The Chief Inspector was right. As he and Harbottle elbowed their way through the throng of persons seeking admission to the courtroom, he said, over his shoulder: “What did I tell you? Turning them away at the doors!”
Inside, the Chief Constable said: “It was bound to be a cause célèbre, of course. Half Bellingham's here. Silly fools! What do they think they're going to hear?”
Hemingway, scanning the audience, made no reply. Half Bellingham might be present, but Thornden was scantily represented. Neither the Ainstables nor the Lindales had apparently thought it worth while to attend the inquest; and of Gavin Plenmeller there was no sign. Major and Mrs. Midgeholme were seated beside Mr. Drybeck; and Mr. Haswell had found a place not far from them. Possibly he had come to hear his son give evidence.
Charles, who was suffering from a strong sense of ill-usage, had brought Mavis, Abby, and Miss Patterdale from Thornden, in his dashing sports car. So incensed was he with Abby for electing to accompany Mavis on her shopping expedition on the previous afternoon, rather than to have run down to the coast with him, as had been (he insisted) arranged, that he had invited Miss Patterdale to occupy the front seat in his car, and had even gone so far as to say that he didn't know why Abby wanted to attend the inquest at all. But Mavis, who (he savagely whispered to Miss Patterdale) had got herself up to look like a French widow, said gently that she had asked Abby to go with her, so there was nothing more to be said about that. Abby had then made a very rude grimace at him, an unendearing gesture which had had the extraordinary effect upon him of confirming him in his resolve to marry her, even if he had to drag her to the altar to do it.
When he shepherded his party into the court-room, those who had come into Bellingham on the omnibus were already ensconced in front-row seats. Besides Mr. Drybeck and the Midgeholmes, these included Mr. Biggleswade, and the late Mr. Warrenby's cook-general, a sharp-eyed damsel with tow-coloured hair cut in the style adopted by her favourite film-star. Gladys, a good cook and a hard worker, was known to be a Treasure, but she was also one of those who believed in sticking up for her rights. Not even her late employer had ever been permitted to encroach on these; and since he was well aware of the difficulty of getting servants to live in quiet villages, and set a high value on Gladys's culinary skill, he had been content, after one attempt to subjugate her, to rate Mavis for being unable to manage the household better. Gladys considered it to be her unquestionable right to attend the inquest; and when Mavis had shown reluctance to grant her leave off in the middle of the morning, she had spoken so ominously about the Unsettled state of her feelings ever since Mr. Warrenby's death, that Mavis had hastily retracted her first refusal. An attempt on her part to convince Gladys that nice girls did not wish to attend sensational inquests failed entirely.
“Well, it's only natural, isn't it?” had said Gladys.
“I don't think it is, Gladys. I'd give anything not to have to go.”
“You'll enjoy it all right once you get there, miss,” had replied Gladys, briskly stacking the breakfast-china in a cupboard.”
“'Tisn't as though Mr. Warrenby was any loss.”
“He is a great loss to me,” had said Mavis, in a repressive tone.
“Well, it's quite proper you should say that, miss,” had been the paralysing response. “It wouldn't hardly be decent not to, being as he's left you all his money. But I know what I know, and many's the time I've wondered why ever you put up with him and his nasty, bullying ways.”
It was hardly surprising, after this, that Mavis had retreated from the kitchen, leaving her henchwoman mistress of the field.
The Deputy Coroner was a chubby little man with white hair, pink cheeks, and a general air of cosiness. It was plain to Inspector Harbottle, resigning himself, that he would conduct the inquest at unnecessary length, and entirely to his own satisfaction.
From the point of view of the audience, as Hemingway said in his assistant's ear, Mavis Warrenby was the biggest draw. Whether she was conscious of the stir her appearance created it was impossible to guess, for she conducted herself just as a heroine should, bravely, modestly, and with enough sensibility to win not only the sympathy of the mob, but also that of the Coroner, who handled her with the greatest tenderness, assuring her several times that he appreciated how painful it must be for her to be obliged to give her evidence.
She was followed by young Mr. Haswell, who had been so much revolted by a performance which he freely described, in a whisper, to Abby, as ham, that when the Coroner, by way of putting things on the friendly footing he apparently desired, repeated his remark about the painful aspect of having to describe what he had seen in the garden of Fox House, he replied with the utmost cordiality: “Oh, no, not a bit, sir! I don't mind!”
