Unfortunately, this point of view was not shared by the police. On the afternoon of the following day a brisk and bright-eyed Inspector from the Criminal Investigation Department arrived in Fritton, accompanied by an earnest young Sergeant, and several less distinguished assistants.
Neither Inspector Cook nor Superintendent Small viewed with much pleasure the prospect of handing over their case to the Inspector from London, but Inspector Hemingway, when he arrived, disarmed hostility by a certain engaging breeziness of manner, which had long been the despair of his superiors.
‘Nice goings-on in the country!’ said Inspector Hemingway, who had beguiled the tedium of his journey from town with a careful perusal of the account of the case, submitted to his Department. ‘Mind you, I don’t say I’m not going to like the case. It looks to me a very high-class bit of work, what with rich wives, and Russian princes, and I don’t know what besides.’
‘Properly speaking, this Prince isn’t a Russian, but a Georgian,’ said the Superintendent. ‘At least, that’s what he says.’
‘My mistake,’ apologised Hemingway. ‘Matter of fact, I knew it all along. My chief tells me that if he’s a Georgian, he ought by rights to be a dark chap, with an aquiline kind of face, and not over-tall. He tells me he’s got a Georgian name all right, so no doubt he was speaking the truth.’
‘He’s dark and aquiline right enough,’ said Cook. ‘And I don’t mind telling you that I don’t take to him, not by a long chalk.’
‘That’s insular prejudice,’ said Hemingway cheerfully. He opened the folder he had brought with him, and ran his eye over the first type-written sheet. ‘Well, let’s get down to it. What I want is a bit of local colour. By what I can make out, the murdered man’s no loss to his family.’
‘I’ll say he’s not!’ said Cook, and without further encouragement regaled Hemingway with a description of Wally Carter which, though crude, would have been sworn to by any member of Wally’s family.
Inspector Hemingway nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. Now let’s go over the dramatis personnae. We’ll take the widow first. Anything on her?’
‘I can’t say as I have,’ replied Cook reluctantly. ‘She’s one of those flashy blondes, but apart from her silly way of carrying on, I’ve nothing against her. Mind you, if you was to ask anybody hereabouts, they’d tell you that Carter’s death just suits her plans. It’s common knowledge Mr Steel’s been hanging round her for the past three years. He only came to live in the district a few years ago. Grim sort of chap, not given to talking much. Until this Prince turned up, the general opinion was that it was a wonder Mrs Carter didn’t divorce Carter, and hitch up with Steel. But from what I can make out, the Prince has changed all that. He’s staying at Palings now, and if you was to ask me, he means to marry Mrs Carter. It was him told me about Carter suspecting that it was Steel took a pot-shot at him on that shooting-party.’
‘It was, was it? Didn’t hear him hiss, did you?’
‘Hiss?’ repeated Cook.
‘Let it go,’ said Hemingway. ‘Sounds a bit on the snakeish side to me, that’s all.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Cook. ‘It’s possible, of course, but there’s no doubt there wasn’t any love lost between Carter and Steel.’
Hemingway consulted the typescript under his hand. ‘No proper alibi, I see. Out on the farm, but can’t bring anyone forward to corroborate. Well, it’s my experience that that kind of alibi is the hardest of all to upset. Give me what looks like a water-tight alibi every time!’
‘Seems plausible to me,’ said Cook doubtfully. ‘You’ll see that he says he didn’t even know Carter was going to the Dower House that afternoon. Well, why should he? Stands to reason he wouldn’t hide himself in the shrubbery on the off-chance.’
‘I’m bound to say I don’t fancy him for the chief part,’ replied Hemingway. ‘All the same, that statement of his will bear looking into. As far as I can make out, you’ve only got his word for it he didn’t know about this assignation.’
‘I’d say he was speaking the truth. Didn’t turn a hair when I questioned him. No, nor he didn’t deny he’d no use for Carter.’
‘Well, that’s put a query against his name all right,’ said Hemingway. ‘There’s something about strong, silent men who don’t keep anything back, that makes me highly suspicious. Now, what about this Prince? I see he states he arrived at the doctor’s house more or less at the time the murder was being committed. Statement corroborated by the doctor’s housekeeper. Well, that’s very nice, I’m sure. What made her so certain of the time?’
