The Unfinished Clue (26 page)

His tone implied that he was prepared to expatiate on the subject, but the telephone suddenly buzzed at his elbow, and he was obliged to answer it. He became entangled immediately in what appeared to be an involved conversation with some person unknown, and Harding, seizing his opportunity said: "I'll come back later, Superintendent," and escaped, closely followed by the Sergeant.

"You didn't think it was the Captain, did you, sir?" said the Sergeant, outside the station.

"No, the time didn't fit. I'm going up to the Grange now. And I'd better test that alibi of young Billington-Smith's while I'm about it. Come along, Sergeant, and you can direct me to this lane that leads from the Grange to Lyndhurst village."

The Sergeant climbed into the car. "Right, sir. You drive to Lyndhurst and we'll go on to the Grange that way, if you're agreeable. That'll save you having to turn to come back again to the Grange, which you might have a bit of difficulty over, it being what you'd call narrow, that lane."

Neither being of a talkative disposition, there was little conversation on the way to Lyndhurst. The Sergeant asked Harding what he wanted to do at the Grange, and on being told that the Inspector wished to obtain more precise information on the subject of Mrs. Twining's movements on Monday morning, merely nodded and relapsed into meditative silence.

The lane in question led into the middle of Lyndhurst village, immediately opposite the church. A few cottages were huddled together at the top end, but these continued for only a few hundred yards. Beyond them Moorsale Park lay on both sides of the lane, behind somewhat untidy hedges.

"Precious little money to spare up at the Park, if what they say is true," confided the Sergeant. "The Squire's got half the house shut up, so I heard, and the place beginning to go to rack and ruin. Steady, sir, you want to stop just beyond the bend."

Harding slowed the car down, and drew up to the side of the lane. The Sergeant stood up and looked over the hedge. "There's the lake, sir. You can see for yourself."

Harding got out of the car and walked over to the other side of the road, and craned to see over the hedge. As Mrs. Chudleigh described, a narrow arm of the lake ran down to a footpath that had been worn across the smooth turf:

"If she saw Mr. Billington-Smith there, which you tell me she says she did," pursued the Sergeant, "it's about twenty minutes' walk from the Grange. You might do it in less, but it's uphill, steady, all the way. It lets him out all right, to my mind, sir." He noticed that the Inspector was slightly frowning, and inquired if there were anything wrong.

"I was only thinking that the hedges seem to be rather high," said Harding, coming back to the car.

"You're right," agreed the Sergeant, sitting down again. "I'm friendly with the head-keeper, and he was telling me they've cut down all expenses something cruel. "Tisn't only the hedges that have been let grow wild. Seems a shame, doesn't it, sir?"

"Yes," agreed Harding, setting the car in motion again. "But what I don't quite understand is how Mrs. Chudleigh contrived to see Billington-Smith on the other side of the hedge. I'm six foot, and I could only just see over the top of it."

"Perhaps she was on her bicycle, sir," suggested the Sergeant, having thought about it for a moment. "Come to think of it, she would have been, most likely."

"She bicycles, does she?" Harding's frown deepened. "That's a point we'll go into. For if Mrs. Chudleigh was cycling home , I no longer like the look of young Billington-Smith's alibi. She fixed ten-to-one as the time of her seeing him, because she knows that it takes about half an hour to walk from the Grange to the Vicarage. What she forgets - if she was cycling that day - is that it wouldn't take anything like that time to cover the distance on a bicycle."

The Sergeant nodded slowly. "That's so, sir. More likely she'd have seen him a good ten minutes earlier, or more. That's what happens when you get ladies giving evidence about time. It's a queer thing, but I've very often noticed that women never have any notion of time. You've only got to wait for your wife to go upstairs to get her hat on to see that. Well, you aren't a married man, sir - leastways I've got an idea you're not — but if ever you do happen to get married you'll see what I mean. And if your good lady don't keep you hanging about a quarter of an hour, and then stand you out she was only upstairs a couple of minutes - well, she'll be different from mine, sir, that's all." With which misogynistic pronouncement the Sergeant folded his arms across his chest, and brooded silently till the car drew up at the Grange front door. Then, as he climbed out, he gave the result of his meditations. "But if that was so, sir, and supposing Mr. Billington-Smith to have come back here unbeknownst and murdered the General, he'd have got here round about five to one, by my reckoning, and run slap into Mrs. Twining coming to fetch the General for his cocktail."

