It was five o'clock when Hemingway reached the Vicarage, and he found the vicar in conference with one of the Church wardens, Mr. Henry Haswell. An awed and inexperienced maidservant ushered him straightaway into the Vicar's study, saying with a gasp: “Please, sir, it's a gentleman from Scotland Yard!”
“Good gracious me!” ejaculated the Vicar, startled. “Well, you'd better show him in, Mary—oh, you are in! All right, Mary. That'll do! Good-afternoon—I don't know your name?”
Hemingway gave him his card, which he put on his spectacles to read. “Chief Inspector Hemingway: dear me, yes! You must tell me what I can do for you. Oh, this is one of our Church wardens—Mr. Haswell!”
“Perhaps you'd like me to clear out?” said Haswell, nodding briefly to the Chief Inspector.
“Not on my account, sir,” said Hemingway. “Very sorry to come interrupting you, Vicar. It's quite a small matter, really. I see by the Firearms Register that you own a .22 rifle. Could I have a look at it?”
“Rifle?” said the Vicar blankly. “Oh, yes, so I do! But it is really my son's. That is to say, I got it for him originally, though of course he has no use for it now he lives in London. Still, one never knows when he might like to have it, beside getting a little sport when he comes to visit us. I don't shoot myself.”
“No, sir. Might I see it?”
“Now let me think!” said the Vicar, looking harassed. “Dear me, this is very awkward! I wonder—? Excuse me, I'll go and look! Do take a chair!”
Hemingway watched him leave the room, and said, with a resigned sigh: “Yes, I can see this is another rifle which has been allowed to go astray. I think you were responsible for the first, sir.”
“Not unless you consider me responsible for my wife's—misdemeanours, Chief Inspector,” replied Haswell calmly. “Nor can I agree that the rifle in question has gone astray. It is true that it was lent—improperly, of course—to the local plumber, who once got my wife's car to start for her; but it is equally true that he returned it some days ago, since when it has not, to my knowledge, been out of the house.”
“Yes, that's all very well, sir,” retorted Hemingway, “but my information is that it was left hanging about in a cupboard in your cloakroom, so that as far as I can make out anybody could have borrowed it without you being the wiser!”
“Quite so, but may I point out that it was found in that cupboard no later than yesterday evening? While I can—with some difficulty—visualise the possibility of its having been abstracted by one of the people who came to my wife's tennis-party, I am quite unable to arrive at any satisfactory explanation of how anyone knew that there was a rifle at the back of a coat-cupboard, or how he or she could have restored it without having been seen by any member of my household. Have you collected the rifle? My son left it ready for you.”
“No, I didn't, sir, but Sergeant Carsethorn did, which is how I come to know what happened to it.”
Haswell smiled faintly. “You must admit we've kept nothing from you, Chief Inspector!”
“Very open and aboveboard, sir. Is there a door into your cloakroom from the garden?”
“No. The only entrance is through the hall, and the ventilation is by ventilator, above a fixed, frosted-glass window. In fact taking into consideration my son's alibi—there seems really to be only one person who might, without much difficulty, have both removed the rifle from the cupboard, and restored it. Myself, Chief Inspector—as I feel sure you've realised.” He paused, and his smile grew, a tinge of mockery in it. “But I don't think I should have put it back,” he added. “Cliburn, have your sins found you out?”
“They have, they have!” said the Vicar, who had come back into the room, an expression of guilt in his face. “I am exceedingly sorry, Inspector, but I fear I cannot immediately lay my hand upon the weapon. If one could but see the pitfalls set for one's feet! Not but what I am aware that I have erred, well aware of it!”
“All right, sir! You've gone and lent it to someone,” said Hemingway. “Which, of course, you've got no business to do.”
“I cannot deny it,” said the Vicar mournfully. “But when one possesses a sporting gun—selfishly, I feel for I have no use for it—it seems churlish to refuse to lend it to lads less fortunate, particularly when the example is set me by our good Squire, who allows shooting on his waste-land, and is always the first to encourage the village-lads to spend their leisure hours in sport rather than the pursuits which, alas, are by far too common in these times! Splendid fellows, too, most of them! I've watched many of them grow up from the cradle, and I can assure you, Inspector, though I have undoubtedly broken the law in lending a rifle to any unauthorised person, I should not dream of putting it into the hands of anyone I could not vouch for.”
