The Sergeant looked, if anything, more sceptical than ever, but Hemingway was paying very little heed to him. "The man I want is Cook," he said. "I want to know every movement White made from the moment Carter was seen approaching the bridge. Cook took all those first depositions."
"Yes, sir, but, as I remember, Jones and Miss White corroborated everything White said."
"Of course they did! Don't you run off with the idea that I'm thinking White's movements weren't as advertised! The point is, that as soon as it was established that he was out of sight of the bridge, and within a few steps of Jones and Miss White, no one paid a lot of heed to his subsequent movements."
"Subsequent movements?" repeated Wake slowly.
"You don't suppose the gun up and fired itself on its own, do you? If White's at the bottom of this, there must have been some kind of mechanism used, which, mark you, White disposed of before Cook reached the scene."
"Maybe you're right, sir. But the more I think about it the more it seems to me that if White was responsible, then the mechanism used was nothing more nor less than his son's hands. Now, you just consider! Wasn't it young White who spilled that story about his father's plan to buy up part of Frith Field? Very unnatural thing for a man's own son to do. I thought so at the time."
The Inspector accorded this suggestion his consideration. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I'm bound to admit there may be something in that. All a put-up job between father and son. No, I don't think there's so much in it, after all. Young White doesn't get on with his father. We'll see what Cook has to say."
Inspector Cook, delighted to be summoned to a conference, was much more impressed than Sergeant Wake had been by the disclosure that Harold White was now the heir to Clara Carter's fortune; and although, casting his mind back over all the circumstances of the murder, he said that he couldn't for the life of him see how White could have had any part in it, he was perfectly ready to work over every inch of the ground again.
"Though whether I'll be able to remember all that Miss White said, I doubt," he warned Hemingway. "There was precious little that seemed to have any bearing on the case, and you know how she talks!" He drew up a chair to the table, and sat down to refresh his memory with a glance through the folder that contained his own report. "Taking it from when Miss White came out of the house, there was her, and Samuel Jones, and White sitting round the tea-table outside the drawingroom.
"In full view of the bridge," interpolated Hemingway.
"That's right. The garden's pretty overgrown with flowering shrubs, but there's a strip of lawn running down to the bridge which has only a bed of dahlias in it.
Clear view of the bridge, and of the thicket on the Palings side, of course. I took note of that. You can catch a glimpse here and there of the paths they cut at Palings. And, of course, you can see the roof of Mrs. Carter's house, through the trees. Now you'll have to let me think ;i moment. Yes, here it is." His finger traced the typewritten words: "Miss White was the one that called attention to Carter. She caught sight of him, coming down one of the paths, where the bushes aren't so thick, and she got up, and said she'd go and make the tea."
"I remember that. The maid was out. White was sitting by the table all this time?"
"Yes, but according to Miss White, it was then that he asked her why she hadn't brought any cigarettes out."
"It was, eh? After Carter had been seen?"
Cook raised his eyes from the folder, and gazed frowningly into space. "Yes, after Carter had been seen. She said she'd go and get the cigarettes, but he told her not to bother, and walked over to his study window, which, as you know, Inspector, is hidden from the hedge by a bed full of flowering currant bushes, and the like."
"Go on," said Hemingway. "What happened next?"
"Miss White said she was standing looking down to the bridge, when suddenly the shot sounded, and she saw Carter fall. I asked her particularly, at the time, if she'd noticed any movement in the shrubbery, and she said no, she hadn't noticed anything."
Hemingway looked a little disappointed. "No," he said, scratching his chin, "that won't do. Not as it stands. There must have been something else happened after White went to the study window, and before Miss White saw Carter fall. If there wasn't anything, then I'll have to own I don't see how White could have done it."
"Well, nothing did happen," said Cook. "I remember Miss White saying that she was just standing there, not thinking of anything in particular," He stopped. "Now, just a moment! The gate! She said she was thinking that the hinges on it ought to be oiled, or something of the sort. They certainly do creak badly. I wonder: would that sort of fit in?"
"It might. The creak of the gate being the signal, in a manner of speaking. Though it doesn't explain how White could have fired that shot. However, there's no sense in trying to rush things. What happened when Carter fell?"
"Miss White screamed," replied Cook. "White asked her what the devil was the matter - he's a testy chap, you know - and she must have told him, I suppose, for he came over to her, to see for himself. Yes, and he had a box of cigarettes in his hand right enough, for he chucked it on to one of the chairs, and I saw it there myself, with the cigarettes spilled all round it. No hanky-panky about that. He said he was going to reach in through the study window for a box of cigarettes, and that's just exactly what he did do."
"While his son shot Carter," interjected Sergeant Wake.
