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  ‘You’re trying to make out why we did have anything to do with him, aren’t you?’ said Mrs Ainstable, her eyes challenging the Chief Inspector. ‘It was my fault. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for his unfortunate niece! That’s why I called on them. It’s all very silly, and feudal, but if we receive newcomers other people follow our lead. But do tell us more about this blackmailing idea of yours! If you knew Thornden as I do, you’d realise what an entrancingly improbable thought that is. It’s all getting more and more like Gavin Plenmeller’s books.’

  Out of the tail of his eye Hemingway could see that the Squire’s gaze was fixed on his wife’s face. He said: ‘I can see I shall have to read Mr Plenmeller’s books. Which puts me in mind of something I had to ask you, sir. Did you ask Mr Plenmeller to fetch some papers from his house, during the tennis-party on Saturday?’

  ‘No, certainly not!’ said the Squire curtly. ‘I asked him to let me have them back, but there was no immediate hurry about it. He chose to go for them at once for reasons of his own. Damned rude reasons, too, but that’s his own affair! Don’t know what you’re getting at, but it’s only fair to say that he was back at The Cedars before I left the party. Met my wife on the drive, and gave the papers to her. Might have given them to Lindale, and saved me the trouble, but that’s not his way!’

  ‘Something to do with this River Board I hear so much about, weren’t they, sir? I understand a solicitor’s wanted, and Mr Warrenby was after the post?’

  The Squire stirred impatiently in his chair. ‘Yes, that’s so. Don’t know why he was so keen on being appointed: there’s nothing much to it. However, he had a fancy for it, and as far as I was concerned he could have had it. Not worth worrying about.’

  ‘Well, that’s what it looks like to me,’ confessed Hemingway. ‘Not that I know much about such matters. Mr Drybeck wanted it too, I understand.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nonsense!’ said the Squire irritably. ‘Drybeck’s well-enough established here without wanting jobs like that to give him a standing! As I told him! However, I daresay he’d have got it in the end! There was a lot of opposition to Warrenby’s candidature.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hemingway, stroking his chin, ‘I suppose he has got it, hasn’t he, sir? – the way things have turned out.’

  ‘What the devil do you mean by that?’ demanded the Squire. ‘If you’re suggesting that Thaddeus Drybeck – a man I’ve known all my life! – would murder Warrenby, or anyone else, just to get himself appointed to a job on a River Board –’

  ‘Oh, no sir! I wasn’t suggesting that!’ said Hemingway. ‘Highly unlikely, I should think. I was just wondering what made you back Mr Warrenby, if Mr Drybeck wanted the post.’

  ‘Quite improper for me to foist my own solicitor on to the Board!’ barked the Squire. ‘What’s more – Well, never mind!’

  ‘But, Bernard, of course he minds!’ interrupted his wife. ‘Mr Drybeck is the family solicitor, Chief Inspector, but – well, he isn’t quite as young as he was, and, alas, not nearly as competent as Mr Warrenby was! Yes, Bernard, I know it’s hideously disloyal of me to say so, but what is the use of making a mystery out of it!’

  ‘No use talking about it at all,’ said the Squire. ‘Got no possible bearing on the case.’ He looked at Hemingway. ‘I take it you want to know where I went and what I did when I left The Cedars on Saturday?’

  ‘Thank you, sir, I don’t think I’ll trouble you to go over that again,’ replied Hemingway, causing both husband and wife to look at him in mingled surprise and doubt. ‘The evidence you gave to Sergeant Carsethorn seems quite clear. You went to cast an eye over that new plantation of yours. I was looking at it myself a little while back. Don’t know much about forestry, but I see you’ve been doing a lot of felling.’

  ‘I have, yes,’ said the Squire, his brows lifting a little, in a way that clearly conveyed to the Chief Inspector that he failed to understand what concern this was of his.

  ‘You’ll pardon my asking,’ said Hemingway, ‘but are you selling your timber to a client of Mr Warrenby’s?’

  ‘To a client of Warrenby’s?’ repeated the Squire, a hint of astonishment in his level voice. ‘No, I am not!’

  ‘Ah, that’s where I’ve got a bit confused!’ said Hemingway. ‘It was the gravel-pit he was interested in, wasn’t it? There’s some correspondence in his office, dealing with that. I don’t know that it’s important, but I’d better get it straight.’

  ‘I have had no dealings whatsoever with Warrenby, in his professional capacity,’ said the Squire.

  ‘He wasn’t by any chance acting for this firm that’s working your pit, sir?’

  ‘Certainly not. I happen to know that Throckington & Flimby act for them. In point of fact, no solicitors were employed either by me or by them.’

  ‘You didn’t get your own solicitors to draw up the contract, sir?’

  ‘Quite unnecessary! Sheer waste of money! Very respectable firm. They wouldn’t cheat me, or I them.’

  ‘Then, I daresay that would account for your solicitors not seeming to know you’d already disposed of the rights in the pit,’ said Hemingway.

  ‘If you mean Drybeck, he was perfectly well-aware that I had done so,’ said the Squire, his eyes never shifting from the Chief Inspector’s face.

  ‘No, not him, sir. Some London firm. Belsay, Cockfield & Belsay I think their names are.’

  A draught from the open door stirred the papers on the table. The Squire methodically tidied them, and set a weight on top of the pile. ‘Belsay, Cockfield & Belsay are the solicitors to the trustees of the settlement of the estate,’ he said. ‘The details of any transactions of mine would naturally be unknown to them. Do I understand you to say that Warrenby had been in communication with them?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. And seeing that it seems to have been pretty inconclusive I thought I’d ask you for the rights of it.’

  ‘May I know the gist of this correspondence?’

  ‘Well, it seems Mr Warrenby had a client who was interested in gravel, sir. He wrote to these solicitors, making enquiries about terms, having been informed – so he wrote – that they were the proper people to approach in the matter. Which they replied that they were, in a manner of speaking, but that any arrangements would have to be with you. And, as far as the documents go, there it seems to have petered out. For I gather he didn’t approach you, did he, sir?’

  It was not the Squire but Mrs Ainstable who answered, exclaiming: ‘No, he approached me instead! Really, what an impossible person he was! It’s no use frowning at me, Bernard: he may be dead, but that doesn’t alter facts! So typical of him to find out from me that you’d already leased the gravel-pit, instead of asking you! I can’t bear people who go about things in a tortuous way for no conceivable reason! So dreadfully underbred!’

  ‘He asked you, did he, madam?’

  ‘Oh, not in so many words! He led the conversation round to it.’

  ‘When was that?’ asked Hemingway.

  ‘Heavens, I don’t know! I’d forgotten all about it until you told us all this. He was the most inquisitive man – and quite unsnubable!’ She laughed, and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I wonder who his client was? It sounds rather as if it must have been some shady firm he knew my husband wouldn’t have had anything to do with. What fun!’

  ‘No doubt that would have been it,’ agreed the Chief Inspector, rising to his feet.

  Eleven

  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 straightway 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