“Well, sir, whose hands did you put it into?” asked Hemingway patiently.
“I think,” said the Vicar, “and such, also, is my wife's recollection, that I lent it last to young Ditchling. One of my choirboys, till his voice broke, and a sterling lad! The eldest of a large family, and his mother, poor soul, a widow. He has just received his call-up papers, and I fear that in the excitement of the moment he must have forgotten to return the rifle to me, which was remiss of him, and still more so of me, for not having reminded him. For young people, you know, Inspector, are inclined to forget things.”
“They are, aren't they, sir?” agreed Hemingway, with commendable restraint. “Did you say he was the eldest of a large family? With a whole lot of young brothers, I daresay, who have been having a high old time with a gun that doesn't belong to them, and have very likely lost it by this time!”
The Vicar, much dismayed, said: “Indeed, I trust not!”
“Yes, so do I,” said Hemingway grimly. “Where does this large family live?”
“At No. 2 Rose Cottages,” replied the Vicar, regarding him with an unhappy look in his eye. “That is the row of cottages facing the common, on the Trindale-road.”
“It is, is it?” said Hemingway, his excellent memory at work.
“I know what you are thinking,” said the Vicar, sitting down heavily in the chair behind his desk. “I can never sufficiently blame myself for having been the cause—unwitting, but equally unpardonable!—of bringing suspicion to bear upon a member of a gallant and a persecuted nation, and one, moreover, of whom I know no ill!”
“Well, I won't deny, sir, that it did come into my mind that this Pole with the unnatural name whom you all call Ladislas lodges in one of those cottages,” admitted Hemingway. “But if you know what I'm thinking it's more than I do myself, because I've always found it a great waste of time to think about things until I've got a bit more data than I have yet. However, I'm glad you've mentioned him, because what any gentleman in your position has to say about one of his parishioners seems to me well worth listening to.”
“I cannot, I fear, describe Ladislas as my parishioner,” said the Vicar depreciatingly. “He is not, you know, of my communion. One is apt, of course, to look upon every soul living in one's parish as a member of one's flock, and particularly in such a case as this, when the young man is so tragically bereft of family, home, even country, one feels impelled to do what one can to bring a little friendliness into a lonely life.”
“And I'm sure it does you credit, sir,” said Hemingway cordially.
“I am afraid it rather does Ladislas credit,” said the Vicar, with a sudden smile. “We had Poles stationed in the vicinity during the War, and the impression they made upon us was not entirely happy. One makes allowances, of course, but still— No, not entirely happy! Indeed, to my shame I must confess that I was far from being pleased when I heard that one had come to live permanently amongst us. However, I thought it my duty to visit the young man, and I was agreeably surprised by him. A very decent fellow, determined to make his way in his job, and combating, I grieve to say, a good deal of insular prejudice. I had no hesitation in introducing him to one or two people whom I thought he might find congenial, and I have had no reason to regret having done so. I should add, perhaps, that his landlady, our good Mrs. Dockray—a most respectable woman!—is quite devoted to him, and that is a more valuable testimony than mine, Inspector!”
“I wouldn't say that, sir, but at least it means he hasn't been spending his spare time getting all the village girls into trouble—not to mention the wives whose husbands are doing their military service,” said Hemingway.
Haswell, who had retired to the window-seat, laughed suddenly; but the Vicar, though he smiled, shook his head, and said that when he thought of the infants, of what he must call mixed parentage, whom he had been obliged to baptise, he felt more like weeping. From this reflection he was easily led to talk about the humbler members of his flock, the Chief Inspector listening to his very discursive descriptions with great patience, mentally sifting possible grains of wheat from obvious chaff, and guiding him adroitly, by way of Mrs. Murton, who obliged for Mrs. Lindale, into the higher ranks of Thornden society. But the Vicar could not tell him very much about the Lindales. Like Ladislas, Mrs. Lindale was not of his communion, and her husband, although brought up in the Anglican faith and a very good fellow, was not, alas, a churchgoer. It was a pity, the Vicar thought, that such pleasant young people live such retired lives. It was rarely that one had the pleasure of meeting them at any of the little entertainments in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Lindale was thought to be standoffish; he himself believed her, rather, to be shy. Miss Patterdale—whom he always called the good angel of the parish—had been most neighbourly, and spoke well of Mrs. Lindale. Indeed, she had persuaded Mrs. Ainstable to call, but nothing had come of it, Mrs. Lindale excusing herself from accepting invitations on the score of being unable to leave her little girl. A pity, he could not but think, for although the Ainstables were not of the Lindales' generation, and did not, nowadays, entertain a great deal, they must be considered, in every sense of the word, valuable connaissances.
