Detection Unlimited (17 page)

'That's all right,' said Hemingway. 'You go and deal with him!'

Not unthankfully, Mr Coupland removed himself. When the door had closed behind him and his junior, Harbottle, who had remained seated at Warrenby's desk throughout his chiefs interview with .the head-clerk, silent and observant, said: 'What do you make of him, sir?'

'Oh, perfectly honest!' Hemingway replied, going to the desk, and looking at the mass of papers on it. 'How are you doing, Horace? You seem to have got enough to keep you occupied!'

'I have,' said Harbottle, on a mordant note. 'That chap was just explaining to me, when you came in, that things aren't as straight as he'd wish, owing to the office being so cramped. Which it certainly is. He was telling me that Warrenby was determined to get an office next to the Town Hall, which he says is the best pitch in the whole of Bellingham, and wouldn't be content with anything else.'

'And I don't doubt he would have got it,' remarked Hemingway.

'Nor I. I wish he had, for I should have found my job easier,' said Harbottle, casting a glance round the room, which was indeed crammed with cupboards, shelves with labelled deed boxes piled on them, a safe, standing open, two filing-cabinets, and a large bookcase. 'If there's any scheme in this town he hadn't got a finger in, I can't think what it could be. That cupboard over there is full of the stuff, and I take it I'd better go through it. He seems to have kept all his private business letters and such here. Mostly in the safe, but this lot comes from the cupboard under the books. That's what you want me to work on, isn't it?'

Hemingway nodded. 'Yes, don't try to meddle with the deed-boxes belonging to his clients: you'll be getting into hot water if you do, and wasting your time as well. Well, I've seen some solicitors' offices which I thought were so cluttered up no one could ever find a thing in them, but this fairly takes the cake! Poor old Horace!'

'Oh, it isn't in a muddle!' Harbottle said. 'Everything's docketed, and bundled up. The trouble is there's so much of it, and what he's written on his bundles doesn't always convey as much to me as it no doubt did to him.'

'Coupland no use to you?'

119 'Not on all these side-lines. He only knows about the real business of the office. I've got hold of one bit of information I think'll interest you. Chief. Did you know Warrenby was the Clerk of the Peace?'

'No, but I'd have betted any money on it.'

'He was appointed last year,' said Harbottle. 'I got it out of Coupland. Old Drybeck was laid up when the appointment fell vacant. Used to be held by some old solicitor, who died just before Quarter Sessions. Warrenby slid into the job when Drybeck was convalescing in Torquay.'

'Probably murdered the old Clerk to get the job,' commented Hemingway, who had picked up a sheaf of letters, and was running a rapid and practiced eye over them.

'I could tell from the way Coupland spoke Drybeck thought he ought to have been appointed.'

'Well, I don't know that I blame them for choosing Warrenby. I should think he was an efficient bloke, which is more than I'd be prepared to say of Drybeck on the evidence I've got so far. Yes, yes, Horace, I know what you're after! It gives Drybeck a bit more motive. You may be right, but I should think he must have got used to seeing Warrenby grabbing every job in sight. Don't tell me he didn't get himself appointed Town Clerk, Coroner, Sexton, Welfare Officer, and Town Crier as well, because I wouldn't believe it!'

'He was the Coroner, but as for the rest of them, he was not, and couldn't have been,' said the Inspector austerely.

'You don't know what the poor fellow would have managed to be if he hadn't been cut off in his prime. Have you come upon anything that might be of use to us?'

'Not unless you're interested in a letter about Mr Ainstable's gravel-pit, or the negotiations for the purchase of Fox House. You might like to see that: it gives you a fair idea of what the deceased was like. The way he beat the owner down! But it's old stuff.'

'What was he writing about the Squire's gravel-pit? Trying to buy that too, at cost-price?'

'No, it's only a letter from some firm of London solicitors, which is an answer to one from him on behalf of a client. There ought to be a copy of that, but I haven't found it yet. Must have slipped out of the clip.'

'You don't seem able to find the answer either,' remarked Hemingway, watching him scuffle through the heaps of papers on the desk. 'What was it about?'

'Seems Warrenby had a client who was interested in gravel, and he was making enquiries on his behalf.'

'The hobbies people go in for!'

'For goodness sake!' snapped the Inspector, exasperated by his own failure to lay his hand on the letter he wanted. 'I put it aside to show you, but there's no room to turn round in here!' His client wanted a licence, of course!'