‘She hadn’t any doubt. When I asked her, she said at once the Prince arrived before five o’clock.’
‘How did she know?’
Inspector Cook looked a little taken aback. ‘She didn’t hesitate. She said the Prince arrived before the doctor had got back from a case he’d been called out to, and it was a few minutes before five.’
‘That’s the kind of airy statement I like to see checked up on,’ said Hemingway. ‘Now, I see you’ve got a query against this Miss Fanshawe. Properly speaking, I don’t hold with women in shooting cases, but you never know with some of these modern girls.’
‘You wouldn’t know with her, that’s a certainty,’ said Cook. ‘She was in the shrubbery at the time the murder was committed, and she had her dog with her. It’s one of those Borzois, and a young one, and from what I can make out it’s the sort of noisy brute that ’ud bark its head off if it got wind of a stranger being about the place. But the point is the dog didn’t bark, nor yet give any sign that he knew anyone was near. Seems to me we’ve got something there.’
‘What you might call a highly significant feature of the case,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘Could this Fanshawe-dame have got across the stream other than by way of the bridge?’
‘Yes, she could,’ said Cook. ‘Though I’m bound to say my Sergeant couldn’t find any footmarks, which you’d expect to. You see, Inspector, the stream takes a bend to the south about thirty yards beyond that bridge. Anyone crossing it beyond the bend couldn’t be seen from the bridge. Get the idea? Well, there’s a bit of a pool just round the bend, but it isn’t any size, and the stream narrows beyond it, so that I reckon it would be an easy job to jump it. What’s more, the young lady wasn’t hampered by skirts, because I’ve discovered that she was wearing slacks at the time. The butler tells me she’s devoted to her mother, so that it seems to me it won’t do to rule her out of the case.’
Hemingway pursed his lips. ‘If it comes to that, it won’t do to rule anyone out, but if you were to think that every girl who’s devoted to her mother will up and shoot her stepfather as soon as look at him, you’d soon land yourself in a mess. What about this young fellow, Baker?’
Inspector Cook’s account of Percy Baker made Hemingway open his eyes. ‘You do see life in these parts, don’t you?’ he remarked. ‘Talk about the great, wicked city! Well, well, I think I’ll go and take a look at the scene of the crime.’
‘I’ll send one of my young chaps with you, shall I?’ offered the Superintendent. ‘Not that you’ll find anything there. Nothing to find. The murderer dropped the rifle, and bunked, and the ground’s too hard after this drought to show any footmarks.’
‘You never know,’ said Hemingway.
Waiting with his own Sergeant for the promised guide, he remarked that the conduct of this case was a very good object lesson for the student of crime.
‘Yes?’ said Sergeant Wake incredulously. ‘How’s that, sir?’
‘Police faults analysed,’ replied Hemingway. ‘What with Mr Silent Steel and his nice, open admissions, and the doctor’s housekeeper, you’ve got a couple of bits of unchecked evidence that aren’t doing us any good at all.’
A young constable joined them at this moment, and they set out for Palings, arriving at the Dower House shortly before five o’clock
. Janet was in the garden, and looked rather frightened when Inspector Hemingway’s identity was revealed to her. The Inspector, who had a genius for inspiring people with confidence, soon put her at ease, and drew her into a description of what had happened on the Sunday. His sergeant waited patiently in the background, and the local constable betrayed signs of boredom, but Hemingway listened to Janet’s spate of talk with keen interest. He learned about Alan White’s quarrel with his father, and his hasty departure from the house; he learned of White’s debt to Carter; of Janet’s dislike of Carter; of Alan’s opinion of Mr Sam Jones; Vicky Fanshawe’s cool way of greeting the news of Carter’s death; he even learned of the ruining of a new kettle, and the waste of a batch of scones. By the time he parted from Janet, even Sergeant Wake, who had a great respect for him, felt that he had allowed himself to be drawn into a singularly unprofitable conversation.
