Detection Unlimited Read online

  ‘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 summer-house – 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 gett