Harding came forward. "I hope I haven't come at an inconvenient hour, sir? My time is rather limited, you know, and I wanted to be sure of finding Mrs. Chudleigh at home."
Mrs. Chudleigh removed the steel-rimmed spectacles she wore for working or reading, and replaced them by her pincenez. "I must say, it is a very odd hour to come," she said. "However, please don't apologise! I am quite at liberty, though what you can have to say to me I am entirely at a loss to discover." She broke off to admonish her husband, who had placed one of the incidental chairs for Harding. "Not that one, Hilary: you know one of the legs is broken."
"Ah, tut, tut! My memory again!" said the Vicar ruefully. He returned the chair to its place, and pulled forward another. "I trust we have no broken legs here. Sit down, Inspector. It was my wife, I think, you wanted to see?"
"Thank you. Yes, I have something I want to ask Mrs. Chudleigh," said Harding, seating himself. "I'm working, as I expect you've guessed, on the case up at the Grange."
The Vicar shook his head. "Shocking, shocking! A terrible affair! What a judgment! Dreadful, dreadful!"
Mrs. Chudleigh stuck her needle into her work, drew off her thimble, and executed a profound shudder. "I'm sure I have no desire to speak of it," she said. "Either my husband or I would have been willing and glad to have visited Lady Billington-Smith in her hour of trouble, but since she apparently feels no need of spiritual consolation I have nothing further to say. I have no doubt that a great many vulgarly inquisitive people will flock to the inquest, which I suppose will be held any day now, but I for one should not dream of forcing my way in."
"Quite, Emmy, my dear, quite! Naturally you would not wish to be present," said the Vicar gently. "That goes without saying. But I think the Inspector wants to ask you some questions."
Mrs. Chudleigh regarded Harding with unveiled hostility. "I do not know how I can be expected to tell you," she said. "No one has told me anything about it, I can assure you. The only person I have been permitted to speak to is Miss Fawcett. I'm sure I don't wish to call her secretive, but really I must confess I found her reticence most overdone and foolish."
"Emmy, dear!" said the Vicar again, still more gently.
She bridled a little, but subsided. Harding took swill advantage of the lull. "I only want to ask you a few questions about your own movements yesterday morning, Mrs. Chudleigh. Can you remember just when you arrived at the Grange?"
"Oh, if that is all — ! I rang the front-door bell at twenty minutes past twelve precisely, for I looked at my watch. fearing it might be later. I may say I had ample opportunity for doing so since the butler kept me waiting on the doorstep longer than I should permit any servant of mine to do."
"And when he admitted you, did he take you straight out on to the terrace?"
"Certainly. Since Lady Billington-Smith was there, I do not know where else he would have taken me."
"How long did you remain on the terrace, Mrs. Chudleigh?"
"I remained until half past twelve."
"And you left by way of the path leading round the side of the house to the drive?"
"Yes. I told Lady Billington-Smith there was no need for her to disturb herself on my account. She seemed to me to be far from well, which I am sure was not to be wondered at. Though I shall always consider that she brought it all on herself, marrying that man."
"Emmy, we must not speak ill of the dead," said the Vicar.
"No, Hilary, but truth is truth, and it would be clear hypocrisy to pretend that the General was anything but a rude, overbearing, and ill-natured person. No doubtt he had his good qualities; I can only say that they were hidden from me. He treated Lady Billington-Smith abominably — not that I have any sympathy to waste on her, for I have always considered such a marriage, between a man of his age and a girl of hers, as little short of disgusting — and his behaviour to his son — such a delicate boy, too! — was positively brutal!"
"He seems to have been a very unpleasant man," interposed Harding tactfully. "What I want to know, Mrs. Chudleigh, is this: when you walked down that garden path, you must have passed the study window. Did you notice whether anyone but Sir Arthur was in the study?"
Mrs. Chudleigh sat up straighter than ever. "In my young days, Inspector, we were taught that to look in at other people's windows was the height of ill-breeding!" she pronounced.
"I wasn't suggesting that you — shall we say, peered in? But it would have been a perfectly natural thing for you to have glanced that way. Are you sure that you did not do so?"
"It would have been a very unnatural thing for me to have done," replied Mrs. Chudleigh with asperity, "particularly since I knew that the General was in his study. Really, I don't know what the world is coming to if I am to be suspected of staring in at windows!"
"Had anyone been talking in the study do you thing you would have heard voices?" asked the unwearied Inspector.
The Vicar leaned forward to pat his wife's hand "Come, my dear, the Inspector is not accusing you of peering in at the window," he said soothingly. "You must see that if you did hear or see anyone it may have important bearing on the case."
"If I had seen or heard anyone in the study when I passed I should have communicated with the police the instant the news of Sir Arthur's murder came to my ears." said Mrs. Chudleigh. She met her husband's mild gaze and relented a little. "So far as I am aware there were no voices raised when I passed the window. I daresay my attention would have been attracted had there been any sounds, though I trust I should not have given way to idle curiosity."
"Equally, Mrs. Chudleigh, any movement in the study would have caught your eyes — er — irresistibly?" She thought it over. "It might have. I should not like to say definitely. My impression is that there was no movement."
Harding got up. "Thank you, Mrs. Chudleigh; that all I wanted to ask you."
He drove back to the Crown at Ralton, and almost immediately retired to his room. It was not until midnight, however, that he at last put his papers away and went to bed, and by that time he had done much writing, much thinking, and had smoked several pipes.
He visited the police station at nine o'clock next morning, and found the Superintendent in a slightly peevish mood.
"I was expecting you to give me a look up last night," said that worthy austerely.
"Were you?" said Harding. "I hope you didn't wait about for me. Good morning, Sergeant: have you had any bright ideas?"
"No, sir, I can't say that I have," replied the Sergeant. "The more I think of it the more I see that it might have been anybody."
"Well, let's try and work it out a bit," said Harding, drawing up a chair to the table, and opening his dispatch-case. "I'll give you back the statements you took, Superintendent. I think I've tabulated the important points."
The Superintendent took the sheaf of papers, and put them in a drawer. "Of course if you don't want them —"he began in an aggrieved voice.
"They were most valuable. When I got in last night I thought it might help us if I drew up a time-table. Here it is." He laid a neat sheet before the Superintendent and nodded to Sergeant Nethersole. "Come and have a look at it, Sergeant."
"I take it," said the Superintendent ponderously, "that this refers to the morning of the first of July?"
Having received confirmation on this point, he bent his gaze on the time-table, and carefully read it through.