“Well, I should like a word with him, madam,” said Hemingway. “My name's Hemingway—Chief Inspector, C.I.D. Perhaps you'd like to have my card.”
She made no attempt to take it, but stood in the doorway as though she would have denied him ingress. “We've already had one detective here today! What on earth can you want? Why do you come badgering us? My husband was barely acquainted with Mr. Warrenby! I think it's the limit!”
“I'm bound to say it must be a nuisance for you,” admitted Hemingway. “But if we weren't allowed to make enquiries we wouldn't get much farther, would we?”
“Neither my husband nor I can possibly be of any use to you!” she said impatiently. “What is it you want to know?”
“Oh, I just want to ask you both a few questions!” he replied. “May I come in?”
She seemed to hesitate, and then, reluctantly, stood aside for him to pass, saying ungraciously, as she pushed open a door on the right of the passage. “Oh, all right! Go in there, will you? I'll send to fetch my husband.”
She then walked away down the passage, and could be heard a minute later shouting to one Walter to tell the master he was wanted up at the house. When she came back to the sitting-room, she still wore a defensive look, but said, with a perfunctory smile: “Sorry if I bit your head off! But, really, it's a bit much! We've already told the police all we know about what happened on Saturday, and the answer is nothing. I left The Cedars just after half-past six, and came straight back here to put my baby to bed. I can't tell you the exact moment when my husband left: he was still playing tennis when I went away: but I happen to know he wasn't anywhere near Fox Lane when Mr. Warrenby was shot!”
Hemingway, who rarely found it necessary to consult his notes, said affably: “Ah, that's a bit of evidence the local police must have forgotten to give me! It's a good job I came. How do you happen to know it, madam?”
“Because he was down by the water-meadows,” she replied, boldly meeting his eyes. “I saw him there!”
“You did?” said Hemingway, all polite interest.
“I'll take you up and show you the window, if you like. You can see the water-meadows from one of the attics. I happened to run up to get something—we keep a lot of junk stored in the attics—and I distinctly saw my husband!” She paused, and added: “I'm sure I told the other detective, when he first came to see us! I'd be ready to swear I did!”
“I don't doubt that for a moment,” said Hemingway. “Or you might have had your reasons for not telling Sergeant Carsethorn at the time.”
“What possible reason could I have had?”
“Well, I don't know, but perhaps you hadn't realised, when the Sergeant first called on you, that you could see the water-meadows from that attic window,” suggested Hemingway.
Her colour rose, flaming into her naturally pale face. “Of course I knew it! I didn't tell the Sergeant—but I'm nearly sure I did!—it must have been because I was so shocked and startled by the news that Mr. Warrenby had been shot that it momentarily slipped my mind!”
“What brought it back to your mind—if I may ask?” said Hemingway.
“When I had time to think—going back over what I did after I got home on Saturday—” She broke off, her knuckles whitening as she gripped her thin hands together.
Hemingway shook his head. “You shouldn't have kept it from the Sergeant when he came to pick up your husband's rifle this morning,” he said, more in sorrow than in anger.
“If you like to come upstairs you can see for yourself!”
“I don't disbelieve you,” said Hemingway, adding apologetically: “That you can see the water-meadow from the attic, I mean.”
There was a moment's silence. “Look here!” said Delia Lindale fiercely. “I can tell you you're wasting your time! We hardly knew Mr. Warrenby, and we can't tell you anything! Why don't you ask Mr. Ainstable what he did after he parted from my husband on Saturday? Why didn't he go home in the car, with his wife? Why did he suddenly decide to visit his plantation? I suppose, just because the Ainstables have lived here for centuries, they're above suspicion! Like Gavin Plenmeller! You might find out what he was up to, instead of coming here to badger me! Why shouldn't it have been he? He loathed Mr. Warrenby! Ask Miss Patterdale if it isn't true that he said steps would have to be taken to get rid of him! I was standing beside her when he said it, at a cocktail-party the Ainstables gave last month, and so was Mr. Cliburn! The Warrenbys were both at the party, and I can tell you this!—everyone was saying how extraordinary it was of the Squire to have invited them! Particularly when he knew that Mr. Warrenby was pretty well barred in the neighbourhood!”
“Why was that?” enquired Hemingway.
“Because he was a bounder, I suppose. The sort of person the Ainstables look down their noses at. They don't welcome Tom, Dick, and Harry to Old Place, I assure you! In fact, I'm dead sure Mrs. Ainstable wouldn't have called on me if it hadn't been for Miss Patterdale's asking her to! She as good as said so! I—I don't want to try to cast suspicion on anyone, but I do wonder whether Mr. Warrenby had some sort of hold over the Squire. Since this happened, I've naturally thought about it a good deal, trying to think who might have had a reason for shooting Mr. Warrenby, and remembering all sorts of little incidents, which, at the time, I didn't attach any importance to—”
“Such as?” interpolated Hemingway.
“Oh—! Mr. Ainstable trying to get my husband to back Warrenby for the River Board lawyer, for instance! I can't see what it matters, who gets the job, but no one but the Squire wanted it to be Warrenby. And now, when I think it over, I wonder why the Squire wanted him instead of Mr. Drybeck? Mr. Drybeck is his own solicitor, and an old friend, and he wants the appointment, too.”
The sound of a firm step on the flagged passage made her break off, and turn her head towards the door. Kenelm Lindale came into the room, a slight frown between his eyes. He was dressed in ancient grey slacks, and a colour shirt, open at the throat, and he looked to be both hot and annoyed. “Police?” he said shortly.
“It's a Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard,” his wife warned him. “I've told him we can't help him!”
He dug a handkerchief out of his trouser-pocket, and wiped his face, and the back of his neck. “All right,” he said, looking at Hemingway. “What is it you want to know? We've started to cut the hay, so I shall be glad if you can make it snappy.”
“I just want to check up on your evidence, sir,” said Hemingway mendaciously. “We do have to be so careful, in the Department. Now, I think you said you left that tennis-party at about ten to seven, didn't you?”
“As near as I can make it: I don't know exactly, but I think it was about then. Mr. Ainstable and I left together, by the garden-gate. He may know when it was. I haven't asked him.”
“When did you part from Mr. Ainstable, sir?”
“Couple of minutes later, I suppose. He turned off into his new plantation, which runs behind The Cedars. I went on. You'll see that one of my farm-gates opens on to the road opposite the footpath leading to the village. It's about a hundred yards up the road from here. I came in by that gate, and went to see how my chaps had got on with a job I set them to in one of my water-meadows. I was in the house by half-past seven: that I do know, because I happened to look at the clock in the passage.”
“Oh, darling, were you going by the grandfather?” said Mrs. Lindale quickly. “I thought you were relying on your watch! That clock was ten minutes fast: I put it right when I wound it up yesterday. I'm sorry: I ought to have told you, but I didn't know you were going by it.”
Her husband looked at her, and after a tiny pause said lamely: “Oh!” He went to the fireplace, and selected a pipe from a collection on the mantelshelf, and took the lid off an old-fashioned tobacco-jar. As he began to fill the pipe, his eyes on his task, the frown deepened on his brow. He said deliberately: “I don't think it can have been as fast as all that, Delia. I could hardly have been down to the water-meadows and got back here by twenty-past seven.”