Dr. Ringwood, watching the change in the situation, reflected sardonically to himself that a title had its uses when one came to deal with a snob.
"That old bounder was rude to the Inspector on principle; but when Sir Clinton Driffield asks precisely the same question, he’s quite amenable," he thought to himself. "What a type!"
The Chief Constable, when he began his interrogatory, was careful not to betray that he already had some information.
"Perhaps we’d better begin at the beginning, Mr. Hassendean," he suggested, with the air of one consulting a valued collaborator. "Could you throw any light on your nephew’s arrangements for this evening? Did he mean to stay in the house, or had he any outside engagement that you knew about?"
"He told me he was going out to dinner with that hussy next door."
Sir Clinton’s smile further disarmed old Hassendean.
"I’m afraid you’ll need to be more definite. There are so many hussies nowadays."
"You’re right there, sir! You’re right there. I agree with you. I’m speaking of the French one next door, her name’s Silverdale. My nephew was always hanging round her skirts, sir. I warned him against her, often enough."
"I always knew something would happen!" Miss Hassendean declared with the air of a justified Cassandra. "And now it has happened."
Sir Clinton returned to the main track.
"Have you any idea if he meant to spend the evening next door?"
Miss Hassendean interrupted before her brother could reply.
"He mentioned to me that he was going with her to the Alhambra to dance. I remember that, because he actually asked me where I was going myself to-night, which was unusual interest on his part."
"Scattering his money, of course!" her brother rapped out angrily.
"He had money to scatter, then?" Sir Clinton asked casually. "He must have been lucky for his age."
For some reason, this reflection seemed to stir a grievance in the old man’s mind.
"Yes, he had about £500 a year of his own. A very comfortable income for a single young man. And I had to sit, sir, as his trustee; pay over the money quarterly to him; and see it wasted in buying jewellery and whatnot for that wench next door. I’m not a rich man, sir; and I give you my word I could have spent it better myself. But I’d no control over him, none whatever. I had to stand by and see all that good money flung into the gutter."
Dr. Ringwood turned aside to hide his smile at this revelation of the drysalter’s soul.
"By the way, who gets that money now?" Sir Clinton inquired.
"I do, sir. And I hope I’ll put it to better use."
Sir Clinton nodded in response to this sentiment, and seemed to ponder before he asked his next question.
"I suppose you can’t think of anyone who might have had a grudge against him?"
The old man’s glance showed some suspicion at the question; but his sister seemed to have less compunction, for she answered instead.
"I warned Ronald again and again that he was playing with fire. Mr. Silverdale never took any open offence, but . . ."
She left her sentence unfinished. Sir Clinton seemed less impressed than she had expected. He made no comment on her statement.
"Then I take it, Mr. Hassendean, that you can throw no light on the affair, beyond what you have told us?"
The old man seemed to think that he had given quite enough information, for he merely answered with a non-committal gesture.
"I must thank you for your assistance," Sir Clinton pursued. "You understand, of course, that there are one or two formalities which need to be gone through. The body will have to be removed for a post mortem examination, I’m afraid; and Inspector Flamborough will need to go through your nephew’s papers to see if anything in them throws light on this affair. He can do that now, if you have no objections."
Old Hassendean seemed rather taken back by this.
"Is that necessary?"
"I’m afraid so."
The old man’s face bore all the marks of uneasiness at this decision.
"I’d rather avoid it if possible," he grumbled. "It’s not for use in Court, is it? I shouldn’t like that, not by any means. To tell you the truth, sir," he continued in a burst of frankness, "we didn’t get on well, he and I; and it’s quite on the cards that he may have said—written, I mean—a lot of things about me that I shouldn’t care to have printed in the newspapers. He was a miserable young creature, and I never concealed my opinion about him. Under his father’s will, he had to live in my house till he was twenty-five, and a pretty life he led me, sir. I suspect that he may have slandered me in that diary he used to keep."
"You’d better make a note about that diary, Inspector," Sir Clinton suggested in a tone which seemed to indicate that Flamborough must be discreet. "You needn’t trouble yourself too much about it, Mr. Hassendean. Nothing in it will come out in public unless it bears directly on this case; I can assure you of that."
The drysalter recognised that this was final; but he could hardly be described as giving in with a good grace.
"Have it your own way," he grunted crossly.
Sir Clinton ignored this recrudescence of temper.
"I’ll leave the Inspector to see to things," he explained. "I’ll go with Dr. Ringwood, Inspector, and do the telephoning. You’d better stay here, of course, until someone relieves you. You’ll find plenty to do, I expect."
He bade good-night to his involuntary host and hostess and, followed by the doctor, left the house.
Chapter Four. THE CRIME AT HEATHERFIELD
"That’s a fine old turkey-cock," Dr. Ringwood commented, as he and Sir Clinton groped their way down the drive towards the gate of Ivy Lodge.
The Chief Constable smiled covertly at the aptness of the description.
"He certainly did gobble a bit at the start," he admitted. "But that type generally stops gobbling if you treat it properly. I shouldn’t care to live with him long, though. A streak of the domestic tyrant in him somewhere, I’m afraid."
Dr. Ringwood laughed curtly.
"It must have been a pretty household," he affirmed. "You didn’t get much valuable information out of him, in spite of all his self-importance and fuss."
"A character-sketch or two. Things like that are always useful when one drops like a bolt from the blue into some little circle, as we have to do in cases of this sort. I suppose it’s the same in your own line when you see a patient for the first time: he may be merely a hypochondriac or he may be out of sorts. You’ve nothing to go on in the way of past experience of him. We’re in a worse state, if anything, because you can’t have a chat with a dead man and find out what sort of person he was. It’s simply a case of collecting other people’s impressions of him in a hurry and discarding about half that you hear, on the ground of prejudice."
"At least you’ll get his own impressions this time, if it’s true that he kept a diary," the doctor pointed out.
"It depends on the diary," Sir Clinton amended. "But I confess to some hopes."
As they drew near the door of Heatherfield, Dr. Ringwood’s thoughts reverted to the state of things in the house. Glancing up at the front, his eye was caught by a lighted window which had been dark on his previous visit.
"That looks like a bedroom up there with the light on," he pointed out to his companion. "It wasn’t lit up last time I was here. Perhaps Silverdale or his wife has come home."
A shapeless shadow swept momentarily across the curtains of the lighted room as they watched.
"That’s a relief to my mind," the doctor confessed. "I didn’t quite like leaving that maid alone with my patient. One never can tell what may happen in a fever case."