"Yes," said Harding. "He would."

"Well, but that goes and upsets it, doesn't it, sir?"

Harding did not answer, and before the Sergeant could repeat his remark Finch had opened the front door.

Harding stepped into the hall. "Finch, when Mrs. Ghudleigh called here on Monday morning, was she walking, or on her bicycle?"

"Mrs. Chudleigh, sir? She was on her bicycle," replied the butler.

"Are you sure of that?"

"Oh yes, sir. Mrs. Chudleigh had propped her machine up against the porch, and I thought at the time that it was very much in the way of anyone coming in. I cannot say that I care for bicycles myself, sir. What I should call troublesome things, if you take my meaning."

The Inspector stood slowly pulling off his driving gloves, his eyes, with the hint of a frown in them, fixed on the butler's face. Then, just as Finch, rendered slightly nervous by this hard, unseeing stare, was about to ask if anything were wrong, he turned away, and laid his hat and gloves down on the table. "Is Miss Fawcett in?" he asked abruptly.

"I believe so, sir. I will go and see."

"Ask her if she can spare me a moment in the morning room, will you?" said Harding. He went up to the study door and opened it.

The Sergeant coughed. "I take it you won't be needing me, sir?"

"No," replied Harding, "I shan't. What I want you to do, Sergeant, is to take a stroll in the garden and have a chat with the under-gardener if you can find him. Ludlow we know to have spent Monday morning in the kitchen garden, but the other man seems to have been pottering about all over the place. Try and get out of him whether he was in sight of the front drive any time between twelve and one, and find out if he saw anyone either approaching or leaving the house during that time. If it was only the butcher's boy I want to know of it."

Miss Fawcett, entering the morning-room, ten minutes later, found it empty, and was conscious of disappointment. Since she had sought refuge from Camilla Halliday's conversation in the spinney at the bottom of the garden it had taken Finch some time to find her. Apparently Inspector Harding had lost patience and departed.

"Damn!" murmured Miss Fawcett, wandering aimlessly towards the fireplace. Looking up, she caught sight of her own disconsolate face in the mirror. She regarded it with some severity." Look here, my girl," she said sternly, "you're getting maudlin about this policeman. Pull yourself together!"

"Which policeman?" inquired an interested voice behind her.

She spun round to find Harding standing in the long window, watching her. For once the redoubtable Miss Fawcett was clearly at a disadvantage. "I've - I've lost my heart to the Sergeant!" she said wildly.

"I'm sorry. I hoped it was to the Inspector," returned Harding with simple directness.

Miss Fawcett, blushing furiously, retreated to the door. Harding stepped into the room. "Please don't go!" he said. "I ought not to have listened to you, or to have said that. I apologise."

Miss Fawcett, who wanted to make a calm and sensible reply, said something quite incoherent and subsided.

Inspector Harding said haltingly: "When I see you I keep forgetting I'm here — purely professionally. I've no right to - I ought to know better than to -" He broke off evidently feeling that he had embarked on a hopeless sentence.

Miss Fawcett, observing his flounderings, recovered the use of her tongue and was understood to say, though in a very small voice, that she quite understood.

"Do you?" said Inspector Harding, grasping the edge of the table. "Do you, Dinah?"

Miss Fawcett nodded, and began to trace invisible patterns on the table with one forefinger. Well, I - well, I think I do," she replied carefully. "When you aren't being professional — I mean - well, anyway, I quite understand."

"As soon as I've done with this case," said Inspector Harding, "there's something I'm going to ask you. I've been wanting to ever since I set eyes on you."

"More — more cross-examinations?" inquired Miss Fawcett, with a noble attempt at lightness.

"No. A very simple question requiring just "Yes", or - or "No", for an answer."

"Oh!" said Miss Fawcett, sketching another and more complicated pattern on the table. "I don't think I should dare say "No" to a policeman."

There was a moment's silence. Inspector Harding let go of the table-edge. "It's no use!" he said, advancing upon Miss Fawcett. "I have tried, but there are limits to what can be expected of one!"