Cook turned his head. "What's that? Young White? I don't see him doing it myself."
"Wake's got a notion it was a put-up job between the two Whites," explained Hemingway.
"Well, that would surprise me!" said Cook. "Why, it's common knowledge young Alan loathes his father! And as for him firing a rifle, I doubt if he'd know how. He's a regular wet, that chap: doesn't hold with bloodsports, and talks a lot of half-baked stuff about Bolshevik Russia, and that kind of thing."
Hemingway lifted an eyebrow at his subordinate. Wake said obstinately: "It's wonderful what a difference money can make to a man. Supposing that quarrel he and his father had at lunchtime, on the Sunday, was just a blind to make us think they weren't on good terms?"
"Then by all accounts they've been putting up those blinds ever since they came to the district," said Cook dryly. "No, I reckon that's straight enough: there's no love lost between White and his son."
"Does White hate his son enough to send him out to murder Carter for him?" asked Hemingway.
"Good Lord, no, Inspector!" replied Cook, quite shocked. "Why, that would be downright wicked! Things aren't as bad as that! Stands to reason they can't be, or they wouldn't live in the same house."
"That's what I thought. Go back to the moment when White chucked the cigarettes into the chair, will you? What happened next?"
"He shouted to Jones and Miss White not to stand staring, but to come down to see what they could do for Carter, and set off for the bridge. They ran after him, of course, but Carter must have been dead before they got there."
"In fact," said Hemingway, "White got his two witnesses out of the way, for it's not to be supposed they'd pay attention to anything except Carter's body, once they'd been set on to look after him."
"You can put it that way if you like," Cook said, staring.
"Seems to me a natural thing for them all to run down to the bridge."
"It's too natural," said Hemingway. "The whole of it. There's something fishy about this chain of highly plausible circumstances. There was a very good reason for asking Carter over in the first place, and that same reason made it lookk as though White was the last person to want him dead."
"Yes, but that's twisting things round, sir!" protested Wake.
"Maybe, and maybe it's doing exactly the opposite. You keep quiet! What about the fair Ermyntrude's instinct? Go on, Cook! What happened on the bridge?"
"White told Miss White to try and stop the bleeding, and ran back to the house to get hold of a doctor, and to ring us up.
Hemingway nodded approvingly. "And very right and proper, I'm sure! Where's the telephone?"
"In the hall. I saw it," replied Cook.
"You don't say! So that it would be highly natural for Mr. White to run round the corner of the house, so as to go in by the front door, thus disappearing from sight of the bridge, behind those rhododendrons?"
"Yes," Cook said. "Yes, it would. You think he went into the shrubbery, once the other two couldn't see him? Well, now you put me in mind of it, Miss White said that it seemed ages before he got back to them. I didn't set much store by that, for no doubt it would seem ages, under the circumstances. But even supposing you're on the right track, I still don't see how he can have fired that rifle in the first place. Of course, I realise there would have had to have been a bit of mechanism used, which he'd got to get rid of quick. That's plain enough. What isn't plain at all, not to my way of thinking, is what actually fired the rifle. It can't have been the opening of the gate, now, can it?"
Hemingway looked at Sergeant Wake. "Do you remember those scratches on that sapling?" he demanded. "Do you remember I said we'd keep them in mind? They've got a bearing on the case! In fact, I've a strong notion I know what caused them. If that rifle wasn't fired by hand, it had to be rigged up somehow, and what's more, rigged up nice and securely, because if it wasn't held hard, the recoil would spoil the aim. What about one of those vices they use for cleaning guns? Clamp that to a handy young tree, get your rifle sighted along the bridge, and that's one problem solved."
"Wait a bit, sir!" said Wake. "I've seen those vices. You can tilt the rifle any way you please in them, so even allowing for the bridge's being a good way below the sapling, why would anyone fix the rifle up so close to the ground? For the grazes weren't but a foot or two up, were they?"
Hemingway was not in the least put out of countenance by this. He said briskly: "We'll probably find there was a reason for that. As a matter of fact, I've found it already. There's a drop of seven or eight feet to the level of the bridge, and it stands to reason our bird wanted to get as low a trajectory as possible."
"There was something more than a vice there," said Cook, thinking it over. "The vice didn't fire the rifle. Why why, now we begin to understand that hair-trigger pull!"
"You cast your mind back again, and see if there isn't another peculiar circumstance which you begin to understand," recommended Hemingway. "What's that?"
"Miss Fanshawe's dog didn't bark," said Hemingway. "And why not? Because there wasn't anyone there to bark at. Funny how simple things are as soon as you stop looking at them from the wrong angle!"