“Yes, I've just been having a chat with them,” said Hemingway. “A gentleman of the old school, Mr. Ainstable. The Chief Constable was telling me that he lost his only son in the war, which must be just about as bad a thing for Thornden as it was for him, I should think.”
“Indeed, indeed you are right, Inspector!” said the Vicar earnestly. “One of the finest young men I have ever known, and one, moreover, who would have upheld traditions which are so fast vanishing. The flowers of the forest . . . A bitter blow for the Squire! One must hope that the present heir will prove a worthy successor, but I fear there will be a sad change in the relationship between the Squire and the village. Thornden does not readily accept strangers.”
“Nor any other place I ever heard of,” said Hemingway. “Still, we'll hope it won't happen for a good many years to come. The Squire looks pretty hale and hearty—more so than Mrs. Ainstable, I thought.”
The Vicar sighed. “For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” he said, as though he spoke to himself.
“Well, no, sir,” said Hemingway, startled but respectful. “That's true enough, but—”
“The Squire has angina pectoris,” said the Vicar simply.
“You don't say so!” exclaimed Hemingway, shocked.
“There is no reason to suppose that the Squire won't live for a great many years yet,” said Haswell.
“Indeed, we must all pray that he will, my dear Haswell!”
“Yes, but I see what the Vicar means,” said Hemingway. “With that disease—well, you don't know what a day may bring forth, do you? I'm not surprised Mrs. Ainstable looks so anxious. And he's not the sort to spare himself, by what I can see.”
“He is not an invalid,” said Haswell shortly. “He has been an energetic man all his life, and it would be extremely bad for him not to take the sort of exercise he's accustomed to.”
“True, very true!” the Vicar said. “One wishes, though that he had fewer cares to weigh upon him. I am almost tempted to say, that he were less conscientious, but one should not, and indeed one does not, wish that.”
“Struggling to keep up an estate which some kind of a cousin or nephew who lives in South Africa will inherit,” said Hemingway slowly. “And I should say it is a struggle.” He glanced at Haswell. “I saw he'd been cutting down a lot of timber.”
“Also planting new trees, however.”
“Yes, I saw that too.”
“The Squire is a remarkable man,” said the Vicar warmly. “Indeed, I tell him sometimes that he has all the enterprise of a man half his age! I remember when he first made up his mind to turn the common to account—I should explain, Inspector, that the common—”
“Talking about the common,” interrupted Haswell, “can anything be done, Chief Inspector to dissuade people from trailing across it, dropping litter all over it, and staring over the hedge at Fox House? It's extremely unpleasant for Miss Warrenby, to say the least of it.”
“Poor girl, poor girl!” exclaimed the Vicar. “This is most disgraceful! One wonders what the world is coming to! This unmannerly craving for sensationalism! Gavin Plenmeller said something to me about it this morning, but I paid little heed, since the way in which he phrased it led me to believe that he was merely indulging in one of those jokes which I, frankly, neither like nor find any way amusing. Inspector, something must be done!”
“I'm afraid there's nothing the police can do about it, sir—not as long as people stick to the common and the public road, and don't go creating obstructions, which they really can't be said to do, right up the end of a blind road,” replied Hemingway.
An anxious look came into the Vicar's face. “I wonder, if I were to go up, and address a few words to them, pointing out to them how very—”
“Some of them would giggle, and others would be extremely rude to you,” interposed Haswell. “You'd do better to persuade Plenmeller to take on that job—he'd enjoy it, and might even succeed in dispersing the mob. Unless they lynched him.”
“Haswell, Haswell, my dear friend!” the Vicar reproved him.
Haswell laughed. “Don't worry! Can you imagine him lifting a finger on behalf of Warrenby's niece?”
The Vicar shook his head, and said that their poor friend had a very unkind tongue, but one must strive to make allowances, and the heart knew its own bitterness.
