Detection Unlimited Read online

  ‘I knew that this was going to lead to a lot of unpleasantness,’ she said. ‘Well, it has nothing to do with me, but I do trust you won’t wantonly stir up any scandal in Thornden!’

  ‘Oh, Miss Patterdale, I’m sure there isn’t anything like that to stir up!’ said Mavis.

  ‘Nonsense! Everyone has something in his life he’d rather wasn’t made public. Isn’t that so – What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Chief Inspector Hemingway, madam. And I’m bound to say there’s a great deal in what you say. However, we do try to be discreet.’

  ‘For my part,’ said Mrs Midgeholme, ‘I often say my life is an open book!’ She added, with a jolly laugh: ‘Which anyone may read, even the police!’

  ‘I don’t suppose the police have the slightest wish to do so,’ replied Miss Patterdale, correctly assessing the Chief Inspector’s feelings. ‘I looked in to see how you’re getting on, Mavis, and to ask you if you’d like to come down to the cottage to share my supper. Abby’s gone to the Haswells.’

  ‘My own errand!’ exclaimed Mrs Midgeholme, struck by the coincidence. ‘And Lion would be only too pleased to escort her back later, but will she be sensible, and come? No!’

  ‘It’s very, very kind of you both,’ said Mavis earnestly, ‘but somehow I’d rather stay at home today, by myself.’

  ‘Well, I shall leave Miss Patterdale to deal with you, my dear!’ said Mrs Midgeholme, perceiving that Hemingway was about to leave the house, and determined to accompany him.

  The Ultimas still tucked under her arms, she sailed down the garden path beside him, saying mysteriously that there was something important she felt she ought to tell him. ‘I couldn’t say anything in front of Miss Warrenby, so I just bided my time till I could get you alone,’ she said confidentially.

  The Sergeant could have told Hemingway that Mrs Midgeholme was unlikely to have anything of the smallest interest to impart. He grimaced expressively at Harbottle, but that saturnine gentleman merely smiled grimly, and shook his head.

  Encouraged by an enquiring look from Hemingway, Mrs Midgeholme said: ‘To my mind, there isn’t a shadow of doubt who shot Mr Warrenby. It’s one of two people – for although I always think Delia Lindale is a hard young woman, I don’t think she would actually shoot anyone. No, I never quite like people with those pale blue eyes, but I beg you won’t run away with the idea that I have the least suspicion about her! It’s her husband. What’s more, if he did it, it’s my belief she knows it. I popped in to see her this morning, just to talk things over, and the instant I opened my mouth she tried to turn the subject. She gave me the impression of being in a very nervy state – not to say scared! She didn’t talk in what I call a natural way, and she didn’t seem able to keep still for as much as five minutes. Either she thought she heard the child crying, or she had to go out to speak to Mrs Murton, her daily woman. Something fishy here, I thought to myself.’ She nodded, but added surprisingly: ‘But that’s not what I wanted to say to you. It may have been Kenelm Lindale, but only if it wasn’t someone else. Ladislas Zama-something-or-other!’

  ‘Yes, I wondered when we were coming to him,’ said Hemingway, with deceptive affability.

  ‘Now, I couldn’t say a word about him in front of Miss Warrenby, because the poor girl, I’m afraid, is very fond of him. I always did think it would be a most unsuitable match, and, of course, if he killed Mr Warrenby, it really wouldn’t do at all.’

  ‘Well, if he did that, madam, he won’t be in a position to marry Miss Warrenby, or anyone else,’ Hemingway pointed out. ‘But what makes you think he did?’

  ‘If you knew the way he’s been running after the girl, you wouldn’t ask me that!’ said Mrs Midgeholme darkly.

  ‘I daresay I wouldn’t, but then, you see, I’m new to these parts.’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly why I’m being perfectly frank with you. My husband says the least said the soonest mended, but there I disagree with him! It’s one’s duty to tell the police what one knows, and I know that never would Sampson Warrenby have consented to such a marriage. He forbade his niece to have anything to do with Mr Ladislas, and if he’d so much as guessed she was still seeing him behind his back – well, there would soon have been an end to that young man!’

  ‘You think he’d have done the shooting instead?’

  ‘No, I don’t go as far as that, for though I’ve no doubt he’d have been capable of it, he was far too sly and clever to do anything like that. Mr Ladislas would have found himself out of a job, and been obliged to leave the district. Don’t ask me how Warrenby would have managed that! I only know he would. He was that kind of a man. And of course Mr Ladislas must have guessed he’d leave his money to his niece, even if he didn’t know it for a fact, which he may have done. And he was actually seen turning into this lane that afternoon! If he didn’t know Miss Warrenby was at the Haswells’, all I can say is that I’m surprised. I won’t put it any more strongly than that: just surprised! So there we have him, on the spot, with a motive, and, I ask you, what more do you want?’

  ‘Well, just a few things!’ said Hemingway apologetically. ‘Not but what I’m much obliged to you, and I’ll bear all you’ve said in mind. Now, I wonder what Ultima Untidy has found to roll in?’

  This ruse was successful. Mrs Midgeholme, who, once clear of the garden, had set the Ultimas down, turned, and hurried with admonishing cries towards Untidy. The Chief Inspector swiftly joined his subordinates in the car, and said: ‘Step on it!’

  Seven

  The Sergeant, concerned, said: ‘I’m sorry we walked into Mrs Midgeholme, sir, wasting your time like that! If I’d known, I’d have warned you about her.’

  ‘You’d have been wasting your time to have done so,’ said Harbottle, from the seat beside the police-driver. ‘The Chief likes talkers.’

  He spoke in the resigned voice of one forced to tolerate a weakness of which he disapproved, but Hemingway said cheerfully: ‘That’s right, I do. You never know what they’ll let fall. I picked up quite a lot from Mrs Midgeholme.’

  ‘You did, sir?’ said the Sergeant, faintly incredulous.

  ‘Certainly I did. Why, I didn’t know one end of a Peke from another when I came to Thornden, and I could set up as a judge of them now, which will probably come in useful when I’m retired.’

  The Sergeant chuckled. ‘She wins a lot of prizes with those dogs of hers,’ he remarked. ‘That I will say.’

  ‘Well, you have said it, so I can’t stop you, but you don’t need to say any more. I’ve got a very good memory, which means I don’t have to be told things more than once in one afternoon,’ said Hemingway unkindly. ‘Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the Pekes I meant, either. Or that unnatural Pole. It was what she had to say about the Lindales that interested me.’

  ‘Well, sir, but – just a bit of spite, wasn’t it?’

  ‘She doesn’t like them, if that’s what you mean, but I wouldn’t call her spiteful. And I don’t think she said anything about them that wasn’t true. Or at any rate what she believes to be true. Of course, you can say that it’s quite enough to make anyone nervy to have her bursting in on them, and I’m bound to agree that I should think up a lot of jobs to do myself if it happened to me. On the other hand, it isn’t in human nature not to want to have a good gossip about a thing like this. Provided you know you’re in the clear, that is. Anything known about these Lindales?’

  ‘Why, no sir! I mean, there isn’t any reason why we should know anything about them, barring what everyone knows. Seem to be quiet, respectable people, generally well-liked in the neighbourhood. They don’t get about much, but I don’t know that it’s to be expected they would. Not with him having his hands full with the farm, and her with a baby, and only one daily woman to help her.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘And what do you make of them never having anyone to stay?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the Sergeant slowly. ‘What do you make of it, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know