“The inquest on Walter Plenmeller? I haven't read any of it—barring the letter he left.”
Hemingway looked at him with a gathering frown. “What, didn't you even glance over the report? What made you pick the letter out?”
The Inspector blinked. “That's all there was. I found it in one of the tin boxes. I haven't been through any of the Coroner's records.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Hemingway, “that Warrenby had taken that letter out of the proper file, and put it amongst his own papers?”
“Yes, I suppose he must have, sir. I don't really know what they do with the reports on inquests. As Warrenby was the Coroner, I didn't make much of it, except to wonder whether he wanted that letter to taunt Plenmeller with, perhaps.”
“Next time you find a document like that where it has no business to be perhaps you'll be so good as to tell me!” said Hemingway wrathfully. “I thought you'd been running through that case!” He pulled open a drawer in the desk, and turned over the papers it contained.
A good deal chagrined, the Inspector said: “I'm sorry, sir. But there was nothing to the case! I had a talk with Carsethorn about it, and it was a straight case of suicide all right.”
Hemingway had found the letter, and was re-reading it. “Then what made Warrenby take this letter out of the record? Don't talk nonsense to me about wanting to taunt Plenmeller with it! Much he'd have cared! It must already have been read aloud in court!”
“After what Coupland said to us, sir, I only thought it was rather typical of the man to want to get his hands on something to Plenmeller's disadvantage. Which, to my way of thinking, it is, because it shows him up to be a heartless sort of man, deliberately getting on his brother's nerves. But I'm sure I'm very sorry.”
“All right. I ought to have asked you where you found it. Get me that file! If the office is shut, find out where Coupland lives, and—”
“You needn't worry, sir: I'll get it,” interrupted the Inspector, his back very rigid.
“And find out if the Chief Constable's in the building! If he is, I'd like a word with him, at his convenience.”
A few minutes later, he was informed by the Sergeant on duty that Colonel Scales had come in a little while earlier, to do some business with the Superintendent, and had left a message in the charge-room that he would like to see the Chief Inspector before he left the police-station. “He says, would you go right in, sir?”
Colonel Scales was just nodding dismissal to a very stout Superintendent when Hemingway went to his room, and he said: “Come in, and sit down, Hemingway! Glad to hear you want to see me: I hope it means you've got something?”
“Yes, I have, sir,” responded Hemingway. “Several things. I've sent one of them round to your Dr. Rotherhope by one of my chaps, and I hope he'll be able to let me have a report on it tonight. He told me he'd got a small laboratory, so I don't think I shall have to send it all the way to Nottingham to be analysed.”
“What is it?”
“I can't tell you that, sir: I only know what I hope it may be. It's quite a long story.”
“Then have a cigarette, or light your pipe, and tell it to me!” invited the Colonel. “Nothing more you wanted to say to me, is there, Mitcham?”
“No, sir,” replied the stout Superintendent regretfully, and withdrew.
“Now!” said the Colonel.
“Well, sir, putting it baldly, Sampson Warrenby wasn't shot at 7.15; and in all probability he wasn't shot with a rifle.”
“Good God! How do you arrive at that?”
Hemingway told him. He listened in attentive silence, surprise in his face, and a good deal of respect, but when Hemingway reached the end of his story, and said, with a rueful smile: “I missed a lot of points on this case, and I don't deny it,” he gave a gasp, and exclaimed: “Did you, indeed? You must set yourself a pretty high standard! But this alters the whole case! If the murder was committed between 6.00 and 6.30 you've narrowed the field considerably.”
“Unless it was committed by someone we know nothing about, which I don't think, sir, it's narrowed to four people, only two of whom seem at all likely. Those unaccounted for at that time are the Vicar, Mr. Haswell, young Ladislas, and Gavin Plenmeller. If the Vicar got hold of a gun on the side, and shot Warrenby, or anyone else, with it, I'm resigning before I get kicked out. I can't form an opinion about Mr. Haswell, because he's not one who gives away much, but I don't at all fancy him, for various reasons—the principal one being that I haven't discovered even a hint of a motive for his having wanted to put Warrenby away.”
“I'm pretty confident you won't,” said the Colonel. “I've known him for years—in point of fact, he's a friend of mine—and although a thing like that mustn't be allowed to weigh with either of us, it does enable me to say that if he murdered Warrenby I've been deceived in his character ever since I first knew him!”
“That's all right, sir: he's not my fancy by any means. Which leaves us with Ladislas, and Plenmeller. And of those two I prefer Plenmeller.”
“The Pole—Ladislas, as you call him—has a definite motive,” the Colonel pointed out. “Plenmeller, I agree, is perhaps the more likely of the two to have thought out and executed such a careful murder, but he seems to have had no motive at all.”
“I wouldn't be too sure of that, sir. It's what I particularly wanted to talk to you about. One thing he had which, so far as we know, no one else had, and that's an automatic pistol of the calibre we're looking for. It's listed amongst his brother's guns, and it wasn't in his gun-cabinet when I went to his house. Of course, there's no saying what kind of an armoury Ladislas may have, but I never yet heard that a .22 pistol was issued by any army, English or foreign. And if it wasn't a leftover from the War, I don't know how he could have come by it, for, unless I'm very much mistaken, he's not a member of the underworld, and he wouldn't have the ghost of a notion how to get hold of an illicit gun. So that leaves Gavin Plenmeller, and it's about him I want to consult you, sir.”
“I can't tell you a thing,” the Colonel said. “I don't like the fellow; I agree that he'd be capable of planning such a murder; but I know of no reason why he should have done it—unless you think the thrillers he writes have gone to his head, and he wanted to prove he could baffle the police!”
“No, I don't think that, sir—though I don't doubt he thinks he can baffle us. I've got a strong suspicion it's the old story of a man getting away with one murder, and believing that because he's fooled the police once he can do it again.”
The Colonel sat up with a jerk. “What? Good God, are you suggesting—?”
“I want to know just what happened when Walter Plenmeller was supposed to have committed suicide,” said Hemingway.
For perhaps half a minute the Colonel sat staring at him, an expression of mingled incredulity and dismay in his face. Then he said, rather explosively: “Have you any reason for making such a suggestion?”
“Yes, sir, that!” said Hemingway, laying Walter Plenmeller's letter on the desk. “It was found amongst Warrenby's papers—and I should like to know why he took it out of the file, and kept it locked up in a tin-box.”
“Took it out of the file? But that is the most irregular— Good heavens!”
“Highly irregular,” agreed Hemingway. “It's safe to assume he had a good reason for doing it. I'm bound to say I don't see what it was, but I've got a hunch that letter contains the clue I'm looking for.”
The Colonel had picked the letter up, and was reading it. “I remember it well,” he said. “I hold no brief for Gavin, but in my opinion this is a damnable letter to have written! I thought so at the time. In fact, I was extraordinarily sorry for Gavin.”
“It seems to show that his brother hated him pretty bitterly, and I suppose he wouldn't have done that without cause.”
“That's nonsense!” the Colonel said. “Walter didn't hate him at all! What you've got to understand is that Walter was always an uncertain-tempered man, and after he got shot up in the War he used to fly off the handle at the smallest provocation. How much he actually suffered I don't know, and I doubt if anyone did, but he was a real case of nerves shot to pieces. He certainly used to get appalling migraines, and he was always complaining of insomnia. The London specialist he went to prescribed tablets for that. It was established that he took one on the night of his death.”