‘I wonder Inspector Cook didn’t warn you about Miss White,’ the constable ventured to say. ‘A regular talker, that’s what she is. Doesn’t know anything, either.’
‘I like talkers,’ replied Hemingway. ‘You never know what you may pick up from them. Now, I’ve found out a lot from Miss White that you people never told me. Is that the bridge?’
‘That’s it, sir, and if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the spot where the rifle was found.’
The Inspector plunged into the shrubbery in his wake, and the zealous constable pointed out to him not only where the rifle was found, which was close to a slim sapling, but also the view to be obtained of the bridge. Hemingway grunted, and asked if anything else had been found near the spot. The constable shook his head, and offered to show him next the way by which the murderer had probably made his escape. The ground was strewn with fallen leaves, which in some places made a thick bed, and the Inspector, tripping over a little mound, kicked some of these out of place, disclosing a small object which instantly caught his eye. He bent, and picked up a horn hair-slide.
‘Didn’t search very closely, did you?’ he said. ‘Supposing you were to have another search? You never know: we might find some more little things of this nature.’
The Sergeant joined in the search, but the result, though surprising, was not very helpful.
‘In fact,’ said Hemingway, regarding the collection of objects which the shrubbery had yielded, ‘you might call it a bit confusing. It beats me how things get into places like this. Where did you find that old boot?’
‘That was just by the wall by the road,’ said the constable.
‘Thrown over by some tramp. It’s been there for months, from the looks of it. You can take it away, and that broken bit of saucer with it. And if that rusty thing’s the lid of a kettle, I shan’t want that either. Now, what have we got left?’
‘One broken nail-file, one toy magnet, and a pocket-knife,’ said the Sergeant, as one checking an inventory.
Hemingway scratched his chin. ‘I’m bound to admit it’s a mixed bag,’ he said. ‘Still, you never know. I don’t myself carry nail-files in my pocket, nor magnets either, but that isn’t to say others mayn’t. Mind you, the nail-file, being broken, may have been chucked away, same as the kettle-lid, and that bit of china.’
‘Seems a funny place to use as a rubbish heap,’ demurred the Sergeant. ‘I knew a chap that used to carry a nail-file about with him. Sissy sort of fellow, with waved hair.’
‘He would be,’ said Hemingway. ‘We’ll keep that file, in case it turns out to be relevant.’
‘What about the magnet?’ asked Wake. ‘Who’d go dropping a thing like that around? Looks to me like it could only have been some kid, playing around in the shrubbery.’
‘Trespassing, do you mean?’ inquired the constable. ‘Well, they could, easy, because the wall’s only a low one, as you’ll see, sir.’
‘Know of anyone, other than a kid, who’d be likely to carry a small magnet in his pocket?’ asked Hemingway.
‘Can’t say I do, sir. Sort of engineer, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’m bothered if I know,’ replied Hemingway frankly.
‘Well, the pocket-knife seems the likeliest find to me,’ said Wake. ‘Nothing the matter with it; both blades intact, so we can take it it wasn’t chucked away. I don’t know what you think about it, sir, but I don’t set much store by that hair-slide. Sort of thing that might easily get lost. I was thinking it might be Miss White’s.’
‘It might,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘If it is, she can identify it. But what strikes me is that it hasn’t, from the looks of it, been lying out here long. Tell me what you make of this.’
He drew the Sergeant towards the sapling which stood a few paces from where the rifle had been found, and pointed out to him some grazes on the smooth bark, about eighteen inches from the ground.
Wake inspected the marks rather dubiously. ‘Well, I don’t know that I make anything of it, sir. Not immediately, that is. Someone might have scraped the tree, I suppose.’
‘What for?’ inquired Hemingway.
The Sergeant shook his head. ‘You have me there, sir. Still, trees do get bruised, don’t they? Does it mean anything to you?’
‘I can’t say that it does,’ confessed Hemingway. ‘All the same, something did scrape that tree, and not so long ago either, from the looks of it; and as it’s only a couple of steps from where the rifle was found, it may turn out to be highly relevant. You never know. All right, what’s-your-name, I’ve finished here. I’ll take a look at the stream now.’
