Sergeant Nethersole, an earnest and painstaking man of thirty-seven, awaited Inspector Harding's arrival with quite different feelings. He was a diffident person, very anxious to make his way in the Force. It had never fallen to his lot to work with the Yard till now, or, in fact, to encounter anything more exciting in his career than a few road accidents, and two cases of burglary. They offered very little scope for a man with ambition, and when he found that he had been detailed to assist Inspector Harding in his inquiries he was very much gratified, and made up his mind closely to observe the methods of detection employed by one of those clever London chaps. He was a large man, with a somewhat wooden face. His round blue eyes had a trick of staring fixedly at any handy object whenever he was thinking particularly deeply. He was slow of utterance, and slower still to wrath. No one could ever remember to have seen Sergeant Nethersole give way even to a momentary annoyance, and, unlike the Superintendent, he never bullied his subordinates.
When the Inspector arrived, and was conducted to the Superintendent's Office, the Sergeant got up out of his chair, and stared at him unwaveringly for quite two minutes. He had not the least desire to offend; he was mearly getting to know Inspector Harding. His gaze might appear bovine, but his methodical mind was absorbing a number of facts about the Inspector.
Not at all what he had expected. That was the first thing he thought. One of these public-school men, he rather fancied. You could always tell. A quiet-mannered chap, good steady pair of eyes that looked at you fair and square. I like a chap who can look you in the face, thought the Sergeant, never realising that there were few with nerves hardy enough to meet unflinchingly his own stare.
He wasn't one of these testy old-stagers, either, nor yet whipper-snapper. He'd be about his own age, he wouldn't wonder. Just the sort of chap to handle the nobs at the Grange, being, as you could see, one of the gentry himself. He didn't know how it would be, working with him, he was sure, but on the whole he was bound to say he liked the look of him.
The Inspector walked across the room and shook hands with the Superintendent. "Good afternoon, Superintendent. I hope I haven't kept you waiting," he said. Then he turned, encountering the gaze of Sergeant Nethersole, and shook hands with him too, giving back stare for stare.
Well! thought the Superintendent, that's what we're coming to, is it? Nice set-out when they take to sending down la-di-da Percies from the Yard. A fat lot of use he'd be, all stuffed up with a college education, and like as not trying to come the lord over everybody. Not but what he spoke nice enough, quite respectful and polite, but you never knew.
"Well, Inspector Harding," he said patronisingly, "so you've come down to take over the case for us!"
"Not to take it over, surely, Superintendent? I understand that you are in charge of the case."
The Superintendent's eye became a shade less frosty"That's right," he said. "Naturally, me being Superintendent of the district, it's my business to have charge of the case. But of course I'm not as young as I was, and me and the Chief Constable, we put our heads together and came to the conclusion that what we wanted was someone to lend a hand, it being a lot to ask of a man of my years to take on a case like this one single-handly. That's how it is."
"My instructions are to give you all the assistance. I can," said the Inspector. "I understand it's rather a awkward case for a local man to deal with."
Really, that was very handsomely spoken, very handsomely spoken indeed that was. "Well, that's where it is" said the Superintendent, thawing almost visibly. "It is awkward, and that's the truth. Now, what we'd better do is to get down to it right away; you and me, and Sergeant Nethersole here, whom I've detailed to work with you while you're on the case."
"Right," said the Inspector, and drew up a chair and sat down.
The tale which the Superintendent began to unfold was neither concise nor easy to be followed, but the, Inspector seemed to grasp its main outlines, and except for one or two interruptions when he asked apologetically to have some point more fully explained, he heard it more or less in silence.
The Sergeant, seated with his large hands clasped between his knees, thought: Lupton's getting beyond it, that's what. Fair rigmarole it must be to anyone not acquainted with the General and his family. What's he want to go reading bits out of all them statements for? jumping from one person to the other without making it plain who any of them are, instead of telling the Inspector, quiet-like, the facts of the case, and leaving him to read the statements for himself. Patient sort of chap he seems to be; picks up points pretty quick too.
Inspector Harding allowed the Superintendent to talk himself out. Then he said: "I see. Let's be sure that I've got the main facts right — I'm afraid the identities of the various people in the case are a bit beyond me at present. General Billington-Smith entered his study at ten minutes to twelve. At five minutes past twelve the butler went through the hall to the front door, and heard what he took to be a quarrel going on between the General and a member of the house-party."
"Mr. Halliday," nodded the Superintendent. "Unhealthy looking gentleman, he is. What I call fidgety, if you know what I mean. Very much on the jump, I thought to myself. No occupation, which is fishy, if you look at it that way. Lost his job, if you ask me."
The Inspector waited until this excursion into the realms of conjecture was over. Then he said: "And he, I think you said, admits that he did enter the study somewhere about twelve o'clock, and had a disagreement with the General, on a subject which he prefers not to disclose. He doesn't know when he left the study, but thinks he was not there more than a quarter of an hour at the most. He then went up to his room, and joined the rest of the party on the terrace about ten minutes later. So far as you know, he was the last person to see the General alive. A few minutes before one o'clock Mrs. Mrs." — he glanced down at one of the many sheets of paper laid before him — "Mrs. Twining went to fetch the General to join the party on the terrace for a cocktail According to her story she found him dead at his desk. She bent over him, saw that he had been stabbed, and that there was nothing she could do, and returned to the terrace to break the news. Have I got that right?"
"You've got it right as far as it goes," replied the Superintendent disparagingly. "But there's a lot more to it than that, I can tell you. You've left out the movement of all these visitors staying in the house for one thing."
"Until I've had time to read the statements over carefully I think I'd better confine myself to the main outline. Superintendent. May I see the doctor's reports?"