“Well, I daresay it would sour one a bit, to be as lame as he is,” said Hemingway. “It's certainly an education to hear him talk, and the things he can find to say about pretty well everyone he lays his tongue to fairly made me sit up. However, I don't know that I set much store by it. It wouldn't surprise me if he was living up to a reputation for coming out with something shocking every time he opens his mouth.”
The Vicar bent an approving look upon him, and said, in his gentle way that he was a wise man. “I have been much distressed at the attitude he has seen fit to assume over this shocking affair,” he said. “Upon the lack of Christian charity, I will not enlarge, but from the worldly point of view I have ventured to warn him that the unbridled exercise of his wit is open to misconstruction. In the event,” he added, inclining his head in the suggestion of a bow, “I perceive that my fears were groundless.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” said Hemingway cheerfully. “Come to think of it, I might feel a lot more suspicious if Mr. Plenmeller had seen fit to change his tone, because from what I'm told he's been saying for months that Mr. Warrenby would have to be got rid of. What I haven't yet been able to make out is why he had it in for Mr. Warrenby more than anyone else—which is saying something, according to what I'm told.” He paused, but the Vicar merely sighed, and Haswell gave a laugh and a shrug. “Or even,” he continued thoughtfully, “if the only difference between him and the rest of the good people here who couldn't stand Mr. Warrenby was that he said just what he thought, and they didn't.”
“I fear so, I fear so!” said the Vicar mournfully.
There was a decided twinkle in the Chief Inspector's eye. “You too, sir?”
“I cannot deny it,” replied the Vicar, sinking deeper into dejection. “One has tried not to entertain uncharitable thoughts, but the flesh is weak—terribly weak!”
“You will soon find yourself regarding with suspicion anyone who did not dislike Warrenby, Chief Inspector,” said Haswell. “Let me hasten to assure you that I found him quite as objectionable as the Vicar did!”
Hemingway laughed, and got up. “He does seem to have made himself unpopular,” he agreed. “I won't take up any more of your time now, sir.”
“Not at all,” said the Vicar courteously. “My time is at the disposal of those who may need it.”
He then escorted Hemingway to the front-door, shook hands with him, and said that he could have wished to have met him on a happier occasion.
Constable Melkinthorpe then drove away, asking the Chief Inspector, as he halted the car in the Vicarage gateway, which way he was to go. He was told to drive to Rose Cottages, and, after allowing a boy on a bicycle to pass down the High Street, he swung his wheel over to the left, and was just changing gear when the Chief Inspector told him to stop. He obediently pulled in to the side of the street, and saw Major Midgeholme crossing the road towards the car.
“Good-evening, sir!” said Hemingway. “Want me?”
“Yes,” said the Major, with an air of resolution. “I have been turning it over in my mind, and I think it's my duty to put you in possession of a piece of information. Mind you, it may be nothing! I don't say I attach much importance to it, but one never knows, and in such cases as this I consider it to be every man's duty to tell the police whatever he may know.”
“Quite right, sir,” said Hemingway, and waited.
But the Major seemed still to be a little undecided. “Can't say I like talking about my neighbours!” he said. “But when it comes to murder, things are different. My feeling is that if what I have to say is irrelevant, there's no harm done; and if it isn't—well! There's no denying that this business has made us all sit up—do a bit of thinking! I'm not going to pretend I know who did it, because I don't. Between you and me and the gate-post, there's a bit too much amateur detection going on in Thornden! Shouldn't like you to think I was trying to do your job for you, but of course I've thought about it a good deal, and talked it over with one or two people. As a matter of fact, I was discussing it with my wife last night—she's got her own theories, but I shan't go into that, for I don't agree with her. Point is, it's been in my mind all along that the two people who disliked Warrenby the most were Drybeck and Plenmeller. Now, when Drybeck and I were on our way to The Cedars on Saturday, Plenmeller joined us, and one of the things he said was that his was the only threshold in Thornden which Warrenby couldn't cross.” The Major paused impressively. “Well, I happened to mention that to my wife, and she told me that she had seen Warrenby go into Thornden House on Saturday morning! Of course, she doesn't know what he went for, or for how long he was with Plenmeller, for she was shopping, and she thought no more about it. I didn't set much store by it myself when she first told me, but I've been turning it over in my mind, and I've come to the conclusion you ought to know about it. As I say, there may be nothing in it. On the other hand, queer thing to do—boast that Warrenby had never crossed his threshold when he'd done so that very morning! Almost as if he wanted to make sure no one should think he'd had any dealings with the fellow.”
