Detection Unlimited Read online

  ‘Dead?’ Charles repeated incredulously. ‘Do you mean he’s had a stroke, or something?’

  She began to cry again. ‘No, no, no! It’s much, much more dreadful. He’s been shot!’

  ‘Good God!’ said Charles blankly. ‘But –’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, girl!’ interrupted Miss Patterdale. ‘You say you think he’s dead. Surely you didn’t come here, leaving the unfortunate man alone, without making certain there was nothing you could do for him?’

  Mavis covered her face with her hands. ‘I – I know he’s dead. I thought he was asleep, and it seemed so unlike him, somehow. I went up to him, and then I saw!’

  ‘You saw what?’ said Miss Patterdale, as Mavis broke off. ‘Try to pull yourself together!’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. It’s been such a shock. In the side of his head – just here –’ she pressed her left temple – ‘a – a hole! Oh, don’t ask me! And I heard it! I didn’t think anything about it at the time. I was just getting over the stile at the top of the lane, and I heard a gun fired. It made me jump, because it sounded quite close, but of course I only thought it was somebody shooting rabbits. And then I opened the garden-gate, and saw Uncle on the seat under the oak-tree…’

  ‘Gosh!’ uttered Abby, awed. ‘Who did it? Did you see anyone?’ Mavis shook her head, wiping her eyes. ‘No one hiding in the garden? Round the back? If you were in the lane they couldn’t have escaped that way, could they?’

  Mavis looked at her in a bemused fashion. ‘I don’t know. I was so shocked I never thought of anything but that poor Uncle was dead.’

  ‘But didn’t you even look?’ insisted Abby. ‘I mean, it had only just happened, and whoever did it can’t possibly have managed to get away! Well, not far away, at all events!’

  ‘No, I suppose – But I didn’t think about that! I only thought of Uncle.’

  ‘Yes, well, all right!’ said Charles. ‘I suppose that’s fairly natural, but when you realised he was dead what did you do?’

  She pushed her rather lank hair back from her brow. ‘I don’t know. I think I was sort of stunned for a few minutes. It seemed so impossible! My legs were shaking so that I could hardly stand, and I felt so sick! I managed to get to the house, and I’m afraid I was sick.’

  ‘Yes, that’s not what I mean,’ said Charles, trying not to speak impatiently. ‘Have you rung up the police? The doctor?’

  She blinked. ‘No – oh, no! I knew it was no use sending for the doctor. I didn’t think about the police. Oh, need we do that? It seems to make it worse, somehow. I mean, Uncle would have hated it! Having an inquest, and everyone talking about it!’

  ‘Merciful heavens!’ ejaculated Miss Patterdale. ‘Have you no sense, Mavis? You know very well I’m not on the telephone, and you come running here before ever you’ve – now, don’t, for goodness’ sake begin to cry again! Charles, where are you going?’

  ‘Fox House, of course. I’ll ring up the police-station from there, and stand by till they arrive.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the best thing,’ she approved. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Better not, Aunt Miriam.’

  ‘Nonsense! There may be something we can do for the poor man. You don’t imagine I mean to be sick, do you?’

  ‘Oh, Aunt Miriam, couldn’t I go with Charles?’ begged Abby. ‘I know all about First Aid, and –’

  ‘Certainly not! You’ll stay here and look after Mavis.’

  ‘I can’t – I mean, you’d do it much better! Do let me be the one to go with Charles!’ Abby said, following them down the garden.

  ‘Absolutely not!’ said Charles, in a voice that admitted of no argument. ‘Hop in, Aunt Miriam!’

  He slammed the car-door on Miss Patterdale, got into his own seat, and started the engine. As the car shot forward, he said: ‘Of all the damned, silly wet hens, that girl takes the biscuit! A child in arms would have had sense enough to have rung the police! Blithering idiot! I say, Aunt Miriam, what on earth do you think can have really happened?’

  ‘I have no idea. It sounds as though somebody was shooting rabbits. I’m not at all surprised. I’ve often thought it most dangerous to allow it on the common.’

  The distance between Fox Cottage and Fox House was very short, and they had already reached their goal. The house was set back from the lane, from which it was separated by a low hedge. It had no carriage sweep, a separate gate and straight gravel drive having been made beside the garden to enable Mr Warrenby to garage his car in a modern building erected a little to the rear of the house. Charles drew up outside the wicket-gate giving access to a footpath leading to the front-door, and switched off his engine. In another minute he and Miss Patterdale had entered the garden, and were bending over the lifeless form of Sampson Warrenby, slumped on a wooden seat set under an oak-tree, and at right angles to the lane.

  Warrenby, a short, plump man, dressed in sponge-bag trousers, an alpaca coat, and morocco-leather slippers, was sitting with his head fallen forward, and one hand hanging limply over the arm of the seat.

  Charles straightened himself after one look, and said, rather jerkily: ‘Who was his doctor?’

  ‘Dr Warcop, but it’s no use, Charles.’

  ‘No, I know, but probably we ought to send for him. I’m not familiar with the correct procedure on occasions like this, but I’m pretty sure there ought to be a doctor here as soon as possible. Do you know which room the telephone’s in?’

  ‘In the study. That one, on the right of the front-door.’

  He strode away across the lawn to the house. It was built of mellow brick, in the form of an E, and the principal rooms faced across the garden to the lane, and the rising ground of the common beyond it. The long windows on the ground-floor stood open, and Charles stepped through one of these into Sampson Warrenby’s study. The telephone stood on the kneehole desk, which also bore a litter of papers and documents. Charles picked it up, and dialled Dr Warcop’s number.

  When he rejoined Miss Patterdale, a few minutes later, that redoubtable lady was staring fixedly at a bed of snapdragons. ‘Well? Find Dr Warcop in?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Surgery-hour. He’s coming at once. Also the police, from Bellingham.’

  Miss Patterdale cleared her throat, and said in a fierce voice:

  ‘Well, Charles, there’s nothing you or I can do for the poor man. He’s dead, and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘He’s dead all right,’ said Charles grimly. ‘But if you imagine that’s all there’s going to be to it, Aunt Miriam, you’d better think again!’

  Four

  Miss Patterdale let her monocle fall, and, picking it up as it swung on the end of its thin cord, began to polish it vigorously. ‘You don’t think it can have been an accident, Charles?’

  ‘How could it have been?’

  She glanced rather vaguely round. ‘Don’t understand ballistics myself. People do go out with guns, though, after rabbits.’

  ‘But they don’t aim at rabbits in private gardens,’ said Charles. ‘What’s more, rabbits aren’t usually seen in the air!’

  She looked fleetingly at the still figure on the seat. ‘He was sitting down,’ she pointed out, but without conviction.

  ‘Talk sense, Aunt Miriam!’ Charles begged her. ‘Any fool could see he’s been murdered! You don’t even have to have a giant intellect to realise where the murderer must have been standing.’ He nodded towards the rising commonland beyond the lane, where the gorse-bushes blazed deep yellow in the late sunshine. ‘Bet you anything he was lying up in those bushes! The only bit of bad luck he had was Mavis being in the lane at the time – and even that wasn’t really bad luck, because she was too dumb to do him any harm.’

  ‘Can’t be surprised the girl was too much shocked to think of looking for him,’ said Miss Patterdale fairmindedly. ‘It isn’t the sort of thing anyone would expect to happen! I suppose it wouldn’t be any use going to search those bushes?’

  He could not help laughing. ‘No, Best of my