A vicious dig from her sire’s elbow put her temporarily out of action. ‘My darter,’ explained Mr Biggleswade. ‘Lawfal,’ he added. ‘Which is wot makes ’er so blooming upperty! I got others. Ah, and sons! First and last –’
‘Listen, grandfather!’ interposed Hemingway. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better than to hear your life-story, but the trouble is I’ve got work to do. So you just tell me what you want to see me about, will you?’
‘That’s right, my lad, you listen to me, and you’ll get made a Sergeant!’ said Mr Biggleswade approvingly. ‘Cos I know who done this ’ere murder!’
‘You do?’ said Hemingway.
‘He don’t know anything of the sort, sir!’ expostulated Hobkirk. ‘He’s in his dotage! Sergeant! Why, you silly old fool –’
‘You leave him alone!’ said Hemingway briefly. ‘Come on, grandfather! Who did do it?’
An expression of intense cunning came into the wizened countenance of Mr Biggleswade. ‘Mind, I’ll ’ave me pitcher in the papers!’ he warned the Chief Inspector. ‘And if there’s a reward I’ll ’ave that too! Else I won’t tell you nothing!’
‘That’s all right,’ said Hemingway encouragingly. ‘If you can tell me the name of the man I’m after, I’ll take a photo of you myself!’
Much gratified, Mr Biggleswade said: ‘You’re a smart lad, that’s wot you are! Well, if you want to know ’oo done it I’ll tell you! It were young Reg Ditchling!’
‘Father!’ said his daughter imploringly. ‘It isn’t right to go taking that poor boy’s character away from him! I keep telling you you’ve got it all wrong!’
‘Reg Ditchling,’ repeated Mr Biggleswade, nodding his hoary head mysteriously. ‘And don’t you let no one tell you different! I was up on that there common – ah, and not so far from Fox Lane neither! – and I ’eared a shot. Plain as I ’ear you yammering now I ’eard it, and don’t none of you start talking to me about no backfires, ’cos there ain’t any man living knows more about gunshots than wot I do – I didn’t pay no ’eed, ’cos it weren’t none of my business, but ’oo do you think I seen not ten minutes later, ’iding be’ind a blackberry bush?’
‘Reg Ditchling,’ replied Hemingway promptly.
‘You leave me tell it you meself!’ said Mr Biggleswade, affronted. ‘Reg Ditchling it was! “And wot might you be up to?” I says to ’im. “Nuthin’,” ’e says, scared-like. “Oh, nuthin’ is it?” I says to ’im. “And ’oo give you that rifle, my lad?” I says. Then ’e ’ands me a lot of sauce, and makes off, and I went up to the Red Lion to ’ave a pint afore me tea.’
‘Yes!’ interjected his daughter. ‘And when I went up to fetch you home it was all of seven o’clock, and Mr Crailing told me you’d been there half an hour!’
Hobkirk, who had edged himself up to the Chief Inspector, said for his private ear: ‘That’s right, what she says, sir, but make the silly old fool listen to a word of sense I can’t! I’ll have a few words to say to Reg Ditchling when I get hold of him, borrowing guns he’s got no right to have, but if he did any shooting on the common that day it was a good hour before Mr Warrenby was killed. And I wouldn’t believe that old rascal, not if he was to swear to it on his Bible-oath! It’s all on account of old Mr Honey being interviewed for the local paper the day he was ninety! Nothing’ll do for Biggleswade but to get into the papers as well, with his picture!’
‘Well, I hope he manages to pull it off,’ said Hemingway, watching appreciatively the spirited way in which Mr Biggleswade was resisting his daughter’s attempts to drag him homewards. ‘A very lively old gentleman, I call him. He deserves to get his picture in the papers.’
Hobkirk eyed him doubtfully. ‘If you had to see as much of him as I do, sir –’
‘Lord bless you, he wouldn’t worry me! Have you had many of the villagers trying to do a bit of detection?’
‘Sir,’ said Hobkirk earnestly, ‘you wouldn’t believe it! Something chronic, it is! I’ve had to choke off more silly fat-heads who saw people they don’t like not more than half a mile from Fox House nowhere near the time Mr Warrenby was shot – well, as I say, you wouldn’t hardly credit!’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, because I would,’ said Hemingway. ‘Now then, grandfather! You go off home and have your tea, and don’t you worry any more about it! I won’t forget what you’ve told me! Come on, Melkinthorpe! Bellingham!’
