Detection Unlimited (23 page)

'Now I shall tell you the truth!' said Ladislas impulsively. 'I did not go to the door! I went away, because I do not wish to make trouble for Miss Warrenby, and if her uncle is at home it is plain to me that she cannot go with me anywhere. It makes nothing!'

'Only a bit of extra work for the police, and that's fair enough, isn't it?' said Hemingway.

He left Ladislas hovering between doubt and relief, and went out to find that Constable Melkinthorpe was no longer alone. He had left the car, and was standing beside it, grinning down at an aged and disreputable individual in a much-patched suit of clothes and a greasy cap, which he wore at a raffish angle wholly inappropriate to his advanced years. Beside him stood a buxom lady, who appeared to be torn between anxiety and annoyance; and, eying them both in a boding fashion, was a stout and middle-aged constable. As the Chief Inspector paused for a moment, surveying the group, the buxom lady tried to take the old gentleman's arm, and besought him urgently to give over, and come off home to his tea.

'You lemme go, or I'll fetch you a clip!' said the Oldest Inhabitant, in shrill but slightly indistinct tones, and brandishing a serviceable ash-plant. 'Wimmen! I 'ates the sight of them! I'm a-going to 'ave a few words with the Lunnon 'tec, and it 'ud take more than a nasty, meddling female to stop me! Ah! And more than a muttonheaded flat-foot wot never got no promotion, and never would, not if he lived to be as old as wot I am, which 'e won't becos 'e eats too much -- unless it ain't fat, but dropsy 'e's got.'

'Father!' expostulated his daughter, giving his arm a shake. 'You've got no call to be rude to Mr Hobkirk! If you don't stop it --'

'You give me any more of your impudence, Biggleswade, and you'll wish you'd kept a civil tongue in your head!' interrupted Constable Hobkirk, swelling with wrath.

'Mr Biggleswade to you, Mr Hobkirk!' instantly responded the lady, with a sudden veering of sympathy. 'Ninety years old he is, and I'll thank you to remember it! Now, come along with you, Father, do!'

'What's all this about?' demanded Hemingway, stepping up to the group.

Constable Melkinthorpe so far forgot himself as to wink at his superior, but Hobkirk replied in official accents: 'Police Constable Hobkirk, sir, reporting --'

'You shut your gob, young feller!' commanded Mr Biggleswade. 'You ain't got nothing to report. It's me as'll do the reporting. I'm going to 'ave me pitcher in the papers, and a bit wrote about me underneath it.'

'All right, grandfather!' said Hemingway goodnaturedly. 'But give the constable a chance! What's the matter, Hobkirk?'

'If there was anything the matter, which there ain't,' said the obstreperous Mr Biggleswade, 'it wouldn't do you no good to go asking 'im, because 'e ain't seen beyond that great stomach of 'is for years -- not but wot that's far enough. Nor I won't 'ave me words took out of me mouth by 'im, nor you you neither, becos the police never 'ad nothing on me, and I ain't afraid of any of you!'

'You're a wicked old man, that's what you are!' exploded the sorely-tried Hobkirk. 'Before you got so as you couldn't do more than hobble about with a stick, you was the worst poacher in the county, and well I know it!'

Mr Biggleswade's villainous countenance creased into a myriad wrinkles, and he gave vent to a senile chuckle. 'That's more than you could prove, my lad,' he said. 'I don't say I weren't, nor yet I don't say I were, but wot I do say is that I were a sight too smart for all them gurt fools to catch.'

'Don't pay any heed to him, sir!' begged his horrified daughter. 'He's getting to be a bit childish! I'm sure I ask your pardon for him 165 coming worriting you like this, but he's that obstinate! And coming up here to talk to you without his teeth!'

A vivious dig from her sire's elbow put her temporarily out of action. 'My darter,' explained Mr Biggleswade. 'Lawful,' 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 no so far from Cox Lane neither! -- and I 'eared a shot. Plain as I 'ear you yammering now I 'card 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, 'idling be'ind a blackberry bush?'

'Reg Ditchling,' replied Hemingway promptly.

'You leave me tell it you meself!' said Mr Biggies wade, 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 Horley 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 worry me 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, 167 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 no 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.

169 '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 suchlike -- 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.'