“Well, by Jove!” exclaimed the Major, bristling with suspicion. “Seems a queer thing you didn't tell Drybeck and me that you'd had this quarrel with Warrenby!”
“My very dear Major,” said Gavin sweetly, “in the first place, there was no quarreclass="underline" I never gratify my enemies by allowing them to lure me into losing my temper. In the second place, I have not so far been conscious of the smallest impulse to confide my minor triumphs to a Drybeck or a Midgeholme. And, in the third, I have long realised that in my not wholly unsuccessful attempts to depress Warrenby's pretensions I have been playing a lone hand.”
“You're the most offensive fellow I have met in all my life!” said the Major, his face by this time richly suffused with colour. “I'll be damned if I'll stand here bandying words with you!”
“No, I didn't think you would,” said Gavin. He watched the Major stride off down the street, and said pensively: “It's a mystery to me that so many persons find it impossible to shake off crashing bores. Did you ever see a fish take the fly more readily?”
Hemingway said, ignoring this question: “What made you dislike Mr. Warrenby so particularly, sir?”
“Sheer antipathy, Chief Inspector. Mixed with a certain amount of atavism. The blood of the Plenmellers arose in me when I saw that repulsive upstart storming every citadel, including the Ainstables'. When he lived, I rarely managed to earn my brother's approval, but now that he is dead I feel sure I'm behaving just as he would have wished. Which is what people so often do, isn't it? There's a moral to be drawn from that, but I beg you won't! Do you want to know any more about Warrenby's ill-advised visit to me, or have you had enough of it?”
“I'd like to know how he thought he could make you stop running him down,” said Hemingway, fixing Gavin with a bright, enquiring gaze.
“So would I, but it was never disclosed. I discount his veiled threat to take me into court on a charge of uttering slander. My imagination boggles at the thought of such a man as Warrenby complaining publicly of the things I've said about him. Not quite the kind of notoriety he craved for, you know!”
“Oh, he did threaten to take you into court, sir?”
“He did, and I promised him that I should do my best to ensure his winning his case. He was not in the least grateful. In his blundering way he was not devoid of intelligence. Tell, me, Chief Inspector!—have you in your diligent research come upon the name of Nenthall?”
“Why do you ask me that, sir?” countered Hemingway.
There was a derisive gleam in Gavin's eyes. “I'm not at all sure, but I see that you haven't. Well, when you have finished following up the theories put forward by the village half-wits, you might find it profitable to discover what was the significance of that name. I can't help you: I never heard it until it was tossed, with apparent carelessness, into the conversation at the Red Lion, one evening about a month ago.”
“Who by?” asked Hemingway.
“By Warrenby, upon receiving a well-merited snub from Lindale. He asked Lindale if the name conveyed anything to him. Lindale replied that it did not, but it was all too apparent that it conveyed a great deal to him.”
“Oh! And what happened then?”
“Nothing happened. Our curiosity remained unsatisfied. Warrenby said that he had just wondered, and the incident terminated. It appeared to me, however, that the question had had a profound effect upon Lindale—and I just wonder, too.”
“When you talk of a profound effect, sir, what exactly do you mean?”
“Well,” said Gavin thoughtfully, “it did occur to me for one moment that I might be going to witness a murder. But you have to bear in mind, of course, that I am by profession a novelist. Perhaps I allowed my imagination to get the better of me. But I still wonder, Chief Inspector!”
He removed his hand from the door of the car, favoured Hemingway with one of his sardonic smiles, and limped away.
Constable Melkinthorpe's feelings got the better of him. He drew an audible breath. “Well!” he uttered. “He's a one, and no mistake! Blessed if I know what to make of him!”
“As no one wants you to make anything of him, that needn't keep you awake! Get on with it!” said Hemingway tartly.
Chapter Twelve
A few minutes later, the police-car was standing outside Rose Cottages, and the Chief Inspector was making the acquaintance of Mrs. Ditchling and five of her seven children, who ranged in age from Gert, who was twenty, to Jackerleen, who was six. He would willingly have dispensed with the introductions which were forced upon him, but while Mrs. Ditchling was cast into housewifely distraction by his visit, because she was afraid he would find the place a bit untidy—which was her way of describing a scene of such chaos as might be expected to exist in a very small cottage inhabited by seven persons, most of whom were of tender years—it was obviously considered by the rest of the family to constitute a red-letter day in their lives, Alfie, a young gentleman in velveteen knickers and Fair Isle jersey, going so far as to dash out into the garden at the back of the cottage yelling to his brother Claud to come quick, or else he wouldn't see the detective.
In describing the scene later, to Inspector Harbottle, Hemingway admitted that he lost his grip at the outset. The Ditchlings were not only friendly: they were garrulous and inquisitive, and they all talked at once. The Chief Inspector, stunned by his reception, found himself weakly admiring a hideous toy rabbit made of pink plush, shown him by Jackerleen—or, as she was mercifully called, Jackie; answering questions fired at him with the remorselessness of machine-guns by Alfie, and his brother Claud; and endorsing Mrs. Ditchling's opinion that for Edie to leave her nice, steady job at Woolworth's to become a film star would be an act of unparalleled folly. He was also put in possession of much information, such as the entire history of the late Mr. Ditchling's untimely demise; of the rapid rise, in Millinery, of Gert; of the medals Claud had won as a Boy Scout; of the trouble his mother had had over Alfie's adenoids; of the letter Ted had written from his training-camp; and of the high opinion his employer held of Reg, who, unfortunately, was going to the pictures that evening, and so had not come home after work. “He will be upset!” said Mrs. Ditchling.
Everyone seemed to feel that the absent Reg was missing a rare treat, Gert saying that it was a shame, Claud asserting that he would be as sick as muck, and Jackerleen asking her mother several times, with increasing tearfulness, if Reg wouldn't come home to see the pleeceman.
When the Chief Inspector at last managed to make known the reason for his visit, the confusion grew worse, for Mrs. Ditchling, shocked to learn that his rifle had not yet been returned to the Vicar, related in detail the circumstances of Ted's call-up, Gert asserted several times that Ted had told Reg particular not to forget to take the rifle back for him, Edie said that that was Reg all over, Claud and Alfie argued shrilly with one another on the certain whereabouts of the weapon, and Jackerleen reiterated her demand to know if Reg was not coming home to see the pleeceman.
“Well, I hope to God he's not!” said Hemingway, plucking the two boys apart, and giving each a shake. “Stop it, the pair of you! You shut up, Alfie! Now then, Claud! If you're a Wolf Cub, you just tell me where your brother put the Vicar's rifle—and if I see you try to kick Alfie again, I'll tell the Scoutmaster about you, so now!”