At the police-station, he found the Chief Constable awaiting him, and chafing a little. He said cheerfully: ‘Sorry sir! Did you want to speak to me? I’ve been a bit held up by the local talent.’ He saw that he had puzzled the Colonel, and added: ‘Amateur detectives, sir: the place is swarming with them.’
‘Oh!’ said the Colonel rather blankly. ‘Damned annoying! Got anything to tell me?’
‘No, sir, I can’t say I have. The soup’s thickening nicely, which is as far as I’m prepared to go at the moment.’
‘You seemed pleased!’ said the Colonel.
‘I am,’ admitted Hemingway. ‘In my experience, sir, the thicker it gets the quicker you’ll solve it. Can you tell me anything about the way Mr Ainstable’s estate is settled?’
‘No,’ replied the Colonel, looking at him narrowly. ‘I can’t. Except that the heir is Ainstable’s nephew. Do you mean it’s entailed?’
‘Not exactly, no. At some date a settlement was made, but what the terms of it were I don’t know. The Squire doesn’t own the estate, that’s all I know.’
‘Good God! I had no idea – are you sure of your facts, Hemingway?’
‘I’m sure he’s only the tenant-for-life, sir, and I know the name of the firm of solicitors who act for the trustees of the settlement. But that’s just about all I do know. How old was Mr Ainstable’s son when he was killed?’
The Colonel reflected. ‘He and my boy were at school together, so he must have been nineteen and – no, he was a few months older than Michael. About twenty.’
‘Not of age. Then the estate must have been settled by his grandfather, or resettled by him. It can’t have been resettled by this man while his son was still a minor. I’m not very well up in these things, but I did once have a case which hinged on the settlement of a big estate.’
‘How did you find all this out?’ demanded the Colonel. ‘I should doubt whether anyone except, I suppose, Drybeck, knows anything about Ainstable’s affairs. And, good God, he wouldn’t talk about a client’s private business!’
‘Properly speaking,’ replied Hemingway, ‘it was Harbottle who discovered it. And Mr Drybeck wasn’t the only person who knew there’d been a settlement. Sampson Warrenby knew it. And unless I’m much mistaken, Mr Haswell knows it too – or at any rate suspects it.’
‘I should have said that Warrenby was the last man in the world Ainstable would have confided in! But go on!’
‘I’m dead sure he didn’t confide to him, sir. Warrenby found it out. There’s a copy of a letter he wrote to the solicitors of the trustees, saying that he had a client that was interested in Mr Ainstable’s gravel-pit, and that he was informed they were the proper people for him to apply to. And there’s an answer from this firm, all very plain, stating that although any money would have to be paid to them, acting for the trustees, to be apportioned as between the tenant-for-life and the trust funds, all such contracts were a matter for Mr Ainstable only. Now, on the face of it, it looks as if Warrenby must have approached Mr Drybeck, knowing him to be Mr Ainstable’s solicitor, and been passed on by him to this London firm.’
‘I suppose so,’ said the Colonel, staring at him.
‘Yes, sir, only I’ve met a lot of false faces in my time, and it’s my belief this is one of them. I don’t doubt Warrenby got the information he wanted out of Mr Drybeck, but I should say he didn’t appear in the matter himself. In fact, I don’t know how he managed it, which is probably just as well, because I’ve got a strong notion that if ever I got to the bottom of the methods the late lamented employed to find out things about his neighbours I?
??d very likely get up a subscription for the man who did him in, instead of arresting him.’
‘I don’t follow you,’ the Colonel said. ‘Why should Warrenby not appear in the matter? It seems to me that if he had a client –’
‘Yes, sir, but another strong notion I have is that he hadn’t got any such thing. Seems highly unnatural to me that Mr Drybeck should never have mentioned the matter to the Squire, and that he didn’t I’m quite satisfied. It came as news to Mr Ainstable – and not such very pleasant news either.’
The Colonel stirred restlessly. ‘What makes you think there was no client?’
‘The fact that we don’t hear anything more about him, sir. Having gone to the trouble of finding out who was the right person to apply to, Warrenby didn’t apply to him.’
