No Wind of Blame Read online

  ‘You certainly have been hard at it today, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘You want to get a good night’s rest.’

  Apparently, the Inspector enjoyed a very good night’s rest, for when his subordinate saw him next morning he was his usual brisk and bright-eyed self. He went off to Stilhurst Village to pursue inquiries into Robert Steel’s possible movements on the afternoon of the murder, and was coming out of the general shop there when he walked into Hugh Dering.

  ‘Hallo!’ Hugh said. ‘I rather wanted to see you.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ said the Inspector. ‘I could do with a few minutes’ chat with you myself.’

  ‘Hold on while I buy some stamps, and I’ll be with you.’ Hugh vanished into the shop, reappearing presently to find that the Inspector had strolled on down the street to where Hugh had left his car. He soon overtook him. ‘Miss Cliffe tells me that you rang her up last night to make inquiries about the mythical aunt. I see what you’re after, of course, but do you really believe in the aunt?’

  ‘I’ve got an open mind, sir. What’s your feeling on the subject?’

  ‘I haven’t an idea. My instinct always prompted me to disbelieve any statement Carter made, but in this case I’ve nothing to go on, beyond the fact that Mrs Carter doesn’t seem ever to have set much store by the aunt. A rich aunt, conveniently mad, and hidden from sight in an asylum, sounds suspiciously unlikely to me.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘All the same, he went so far as to say that she lived in Chipston.’

  ‘H’m! Giving a local habitation and a name to an airy nothing, perhaps.’

  ‘Look here, sir, I don’t want a Job’s comforter, if it’s all the same to you!’ protested Hemingway. ‘What I do want, on the other hand, is a bit of expert information. You told Miss Cliffe in my presence, the day before yesterday, that there was no question of her inheriting this aunt’s money.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I take it you’re sure of your facts, sir?’

  ‘Quite sure. According to what Carter let fall from time to time, she became insane before she had made a Will. The Law regarding intestacy is perfectly clear.’

  ‘Would it be bothering you if I were to ask you to tell me this Law, sir?’

  ‘Not at all. When an intestate dies, leaving no issue, and his parents having predeceased him, the relations who can inherit his fortune are first, brothers and sisters of the whole blood, or their issue; second, brothers and sisters of the half-blood, or their issue; third, the grandparents, in equal shares; fourth, uncles and aunts of the whole blood of the intestate’s parents, or their issue; and fifth, uncles and aunts of the half-blood of the intestate’s parents, or—’

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ said the Inspector. ‘Or their issue!’

  ‘Correct,’ said Hugh, with a twinkle.

  The Inspector eyed him respectfully. ‘And that’s your idea of perfectly clear?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Hugh assured him.

  ‘Well, if that’s so I’m bound to admit that you gentlemen at the Bar earn every penny you get, which is a thing I’ve often doubted. Let me be sure I’ve got this right! If this aunt is very old, we can take it she hasn’t got any parents or grandparents living, and I remember that Miss Cliffe said that she didn’t know of any relations other than her, that Carter had. So if she and Carter were the last of the family, what happens next?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll dig up some remote cousin! Failing the male line, you can try the female line. Almost endless possibilities, you perceive.’ He saw that the Inspector was frowning in an effort of concentration, and added: ‘It might go to a descendant of the grandmother’s family, her father being the intestate’s great grandfather. Get the idea?’

  ‘Yes, I get it,’ replied Hemingway. ‘What I’m thinking is, that I look like having started something, and no mistake! What was it you wanted to see me about, sir?’

  They had reached Hugh’s car by this time, and paused by it, in the shade of a great elm-tree. Hugh began to fill his pipe. ‘Something my father said. I got him to attend the Inquest yesterday, to see what he made of it. One circumstance rather puzzled him. It may have puzzled you.’

  ‘And what might that have been, sir?’

  Hugh struck a match, and guarded it in his cupped hand from the wind. Between puffs, he said: ‘Fact of the rifle’s having a hair-trigger pull. My father says he can’t imagine what Fanshawe wanted with a hair-trigger. Says he would have found it dam’ dangerous to use, and almost impossible to load.’ He pressed the smouldering tobacco gently down into the bowl of his pipe, puffed again, and flicked the match away. ‘He can’t see the point. Occurred to you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it has, naturally. Might be several answers. Or whoever killed Carter with that rifle may have wanted a light pull.’

  ‘Light, perhaps, but not hair-trigger, surely! It would only need a touch to set it off. Too risky.’

  The Inspector’s gaze was fixed meditatively on a large saloon car, approaching at a regal and stately pace down the village street. ‘Very shrewd of your father, sir. I’m much obliged to him.’ A grin suddenly spread over his face. ‘Well, I wondered whether it was Royalty for the moment, but I see now that you won’t be needing me any longer.’

  Hugh looked round, as the Rolls Royce, taking up most of the available space in the street, drew up outside the little butcher’s shop. In it, looking rather like the Tragic Muse, sat Vicky, swathed in black, and with her sunny curls smoothed into two demure wings that framed her face. A halo hat made an extremely becoming setting for this fair primness.

  ‘Now what’s she playing at?’ said Hugh in an annoyed voice.

  ‘Looks to me like Lady Jane Grey on her way to the block,’ remarked the Inspector, following him down the street to the Rolls Royce.

  By the time they had reached it, the chauffeur had opened the door, and received from one gloved and languid hand a scrap of paper bearing the order for the butcher. He went into the shop as Hugh came up. Hugh pulled the door open again, and demanded: ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing, got up like Queen Victoria?’

  Vicky surveyed him in an aloof fashion. ‘I feel like that,’ she said simply.

  Hugh looked grimly back at her. ‘I thought I told you you were not to start any more of your antics?’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Vicky, ‘but my car died on me.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘This,’ said Vicky, waving a hand to indicate the opulence of her surroundings. ‘It came over me in a wave. Such a lonely, sad-looking figure, lost in the cushions of the great, sombre car. I think I was left a widow frightfully young, and all my fabulous wealth is simply dust and ashes in my mouth. Though I rather like the idea of being a notorious woman with a shocking reputation, only no one guesses the tragedy that lies in my past, and made me what I am.’

  ‘Come out!’ said Hugh, leaning into the car, and grasping one slim wrist somewhat ungently.

  ‘Oh, did you happen to think you’d got the slightest right to order me about?’ inquired Vicky in silken accents.

  ‘Don’t you argue with me!’ replied Hugh. ‘Out you come!’

  Vicky, dragged relentlessly out of the car, stamped her foot, and said: ‘Let me go, you horrible beast! I loathe and detest you!’

  ‘You’ll have cause to, if you make any further public exhibition of yourself,’ Hugh assured her.

  Vicky was just about to retort in kind when she caught sight of Inspector Hemingway, an admiring spectator. She promptly recoiled, lifting her free hand to her throat, and uttering faintly: ‘Ah! You! You’ve come to arrest me!’

  ‘Well, I don’t mind arresting you, just to oblige,’ offered the Inspector. ‘I’m never one to spoil another person’s big scene, and I haven’t anything particular on this morning.’

  ‘For God’s s