“Quite,” said Colonel Melchett hastily. “What happened exactly?”
Mrs. Price Ridley took breath and started again.
“I was rung up—”
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon—evening to be exact. About half past six. I went to the telephone, suspecting nothing. Immediately I was foully attacked, threatened—”
“What actually was said?”
Mrs. Price Ridley got slightly pink.
“That I decline to state.”
“Obscene language,” murmured the constable in a ruminative bass.
“Was bad language used?” asked Colonel Melchett.
“It depends on what you call bad language.”
“Could you understand it?” I asked.
“Of course I could understand it.”
“Then it couldn’t have been bad language,” I said.
Mrs. Price Ridley looked at me suspiciously.
“A refined lady,” I explained, “is naturally unacquainted with bad language.”
“It wasn’t that kind of thing,” said Mrs. Price Ridley. “At first, I must admit, I was quite taken in. I thought it was a genuine message. Then the—er—person became abusive.”
“Abusive?”
“Most abusive. I was quite alarmed.”
“Used threatening language, eh?”
“Yes. I am not accustomed to being threatened.”
“What did they threaten you with? Bodily damage?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m afraid, Mrs. Price Ridley, you must be more explicit. In what way were you threatened?”
This Mrs. Price Ridley seemed singularly reluctant to answer.
“I can’t remember exactly. It was all so upsetting. But right at the end—when I was really very upset, this—this—wretch laughed.”
“Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s?”
“It was a degenerate voice,” said Mrs. Price Ridley, with dignity. “I can only describe it as a kind of perverted voice. Now gruff, now squeaky. Really a very peculiar voice.”
“Probably a practical joke,” said the Colonel soothingly.
“A most wicked thing to do, if so. I might have had a heart attack.”
“We’ll look into it,” said the Colonel; “eh, Inspector? Trace the telephone call. You can’t tell me more definitely exactly what was said, Mrs. Price Ridley?”
A struggle began in Mrs. Price Ridley’s ample black bosom. The desire for reticence fought against a desire for vengeance. Vengeance triumphed.
“This, of course, will go no further,” she began.
“Of course not.”
“This creature began by saying—I can hardly bring myself to repeat it—”
“Yes, yes,” said Melchett encouragingly.
“‘You are a wicked scandal-mongering old woman!’ Me, Colonel Melchett—a scandal-mongering old woman. ‘But this time you’ve gone too far. Scotland Yard are after you for libel.’”
“Naturally, you were alarmed,” said Melchett, biting his moustache to conceal a smile.
“‘Unless you hold your tongue in future, it will be the worse for you—in more ways than one.’ I can’t describe to you the menacing way that was said. I gasped, ‘who are you?’ faintly—like that, and the voice answered, ‘The Avenger.’ I gave a little shriek. It sounded so awful, and then—the person laughed. Laughed! Distinctly. And that was all. I heard them hang up the receiver. Of course I asked the exchange what number had been ringing me up, but they said they didn’t know. You know what exchanges are. Thoroughly rude and unsympathetic.”
“Quite,” I said.
“I felt quite faint,” continued Mrs. Price Ridley. “All on edge and so nervous that when I heard a shot in the woods, I do declare I jumped almost out of my skin. That will show you.”
“A shot in the woods?” said Inspector Slack alertly.
“In my excited state, it simply sounded to me like a cannon going off. ‘Oh!’ I said, and sank down on the sofa in a state of prostration. Clara had to bring me a glass of damson gin.”
“Shocking,” said Melchett. “Shocking. All very trying for you. And the shot sounded very loud, you say? As though it were near at hand?”
“That was simply the state of my nerves.”
“Of course. Of course. And what time was all this? To help us in tracing the telephone call, you know.”
“About half past six.”
“You can’t give it us more exactly than that?”
“Well, you see, the little clock on my mantelpiece had just chimed the half hour, and I said, ‘Surely that clock is fast.’ (It does gain, that clock.) And I compared it with the watch I was wearing and that only said ten minutes past, but then I put it to my ear and found it had stopped. So I thought: ‘Well, if that clock is fast, I shall hear the church tower in a moment or two.’ And then, of course, the telephone bell rang, and I forgot all about it.” She paused breathless.
“Well, that’s near enough,” said Colonel Melchett. “We’ll have it looked into for you, Mrs. Price Ridley.”
“Just think of it as a silly joke, and don’t worry, Mrs. Price Ridley,” I said.
She looked at me coldly. Evidently the incident of the pound note still rankled.
“Very strange things have been happening in this village lately,” she said, addressing herself to Melchett. “Very strange things indeed. Colonel Protheroe was going to look into them, and what happened to him, poor man? Perhaps I shall be the next?”
And on that she took her departure, shaking her head with a kind of ominous melancholy. Melchett muttered under his breath: “No such luck.” Then his face grew grave, and he looked inquiringly at Inspector Slack.
That worthy nodded his head slowly.
“This about settles it, sir. That’s three people who heard the shot. We’ve got to find out now who fired it. This business of Mr. Redding’s has delayed us. But we’ve got several starting points. Thinking Mr. Redding was guilty, I didn’t bother to look into them. But that’s all changed now. And now one of the first things to do is look up that telephone call.”