‘He might, surely, have discovered that the lease of the pit had already been granted,’ objected the Colonel.
‘I’ll go further than that, sir. He might have known it all along. In fact, he must have known it. Everyone in Thornden couldn’t help but know it. I think something made him suspect the Squire’s estate had been settled, and he wanted to know just how the land lay. He hadn’t a hope of getting Mr Drybeck to tell him anything, so he went about the job in a different way.’
‘I should like you to tell me exactly what’s in your mind, Hemingway,’ said the Colonel, in a level voice.
‘Well, sir, taking one thing with another, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the Squire’s committing waste – and has been doing so ever since his boy was killed. Now, as I say, I’m not an expert, but I do know that if you’ve got a settled estate, and you go selling its capital, in a manner of speaking – timber, mineral rights, and such-like – about two-thirds of what you make out of it has to be put into the estate funds.’ He paused, but the Colonel said nothing. ‘And if you put the whole sum into your own pocket – or perhaps invest it so that your wife will be left comfortably off when you’re dead – well, that’s committing waste.’
The Colonel raised his eyes from their frowning contemplation of the blotter on his desk. ‘That’s a pretty serious charge, Chief Inspector.’
‘It is, sir. Only, of course, I’m not concerned with what Mr Ainstable may be doing with his estate, except in so far as it might have a bearing on this case. It isn’t a criminal offence.’
‘What do you mean to do?’
‘Get the Department to make a few discreet enquiries for me. There won’t be any noise made over it, but it’s got to be done.’
‘Of course,’ said the Colonel, a little stiffly. ‘If you think you have enough evidence to justify an enquiry.’
‘Well, I do think so, sir. To start with, I’ve got reason to suspect that Warrenby had some sort of a hold over the Squire. To go on with, I’ve had a look at that estate, and I can see there’s precious little money being spent on it, and a tidy sum being taken out of it. Then I find that it’s going to a nephew who, by all accounts, is next door to being a stranger to the Squire. And I don’t mind saying that I’ve got a lot of sympathy for the Squire, because he’s been hamstrung by a settlement that was meant to make everything safe and snug. If the boy had lived to be twenty-one, I don’t doubt the estate would have been resettled, and provision made for Mrs Ainstable. But he didn’t, and it looks to me very much as if the Squire knows that nephew of his wouldn’t look at it the same way his son would have. Well, when I saw Mr and Mrs Ainstable, I thought she looked a lot more likely to die than he did. But when I left Old Place, I went and paid a call on the Vicar, and that’s where I learned that the Squire has a bad heart.’
‘Angina,’ said the Colonel shortly. ‘But, as far as I know, he’s only had two not very severe attacks.’
‘Yes, Mr Haswell, who happened to be with the Vicar when I called, said there was no reason why Mr Ainstable shouldn’t live for a good many years yet. On the other hand, you don’t have to be a doctor to know that he might go very suddenly. That adds quite a bit of colour to what I’d already noticed. Which was that when I mentioned those two letters Harbottle found in Warrenby’s office I knew I’d given the Squire and Mrs Ainstable a nasty jolt. I got the impression that the last thing either of them wanted me to do was to start nosing round that gravel-pit, or all the timber he’s been felling. And on top of that, when the Vicar started to say something about the gravel-pit, Mr Haswell nipped in as neat as you please, and flicked his mind off on to something quite different. Which leads me to think that he’s got pretty much the same idea as I have about what the Squire’s up to.’
There was a short silence. The Colonel broke it. ‘This is a damned nasty affair, Hemingway! Well – it’s up to you, thank God! If you’re right – if Warrenby was blackmailing the Squire, not for money, but merely to force him to sponsor him socially – does that, in your view, constitute a sufficient motive for murder?’
Hemingway rose to his feet. ‘I don’t remember, offhand, how many cases I’ve had, sir,’ he said dryly. ‘A good few. But I couldn’t tell you what constitutes a motive for murder, nor yet what doesn’t. Some of the worst I’ve handled were committed for reasons you wouldn’t even consider to be possible – if homicide didn’t happen to be your job. You don’t need me to tell you that, sir.’
‘No,’ said the Colonel. ‘But it depends on the type of man involved.’