He then told the court, with admirable brevity, just how he had found the dead man, and what his own actions had been. Chief Inspector Hemingway provided everyone with a mild thrill by rising to his feet and putting a question to him.
“When you went into the study, to use the telephone, did you touch anything on the desk?”
“No, only the telephone,” Charles replied. “I took care not to. There was a mess of papers and things all over it.”
“Did you see anything to make you think someone might have looked for anything on, or in, the desk?”
“No,” Charles said unhesitatingly. “When I said, a mess, I meant only the sort of muddle of papers you'd expect, if a man had been working there. It looked to me, from the way the chair had been pushed back, and the fountain-pen left lying on the blotter, as though Mr. Warrenby had left the room rather suddenly, and meant to return.”
“Now, what do you mean by that?” asked the Coroner chattily.
Charles glanced at him. “Well—just that, sir. It was a blazing hot day, and that room had had the sun on it for hours. It was pretty hot still when I was in it. I thought, from what I've told you, and from the fact that Mr. Warrenby was wearing morocco slippers, and had a clip of papers at his feet, that he'd strolled out for a breath of air. That's all.”
The Chief Inspector sat down, and the Coroner told Charles that he might leave the box. Dr. Warcop was summoned to take his place.
The Chief Inspector leaned across his assistant to speak to Sergeant Carsethorn. “Who's the blonde sitting three seats from the end of the row behind us, next to a fat girl in blue?”
The Sergeant turned his head, and was able to identify the blonde as Gladys Mitcham, cook-general at Fox House. Hemingway nodded, and sat back. Inspector Harbottle asked softly: “What is it, Chief?”
“Something young Haswell said made her sit up. Looked as though, for two pins, she'd have chipped in,” replied Hemingway briefly.
“Are you going to ask for an adjournment?”
“Soon as the doctors have had their innings. The police surgeon won't keep us long: he's all right. This old dodderer will hold the stage for as long as he's allowed to, from the look of him.”
This prophecy was soon found to have been correct. Dr. Warcop proved to be the worst kind of medical witness, and he seemed to be labouring under the delusion that he was addressing a class of students. Since he had been prevented by an emergency call from one of his more valued patients from assisting at the autopsy, even the Coroner, himself a talkative man, felt that his evidence might have been compressed into a very few sentences. He was extremely pompous, and when asked by the Chief Inspector if he could state the approximate time of the murdered man's death, he explained at great length and with many scientific terms, why it was impossible for him—or, he dared to add, for anyone—to pronounce with certainty on this point. He then perceived that his colleague, Dr. Rotherhope, was gazing abstractedly at the ceiling, a smile of dreamy pleasure on his face, and he said with meaning emphasis that he had had many years of experience, and had learnt the danger of asserting as incontrovertible facts statements which, in his humble opinion, were open to doubt. He was prepared to enlarge on this theme, but was balked by the Chief Inspector, who cut in neatly when he paused to draw breath, said: “Thank you, doctor,” and sat down.
“Er—yes, thank you very much, doctor!” said the Coroner, as Dr. Warcop turned towards him, with the evident intention of continuing his lecture. “That's quite clear: more than a quarter of an hour, but less than an hour, you think. If the Chief Inspector has no further question he wishes to put to you, we need not keep you any longer.”
Dr. Rotherhope rose briskly to his feet as his name was called.
His evidence was brief, technical, and, to the general public, very uninteresting. The Chief Inspector asked him no questions, but the Coroner was inspired to ask if he was able to give an opinion on the probable time of Warrenby's death.
Dr. Rotherhope was swift to seize opportunity. “No, sir,” he replied. “A considerable time had—unfortunately—elapsed before I saw the body.”
He then stood down, bearing the appearance of a man who considered the morning not wholly wasted; and the Chief Inspector rose to ask for an adjournment.
Colonel Scales, seeking him a few minutes later, found only Inspector Harbottle, who said, in answer to his enquiry: “I don't know where he is, sir. He slid out of the court as soon as he'd asked for an adjournment, and he didn't tell me where he was going. Though I fancy I know what he was after. Did you want to see him for anything special, sir?”