“Mrs. Price Ridley’s?”
The Inspector grinned.
“No—though I suppose we’d better make a note of that or else we shall have the old girl bothering in here again. No, I meant that fake call that got the Vicar out of the way.”
“Yes,” said Melchett, “that’s important.”
“And the next thing is to find out what everyone was doing that evening between six and seven. Everyone at Old Hall, I mean, and pretty well everyone in the village as well.”
I gave a sigh.
“What wonderful energy you have, Inspector Slack.”
“I believe in hard work. We’ll begin by just noting down your own movements, Mr. Clement.”
“Willingly. The telephone call came through about half past five.”
“A man’s voice, or a woman’s?”
“A woman’s. At least it sounded like a woman’s. But of course I took it for granted it was Mrs. Abbott speaking.”
“You didn’t recognize it as being Mrs. Abbott’s?”
“No, I can’t say I did. I didn’t notice the voice particularly or think about it.”
“And you started right away? Walked? Haven’t you got a bicycle?”
“No.”
“I see. So it took you—how long?”
“It’s very nearly two miles, whichever way you go.”
“Through Old Hall woods is the shortest way, isn’t it?”
“Actually, yes. But it’s not particularly good going. I went and came back by the footpath across the fields.”
“The one that comes out opposite the Vicarage gate?”
“Yes.”
“And Mrs. Clement?”
“My wife was in London. She arrived back by the 6:50 train.”
“Right. The maid I’ve seen. That finishes with the Vicarage. I’ll be off to Old Hall next. And then I want an interview with Mrs. Le
strange. Queer, her going to see Protheroe the night before he was killed. A lot of queer things about this case.”
I agreed.
Glancing at the clock, I realized that it was nearly lunchtime. I invited Melchett to partake of potluck with us, but he excused himself on the plea of having to go to the Blue Boar. The Blue Boar gives you a first-rate meal of the joint and two-vegetable type. I thought his choice was a wise one. After her interview with the police, Mary would probably be feeling more temperamental than usual.
Fourteen
On my way home, I ran into Miss Hartnell and she detained me at least ten minutes, declaiming in her deep bass voice against the improvidence and ungratefulness of the lower classes. The crux of the matter seemed to be that The Poor did not want Miss Hartnell in their houses. My sympathies were entirely on their side. I am debarred by my social standing from expressing my prejudices in the forceful manner they do.
I soothed her as best I could and made my escape.
Haydock overtook me in his car at the corner of the Vicarage road. “I’ve just taken Mrs. Protheroe home,” he called.
He waited for me at the gate of his house.
“Come in a minute,” he said. I complied.
“This is an extraordinary business,” he said, as he threw his hat on a chair and opened the door into his surgery.
He sank down on a shabby leather chair and stared across the room. He looked harried and perplexed.
I told him that we had succeeded in fixing the time of the shot. He listened with an almost abstracted air.
“That lets Anne Protheroe out,” he said. “Well, well, I’m glad it’s neither of those two. I like ’em both.”
I believed him, and yet it occurred to me to wonder why, since, as he said, he liked them both, their freedom from complicity seemed to have had the result of plunging him in gloom. This morning he had looked like a man with a weight lifted from his mind, now he looked thoroughly rattled and upset.
And yet I was convinced that he meant what he said. He was fond of both Anne Protheroe and Lawrence Redding. Why, then, this gloomy absorption? He roused himself with an effort.
“I meant to tell you about Hawes. All this business has driven him out of my mind.”
“Is he really ill?”
“There’s nothing radically wrong with him. You know, of course, that he’s had Encephalitis Lethargica, sleepy sickness, as it’s commonly called?”
“No,” I said, very much surprised, “I didn’t know anything of the kind. He never told me anything about it. When did he have it?”
“About a year ago. He recovered all right—as far as one ever recovers. It’s a strange disease—has a queer moral effect. The whole character may change after it.”
He was silent for a moment or two, and then said:
“We think with horror now of the days when we burnt witches. I believe the day will come when we will shudder to think that we ever hanged criminals.”
“You don’t believe in capital punishment?”
“It’s not so much that.” He paused. “You know,” he said slowly, “I’d rather have my job than yours.”
“Why?”
“Because your job deals very largely with what we call right and wrong—and I’m not at all sure that there’s any such thing. Suppose it’s all a question of glandular secretion. Too much of one gland, too little of another—and you get your murderer, your thief, your habitual criminal. Clement, I believe the time will come when we’ll be horrified to think of the long centuries in which we’ve punished people for disease—which they can’t help, poor devils. You don’t hang a man for having tuberculosis.”
“He isn’t dangerous to the community.”
“In a sense he is. He infects other people. Or take a man who fancies he’s the Emperor of China. You don’t say how wicked of him. I take your point about the community. The community must be protected. Shut up these people where they can’t do any harm—even put them peacefully out of the way—yes, I’d go as far as that. But don’t call it punishment. Don’t bring shame on them and their innocent families.”
I looked at him curiously.