'Temper!' said Hemingway reprovingly. 'What had these London solicitors got to do with it? I thought Drybeck was the Squire's solicitor. In fact, the Chief Constable told me he was.''

'I don't know anything about that, sir, but these people seem to be the solicitors for the estate, or some such thing. Ah!'

'Found it?'

'No, but this must be the copy of Warrenby's letter. Got into the wrong lot. Here you are, sir!'

Hemingway took the copy, and read it, while the Inspector continued his search. 'Two years old, I see. You were quite right, Horace: he had a client who was interested in the Squire's gravel-pit! He was informed they were the proper people to apply to, and would be glad, etc. etc. Next instalment in tomorrow's issue -- with luck! Go on, Horace! I can hardly wait!'

The Inspector cast him a fulminating look, and said coldly: 'I have it here. You put those letters you were reading down on top of it.'

'That's right: you can't learn too early how to pass the buck, if you want to get on in life,' said Hemingway encouragingly. He read the letter, a crease between his brows. 'Well, they seemed quite willing to do business, but I don't get the hang of this tenant-for-life business. The licence would have to be by arrangement with the tenant-for-life -- oh, I see, it's the Squire! Some sort of an entail, I expect. And all moneys would have to be paid to these people for apportionment as between the tenant-for-life and the Trust funds. Well, I daresay it's all very interesting. Any more of it?'

'I've found nothing more so far.'

'No letters from the unnamed client?'

'No. Which is why I thought it worth while to show you those two. Looks as if nothing came of the proposal. I wondered if perhaps the Squire refused to do business, and whether there might have been bad blood between him and Warrenby over it,' said Harbottle slowly, frowning over it.

'And then Warrenby started pinching the gravel for his client when no one was looking, and so the Squire up and shot him. Really, Horace, I'm surprised at you!'

'If I'd meant anything of the kind, you might well be! Unless you think such folly is catching!' retorted Harbottle.

Hemingway laughed. 'Not bad!' he said. 'But I've got something better to do than to stay here listening to you being insubordinate. Keep at it! You may find something, though I doubt it. I'll send young Morebattle in to give you a hand.'

'You're not taking him to Thornden, sir?'

'No, I don't need him. He's all yours, Horace.'

'I shall be glad of him,' admitted the Inspector, casting a jaundiced eye over the work awaiting him.

Hemingway left him, and walked back to the police-station. Sergeant Carsethorn had not yet returned from Thornden, but the Station-Sergeant had news for the Chief Inspector. He said, with a twinkle in his eye: 'Got a message for you, sir.'

Hemingway regarded him shrewdly. 'You have, have you? Now, come on! Out with it, and don't stand there grinning!'

'Sorry, sir! It's from Mr Drybeck,' said the Sergeant solemnly.

'Oh, well, that's different! What's he want?'

'Told me to give you this, sir -- and to be careful how I handled it, because he found it close to the scene of the crime. In some long grass by the gorse-clump. He was quite put out not to find you here. Said at first that he'd look in later, but I told him we wasn't expecting you in, not till this evening.'

'You're wasted down here, my lad,' said Hemingway approvingly. 'What's he found? A hairpin, which he thinks must have belonged to Miss Warrenby?'

The Sergeant, who had produced from the drawer of the high desk some small object wrapped in a linen handkerchief, looked up quickly. 'If I may say so, sir, you're on to things pretty sharp!'

'I've no objection, but you're not going to tell me that is what he found, are you?'

'No, sir,' said the Sergeant, unfolding the handkerchief. 'But when he decided to leave it in my charge he told me to draw your attention to the initial.'

'You'd have to, wouldn't you?' said Hemingway, surveying with an expression of revulsion a powder-compact made of pink plastic with the letter M superimposed in imitation rubies.

'He said,' continued the Sergeant carefully, 'that it was not for him to draw conclusions, and he would leave the matter in your hands.'

'Well, that's handsome of him, at all events. I'd give something to see Sergeant Carsethorn's face when he hears he missed this in his search for that cartridge-case. You'd better put a notice outside the station saying a valuable compact has been found. I daresay some girl's boy-friend gave it to her, and she'd like it back.'

'Do you mean that, sir?'

'Of course I mean it! You don't think I want it, do you?'

'I must say it didn't seem likely to me it was the sort of compact Miss Warrenby would have,' admitted the Sergeant.

