“So I understand, and he appears to have had no financial troubles. Blackmail, or some other complication of double living, explains some cases, but we can learn of nothing of the kind here. His carelessness regarding keys, of which you have just told me, is consistent with the absence of such worries. I understand that his papers have disclosed nothing. His bank account has no unexplained debits. Only domestic unhappiness remains as a possible explanation of self-destruction. If you could tell me that there was such unhappiness, it might supply the motive for which we are seeking, though there would still be the difficulty of the shot coming from behind.”
It was subtly if not unfairly put. She may or may not have seen that an affirmative answer might be held to inculpate herself as much as it would support a theory of suicide, but she showed no sign of resentment, neither did she reply. She took up his last point only.
“Sir Lionel Tipshift considers it possible, as I have understood?”
“Yes, possible, and no more. But still, a motive of any kind.…”
She was silent, and then said deliberately: “It is a matter which I would rather not discuss, even with you. Inspector Trackfield has led me already to say more than I meant or should. He is dead now, and if there was a little trouble between us at times—it was never much—I only wish to forget.”
He recognized that she meant what she said, and that he could not press it further at that time. Indeed, her refusal to reply was admission enough. Not that he really believed in suicide. He thought it absurd. He said quickly: “How about his brother? Was he on good terms with him?”
“No, nobody was.”
“You mean, no one was on good terms with your husband?”
“Yes, it wasn’t easy.”
“Well,” he said, as Lady Denton rose from the table, “motive or no motive, it looks as though it’s suicide that it’s got to be. I may have to go back this afternoon. I’ll just have a stroll round before I go.”
“I’ve told the servants to give you any information they can, and to do anything you ask. I mayn’t see you again if you’re going back as soon as that.” She shook hands with a slight but sufficient cordiality, and as she left the room, Gerard Denton came in, and when he saw Inspector Pinkey he did not look pleased.
He had come down in the complacent hope that he had allowed sufficient time for that infernal red-headed policeman to clear out. He couldn’t think why Adelaide had allowed him to come to the house at all. Surely there were barracks for such as he! He tried with indifferent success at this second encounter to look the affability which he did not feel, but his ordeal was not prolonged. The Inspector had talked to him last night, and was not a man to waste words. Now he returned nervous civilities with others which were more self-confident, but equally insincere.
Then he went out, as he had told Lady Denton that he had intended to do.
CHAPTER V.
Inspector Pinkey, working upwards, which experience had taught him to be the more profitable direction in which to dredge for the gold of truth in the channels of muddles, errors, and lies beneath which he was accustomed to find it so deeply buried, commenced with the gardener’s boy.
He was one slow of words, but of a perpetual grin. His lack of fluency was further impeded by the fact that, when Inspector Pinkey interviewed him, he was sucking a very large sweet. He said that he had heard the shot, and had commenced to run to the window in the anticipation—perhaps hope would not be an unfair word—that “somethin’ was up.” He had been called back by Mr. Bulger, and had reluctantly continued weeding until Mr. Gerard had appeared from the window and questioned him as to having seen anyone come out previously. Had he done so? No—no one. Except, of course, Mr. Gerard. How long after the shot was fired? Quite a time. Five minutes? Yes, perhaps. Perhaps not. Quite a time. Mr. Gerard had come straight to him to know whether he had seen anything. Then he had gone on to question Mr. Bulger.
This was the tale he had told before. There seemed no reason to doubt it, nor to hope that further questions would lead to any additional discovery.
The Inspector, determined that no possibility should be overlooked, found some difficulty in considering him as a candidate for the position of murderer. A boy’s prank? Suppose he had discovered the weapon, so carelessly left in that unlocked drawer, during some lawless exploration of the vacant study?
Suppose he had hidden when Sir Daniel entered, and shot him from behind? He was short enough to have to fire upward at Sir Daniel’s head. Suppose he had only meant to frighten him, firing up into the air? Suppose.… The Inspector reminded himself again of the relative importance of fact and theory; and these theories approached the absurd.
The character given to Sir Daniel did not suggest that his gardener’s boy would be likely to play jokes with revolvers behind his ear. The Inspector looked at the cheerful, vacuous face, with its working jaws, as the sweet came back from the cheek in which it had been deposited for the exigencies of conversation, and the idea that he had deliberately shot Sir Daniel seemed too fantastic for further consideration. Still, if Lady Denton be put aside, he had been nearest to the scene of the tragedy. It was an explanation at least physically possible.
The Inspector’s trained keenness of observation was inclined to perceive a suggestion of nervousness behind the obtuse screen of that perpetual grin. He knew that the country man or woman, with an appearance of slow stupidity, can often conceal thought or emotion far more successfully than his less stolid brother of the town. The boy had a reputation for slipping away from his work. He must have his own ideas, his own dreams of evil or good, through the long slow hours in which he pulled weeds from the garden path.
“Now, Tommy,” he said, “tell me this. Did you run round to the kitchen, or go away for anything else just for a few minutes, so that anyone could have gone in at the study window, or gone out, without you seeing him, when Sir Daniel was shot? If you did that you needn’t be afraid that you’ll be blamed by Bulger or anyone else if you tell the truth, and you may save a lot of trouble all round.”
The boy looked at him for a few seconds before replying, and the Inspector had an uneasy doubt that he was considering the expediency rather than the truth of the admission that he had been invited to make.
It would be of little assistance to the solution of the problem if the boy should make a false statement that he had left the drive, under the impression that he would be pleasing those in authority, or from whom his employment came.
But the Inspector was spared the embarrassment of that doubt, for, after his pause of silence, the boy shook his head in denial.
“How,” he asked, “could I ’a’ done that, with Mr. Bulger a-lookin’ on all the time? You can arst him, if you like.” And then, with a burst of convincing logic: “How could I ’a’ heard the bang, if I warn’t here?”
Inspector Pinkey recognized his defeat, and strolled on to interview the gardener, a rheumatic ancient, who received him in the steaming heat of the cucumber house, and appeared quite willing to converse on any subject, comparatively indifferent to the fact that his deafness frequently resulted in his remarks having little relation to those which were addressed to him.
However, by tact and patience, the Inspector finally obtained, in addition to some information respecting the domestic habits of cucumbers, and Mr. Bulger’s opinion of Hitler (which was not high), the information he sought.
It appeared