"I certainly think you're on to something," admitted Cook. "I suppose I ought to have been on to it myself."
"You? Why, it's taken me long enough!" said Hemingway. "I don't blame you for not spotting it. You got the gun, and there wasn't a ha'porth of reason why anyone should have tumbled to it that it wasn't fired by some bloke who dropped it, and made off."
"Well, it's very kind of you to say so, I'm sure," responded Cook, a little dubiously.
"I don't see that the case is solved, not by a long chalk," remarked the Sergeant. "It's all very well: and I grant you you've pieced it together a fair treat, sir, but what I want to know is, what is this mysterious gadget which set the rifle off just at the right moment?"
"What I want to know," said Hemingway, "isn't what is it, because we'll find that out all in good time, but where is it?"
There was a pause. Inspector Cook said in a disgruntled tone: "Yes, and don't we hope we may find it! Ten to one, he took it up to the house with him. He's had plenty of time to get rid of it since Sunday."
Hemingway tapped his teeth with a pencil, pondering. "No," he said presently. "That's bad psychology. What you want to do is to put yourself in his place. To start with, you've got a vice to carry. On top of that, there must have been some bit of mechanism which actually fired the gun. Now, supposing you were to take a chance of getting them hidden away in the house: what happens if you go and run into someone on the way?"
"Well, he'd have to take some chances. The maid was out, anyway."
"This bird take chances?" said Hemingway scornfully. "I fancy I see him! Supposing Miss White had come up to the house for brandy, or bandages, or something, and had run into him carrying that ironmongery? She might easily have done it."
"Well, if it comes to that, how was he going to explain himself to Miss White, if he'd run into her without his gadgets?"
"Easy!" said the Sergeant promptly. "He could have pitched a tale about hearing someone in the shrubbery, and running after him. You bet he had all that planned!"
"Then you say he hid the vice, and whatever else it was, down a rabbit-hole, or some such place?"
"What was wrong with that pool I saw?" inquired Hemingway. "It seems to me that if he had to dispose of something in a hurry, the pool was the quickest and the safest place. All he had to do was to climb that sandy bank, heave his gadgets into the pool, and be off up to the house to put through those telephone-calls."
"What about the splash?" suggested Cook. "I grant you they might not have heard it on the bridge, seeing that it's round the bend, and a bit of a distance off, but wouldn't you have expected Miss Fanshawe, or that dog of hers, to have heard it?"
"That's where White was luckier than he knew," answered Hemingway. "Five minutes earlier, Miss Fanshawe was down by the stream, and would have seen the whole thing. But she told me that after she heard the shot, she turned into one of the paths leading up the slope. Now, I reckon that between the firing of the rifle, and White's heaving the vice and what-not into the pool (if that's what he did do) must have been all of five minutes, and very likely more. Miss Fanshawe would be out of earshot by that time, or if not absolutely out of earshot, far enough away for a splash not to catch her attention."
"Yes, and supposing all this did happen like you say, sir," put in the Sergeant. "White's had plenty of time to fish his gadgets out of that pool, and dispose of them for good and all."
"Time, yes, if he'd thought it necessary, which he probably didn't. But there's one thing you're forgetting: it's muddy down by the water, and Mr. White couldn't get anything out of the pool without leaving some nice, deep footprints. What's more, it 'ud be a pretty risky thing for him to go wading about in the pool when at any moment someone might have seen him from the Palings' side. No, if he threw his apparatus into the pool, it's there still, and that's where we'll find it."
Half an hour later, two constables, with their trousers rolled well above their knees, were painfully stubbing their toes on all the foreign bodies sunk into the mud at the bottom of the pool. When the police-party had arrived at the Dower House, only Florence, the maid, had been in, and she had raised no objection to the Inspector's pursuing investigations in the shrubbery. As long as he didn't come getting in her way, she said, with a sniff, she was sure he could do as he pleased, for it was no concern of hers.
The first haul taken from the bed of the pool was disappointing. It consisted of two glass jam jars, and something that looked like the handle of a saucepan. Then the younger of the two constables cut his foot on a broken plate, and swore loudly; and, a moment later, his companion bent, and plunged his arm into the water, and pulled out something that had been half sunk in the mud. "I've got it, sir!" he exclaimed. "It's a vice, sure enough!"
He waded to the bank, and handed his find to Hemingway. Hemingway betrayed not the smallest sign either of surprise or of gratification, but his Sergeant was visibly impressed, and regarded him with a good deal of awe. "My word, sir, you were right all along!" he said. "Well, I wouldn't have credited it!"
"I'm always right," said Hemingway superbly. "Keep going, Jupp! You'll find something more, or I'm a Dutchman."