“No—only to ask whether he's had the report on those bullets.”
“Yes, sir, it came through this morning. None of the markings correspond at all.”
“Oh! That's disappointing. What does he mean to do now?”
“I can't tell you that, sir. He didn't say, but I don't think he's disappointed.”
“Well, I daresay I shall be seeing him later,” said the Colonel, passing on.
Sergeant Carsethorn said: “What did he slip off so quickly for?”
“From what I know of him, he went to intercept that fair girl—Warrenby's cook. He's probably standing her fruit sundaes in some tea-shop by this time,” replied the Inspector caustically.
“Whatever for?” demanded Carsethorn, staring.
“To get her to talk. She looked like the sort that shuts up like a clam the instant you start to ask a few straight questions, and this I will say for the Chief: to hear him getting people to tell him every last thing he wants to know, and a lot more besides, is a downright education!”
“I can see he's got a way with him,” agreed the Sergeant. “Sickening, none of those bullets matched! Seems to me we're back where we started.”
To this Harbottle vouchsafed no more than a grunt, and as he saw Mrs. Midgeholme bearing down upon them, the Sergeant effaced himself.
Mrs. Midgeholme, like Colonel Scales, wanted the Chief Inspector. Unlike the Colonel, she expressed her dissatisfaction at not finding him. She said that she particularly wished to drop a word in his ear.
“Well, madam, if you care to step across the road to the police-station, you can tell me whatever it is you wish the Chief Inspector to know, and I'll see he does know it,” offered Harbottle.
Mrs. Midgeholme betrayed an unflattering reluctance to accept him as a substitute. “I'd rather speak to the Chief Inspector,” she said.
“Just as you wish, madam,” said Harbottle, unmoved.
“When do you expect him back?” she asked.
“I couldn't say at all, madam.”
“Oh, dear, that's most awkward!”
Major Midgeholme, who was looking harassed, said: “We ought to be getting along, Flora, or we shall miss the 'bus. Really, you know, I don't think it's necessary for you to meddle in what isn't our business!”
This intervention was, in the Inspector's opinion, unfortunate, for it had the effect of strengthening Mrs. Midgeholme in her resolve. “No, Lion!” she said firmly. “It is every citizen's duty to help the police as much as they can. Besides, I think it only right that he should be put on his guard. If you're quite sure there's no chance of my being able to see the Chief Inspector himself, I suppose I'd better give you a message for him,” she added, to Harbottle. “Don't wait for me, Lion! I shall come out on the later bus.”
She then accompanied the Inspector to the police-station, informing him on the way that only her sense of duty had brought her to Bellingham, one of her more valuable bitches having produced her first litter during the night. Without receiving the smallest encouragement, she then described in enthusiastic detail the puppies, adding some useful tips on the correct feeding and care of brood bitches. To all of which the Inspector said, as he ushered her into Hemingway's temporary office: “Yes, madam?” He then put forward a chair for her, and himself sat down behind the desk, drawing a sheet of official paper towards him, and unscrewing the cap from his fountain-pen.
“Of course, I'm not making a statement, exactly,” said Mrs. Midgeholme, impressed by these preparations. “Not that I mind having what I say taken down.”
But in the event the Inspector found it unnecessary to take any notes at all.
“As soon as I found out what was going on,” said Mrs. Midgeholme, plunging into the middle of her disclosures, “I made up my mind that the Chief Inspector ought to know about it. Apart from anything else, I feel responsible for that poor girl. I might be her mother!”
“Are you speaking of Miss Warrenby?” asked Harbottle.
“Good gracious, whom else should I be speaking about? There she is, alone in the world, and I call it absolutely wicked! Mind you, I've never liked Thaddeus Drybeck, but that he would go about casting suspicion on an innocent girl I did not think! Believe it or not, that's what he's doing! He's been prying round Thornden, asking all sorts of questions, and trying to make out a case against the child! He even asked me things, because, of course, I do know Miss Warrenby better than anyone else does, and I won't deny I could tell you a lot of things about that household, and the disgraceful way Sampson Warrenby treated his niece. If she weren't a saint she'd never have put up with it! But you know what it is, with people like that!—they never have any sense! Which is another thing I want to speak to the Chief Inspector about, because anyone could impose on Miss Warrenby—anyone! But as for Thaddeus Drybeck, words fail me!”