'It isn't the sort any young lady in her walk of life would have. I never saw such a nasty, cheap job!'

'No. Of course, there is the initial. But you know best, sir!' he added hastily.

'You may take it from me that I do! How many girls in Bellingham have got names beginning with M, do you suppose?' That compact wasn't by those gorse-bushes when Carsethorn and his chaps searched the ground, and it wasn't there when I went out to Fox House. But I'll tell you what was there then, or very shortly afterwards, and that was sightseers, very likely come out from this place to look at the scene of the crime. There was a couple hovering back-stage while I was there: I saw them. By Sunday evening it was probably all over the town there'd been a murder, and a lot of us had come down from Headquarters to take over. Miss Warrenby's probably had them picnicking on the front lawn, poor girl. What's more, she doesn't use powder: I've seen her! And finally, if she did, where do girls keep their compacts? In their handbags! All I can say is, if you think she powdered her nose before shooting her uncle you ought to go and get yourself certified!'

'Yes, sir,' said the Sergeant, grinning broadly.

'And if that's Mr Drybeck's handkerchief, give it back to him! Hallo, here's Carsethorn. Well?'

'I've brought in the three you wanted, sir.'

'Good man! Any difficulty?'

'Not with Mr Ainstable, sir, nor yet at The Cedars. Mr Ainstable quite saw why we wanted his rifle, and made no objection at all. It 123 was in his estate room. That's not part of Old Place: just a small kind of summerhouse, which was converted, so as Mr Eckford, the Squire's agent, wouldn't have to go through the house every time he went there. I had a look at it, the Squire taking me to it, and I wouldn't like to say the rifle couldn't have been lifted, and put back later, because I think -- if you knew when the estate room was likely to be empty -- it might have been. Young Mr Haswell left his rifle wrapped up in a bit of sacking, and told Mrs Haswell to give it to us if we called asking for it. Now, that rifle was found by him in the cupboard in the cloakroom, sir, and could easily have been taken by anyone at that tennis-party -- if they could have hidden it, which I don't think.'

'What about Lindale's?'

'Yes, sir, I have that too. He wasn't best pleased: said no one could possibly have borrowed it without his knowing. But it wasn't him that made the real trouble over it. That was Mrs Lindale. He wasn't in when I called, and had to be fetched off the farm. She sent the daily woman to find him, though I told her I only wanted to test the rifle, as a matter of routine. Very hostile she was. Scared, I thought. Started tearing me off the strip, the way women do when they've got the wind up. Only then her husband came in, and she quietened down as soon as he spoke to her. Very gone on one another they are, I'd say. He said if it was really necessary for me to take the rifle I could do so, but he'd be obliged to us if we wouldn't come bothering his good lady, because she's very nervous, and things like this murder upset her.'

'In that case,' said Hemingway, 'I'm going to be unpopular, because I'm going to go out there to bother her this afternoon.'

10.

THE Chief Inspector was taken to Thornden by the young constable who had driven him there on the previous day; but since Rushyford Farm was his first objective Constable Melkinthorpe took the right fork out of Bellingham, which led to Hawkshead. This road, after a few miles, intersected the common, north of the Trindale-road, and about a quarter of a mile before it reached Rushyford, passed the Squire's gravel-pit. Men were working there; Hemingway asked whose men they were, and Melkinthorpe replied with the name of a local firm, adding that they did say that Mr Ainstable made quite a good thing out of it. Constable Melkinthorpe, who was enjoying his present assignment more than any that had previously fallen to him, and dreamed of vague heroic deeds, turned circumspectly into the rather narrow entrance to Rushyford Farm, and asked hopefully if the Chief Inspector wanted him to go with him into the house.

'Not unless you hear me scream,' said Hemingway, getting out of the car. 'Then, of course, you'll come in double-quick to rescue me.' He slammed the car-door, and paused for a moment, surveying the house before him, which was a rambling, picturesque building set in a small garden, and with its farm-buildings clustered to one side of it. The front-door stood open on to a flagged passage, but Hemingway very correctly knocked on it, and awaited permission to enter. He had to knock twice before he could get a response. Then Mrs Lindale came running down the uncarpeted oaken stairway, hastily untying an apron as she descended, and casting it aside. 'Sorry!' she said. 'My daily has gone into Bellingham to get the rations, and I couldn't come down before. Do you want Mr Lindale?'