"It wouldn't be a sardine-tin, would it, sir?" inquired Jupp, with a grin. "Fisher's just cut his toe on one."
"You stop larking about, and get on with it!" ordered the Inspector, somewhat unfairly. "Come on, Cook, we'll see how this fits those grazes on the sapling."
Both Inspectors were recalled presently by the sound of tumult by the pool. They hurried up the sandy bank, and found that the cocker-spaniel, Prince, discovering strangers in a pool which he regarded as his own, had plunged into the water, not, indeed, to evict the interlopers, but to join them in aquatic sports. He bore with him a large stick, a circumstance which induced Hemingway to shout out: "Never mind about playing with that dog! Get on with it!"
"We're not playing with the brute, sir!" called Fisher, stung into a retort. "We're trying to shoo it off!"
"You leave it alone, and it won't do you any harm!" said Hemingway. "You're only exciting it, waving your arms about like that. Here, come here! Good dog, bring it here, then!"
"Well, well, well!" said a voice from the farther bank. "What's this? A regatta?"
"Oh, it's you, is it, sir?" said the Inspector, casting an unfavourable eye over Mr. Hugh Dering. "Well, perhaps you'll call your dog off, since you happen to be here."
"Nothing," said Hugh, visibly enjoying the sight of the constables wrestling with Prince's advances, "would give me greater pleasure, if he were my dog. But he isn't."
Vicky's Borzoi bounded into view at this moment, and at once began to bark at the strangers. The two constables showed a marked disposition to leave the pool in haste, but Hugh grasped the Borzoi by the collar, and told him to be quiet. The Inspector began to explain, as tactfully as he could, that neither Hugh's nor the dogs' presence was in anyway necessary to him, but before he had succeeded in making this clear to Mr. Hugh Dering, who was suddenly and unaccountably slow of understanding, Vicky had appeared upon the scene - a demure Vicky, in white organdie with black ribbons.
"Oh, I shouldn't paddle there!" Vicky said, quite distressed. "It's a very muddy, dirty kind of a pond. My mother never used to let me go in it."
"Miss, will you call off your dog?" begged Fisher, against whose legs the spaniel was thrusting his stick.
"Do you mind frightfully if I don't?" said Vicky. "He's bound to shake himself all over me, you see, and I don't much want him to."
Hugh, who had been interestedly surveying the treasures collected from the bosom of the pool, took pity on the police. "All right, I'll rescue you," he said. "Stand clear, Vicky! Come here, Prince! Bring it!"
The spaniel, hopeful of finding a more willing playmate, left the pool, laid his stick at Hugh's feet, and shook himself generously over Hugh's trousers. Hugh knotted his handkerchief through the dog's collar, and bade Vicky remove him from the scene.
"Yes, but I want to watch what they're doing!" Vicky demurred.
"No, go up to the house," Hugh said. "I'll join you later - when I've discovered what all this is about."
"Not even a fusty lawyer can just carelessly fling orders at me," said Vicky, as one imparting valuable information.
"That's all right, ducky: you can play at being the child-wife married to a drunken bully," suggested Hugh.
This immediately caught Vicky's ever-lively imagination. "Yes, or a Roman slave."
"Or a Roman slave," agreed Hugh, giving the end of the handkerchief into her hold.
From the opposite side of the pool, Inspector Hemingway watched Miss Fanshawe's departure with undisguised relief. When, however, he saw that Mr. Hugh Dering, instead of accompanying her, was walking on towards a point where the stream could be jumped, his satisfaction waned swiftly. He called: "Now, look here, sir, I'm busy, and I can't have you messing about here now!"
Hugh cleared the stream, and walked towards him. "Can't you?" he said. "Well, of course, if you won't have me on this side of the stream, I'll go back and watch you from the other side. I dare say Miss Fanshawe and her mother would like to come and watch, too, though of course I can't promise that they won't bring the dogs with them."
Sergeant Wake bent a shocked stare upon him. Hemingway said: "Oh! Nice state of affairs, I must say, if the police are to be blackmailed by gentlemen of your profession, sir! Now, you know very well you've no right to come meddling here!"
"Don't worry, I won't meddle. But all this earnest search leads me to suppose that new and startling evidence has cropped up. Moreover, you are holding in your hand, Inspector, something that bears all the appearance of a vice. From which I deduce that, contrary to expectations, the rifle found here was not fired by hand. Correct me if I'm wrong, my dear Watson."
Hemingway shook his head. "Yes, you're wasted at the Chancery Bar: I can see that," he said. "All the same '
"Hold!" said Hugh. "These things being as they are, I am further led to suppose that you are about to lay bare evidence which will clear the fair name of the lady to whom I am shortly to be joined in holy matrimony. I contend that this gives me a right to be here."
