Detection Unlimited (20 page)

'When was that?' asked Hemingway.

'Heavens, I don't know! I'd forgotten all about it until you told us all this. He was the most inquisitive man -- and quite unsnubbable!' She laughed, and stubbed out her cigarette. 'I wonder who his client was? It sounds rather as if it must have been some shady firm he knew my husband wouldn't have had anything to do with. What fun!'

'No doubt that would have been it,' agreed the Chief Inspector, rising to his feet.

11.

IT was five o'clock when Hemingway reached the Vicarage, and he found the vicar in conference with one of the Church wardens, Mr Henry Haswell. An awed and inexperienced maidservant ushered him straightaway into the Vicar's study, saying with a gasp: 'Please, sir, it's a gentleman from Scotland Yard!'

'Good gracious me!' ejaculated the Vicar, startled. 'Well, you'd better show him in, Mary -- oh, you are in! All right, Mary: 'That'll do! Good-afternoon -- I don't know your name?'

Hemingway gave him his card, which he put on his spectacles to read. 'Chief Inspector Hemingway: dear me, yes! You must tell me what I can do for you. Oh, this is one of our Church wardens -- Mr Haswell!'

'Perhaps you'd like me to clear out?' said Haswell, nodding briefly to the Chief Inspector.

'Not on my account, sir,' said Hemingway. 'Very sorry to come interrupting you, Vicar. It's quite a small matter, really. I see by the Firearms Register that you own a .22 rifle. Could I have a look at it?'

'Rifle?' said the Vicar blankly. 'Oh, yes, so I do! But it is really my son's. That is to say, I got it for him originally, though of course he has no use for it now he lives in London. Still, one never knows when he might like to have it, beside getting a little sport when he comes to visit us. I don't shoot myself.'

'No, sir. Might I see it?'

'Now let me think!' said the Vicar, looking harassed. 'Dear me, this is very awkward! I wonder -- ? Excuse me, I'll go and look! Do take a chair!'

Hemingway watched him leave the room, and said, with a resigned sigh: 'Yes, I can see this is another rifle which has been allowed to go astray. I think you were responsible for the first, sir.'

'Not unless you consider me responsible for my wife's -- misdemeanours, Chief Inspector,' replied Haswell calmly. 'Nor can I agree that the rifle in question has gone astray. It is true that it was lent -- improperly, of course -- to the local plumber, who once got my wife's car to start for her; but it is equally true that he returned it some days ago, since when it has not, to my knowledge, been out of the house.'

'Yes, that's all very well, sir,' retorted Hemingway, 'but my information is that it was left hanging about in a cupboard in your cloakroom, so that as far as I can make out anybody could have borrowed it without you being the wiser!'

'Quite so, but may I point out that it was found in that cupboard no later than yesterday evening? While I can -- with some difficulty -- visualize the possibility of its having been abstracted by one of the people who came to my wife's tennis-party, I am quite enable to arrive at any satisfactory explanation of how anyone knew that there was a rifle at the back of a coat-cupboard, or how he or she could have restored it without having been seen by any member of my household. Have you collected the rifle? My son left it ready for you.'

'No, I didn't, sir, but Sergeant Carsethorn did, which is how I come to know what happened to it.'

Haswell smiled faintly. 'You must admit we've kept nothing from you, Chief Inspector!'

'Very open and above board, sir. Is there a door into your cloakroom from the garden?'

'No. The only entrance is through the hall, and the ventilation is by ventilator, above a fixed, frosted-glass window. In fact taking into consideration my son's alibi -- there seems really to be only one person who might, without much difficulty, have both removed the rifle from the cupboard, and restored it. Myself, Chief Inspector -- as I feel sure you've realized.' He paused, and his smile grew, a tinge of mockery in it. 'But I don't think I should have put it back,' he added. 'Cliburn, have your sins found you out?'

'They have, they have!' said the Vicar, who had come back into the room, an expression of guilt in his face. 'I am exceedingly sorry, Inspector, but I fear I cannot immediately lay my hand upon the 145 weapon. If one could but see the pitfalls set for one's feet! Not but what I am aware that I have erred, well aware of it!'

'All right, sir! You've gone and lent it to someone,' said Hemingway. 'Which, of course, you've got no business to do.'

