“What rifle?” asked Hemingway, all polite interest.
“I don't know. One of those we haven't checked up on, probably.”
“What made him wait for three-quarters of an hour before shooting Warrenby? We know he was seen turning into Fox Lane at 5.30; if Crailing's to be believed, Father Time turned up at the Red Lion at about 6.30, which means that he must have heard the shot he did hear at about 6.15, or a few minutes earlier. I agree that the murderer didn't want to have to do the job in a hurry, but three quarters of an hour seems to me a long time to wait.”
“Well, from your description of him, he sounds a temperamental, nervy sort of a chap,” offered the Inspector. “Perhaps he couldn't make up his mind to do it straight off.”
“Rotten!” said Hemingway. “If that's the way it was, and he'd hung about, trying to summon up enough resolution to pull the trigger, he'd have gone off home without pulling it at all!”
“There might be some other explanation.”
“There might. What happened to his motor-bike all this time? Did he leave it standing in the lane for nearly two hours, just to make sure anyone that happened to have passed that way would know he must be somewhere around?”
“Of course not. He might have hidden it amongst the bushes on the common. Taken it up the path that goes to the seat where we found Biggleswade.”
“Talk sense! You try and hide a motor-bike amongst a lot of bushes! That old sinner would have spotted it like a flash!”
“By the time he reached the place Ladislas would have retrieved it, and ridden off,” returned the Inspector.
“Then Father Time would have heard the engine starting up, and he hasn't said a word about hearing any such thing.”
“That isn't to say he didn't hear it. He's out to make a case against Reg Ditchling, and that would spoil it.”
“All right, I'll concede you that point. There's this to be said in favour of suspecting Ladislas: he had a motive we don't need a strong microscope to see. What about Haswell?”
“There isn't enough about him, and, if you'll forgive me saying so, sir, that's the trouble. We don't really know where he was, or what he was doing, up till eight o'clock, when he got home.”
“What we do know, though, is that he was driving himself in his car. If I've got to choose between a car and a motor-bike, I'll try and hide the motor-bike, thank you very much!”
“There must be some place where either could be hid,” said the Inspector obstinately. “The more I think of it, the more I'm convinced transport was needed.” He paused, and said suddenly: “What about the dead man's own garage? It's a double one: I noticed that. What was to stop him, as soon as he'd shot Warrenby, from driving his car in, and leaving it there until Miss Warrenby had run off to fetch Miss Patterdale?”
“And what little bird told him that's what she would do?” enquired Hemingway. “You have got a touch of the sun, Horace! What anyone would expect her to do was to have rung up for the police, or the doctor, not to lose her head, and go careering off as she did!”
“I don't know about that,” said Harbottle defensively. “Girls do lose their heads, after all!”
“They do, and not only girls either. But when that happens you can't guess what they'll do, far less bank on them choosing any particular one of four or five silly antics!”
“No,” Harbottle admitted. “Come to think of it, sir, it's funny she did lose her head, isn't it? She seems to me one of the self-possessed kind.”
“No, I don't think it is,” Hemingway replied. “In fact it's what I should have expected her to do. Nasty jolt for a girl who kids herself into believing that all is love and light. She was rocked right off her balance.” He knocked his pipe out lightly, and got up. “Come on, now! It's no use us arguing who might have fired that shot at 6.15 until we're sure there was a shot at that time. And if there was, then what was our operator aiming at when he fired the second shot an hour later?”
The Inspector looked gloomy. “As well look for a needle in a haystack! He probably fired it into the ground.” He saw Hemingway cock a quizzical eyebrow at him, and said hastily: “No, not the ground! Not if Miss Warrenby heard the impact!”
“Just in time, Horace!” remarked Hemingway. “You and your knowledge of guns! And I don't think we need go round looking for a likely haystack. What we've got to remember is that what we've all been thinking was a narrow shave for our operator was just as carefully planned as the rest of it. He wanted Miss Warrenby on the spot as a witness; he wanted the shot to sound natural; and he didn't want the bullet to be found. Well, the only safe targets I can see are the trees. Plenty of them across the lane, in the grounds of Fox House, but they're too far off to be dead-certain targets. Putting myself in his place, I should have aimed for the elm-tree. It's the only tree on this side of the lane with a big enough trunk for the purpose. Let's go and take a look at it!”
They descended into the lane, and walked up it a few yards to where the elm-tree stood. The Inspector glanced back at the gorse-bushes, silently calculating. “You're not looking high enough, Chief,” he said. “If it's there, I should expect to find it a good ten feet above the ground.”
“You would?” said Hemingway, staring up the bole of the tree. “You're very good, Horace: what do you make of that graze!”
The Inspector strode quickly to his side, and gazed up at a gleam of pale colour where a small splinter had been chipped from the tree-trunk. There was a good deal of surprise in his face, not unmixed with awe. “Well, I'll be—! I do believe you're right, sir!” he exclaimed.
“Well, don't say it in that tone of voice! What we want now is a ladder, or a pair of steps. Got a knife on you, Horace?”
The Inspector nodded. “Yes, I've got that, but where do we find the steps?”
“We'll borrow them from the house,” said Hemingway. “That is, if Gladys is in. If she's got the afternoon off, we'll see if there's a ladder in the gardener's shed.”
“It'll be locked,” prophesied the Inspector. “And if you ask that girl for a ladder she'll be bound to come and watch what we do with it.”
“She won't, because I shall keep her in the kitchen, asking her a whole lot of silly questions.”
They walked up the straight path which led from the tradesmen's gate to the back-door. The sound of loud music seemed to indicate that Gladys had not got the afternoon off, but was listening to Music While You Work, turned on at full blast. So it proved. Gladys was polishing the table-silver, and came to the door with the leather in one hand. The manner of her greeting to Hemingway led the Inspector to infer that his chief had not scrupled to charm and to natter her at their previous encounter. He cast a sardonic glance at Hemingway, but that gentleman was already engaged in an exchange of badinage. Beyond saying: “Whatever do you want a ladder for?” Gladys raised no demur at lending her employer's property to the police. She gave Harbottle the key to the gardener's shed, warning him that if he didn't put the ladder back where he found it the gardener wouldn't half raise Cain on the morrow, and invited Hemingway to step into the kitchen, and have a cup of tea. The kettle, she said, was just on the boil. When the Inspector reappeared, some fifteen minutes later, he interrupted a promising tête-à-tête, and it did not seem to him that his superior had found it necessary to ask his hostess any questions, silly or sensible. Gladys sat on one side of the table, both her elbows planted on it, and a cup of very strong and very sweet tea held between her hands, and as the Inspector came in she was giggling, and telling Hemingway that he was a one, and no mistake. “If my Bert was to hear you, I don't know what he wouldn't do!” she said.
“Ah!” said Hemingway, briefly meeting the Inspector's eyes over her head. “If I was a marrying man, I'd cut your Bert out!”