"Oh, so that's been fixed up, has it?" said Hemingway. "Well, I'm sure I hope you'll be very happy, sir. I've been expecting to hear of it ever since I came down to these parts."
"When you first came here I hadn't the slightest intention of getting married," said Hugh. "However, don't let me spoil your good story."
"I won't," said the Inspector. "What you don't grasp, sir, is that if there is one thing I've got, it's intuition. Besides, it's been standing out a mile. But as for your having any right to be here, that's another matter. Still, I can see that Inspector Cook wants me to let you stay, so I suppose you'll have to."
"I never!" Cook exclaimed, taken by surprise. "Why, I never said a word!"
"Well, if you don't want me to let him stay rather than have a couple of women and two dogs getting in the way, I've been mistaken in you," said Hemingway. "What's more, he knows too much already."
"Hair-trigger," said Hugh. "You might almost call me your good angel. Hallo, one of your henchmen has caught a fish!"
The Inspector turned, as Jupp came to the edge of the pool, holding an odd-looking object in his hand.
"Would this be what you're after, sir?"
The Inspector took it. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it might be. At any rate, it didn't grow in the pool. Know anything about these things, sir?"
"About as much as the next man," Hugh replied. "I know it's an electro-magnet. I don't immediately see the connection between it and the rifle, though. Do you?"
Hemingway shook his head. I'm bound to say I haven't figured it out. You know a bit about electrical gadgets, Wake: could you fire a rifle with this?"
"No," replied the Sergeant. "I don't see any sense to it. Even when you pass current through it, it wouldn't have any effect on the rifle-trigger, Couldn't have."
"Well, go on searching," said Hemingway, waving Jupp back to the pool. "Maybe you'll find something more. Though I've got a hunch this thing did the trick."
He stood for a few moments, silently, and rather abstractedly, watching the two constables, while his Sergeant frowned upon the electro-magnet.
"No," said Wake at last. "Look at it which way you will, you can't fit an electro-magnet into it. It wouldn't work, and that's all there is to it."
Hemingway lifted his head quickly. "Magnet!" he said.
"It sounds like "Eureka!"' remarked Hugh.
"It is Eureka," said the Inspector. "Now, don't you start asking me a whole lot of questions I can't possibly answer, sir! If I'm right, you'll know all in good time. All I want you to do now is to keep a still tongue in your head, which I'm sure you will do. All right, you two! That'll do!"
Twenty minutes later, in Fritton again, the Inspector produced from a drawer in his desk the magnet he had found in the shrubbery at the Dower House, and bade Sergeant Wake tell him what effect on it an electromagnet would have.
"It would attract it, of course," Wake replied. "Soon as you switched the current on. You mean, somehow or other it was fixed so that when it jumped to the electromagnet, it caught the trigger?"
"Good Lord!" said Cook blankly. "Could that have been done? I never heard of such a thing!"
"What we want to go in for now, is a bit of experiment," said Hemingway. "We'll rig that rifle up in the vice, and see how it could be made to work."
By the time the rifle had been produced, and the vice clamped to the leg of a stout table, Hemingway had discovered an additional reason for the position of the grazes on the sapling. "I get it!" he said. "It had to be close to the ground, to get the trigger on the same level as the electro-magnet. Now, if the two arms of the horseshoe magnet had to point towards the electromagnet, that must have been just behind the trigger, about like that. Come on, Wake! How would you manage to get the horseshoe magnet so that there's nothing to prevent its moving, and so that it's bound to pull that trigger as soon as it does move?"
"Well, it's got to rest on something. Couple of blocks of wood, perhaps."
"That's it," said Hemingway. "Easily kicked away when finished with. Books will be good enough for us. Hand me down a few!"
Kneeling on the floor he carefully built up his two little platforms, one on each side of the trigger-guard of the rifle, and close enough together to allow of the horseshoe magnet's arms resting one on each platform. The magnet he placed so that the round end was within the trigger-guard, and in front of the trigger itself, and the magnetised ends pointing towards the electro-magnet placed under the stock of the rifle. While Sergeant Wake busied himself with a length of flex and a wall-plug, Hemingway tried to cock the rifle. After several abortive attempts, he sat back on his heels and eyed the rifle with dislike. "It's no use: the damned thing won't cock!" he said. "It goes off the moment you close the bolt. Now, how did he work that trick?"
"The bent's been filed down so fine that the searnose won't catch," said' Cook. "I've got a brother in the gun trade, and I've seen these things stripped. The bent was filed down to give it that light pull. He'd have had to load it with the trigger pulled back. Let me try, will you, Inspector? I've got an idea how to cock it."