'I cannot deny it,' said the Vicar mournfully. 'But when one possesses a sporting gun -- selfishly, I feel for I have no use for it -- it seems churlish to refuse to lend it to lads less fortunate, particularly when the example is set me by our good Squire, who allows shooting on his waste-land, and is always the first to encourage the village-lads to spend their leisure hours in sport rather than the pursuits which, alas, are by far too common in these times! Splendid fellows, too, most of them! I've watched many of them grow up from the cradle, and I can assure you, Inspector, though I have undoubtedly broken the law in lending a rifle to any unauthorized person, I should not dream of putting it into the hands of anyone I could not vouch for.'

'Well, sir, whose hands did you put it into?' asked Hemingway patiently.

'I think,' said the Vicar, 'and such, also, is my wife's recollection, that I lent it last to young Ditching. One of my choirboys, till his voice broke, and a sterling lad! The eldest of a large family, and his mother, poor soul, a widow. He has just received his call-up papers, and I fear that in the excitement of the moment he must have forgotten to return the rifle to me, which was remiss of him, and still more so of me, for not having reminded him. For young people, you know, Inspector, are inclined to forget things.'

'They are, aren't they, sir?' agreed Hemingway, with commendable restraint. 'Did you say he was the eldest of a large family? With a whole lot of young brothers, I daresay, who have been having a high old time with a gun that doesn't belong to them, and have very likely lost it by this time!'

The Vicar, much dismayed, said: 'Indeed, I trust not!'

'Yes, so do I,' said Hemingway grimly. 'Where does this large family live?'

'At No. 2 Rose Cottages,' replied the Vicar, regarding him with an unhappy look in his eye. 'That is the row of cottages facing the common, on the Trindale-road.'

'It is, is it?' said Hemingway, his excellent memory at work.

'I know what you are thinking,' said the Vicar, sitting down heavily in the chair behind his desk. 'I can never sufficiently blame myself for having been the cause -- unwitting, but equally unpardonable! -- of bringing suspicion to bear upon a member of a gallant and a persecuted nation, and one, moreover, of whom I know no ill!'

'Well, I won't deny, sir, that it did come into my mind that this Pole with the unnatural name whom you all call Ladislas lodges in one of those cottages,' admitted Hemingway. 'But if you know what I'm thinking it's more than I do myself, because I've always found it a great waste of time to think about things until I've got a bit more data that I have yet. However, I'm glad you've mentioned him, because what any gentleman in your position has to say about one of his parishioners seems to me well worth listening to.'

'I cannot, I fear, describe Ladislas as my parishioner,' said the Vicar depreciatingly. 'He is not, you know, of my communion. One is apt, of course, to look upon every soul living in one's parish as a member of one's flock, and particularly in such a case as this, when the young man is so tragically bereft of family, home, even country, one feels impelled to do what one can to bring a little friendliness into a lonely life.'

'And I'm sure it does you credit, sir,' said Hemingway cordially.

'I am afraid it rather does Ladislas credit,' said the Vicar, with a sudden smile. 'We had Poles stationed in the vicinity during the War, and the impression they made upon us was not entirely happy. One makes allowances, of course, but still -- No, not entirely happy! Indeed, to my shame I must confess that I was far from being pleased when I heard that one had come to live permanently amongst us. However, I thought it my duty to visit the young man, and I was agreeably surprised by him. A very decent fellow, determined to make his way in his job, and combating, I grieve to say, a good deal of insular prejudice. I had no hesitation in introducing him to one or two people whom I thought he might find congenial, and I have had no reason to regret having done so. I should add, perhaps, that his landlady, our good Mrs Dockray -- a most respectable woman! -- is quite devoted to him, and that is a more valuable testimony than mine, Inspector!'

'I wouldn't say that, sir, but at least it means he hasn't been spending his spare time getting all the village girls into trouble -- not to mention the wives whose husbands are doing their military service,' said Hemingway.

