturday night or pounding the beat mid-week, but that image, too, had faded now.
“I want to see Lady Alice again,” he said abruptly.
As before, Lady Maude opened the door and led the way to her sister.
“Just one more question, your Ladyship,” he began.
The lorgnette hovered above the Cremond beak again. “Well?”
“Who all knew you hadn’t invited Mr. Meredith to tea on Friday?”
From where Sloan was standing the lorgnette magnified the beady eyes.
“Just,” said her Ladyship balefully, “Mr. Meredith.”
14
« ^ »
Miles Cremond looked as if he could have eaten any number of extra teas at any time. His overweight was of the solid, long-standing variety. He was very willing to talk to Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby. He didn’t often get an audience who hung on his every word like they did.
“Came down for the cricket,” said Miles, sounding faintly aggrieved. “Not for all this business. Always come for this match. ’S’tradition.”
Sloan listened carefully. What he was listening for was a clue as to why the murder had happened exactly when it did.
“I mean to say,” Miles went on, “the poor old chap never did anyone any harm, did he?”
“Not that I know of, sir.” Sloan went on to establish that Thursday was the first time Miles and Laura had heard about the archivist’s doubts about the earldom.
“A lot of nonsense, I’m sure, Inspector,” said Miles warmly. “ ’Course Uncle Harry’s the right chap. It stands to reason…”
Sloan didn’t know if primogeniture was reason.
“The rest’s history, isn’t it?” said Miles.
“I couldn’t say, sir, I’m sure.”
“A lot of families chop and change in the succession, I know, but we’ve been luckier than most.”
“Really, sir?”
“Because of this thing about battles, what?”
“What thing?”
“Never getting there,” said Miles. “Whenever there’s been a war the Cremonds always seem to have been either too old or too young to fight, what?”
“The General…” said Sloan suddenly, remembering the bust in the Library.
“That’s right. Him, too. I think one of the other Cremonds got to Blenheim, but his gout held him back from the actual fighting, what?”
“Quite so, sir.” Where Sloan came from, the word “what” was a simple interrogative. This man used it like a full stop. “Now, about Friday, sir…”
“Yes?”
“Where were you at the material… at teatime on Friday?”
“Had a quick cup with the others.”
“The others?”
“Uncle Harry, Aunt Millicent, Henry and Eleanor, Cousin Gertrude, and m’wife. I didn’t stay with them more than five minutes. I wanted to get out-of-doors and Cousin Gertrude wanted to get back to her chandelier, so we went.”
“What sort of time would this have been, sir?”
He frowned. “I must have been heading for the ha ha by ten past four.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“The ha ha.”
“That’s what I thought you said.” Sloan tried it out for himself. Tentatively. “The ha ha?”
“That’s right, Inspector.”
“And what”—cautiously—“did you do when you got there?”
“Walked round it.”
“I see, sir.” It was like one of those radio parlour games where everyone else knew the object. He suppressed an urge to say, “Can you eat it?” Instead he murmured, “Did you see anyone while you were there?”
Miles Cremond frowned again. “Purvis. He was talking to Bert Hackle by the orangery.”
Sloan sighed. It was altogether too simple to suppose that you kept oranges there. “Anyone else?”
“No, Inspector.”
“And when did you get back?”
“Late.”
“Late? Late for what?”
“Dinner, Inspector. I’d hardly left myself time to change. M’wife was waiting for me and we went down together a bit late.”
“And you were walking all the time, sir?”
“Yes, Inspector.”
“Round the ha ha?”
“Yes.”
“Very funny,” said Crosby not quite inaudibly enough.
“What’s that?” Miles Cremond jerked forward.
“Nothing, sir,” interposed Sloan smoothly. “Now, was there anything else you can tell us about Friday?”
But the Honourable Miles Cremond couldn’t think of anything out of the ordinary that had happened on Friday, or any other day for that matter.
The whole business was a complete mystery to him, what?
So it was too, apparently, to his wife, Laura.
She did, however, think any discoveries of Osborne Meredith’s about the earldom were perfectly absurd.
“Perfectly absurd,” she repeated for good measure.
“You didn’t take them seriously, you mean, madam?”
“I didn’t, Inspector.”
“It seems,” said Sloan mildly, “as if someone did.”
There was no denying that someone—someone wearing a woman’s shoe, size six and a half—had taken them seriously enough to have a real go at disturbing the muniments.