The stream, however, did not hold his interest for long. Having visually measured the width between the opposite banks, the Inspector sighed, and passed on to look at the wall separating the Dower House grounds from the road. Finally he went back to the lawn where he had left Janet, and asked her if she recognised the hair-slide.
‘It’s not mine,’ Janet said. ‘I’m absolutely certain of that, because I never wear them.’
‘Do you know anyone who does, Miss White?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t say! I mean, I’ve never thought. Lots of people do, I expect. As a matter of fact, I think Florence does. She’s our maid, and if you found it in the shrubbery it just shows I was right all along, and she does slip out to meet her young man when it isn’t her half-day at all!’
Florence, however, when confronted with the hair-slide, promptly disowned it, and denied strenuously, if not altogether convincingly, that she had ever set foot in the shrubbery, or had ever entertained her young man within the gates of the Dower House.
‘Well, that was a lie, anyway,’ said the constable, as they left the Dower House. ‘I know Florrie Benson’s young man, and he comes out here pretty well every evening.’
‘She’s one of those who’d sooner tell a lie than not,’ said Hemingway. ‘She’ll keep. Where does this Dr Chester live? I’ll see that housekeeper of his next.’
The doctor was out when they presently reached his house in the village. A manservant opened the door to them, and ushered the Inspector and his Sergeant into a room in the front of the house. Here, the housekeeper, an elderly woman with kindly, short-sighted blue eyes, soon joined them. She looked rather alarmed, but assured Hemingway that, although she knew nothing about Mr Carter’s death, she would be only too glad to tell him anything that could be of use to him.
‘I’m just checking up on the evidence,’ explained Hemingway. ‘By what I hear, the doctor had a visit on Sunday from this Prince that’s staying with Mrs Carter, didn’t he?’
‘Oh yes, that’s right! He’s foreign, and ever such a pleasant-spoken gentleman! He was expected, you know. The doctor told me to make tea for two, because the Prince was coming to look at his bits of stuff that he dug up. Remains, that’s what they are, and very valuable, I understand, though they look to me like a lot of rubbishy trash.’
‘Do you happen to remember when the Prince arrived?’ asked Hemingwa
y.
‘Well, now, that’s something I can answer!’ said Mrs Phelps, beaming at him. ‘Not that I’m generally much of a one for taking notice of the time, but I do remember that! It was just on five-to-five.’
‘It’s queer how some things will stick in one’s head, while others won’t,’ said Hemingway conversationally. ‘I wonder what made you remember that?’
‘I’ll tell you just how it was,’ said Mrs Phelps. ‘You see, it was Thompson’s day off, and I was alone in the kitchen. So when the doctor was called out to a case, he shouted to me that he had to go out, but that he’d be back in time to receive the Prince.’
‘What time was the doctor called out?’
‘Now, that I can’t tell you, not happening to notice, but it can’t have been much after half-past four, if as late, I shouldn’t think, because it didn’t seem long before I heard the front-door bell, and when I went to answer it, there was a foreign-looking gentleman. Of course, I guessed it was the Prince, for he had Miss Vicky’s car, besides speaking in a foreign way. Well, naturally, I asked him to come in, and I told him about the doctor’s being sent for. “He must have been kept,” I said, “for he told me distinctly he’d be back before you arrived.” Well, I was quite flustered, because it isn’t every day you have a Prince coming to tea, and I don’t pretend to know the way to behave towards people like that. “Oh, I am sorry the doctor’s not back!” I said, because I thought he’d very likely take offence. “He’ll be very put out,” I said, “but your Highness knows how it is with doctors. I do hope you won’t be offended,” I said. Well, really, I’d no idea a prince would be as easy to explain anything to! “There’s nothing in the world to worry about,” he said, or something of the sort, for I wouldn’t swear to his exact words. “It is I who am at fault,” he said, with ever such a lovely smile. “I have made the journey more quickly than I expected, and I am before my time. I see that it is not yet five o’clock,” he said. And he showed me his wrist-watch, just like anyone might, and it was five-to-five. It isn’t likely I’d forget a thing like that! It was a lovely watch, too.’