Haswell, who had retired to the window-seat, laughed suddenly; but the Vicar, though he smiled, shook his head, and said that when he thought of the infants, of what he must call mixed parentage, whom he had been obliged to baptize, he felt more like weeping. From this reflection he was easily led to talk about the humbler members of his flock, the Chief Inspector listening to his very discursive descriptions with great patient, mentally sifting possible grains of wheat from obvious chaff, and guiding him adroitly, by way of Mrs Murton, who obliged for Mrs Lindale, into the higher ranks of Thornden society. But the Vicar could not tell him very much about the Lindales. Like Ladislas, Mrs Lindale was not of his communion, and her husband, although brought up in the Anglican faith and a very good fellow, was not, alas, a churchgoer. It was a pity, the Vicar thought, that such pleasant young people live such retired lives. It was rarely that one had the pleasure of meeting them at any of the little entertainments in the neighbourhood. Mrs Lindale was thought to be stand-offish; he himself believed her, rather, to be shy. Miss Patterdale -- whom he always called the good angel of the parish -- had been most neighbourly, and spoke well of Mrs Lindale. Indeed, she had persuaded Mrs Ainstable to call, but nothing had come of it, Mrs Lindale excusing herself from accepting invitations on the score of being unable to leave her little girl. A pity, he could not but think, for although the Ainstables were not of the Lindales' generation, and did not, nowadays, entertain a great deal, they must be considered, in every sense of the word, valuable connaissances.

'Yes, I've just been having a chat with them,' said Hemingway. 'A gentleman of the old school, Mr Ainstable. The Chief Constable was telling me that he lost his only son in the war, which must be just about as bad a thing for Thornden as it was for him, I should think.'

'Indeed, indeed you are right, Inspector!' said the Vicar earnestly. 'One of the finest young men I have ever known, and one, moreover, who would have upheld traditions which are so fast vanishing. The flowers of the forest... A bitter blow for the Squire! One must hope that the present heir will prove a worthy successor, but I fear there will be a sad change in the relationship between the Squire and the village. Thornden does not readily accept strangers.'

'Nor any other place I ever heard of,' said Hemingway. 'Still, we'll hope it won't happen for a good many years to come. The Squire looks pretty hale and hearty -- more so than Mrs Ainstable, I thought.'

The Vicar sighed. 'For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,' he said, as though he spoke to himself.

'Well, no, sir,' said Hemingway, startled but respectful. 'That's true enough, but --'

'The Squire has angina pectoris,' said the Vicar simply.

'You don't say so!' exclaimed Hemingway, shocked.

'There is no reason to suppose that the Squire won't live for a great many years yet,' said Haswell.

'Indeed, we must all pray that he will, my dear Haswell!'

'Yes, but I see what the Vicar means,' said Hemingway. 'With that disease -- well, you don't know what a day may bring forth, do you? I'm not surprised Mrs Ainstable looks so anxious. And he's not the sort to spare himself, by what I can see.'

'He is not an invalid,' said Haswell shortly. 'He has been an energetic man all his life, and it would be extremely bad for him not to take the sort of exercise he's accustomed to.'

'True, very true!' the Vicar said. 'One wishes, though that he had fewer cares to weigh upon him. I am almost tempted to say, that he were less conscientious, but one should not, and indeed one does not, wish that.'

'Struggling to keep up an estate which some kind of a cousin or nephew who lives in South Africa will inherit,' said Hemingway slowly. 'And I should say it is a struggle.' He glanced at Haswell. 'I saw he'd been cutting down a lot of timber.'

'Also planting new trees, however.'

'Yes, I saw that too.'

The Squire is a remarkable man,' said the Vicar warmly. 'Indeed, I tell him sometimes that he has all the enterprise of a man half his age! I remember when he first made up his mind to turn the common to account -- I should explain, Inspector, that the common --'

'Talking about the common,' interrupted Haswell, 'can anything be done, Chief Inspector to dissuade people from trailing across it, dropping litter all over it, and staring over the hedge at Fox House? It's extremely unpleasant for Miss Warrenby, to say the least of it.'

'Poor girl, poor girl!' exclaimed the Vicar. 'This is most disgraceful! One wonders what the world is coming to! This unmannerly 149 craving for sensationalism! Gavin Plenmeller said something to me about it this morning, but I paid little heed, since the way in which he phrased it led me to believe that he was merely indulging in one of those jokes which I, frankly, neither like nor find any any way amusing. Inspector, something must be done!'

'I'm afraid there's nothing the police can do about it, sir -- not as long as people stick to the common and the public road, and don't go creating obstructions, which they really can't be said to do, right up the end of a blind road,' replied Hemingway.

An anxious look came into the Vicar's face. 'I wonder, if I were to go up, and address a few words to them, pointing out to them how very --'