Hemingway said: "Go right ahead! If you can close the bolt without the blooming thing's going off, you're softer handed than I am."
"You don't need to touch the bolt to cock the rifle," said Cook. "I'll lay my life White didn't. You want to get hold of the cocking-piece, behind the bolt - this thing - and pull it gently back like this, until the nose of the sear - that's the piece which the top end of the trigger acts on - the bit that holds the firing-block back - catches in the bent. It won't do more than just catch, and you don't want to jog the gun, because it only needs a touch to set it off."
Hemingway, who had been watching Cook suit his actions to his words, drew back as Cook cautiously released the cocking-pin. "Jog it! I'm taking precious good care not to breathe on it. Why haven't I got a brother in the gun-trade? The silly fellow travels in some kind of patent baby-food. A lot of use that's ever been to me, or likely to be! You got that fixed up yet, Wake?"
Wake, who had been attaching one end of the flex to the electro-magnet, rose to his feet. "All set, sir. Shall I switch on?"
"The sooner the better: the suspense is killing me," said Hemingway.
Wake moved across to the wall-plug, and turned the switch on it. The horseshoe magnet shot forward, towards the electromagnet, the closed end hitting the trigger, and so releasing the mainspring.
"And that," said Hemingway, as the rifle clicked, "is that, gentlemen! I said it was a pleasure to deal with Mr. Harold White!"
"I'll have to say it's been a pleasure to see you deal with him, sir," said Wake, making amends for past scepticism. "I don't mind admitting I thought you were on to a wildgoose chase this time."
Inspector Cook got up from the floor. "Yes, but there's something that's bothering me," he said. "They're not wired for electricity at the Dower House."
Hemingway looked at him in pardonable annoyance. "I never met such a set of kill joys! Are you sure of that?"
"Yes, I'm quite sure. They make their own electricity at Palings, but Mrs. Carter never had the Dower House wired. They use oil-lamps."
"Well, that has torn it!" said Wake. "Surely to goodness they couldn't have run a flex to the electro-magnet all the way from Palings!"
"Talk sense!" snapped Hemingway. "Run a flex from Palings! Yes, over the lawn, and down through the shrubbery, and across the stream, and up the other bank! I wonder if they laid it under ground, or had it fixed up on poles?"
"Well, I said surely they couldn't have!" protested the Sergeant.
"They couldn't have, and what's more there wasn't any point to it, even if it had been possible. What's the whole aim and object of firing a gun by means of a contraption like that?"
"To provide yourself with a water-tight alibi," replied Wake.
"You're right. And what kind of an alibi had any of that Palings lot provided themselves with? Or Mr. Silent Steel? Or his High and Mightiness Prince Tiddly-Push? Or young Baker? Who had the only alibi that was so good no one but me thought of trying to bust it?"
"Yes, it does look like White," said Cook. "Don't think it's any pleasure to me to have to say the Dower House isn't wired!"
"It not only looks like White; it was White," said Hemingway. "It couldn't have been anyone else."
"No, but there's another point as well, though I dare say it doesn't mean so much," said Wake. "How did he get the rifle in the first place?"
"I don't know, but if you go and ask them up at Palings, they'll tell you anyone could have taken it."
"Yes, that's what they say," persisted Wake, "but, come to think of it, it isn't quite as easy as that to walk off with a life-size rifle under your arm. Why, even supposing you had the run of the house, would you take a chance on it? Supposing someone was looking out of one of the windows? Supposing you ran into the butler, or a gardener, or someone? Of course, as soon as you started on White, I got to thinking about him returning Mr. Carter's shot-gun in a case of his own, but that's no use, because the rifle wouldn't go into a shot-gun case."
Hemingway turned his head to look at the rifle, still held in the vice. "If I was to find that the fair Ermyntrude was right all along, I don't know that I could bear it," he said slowly. "Can you break a rifle?"
"What, like you do a shot-gun?" said Cook. "No, they're made differently. You can't break any I've ever handled."
"Well, let's have a look at this one," said Hemingway. "Give it here, will you, Wake?"
The Sergeant loosened the vice, and handed over the rifle. Hemingway inspected it. "I must say it doesn't look as though you could. What are these little eyebolts for?"
Cook peered over his shoulder. "They're only to fix a sling on to, if you should want one, aren't they?"
"I can't say, but I believe in trying things out," replied Hemingway, laying the gun on his desk, and beginning to loosen the bolts.
He removed them in a moment or two, and then, with the air of a conjurer sure of his trick, quietly lifted the barrel out of the stock. "As easy as falling off a gate," he said. "Now we know why he chose the Mannlicher Schonauer instead of that classy-looking Rigby. I dare say that doesn't come apart anything like as neatly, if at all. Measure that barrel, Wake - not that I doubt it could have got into the hambone-case."
