Detection Unlimited Read online

  ‘On you, sir?’

  ‘God knows! I shouldn’t be surprised. He wouldn’t dare do so to my face, of course.’

  ‘Well, you may be right,’ said Hemingway, ‘but I’m bound to say that when I met Mr Plenmeller he was sitting with Major Midgeholme, and he didn’t make any bones about telling me I should soon discover what the Major’s motive was for having shot Mr Warrenby.’

  Lindale stared at him. ‘Poisonous fellow! He knows better than to try that sort of thing on with me.’

  ‘Do you know of any reason why he should have wanted Mr Warrenby out of the way, sir?’

  ‘No. Nor am I saying that I think he’s your man. But I fail to see why he should have the sole right to fling mud about! What’s he doing it for? I call it damned malicious – particularly if it’s true that he’s made that unfortunate girl, Mavis Warrenby, one of his targets. I shouldn’t have said anything if it hadn’t been for his behaviour, but if that’s his line, all right, then, I’d like to know first why he had it in for Warrenby more than anyone else, and then why he made an excuse to leave that party on Saturday after tea!’

  ‘Did he, sir?’ said Hemingway. ‘I thought he left when you and Mr Ainstable did, not to mention Miss Dearham and Mr Drybeck?’

  ‘Finally, yes. Before that, he made a futile excuse to go home and fetch something the Squire wanted.’

  ‘What would that have been, sir?’

  ‘Some correspondence to do with the appointment of a new solicitor to the River Board. The Squire wanted me to take a look at it, but any time would have done!’

  ‘This River Board does keep cropping up,’ remarked Hemingway. ‘Were you one of the Riparian Owners that were anxious to keep Warrenby out of the job?’

  ‘I can’t say I cared much either way,’ said Lindale, shrugging. ‘I expect I should have allowed myself to be guided by the Squire: he knows more about it than I do, and he seemed inclined to think Warrenby would be a suitable man to appoint.’

  ‘I see, sir. And when did Mr Plenmeller leave The Cedars to go and fetch this correspondence – which I take it was in his possession!’

  ‘When the sets were being arranged after we’d all finished tea. I should say it was at about six. As far as I remember he was gone about half an hour. He got back before my wife left: that I do know, because she told me so.’

  ‘His house being half a mile from The Cedars, if I remember rightly,’ said Hemingway.

  ‘Oh, don’t run away with the idea that I’m suggesting he didn’t go to his house! I think he did. It could take him half an hour, and he could have done it in less time if he’d been put to it. That short leg of his doesn’t incapacitate him as much as you might think.’

  ‘No, he told me it didn’t,’ said Hemingway mildly. ‘So what is it you are suggesting, sir?’

  Lindale did not answer for a minute, but stood frowning at his pipe, which had gone out. He looked up at last, and said:

  ‘Not suggesting anything except a possibility. Which is that he might have gone home to pick up his rifle – if he had one, but that I don’t know: I’ve never seen him with a gun. And to cache it somewhere along the footpath, near The Cedars’ front-gate.’

  Hemingway eyed him speculatively. ‘Found he’d come out without it, so to speak?’

  ‘No. Not having known, until he got to The Cedars, that he would have the opportunity to use it!’ said Lindale. ‘Warrenby had also been invited to that party, and he cried off at the last moment. Which meant that he was certain to be at home, and alone. Now do you get it? Plenmeller left when young Haswell motored Abby Dearham and old Drybeck, and the Major home. Who’s to say that he didn’t nip into the footpath once the car was out of sight? What was he doing between the time he left The Cedars, at the end of the party, and the time – whenever that was – he turned up at the Red Lion?’

  Hemingway shook his head. ‘I’m no good at riddles: you tell me!’

  ‘I can’t tell you, because I’m no good at riddles either, but it seems to me it’s something the police might look into instead of nosing round my place, and scaring my wife!’ said Lindale, his eyes smouldering. ‘I don’t know whether Plenmeller did it, or even if he had any reason to do it – not that I think that ’ud worry him! I’ve often wondered whether these fellows who are so damned clever at murdering people on paper ever put their methods into practice – but I can see how he could have concealed a light rifle without exciting any suspicion, supposing he’d walked into someone. Ever thought that that limp of his might be turned to good account?’

  ‘Well, it’s the sort of thing that’s bound to strike one sooner or later, isn’t it?’ said Hemingway, picking up his hat.

  Lindale escorted him out to the waiting car. ‘No doubt you think I shouldn’t have said any of this. I daresay I shouldn’t have, if I didn’t know that Plenmeller himself had no such scruples! You can tell him, if you like: I’ve no objection.’

  ‘Well, from what I’ve seen of him,’ said Hemingway, ‘I don’t suppose he’d have any objection either. I hope we shall be able to let you have your rifle back in a day or two. Good-day to you, sir!’

  Constable Melkinthorpe, sedately driving towards the gate, hoped that his unconventional passenger might tell him what had been the outcome of his interview, but all Hemingway said was, ‘Can we get to the Ainstables’ house from where we are?’

  ‘Old Place, sir? Yes, sir: there’s an entrance on to this road. Matter of a mile farther on. Shall I drive there now?’

  Hemingway nodded. ‘Yes, but you can pull up first by this footpath I’ve heard so much about.’

  Melkinthorpe obeyed, turning to the right as he emerged from the farm, and stopping a hundred yards up the road. Hemingway alighted, and slammed the door. ‘Right! You wait here!’ he said, and walked off down the footpath.

  On his left lay the common; on his right, for about a hundred yards, a ditch surmounted by a post-and-wire fence separated the path from a plantation of young fir-trees. A lichened stone wall marked its southern boundary, and this wall then flanked the path for perhaps fifty yards. Hemingway knew that behind it lay part of the garden of The Cedars, and took note of the position of the gate, set in it at its southern end. Just beyond the gate, the wall turned at right-angles again, completely shutting the gardens from view. The path then continued for another fifty yards between the common and a small spinney, before curving sharply westward to join Wood Lane at a point immediately south of The Cedars’ front-gate. Where it turned to the west, a stile had been set, giving access to it from Fox Lane.

  Hemingway paused there for a few minutes, thoughtfully considering the lie of the land. He glanced along the path, but a bend in it hid Wood Lane from his sight. Over the stile Fox House could be seen, through the trees in its garden, and so too could the gorse clump on the rising common, gleaming gold behind the bole of an elm-tree growing beside the lane. Uncultured voices, and the flutter of a summer-frock, informed the Chief Inspector that in one of his surmises at least he had been right: Fox Lane had suddenly become attractive to sightseers. He pursed up his mouth, shook his head slightly, and walked back to the main road, disappointing his chauffeur by saying nothing more, as he got into the car, than: ‘Go ahead!’

  The Hawkshead-road entrance to Old Place consisted merely of a white farm-gate, opening on to a narrow, unmade road, with grass growing between the wheel-ruts. Melkinthorpe explained that it was only a secondary way to the house, the real entrance, which he described as proper big gates, with a lodge and all, lying at the end of Thornden High Street.

  ‘Nice place,’ commented Hemingway, as they drove along the track. ‘Mixture of park and woodland. Does it end at the road, or was that the Squire’s land beyond the road, where they’ve been felling all those trees?’

  ‘I believe his land stretches as far as the river, sir. He owns a lot of the houses around here, too.’

  ‘That’s no catch, these days,’ said Hemingway.

  He said no more, but when the car pres