"Um."
Another question, which could not be kept down despite his father's eye, boiled to the surface. He pointed to the glass in the other's hand and demanded: "Martinis?"
Morgan brightened eagerly.
"And how!" agreed the creator of John Zed, diplomatist-detective. "Have one?"
"Hugh!" interposed the bishop in a voice that could quell the most rebellious chapter, dean and all. "We do not wish to take up your time, Mr. Morgan. Doubtless all of us have more important matters to which we can attend." He paused, and his furry brows drew together. "I hope I shall not be misunderstood, my friend, if I add that in the solemn presence of death your attitude seems to me to be somewhat reprehensibly irreverent. Start the car, Standish."
"Sorry, sir," said Morgan, looking at him meekly over his spectacles. "I mean to say — sorry. Not for a moment would I in my irreverence stay your headlong rush to get at the corpse. All I wanted to tell you was—"
"Don't you mind him, bishop," said Madeleine warmly. "Don't you mind him. You can slide down our bannisters as much as you like, and nobody shall stop you. There! Fll even get a big cushion for you to land on, though I expect," she added, scrutinizing him with a thoughtful air, "you won't need it much, will you?"
"Angel sweetheart," said Morgan dispassionately, "shut your trap. What I was about to say was—"
"Madeleine gurgled. "But he won't, will he?" she protested, swinging on the gate. "And what's more, I wouldn't be mean like you, when you said you'd put the goldfish bowl there instead of a cushion. I mean, that isn't nice, is it?"
"Dawn of my existence," said her husband querulously, "all this is beside the point. Whether nature in her abundance has equipped His Reverence with a lower dorsal frontage sufficiently spacious to withstand the shocks of sliding down bannisters all over England, is not only beside the point, but savors of indelicacy." He looked at Standish, and his face suddenly clouded. He moved the loose spectacles up and down his nose, uneasily. "Look here, sir. We don't — well, the bishop is right. We don't take this very seriously, I admit. If it weren't for what Betty would feel about it, I shouldn't be very much cut up about it. I know; de mortuis, and all that. But after all, sir — old Depping was rather a blister, wasn't he?"
Standish punched at the steering-wheel, hesitantly.
"Oh, I say!" he protested…
"Right," said Morgan in a colorless voice. "I know it's none of my business. All I wanted to tell you was that I was to look out for you when you arrived and tell you that Inspector Murch has gone home for something to eat; he said to tell you he would be back directly… He allowed me to prowl about the Guest House with him, and we found a couple of things.
"And may I ask, young man," said the bishop, stung, "on what authority you did that?"
"Well, sir, I suppose it was rather like your own. There wasn't much to be seen there. But we did find the gun. I should say a gun, though there isn't much doubt it's the one. The autopsy hasn't been performed, but the doctor said it was a thirty-eight bullet. The gun is a thirty-eight Smith & Wesson revolver… You will find it," said Morgan, in the negligent manner which would have been employed by John Zed, diplomatist-detective, "in the right-hand drawer of Depping's desk."
"Eh?" demanded Standish. "In Depping's desk? What the devil is it doing there?"
"It's Depping's gun," said Morgan; "we found it there." He noticed that he had a cocktail in his hand, and drank it off. Then he balanced the glass on the edge of the gate, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of the red-and-white blazer, and tried to assume a mysterious profundity like John Zed's. But it was difficult. For the first time Donovan saw the excitability of his nature. He could imagine him striding up and down the lawn with a cocktail in one hand, shifting his spectacles up and down his nose, and hurling out theories to a beaming wife. He said:
"There's no doubt it was his gun, sir. His name on a litde silver plate on the grip. And his firearms license was in the same drawer, and the numbers tallied… By the way, two shots had been recently fired."
Dr. Fell bent forward abruptly. He made a queer figure against the hot green landscape, in his black cloak and shovel hat.
"Two shots?" he repeated. "So far as we have heard, there was only one. Where was the other bullet?"
That's the point, sir. We couldn't discover it. Both Murch and I are willing to swear it isn't lodged in the room anywhere. Next—"
"I am afraid we are wasting a great deal of time," the bishop interposed. "All this information can be obtained officially from Inspector Murch. Shall we proceed, Standish?"
There were times, Donovan thought, when his old man was lacking in ordinary courtesy. Still, these constant references to sliding down bannisters must be wearing on his temper; and Madeleine Morgan seemed to be pondering some new remark about cushions. Dr. Fell rumbled something angrily, glaring at the bishop, but Standish was under the influence of that cold ecclesiastical eye, and obediendy pressed his starter.
"Right," said Morgan amiably. "Break away as soon as you can," he suggested to Donovan, "and come down and try one of our Martinis…" He leaned over the gate as the car backed round. He looked at the bishop. And then up rose Old John Zed himself, to speak in a tone of thunder across the road. "I don't know what deductions you will make, Your Reverence," said Old John Zed, "but I’ll give you a tip. Look for the buttonhook."
The car slewed round slighdy as it sped on. Standish goggled.
"Eh?" he inquired. "What was that he said, hey? What button-hook? What's a demnition button-hook got to do with it?"
"Nothing whatever," said the bishop. "It is merely some of that insolent young man's nonsense. How sensible people can read such balderdash by a young man who knows nothing of criminology, is more than-"
"Oh, look here!" warmly protested the colonel, whose favorite reading was the saga of John Zed. "Murder on the Woolsack, eleventh printing comprising 79,000 copies. Who Shot the Prime Minister? sixteenth printing comprising — well, I don't remember, but a dem'd lot, demmit. Burke told me. Besides," added Standish, using a clinching argument, "my wife likes him."
Dr. Fell, who had been cocking a thoughtful eye at the house along the left, seemed to repress a chuckle. He cast a surreptitious glance at the bishop, and observed dreamily:
"I say, you are in a most unfortunate position, I fear. The impression seems to be widespread that your conduct is at times, humf, a trifle erratic. Heh. Heh-heh-heh. Sir, I should be careful; very careful. It would be unfortunate, for instance, if other lapses occurred."
"I don't think I understand."
"Well, the colonel and I would be compelled to put you under restraint. It would exclude you from the case. It might get into the newspapers. Listen, Your Grace…" Dr. Fell's red face was very bland, and his eyes opened wide. "Let me warn you to walk very softly. Attend to those who want to speak, and what they say; and brush nothing aside as unimportant. Eh?"
Dr. Fell, it was obvious, had been struck with ah idea which he continued to ponder while the car turned through the lodge gates of The Grange. The iron gates were shut, and at the porter's lodge a large policeman was trying to maintain a Jovian unconsciousness of the little group of idlers that had gathered outside. He opened the gates at Standish's hail.
Tell you what," said Standish, 'I’ll drive on up to the house and tell 'em to make ready for you and get your luggage out. You fellows go along to the Guest House and look about. Join you shortly. The bishop knows where it is."
The bishop assented with great eagerness. He asked the policeman, sharply, whether anything had been touched, looked round him with satisfaction, and then sniffed the air like a hunter as he strode off across the lawn. The three of them, his son reflected, must have made a queer picture. Up beyond them, at the end of a shallow slope, the gables of the low, severely plain house were silhouetted on the yellow sky. Except for a border of elms on either side of the driveway curving up to it, all the ornamental trees were massed behind The Grange in an estate that must have covered eight thousand acres. The Grange was restored Tudor in design, full of tall windows, bearded in ivy, and built on three sides of a rectangle with the open side towards the road. It had almost the stolid aspect of a public building; and must, Donovan reflected, take an enormous income to keep up. Standish could certainly be no army man retired on half-pay.