The Inspector, placing no dependence on this statement, waited for her to continue.
“When I found out what he was up to—collecting information about all the times Warrenby was absolutely brutal to her, and trying to prove by time, and measurements, and I don't know what beside, that she could have shot her uncle—well, I didn't hesitate to tell him what I thought of him! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, I said to him, and I should have said a good deal more if I'd known then what I know now! Would you believe it?—he actually had the impertinence to pump Gladys! She's Miss Warrenby's cook, and I know this for a fact, because she was on the same bus this morning, and she told me with her own lips! I don't know when I've been so shocked! Well! I said, and I decided then and there that it was my bounden duty to put the Chief Inspector on his guard. For it's nothing but spite! Thaddeus Drybeck is one of those old bachelors who never have a good word to say for the modern generation. You must warn the Chief Inspector not to believe a word he says!”
“Very well, madam,” said Harbottle. “But it isn't at all necessary. If I may say so, you've no need to worry.”
“It's all very well for you to say that,” argued Mrs. Midgeholme, “but he is a lawyer, and if you can't believe what a lawyer tells you, I ask you, who are you going to believe?” She paused in a challenging way, but the Inspector proffered no suggestion. “It stands to reason!” she said. “Now, I say it's just spite, because, to my mind, he's too much of an old woman to have shot Warrenby himself, though I've no doubt he'd have liked to. Abby Dearham—she's Miss Patterdale's niece—believes he did it, and is trying to divert suspicion from himself, but although I must say she's worked it all out really very cleverly, somehow I can't credit it. No. The longer I live the more certain I am that my own theory is the right one. It was Ladislas. It's no use talking to me about the time being wrong: I don't know anything about that, but what I do know is that he's double-faced. There's no other word for it.”
“I daresay,” replied the Inspector. “In my experience, a lot more people are than you'd think. In any case,—”
“Wait!” commanded Mrs. Midgeholme. “Before any of this happened, it was common talk that he was running after Miss Warrenby. He's a handsome young man, if you admire that foreign type, and, of course, there's no denying that the poor girl took a fancy to him. Well, it's not to be wondered at, because she isn't attractive to men usually, and I daresay she was flattered. I think he's an adventurer. He must have guessed, if he didn't know it for a fact, that she would come into money when her uncle died. So if that isn't a motive for murdering him, I don't know what is! And no sooner is Warrenby dead than what do you think Ladislas does? Pretends he was never interested in Miss Warrenby! He was at the Red Lion yesterday,—a thing he hardly ever does, I may tell you!—trying to make everyone believe that nonsense! My husband said it was really quite ridiculous, and merely made people think he was badly frightened. Well, I might not have made anything much of that, if it hadn't been for what I discovered after dinner.”
“What was that?” enquired the Inspector mechanically.
“I happened to ring Miss Warrenby up, and that maid of hers answered the call. And what do you think she said?”
“I don't know.”
“She said she thought Miss Warrenby was sitting in the summerhouse—you wouldn't know it: it's at the bottom of the garden, at the back of the house—talking to Mr. Ladislas! You could have knocked me down with a feather! After all that fine talk of his, sneaking off when he knew no one would be about, to visit Miss Warrenby! I just told Gladys not to bother, and rang off, and made up my mind that the thing to do was to report it to the Chief Inspector.”
“I'll tell him, madam,” said Harbottle, bent on getting rid of her. “As soon as he comes in, and I'm sure he'll be very grateful to you.”
“I only hope he does something!” said Mrs. Midgeholme, beginning, to his relief, to collect her gloves and handbag.
Ten minutes after her departure, Hemingway walked in.
“You've missed Mrs. Midgeholme,” Harbottle told him.
“I told you I'd got flair. What did she want?”
“To help you do your job. I was very near to telling her you'd gone off with a blonde.”
“It's a good thing you didn't. She's a blonde herself, and if she once got the idea I go for blondes I'd never be able to shake her off. I was right about Gladys: young Haswell did make her sit up.”