"Twenty-eight inches over all," Wake announced, closing his foot-rule. "My word, the evidence is piling up, isn't it? But we still haven't got round the main difficulty, sir - though it looks to me as though we will, the way things are shaping."
Hemingway gave him the rifle to fit together again, and sat down at his desk. "Some kind of a battery," he said. "Inside the study window, with a flex running from it to the electro-magnet."
"Could it? Without being noticed?" asked Wake.
"Yes, easy, it could," said Cook. "There's a flower-bed running along the wall of the house, and creepers on the house, too. You'd never see the wire. He could have laid it along the bed till he got to the corner of the house, and then taken it across the bit of path lying between the house and the top-end of the shrubbery. He might have sprinkled a bit of gravel over it just there, though I shouldn't think it would have been necessary myself. Then, all he had to do, once he'd got rid of the vice, and the electro-magnet, was to run back to the house, coiling up the wire as he went."
Hemingway, who had not been paying much attention to this speech, suddenly said: "Didn't you tell me White had got something to do with a coal-mine?"
"That's right," said Cook. "He's manager of the Copley group."
"I thought so. What's that thing called that they use in mines when they want to blast? Electrical thing they touch off the dynamite with?"
"A shot-firer, do you mean?" asked Wake. "But they don't blast in coal-mines, do they?"
"By gum, you've got it!" said Cook. "They do do quite a bit of blasting here, because we're remarkably free from gas, as it happens! He could have got hold of one, too, without a bit of trouble, in his position."
"Don't they check up on those kinds of stores?" asked Wake.
"Yes, but, don't you see? The murder was committed on a Sunday. White could have brought the shot-firer away with him on Saturday, and returned it to store on the Monday morning, and no one the wiser!"
"Would it work?" Hemingway demanded.
"Yes, work a fair treat. Ever seen 'em use one? All you do is push the handle down smartly, and the next thing you know is that half the rock-face has fallen off."
The Sergeant bent, and picked up the horseshoe magnet. "Funny he left this lying about for us to find," he said. "I must say, I can't understand him not slipping it in his pocket, so careful as he was about everything else."
"Yes, but it wouldn't have been lying there like that," Cook pointed out. "You only turned the current off long after the recoil of the rifle. You've got to remember that White pushed down the handle of his shot-firer, and then released it. The jar of the rifle's going off must have hurled the magnet away, once there was no strong attraction to hold it in its position."
"It did," said Hemingway. "I found it under some leaves, several feet from the sapling. White couldn't risk hanging about to hunt for it. I dare say he didn't even think it was so very necessary, either. Even if we did start hunting around, it wouldn't convey much to us. I'm bound to say it didn't." He glanced at his watch. "Who has charge of shot-firers, and the like? A storekeeper? Know who he is, and where he lives?"
"I can find out for you in less than no time," said Cook.
"Thanks, if you'd do that, and let Wake know, he can go off and put in a bit of work interviewing the fellow," said Hemingway. "Not but what we've got enough on White, without that, to justify my applying for a warrant to arrest him. Still, we must tie up every end, if we can."
Rather more than an hour later his Sergeant returned to him, in a mood of quiet triumph. "We've tied the last end, sir," he announced. "They had one of the shot-firers repaired last week, and it came back from the repairshop last thing on Saturday morning, after the storekeeper had gone off duty. He told me Mr. White was the last off the premises, and that he'd put the shot-firer away somewhere in his office. Said he was sure of that, because White was a bit late on Monday morning, and the shot firer couldn't be found."
"And then White turned up, and said it was in his office?"
"That's right, sir. Turned up with a biggish sort of attache-case, went straight into his office, and brought the shot-firer out. I reckon that settles it. You ought to feel proud of the way you've handled this case, sir. I know I would be. Because at one time it really did seem as though there wasn't what you'd call a good reason for suspecting anybody."
The Inspector was secretly gratified by this tribute, but he replied with a mournful shake of his head: "Yes, but there's always something to take the edge off for one. When I think about that silly widow sticking to it against all reason it was White that killed her husband, and being proved right, it quite makes me lose heart. And when I think of the way she'll pat herself on the back ! Well, there! it doesn't bear thinking of, and that's all that there is to it. She's probably telling her family how her instinct shows her it must have been White, right at this moment."
