Reg twisted his hat round and round between his hands. “Ted and me put tarred felt over the roof, to keep the rain out, sir. There's a place where you can slip the key underneath it.”
Hemingway's brows snapped together. “Is that where you always put the key?”
“Yessir,” said Reg nervously. “Nobody knows about it, “cept Ted and me—honest, sir!”
Hemingway said nothing for a moment, visualising the row of cottages, from the upper back-windows of which, he judged, a sufficiently good view could be obtained of the line of narrow gardens. Reg swallowed convulsively, and went on twisting his hat.
“Now, look here, my lad!” said Hemingway. “I'm not going to ask you why you didn't do what your brother told you, and take that rifle back to Mr. Cliburn, because I know why you didn't. Nor am I going to tell you that you've been breaking the law by having in your possession a gun without a Firearms licence, because I've no doubt Constable Hobkirk's already torn you off the strip.”
“Yessir,” acknowledged the culprit, with a sickly smile. “I'm very sorry, sir.”
“Well, see you don't do it again! You answer what I am going to ask you truthfully, and very likely you'll hear no more about it. Did you have that rifle out on the common on Saturday?”
“Yessir, but honest I never shot the gentleman!” said Reg, sweating a little.
“What did you shoot?”
“Nothing, sir! It was only target-practice, like Ted told me I ought to do. It was Ted learnt me to shoot, and I only went out with him the three times. And then he got his call-up papers, and he said to take the rifle back to the Reverend, and, honest, I meant to! Only there was some cartridges left, and I thought if I was to use them for practice the Reverend wouldn't mind, and I could take the rifle back on the Sunday.”
“Well, why didn't you?”
“It—it was all over the village Mr. Warrenby had been shot.”
“Had the wind up, eh?”
“Well, I— Well, sir—”
“Because,” pursued Hemingway relentlessly, “this target-practice of yours was quite close to Fox House, wasn't it?”
“No, sir!” asserted Reg, the colour rising to his face. “That's what old Mr. Biggleswade told you, but it isn't true! I went to Squire's gravel-pit, “cos there's no one there of a Saturday afternoon, and it's a safe place. And I brought my cards, sir, just to show you it's true, what I'm telling you!”
With these words, he produced from his pocket several small cardboard targets, and laid them on the desk before the Chief Inspector. If they were valueless as proof that Reg had not fired the Vicar's rifle in the vicinity of Fox House, they did at least convince Hemingway that only by accident could he have shot a man through the head at a range of nearly a hundred yards. There was a decided twinkle in his eye as he looked at the targets. He said: “What was your range?”
“Twenty-five yards, sir—about,” replied Reg.
“You got quite a lot of shots on the targets, didn't you?” said Hemingway gravely.
“Yessir!” said Reg, with simple pride. “I was trying to get a good group, like Ted does. If I could practice regular, I soon would.”
“Well, what you want to do is to join a Rifle Club, my lad, and not go practising with other people's rifles in public places,” said Hemingway, handing him back his targets. “What time was it when you were in the gravel-pit?”
“It would have been a bit after five when I got there, sir, and I wasn't there more 'n an hour, that I'll swear to, and I should say it was less, because I was back home by half-past six. And please, sir Mum, and Edie, and Claud will tell you the same, because—”
“Yes, well, if I want to check up on your story I'll ask them!” said the Chief Inspector hastily, mentally registering a resolve to depute this task to Harbottle. “What I want to know at the moment is what you did with the rifle when you got home?”
“I cleaned it, sir, like Ted showed me.”
“Yes, and then?”
“I didn't do anything with it, sir, beyond wrap it up in a bit of sacking. Ted said—”
“Never mind what Ted said! Did you lock it up in the shed?”
“Well—well, no, sir—not at once I didn't. I mean—I had it in the shed, but it wasn't locked, of course, “cos I had to do a job for Mum,” said Reg apologetically. “Two, really, because Claud and Alfie went and broke one of the chairs, scrapping, you know, so I mended that, and then I got on with the plate-rack Ted and me was making for her.”
“You mean you were in the shed yourself?”
“That's right, sir. I locked it up when Mum called me in to supper, which we had a bit late, on account of Claud not getting in till near a quarter to eight, because of the Outing the Wolf Cubs had.”
“So that you're quite sure no one could have got hold of the rifle?”
“Well, they couldn't, sir not possibly! And what's more, sir, I don't see how Mr. Biggleswade could have heard me shooting, not from where he was sitting! Because when he came in to tell Mum how he'd been talking to you, which he did, right away, he told her where he'd been sitting when he heard the shot, and Mum says his own daughter told him not to talk so silly, because he couldn't have heard it, not all that way off. And it stands to reason he didn't, sir, because if he heard one shot, why didn't he hear all the others?”
Hemingway pulled open a drawer in the desk, and took from it the sketch-plan of Thornden. “Where was he sitting?” he asked. “Come and show me!”
Reg obediently got up, and stared at the plan over the Chief Inspector's shoulder. It took him a minute or two to grasp it. Then he said: “Well, sir, it's a bit difficult, because this doesn't show the trees, and the paths, and that, on the common. Only the gorse bushes beside Fox Lane. There's some trees just beyond them, about here.” He laid a finger on the plan, a little to the north-east of the gorse-clump.
“Between the bushes and the gravel-pit. Yes, I saw them. And beyond them the ground falls away, doesn't it?”
“That's right, sir. You get a view over the common from there, and there's a seat, and a path leading to it. Mr. Biggleswade said he was sitting there, and I daresay he was, because it's the walk he always takes. And you can see for yourself it's a long way off the gravel-pit.” He paused, a frown of deep concentration on his brow. “What's more, if he had heard me shooting, he must have known which side of him I was, and he's gone and said I was firing in the very opposite direction to what I was! He must be getting barmy! But what I think, sir, is that he never heard anything, and he only said he did because of seeing me with the rifle, and wanting to get into the papers.”
“Where did he see you?”
“Well, it was along the path I told you about, sir. It sort of runs into Fox Lane nearly opposite Miss Patterdale's house.”
“And what made you go all that way round to get home, when you could have done it in half the time, walking straight across the common from the pit?” asked Hemingway.
Reg blushed, and replied guiltily: “Well, sir—being as it was the Reverend's gun— Well, what I mean is, it's all open in that part of the common, besides the cricket-ground—and a Saturday afternoon, too, with people about—so I thought better to go round where I wouldn't be likely to meet anyone.”
“Only you met Biggleswade. And when he asked you what you were up to with a rifle, you cheeked him, and ran off. Now, it didn't seem to me that he's one who sets much store by the law, so what made you scared of him?”
“I wasn't—not exactly, sir! Well, I wouldn't have been if it wasn't for Alfie. Alfie went and played a trick on Mr. Biggleswade the other day, and he was fair hopping, and he's such a spiteful old devil I thought he might easily go and make trouble with the Reverend, or even Mr. Hobkirk, just to get back on us!” said Reg, in a burst of candour.
“I see. That's about all I want from you at the moment, then. You'd better get off to your work—and see you don't go breaking the law again, my lad!”
“No, sir! Thank you, sir!” said Reg, on a gasp of relief.