“Did you get anything important out of her?” Harbottle asked curiously.
“That I can't say. But she's got her head screwed on the right way, has Gladys. She says that if the late Warrenby was sitting in the garden with his slippers on it must have been something highly unexpected which took him out of the house.”
“Why?” demanded Harbottle.
“Seems it was one of his idiosyncrasies. Another was never going out without a hat. Gladys, not having been on the scene of the crime, and not having seen the photographs either, doesn't know that he had no hat on when he was shot, which is where I have the advantage of her.”
“I believe the bit about the hat,” said the Inspector reflectively. “There's a lot of men never stir a step out of doors without they must put a hat on. My old father's one of them. I don't see why he shouldn't have gone out in his slippers, unless the ground was wet, which we know it can't have been.”
“You don't see it, because very likely you never caught cold through getting your feet chilled. Still, you ought to know that once a man gets it into his head that something is a fatal thing to do, it gets to be an obsession with him. Gladys tells me that he's even ticked her off for popping down in her slippers to get a bit of mint, or something, out of the kitchen-garden.”
“You seem to set a lot of store by what this Gladys of yours says,” remarked the Inspector. “Has she got any ideas about what took him out of doors without his hat or his snow-boots?”
“She has, of course, which is where she and I part company, as you might say—though I wouldn't dare to tell her. She says the late Warrenby was lured out by a trick. It's no use asking me what the trick was, or who played it, because it wasn't a notion I took any kind of fancy to, and I headed Gladys off it. And I'll thank you to stop calling her my Gladys, Horace! She's been walking out steady with a very respectable chap in the building-trade for the last two years, and you'll be getting me into trouble.”
The Inspector gave a dry chuckle. “If that's so, I'll bet you know a whole lot about the building-trade you didn't know before, sir! But what do you make of this stuff she's given you?”
“I'm not at all sure,” replied Hemingway frankly. “I've had a feeling ever since yesterday that I've had the wrong end of the stick pushed into my hand; and I've now got a feeling that for all I've got nine suspects there's something highly significant which is being hidden from me. What's more, while Gladys was telling me all about the late Warrenby's habits, I got another feeling, which was that if only I'd the sense to see it, she was giving me a red-hot clue.”
“That is flair!” said the Inspector.
Hemingway eyed him suspiciously, but it was plain that he had spoken in all seriousness. “Well,” Hemingway said, after a slight pause, “you're coming on, Horace! When you were first wished on to me—”
“You asked for me,” interpolated the Inspector.
“If I did, it was because I've always been susceptible to suggestion. Anyway, when you first came to me, you used to think I was heading for the nearest looney-bin every time I got a hunch.”
“I didn't, because Sandy Grant warned me not to be misled,” retorted the Inspector. “He told me—”
“I don't want to know what he told you, for I'll be bound it was something insubordinate, not to say libellous, besides having a lot of that unnatural Gaelic of his mixed up with it. What did Mrs. Midgeholme come to tell me? Don't say Ultima Ullapool has whelped, and she wants me to be god-father to one of the pups!”
“One of her bitches has, but I don't know if it was Ullapool. I wasn't attending all that closely. She says old Drybeck's going round trying to prove Miss Warrenby murdered her uncle, and you're not to believe a word he says. And also that that Pole of yours has told everyone he's got no intentions towards Miss Warrenby, but went up to Fox House after dinner last night, and sat with her in the summerhouse. I don't know whether there might be something in that.”
“I've already had that from Gladys. Taking everything into account, I should say young Ladislas went up to beg Jessica's First Prayer to lay off till all this commotion has blown over. He's got intentions all right, and he's scared white I should think so. Jessica's gone up to London, by the way. I saw young Haswell driving her to the station, so it looks as if she was catching the 12.15. She may be escaping from justice; on the other hand, she may have gone up to see her uncle's solicitors, to find out how she stands, and what she's to use for money till probate's been granted. In fact, that's why she has gone, according to what Gladys tells me, which is why I didn't arrest her. Let's hope that's the Superintendent!”
The telephone-bell was emitting a discreet buzzing noise. Harbottle picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, and said: “Yes, switch it through: he's here.” He handed the receiver to Hemingway. “It is the Superintendent,” he said.