Constable Melkinthorpe, glancing at the Chief Inspector to see what effect this disclosure had upon him was not surprised to perceive that his calm was quite unruffled.
“I see,” said Hemingway, gravely. “He'd have to be a bit of an optimist, wouldn't he, sir to think no one would notice Mr. Warrenby going to call on him, on a Saturday morning, right on the village street?”
“Well,” said the Major, shrugging, “I've told you for what it's worth, that's all!” He looked up, and stiffened a little. Gavin Plenmeller, coming from the direction of his house, was crossing the road diagonally towards them.
“Undergoing interrogation, laying information, or just passing the time of day, Major?” enquired Gavin. “I'm glad to see you here, Chief Inspector, and I'm sure the whole village shares my feeling. We confidently expected to see you in our midst at crack of dawn, but it was not to be. I may add that a certain amount of dissatisfaction has been felt. Action is what we want, and we did think that a real detective from London would provide us with plenty to talk about.”
“Well, I must be getting along,” said the Major, not quite comfortably.
Gavin looked at him, a glint in his eyes. “Now, why are you suddenly in a hurry to go away?” he wondered. “Can it be—can it possibly be—that you were telling the Chief Inspector something damaging about me?” He watched a dull red creep into the Major's cheeks, and laughed. “Splendid! What was it? Or would you prefer not to tell me?”
It was patent that the Major would very much have preferred not to tell him, but he was an officer and a gentleman, and he was not going to turn and run in the face of fire. He said boldly: “Seems to me that you've done so much talking yourself about people that you can't very well object if the tables are turned.”
“Of course I don't object!” said Gavin cordially. “I merely hope that you've dug up something good about me.”
“I haven't dug up anything. Not my business to pry into your affairs! And if you want to know what's been sticking in my mind, it's this!—Why did you tell me that Warrenby had never crossed your threshold?”
“Did I?” said Gavin, faintly surprised.
“You know damned well you did!”
“I don't. It's quite possible, of course, and I shouldn't dream of denying it, but when did I make this momentous statement?”
“You said it to Drybeck and to me when we were walking up Wood Lane on Saturday. You said that yours was the only threshold he couldn't cross.”
“I spoke no less than the truth, then. Yes, I remember: our Thaddeus wasn't a bit pleased, was he? But what is this leading up to?”
“That won't wash, Plenmeller!” said the Major, gaining assurance with indignation. “Warrenby had crossed your threshold that very morning!”
“Take note, Chief Inspector,” said Gavin quite unmoved, “that I instantly and categorically deny this infamous accusation!”
“It may interest you to know, however, that my wife saw him go into your house!”
“She lies in her throat,” said Gavin amiably. “She may have seen him enter my garden. In fact, if she was in the High Street at the time, I should think she could hardly have escaped seeing that. She may even have noticed his very vulgar car parked at my gate. Now tell me how she saw through a brick wall and I shall be all interest!”
The Major looked a good deal taken aback, and a little sceptical. “Are you telling me he didn't enter your house?”
“You oughtn't to need telling,” Gavin reproved him. “He found me in the garden, and in the garden we remained. I don't say he didn't make a spirited attempt to cross my threshold, for he did. He had the impertinence to suggest that we should go into the house, which forced me to disclose to him that to admit him would be to break a solemn vow.”
The Major gasped. “You can't have said such a thing!”
“Nonsense, you know very well that I find not the smallest difficulty in saying to people's faces precisely what I say behind their backs!”
The Chief Inspector intervened at this point. “Why did he want to cross your threshold, sir?”
“Vaulting ambition, perhaps. It may be said to have o'erleapt itself. Or do you want to know why he wanted to see me?”
“That's it,” said Hemingway.