‘That’s right, sir: it does.’
The Colonel glanced up. ‘Blackmail,’ he said heavily. ‘Yes, that’s a motive, Chief Inspector – a strong motive.’
‘Yes, and it gives us a nice wide field,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘Because, unless I miss my bet, I don’t think the Squire was the only person Warrenby was putting the black on.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll be leaving you. I told my chief I’d be giving him a ring about now.’ He walked over to the door, and looked back, as he opened it, a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’ve got upwards of half a dozen people who could have committed this murder, as far as their alibis go, which is nowhere,’ he remarked. ‘At least four of them have got what’ll pass for motives, and the end of it will very likely be that it’ll turn out to be someone I haven’t begun to consider yet.’
‘I hope to God you may be right!’ said the Colonel.
Thirteen
There was no one in the small office temporarily allotted to the Chief Inspector, but he saw that Harbottle had been there before him, for a pile of papers had been laid on the desk. He sat down, pushed the papers to one side, and drew the telephone towards him.
He was speedily connected with his immediate superior, Superintendent Hinckley, and was greeted by him with asperity, and a total lack of formality, the Superintendent saying, with awful sarcasm, that it was nice to hear his voice, and adding that there was nothing he liked better than to be kept hanging about at Headquarters, particularly when he happened to have a date. To which the Chief Inspector replied suitably, not omitting to animadvert upon persons who sat all day with their feet on their desks. After which interchange of civilities, the Superintendent laughed, and said: ‘Well, how’s it going, Stanley?’
‘I’ve seen worse. What have you got for me?’
‘Nothing that’s likely to interest you, I’m afraid. Seems quite straightforward. Born in 1914, in Nottinghamshire. Only son of the Reverend James Arthur Lindale. Father still living, mother died in 1933; two sisters, one married, the other single. Educated at Stillingborough College. Joined his uncle’s firm of Lindale & Crewe, stockbrokers, in 1933. Became a member of the Stock Exchange, 1935. Called up in 1939, and served with the RA until 1946, when he was demobilised – do you want his military record? He served all over the place, and picked up a DSO. Ended up as a Major, with the Army of Occupation, in Germany.’
‘No, I don’t think that’s likely to be of much use. What’s he been doing since he was demobilised?’
‘He went back to the Stock Exchange for nearly five years. Lived in bachelor chambers, in Jermyn Street. There’s nothing known about him, barring the bare facts I’ve
given you. Hasn’t even had his driving licence endorsed. He left the Stock Exchange at the end of 1950. That’s all I’ve got for you.’
‘I’m bound to say it isn’t promising,’ said Hemingway. ‘What about his wife?’
‘He hasn’t got one.’
‘Yes, he has!’ Hemingway said impatiently. ‘And a baby! I told you so, and what’s more I asked you to look into her record too!’
‘I know you did, but I haven’t got anything here about her.’
‘Who handled this?’ demanded Hemingway suspiciously.
‘Jimmy Wroxham.’
‘Oh!’ said Hemingway. ‘Well, it’s not like him to miss anything that’s wanted. You did tell him to look into the wife, Bob?’
‘Yes, I did, and if I ever see half a chance of getting you dismissed from the service with ignominy –’
‘You won’t,’ interrupted Hemingway. ‘No, look here, Bob, Jimmy must have slipped up! I’ve seen the set-up: husband and wife, and one baby, a year old. By what Lindale told me, I should say he was married about two years ago.’
‘No record,’ replied the Superintendent. ‘Jimmy had a talk with one of the partners of the firm he used to be with, and he didn’t seem to know where he was now, or what he was doing. Said he left the Stock Exchange because he was unsettled by the War.’
‘That’s pretty much what Lindale told me. But, by what you’ve just read out to me, it looks as though it took him five years to decide he couldn’t stick city life any longer. Did you say he had a couple of sisters living?’
‘Yes. The elder one lives with the father – he’s got a parish somewhere in the Midlands – and the younger one’s married to a shipowner. Lives up near Birkenhead.’
‘Birkenhead…Well, that’s some way off. Might account for her never having been seen in these parts. I should have thought the other one would have visited him, though. Oh, well! Perhaps she can’t leave the old man. Did Jimmy see the uncle?’