But, as it happened, Wally's murder was not just then paramount in Ermyntrude's mind. Her daughter's engagement had cast every other consideration into the background. It was, she said, the most delightful surprise of her life, and made up for everything. "I couldn't have wished for better!" she told Mary. "Of course, I don't say I haven't thought of an Earl, or at any rate a Viscount for her, but you can't absolutely bank on getting a peer, can you, dearie? And the Derings are county: there's no getting away from that! What's more, he's very nice, Hugh is, and not a bit up-stage with me, like an Earl might be. Fancy, though! I'd quite made up my mind it was you he was after! Well, I must say, you could have knocked me down with a feather! It's to be hoped I don't get any more shocks today, for really the excitement of' this has made me feel quite exhausted!"
She was to have yet another. Shortly after dinner Dr Chester was announced, and came into the drawing room looking rather grim.
"Well, and what little bird can have told you the news?" exclaimed Ermyntrude. "If it isn't like you, Maurice, to be the first to come and congratulate. Well, I do think it's sweet of you!"
"Congratulate?" he repeated. "What news are you talking about?"
"But, Maurice! Vicky and Hugh!" Ermyntrude said. His brow seemed to lighten. "Vicky and Hugh! No, really? Yes, of course I congratulate you both, most heartily!"
Hugh, who had stayed to dine at Palings, shook hands with him. "Thanks. But I think you've got some rather different news, haven't you?"
"You know, then?" Chester said.
"No. I've an inkling, though, since I encountered Inspector Hemingway this afternoon."
"They've arrested White," Chester said.
"Arrested White?" Mary gasped. "But why? On what conceivable grounds?"
"I don't know. Alan rang me up to come and attend to Janet, who was in hysterics. I came straight on here, to let you know."
"I knew it!" Ermyntrude said, fulfilling the Inspector's prophecy. "All along I said it was that White, though not one of you would listen to me! A woman's instinct is never wrong!"
"Oh, how awful for Janet and Alan!" Mary said. "Is there anything we can do?"
"Not at the moment. I've given Janet a sedative, and told Alan not to let her get agitated. I hope-'
Ermyntrude arose suddenly from the sofa. "Told Alan!" she said scornfully. "Yes, I see him keeping himself quiet, let alone anyone else! The idea of your leaving the poor girl with only Alan and that blowsy, good-fornothing maid of theirs! Well, I thought you'd have more sense, Maurice, I must say! Why didn't you bundle her into your car, and bring her straight up here, and that silly, feckless brother of hers as well, for heaven knows what he mayn't do, left to himself!"
"Bring them here?" repeated Chester, for once in his life startled.
"Where else are they to go?" demanded Ermyntrude. "It seems to me you men never think of anything! Why, there'll be reporters swarming all over the Dower House by tomorrow, if not before! Enough to drive Janet out of her mind, for she hasn't any sense at the best of times. Vicky, love, go and ring up Johnson, and tell him to bring the big car round at once, will you?"
"But, Ermyntrude, wait!" said Chester. "Are you quite sure you know what you're doing? The situation's rather difficult, isn't it? If White killed Wally..."
"Now, don't stand there talking far-fetched nonsense to me, Maurice!" said Ermyntrude. "I never yet found any difficulty in doing my duty as a Christian, and I hope I never shall! What's more, I'm a mother, and leave even a tiresome, chattering girl like Janet alone at such a time I tell you plainly I couldn't reconcile it with my conscience to do! Now, that's quite enough arguing! Mary, you'll see to the bedrooms, won't you, dearie?"
"Yes, Aunt Ermy," said Mary, meekly following her into the hall.
Ermyntrude sailed upstairs to put on a wrap for the journey to the Dower House, but Mary was overtaken, with her hand already on the baluster-rail, by Dr Chester. He put his hand over hers, and clasped it. "Mary, that engagement!"
She found herself unable to meet his eyes. "Yes, were you surprised? I was the only person who knew it was blowing up."
"Mary, look at me! I thought - I could have sworn—' he broke off, as though he did not know how to go on.
She did look up, but very fleetingly. "That it was going be me?"
"Yes," he said bluntly.
"Well, so did I, at one time. Not that I had any real reason to, and as a matter of fact it wouldn't have done at all. Hugh's a dear, but he's not my type, and I'm not his."
His clasp on her hand tightened. "Mary, is that the truth? I thought…And he's so much nearer you in age, that I made sure '
"Maurice," interrupted Mary, crimson-cheeked, "Wasn't it Aunt Ermy with you - ever?"
"Ermyntrude? Good God, no! Mary, this isn't the moment to ask you, but could you possibly - is there the slightest hope '
"Oh, Maurice, I think I must always have- Oh, look out, here she is!"
"And a nice hot-water bottle in Janet's bed, Mary dear-, don't forget!" said Ermyntrude, coming downstairs again. "I always say there's nothing like a hot-water bottle for real comfort when you're in trouble."