“Ah! Well, he came to remonstrate with me. At least, that was how he phrased it. He seemed to think I had been inserting a spoke into his wheel on various occasions, and it had come to his ears—one wonders how!—that I had spoken of him in opprobrious terms. So I told him that these allegations were true, and he then asserted that he would know how to put a stop to my activities. How he proposed to do any such thing I am unable to tell you, and, of course, we shall now never know what Napoleonic scheme he may have had in mind. I can only say that he failed to convince me that he had evolved any form of counterattack whatsoever. The remonstrance somewhat rapidly deteriorated into sound and fury. He favoured me with a catalogue of the serviced he had rendered to the country, adding, a trifle infelicitously, I felt, a list of the distinguished persons whom he had—as he regrettably put it—forced to play ball with him. After that he became incoherent, and I showed him off the premises.”
“Well, by Jove!” exclaimed the Major, bristling with suspicion. “Seems a queer thing you didn't tell Drybeck and me that you'd had this quarrel with Warrenby!”
“My very dear Major,” said Gavin sweetly, “in the first place, there was no quarrel: I never gratify my enemies by allowing them to lure me into losing my temper. In the second place, I have not so far been conscious of the smallest impulse to confide my minor triumphs to a Drybeck or a Midgeholme. And, in the third, I have long realised that in my not wholly unsuccessful attempts to depress Warrenby's pretensions I have been playing a lone hand.”
“You're the most offensive fellow I have met in all my life!” said the Major, his face by this time richly suffused with colour. “I'll be damned if I'll stand here bandying words with you!”
“No, I didn't think you would,” said Gavin. He watched the Major stride off down the street, and said pensively: “It's a mystery to me that so many persons find it impossible to shake off crashing bores. Did you ever see a fish take the fly more readily?”
Hemingway said, ignoring this question: “What made you dislike Mr. Warrenby so particularly, sir?”
“Sheer antipathy, Chief Inspector. Mixed with a certain amount of atavism. The blood of the Plenmellers arose in me when I saw that repulsive upstart storming every citadel, including the Ainstables'. When he lived, I rarely managed to earn my brother's approval, but now that he is dead I feel sure I'm behaving just as he would have wished. Which is what people so often do, isn't it? There's a moral to be drawn from that, but I beg you won't! Do you want to know any more about Warrenby's ill-advised visit to me, or have you had enough of it?”
“I'd like to know how he thought he could make you stop running him down,” said Hemingway, fixing Gavin with a bright, enquiring gaze.
“So would I, but it was never disclosed. I discount his veiled threat to take me into court on a charge of uttering slander. My imagination boggles at the thought of such a man as Warrenby complaining publicly of the things I've said about him. Not quite the kind of notoriety he craved for, you know!”
“Oh, he did threaten to take you into court, sir?”
“He did, and I promised him that I should do my best to ensure his winning his case. He was not in the least grateful. In his blundering way he was not devoid of intelligence. Tell, me, Chief Inspector!—have you in your diligent research come upon the name of Nenthall?”
“Why do you ask me that, sir?” countered Hemingway.
There was a derisive gleam in Gavin's eyes. “I'm not at all sure, but I see that you haven't. Well, when you have finished following up the theories put forward by the village half-wits, you might find it profitable to discover what was the significance of that name. I can't help you: I never heard it until it was tossed, with apparent carelessness, into the conversation at the Red Lion, one evening about a month ago.”
“Who by?” asked Hemingway.
“By Warrenby, upon receiving a well-merited snub from Lindale. He asked Lindale if the name conveyed anything to him. Lindale replied that it did not, but it was all too apparent that it conveyed a great deal to him.”
“Oh! And what happened then?”
“Nothing happened. Our curiosity remained unsatisfied. Warrenby said that he had just wondered, and the incident terminated. It appeared to me, however, that the question had had a profound effect upon Lindale—and I just wonder, too.”
“When you talk of a profound effect, sir, what exactly do you mean?”
“Well,” said Gavin thoughtfully, “it did occur to me for one moment that I might be going to witness a murder. But you have to bear in mind, of course, that I am by profession a novelist. Perhaps I allowed my imagination to get the better of me. But I still wonder, Chief Inspector!”
He removed his hand from the door of the car, favoured Hemingway with one of his sardonic smiles, and limped away.
Constable Melkinthorpe's feelings got the better of him. He drew an audible breath. “Well!” he uttered. “He's a one, and no mistake! Blessed if I know what to make of him!”
“As no one wants you to make anything of him, that needn't keep you awake! Get on with it!” said Hemingway tartly.