Sergeant Nethersole, whose search for the under gardener led him up the path at the side of the house, passed the morning-room window, and, not sharing Mrs. Chudleigh's scruples, looked in. The sight that met his eyes had the effect of bringing him up short, staring. Then, for he was a tactful man, he withdrew his gaze from the spectacle of Miss Fawcett locked in Inspector Harding's arms, and tiptoed cautiously away.

For quite twenty minutes after he had gone the conversation between Miss Fawcett and Inspector Harding had no bearing at all upon the problems that might have been supposed to engross the Inspector's attention, and was not remarkable for any very noticeable degree of intelligence or originality. It seemed, however, to be an eminently satisfactory conversation from their point of view, and might have been continued for an unspecified length of time, had not Miss Fawcett chanced to ask Inspector Harding if he realised that if no one had murdered the General they might never have met.

Recalled to a sense of his duties, Inspector Harding put Miss Fawcett firmly away from him. "Sit down in that chair, Dinah, and pretend I'm the Superinteardent, or the sub-human detective who came about the plated entree dishes," he said, and resolutely retired to a chair on the other side of the table.

"Oh, do you remember that?" asked Dinah idiotically.

"I rem - No!" said Harding with emphasis. "You must help me. I'm here strictly on business. There are things I want to ask you." He eyed Miss Fawcett across the table.

"It isn't helping to look at me like that," he said uncertainly. "It only makes me want to kiss you again."

"Pretend I'm Camilla," suggested Dinah. "Oh, and do you know, she thinks I'm making a dead set at you? Shc told me so at lunch. I didn't, did I?"

Inspector Harding cleared his throat. "Miss Fawcett," he said severely, "I want you to carry your mind back to the morning of July first, please."

"All right," said Dinah, willing to oblige, "but if you go and fasten the murder on to someone I don't want you to, I shan't marry you. I don't mind you arresting the Hallidays, or the gardener, or Lola — though I'm developing quite an affection for her, as a matter of fact - but -"

"You are wasting my time, Miss Fawcett."

"Sorry!" said Dinah hastily. She folded her hands in her lap. "Go on, what have I got to remember? I'll do what I can for you, but I seem to have gone addled in the head all at once."

"It's important, Dinah, so do try! Did Mrs. Twining come to lunch on Monday by chance, or by invitation, or what?"

"All three," replied Dinah. "Pseudo-chance, so that Arthur shouldn't think it was a put-up job, and invitation because I invited her; and what, because of the row about Lola. She was at the fatal dinner-party on Saturday, and so she'd seen what was likely to happen. She rang up on Monday to hear the latest news, and when I told her that it was all pretty grim, she said that she thought she'd come over and see what she could do with Arthur."

"Did she seem to be worried about the situation?"

"N-no, I don't think so. Rather amused. To tell you the truth, I've never been able to make her out, quite. She's always cool and cynical, the sort of person you wouldn't expect to care two pins for anybody, but she really has taken a lot of trouble on Geoffrey's behalf. Of course, I know he's the sort of youth who appeals to sentimental matrons, but she isn't sentimental in the least. You can understand people like Mrs. Chudleigh falling for him, but not Mrs. Twining. She's too caustic."

"Does she give you the impression of being very fond of him?"

"Well, she does and she doesn't. Funnily enough I asked her that very question on Monday — I mean, whether she was very fond of him. She said she wasn't, but that she'd known him for so long she took an interest in him, or something. She and I had gone to find Fay - it was when she first arrived - and I was asking her what Geoffrey's mother was like."

"Were you? What did she say?"

"Nothing much, except that whatever she - Geoffrey's mother - had done that was rotten she'd had to pay for. Which rather snubbed me, because I'd said I thought it was rotten of his mother to have deserted him."

"She said that, did she? Do you know anything about the General's first wife, Dinah?"

"No, that was why I asked Mrs. Twining. Evcn Fay never dared mention her to Arthur. Skeleton in the cupboard, you know. There isn't even a snapshot of her that I've ever discovered."

"You don't by any chance know what her name was?"

"No, of course not. Arthur expunged her from the records, so to speak. Why do you want to know?"

Harding held up an admonitory finger. "I'm asking the questions, not you," he said.

"Ha!" said Miss Fawcett, kindling. "Well, make the most of this interview, Detective-Inspector Harding."