“I’ve never heard you speak like this before.”
“I don’t usually air my theories abroad. Today I’m riding my hobby. You’re an intelligent man, Clement, which is more than some parsons are. You won’t admit, I dare say, that there’s no such thing as what is technically termed, ‘Sin,’ but you’re broadminded enough to consider the possibility of such a thing.”
“It strikes at the root of all accepted ideas,” he said.
“Yes, we’re a narrow-minded, self-righteous lot, only too keen to judge matters we know nothing about. I honestly believe crime is a case for the doctor, not the policeman and not the parson. In the future, perhaps, there won’t be any such thing.”
“You’ll have cured it?”
“We’ll have cured it. Rather a wonderful thought. Have you ever studied the statistics of crime? No—very few people have. I have, though. You’d be amazed at the amount there is of adolescent crime, glands again, you see. Young Neil, the Oxfordshire murderer—killed five little girls before he was suspected. Nice lad—never given any trouble of any kind. Lily Rose, the little Cornish girl—killed her uncle because he docked her of sweets. Hit him when he was asleep with a coal hammer. Went home and a fortnight later killed her elder sister who had annoyed her about some trifling matter. Neither of them hanged, of course. Sent to a home. May be all right later—may not. Doubt if the girl will. The only thing she cares about is seeing the pigs killed. Do you know when suicide is commonest? Fifteen to sixteen years of age. From self-murder to murder of someone else isn’t a very long step. But it’s not a moral lack—it’s a physical one.”
“What you say is terrible!”
“No—it’s only new to you. New truths have to be faced. One’s ideas adjusted. But sometimes—it makes life difficult.”
He sat there, frowning, yet with a strange look of weariness.
“Haydock,” I said, “if you suspected—if you knew—that a certain person was a murderer, would you give that person up to the law, or would you be tempted to shield them?”
I was quite unprepared for the effect of my question. He turned on me angrily and suspiciously.
“What makes you say that, Clement? What’s in your mind? Out with it, man.”
“Why, nothing particular,” I said, rather taken aback. “Only—well, murder is in our minds just now. If by any chance you happened to discover the truth—I wondered how you would feel about it, that was all.”
His anger died down. He stared once more straight ahead of him like a man trying to read the answer to a riddle that perplexes him, yet which exists only in his own brain.
“If I suspected—if I knew—I should do my duty, Clement. At least, I hope so.”
“The question is—which way would you consider your duty lay?”
He looked at me with inscrutable eyes.
“That question comes to every man some time in his life, I suppose, Clement. And every man has to decide in his own way.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t know….”
I felt the best thing was to change the subject.
“That nephew of mine is enjoying this case thoroughly,” I said. “Spends his entire time looking for footprints and cigarette ash.”
Haydock smiled. “What age is he?”
“Just sixteen. You don’t take tragedies seriously at that age. It’s all Sherlock Holmes and Arsene Lupin to you.”
Haydock said thoughtfully:
“He’s a fine-looking boy. What are you going to do with him?”
“I can’t afford a University education, I’m afraid. The boy himself wants to go into the Merchant Service. He failed for the Navy.”
“Well—it’s a hard life—but he might do worse. Yes, he might do worse.”
“I must be going,” I exclaimed, catching sight of the clock. “I’m nearly h
alf an hour late for lunch.”
My family were just sitting down when I arrived. They demanded a full account of the morning’s activities, which I gave them, feeling, as I did so, that most of it was in the nature of an anticlimax.
Dennis, however, was highly entertained by the history of Mrs. Price Ridley’s telephone call, and went into fits of laughter as I enlarged upon the nervous shock her system had sustained and the necessity for reviving her with damson gin.
“Serve the old cat right,” he exclaimed. “She’s got the worst tongue in the place. I wish I’d thought of ringing her up and giving her a fright. I say, Uncle Len, what about giving her a second dose?”
I hastily begged him to do nothing of the sort. Nothing is more dangerous than the well-meant efforts of the younger generation to assist you and show their sympathy.
Dennis’s mood changed suddenly. He frowned and put on his man of the world air.
“I’ve been with Lettice most of the morning,” he said. “You know, Griselda, she’s really very worried. She doesn’t want to show it, but she is. Very worried indeed.”
“I should hope so,” said Griselda, with a toss of her head.
Griselda is not too fond of Lettice Protheroe.
“I don’t think you’re ever quite fair to Lettice.”
“Don’t you?” said Griselda.
“Lots of people don’t wear mourning.”
Griselda was silent and so was I. Dennis continued:
“She doesn’t talk to most people, but she does talk to me. She’s awfully worried about the whole thing, and she thinks something ought to be done about it.”
“She will find,” I said, “that Inspector Slack shares her opinion. He is going up to Old Hall this afternoon, and will probably make the life of everybody there quite unbearable to them in his efforts to get at the truth.”
“What do you think is the truth, Len?” asked my wife suddenly.
“It’s hard to say, my dear. I can’t say that at the moment I’ve any idea at all.”
“Did you say that Inspector Slack was going to trace that telephone call—the one that took you to the Abbotts?’”
“Yes.”