Haswell, who had retired to the window-seat, laughed suddenly; but the Vicar, though he smiled, shook his head, and said that when he thought of the infants, of what he must call mixed parentage, whom he had been obliged to baptise, he felt more like weeping. From this reflection he was easily led to talk about the humbler members of his flock, the Chief Inspector listening to his very discursive descriptions with great patience, mentally sifting possible grains of wheat from obvious chaff, and guiding him adroitly, by way of Mrs. Murton, who obliged for Mrs. Lindale, into the higher ranks of Thornden society. But the Vicar could not tell him very much about the Lindales. Like Ladislas, Mrs. Lindale was not of his communion, and her husband, although brought up in the Anglican faith and a very good fellow, was not, alas, a churchgoer. It was a pity, the Vicar thought, that such pleasant young people live such retired lives. It was rarely that one had the pleasure of meeting them at any of the little entertainments in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Lindale was thought to be standoffish; he himself believed her, rather, to be shy. Miss Patterdale—whom he always called the good angel of the parish—had been most neighbourly, and spoke well of Mrs. Lindale. Indeed, she had persuaded Mrs. Ainstable to call, but nothing had come of it, Mrs. Lindale excusing herself from accepting invitations on the score of being unable to leave her little girl. A pity, he could not but think, for although the Ainstables were not of the Lindales' generation, and did not, nowadays, entertain a great deal, they must be considered, in every sense of the word, valuable connaissances.
“Yes, I've just been having a chat with them,” said Hemingway. “A gentleman of the old school, Mr. Ainstable. The Chief Constable was telling me that he lost his only son in the war, which must be just about as bad a thing for Thornden as it was for him, I should think.”
“Indeed, indeed you are right, Inspector!” said the Vicar earnestly. “One of the finest young men I have ever known, and one, moreover, who would have upheld traditions which are so fast vanishing. The flowers of the forest . . . A bitter blow for the Squire! One must hope that the present heir will prove a worthy successor, but I fear there will be a sad change in the relationship between the Squire and the village. Thornden does not readily accept strangers.”
“Nor any other place I ever heard of,” said Hemingway. “Still, we'll hope it won't happen for a good many years to come. The Squire looks pretty hale and hearty—more so than Mrs. Ainstable, I thought.”
The Vicar sighed. “For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” he said, as though he spoke to himself.
“Well, no, sir,” said Hemingway, startled but respectful. “That's true enough, but—”
“The Squire has angina pectoris,” said the Vicar simply.
“You don't say so!” exclaimed Hemingway, shocked.
“There is no reason to suppose that the Squire won't live for a great many years yet,” said Haswell.
“Indeed, we must all pray that he will, my dear Haswell!”
“Yes, but I see what the Vicar means,” said Hemingway. “With that disease—well, you don't know what a day may bring forth, do you? I'm not surprised Mrs. Ainstable looks so anxious. And he's not the sort to spare himself, by what I can see.”
“He is not an invalid,” said Haswell shortly. “He has been an energetic man all his life, and it would be extremely bad for him not to take the sort of exercise he's accustomed to.”
“True, very true!” the Vicar said. “One wishes, though that he had fewer cares to weigh upon him. I am almost tempted to say, that he were less conscientious, but one should not, and indeed one does not, wish that.”
“Struggling to keep up an estate which some kind of a cousin or nephew who lives in South Africa will inherit,” said Hemingway slowly. “And I should say it is a struggle.” He glanced at Haswell. “I saw he'd been cutting down a lot of timber.”
“Also planting new trees, however.”
“Yes, I saw that too.”
“The Squire is a remarkable man,” said the Vicar warmly. “Indeed, I tell him sometimes that he has all the enterprise of a man half his age! I remember when he first made up his mind to turn the common to account—I should explain, Inspector, that the common—”
“Talking about the common,” interrupted Haswell, “can anything be done, Chief Inspector to dissuade people from trailing across it, dropping litter all over it, and staring over the hedge at Fox House? It's extremely unpleasant for Miss Warrenby, to say the least of it.”
“Poor girl, poor girl!” exclaimed the Vicar. “This is most disgraceful! One wonders what the world is coming to! This unmannerly craving for sensationalism! Gavin Plenmeller said something to me about it this morning, but I paid little heed, since the way in which he phrased it led me to believe that he was merely indulging in one of those jokes which I, frankly, neither like nor find any way amusing. Inspector, something must be done!”
“I'm afraid there's nothing the police can do about it, sir—not as long as people stick to the common and the public road, and don't go creating obstructions, which they really can't be said to do, right up the end of a blind road,” replied Hemingway.
An anxious look came into the Vicar's face. “I wonder, if I were to go up, and address a few words to them, pointing out to them how very—”
“Some of them would giggle, and others would be extremely rude to you,” interposed Haswell. “You'd do better to persuade Plenmeller to take on that job—he'd enjoy it, and might even succeed in dispersing the mob. Unless they lynched him.”
“Haswell, Haswell, my dear friend!” the Vicar reproved him.
Haswell laughed. “Don't worry! Can you imagine him lifting a finger on behalf of Warrenby's niece?”
The Vicar shook his head, and said that their poor friend had a very unkind tongue, but one must strive to make allowances, and the heart knew its own bitterness.
“Well, I daresay it would sour one a bit, to be as lame as he is,” said Hemingway. “It's certainly an education to hear him talk, and the things he can find to say about pretty well everyone he lays his tongue to fairly made me sit up. However, I don't know that I set much store by it. It wouldn't surprise me if he was living up to a reputation for coming out with something shocking every time he opens his mouth.”
The Vicar bent an approving look upon him, and said, in his gentle way that he was a wise man. “I have been much distressed at the attitude he has seen fit to assume over this shocking affair,” he said. “Upon the lack of Christian charity, I will not enlarge, but from the worldly point of view I have ventured to warn him that the unbridled exercise of his wit is open to misconstruction. In the event,” he added, inclining his head in the suggestion of a bow, “I perceive that my fears were groundless.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” said Hemingway cheerfully. “Come to think of it, I might feel a lot more suspicious if Mr. Plenmeller had seen fit to change his tone, because from what I'm told he's been saying for months that Mr. Warrenby would have to be got rid of. What I haven't yet been able to make out is why he had it in for Mr. Warrenby more than anyone else—which is saying something, according to what I'm told.” He paused, but the Vicar merely sighed, and Haswell gave a laugh and a shrug. “Or even,” he continued thoughtfully, “if the only difference between him and the rest of the good people here who couldn't stand Mr. Warrenby was that he said just what he thought, and they didn't.”
“I fear so, I fear so!” said the Vicar mournfully.
There was a decided twinkle in the Chief Inspector's eye. “You too, sir?”
“I cannot deny it,” replied the Vicar, sinking deeper into dejection. “One has tried not to entertain uncharitable thoughts, but the flesh is weak—terribly weak!”
“You will soon find yourself regarding with suspicion anyone who did not dislike Warrenby, Chief Inspector,” said Haswell. “Let me hasten to assure you that I found him quite as objectionable as the Vicar did!”